The Cross and the Ballot with Joshua Gritter | Episode 182

[0:00] Music.
[0:35] Hey everyone, welcome to Church and Main. This is a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith and our modern world. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. I'm a pastor of a Christian Church Disciples of Christ congregation in Roseville, Minnesota. Church and Main is a podcast where we look for where God is at work among all of the issues that are affecting the church and the larger society. To learn more about the podcast, to listen to past episodes, or to donate, check us out at churchandmaine.org. And you can also check us out at churchandmaine.substack.com. At that site, I have some episodes there as well, but I also have articles that I've written that line up to the theme of this podcast. Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. And I really hope that you consider leaving a review that really helps others find this podcast.
[1:35] Well, today's guest is Joshua Gritter. He is a co-pastor along with his wife, Lara, at First Presbyterian Church in Salisbury, North Carolina. And we talk about an article that he wrote for Presbyterian Outlook called Anxiety, Politics, and the Lost Mysticism of the Church. In that article, he talks about how culture tends to place our faith in politics and not in the living God. I think that this is an important issue for all of us to hear, especially in this year, which is an election year, and especially in this time of extreme polarization. So really, without further ado, let's get into that conversation, which I had with Josh, which I think is incredibly insightful and incredibly timely. Here is Joshua Gritter.
[2:29] Music.
[3:06] Well, Josh, thanks for taking the time to chat. I thought it would be great to kind of start off by knowing a little bit more about you and the community that you serve in.
[3:21] Yeah, so I'm in Salisbury, North Carolina, a smaller city, about 35 people, serving as a co-pastor with my wife, Laura. So we do things together. And then I have kind of a, I don't know if unique or odd is the right word, but either a unique or oddly hybrid role in that I am also a youth pastor. So I'm a senior pastor and a youth pastor at the same time, which makes Sundays very full. And that's usually a good thing, but so that's an interesting part of my role. Our congregation is, since the topic of the day is politics in the church,
[4:12] we are politically, I would say, purple. We're representative of the PCUSA denomination in that sense. I would say we're probably a little more red than we are blue, though I always hesitate to try and understand the demographics too particularly. But Rowan County is a very conservative place politically, so I tend to think that people just fall in line with where they grew up and how they were taught to see the world.
[4:49] But I don't see that necessarily as a challenge.
[4:56] I think it's interesting to pastor in a congregation of people who are of such different political mind. And of course, as I'm sure we'll talk about in the next six months, that's going to present some interesting things, especially for pastoral ministry in the parish. But we've been here for five years going on six. So it feels like we're sort of just getting started. The COVID blip, you know, we were here for 18 months when COVID hit.
[5:33] But love church ministry, care a lot about the church, think it's really important work and sort of just getting started. I'm 35, so I've got a lot of years of ministry left. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's always interesting how, you know, were we pastor geographically and what did that, what did it mean or how do we do church in those different contexts? I think being a pastor at a church in the Twin Cities, which is pretty blue area for kind of using the whole political language. And what does that look like? And how does that show up in everything? So I'm always kind of fascinated, and especially, I think, about purple churches, just because I'm wondering if we're seeing less and less of purple churches anymore, as it seems we tend to sort.
[6:43] Yeah, I certainly think, I mean, I think the sociological analysis that's been done over the last 10 years suggests that people are even moving to places that are more representative of their political ideals. I think that's going to happen with the places people worship. I mean, one of the things about the main line that's interesting, I think this is true. There was a study done, gosh, this must have been like four years ago, mostly across the main line, but it was also included some synagogues and some evangelical churches that those leading churches or religious organizations were far more politically progressive and liberal than were their average congregant. And poses an interesting discussion for how that already can create a tension within the congregation itself, between the clergy and the congregants, especially I think in the last, since 2016, where everything is, well, let's say politics have been charged with a religious-like fervor. We'll probably talk more about why that is but, yeah so it's an interesting time to be an administrator.
