The Bible is clear that followers of Jesus are exiles in this world. What exactly does this mean and what does this mean for the way we view our political views and affiliations? How was going to church in the first century a politically subversive act? How was the cross a political image in the Roman world? We’ll answer these questions and more with our guest and friend Dr. Preston Sprinkle around his new book, Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire.


Dr. Preston Sprinkle is a biblical scholar, speaker, podcaster, a New York Times bestselling author, and is the co-founder and president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender. He earned a Ph.D. in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland (2007), and has taught theology at Cedarville University (OH), Nottingham University (U.K.), and Eternity Bible College (CA). He is the author of a dozen books and hosts the bi-weekly podcast, Theology in the Raw.



Episode Transcript

Scott: The Bible is clear that followers of Jesus are exiles in this world, but what exactly does that mean? And what does that mean for the way we review our political views and affiliations? How was going to church in the first century a politically subversive act? How was the cross a political image in the Roman world? We answer these questions more with our guest and friend, Dr. Preston Sprinkle, around his new book, “Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire.” I'm your host, Scott Rae.

Sean: And I'm your co-host, Sean McDowell.

Scott: This is ThinkBiblically from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Preston, welcome, great to have you back with us, and congratulations on this new book coming out.

Preston: Thanks guys, yeah, it's good to be back with you.

Scott: Now this is a departure from what you've written on in the past. I mean, I think you are best known for the writing you've done on sexuality and gender, things like that. This is a change of direction, why so?

Preston: Yeah, it's a great question. I know I'm gonna be getting that question a lot, and I guess I would say prior, well, yeah, I would say the last eight years I've been writing and thinking and speaking primarily on questions around sexuality and gender, but before that, I was interested in many different other topics too, especially during my days of doing a PhD and then teaching in a couple different Christian colleges and just covering lots of different topics and wrestling through lots of issues. So I do have a rather broad palette. It's just got very limited the last several years because of the needs of the church, I think. So yeah, this book represents, I guess, partly my excitement to kind of start thinking and writing more broadly on topics that I really care about. And I would say that this topic, it was something that I probably got interested in it maybe 15 years ago, late 2000s, when I was, yeah, just kind of thinking and rethinking categories and taking categories back to the Bible and cleaning out your closet in the sense of, all these presuppositions I grew up with, how much of them are biblical, how much need to be revisited, reshaped in a lot of the Bible. And kind of politics became wrapped up in a lot of those kind of, that rethinking journey. So this is a category, this is a book I feel like has been mulling around my brain for about 15 years. It's just, I finally got time to put it to paper and see how it goes.

Sean: So talk about how your journey provides the backdrop for this. 'Cause I knew that you had gone to a very conservative, maybe someone described as fundamentalist background, believe that politically. I didn't know you kind of swung to the left and then back to the position you have today. So kind of fill that in a little bit and how that informs this book.

Preston: Yeah, I tell the journey in the first chapter, people can check it out. Yeah, like most evangelicals, raised in a conservative environment that was very Republican only. I remember hearing about a Christian professor on my secular college campus, but then I heard that this Christian professor was a Democrat. And then my mind immediately went, well, he obviously can't be a Christian. Like that's just categorically impossible. And then I heard he actually was a pacifist. And I said, well, for sure can't be a Christian 'cause Christians go and they don't turn into a cheek. They don't love their enemies. So I just had these categories, like I think a lot of us did. And then you start entering into different Christian spaces, meeting Christians who are very clearly committed to Christ and have maybe different political leanings, different views on political issues. And I began to see that this issue is a little bit more complex than it is. So yeah, so I kind of departed from that kind of Republican only Christianity. And I would say, Sean, I never really swung to the other side fully. I just kind of started to resonate with some of the things that, for lack of better terms, more liberal people or progressive people were saying, they cared about immigration. They cared about the poor. They cared about racism, things like that. I think the Bible says something about that too. And so I started resonating with some of the values that were primarily promoted by people on the left. But then I think I quickly started to see the same kind of like tribalism that turned me off from the right. I started to see the exact same thing on the left. And I would say the last 10 years, especially the strange journey I've been on with various theological topics, like I see that more and more and more. They call it the horseshoe theory where fundamentalism on the right and fundamentalism on the left, the further you go across a horseshoe, it ends up looking and smelling and acting almost the same. So that's where I'm like, okay, we need a better way. I don't want to critique the right from the perspective of the left or critique the left from the perspective of the right. I want to look at all these issues through the lens of the kingdom of God as a political identity and be able to kind of measure other political viewpoints against the backdrop of this really profound political identity that we have in Christ.

