alright what it has to you know, the code actually helps a lot with this,
because CO makes a clear distinction between Christianity and white religion.
Right He did this in the 1960s he says what you see is white religion, dressed
in Christian garb.
Unknown 0:36
But really it's a white power structure that uses the language and the
mythology of Christianity as a disguise.
Unknown 0:45
So they have this type of soft language with an iron fist. Right is the
Christianity of empire. It's a constant Tinian Christianity says the religion
of Jesus is a is a prophetic type of voice, as in solidarity with the poor. So
part of what needs to happen in terms of that is to look at people's pre
theological commitments, because a lot of people who actually came into Christianity
after this, were Trump lovers. They use religion as a way to try to dress up
their pre theological solidarity with the kind of this type of conservative
politics and Trump movement which usually rests on the issues of abortion and
sexual binaries. Right, the idea of male and female Miss really strong and
distinct clarity, the idea of having plural sexualities is something that they
find so disconcerting, right, and so anti Christian, they latch on to that,
right because the world is changing at such a rapid rate and so much complexity
is coming out in our human lives. That's hard for people to assimilate that at
once. So Christianity has very clear man, woman is a traditional marriage.
Right? These are traditional boundaries. I'm set apart from that I live in
holy, pure, right. So it's the it's really this conservative retreat, and then
you have a politics that sets up. That's why they love Trump, because it's
Jesus and John Wayne, right. It's this type of idea of this type of on the
frontier is trying to fight to protect a diminishing and kind of dying off
identity that that refuses to be open to new information in a rapidly changing
world. Right. So it's this kind of it's an identity out of a deep anxiety.
That's why they see themselves as under siege. Wow. Well, you know, black and
brown people are starting to find voice and and and they call the very
movements for human dignity from black and brown community identity politics,
while not realizing that they are trying to conserve their own identities.
Right. So I think that's part of what's happening with the with the phenomenon
of identifying with evangelicalism, but Cohn if you read his most his works, he
has a that that Christianity has a a content and a substance to it. Right? It
is not usually for but one has to have creative fidelity with the idea of
solidarity. So that might look differently in different historical instruments.
But the idea of God choosing the downtrodden is a categorical imperative
recall.
Unknown 3:47
And for bond hopper to when he says that he's learned to see history from the
underside, in this little essay on after 10 years. So there's a notion that
once your vision shifts your understanding of how faith relates to the world in
which you live shifts as well. I want to say that going back trip we're we're
in an apocalyptic moment. And apocalyptic in this sense, is not the end of the
world apocalyptic but the sort of original meaning of Apocalypse says, an
unveiling a kind of realization of what's going on behind the scenes, so to
speak, or beyond the screen.
Unknown 4:31
And I think that we're in a, we're in a moment in which even to people who care
nothing about faith.
Unknown 4:40
There is a revelation going on, of just maybe how shallow significant aspects
of American Christianity are. That they would attach themselves to a political
party that clearly follows a lot.
Unknown 4:58
And that doesn't let doesn't let progressive Christians off the hook. But right
now, what's being revealed is a kind of the dynamics that Adam just talked
about, in how American Christianity shaped itself.
Unknown 5:20
It shaped itself as the religion of of the oppressor, even though it believed
it wasn't.
Unknown 5:27
And that's, you know, I mean, you could say we're in kind of a spiritual moment
which God is opening a revelation and saying is this is this what you want to
follow?
Unknown 5:38
And people are having make choices and what's really interesting is that,
increasingly scholars are now understanding and and, and bringing this to more
public consciousness and before Adam mentioned Jesus and John Wayne, which is
the title of a book by is a Christian do May.
Unknown 6:00
Is there anything else? You can't Yeah, can you know that book is getting an
enormous amount of interest from a lot of different circles because she goes in
just goes right to understanding analyzing and critiquing the worlds of
patriarchy, and and misogyny and power. And there are so many people on that
American Evangelical side who are freaking out now, because the critical lens
is being reflected on them.
Unknown 6:35
And they have a chance to step back and to say, where are they right? What can
we learn here? But they instead seem to be drawing the wagons ever tighter
together and building up the walls and you will not arise? That's kind of
rhetoric. And it's it's it's sad because they have a moment in which they can
say, okay, where, where are the, and Thea Butler and Kristen demais and Andrew
Whitehead and all these other people, Sarah Posner, who are sort of bringing
really learned understandings of the dynamics of American evangelicalism and
white nationalism, the connection between those two, they could say, Well,
where are our critics, right, and the ones that do are probably going to be
able to have some integrity going forward and the ones that won't.