[8:06] Yeah, you know, I think that is one of the things, kind of one of the questions I wanted to kind of start off with is, you know, one of the things that you say in your essay is that the church has, I'm quoting here, lost its ability to practice Christianity that transforms us, a Christianity that worships a liberating God. And you refer, it was funny because as I read that, I kept thinking, hmm, you know, this sounds very much like Andy Root or Andrew Root. And then lo and behold, you bring up Andrew Root. And, you know, that people have assigned mystical meaning to things outside the church. And of course, that includes politics. And so I guess my first question is, why do you think, especially in this age and in this time, the church has lost its ability in some ways to either point or even talk about worshiping a liberating God?
[9:08] I think there's a few things. When I use the phrase liberating God, I use that very particularly, and for me, that stretches back to the revealing of the divine name in Exodus 3 and 4. You get this moment where, I mean, really the axis of Israel's history turns on this particular moment where Moses is in the wilderness shepherding and a voice from a bush speaks and the bush doesn't burn up. And God says, Moses, I've seen the cries of my people. I know their sufferings and good luck. It's your turn. And Moses says, no, thanks. But eventually when he comes around to it, But he says to him, well, who am I supposed to tell the people sent me? Essentially, what is your name? And, you know, within the ancient world, of course, names always have something to say about identity and about the future of one's life. And God responds with, I am that I am, or I will be that I will be, which in a sense is a way of saying, just the moment where you try to contain me, I'm going to be moving beyond you. But God's identity is action in essence. It is moving. It is the verb to be.
[10:33] Always moving toward us and beyond us and acting in history. And God is forever known in the biblical tradition as that one from that point on. God is the liberating, moving I am that I am. And of course, Jesus' identity takes that up in some really important ways. And that's why in John's gospel, we get these I am sayings where Jesus is claiming that the dynamism of this liberating one is now seen in my person, and the trajectory of Israel's history is shot through me.
[11:12] All that is to say, when I say liberating God, I mean a church that speaks and acts and worships and prays as if the God of Israel is alive, is acting within history, is dynamically involved in people's lives and in the trajectory of human history, a God who is not stagnant and aloof, not the God of deism who is the clockmaker who creates the world and just sort of watches it run, but the God that we see revealed on the cross, which is the God who meets us in our absence, in our negation, in our suffering, and is actually going to do something in the world and can heal, touch, participate in human life. And my sense going along, you know.
[12:14] Much of what I say is parroting in a worse way what Andrew has already said. I think he's the most important practical theologian alive right now, probably. I just think he assesses his assessment of what happened between about 1515 and now, and how the trajectory of modern history began with the Reformation and the Enlightenment and the philosophical ideas Ideas that are sort of like the tectonic plates underneath us that have been moving. And as they move, we see these different symptoms pop up in our culture.
[12:50] And I think what he would say, what I would say is the big problem is that the church doesn't act and speak and pray and worship as if this God is actually alive and going to do things in the world. And the reason for that is because the modern moment has made certain particular moves to close us off from seeing or believing that this God will act. Another person whose name is really important to mention here is Charles Taylor, the great Canadian philosopher from Harvard who wrote the book The Secular Age. And by that, he doesn't mean secular as profane world versus secular or public world versus private like when I was growing up and my parents said don't listen to secular music. He doesn't mean quite like that. I think he means more that the air we breathe as modern people is air that makes it possible that someone could even believe God doesn't exist and isn't alive anymore. And I think a part of the problem of the church is we've taken up the modern concepts of performance and acceleration, and the self, particularly those three, and we've created a church and a ministry that is a sort of mirror image of these people.
[14:15] Undergirding principles of modernity. And what's happened to the church is it's begun to fracture in on itself because the very claims that give it its life are almost, if they're not lost, they're anemic. They're more thin than they used to be.
[14:36] And to explain a bit more what I mean about things like acceleration and performance itself.
[14:44] There's a guy named Herbert Morosa who's a philosopher, and he says the whole modern project is an effort at accelerating everything. So everything in modernity is supposed to move faster. And of course, we know this. If I ask a regular church person, man, just sort of feels like things have sped up, huh? Everybody in the congregation, you know, would raise their hand and say, yeah, whether it's my kids' sports or my kids' grades or what age they're expected to be working on college or even our own identities, right? Like we follow influencers on YouTube who are moving the fastest and doing it the best.