Sean: There's a couple of big points that jump out to me that I appreciate about this press. You said, number one, let's go first to the scriptures. That should be our basis. Second, at least, you start off at the beginning, you say there's idolatry on the right and there's a political idolatry on the left. Like we can see this, not just on one side. It can be in any political party. Now, the way you frame this, let me push back how somebody on the right might have heard your response. You said you're kind of at a position Republican only, but then you started to care about issues like immigration, care about issues like race, and so resonated with the left. I can imagine someone on the right saying, we care about immigration, we care about race. We just believe there's a better way to get to harmony and goodness for society than the left. Does that make sense? What would you say if somebody pushed back in that fashion?

Preston: I would probably, yeah, I'd probably go back and reword what I said then. Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that. Whether I agree with, whether I think that a more politically right-wing or politically left-wing approach to immigration is more biblical or not. Yeah, I don't wanna say that people on the right don't care about these issues on the, like immigration race and so on. Or the poor, they would say, yeah, no, we, in theory, right, everybody would say we care about the poor. It's just, we think that maybe the welfare system is actually hurting the poor, not helping the poor, but that doesn't mean we don't care about the poor if we think the welfare system is completely broken and bankrupt, so yeah, that's a great point, Sean.

Scott: Yeah, I think we'd say the ends are similar, but the means are different, right, to accomplish those ends. Now, Preston, your book is about the notion of the church being exiles and go back the first century where the first believers were definitely exiles in their own country, but why is this notion of the church being exiles in their own, you know, here on earth so important to understanding who we are politically?

Preston: Yeah, that's a great question, and I try to develop it more just theologically. Like I didn't want to, yeah, I just wanted to look at this theme of exile, which I, you know, you guys know, you guys have studied the Bible for many years, you know, the exile in the biblical storyline was a cataclysmic event. It's a major turning point in the history of God's people. And what I saw many years ago, actually, in my New Testament studies is that this theme of exile sort of lingers in the background of both early Jewish thought and early Christian thought. Even though the language isn't pervasive in the New Testament, you know, you see it in Peter, you kind of see it in Hebrews, and it kind of comes up here and there. It's more of the concept that I think underlies so much of New Testament thought. In fact, one scholar said the entire New Testament was written from the perspective of exile. That's Daniel Smith Christopher. And I think that's actually, yeah, I even quote that phrase in the book. And I think that that's a healthy lens to view things through. So yeah, I just see it and the more I, this is something I saw subtly, just like many years ago, but when I really did, you know, the more hardcore research for the book, I just kept seeing it more and more and more how the political identity of early Christians was separate from, and sometimes, and I would even push it further, say, you know, subversively opposed to the politics of the day. That does not mean we don't care about the world around us. That does not mean we don't even maybe sometimes engage those political systems. That's the critique I think I sometimes get. And I think it's a misunderstanding of what I'm arguing for. I just think we need to be extremely suspicious about the political systems of the day as not simply neutral entities, but at times, at least, demonically influenced, you know, according to the book of Revelation, chapter 13 and other passages. So yeah, I just, I do want to cultivate some more, I guess I would say to see one's Christian identity as not just simply a spiritual identity existing happily alongside your political identity, but your Christian identity is a spiritual and political identity that is an opposition to the kingdoms of the world. And the best way we can serve the world, it actually helped those kingdoms is by seeing ourselves as distinct from them.

