Can Our Culture be Remade, An Evening Conversation

[Music] foreign to all of you who are here I'm Sheree harder I'm the president of the Trinity forum and wanted to welcome each of you to tonight's evening conversation with David Bailey and Andy crouch on can our culture be remade all of us at the Trinity Forum are so excited to get to host this event in partnership with good friends of ours at Comet magazine which is a part of Cardis this is actually the Capstone event to an entire series that we have done in collaboration and partnership all on the theme that we're going to be talking about tonight can our culture be remade so over the last two years we've had a number of evening conversations as well as a number of online conversations we've looked at the gift logic with Lewis Kim and Tim sorens we've looked at ways to curb the culture wars with Yuval Levin and Brandon of the Daya Nathan and we've looked at what it means to go beyond ideology with Peter craff and Eugene Rivers and tonight we're trying to pull it all together no pressure whatsoever welcome to Andy Crouch and David Bailey if you are one of those first time visitors or otherwise new to the Trinity Forum part of our mission at the Trinity forum is to provide a space for leaders to wrestle with the big questions of life in the context of faith and to host programs like this event tonight to cultivate curate and disseminate the best of Christian thought for the common good and ultimately to better enable each of us to come to better know the author of the answers and I hope tonight will be a small taste of that for each of you it certainly seems increasingly undeniable that one of the biggest questions we face is exactly the one that we'll tackle tonight at a time when the forces of fracture seem irresistible when polarization fear and anger is on the rise and even churches are taxed by political fissures is Redemptive cultural change even possible anymore and if so how might we approach strengthening the bonds between people and institutions and help re-weave a flourishing Society it's a big question and it's one that we are pleased and privileged to tackle tonight in collaboration with our friends at Cardis and at Comet comment is ably led by editor-in-chief and friend Ann Snyder whom I'd like to welcome to the podium to further introduce the topic and the speakers and and good evening to all of you it's wonderful to see you I love the vibe in this room so David Andy you bring the house thank you so as Sheree just mentioned we've gathered tonight to address a question that feels at once fanciful but also urgent Timeless but also renewably up for grabs and that question is how does Redemptive social change social and cultural change happen anymore for those of us who are Christians who long for a world that reflects God's heart for the flourishing of his created order how do we cultivate the conditions for his renewing work and how do we do so in a way that does not further alienate and divide the Societies in which we live but rather inspires convicts heals and transforms there are many adjectives I'm sure we could all use to describe the times through which we're living but the one that most consistently captures my mood these days is I wake up is bewilderment I just find these very bewildering days now some of that could just be aging I'm maybe a little older than I look um I get told I'm 18 sometimes and I'm um maybe not unlike marriage where the longer you're in it the more you realize there is so much about your spouse that you have yet to understand the mystery of marriage grows deeper not thinner it could just be that to grow in wisdom is to gain some wrinkles of humility before the wicked complexities of a large and complex world perhaps our best bet is to simply try to be faithful to the task and the person right in front of us to be present not to seek anything bigger or more strategic we are created beings after all not the Creator but I confess to feeling dissatisfied by that conclusion we have some major tomult going on in the world right now and the Rumblings of truly dark and destructive possibilities in this country seem to beg for baptized vision and a coordinated moral response extremism and conspiracy are being granted spiritual permission and twisted blessing growing accounts of crippling anxiety depression and suicide politics tearing friendships and families mesh shootings racial Injustice unhinged ideologies seducing a generation digital avatars displacing reality but where is the coordination of light happening today and who are the institutions the creative upstarts and inspired spokespersons to weave an uncommon and New Alliance for the diffusing of the darkness popular inertia seems to be on the side of sin growing sin right now and while as a fellow human being I can't say I'm surprised for I too am totally distorted by my need to feel morally righteous to seek Justice at the expense of Mercy to fall for narratives that put me at the center of History it just still seems crazy that people of prayer and quiet faithfulness people who fear God and have grown in the capacity to spiritually discern good and evil truth and falsehood love and self-centeredness are not somehow rising up with effective unity and visibility to trumpet a different way is it that there are no leaders that have been formed for such a time as this is it that we are afraid is it that we have allowed ideological narratives to confuse and distract us is it that we are assaulted with just too much muchness in a fast-paced digital age and can barely take a Sabbath to sit still and repent these are the questions haunting tonight's conversation as well as the next few issues of comet magazine and my request is just that you take them seriously because the question of Redemptive renewing change whether that be in the life of an individual or a society always involves a movement from what is to what should be and so to face the possibility of change seriously is to dive into sometimes a strange theological Journey that takes our own guilt seriously and dares also to trust in the promise of the healing of God this is the delicate needle woven in every great sermon and it's also the basic Arc of what a lot of us from a certain religious tradition call conversion so I'm so grateful that I get to sit down amongst all of you before some Reflections on these questions by David Bailey and Andy Crouch I Look to both of these men as brothers in the faith and exemplars and how to lead from a posture of service David Bailey is a peacemaker bridge builder educator and has become a friend he's the founder and CEO of erabon which equips and empowers Christian individuals and organizations to be effective in the ministry of reconciliation he is also the founder of the urban doxology project co-author of the race class and the kingdom of God study series executive producer of the documentary 11AM hope for America's most segregated hour and the author of one of my all-time favorite comment essays A very wise and practically helpful piece entitled reconciliation is spiritual formation a framework for organizational practice he is married to a woman of great Beauty and Joy Joy Bailey who has graced us with her Vitality tonight thank you for coming Joy and Andy Crouch is a mensch but he's not just that um I think all who know his work find him to be one of the most trustworthy Paradigm framers of the moral terrain we are navigating today I know I do both as members of households and families and as Christians who may be working out our witness in public Andy's work never settles for the shallows but probes ever deeper into the strange particularities of Christian Living in a world in an age that provides few if any nudges to do so with integrity he's a partner of Theology and culture for Praxis another organization if you ever want to have hope go to practice hope in action and he's written several standout books but my among them culture making playing God strong and weak and the techwise family but my favorite may actually be his latest titled the life we're looking for reclaiming relationship in a technological World which the Trinity Forum featured in a super widely watched conversation online with social psychologist Jonathan height earlier this year Andy's wife Catherine I don't know where she is hiding back there oh hi is also with us tonight and I actually understand you are the one who really brings the Brilliance to the Crouch name so um thank you for that and welcome so we're going to open up this conversation first with some Reflections by David