Unknown 7:30
They won't
Unknown 7:34
Okay, so
Unknown 7:38
I'm sure regular podcast listeners will recognize that when you have two
friends on that are just rocking it like champs it's really hard for Tripp that
normally turns his questions into seven minute monologues followed by a brief
invitation to respond. It's true, it's it is it is it Let go. Let it fly out.
Now, so the second of the three constellations of questions around violence.
Unknown 8:10
There are a number of ways this question was posed.
Unknown 8:14
One, well, actually, there are multiple people that pointed this out. There
were a number of surveys in the last few weeks that pointed at the growing
number of Americans who think that political violence is justified at American
this wonderful human being and our zoom group named George fuller. He might
have been my father said his Civil War possible if so what would it look like?
Unknown 8:42
And then the other question that was connected to it was specific towards you.
Unknown 8:53
Jamie, I know she's a Methodist minister, somewhere in flyover country. Sorry,
Jamie. I don't remember exactly where that she said that. Both of you, Adam and
Jeff, in the previous reading groups, struggled with how Bonhoeffer and his
like turn towards participation in violence even though he's confessing us and
and we're in Adams, non violence connected to James Collins wrestling with like
power that questioning live and most liberation theologies.
Unknown 9:28
At what point would like could you imagine violence coming back on the menu in
American religion?
Unknown 9:37
And then there were a couple that brought it up specifically around?
Unknown 9:43
Yes, America's having these political fights currently, but underneath it,
there's all this passive violence both the passive violence of the state right
on the oppressed, military industrial complex, externally, the prison
industrial complex, the questions around police violence and all that kind of
stuff, but also the kind of violence that is being done to the planet that
supports future generations and the lack of verbose response.
Unknown 10:18
They get what point at what point do we reconsider our commitments, as
followers of Jesus committed to non violence when we think of extinction of a
species or the or the breaking of non violent mechanisms for recognition of
value?
Unknown 10:40
I mean, I think the Civil War question connected to those big ethical questions
really raises the challenge. And there's a unique perspective both for how
Bonhoeffer wrestles with it. And then how Cohn gives us wrestling between like
Malcolm and MLK, and then what that looks like in today's prison like the Black
Lives Matter movement. They think of we've talked about the George Floyd trial,
he wasn't even on trial. It was his murderers. Right and the Kyle Rittenhouse
trial, who like kill people, so even so, like it broadly, there are so many
people asking the question of violence. And as someone who's gets questions
regularly from listeners, I had a chart for the frequency of violence questions
from 2008. It goes like this.
Unknown 11:36
Like a hockey stick, it's like co2 at the bank Industrial Revolution. And so
what what are your intuitions on the fact that so many people are asking this
question, and I think it's got in the hockey stick comes when we went into
lockdown, and all of a sudden so many of your relationships are mediated by
algorithms online, and you're alienated from the places you encounter people
difference, like, but but how theological. How do we wrestle with the growing
desire to put violence on the menu as legitimate options?
Unknown 12:19
As as Christians and as citizens? Yeah, I get that question a lot too. First,
just, you know, two thoughts. One is, first of all, that's a very Protestant
question. And I say that because I work at a Jesuit school. Right and there is
just war theory within the Christian tradition, right, which is about the
protection of the innocent, right, so that there are certain types of about criteria
for violence, but violence is always defensive in a last resort, right? There's
issues of proportionality. There's issues of proper authority, right? You could
go Google this, you know, in terms of this, but there are certain steps within
Catholicism, in which they would say the use of lethal or deadly force is a
moral priority. than letting innocent life be slaughtered. Right. So that's
just one in terms of just the Christian tradition, broadly seeing goes back to
there's like, yeah, and there's like, let 16,000 people alive that are American
citizens that may have been alive for something that passes a just war. But
like if you use the rule like I mean, if you just take what the Pope's opinions
are about the military engagements of, of America, the 16,000 Word War Two
veterans that haven't died yet, are the only ones that have passed and like if
you look at the military investment financially in the States, since then, it's
grown exponentially, right. So yeah, and that's why I love like bring up the just
word thing is like, even if you aren't going to go like alright hippie, dippie,
Adam and Jeff like, like like, even if you use those rules.