Sean: You talk about the idea of God and country, which is gonna get a lot of people thinking. I imagine you'll get some pushback on that. But when I hear the term like God and country, I think of my grandpa who served in World War II, just faithful businessman, was not a Christian nationalist remotely in the sense of when people think the promises to Israel like apply to America. Like sometimes even that term Christian nationalist is so broad that anybody who loves their country and is a Christian gets thrown in that bucket. Like he's not a Christian nationalist in that sense, but just had deep patriotism, loved his country, loved some of the biblical ideas, wetted in at least the idea of the American experiment. So talk to us a little bit about when you say the God and country ideology cuts against the grain of scripture. What do you mean by the God and country ideology? How does it cut against the grain of scripture? And what falls for Christians in terms of patriotism?

Preston: That's a great question, Sean. We can spend the rest of time unpacking this 'cause it is so sensitive. I've got many family members who serve in the military. And again, for most of my life, I would have been, well, at least half of my Christian life, a very God and country person. I often say that if I wasn't a Christian, I would be the most patriotic person ever. Like I remember getting chills down my spine, watching military commercials. I value hard work and ambition and I don't like evil. And I'm naturally a very violent person. I don't think people don't really realize that. Like I have to keep that at bay because of my Christian faith. If I was in a Christian, I would be, oh man, I've had so many flags out in front of my front lawn. So I get it, like I get that draw. I guess I wanna, I'll try to be brief here except for the sake of time, but questions like that, I always wanna broaden my scope and say, okay, my primary and ultimate in all controlling identity is I am a member in God's global multi-ethnic kingdom.

Sean: Amen.

Preston: Which is, I would say is a political entity, if you define politics according to just kind of its basic definition. We have viewpoints on sharing resources. We have views of leadership. We have views of immigration and citizenship and who can come in and on what grounds they come into this policy, this city, this community. So we have a very, it's a very kind of political entity. So if somebody wants to have a God and country kind of perspective where they love God, they also love their country, they serve God, serve their country, which again, we kind of even need to unpack what we mean by that. I wanna say, okay, at least we need to be able to equally apply that to all members in God's global kingdom. And we saw this in World War I, right? Where you have people on one side of the battle line with a God and country perspective, fighting other people on the other side of the line who also had a God and country perspective. In fact, that famous scene in, is it all quiet on the Western front? You had German Christians and American Christians or the allies, Western Christians, whatever, taking a break on Christmas Day to celebrate their mutual Lord and Savior. And each side was singing, ♪ Silent night ♪ And the other side they heard, ♪ See, like, nach ♪ And it's like, what are we doing here? Could we at least raise the question that our allegiance to our country, the, I don't know if you use the terms of Revelation, the dragon empowered beast, is our allegiance to that beast, has that actually stunted or co-opted our allegiance to King Jesus? I just at least want to raise the question whether our God and country perspective, the countryside of that kind of love has, in subtle ways, maybe co-opted our allegiance to Christ. And we can see many examples of that. So if Christians in America are okay with Sudanese Christians having a God and country perspective, then at least I would say, that's consistent. I just don't think, I think God and country is kind of like, America's basically the best nation. Everybody else is kind of like, not as good. And we're the good guys, they're the bad guys. And that's when I've just done enough peeking behind a curtain, especially in like American foreign policy to say, it's a little more complicated than that. Like, I don't know, there's, I just want to be, yeah, not naive and just kind of believe all the talking points of, you know, the nation that we live under too, so.

Scott: Well Preston, I can hear some of our listeners pushing back a bit and saying, you know, it's different. You know, equating, you know, modern liberal democracies to the beast and revelation, as opposed to, I think what was intended there was that, I was comparing that to the Roman Empire being completely totalitarian, you know, hardly any respect for human rights. Maybe more analogous to some of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the 20th century, who had abysmal human rights records. But that, I mean, I could see there's a big difference between the Roman Empire in the first century and most of the liberal democracies in the West. How would you respond to that?