Bailey followed by a response from Andy followed by a moderated conversation with Cherie and I may try to throw in a kind bomb in there somewhere too please jot down the most vital questions that hit you as you listen and we will try a collective conversation at the very end please join me in welcoming David Bailey to the stage well when I got a call um from Cherie and knew Ann was going to be involved and then I knew Andy was going to be involved these are like literally some of my favorite people I was really happy to participate and then I get the assignment to start off the conversation and uh then I hear this is like the culmination of the conversation and so then I'm thinking like you know this is the Trinity Forum you have to find a really great quote to start off a conversation so I decided to give a quote by Mitch McConnell we are drifting apart to two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and a separate realities with nothing in common except the hostility towards each other and a mistrust for the few National institutions that we all still share now it's really interesting because um I started when I started the airbomb ministry in 2008. we uh moved into a community really inspired by Dr John Perkins living in an under resource uh Community starting to worship and work together and I met Andy literally doing work in my neighborhood meeting in a facility and he was working for Christianity Today at the time and and was doing the series called this is our city about a year later he um published an article through Christianity Today featuring some of the work that we were doing in Richmond I didn't know Andy at the time didn't know Christianity Today at the time really was not that familiar with evangelicalism in general because I grew up in a black church tradition and and and we didn't really call it uh Christian Community Development we just called it being a Christian you know and so so so Andy and I ended up developing a friendship and what's fascinating I looked at the copyright of the book culture making that was coming out in 2000 and it came out 2008. and I read that book after meeting him and um there are five ways of engaging with culture that Andy articulates that has significantly shaped my work over the years talked about like how Christians sometimes can engage through condemning culture we can kind of this is a fundamentalism bent where we kind of have a vision of Purity and we try to stay away and keep ourselves pure and we just only condemn uh culture there's another way of being a a Critic and this is kind of that uh Francis Schaefer position where uh you kind of like analyze culture and see what's true what's good what's beautiful then you might have this kind of Jesus Culture um a Jesus movement type of way of Engagement where you copy uh coaching you do the um the Christian version of it and and again growing up in a black church tradition I didn't understand contemporary Christian music until I went to YouTube and I was like YouTube's much better and so so it was a copy version and then you have like consume you know where where we basically engage with culture through just consuming and this there's not a lot of discernment what's happening when we're particularly copying and consuming culture and then Andy um had this idea of like what we could do is actually uh create culture and so that was very significant to me particularly the first part of my career was as a musician and a producer and so this vision of kind of creating culture was a really significant Dynamic and being an under economically resourced Community thinking about the way formation and spiritual formation works I realized that we had to kind of create the culture because there wasn't something to copy or to consume even much to critique and and condemn in this particular context and so over the years Andy and Catherine um joy and I we became friends we um not only our commitment to Christ but we had a commitment to spiritual formation and a commitment to um engaging in in some of the racial healing that's going on and so we made a commitment to be programs together and this probably started around 2015 and so we would go to a few sites like the Whitney Plantation or come to Richmond and do the slave trail walking and we we did this as trying to be people that were also practicing what we what we preach allow it to form us form Us in community and we have developed a friendship and so you know looking at now 11 years of friendship so we without disclosing all conversations that happen amongst friends let's just say I'm not as encouraged as I was when I first met Andy about the state of things right now Mr McConnell is kind of right you know and I want to frame the thoughts about this time with um Paul's thoughts in Ephesians 6 10-13 finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil schemes for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers against authorities against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in Heavenly realms therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes not if the devil the evil comes when the day if evil comes you may be able to stand against your ground and after you have done everything stand now I believe Paul was riding under the power of the Holy Spirit I think there are some things that the Lord might uh give Paul a gay Paul under the power of the spirit but I actually think that this Revelation came out of experience and this experience is recorded in Acts 19. when Paul first comes to Ephesus I would encourage you to read it later on this week and maybe spend some time in this particular text but Paul you'll understand and you'll see in his writings that he's oftentimes he's preaching the kingdom of God but some of the spiritual forces of wickedness that he's having to deal with is like Greek hedonism which means that like like uh the the flourishing of life is coming through the engagement of pleasure the Jewish religious system that is different than the kingdom of God and then also the Roman imperialism and these are all things within his pastoral context in which he's trying to understand um what does it look like to be faithful in the middle of the Roman Empire and a culture of Greek hedonism and a religious system that is not totally in line with the kingdom of God so when Paul comes to Ephesus he does what he normally does and he tries to find the Disciples of the way these are people who are following Jesus that are about the kingdom of God and then Paul what his practice is as he finds his disciples the way he then goes to the religious system and goes to the synagogue and tries to see as he tries to reveal the understanding of the kingdom of God he will spend time maybe this particular time was actually spent about three months until he just realized people did not want to receive and engage in the work of the kingdom of God they wanted to stay within their religious system so instead of trying to convince people that didn't want convincing he decided to work with his disciples who wanted to be disciples and so he got to radisson's Hall and he spent two years working with people and and making disciples and engaging in the ordinariness of life and while he was engaging in the ordinariness of life proclaiming the kingdom of God making disciples he was touching people along the way and then people started touching him in return and in the ordinariness of life God started where extraordinary miracles if I was in the Baptist Church I would have got an amen but I know we're at the Press Club so so as he's doing this people are seeing the power of God being demonstrated and then folks in the religious system that did not want to receive the kingdom of God wanted to get the results of the kingdom of God and so the folks that engage with exorcism um said hey I see that he's using this technique of Jesus so what he they do is they try to exercise and they try to cast out a demon that says I we we cast out this demon in the name of Jesus who Paul preaches not the name of Jesus that like the Jesus that we follow the ones that that Paul follows and it's a fascinating story because it says that person I was possessed beat them and then they ran out butt naked that's the DMB translation so I think with this illustration is showing there's two stories in this text so you see the power of God being enacted through Paul's ordinary life and you see the seven sons of skeva that happens where they're trying to exercise spiritual power without Authority see what what the way that you get Authority in the kingdom of God is