[15:29] And that's where this performance feast comes in. Everything in modern America is about performing and proving our own magnificence to one another. We have to be the biggest and the best and the fastest and produce the most. And we feel this at an unspoken subconscious level, I think. And technology, which is something else we could talk about, I think is important to talk about when we talk about political polarization. Technology has just sped things up all the more. um, I could refer to the principle within technology that technology expands its speed. It doubles its speed every two years, so its capacity is literally exponentially expanding.
[16:20] So from 2008 until now, our ability to be faster and to perform for one another has just grown all the more. And the place that this all lands is on the tarmac of the individual self, which is the high priest of the modern world is the individual self. And when that happens and the sort of institutions like the church, for example, as one, when people lose trust in those institutions and for some understandable reasons, for some things that the church has earned that reputation.
[17:00] Unfortunately, because of some of the things the church has done, but also I think sometimes unfairly. But nevertheless, there's not an undergirding story anymore to tell us who we are. And so now it's up to each of us as individuals to decide and perform what is true. And so you have all these spiritualities popping up. In politics, I would say the best way to define it is politics is a mystic spirituality, within especially the modern West that we've chosen to be a god to try to save us from our guilt and our sin and the fact that we die. And I'm not convinced that politics can answer that, those big questions. Why do you think, especially in our age, and that we are looking for these things that will save us, and especially in this case, looking for politics to save us. Is it also a case that it's a place of identity? It's a place of, this is who I am, this is where I belong.
[18:20] And how does that come in conflict with the church, where we, you know, talk about also identity there to some extent, but it, they seem to, to be clashing. And what are the messages that politics is telling us about our identity and versus what the church is telling us about our identity?
[18:45] Question um i mean i i've i certainly think that i i am not you know um in the same sense that i'm not a luddite who thinks all technology is bad and evil and we need to curse it out and become amish uh i don't believe that about politics either politics has an important place within society you know i'm augustinian to my core so my definition of idolatry is that idols are good creations of God that have become twisted, and they become twisted to serve ends that they were never supposed to serve, right? Money isn't bad in and of itself, but when it becomes twisted, it becomes mammon. Politics, you know, the word polis just means city, and it's about the common good, and there are certainly people's livelihoods are tied up in the decisions and policies that are are made about answering what is the common good. So it would be silly to dismiss it. I don't think we should dismiss it. I'm going to vote in the election. I love having conversations about politics with people. I think there should be more dialogue in the church about just honest conversations about where we're at, not being afraid of the difference. I think we've lost to that art, certainly.
[20:04] I think the problem, because of everything I just mentioned before, is is that we have twisted politics into an ends rather than a means, and it has turned into an idol and has taken on a religious fervor, almost a religious significance, a spirituality, as you said, a place of belonging. Some Christians will say in the church, sometimes people belong long before they believe.
[20:38] And people are looking, I think, one of the deep quests of people right now is to find a place to belong. Um, you know, my, and youth ministry, which is where I spend a lot of my time and thinking, um, you know, one of, one of the probably three biggest questions that young people ask as a part of being a young person is, you know, where do I belong? Where do I fit? Um, the other two questions I think are, who am I and what is my purpose? So who am I, where do I belong? And what is, what is, what do I have to do? Once I know who I am and what community I'm a part of, then what do I do? What do I do with my life? How do I partake and participate in the flourishing of others?
[21:29] Politics can answer some of those questions, but not all of them. Politics can't answer, for instance, the question, what is a human soul. Politics can't answer the question, I'm struggling with alcohol. Will God forgive me for the things that I've done? Politics can't answer the question, I'm thinking about taking my own life. Is there anyone else left to love?