Preston: That's a great question. And I do make it clear, I don't think it's healthy to like perfectly map Rome, the Roman Empire, onto America, okay? So I, and I, to be honest, like I already admit, probably like early on in my kind of political journey, I probably did that to half-hazardly and didn't take into account the areas of the Roman Empire that were vastly different than America, probably due to time, I mean, just, you know, existed 2,000 years ago, culture, and also maybe the nature of their rule and so on. So I would also say, I guess my challenge to that challenge would say I do wanna appreciate the ways in which they are quite similar. And even theologically, and this is, I'm gonna get annoying in constantly doing this, not to you guys, but like, I think what people ask me about this, I just constantly wanna bring it back to the text of scripture and say, like for instance, Revelation 13, where we have this really pretty scathing, powerful description of the Roman Empire being described as a beast. And the first few verses there, he sees the beast and describes it as like a leopard and a lion and a bear, and he's clearly alluding to the book of Daniel that described different empires, you know, there's debates about which ones, probably Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Rome. Those are, you know, these beasts represent different empires throughout the history of God's people, but John, in describing the Roman Empire, collapses them all into one entity. And it's almost like he's saying that empire is empire is empire, you know, like this current beast is Rome's different than Persia, and Persia's different than Assyria and Babylon's, but they all have this imperial quality that make them sort of the same thing. And Richard Bauckham, a Revelation scholar, says the point of Revelation is not to say Rome is the only beast, Rome is the only imperial problem, if the shoe fits, then wear it. If people act like Babylon, if people act like Rome, then they're subject to the same critique. And here's where I would say that while the United States of America does not, you know, self-identify, well, depends on who you ask, let's just say it does not typically self-identify as an empire. It does have, you know, several empire-like qualities. I mean, you can just take the example of, what is it? 350 military bases in 80 different countries or something. Like that's empire-like, or even the economic sway that the United States has over most of the world. Like that is an imperial quality, where your power is extending beyond your borders. And so I do think that while America, the United States of America can't be perfectly mapped onto Rome, I do think there's enough similarities of the imperial qualities of the Roman empire and the imperial qualities of the American empire-like, you know, nation, that we should at least take the book of Revelation and other passages, maybe a bit more theologically seriously. In fact, if you look at the, you know, the scathing prophetic critique of Rome in Revelation 17:18, where it talks about the sexual immorality, it talks about the excessive luxury, it talks about the oppression of the underclass, it talks a lot about economic sins. There's so, I mean, I read that and it's like, if there is a nation today that would sort of reflect that kind of critique, it has to be America. Maybe, you know, I'm sure there's other nations that could fit too, but, you know, the influx of luxury and wealth into one nation, I think a lot of Christians just see that as a neutral or a good thing. Let's make America wealthy, you know, I said that's a potshot on the right, but like, I think we need to be suspicious about that. Like, I'm nervous about, you know, getting sucked up in the vortex of a nation pursuing excessive wealth at all costs. Like, where's that coming from? Are other countries, you know, being hurt by that? Are other people around the world benefiting from our excessive wealth? Like, I think these are bigger empire-like questions that I want to at least wrestle with. So I'm getting off on a tangent probably.

Scott: But yeah, and I think that, you know, part of the response to that comes from my economics background too, is we had two really dramatically different economic systems where in the ancient world, it was really difficult for people to become wealthy without that being at somebody else's or some other group's expense. And the notion of doing well financially and doing good in the pursuit of that at the same time in the ancient world, as you know, was really difficult to do. That's different in most market-based systems, which again are not perfect, but are dramatic improvements to the zero-sum economic arrangement that existed in the first century, among other things. So let's go back to the text for a minute. You talked about how, you know, going to church in the New Testament era was a politically subversive act. And that the cross was actually a political symbol. What do you mean by those? And help us understand the implications of that.