Unknown 14:08
There's only a few people that even under like the most lenient just the word
theory, should go to bed feeling good.
Unknown 14:16
And that's the question of Hitler. I mean, that's the whole thing about Hitler,
the moral type of kanji that most people would say this is an example of just
war that that violence there's an appropriate use to repel a destructive force.
Right that that to be Chamberlain, right. Like in terms of that he looks worse
than Bonhoeffer in terms of his kind of moral rectitude with that, like it's
been this idea of should you appease the evil or should you repel the evil?
Should you be a spoke in the wheel? Right, that type of thing. So, you know,
just and I just want to say that just in terms of normative christian ethics,
terms that within the Liberation's in the Black liberation tradition, the idea
hasn't been about violence, per se. It's a bit about self defense, right, which
is similar in terms of that there that what people say, you know, frame it as
the use of violence, right as if there's an active use, in terms of some type
of like black Parma was kind of black al Qaeda, they will go into white suburbs
and try to hunt white people that know the idea even within black lives matter.
It was about can't to I have the human right to defend myself. Right when
someone aggresses on me, can I use deadly force to repel right? A destructive
and evil force me? That's been the set the question in terms of that it hasn't
been a use can we use vile now for the right it has been that it's been
targeted like even if Black Lives Matter the targets were non human targets
right like in terms of it these are mostly Antifa there was that but they were
uses of destruction of property destruction to people right like can I burn a
building? Can I create sabotage? Those weren't faith based people, but that was
not the same thing as human life, right, in terms of that, but in terms of the
activist with the Black Lives Matter.
Unknown 16:07
The question as has never been about some type of strategic takeover with armed
force of white enclaves or something like that. It's been about can I defend
myself from my cat? What are the means that I have to repel aggression? And
usually it's been seen as if George Washington did they get critique from from
from from repelling imperial power? Why should people of black bodies not be
able to repel imperial power? Right? That's how it's been thought about within
the logic of black liberation theology. Right? And, you know, you know, and
then, you know, as an addendum, if we look at certain types of Christian heroes
with a Black Theology, such as Denmark BZ Nat Turner, right. A Gabriel Prosser.
These are people who use violence in the context of slavery, right channelize
slavery, right to to resist. So that's been seen as situations of you know, you
can see that as not like normative christian ethics, but as situations of
extreme situation, right, like chattel slavery, can you use it, that kind of
thing, but in normative christian ethics, like, you know, there's a certain
it's not that's never permissible, but that there's a stream reluctance and it
shouldn't be at last resort. It has to be conditional things and I think that's
the probably best way to think about
Unknown 17:48
I don't know the heavy thing that ask you and about this.
Unknown 17:53
Yeah, I'm a Catholic and Baptist and so you know, there's that scene in the
movie. Witness the old movie with Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, about a
detective that gets embroiled in a Amish community in Pennsylvania. And at 1.1
of the Amish kids is looking at the detectives gone. I think I may get the
story all wrong, but he takes it in his father's says what you take into your
hands you take into your heart.
Unknown 18:28
And on any given day, there's so much violence in my heart.
Unknown 18:37
You know, just there that I tried to be as non violent as I can be in the
world.
Unknown 18:48
And I tried to
Unknown 18:53
because my violence occurs in different ways that may occur in the way that I
speak to somebody. That could be a form of violence. It could be in the way
that I ignore a need of a human being that can be a form of violence. And I
know we're talking about sort of the gun level violence and stuff but I think
what Adam said is that even in the Catholic tradition, that is nothing but a
last resort.
Unknown 19:19
And the fact of the matter is, is that too often we say well, I had no other
choice, but the fact of the matter is, is that we had a lot of choices. We just
took the easiest one and often that's violence.
Unknown 19:36
Do you think that the not in the justification of violence but in the
anticipation of the fruit of the seeds that are being sown? Yeah, I think if we
do this podcast and 15 years
Unknown 19:57
I'll be dead. And that just be you too. I'm optimistic, Jeff.
Unknown 20:04
And And by then, you know, because of the the sheer success of the podcast and
the lack of COVID we fly us all together. So we're hanging out in a room. I
don't even know what it'd be like to record a podcast. I forget what this is
like where you're like in a room with other humans and not on Zoom. And the
three of us are sitting there in 15 years and we are thinking about the church
and the question of islands.