through relationship now relationship with God but also relationship with the people in which you are trying to receive the kingdom of God it's all connected to relationship then equally as fascinating is that there's this guy named Demetrius that they were in Ephesus which was like it's kind of like the New York of that time a big economic commercialized space and Artemis of the Ephesians was the big God that was there the Goddess that was there and this was a goddess of fertility and let's just say there was some Greek Hedonism that was going on in that space if you understand what I mean and there was a whole economy that was around that exploitation which is very common amongst Empires and so Demetrius said man this guy has been here for two years and they're messing up our trade the economy is being impacted it's it's it's affecting things and it was basically they had a business about exercising power through idolatry and so in this story we see two type of religious uh juxtapositions or religious idolatry that is being juxtaposed against the full working of the kingdom of God and ordinary life what does this have to do with us today we live in a time where I think we can maybe unpack this during q a but I actually think our biggest struggle is fundamentalism there's a a conservative fundamentalism and there's a progressive fundamentalism there's a vision of the future and our Purity and like this almost like a vision of like what one deems a shalom and sometimes we're trying to exercise power without Authority without the relationship without the the messiness of what it means to be in The Human Experience and then there's another side where we try to exercise power through idolatry on the right we oftentimes want to use a a a type of form of like we want to cast out demons through the through what Jesus not really the Jesus or the Bible but then on the left it tends to be a type of um exercising of power that wants to have social Holiness without personal holiness and neither one leaves a true flourishing of community and one of the ways that you can sure sure tell signs that there's idolatry being at work versus the king of being a kingdom of God being at work is when violence is manifested this is what happened both in the seven sons of skeva and this is what happened uh with the um Demetrius and and there was a riot that ended up happening and we live in a time now where to me it's not really that scary that progressives have a sense of the ends justify the means when you when you follow progressives uh political and social thought that's kind of part of progressive thinking to me what's more concerning is when folks who are considered conservative who in the idea of conservativism looks back to a tradition and looks back to First principles and now we're in the space where the ends justify the means of conservative spaces so there was this crazy spin that is happening that I am very concerned I tend to be a glass half full person but as a person that reached history it's very concerning I literally think that the only way to break the cycle is for Christians to remember that Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God and maybe another way of saying that is if you aren't a peacemaker maybe you're not either being a child of God or might not even be a child of God and so this is something that I think we have to wrestle through because I we live in a Time on both sides of this spectrum and all the different fractures in between that folks are trying to make remake culture and trying to have a sense of renewal but we aren't committed to that faithful presence of proclaiming the kingdom of God living by the kingdom of God making disciples and touching people and allowing ourselves to be touched in the daily life and so those are my opening thoughts and I'm sure there'll probably be questions afterwards cool [Applause] wow thank you David thank you all for being here this is important stuff and um I most look forward to the conversation that I'm going to have with these three friends and with all of us here in a way but I thought maybe for my contribution I could contribute some math so I think we have a slide with some math on it I'm going to speak on two equations uh for the next few minutes two ways of conceiving of what we're about and I think while this won't be a direct response to David's words I did get a preview and I think I am offering it as as a furthering of this conversation so uh either I equals F over t or little I equals little F to the little T what in the world could this be well my top equation here I equals F over T I want to offer as the dominant way of conceiving of power and I stands for impact impact a word that has been abused so much that it's been turned into a verb to impact culture but it lurks and not often out of sight in all kinds of discourse about cultural change wow that had a David's talk had a real impact on me people will say kind of without thinking about the metaphor they may be abusing but what is that metaphor it's a metaphor of force over time where the bigger the force and the smaller the amount of time the more impact you have if I bring my hands together with over a slow amount of time and little Force no impact I bring them together with a lot of force very short amount of time now that's impact that's something we can work with let's do that thing so how do you maximize impact do you maximize F you minimize t maximize F maximize Force what are the sources of force three come to mind that are notable the power of the state to coerce the power of money to direct and channel energy and these days the power of media to what would we say media does I would say to fascinate to kind of capture the imagination and lure the imagination redirect the imagination and we imagine that if we had sufficient F in one or more of these areas and it's actually very interesting to me that the coinage of Rome had all three the Imperial power of Caesar the money value of the coins and then the actual image the the only mediated image that would have been seen in a in a province like Judea of any human face was the face of the Emperor who deployed the money and through very artfully created memes basically ancient memes told you what true Humanity looked like if you could get access to those you are halfway to impact now the thing is you're going to need a lot you're going to need a lot of coercive power to really get stuff done fortunately we're in Washington DC and surely it's available here somewhere if we can just find it you're gonna need a lot of money I would say one billion is table Stakes 44 billion is probably the better amount to shoot for um and you're going to need a lot of charisma the sort of human presence that media can most effectively amplify and channel now the question how you're going to get access to all these levers without becoming complicit in and corrupted by the systems namely the world of Flesh and the devil that attach themselves to them is complicated but surely we Christians can navigate our way through this devilish business and find a way to have enough F to make a difference and minimize T which means you can't be patient we're going to have to hurry we must seize opportunities and certainly not send any goals let alone adopt any methods that require significant amounts of time if we can do that surely culture can be remade there's one big problem with this there are many I cut a bunch of them from my notes but the real obvious big problem with this when we reflect out as Christians is that this is not at all the cultural history of what David just uh called in Luke's terms the way the way did not operate this way two years in the Hall of taranus doing ordinary things that did indeed lead to extraordinary but not seizing the level levers of coercion money and media there is impact in the ministry of Jesus I don't mean to deny this the stir that he makes in his inaugural address and look forward the healings the Miracles the earthquakes that the gospel writers tell us accompanied both the crucifixion and the resurrection there are these moments of f over T without doubt but compared to the acts and impact of Augustus Caesar the other Son of God contemporaneous With Jesus who had people carving inscriptions into rocks in Eastern Turkey about the good news of his arrival before his 50th birthday the miracles of Jesus the impact of Jesus is tiny small town stuff and the only reason anyone even remembers them is one event One Singular event claimed event that made no impact at a cultural level even though if it really did