Preston: Yeah, good question. And just go back to your last point, Scott. Like I wanna readily admit that I don't wanna get beyond my skis on stuff I don't know about. So yeah, in terms of like economic policy and comparing the two, like there's gonna be areas where I'm gonna say, you know what, I'm gonna, I don't know where, you know, I'm wandering an area that I just don't know about. I just wanna go back to kind of the foundations and think, how should we think politically and theologically about these questions from the text of scripture? So thank you, yeah, I appreciate you pointed that out. Yeah, so to your question, the very term church, ecclesia, it was a somewhat loaded political term. Like this was not invented by Christians. This was something that goes all the way back to well, the city of Athens. Like an ecclesia was a gathering of Athenians that discussed political issues of civic life. Even in the Roman world, they also talked about these kind of like civic gatherings as ecclesia. And so when the Christians came along and called themselves an ecclesia, you know, I do think they also saw their communal gathering as having a civic quality or as Aristotle and others often talked about, like they would talk about the palace, the city and talk about what does a well-run city look like? Well, I think Christians were asking a lot of the same questions. You know, what does it mean to care for our poor? What does it mean to, what does leadership look like? What does it mean? How do we respond to attacks from the outside and so on and so forth? So I think from the very terminology that early Christians use, they were identifying and in many ways celebrating the political quality of the early church. And what's interesting is, you know, the Roman empire, it was quite tolerant of other religions. Like they didn't really care who you worshiped as long as you would kind of, you know, pay some homage to the Roman gods as long as you weren't too subversive, you know, they didn't really care who you worship, what you did in your private spiritual life or whatever, but they did care about giving allegiance to the empire. They did care about your patriotism. That was kind of the big sticking point. And there were some early like religious gatherings, you know, trying to think of, I'm blanking on a couple of names. These are the kinds of mystery cults. They were kind of viewed as politically subversive and the empire is kind of like, you know, raise a suspicious eye towards them. And they did the same thing towards Christians. We see this in the book of Acts in Acts 17. And it's probably the most blatant passage where Paul goes in and preaches the gospel and he preaches it in such a way that, you know, people were like, wait, either way you're preaching Jesus as Lord means that, you know, this is like contrary to the decrees of Caesar. They saw it as kind of a politically subversive message. And I think it, I want to say it kind of was. The book of Acts in particular, and Kevin Rowe points this out and others that, you know, they didn't break any laws. They never broke a law. They were good citizens, but they did sort of subvert a lot of the claims of the empire in the very manner in which they held onto their allegiance towards Christ. And then, you know, Acts 17 is a perfect example of how they interpreted the message through a kind of a political lens. So I'm getting off track again, Scott. What was your original question? I want to make sure I answered it. The ecclesia piece was kind of the main answer.

Scott: By the way, I just sort of ironic the national meeting for my college fraternity that was held every year when I'm in college was called the Ecclesia.

Preston: Oh, yeah. That's funny.

Scott: And they didn't have the courtesy to pronounce it correctly. So just say a little bit briefly about how the cross was a political image.

Preston: The cross, I mean, the first century crucifixion, which I believe was invented, there's debates about this by the Persians, but the Roman empire really ran with crucifixion. It was a demonstration of imperial power. Yes, it inflicted excruciating horrific pain. And it absolutely was a way to shame the criminal that they were crucifying, you know, and their family and anybody associated with this criminal was put to shame through this, you know, this displaying their naked body on a cross publicly. And they would always crucify people in public places to kind of, you know, expand upon that shame. But it was also like, it was also a piece of propaganda. It was a way of showing the world just how powerful Rome is and what happens if you threaten the legitimacy of the rule of Rome. Most people who were crucified were not just really, really bad criminals. They were insurrectionists, but they threaten the claims of the empire. And this is a way of, you know, Rome just advertising and how powerful they are. And so what's so, I guess I could say beautiful, theologically about just the very crucifixion as a central piece in the Christian narrative is that here Christ submits to this very violent act of the empire and just turns it inside out. And throughout the book of Revelation, you see that this crucified lamb by being a lamb is the means by which he conquers the beast. And so it just turns off, it just flips the whole script on its head where weakness and suffering and submission is now power. It's the way we conquer the empire. The way we conquer, sorry, to conquer the beast and conquer evil in the world is through Christian means, not through the means of the empire.