Unknown 20:32
Will Will a faithful had to have cut themselves off from plenty of people with
crosses around their necks, or will the church in America have cut itself off
from its citizenry? Who thought violence was a solution that is that make
sense? Because like that the question around civil war and I mean, there were a
couple of you brought it up, but in the chat my dad did and I and I can guess
why cuz I would during all the BLM protest. He's right by the Capitol and in in
North Carolina. Can I answer your father directly I forgot about that part.
That yeah, that's a key question. Because look, I think most people
underestimate how close we came to civil war, meaning that if it wasn't for
Trump's inner circle, what he was asking people to do what he was asking Mike
Pence to do to decertify election, if my Preston stand up and he said, Look,
I'm going to send this back to the States. That could have been it. It could have
been finished all over with, right. So if there weren't certain people who
actually said look, this is going too far. If Trump's will was just follow
through through it would have been that it would have been a he would have gone
down as the Jefferson Davis of the 21st century, right. Like in terms of that,
like it would have been that break. So I think that's a really serious question
that I think that it's almost upsetting that the Democrats shouldn't say
Democrats, the American public at large has not taken this threat to democracy
as seriously as it is. I mean,
Unknown 22:36
and what happens a lot is that to even talk about it gets almost subsumed in
partisan bickering. Right. Like it in terms of that you're a partisan for
saying this, but no, this is not this goes beyond certain type of political
opposition. And it goes to the heart of what it means to live in an informed
democracy. Right. Like, I don't think people realize that Trump that Trump
literally called the Secretary of State of Georgia and said find me votes.
Unknown 23:09
Right. I mean, that in and of itself, yeah.
Unknown 23:16
That people still don't think about the Mueller report. Right. That did not
exonerate although that's been the kind of mythology but acknowledged there
were certain types of connections between Russia, Russia and the Trump
campaign. No
.
.
.
.
Part 3
But he talks about this. I mean, they'll even talk about Gore versus bush. Right. But Gore had more votes in Florida than Bush is still that there's a history to this happening. If people do not take this seriously, I don't know how many threats to democracy that can happen before that, that by just human error or somebody one of the things that to get through in the country is going to go up in arms. So I think this idea of violence is really, really important in terms of that, and I want to go back to what Jeff said is that you know, the direction he went in terms of the idea of violence is an expression. Right, what's get to the cause, right? It is it that the root source, that is a symptom. Oscar Romeo talks about this too, that we have institutionalized violence, right? And to actually overcome that. You have to not just look at the that had the symptoms, you have to go to the root of that. And those are types of ideas of, of otherness, and non neighborliness in the human heart in in our Constitution, right? So part of what has to do in terms of just Christian teachings is to really have a new 21st century idea. Who is my neighbor and how I should relate to the person. Right, yeah.
Unknown 1:24
That's what I think what you know, in terms of this historical moment needs to happen. And I think there needs to be a shift from the idea of being a patriot to be an A citizen, right? Like, I think that's what evangelicals need to focus on. The idea of patriotism is almost this type of gets caught up in this type of idolatry and hubris about higher and better and American exceptionalism. Be the idea of what does it mean to be a citizen? How do I be a good citizen? Right, which is much more about the Kenyan tradition. I think we need to expand that and bring that into kind of Christian reflection, as a way of trying to talk about how to actually go forward in this country.
Unknown 2:09
Four years ago, no, no, I was about to set you up for telling a story. So go ahead. For four years ago, I was asked in a speaking to a group of methods, and I was asked what do you see the task of the church been in the coming days years and I said the task of the church is to prevent civil war.
Unknown 2:33
The structural fissures were there, they've been there. They've always been there. And right now, what is the main task of the church?
Unknown 2:47
And I don't know that I would answer that question any differently.
Unknown 2:51
And it may well be that we're in a will Campbell moment.
Unknown 2:57
For those of you who know the story, will Campbell he was he wrote a book called brother to a dragonfly.
Unknown 3:05
And in this book he has he's a profound social justice activist, deeply Christian, very Baptist. And he's working in Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia in the southern tier in 1963, and 64, and 65 and things are really bad.
Unknown 3:28
And at one point, he becomes convinced that the radicality of the gospel causes him to go and minister to the Ku Klux Klan.