happen it is as some of our friend Tish Harrison Warren says it's the big deal of the universe but that event was witnessed by unreliable Witnesses from a legal point of view because they were female was attested in strange ways and not in public ways such that the early Christian Movement known to us primarily through the documents of what we call the New Testament at first is only known through that because for all practical purposes it's invisible for a century in the mainstream documents of the empire in which it took place a century before what many of us in this room would claim to be the central event of History could even register slightly as a link a little Tremor on the seismograph of the Roman bureaucracy that maybe these christianoite might prove to be a bit of a problem and that leads to another way of conceiving of cultural change I equals F to the T so now you're able to put together some pieces here f is going to still stand for a kind of force a kind of power at work in the world because I do think power has to work in the world for change to happen but this time power is not divided by time so that you have to minimize time to maximize impact but time actually becomes a compounding Force this this math is not too bad is it is it okay right with me in other words if you have enough tea the initial size of f is not your biggest concern even a very small f such as the 2.5 percent that your bank is currently willing to give you on interest even with enough tea the initial size is not that relevant in fact Ezekiel for example had had this Vision in which an entire valley of dry bones was resurrected and the whole people of Israel conceived of as as dry bones in a desert Valley are all raised in life a mighty Army Ezekiel says but it turns out that in a way you don't have to raise an entire valley of dry bones you just need to actually raise one person from the dead and then wait wait as that tiny initial disruption in the world's pattern of death starts to play itself out with inexhaustible life in many other lives you don't actually need to have incredible power money or Charisma available you to you in this small eye equals small after the small T you just need to live because well because Jesus of whom I'm obviously speaking here did not actually have any of these particularly not in the terms of Rome you just need to live a single life of inescapable love and then wait this is the way the mustard seed maybe it's m equals F to the T and so that's the F part what about the T part I think the minimum value for T is three generations Genesis is the book of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and indeed Jacob's sons Joseph and his brothers I think three generations is the minimum for Redemptive action to take root in any large-scale human story and I won't go into it into it right now but I actually also believe three generations is actually the maximum amount of time in which any impact so-called generated by concentrating force can reasonably be expected to have effect it decays impact decays influence we'll call it little I let's call it influence grows what is the most powerful form of f in this lower equation I would say the most powerful form of f very counter-intuitively is sacrifice sacrifice has a kind of small power in the human story that nothing else does and by sacrifice I mean voluntarily consecrated loss loss with a sacred Horizon loss undergone whether initially willingly or not you can consecrate and then lose as whether Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son he consecrates and then he's willing to lose but there are also losses we would never choose and shouldn't choose that we nonetheless can bring into a sacred Horizon and voluntarily I'm not talking about coerce sacrifice I'm not talking about making other people give things up I'm talking about when we ourselves bring the losses of our lives and put at risk and loss things we could claim as our own and say this belongs to God this has a sacred value of more value than the world will oversee and sacrifice disarms the World the Flesh and the devil because it confounds the expectations of self-interest the disciplines of fasting of Sabbath of generosity the Widow who puts in two coins all she had to live on the tax collector who beats his breast above all Philippians 2 not counting equality with some something to be grasped or exploited but emptying himself taking up the form of a servant this sacrificial power compounds with time the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart oh God you will not despise and I would there then hold up in our moment um the sacrifice of Lament David mentioned this and for Catherine and me the experience of going on pilgrimage to places like the slave Trail in Richmond which runs from the the place where the the enslaved individuals would have first gotten off the boats the walk long walk up the riverbank across the bridge to the market to do that with my brother um took our friendship to a very different place to walk with I think you were the one in the line I had my hand on your shoulder the individuals who first experienced this would have been chained together we were chained just by our hands on one another shoulder in One Direction then we walked back down the river holding hands and to lament this as a white American is a sacrificial act in a way to be sure a morally necessary Act but for a black American to allow to allow a white American to accompany them on that walk is a far more sacrificial act because it is not morally necessary by any stretch of the imagination is an act of pure sacrificial Grace which David offered me and my family in different ways in the course of our pilgrimages and I want to hold out hope that this is the stuff of genuine cultural change so two more thoughts that each have a little page in my notes so uh a little over the time you all asked me to take uh so I will make you consecrate that loss um uh but I I want to Anchor it you anchored it so beautifully David in a new assessment but this is also at the very heart of the political narrative the political Narrative of the Hebrew Bible because sandwiched in between the politically charged narratives of judges on the one hand and Samuel Kings on the other is a book that is literally named friend the name of the book is friend except that it's a woman's name in Hebrew the name Ruth this book is in incomparably important for our moment I think because remember that this book and its Narrative of Ruth's friendship with Naomi and then boaz's redeeming friendship with Ruth and vice versa takes place in the midst of an utter breakdown of civil legitimacy it begins with these words in the days when the judges ruled that is not a good time in the history of Israel the end of Judges is a civil war in which the People The Tribe of Benjamin is nearly eliminated and then because 600 men from Benjamin do survive the men of Israel then Force the marriage of the virgins of Jabez Gilead and Shiloh to those 600 men forcible marriage essentially rape after unspeakable violence all of it Unleashed by the rape murder and dismemberment it's so horrible that we have to speak of these things of a woman remembered Us in the text only by the name the bethlehemite and where is it that Ruth tells Naomi she will go with her she goes with her to Bethlehem this is not a little town of Bethlehem this is a place intrinsically associated with the worst kind of violation violence and all the political ramifications of that and that's where Ruth says wherever you go I'm going but that unlocks a Redemptive story it has multi-generational Horizons it takes three more Generations before you would even know really why this would be in the Bible but of course we know it's because their grandson one of them is named Jesse and David's youngest son is named David and there's a re-founding of Israel around a somewhat more legitimate King let's say that also is a complicated story but there's a Redemptive move that begins with Ruth's promise to Naomi Ruth tells us that Outsiders matter or she's called the moabite over and over in our text as my one of my pastors pointed out this two weeks ago when she preached on this text the moabite the moabite the the one people you never reconciled with if you were Israel that's who she is but Outsiders matter but so do Redemptive insiders Boaz a landowner a person of a certain amount of status and privilege who is seeking an ethical and Redemptive way and what is the way that Ruth and Boaz find it's hessed Covenant faithfulness loving kindness which is the way