Sean: Preston, let me ask you to flush something out for me. The impression I get from listening to your podcast and I’ve read a lot of your books, I know you like to like make people think outside of the box, challenge their ideas, not always give specifics in a sense, but make people rethink their political commitments, their allegiances back at scripture. I think that's a lot of what you're driving people to do. So whether the left or the right, you're asking questions, we all need to think through, given our greatest allegiance. Flush this out for you though, maybe in kind of an American context, I think there's some people that clearly fall into the trap that you're talking about, making politics an idol, making it above or equal to their identity in Christ. But what about the person who just says, maybe they're the left or the right, they go, my allegiance is to Christ. But I think politics is the way I vote, the candidates I support, is a way of loving my neighbor and like Jeremiah 29, building good cities, so to speak. What does it look like for somebody to practically not have ultimate allegiance to a political party, but to care about and have thought through strategically based on a range of issues, whether gun control, immigration, life, marriage, and had their allegiance ultimately in Christ, but care about politics and advance what they think is for the public good. What would that look like as you see it practically played out?

Preston: So Sean, what I appreciate so much about that question is my initial response is, I'm not sure, help me think through that. And this is where my book is, 90% Bible, and 10% me very cautiously teasing out and exploring and wrestling with questions like that, like, okay, what does this ultimately look like? And in many ways, I just told somebody yesterday, I feel like my book is almost like a prolegomena to these kinds of conversations. And I purposely did not want to, yeah, maybe there's a part two when I iron this out a bit more in terms of practical applications. So let me just give you some thoughts, and they truly are thoughts. Josh Butler has a book coming out, same day as mine, actually on politics. It's different than mine, but has a similar viewpoint. And he talks about a lean versus a bow. Let's take, like, leanings can be good. Political leanings can be really good. In fact, he would say they're extremely healthy. Like, it's good to have different leanings in the same space so we can learn from each other. But once that lean turns into a bow, and now you're, you know, lean towards this political side or that political side or this political issue, that political issue, if that turns into a bow where it's now a allegiance, where you are just, you know, I would say in a very unhealthy way, supporting a political party in a way that is actually practically diluting your allegiance to Jesus. One example of, that would be a bow, and that would be unhealthy. One example I see in my own life is, I just, I've become so much more aware of how powerful the ideological machines are that are driving each political party. And this is Josh and I just had a conversation yesterday about this. I said, here's my nervousness, my suspicion, is that the political parties, they don't want your lean. They don't, they want your bow. And there are profound things at work to try to change your lean into your bow. When I listen to partisan news outlets, I mean, I leave with, I could listen for five minutes of either sentence is equally on both sides. I can name some, but I, you know, I should rather not get distracting, but you know, when I listen to the one is clearly partisan, I am so fired up to destroy my enemy. Who's my enemy? Somebody on the other political side. Could be another believer. Could be somebody I'm sitting next to in church. Could be a believer that just lost their son to cancer. And because they voted differently than, you know, said political pundit that I just listened to five seconds ago, you know, like, I'm just not, I'm not, my heart isn't like, I want to love my neighbor. I want to love my enemy even. It's like, no, that person's an idiot. And you know, I'm going to destroy them, their arguments, whatever. Like it's just, it just fosters this us versus them spirit, and I find it in my own heart and I'm profoundly aware of that, you know, to take somebody that just is drinking from the steady drip of one side of political aisle that is designed to grab your heart on so many levels. I mean, millions and millions and millions of dollars invested in getting you to click and keep clicking and keep clicking and suck you into this vortex of political allegiance. And so I just, I just want Christians to be at least, at the very least, very suspicious of the underlying powers at work. They don't just want your lean, they want your bow. Having said all that, yeah, if you're like, you know what? At the end of the day, I think this Babylonian leader is going to be a better leader for Babylon than fine, cast your vote. Somebody else might disagree and say, no, actually think this other Babylonian leader is going to be a better leader. And I would hope that we can have that conversation over bread and wine. And at the end of the day, just rejoice in our fellowship that's been blood bought at the cross. So we all know from 2020 and 2016 that just practically churches were divided and destroyed in so many ways over these political divisions. So I think that's just proof enough that I think more Christians are bowing even if they think they're just simply leaning.

Sean: Preston, this is Biola, we have grape juice, not wine, just for the record. (laughing) Couldn't resist, Scott, go ahead, man.

Preston: Yeah. I was hung out with too many Biola profs to know that that's questionable.

Sean: Uh oh, we're gonna have to cut this.