Unknown 3:42
And I have never understood that, quite frankly. But I've always been sort of struck with the fact that I'm not sure that my own faith is deep enough to where if God said, Jeffrey, I want you to go to your local
Unknown 4:05
three percenters or Oathkeepers group, and I want you to minister to them.
Unknown 4:12
I don't know how I'd respond.
Unknown 4:15
But the place where the church needs to be and will have to be in the future to avoid Civil War, is they're going to have to be having some kind of relationships with the people who we are othering at this point, to try to try to build some kind of sense of community that we're all in this together. And if we don't stand together, we're going to fall apart. And and I'm not sanguine about the prospects for America in the next two to four years.
Unknown 4:48
I'm just not.
Unknown 4:50
My hope is that on the other side, the beloved community is is the polity of our new of our new world. But I'm not sanguine right now. Because the structures being built and if you listen to Steve Bannon, his war room, page, hatred and violence are being stoked. So if you talk about violence, there is a certain constellation of groups and communities right now that are stoking it that are feeding it that are encouraging it.
Unknown 5:27
And and if and if the church joins that on the other side, then it's joined in the demonic dance of destruction.
Unknown 5:37
But trip just listening to Bannon and then when you start going down into Reddit communities and other communities have the right wing they are waiting for the you know some boys to say yeah, go kill your enemy.
Unknown 5:55
And And the church has to speak to that the church has to dress dress that it's not right now. I mean, it's just and ultimately of angelical is are going to have to be responsible for other angelical like Republicans are going to have to be responsible for Republicans. There's a way out of where we are now, but it's going to have to take people that are more concerned about the life of society than their own political careers.
Unknown 6:21
A new vision of life togetherness, right? Yep, yeah. And trip you're a process person. So you know that the humans human species could just go and think and life could still go on.
Unknown 6:35
Right? Like if it doesn't, there's no necessity for human beings to inhabit the universe.
Unknown 6:42
Go without us. Once you get over the offense, that is a cosmological structure of grace that you don't intend to recognize.
Unknown 6:53
Yeah, we may not be the center of the story. Exactly. That's the point. The the hubris of our theology is that we put humans at the center of the story we make. I mean, yeah, their gut bacteria. They can't live without me, right? I mean, so maybe I'm, I'm not important except for their survival. Yeah, maybe you have to like just have a theology of life itself and like root for life and say life go on with our without human beings and we can as King says, we can come together as as sisters or brothers or perish together as fools trip. Was there a third constellation of questions? Yeah. It Okay. I'll give it to you. And then I'll, I'll say something so you can think about it. Because the third constellation and it there are a number of about like, how you respond personally, but the the question that stuck, and I Okay, basically, I read it, but I want to know, Mark, I mean, what what Adam and Jeff are gonna say it because Mark asked the question, he said, How do you pray in this moment?
Unknown 8:03
Now I'm not saying you should just like straight up pray on a zoom call. Because y'all aren't Baptist. You got an Episcopalian and Methodist now I'm bad. Again. Like it didn't take much effort to get me to pray in any situation. Pisco. Talian. Okay. Well, well, Adams Episcopalian to the works of the Catholic former. Yeah.
Unknown 8:25
You don't have you're not pilotis Stickley demonstrating your connection to the spirit by the ability for impromptu prayer as a sign of your elected pneus. So I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot but think about like how you pray in this moment. If you're at in the in the the way maths question was, how do you pray so that you're both uncomfortable and honest at the same time?
Unknown 8:58
Good question. And the thing I like because the thing that came into my mind listening to both of you around I mean, your response to the question of violence in this moment is So, and this came up in our last conversation, both of you mentioned it, I think I can't remember who mentioned it first. But Adam responded that part of the power of the civil rights movement, was it a community insisted upon the beloved community. And so King didn't speak on his own. Right. There's a community behind it. And part of the struggle for Bonhoeffer was there was no community in resisting in his context, and so he felt pushed to this extreme.
Unknown 9:49
And so when we start to ask the question of islands, and then what does that mean? And because it'd be civil war and all these type of things, in our present moment.
Unknown 9:59
My observation listening to you last time in this time is part of preparing for the the context of extremes or finding the people you live life together, when your d values are shared, such that when you're being faithful to them, you have allies.