[21:59] It strikes me that some of the deepest questions at the core of the struggle to being alive, always, but also right now, are particular struggles. Those questions have a home in the body of Christ. It's always been what we do to journey alongside people and say, isn't it relieving to know that it's not all on you to figure out who you are? You don't have to have all the answers to who Josh is, to who Dennis is, because your life is hidden in Christ, because you're participating in the life of the triune God, because your life matters here at this church, in this place, where we confess and are forgiven and come to the cross again and again to experience new life. And all of the liturgies and the sacred objects and the gathering around tables and the preaching Yeah, absolutely.
[23:18] Probably the verse that I say to my young people the most, and they're probably sick of it, but I hope they take it away, is nothing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus our Lord. Neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor powers, nor rulers, nor angels, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus our Lord. And that is the heart of the gospel for me. And that says everything that one needs to know about their identity and why they matter and where they belong and what their purpose is, what God might have for them to do. Because a part of the crisis we're experiencing right now has to do with groups of people, and particularly we're seeing this in young men. I just read a statistic that just now men aged 20 to 24 had the highest suicide rate in our country. Country so it's it's been long discussed that men in their 50s uh had the highest suicide rate but it's just now the trend has changed that young men ages 20 to 24 had the highest suicide rate in our country so there's something about a failure to thrive a failure to flourish.
[24:40] And i think about the feeling of i that my life isn't worth anything and what why is it that That particular age group is saying with their deeply painful actions of taking a life that my life needs to stop because there isn't anything for it, in it, to move it forward. There's nothing. There's not a purpose. There's not a belonging. And there's not an answer to who am I. And the church has the goods when it comes to all of this. We have 2 years of tradition of ways of ushering people into a story and a life and a community and an encounter with a living God that is bigger than the issues of our day. And a grace that is wider than the judgment and the criticism and the cancellation that are the hallmarks of modern mystical traditions.
[25:50] Yeah, that's what I would say. So, you know, one of the things I think that is very tempting for churches in this day and age is, as you talked about earlier, that we act as if God doesn't work or move in our world. And that's really a hallmark of the secular age that we live in, as Taylor and Root talk about. And I think it is tempting for the church to fall into that as well. Um, and Andrew talks about that extensively in several of his books. Um, and it seems that, you know, even though we may profess the faith, we don't act that it can make a difference. We don't act as if God moves, um, that God offers salvation. Why do you think that the church falls into that trap? Or the trap of the culture.
[26:59] I mean, I think we do in part because it's easy. I mean, I'm currently reading some Bonhoeffer, you know, that great old book, Cost of Discipleship. And the cost of living out this kind of grace and it's hard to squeak open that door that's been shut to transcendence in the modern world and to say definitively that we believe that God is alive and acting. And so I think the first thing is I think it's just it's hard to do that. And it's it's easy. You know, I'm thinking of that book Christ versus culture that Niebuhr came out with. And I think this is constantly the struggle. Right. Is it is it Christ versus culture? Is it that we are to be so different than our culture that as to have no elements in it? Is it, is it, um, that the church is to absorb the elements of culture and just sort of reproduce the culture in a Christian way? Like, um, you know, I don't know, like we just do Christian, we, we see rock music, but we do it Christian and we see, we see movies, but we, we spin it Christian.
[28:24] Um, or is there some kind of middle ground, you know, that in the world, but not of it? Um. What is our Christology as it relates to culture? And I think in the moment we're in right now, especially because of smartphones, especially because of social media, it's far more difficult to find any difference between the church and culture. Because smartphones are so good at having us perform our identities for one another. They also have created, I think, political polarization. For the most part, I think social media is actually to blame.
[29:11] And so all of these issues that make us feel so fragmented, I think all of us as individuals who come to worship on Sunday, uh the task of trying to um name these these good things that have become twisted and the task of actually you know pointing to a living god acting in the world is as hard as it's probably ever been um because if modernity's goal is acceleration well we're now in 2024 and year 1700 was a long The French Revolution was a long time ago. So 500 years of just speeding everything up, it's hard to stop and wait for God when you move so fast all the time. And we can get tricked into believing that what ministry is about is getting busy people to come into a busy church to be busy for a busy God.