Scott: Actually, that's why I’m an Anglican. (laughing) Yeah, I guess one more question, Preston. And I think it's really important for our listeners to recognize that we're all making a distinction between political and partisan. Now those are two different things. And politics is really nothing more, as Aristotle put it, than how we order our life together.

Preston: Sure.

Scott: You know, economics is just the way we share the burdens and benefits of how we order our life together. And I think the upshot of that is that politics is understood that way, is fundamentally a moral enterprise. And therefore, I think it's appropriate for people who are men and women of faith to weigh into that and to bring their spiritual convictions to bear on how we order our lives together. 'Cause that's a really important part of this. And we've also said repeatedly that no political platform is gonna be perfect. And the reason for that is because no political platform was written with biblical fidelity as its goal. So there's gonna be holes everywhere. And nothing is gonna measure up perfectly to the measuring stick of Scripture. But I think one of the questions that I think troubles a lot of folks is that there's some things that I think we would all agree are what we would call structural evils that really demand changes in the law in order to affect change. What's the church's responsibility in addressing those kinds of evils? You know, like human trafficking, for example. They seem, they just beg for changes in the law and law enforcement and a political party that's in power to actually do something about that in order to affect a change.

Preston: It's a great question. And I'm gonna go back to what I said earlier about here's where I love to just kind of think out loud and explore and not make any definitive claim. I would begin by saying, I want the church as a political entity to embody the very good that we are seeking to see in the world. You mentioned, you know, trafficking, one that I've thought about often. And I know you've thought about it way before, I have Scott, is abortion, you know. Here's one where I think it's extremely valid for Christians to oppose certain laws that allow for abortion that we would consider immoral. You know, it is, you know, we would all say, it is the termination of a human life. It is, it is a, yeah, it is in of itself, an immoral act and it is the height of injustice. And this is where, I'm making some people mad maybe, listen, but I mean, when people are so concerned about justice, justice, justice and oppression of innocent people and all this stuff, but then when they're like not opposing abortion, I'm like, I just, it's hard for me to take that seriously. It's like, come on, like, how could you like, be all for the oppression of innocent people and then be for abortion? Like, this doesn't make sense to me. You know, I think it has to do with probably a lot of partisan allegiance and checking off all the boxes that's been handed to you of what you must sign off on. So I think, yeah, here's a political involvement that I think there's a healthy Christian way to go about it. It could be very good, but I also want to turn around and say, well, how is the church actually embodying our values in this area? 'Cause according to the studies, one study showed in the 2015 Life Way study that 70% of women that get abortion are Christians. I think a smaller percentage of those are evangelical Christians who don't believe it's morally right. And then you start asking some questions. It's like, well, if I had to baby at 18, I would be so shamed out of my Christian community, my family, so it's just easier to just go get an abortion, even though I don't think it's right. It's like, well, wait a minute, why do we have so much shame surrounding, like, let's keep digging back to layers and layers and need to find out that 25% of women in our pews, according to one statistic, have had an abortion. And again, out of, they didn't want to, but it was like they either couldn't afford the baby or they were scared of the shame or whatever. They knew they'd be dragged out and kicked out of the church and it was kind of like, what do they do? So it's like, okay, yes, let's oppose abortion laws, but let's also look to our own political entity and say, what are we doing to help maybe foster an environment where single moms could actually make the decision towards life and not towards death? There's an amazing ministry called Embrace Grace out of Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas, that is really focusing on that kind of church piece. It's not, it may be some political stuff, but it's primarily saying, how can we help churches cultivate an environment where women can choose life and not death, even if they did make a mistake sexually? So that's where I wanna say, yes, and it's not an either or, it's a both and, right? So I wanna say, yes, let's address issues in our society. Let's make sure we're first embodying the very kind of societal good that we want to see in the society around us. And this is where I just, unfortunately, I see the church lacking in that. Racial issues is another one, like addressing racial issues if you're in a church that has no little or no manifestation of like racial reconciliation. It's like, well, what are we doing? Like we have the resources, we have the Spirit of God within us. We have Ephesians 2 and many other passages that talk about ethnic reconciliation. We should, as a Paulist, as a community, embody in the very thing we want to see in society, not just engage in society and then just go into church on Sunday, if that makes sense.