Unknown 10:21
And because allies infidelity are like multiplications, not just editions, right, like so. It and and I think that one of the situations we've been in from lockdown leading into this is that people feel more and more isolated.
Unknown 10:47
Now, granted, I'm in Scotland, so you have to like book a ticket to be one of the few people that gave up the worship, if you want to go in person.
Unknown 10:57
But a lot of people have been isolated and out side of that worshiping community where you have physical community.
Unknown 11:05
I've only had physical communion once and the last 27 months. And I served it in a cathedral that was ticketed, you know, and I hadn't missed worship, more than twice a year, the entire rest of my life.
Unknown 11:27
And I'm someone that does this, and then teach us like, the way you could get isolated and not actually spend time with the community that goes the story The world tells us it's true, is this and it does lead to a civil war. It does lead to violence. It does lead to enemies that deserve death.
Unknown 11:52
But the true story is this.
Unknown 11:57
Well, he came to the Baptist, John the Baptist, and he was baptized in this in this in the sky opened up.
Unknown 12:08
And the voice of the Father said this is my son, my beloved in whom I'm well pleased and then he was tempted with visions of being the Christ that involve coercion and power. And he said no, and then he walked out and said, Come to me who are heavy laden, right? And he went to people who thought they were cast out and shamed and said the kingdom of God is here. And then he said, Woe to this. The powerful and blessing are the like, I think the vision of the kingdom of God is one that is so true, but it only hums when it resonates between image bearers and I think one of the tragedies of the last year in the year before it is it isolates people. And the isolation is something that neoliberal capitalism and all the anxieties of manufacturers seizes on.
Unknown 13:12
And then it says squeeze religion and spirituality in that.
Unknown 13:16
And then one of the testimonies of cone black prophetic church, Bonhoeffer the Confessing Church do is a insists that you can't speak the name of Christ outside of a community. Jesus wasn't the Christ alone. He literally called disciples before he started his mission. And then at Pentecost, he didn't just go the the spirit and just show up. He gathered the community. He taught them the kingdom of God again, right, and then goes, wait until the Spirit comes and then it ceases them all. And, and so I think the anxiety of isolation and fear and division leads to the is violence our only option but I would just say, remember that we've been cut off from community, the community Jeff talked about when he was talking about the experience of communion, the beloved community, Adam was echoing from King that like, if you believe that as an that we each bear the image of God, then it is amplified when we gather together with neighbors and strangers and enemies.
Unknown 14:35
And it's not magic.
Unknown 14:37
It's not weird. It's just the power that comes when we start to resonate hum and participate in the one who knows us and loves us completely and calls us into a way of being that God has desired for us from the very beginning.
Unknown 14:57
And in violence is what happens when you demand a solution from an individual that only comes in community.
Unknown 15:12
And this could set up for running through Genesis as examples for how this works out. But I just want to say that because when an individual sees the situation, and they're the only actor violence makes sense, because they see the real problem.
Unknown 15:33
But what they don't recognize is that we were never meant to act alone. were meant to act together. And so what are we baptized into the body? What do we participate in the mind of Christ? What are we called into a new creation? All those images mean we do it in community and I feel like at this moment when we're sitting here, thinking about a growing expansion, the ability to reconnect with the anxiety and fears of struggles that we've cultivated in this time.
Unknown 16:10
Realize that as people of faith, it is in the presence of other people, the bare other elements of divine image within them. The word a partner for something beautiful.
Unknown 16:25
And that doesn't mean it's going to be easy or struggle free.
Unknown 16:30
It just means you were never the solution for your problems that you thought you were.
Unknown 16:36
We were never meant to be alone. And like recognizing that I think reframes the story we tell ourselves because I mean, I don't want to like give examples of things people sent or read my prayer journals out to you from lockdown. But so often when you're cut off, from the very places that God blesses you in the day to day in relationships, then you start to think your experiential horizon is the actual horizon of possibility. And that collapse leads to justifications of ugliness.
Unknown 17:18
Now, those are vamping sermon to set up for
Unknown 17:26
Adam and Jeff answering the prayer question but so if both of you are thinking about this moment, like what is your advice for prayer a praying prayers that are honest about our situation?
Unknown 17:43
And calling us to what fidelity looks like?
Unknown 17:47
Yeah, well, personally, I pray every day and I do contemplative prayer. First of all, that that's that sermon made me want to go back to church. I haven't been to church.