of Yahweh Ruth has Ruth the person and Ruth the book has negligible impacts but Indescribable influence we are in a real sense in this room because of the sacrificial power of Ruth and Boaz how the way it has played out compounding over a very long time all right ah gosh I've got to stop uh there were three questions in the promotion for this thing is Redemptive unified and social change even possibly more yes if it was possible in the days when the judges ruled it's possible today let us not be freaked out it's not as bad as judges yet it could easily get that bad and God is still doing his Redemptive thing and we could be part of it what prospects are there for renewing the creative collaborations that make Community possible only insofar as we have friendship will there be any Prospect covenantal friendship which at a minimum means staying long staying together longer than you realized you were going to have to [Laughter] how might we approach remaking the connective tissue between people places and institutions that Ann Snyder talks about so often that marks the common life we all crave and need and I will tell you David Bailey went to this place called laity Lodge downtown Texas a few weeks ago with joy and with some others from araban and he walked in there was a young woman working at laity lodge and without any prompting and with an amazingly small amount of data he said you're Amy Crouch because my daughter is working at this Retreat Center that hosted Aruba a few years a few weeks ago David I cannot tell you what it meant to me that you who had met my daughter when she was a teenager in our house she's now out of college and in her first job helping to host Retreats at this Retreat Center that you were connected enough to our family that you knew that was Amy Crouch at that moment and that's friendship that's that's a measure of Hess said long enough time together that we know each other's story enough to know one another's children nieces nephews not just our biological children our children and the Lord the Next Generation those who are finding their place in the Redemptive story who can tell the Next Generation themselves that right alongside the stories of impact and Devastation there is love and blessing playing itself out in the world to a thousand Generations why do you boast Almighty one of Mischief done Against The Godly all day long you are plotting destruction your tongue is like a sharp razor you worker of treachery you love evil more than good and lying more than speaking the truth Selah a Hebrew word which means extended guitar solo but I am like a green olive tree in the house of God I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever I will thank you forever because of what you have done and the presence of the faithful I will Proclaim your name for it is good I am like a green olive tree in the house of God I learned through Wikipedia that it takes eight years after planting for an olive tree to Bear a single Olive that is surely the opposite of impact then again there are olive trees in Israel and Palestine today that are 2 000 years old and are still bearing olives and that also is the opposite of impact [Applause] thank you [Applause] there okay well thank you so much Andy and David that was that was fascinating you know one of the reasons why um Ann and I had really were so excited about hosting the two of you to address this question is both of you have dedicated much of your vocational life to to peacemaking and to culture making even when the culture is making peacemaking more and more difficult um and you both have have spoken not only just now but throughout your Works about oh what flourishing consists of what influence consists of uh and you've been both in your different ways quite consistent about the role that sacrifice plays that um a Redemptive power vulnerability interdependence um as we seek Shalom for the city and usually we assume that we all want Shalom we all want that kind of flourishing but there's something that keeps us from it uh and I'm sure I'm Not Alone um in just any uh Observer of kind of our discourse now of the fact that you know social media dunking is um is everywhere uh there are everyday rallies where it seems like much of the point is to dominate and humiliate and insult others uh to what extent do you think the problem is we actually don't really want that kind of flourishing there actually is a part of us that is attracted to domination that longs for impact over the small eye and um Andy maybe we can start with you on that goodness well for sure and we specifically want it when the wicked are flourishing for any value of wicked that may be your value you know so it's when the wicked are prospering and exploitation seems to be one of the day that you think well I would normally be a very ethical person but under the circumstances I have no choice but to resort to these tactics so uh everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face somebody said and when you see exploitation seemingly winning you conclude uh sacrifices of Fool's game and indeed being merely ethical just sort of playing by the rules well nobody wins doing that right and and so I think it is ultimately rooted in in what we as Christians would call Sin the bentness of human beings but it but it never presents itself that way it justifies Itself by the actions of my my enemy um but I think we also I also should probably recognize especially when it scales up to cultural levels it's it is I love that you quoted Ephesians 6 because this is not flesh and blood uh I think of the Demonic ultimately as a will where they whisper so will to divide and destroy all the good things God has made first of all about destroying God's image bearers and the the only way the Demonic can operate is to whisper in your ear don't you need to take a step take a stand put up your fists make it happen don't you need some impact here yeah and I um I think one of the things is really a significant deficit to some of our Christian Heritage and even some of our theological heritage is that um during the time to justify slavery they would basically take out portions of the Bible to keep enslaved people enslaved and um when you talk to the modern um Christian today in essence we still read the slave Bible because all of the political and Liberation related text it's not something that we read and so sometimes things people that might like kind of label as Marxism could be the Book of Micah or Amos but they don't know because they record and those were the things that were taken out of the slave Bible right and so then even when you look at Jesus particularly like yes Jesus very much came for our souls but but he was a very politically political uh person and he died of political death but what's I think what we miss and we don't read and understand that is that he preached the message the kingdom of God that had both the tax collector collector the person that was part of the system and the Zealot who wanted to use violence to overcome the system and they were part of his disciples and so so whatever his message was was big enough to be greater than their understanding of flourishing ah and so I think what happens is is that when you know we are like reducing the power of the Gospel then um we have to use other results which oftentimes just the violence doesn't justify the means and you and you see uh the means of the Justified ends and uh you see Jesus always stopping that Jesus had every opportunity to to engage in some kind of political um violence or some sort whether it's verbal or whether it's actually like physical and Jesus didn't uh do that yeah but one time when he was in the um table there's still been the tables but that wasn't about self-preservation that was really about giving access to the kingdom of God because people are being very exploitative to the poor within that particular space yeah I want to ask one more follow-up question before throwing it to Anne and that is based on something I think you said Andy which you talked about you know money and coercive power and Charisma and you said these are things we can work with and I wanted to ask you both about the different means and approaches to um to cultural Redemption versus just cultural change and one of the tensions I think almost everyone sort of struggles with is you know we live in a world where there are metrics and you have to meet certain metrics and almost all of our metrics in whatever field we're in are all oriented towards impact capital I and so how does one living in the world that we do um