Sean: It does. Preston, one more question for you. I gotta be honest, I somewhat hesitated to ask this 'cause it opens up a huge can of worms, but I also know you well that you invite tough questions and wanna have these kinds of conversations. So I could imagine somebody saying, okay, you've been in favor of using preferred pronouns for somebody and referring to people with same-sex attraction as gay and lesbian, using terminology that some people would say come from culture and comes from the empire, so to speak. And yet, when it comes to political, like Democrat or Republican, don't use that kind of language because it comes from the empire. Am I, is this an unfair question? Am I missing something embedded in it? Why one and not the other?

Preston: First of all, Sean, I absolutely love the question and I absolutely thrive on good, solid pushback, especially from somebody who's making a good faith like you are, so no, no, I don't just allow it. I crave that, so thank you for that.

Sean: Awesome, I thought so.

Preston: I don't know if I've heard it framed in the exact same way. I do have a short section of the book on using political pronouns, we, our, to refer to our national identity. Like I kind of push back in the notion that Christians should ever say our troops because the kingdom of God doesn't have troops, unless you wanna think like missionaries or something. Or hourly, I pray to my leader for the leaders of the nation that I happen to be born into, just like my Guatemalan friends would pray for their leader and unite around our common leader, Jesus Christ. So my initial thought, Sean, when you're saying that, it does feel a little bit like apples and oranges, I think. If somebody said, I am a Democrat, and somebody else said, I am gay, I would want to, and they're both Christians, I would equally want to, in good faith and relationship with genuine curiosity, kind of interrogate that. I think some claims of I am a Democrat could be unhealthy. And I would say, I think there's an identity, I think your identity there might be getting in the way of your discipleship toward Jesus. And Sean, I would say the exact same thing to where someone said, I am gay. I am not, despite what you might read online, I am not like, I do not passionately promote or even really advocate for same-sex attractive people calling themselves gay. I'm just okay if somebody means that term as a simple synonym for same-sex attraction and their life is demonstrating that that word gay is not usurping their ultimate allegiance to Jesus. I would say the exact same towards somebody that says I'm a Democrat, what do you mean by that? And if you're like, well, I'm registered Democrat, I see lots of problems with Democratic Party, but at the end of the day, I think they get more things right than the Republican Party, but whatever. Maybe in five years, I might be a Republican if things change or whatever, but that's just kind of where I'm at now. It's like, that's a really low level, quote unquote, identity. Somebody else might say I'm a Democrat and it's like clearly their life is demonstrating that their allegiance to the Democratic Party is usurping their allegiance to Jesus. So yeah, I think I would treat them equally. Even the pronoun piece, that's kind of a more complicated. I think that's complicated on different levels, but yeah, hopefully that's good enough to

Sean: Yeah, that's great. That's helpful.

Scott: I think we'll save the pronoun discussion for another time. When we have a lot more time. Hey, Preston, it's been a good conversation. And you're our friend and we feel like we have the liberty to push back on things where we think it's appropriate. I appreciate your willingness to entertain those questions. And we wanna suggest our listeners consider your book, "Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire." It's got a lot to think about. It is, as you say, like 90% in the biblical text. And so it's very solidly biblical. And some of the places where you sort of dabble in some of the application of that, I think is room for additional conversation that can be very fruitful along the way. So really appreciate you being with us. And as always, we appreciate your good work.

Preston: Well, thank you guys. Yeah, and I absolutely love the nature of talking to guys about this and love, love, you know, iron, sharpening iron. So thank you guys for being honest and super intelligent.

Scott: This has been an episode of the podcast, Think Biblically, Conversations on Faith and Culture. Brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University offering programs in Southern California and online, including in our Institute for Spiritual Formation. Visit biola.edu/talbot in order to learn more. To submit comments, ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to consider, you can email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. That's thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation with our friend Preston Sprinkle, give us a rating on your podcast app and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening. And remember, think biblically about everything.