[30:12] As if that will somehow become some twisted form of sanctification. Um and and the the real important part is um how do we answer the question of how do we deal with our guilt and our sin and that we die um and the answers that the modern world gives us you know they're like these glittering things these shimmering things that look gorgeous but once you touch them they they turn to stone they don't satisfy um so i i think there needs to be a a bit of a recovery of...
[30:54] A slower Christianity that, uh, waits for a God who moves. Um, and I, I honestly, sometimes I'm at a bit of a loss of how the church is to go about that. I mean, it feels to me as to be the, I have an elder retreat this weekend with my wife. We're, we're training our future elders and we're going to talk about all this stuff. Um, because I believe the first way that you address, find a solution is to find the problem and um you know this modern world the secular age it's like the air we breathe or it's like the water we swim in it's just presupposed and we need to face our presuppositions and once you start you know the pointing out that this is water that this is the air we breathe um we might find some alternate ways of of of being but um yeah i just think at At the end of the day, it's that we just got to cling to the message of grace. And that's grace, love of enemies. That's really what makes Christianity Christian.
[32:03] Just being abstract, loving or accepting outside of the cross and outside of enemy love and praying for enemies isn't fully Christian. That's a Bonhoeffer has reminded me of this week I'm preaching on love on Sunday and love has to be sacrificial it has to be costly I think it has to be fun too but it has to go through the cross.
[32:35] So we've got to get our way back there this kind of leads to a question about formation and how do you form Christians and you're doing this especially as a youth pastor in such a hyper-partisan culture where it's so tempting to pick a certain side and I've seen churches that they pick red or blue. How do you help to form Christians in a way that centers them on Christ and not necessarily to shill for... an ideology. I actually think this is where it's important for pastors to not give in to the temptation of talking about politics all the time. I know that there would be colleagues of mine in the PeaceUSA who would disagree with me and say, you're just taking the cheap road. I'm not saying that the church doesn't have a witness in the world. It must have a witness in the world. But when it comes to talking about which side you're on, who you're going to vote for, and how that constitutes your identity as a person or does not—.
[33:53] The church has an answer for those questions. It's Jesus is Lord. And, um, it sounds dumb, but I think confession is really important right now. Confessing our brokenness and that we are not magnificent on our own, um, that we can't do it on our own. Surrender. I think for me, I just did a retreat in the mountains in March with my youth.
[34:20] And it was a retreat about those big questions, who am I, where do I belong, and what is my purpose? And I really encourage them to start to learn how to tell the story of their own weakness and woundedness, because, if the cross is who God is ultimately, if the cross is where we see God's face revealed most, which I believe to be the case, then the places where we carry crosses in our own lives are the the places where God's acting life intersects with our own, which means we need to understand how to articulate our own need for God. This is why Jesus says, I've not come for the righteous. I've come for sinners. I'm a doctor for the sick, not the healthy. This is why people in alcoholics, anonymous, or gone through addiction or loss can sometimes come out on the other side and seem to to have been touched by God, and live in a different world than we all do or than they used to, because God meets us in our weakness, in the troughs, not in the mountaintops. And so I think it's getting in the business of.
[35:36] You know, not false vulnerability in the pulpit, but, um, I, I'm always struggling to figure out how to talk about weakness, how to talk about wounds, how to talk about the cross that I carry, that we carry so that, because that's where God is going to meet people. That's where the, the, the church is going to meet people. Um, you know, that's, that's my Christology and that's my ecclesiology is, um, meeting people in those, those low places, right? Like first Corinthians two, um, the wisdom of God is the foolishness of the world. Um, so church has to get a little bit more foolish in its practices. Um, and, uh, you can't just go around talking about dying and being sick and wounded all the time, obviously.