show you know essentially good stewardship whether it's of resources whether you're a non-profit or a for-profit company while still aiming towards towards influence oh I think that uh there's a place for all all those things we need governments to restrain uh coercively of necessary restrain certain kinds of action money is valuable to count and exchange value Charisma is just a reality of human life um but they're all I think the problem is uh there's a there's some social scientists whose name won't come to me right now who said whenever you make something a Target you change all the incentives in the system to go after that Target so when money becomes the goal rather than just the kind of an intermediate measurement or a almost a byproduct of creating value when uh the only way I know how to get things done is to get the state to do things on my behalf when I you know you you introduce this kind of distorting power and instead I think we need much more to think about how do we like use whatever's entrusted to us to build the has said relationship that is where all real durable social change come comes from um it's a complicated Legacy and all more complicated now than ever in a way um but I do think Dr Martin Luther King Jr modeled this in important ways because he was asking for the state to step in and for the Civil Rights Act to be passed and the Voting Rights Act and so forth and you need that you needed the state certainly at that time and you will always name the state to restrain a Prejudice let's say but he had this especially in his public voice what he was calling people to was this Relentless commitment to to a kind of friendship um that that went way deeper than just getting some legal equity and I think that's that had it had the coercive power of the state in its proper place rather than as its sort of yeah just just piggybacking off of that I mean he also was very critical to both like the left and the right and and even the moderate in the letter from the Birmingham Jail and one thing I really would encourage people to do is not read the like MLK memes because like like people just make MLK say all kinds of things they want him to say you know and but like you know read some of the like the Riverside or the uh uh um sermon and the um two Americas and and just uh The Love Book strength to love you know I mean these these sermons where you you see this Dynamic where he's basically trying to kind of help like Andy said try to see what role does the individual have the community the government all these different spaces but this is all with his vision of the kingdom of God and which he's trying to engage and I I think for me and you know and Andy's also part of a a non-profit also where you know you have to raise money you have to show some level of uh uh metrics and I think both of our organizations are really thinking generationally I mean Joanna I've kind of set out this journey over 40 years even within our lives to see like what's it look like for us to be faithful over 40 years and evaluate every 10 years so we're only in the second quarter of this this thing to see what does this look like um and a lot of the work that we're doing is really trying to think for the Next Generation in the in that space so when you have this long-term look a lot of funders don't thinking that way and so you have to try to figure out how do you translate that but I I know one of the things that I tried to do and I also notice this key by Andy is that um we're thinking about how we're being formed what are the practices uh that you know that we have and and am I trying to say or to do this thing to be faithful or I'm trying to say to do this thing to get more followers on Twitter and um my social media presence is trash and uh but it's like I just like it doesn't do good for my soul for me to like try to do those things so I just that's one way I'm choosing to do that and trying to to do this in other ways and I think all of us have different ways that we have to figure that out um and and I think that is the Christian thing to do I'm not saying what the every Christian should do X Y and Z but it's really more so about your posture of and what's the practice and how are you being formed and asking that question as you're doing it my social media presence is also trash dude um so I um this is a question for both of you but I want to pick up Andy on I was very moved by your landing at sacrifice and partly because I've been thinking about this question of um social cultural change through the theological prism of conversion as a way of thinking about it the right way and in any conversion even from Born Again backgrounds there's like a there is a loss consecrated typically you're surrendering your life um but most of us as human beings have losses and we you know I think anyone who's lost a baby or lost a father or had a relationship break that wasn't supposed to or suddenly lost Financial Security or um had a brother wind up in addiction and suddenly die out of the blue like all the pains in our lives some of which are chosen and some many of which are not if I think those of us long enough on our journey have this experience of realizing the Paradox of what that is to offer up and somehow God comes very close so I think as human beings as mature people of faith in the room identify with what you're saying about the law the kingdom logic in this but I'm wondering today at least in the American context what is that how does that translate socially and what I mean by that is um do is the need to get like I'm hearing an I2 and more of a larger group but I too was very moved to go on a pilgrimage with David more through the Deep South he was a guide for me earlier this year through the Civil Rights history and um there were moments as a white American on that trip I just felt extremely awkward and not knowing what to do because I felt the profundity of the moral choice of my fellow black Travelers on the bus to do this with me there too and you feel that in those intimate settings over six days um and David is such a you know beautiful I think forgive the feminine metaphor but like Midwife even of that awkwardness in pain um but I'm just wondering do we need to get more losses being used in our culture right now as a like political cudgel and used for grievance so what does it who do we just need to get more articulate about our losses by groups of people and how does this and because I think some communities are very articulate on their losses and have consecrated them and others of us um don't know where to start or are being told many messages and just can't pinpoint what's true and I think sometimes we often go through a revelatory process to discover it so large question I don't know if it makes sense but and this is kind of for both of you um what is sacrifice look like at a social scale and I'm asking this in part as a steward of an organization trying to apply this in my own work actually how do you facilitate the conditions for this recognition and holy consecration wow well there's a couple threads in there which I don't know if I can pick up on all of them but but the thought that came to my hand is um two two related things um if it is to have so there is the Journey of just personally offering to God what I have lost including the things I never would or could or should have chosen to lose but I have and so now what Horizon do I interpret that within that is a there's a personal Journey that all of us have to go on for that for it to have public effect it does have to take some public shape so um I I'm very so the Book of Ruth is a very public book yeah uh even though it's about these incredibly intimate friendships first between Earth and Naomi then between Ruth and Boaz and and yet both of them have color gratifications and both of them are are publicly chosen counter-cultural sacrificial acts because there's actually one of the most interesting things about Ruth to me is there is a figure at the beginning and a figure at the end who do the perfectly ethical thing and make no difference in the story and one is orpa the other sister-in-law who kisses her mother-in-law very appropriate goodbye and goes back to her moabite City where she's from hoping to find a husband there like she she does a perfectly fine thing but Ruth says okay I'm going to show up in this new town where I barely speak the language and I'm known as a moabite to demonstrate my has said to you and then at the end of the book Boaz intends to step in as the Kinsmen Redeemer that's goel this Hebrew idea but actually