Unknown 17:58
I mean, I go to church virtually all the time. Yeah, actually a couple of church services but I don't have physically grabbed back the chair since the pandemic, not least, not any routine basis. But for me, you know, I'm informed by Ignatius spiritual exercises, right like part of in the pandemic, people talk about physical exercise. But I think the life of the Spirit is also a kind of spiritual exercise, right? Being a spiritual athlete. So for for me, you know, I don't know if I would call it it's prayer and contemplation. So I'll just tell you what works for me. It the desire or the impulse to prayer is not for me some type of, you know, anti violent act and per se, it's more of a type of way of trying to talk about centering in union. Right, so I begin with gratitude.
Unknown 18:54
Right, I begin each day with gratitude. What am I grateful for? Right and reflect on that. Right and it could be the smallest thing it could be the smile on somebody's face. It could be the food that I could be the air that I bribe breathe. It could be completing a task, right? False to me. It's the economy of attention. What am I paying attention to? Right? That's part of part of actually I think living life in the Spirit is about attentiveness. So much of the world that our cell phones every tree gets us distracted. But what prayer does for me, is helped me focus my attention on what matters most. Right so to me, I begin each day in gratitude. Right? And then I go to certain types of you know, praying about my own personal limits, or shortcomings. And then I go to the healing of people who I know are in pain.
Unknown 19:57
And then for me, you know, I focus on if I'm talking about a social justice image, I used to focus on beloved community as a way of trying to talk about what I believe history, the end is coming to what needs to come to, but I've written lately been working with the world soul, or the pulse of the universe, as a way of trying to as a focal image of me trying to wrestle what does it mean to bear witness to the world, so to be a beneficial presence? Right. Those are the type of questions I asked in my prayer. So my prayer isn't so much of looking at, you know, a certain type of political construct per se.
Unknown 20:44
It's about trying to live in a or it's about re orientating my spirit, my soul, where I believe I'm being led to serve, right so it gives a certain type of adjustment for me. So that's my personal practice. I don't know if it works for anybody else. But that's what I've been doing in terms of of grounding and centering me throughout the pandemic.
Unknown 21:17
I'm trying to I mean, I'm trying to think about the best way to answer that question.
Unknown 21:22
And I don't know where this comes from my EV angelical Pentecostal days, but I swear to God, it just feels like there's not a time in my day that I don't feel like I'm in prayer.
Unknown 21:34
In some ways, now the tension does get concentrated in the first hour or two of the day when I'm taking a really long walk are trying to get some exercise in and I'm doing something mindless.
Unknown 21:51
And then at night, as resting, but, you know, it just seems like there's this consciousness throughout the entire day.
Unknown 21:59
How do I manifest your presence in this?
Unknown 22:04
How do I make this a space for something redemptive to happen or a moment of grace?
Unknown 22:15
You know, so I mean, I even my entire life gets interpreted through those lands. So I watched Ted lasso. And I'm like, this thing has more grace in it than Christian churches do.
Unknown 22:26
Look at what he just said that the guy that just said he hates him and thinks he's a ball of spirit. What can I learn here? How did I offend you? What can I learn here? And that that moment hits me like, God what what is that? Am I that graceful to other human beings in my interaction? So there's, you know, there's actually a way in which the honesty part is where it gets tricky, right? Because we all project our images, no matter who we are. You know, Meister Eckhart one time said that humans love God the way of farmer loves its cow, because it gives him milk and cheese.
Unknown 23:09
And, and try to keep thinking about prayer life in a certain way of not asking for but how do I manifest how, how can I be a presence that you move through and more often than not, I fail?
Unknown 23:26
Because I have a congenital snarkiness that probably prevents that.
Unknown 23:33
Grace from moving through but but but I think it's the honesty question and trip I just want to say that I feel for you with you that loss of community. I haven't been in church for 18 months or longer, longer. Almost 20 months March of 2020.
Unknown 24:00
And so I feel that lack of community in deep and profound ways and I hope that at some point we start to move out of it now we can, you know, we all of us, we we create communities on zoo, we create other communities you know, as we can, and I'm glad we had the technology to do that. But it's not the same as the embodied.
Unknown 24:24
Part. Right. I agree. I agree. You know, one thing I want I want to add to this is that Walter Rasha Bush talked about how they, he said the kingdom of God starts on the inside, and then unfolds externally.