[36:29] But people sitting in the pew in church on Sunday, they're not just people who are trying to perform their own righteousness. Deep down, they're longing to see something, to touch something, to hear something that's bigger than the pain they know. And if in that moment, let's say a grieving woman comes on November 6th after someone gets elected, and they're just caught up in their grief. And I spend the whole sermon talking about, they happen to vote for the candidate who I disagree with, let's say. And I spend the whole sermon ramming on that candidate. So that person leaves, not only with no comfort or hope about the grief they've experienced, but feeling shame for the fact that they voted for someone in a free election. In my mind, that's irresponsible pastoral leadership.
[37:25] I think that there are ways that we can confront the principalities and powers by the way we live and practice grace as the Christian community.
[37:35] So I just want to double down on all that stuff. And I think it actually makes it less noisy. This is why me and my wife, we planned, we're doing a sermon series on the Lord's Prayer. And the last Last Sunday is the Sunday after the election, and it's to the power and glory forever. And what we're going to preach on that Sunday is Jesus told us how to pray this way, and God is the one to whom the power and the glory belong. God is sovereign. Jesus is Lord. And no matter who sits in that office, the church has a job to do, and that is God. Participating in the life of this, of this God, this good God. Um, and we wanted to do that so that no matter who gets elected, it's like, Hey guys, we already planned to talk about this. Um, and I've seen it in small ways with our youth. Um, we do a mission trip in the summertime and, you know, there's a lot of people out there who don't like short-term mission trips. I got eviscerated for writing an article for a Mockingbird Ministries website for saying that I love short-term mission trips because I think there is a sort of liberal progressive idea out there that, well, shouldn't you use that money in your local community? And is it white saviorism? There's some important things to consider how you're going about the mission work. Have to do that carefully.
[39:02] But on that trip, I take the kids' phones and they spend a week week, encountering in the weakness of one another and the weakness of others, the person of Jesus Christ. And some really important things happen in their lives in that week. And I've seen it happen. And I think it's something like they are encountering the presence of the Holy Spirit, of the living God, because they're giving away their lives to something else that's bigger. And it's just a snapshot and a foretaste of the kingdom which is all we get here, we see through uh as a glass darkly right but um but nevertheless um i can point and say to them hey what you're feeling what you're experiencing right now that's the presence of the living god working in you through you um don't forget that and hopefully that experience marks them and resonates with them and keeps them Christian, um, makes them wanting more, makes them wanting their kids wanting, um, um, Yeah, I don't know. Well, you kind of already answered one of the questions. I was going to ask you what you're going to say the Sunday following the election.
[40:26] But maybe let me rephrase this another way. Sure. What advice would you give to pastors when they are preaching on that Sunday following the election? It's going to be a doozy. Yeah. Either whoever wins. What, and I also bring this because you talked earlier about your experience of how people were going to react on back in 2016.
[40:59] What is your advice for pastors on what they should say on that Sunday following the election to their congregations? Well, I hesitate to give anybody advice. I'm 35 and feel like I don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time in this work. But I mean, I'd say a few things before saying, telling them what to say. The first thing I'd say is be in touch with your pastoral mentors, the people who've been through this before, and ask them how to handle it, how they've handled it. Because that's been really important to me is having mentors, spiritual mentors who help me discern those big moments in ministry. Number two would be be in touch with what is going on in your own spirit because it's easy for the pulpit to become our own form of anger, grief counseling about who got elected and why we're mad about it.
[42:02] Um if we're not in touch with that part of ourselves it's just going to make it its way and we're going to throw it onto the people and that's not fair um you know it's not a fair fight sometimes we get 20 minutes to talk to people and they can email us but they don't get to go up to the mic and offer their rebuttal so if you really need to talk about who got elected and why it's a problem or explore that with people, find a different forum for it that isn't in the context of worship. Invite people who voted differently to go out to meals together and discuss the future of politics in this country.
[42:43] Force people to come face to face, but don't alienate yourself to, half of your people um and you know i don't know what to say to people who are maybe let's say in an entirely red or an entirely blue congregation and and maybe it will be faithful in that context to speak into the moment because that's the identity of their congregation and that's certainly not mine um, But remember that prophets love their people. And there's this, when I was in seminary, everybody wanted to be a prophet. I want to preach prophetically. I want to be a prophet. And I'm sure I said that too. But now, you know, I don't know. Jeremiah ended up naked and weeping on the street. You know, Isaiah had his lips touched to fire.