there's another guy who's the legal Redeemer who ought to do it and that guy's like no no here let me give you my sandal and you do it and Boaz is very happy with that Arrangement but that happens at The City Gate so not everybody has to make all their consecrated losses public and that can be indulgent but I actually think those of us who have any public leadership role like we have got to take the next step of in a sense publicly sacrificing publicly consecrating because people need to see that this actually happens and that it actually has real effects in the world or else it is kind of inert for cultural purposes thank you yeah I I am in that a ton and um I I mean so I I take response I mean I I'll just kind of own this particularly as a person that's spent time in a lot of liturgical spaces as like a pastor as a person that spends time shaping theological imagination um I think we've done the disservice to those in our um our congregants because um we have not helped uh one shape of communal identity and our our very American society and if you think about every out of 66 books of the Bible only three of the books are written to individuals so all of them are communal so even like the use in the New Testament that they're talking about is really should be translated to Southern y'alls you know we're all y'all oh yeah um Paul was like all y'all have been trifling so you know so so I so I think there's like I think that's one Dynamic I think the other part is um we have not really therefore like helped people to understand shame wow and uh particularly the Bible is written in the honor shame culture so a lot of times we are uh it's a really hard thing to take communal shame individualistically and particularly as a person that's dealing with like race I mean a lot of the stuff that we are really trying to our ministry trying to help people to do is to be able to name the shame but then how do you redemptively work through shame because you can't take on the communal shame individually and make it through so that's why people short circuit a lot but this is not just only showing racists is showing so many other areas of society and um and then the the and right now people's uh method of choice to try to bring transformation to shame too so people try to shame people and change and that's just not the way humans work and then the third thing is like lament like uh 40 of the Psalms are laments and um we have not taught people well how to deal with grief and loss and while I was in a very affluent culture uh we don't even do the grief well even on funerals like we don't have funerals anymore we got celebrations of life so even the ritual that in our culture we're supposed to learn how to deal with grief and laws we don't teach as a society how to to deal with grief and laws so then when we're dealing with philosophy within our own cells individually things of that nature we're not it's just a an inadequacy in it so so when we look at the different um laments I mean some of them get so awkward like and so angry that you're like man who let this through an editorial review of the scriptures like but the Bible like was really really like like this stuff is there because every sense of the emotional spectrum is there so in essence we're Arrested Development in the church emotionally and I think these are things that would actually kind of help us lead and and lead people to Lament to to deal with grief but then we are Resurrection people so we literally have our faith is shaped around a loss and that God brings out a meaning out of sin and death and I think that's really what's needed in in the Public Square yeah wow there's so much more and that I could ask you both but in the our final minutes we're going to turn to questions from you all in the audience and it's been a while since we've done all that so just a quick reminder of the three things that we ask for any question we ask that it be a civil that it be brief and that all questions be in the form of a question so we have Brian and Maddie with um with microphone standing by uh please kind of wait till the microphone gets to you and then say your name and your question right there my name is Chris I'm most concerned about the idolatry of the government the government has seen as our all good all-knowing all-powerful savior so what advice do you have for those of us at our church who have made a God out of the government what advice stop making a God out of the government obviously better I I'm very vivarian personally in that I believe I think basically Weber's right that the government is that part of society that claims a legitimate Monopoly on Force and should I would add I mean we need some place to have a legitimate Monopoly on Force because otherwise you can have illegitimate abuse of the force um and I think maybe what I would say is come to terms with how little you can force other people to do that really matter I think we have a very expansive and on both sides of any political Spectrum you want to name a an overly expansive imagination of what government could make make my neighbors do that they don't really want to do that I want them to do and there's just there's not much you can be coerced into doing um through taxation and the police and military power of the State uh all the things we most want to have happen have got to be rooted in another source of power that is not proper to government now it is without question that uh people who seek elected office and people who seek to legitimate the state mobilize those other forces of power but we've always got to keep in mind that what they are seeking is to have a hand on the level of taxate on the lever of Taxation and the lever of police and military power that's that's what it can uniquely do so we need to be very wary of promises to mobilize government for other purposes I would say and and I don't intend this as as hitting one political side or another because like both sides do this way too much and very chastened in what we imagined we could actually coerce our neighbors into doing and realize and all the good we want is going to take some other some other kind of power that does not properly belong to the state that's my very vivarian kind of take on it yeah and I put my cards on the table so I'm like a thoughtful Pentecostal with anabaptist proclivities that's pretty good so um I think one of the things that happens when you have a Theology of the kingdom of God but don't have a Theology of the empire you can baptize the Empire to be the kingdom of God that's interesting and so so that I think that's I think in some ways like when we look at this theme of like the book of Exodus was um like it's so profound it's that there was a a pharaoh that did not know Joseph that is such a profound statement because the people of God were formed under not when they were at the top of the Empire when they went to the foot of the empire and God heard their cry and then bring brought them out of Deliverance and that and that's not a small thing because you would hear this theme it says hey when you go into the land of milk of honey when you get into a place of prosperity remember that you were once a foreigner remember that you were once enslaved remember how you were treated like remember those scars and act accordingly and the reason why they were judged and they had to leave was because they put on they took on the ways of the empire so there's a very short stint in the story of the people of God that were actually in power there's a part of me that thinks that we just don't do a great job in power and so I I think that um when we a lot of particularly the New Testament was shaped in a time when they could not influence what Caesar was doing and and I think this kind of makes it really tough for us who are our Christians now because we feel like I mean this is this is very true whether it's a conservative Vision or a liberal Vision uh Progressive vision and again Christians kind of adopt secular political thoughts and baptize it and trying to make it Christian but it's it's not Christian you know um and I see that there was a constant discernment back and forth like both in the New Testament but even the first 300 years of the Christian faith where you saw this alternative Society call the local church call the church that was living in the space and I think I would encourage brothers and sisters to like spend time both in the scriptures and even looking at church history in that period of time and then to look at the complexity that happened in the like from like 300 A.D until present