Unknown 24:43
You know, and that image has always stuck with me. And I think for me, you know, prayers, not some type of wish list, but what it does for me is it centers me so I'm not reactive to the way everything's thrown at me during the date. I've come from my center. One of the things I think progressives have have a hard time doing is they know what they're against, but they don't know what they're for. In prayer helps me understand what I'm for right? It clears up so I can actually be affirmative and not just reactionary against that, right. So that part of like, the challenge when you're actually in battle all the time, is I don't want white supremacy, which which I'm critiquing to be so dominant in my consciousness, that I become part of the very thing I'm entangled with. You let your enemy define you. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I just don't want that to happen. So if you're actually someone who actually is an activist, right, you always run that danger of becoming part of the evil that you're struggling against. Right? That's why so many colonial situations, we reproduce the very colonialism you struggle against, right? So I think what prayer does for me, it disentangles that kind of stuff for me, so that I could actually be a more loving and more just a more courageous person in my personal life. Right. And that kind of spreads, you know, socially than always be reactionary to the latest outrage that occurs every day. I think that's where in terms of what I try to and I'm in a lot of contemplative groups and spiritual groups. And for me, Howard Thurman was an entry point into the way to to actually talk about he talked about disciplines of the spirit. Right and in terms of commitment, and courage and that kind of thing. And and I think that's really, really important. Because progressives like to talk about social justice, but not talk about personal transformation or character. And I think there needs to be much more robust conversation about the significance of that because we've all met progressive jerks, all right, mean progressives or Mean Greens, in terms of that and I think that's where they don't have on that type of internal development. They got the politics is right. But the personal orientation is all off and I think we need to be you know, more, we have to have a more robust conversation about that.
Unknown 27:17
So we're gonna close out now, but I just want to briefly say thank you to both of you.
Unknown 27:25
I mean, I really hope we're closing out all the impact of COVID on everything.
Unknown 27:31
But both of you were parts of reading groups that like kept me sane, but also meant I got to hang out with a friend and read other friends. You know what I mean? Like, when I'm reading Bahnhof with Jeff, or reading Cohn with Adam. It's like our third friend that's on a text is there and in lockdown in a country where there's only one person that I knew more than two years I guess at this point, like they're except my family, like the fact that we got to read texts from bankers. I've been reading forever. And then talk about it with a friend has been a sheer joy in the fact that so many people have connected to doing homebrew and reading groups over that time, probably because a lot of them got figured out how to use Zoom just to talk to their family. And then we're like but I'm still bored. And I'm a nerd. So I'll do this, but I, I mean, I feel like one of the reasons I'm saying and Alicia makes jokes about this. Like even tonight. She's like, Oh, good. Now I don't have to like try to listen to your theology lecture, had dinner again.
Unknown 28:52
Go talk to them.
Unknown 28:55
And so it just really is it's been really meaningful to me that view, not just as friends but also conversation partners and then agree to do them. I'm super pumped about the upcoming one. Next week on legacy of James Cohn with Adam and I.
Unknown 29:19
Anyway, I just really appreciate both of you your responses. Have been beautiful.
Unknown 29:24
We got to about 1/4 of the topics I thought we're gonna talk about so I'm sure we could do this again.
Unknown 29:31
But it you know, that I mean, when you said it, Jeff about like how little access you have to community like the one time I've been to a church and this entire lockdown was when I preached it the cathedral. Dear the summer, my parents were here. So my parents were here. I hadn't seen them in forever. And I'm preaching a digital. I didn't know when I started preaching that I was supposed to serve. Community. It was like, you know, super high church angles. And so I didn't even know what I'm supposed to, oh, gosh, I I broke all sorts of rules. And it was clear when people were coming up to me that there was concern on their faces as to if I knew what I was doing, but just in serving communion to people plenty of them probably hadn't received it in forever. As me I just I, I became the awkward Southerner who preached a sermon with jovial stories they probably weren't used to because it was a giant cathedral. And I'm now tearing up that I'm serving the Eucharist. The people that haven't had it forever. And I don't know. I say I only say that just because I think a lot of people it will. Right now where we it was like a lot of things got pushed on the menu. The same time we've had our limbs cut off. And so we're like that, the Black Knight and and Monty Python's quest for the Holy Grail, pretending that it's just a scratch or a flesh wound.
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