[43:36] Moses didn't get to make it to the promised land. and Jesus got crucified outside of the city, and Stephen got stoned by the Apostle Paul, who was formerly Saul. So I don't know if I want that life or not to be a prophet, but I do know that prophets were speaking to people they knew and loved and cared for, and that a word of judgment was the other side of a word of love.
[44:04] And so you just got to remember that you're called to be these people's minister. You're called to bury them and marry them and baptize them. And there are things more important than who they voted for, like what's going on in their soul, like what lower loves are leading them in harmful directions, like what broken relationships are causing them strife, like what unforgiveness is haunting them. And, you know, there's just the horizon for what people need to hear, what hope they need to hear is so important. And I'm reminded of something a preacher named Fleming Rutledge said in one of her preaching books. She said, every sermon has to have a promise and a hope. So if you can pull off denouncing whoever gets elected with promise and hope, then have at it. But, you know, give the people a bigger promise and hope that, hey, maybe your person got elected, but God is bigger than that. And, hey, maybe the person that you absolutely despise got elected and you think everything's over, but that person doesn't hold the keys to your soul.
[45:18] Offer that word and maybe do some spiritual planning with the congregation for the months beforehand. Hand, and we've said it to our congregation, we've said it to our elders, hey, the next six months are going to be really divisive and people are going to eat each other. And how can we spiritually prepare as a congregation of people who are different and vote differently to still be the one place in the world where red and blue take communion together? How do we need to prepare our hearts how can we be praying maybe maybe enemy love is the message um inviting people to pray for the president that they hate or uh pray for the people who voted for the president they hate that seems like something bonhoeffer would say um, that's all i got.
[46:13] Well you kind of hit kind of my sweet spots and that you both mentioned both andy root and fleming rutledge so you've kind of endeared yourself to me by talking about both of them i love both of those people yep so if people want to um read some of your past stuff because i know you've read written extensively at Presbyterian Outlook and um um I think for for Mockingbird what other places where should they go and to contact you um I mean the the the writing journey for me is sort of just beginning I have I am a contributor to um ember.com I would I would say everything on that website is really good. And if you're somebody who is looking for a spiritual or political home, that is something not extreme left or extreme right. Um, and you're just wondering about a place that might offer a different way of things.
[47:18] Ember.com and the mocking cast are the, is the best resource I can offer you. Um, David's all as the founder and editor of that stuff his books are really really excuse me are really really good um for helping to sort through some of this stuff um if you want to read stuff i wrote then you can search my name on that or i've written some stuff in the outlook as well um but beyond me there's, there's a lot of good stuff out there um to read and bonhoeffer i think go back to bonhoeffer uh yeah.
[47:57] All right. Well, Josh, thank you so much. This has been, I think, a helpful interview, and hopefully it'll be, I think, of value to pastors and others as we continue throughout this election season. Yeah. Well, thanks for reaching out, Dennis. This was super fun. I've never been on a podcast before, but this is all the... It seems like you're thinking in the same direction as I am. This is all the stuff I'm thinking about right now. And as I like to say, we play with live ammo in the church. It's all these theological questions are very live right now. And I feel I'm very much in the middle of it. So it's helpful to try to articulate some of it. Helpful to connect with another person who's thinking about it. All right. Right. But take care and we will talk again soon. All right. Thanks, Dennis. Appreciate it.
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[49:30] Well, I hope that you enjoyed the episode with Josh. And that is it for this episode of Church in Maine. Remember, as always, to rate and review this episode on your favorite podcast app. That helps others to find this podcast. I hope that you can also consider passing this episode along to family and friends who might be interested. And finally, I hope that you will consider donating. There is a link in the show notes where you can donate. That helps me to continue to produce more episodes. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Again, thank you so much for listening. Take care, Godspeed, and I will see you very soon.
[50:12] Music.