of how sometimes we miss it sometimes sometimes we get it and sometimes we miss it really bad when we think we need that power now this is kind of where I will kind of push back on the um and the Baptist side of things because like when it's um slavery time and the Baptist going to come through for you you know and and do the Underground Railroad but when it's 1863 you need a vote I need a copyrion and there to like change it so laughs [Music] other questions right there hi I'm Ariana thank you so much for this really rich conversation uh there's a passage that's like stuck in my heart for the last few months I would say to make sense of what's Happening culturally and politically and the passages Matthew 3 12. his winnowing Fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire and I can't help but feel like we're in this season of fire of the chaff being burned while the wheat is being gathered I would be curious to hear your thoughts of how how do we let the chaff burn perhaps um while making space for moment and fire is often a purifying source so what does that mean what kind of opportunities does that provide for a re renewal a recreating a remaking of culture which is the theme of tonight thank you well you putting a gospel too aren't you yeah right right you know it's really interesting I mean I mean I don't think there could be a remaking Without fire you know um and I think that's why the tools of of lament and grief is like I think it's a really important piece um to this I you know one of the things that you know for me I look at scriptures and I look at history and I'm just like hey has where has this happened before where can we get some some guidance you know um a couple Sundays spring tide does this research for young people a 13 to 29 and uh one of the the researcher gave this presentation that I was at and he talked about gen Z how um and younger how because of the internet they are both growing up fast and slow at the same time the way you described this is is that you know if they work at the grocery store can't look an adult in the eye and make change out loud on the spot while at the same time can um tell you exactly what's going on Ukraine at a level of detail that adults in their lives can and so that's both that fast and slow and as I heard him say that I was like that's also American society also at the same time like have you ever like walked around in Asia or walked around in Rome you're like man this these societies are like thousands of years old and I think because of the time in which we are in as a country where we've both like economically technology-wise we've grown up fast and only being 200 400 years old as a society we're also um very young and it's both fast and slow at the same time and so I just I think to me the way I do see a Persian and I I think the way that change and transformation happens in Christian spirituality is from the inside out and so one of the things that I really try to focus on is try to make sure like I practicing what I'm preaching that I mean that my wife and the people in my circle they um that they think well of me you know I you know somebody says um don't um live and die by your press you know and the the things that are out there but really just try to see that inner circle and and try to allow translation from inside out so that threshing floor that burning that purifying that's one thing I hope that happens inside of me inside my community and out of that Transformations happen and and I think to some measure that's the type of Covenant I mean Andy and I don't live in the same Community but I know Andy has a community and has had communities where he lives but then we've kind of made a commitment to be in relationships in a very similar thing and so we're trying to have rings out that is allowing that purifying to happen and also just continue to look in the The Wider side of History there's just Cycles I don't know where we are in this historical cycle right now and um but this is not new per se and there have been Cycles where this has happened so I think that's both an individual kind of response to that and I think our social response to that we'll take one more quick question bill wichterman thank you um this is great uh thank you so much for your very thoughtful comments love the emphasis on sacrifice and something you said Andy um I want to ask you guys to tease out just a little bit um namely the question of uh when it's public and when it's not because in Scripture it says left right don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing but it also says let your light shine it's on the hill and so sometimes the potency that goes with influence is precisely because it's not public and when it becomes known it's that much more potent so I'd love to hear how you guys wrestle with that yeah that's so good uh and picked up a little tiny piece I wrote a few years ago where I said uh I forget the exact percentages but an iceberg is 90 below the water line and a cruise ship is constructed in such a way that it's 90 above the water line and basically when an iceberg meets a cruise ship the iceberg wins and um I do think 90 needs to be below the water line um no matter how public your vocation is because if you don't have a secret practice um of which starts with silent Solitude fasting um you are a cruise ship probably and you're designed to be seen but you are not designed to have ballasts that can survive the encounters with the icebergs um but that said I think there's a place for um what I mean what we're doing I mean most of David's in my interactions have not been on stages I think this would be really dangerous yeah maybe we've done this twice but we've been together I don't know two dozen individual moments of real encounter no one watching um the aspects of our relationship that we have not brought up tonight and don't need to uh because you need the 90 I think um but I think there is a responsibility to when blessing has come through sacrifice I also think that's maybe another difference like I don't think one should ostentatiously go out and do the sacrifice I think you you consecrate the loss and then Resurrection happens and Gifts return to you that you never could have imagined when you were in the midst of lamenting grief or or loss and then there is a time to praise God in the congregation and say you know we're 11 years into this and God has blessed us and our families in the Next Generation in the case of my daughter you know and like praise God you know I think there's a time to to let it be known yeah you know I mean as you say that I I think what the 11 years happened was because of the 90 that we try to practice like it wasn't even that we said hey we got a great idea to do stuff and and y's is better at saying no other stuff than uh Ann and I are but like we end up getting these all these invited to these like meetings like hey there's something going on in the world let's try to take over the world and try to fix these things and we show up cynically and just like all right Lord what do you have us here for Andy and I didn't that's not how we engage that's not how we met but it did come out of like that 90 percent practice the out of that 90 practice there were certain things that just kind of came and you know you just keep on showing up keep on showing up showing up and then yeah out of testimony because there is something I mean sharing testimony is just spiritual warfare like we overcome by the blood of lamb and the word of testimony and so I I that feels like an appropriate place to be uh public in that area thank you David thank you Andy there's so many more questions we could ask but uh all good things must come to an end and uh this has been an extraordinary evening and it is always appropriate to end with thanks I want to thank our partners uh Ann and Comet magazine which is part of Cardis we are I'd like to thank the folks on my team who helped make this happen our excellent photographer clay Blackmore who's around here someplace of my colleagues Nikki Sheffield Brian daskem Amalie wicker and Izzy lahaset along with our fantastic interns Elizabeth Ford Maddie Albertson and Sarah Malik uh and Hearty and very enthusiastic thanks to you Andy and David this has been really extraordinary and we are grateful [Applause] and finally thank you to each of you for coming we're honored by your participation good night foreign

Channel: The Trinity Forum

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Length: 83min 39sec (5019 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 25 2022