On this second episode focusing on the upcoming Presidential election, we look at how Christians act during an election. I talk with Drew McIntyre about his recent article called “Sanctimony or Sanctification? John Wesley’s voting advice for today.”
Drew is the Pastor at Grace United Methodist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina and a host of the God and Whiskey Podcast.
Suggested Reading and Listening:
Sanctimony or Sanctification article
Related Episodes:
The Aftermath of the United Methodist General Conference with Drew McIntyre | Episode 187
Does Election Day Communion Still Matter? with Andrew Camp | Episode 207
Election Year Christianity with Doug Skinner | Episode 201
Beyond the Purple Church with Jack Haberer | Episode 194
The Cross and the Ballot with Joshua Gritter | Episode 182
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[0:07] Music.
[0:31] Hello, and welcome to Church in Maine, a podcast for people interested in seeing where faith, politics, and culture intersect. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. So this is the second episode focusing on the upcoming presidential election. I am recording this on Sunday evening, so we are less than 24 hours or less than 48 hours away from election Day. And this past week, I was checking out things on Facebook and noticed an article by my friend Drew McIntyre that was titled, Sanctimony or Sanctification, John Wesley's Voting Advice for Today. In that article, Drew draws from a writing from John Wesley about how Christians should act during elections. And it's advice that I think is sorely needed for today. So, whether or not you've voted yet, I think that this is timely advice for followers of Jesus. A little bit about Drew. He is a frequent guest to this podcast. He is the pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. And he is also one of the hosts of the God and Whiskey podcast.
[1:50] Every time that Drew has been on the podcast, it's always been a fascinating
[1:54] conversation. and this one is no different. So I hope that you will enjoy this and join me as I talk with Drew McIntyre on advice for voting from John Wesley.
[2:07] Music.
[2:26] Hey, Drew, it is good to have you back on the podcast to talk about the election. Good to be with you, Dennis. Always a pleasure. I'm ready for the election to be over, but I'm always happy to talk to you. I can imagine, especially since you're living in a swing state, you're probably getting inundated with a lot of stuff. Yes. Yeah, I even made a joke in, I started off Sunday in my sermon talking about my least favorite phrase in the English language. And I said, it's not swing state, but swing state is up there. I guess I'm tired of being in a swing state. Yeah, we're getting inundated from all quarters. And yeah, it's a first world problem, but there are days I would like to live in a not swing state. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, I wanted to talk to you, because I saw your article in Ministry Matters, where you talked, you wrote an article called Sanctimony or Sanctification, and it's kind of using, something that you found from John Wesley to kind of talk about our current political situation, and I thought that would be something that's helpful for people to hear as we're getting closer and closer to Election Day.
[3:48] My first question about this was, what led you to write this? What was the impetus that led you to write this article?
[3:56] Yeah, this, among United Methodists, Wesley's kind of three-pronged voting advice from 1774 gets posted fairly widely around election seasons. I'm not seeing it as much this year. I'm not sure why that is, but it's been kind of in the water for a long time. So I certainly didn't discover this. But I'd never seen any sustained reflection on it. Um and i was curious to see if there was an article in it so i got a kick out of kind of trying to take a deep dive into it look at it um now what's funny is um we've spoken before about some articles i've done on firebrand i'm on the editorial editorial board for firebrand which is kind of a pan wesleyan online magazine i originally drafted this for firebrand and then And I found out after I'd sent it in to the editors that they had just published a piece the week before on the same topic. Someone else had written a piece for Firebrand on Wesley's Voting Advice, which I made a point then of not reading because I didn't want it to inform me as I finished mine. So it could be better. It could be the same. I don't know. I'm sure it's good. It was in Firebrand. But thankfully, the folks at Ministry Matters, which is a resource by our publishing house, wanted to publish it. And I was glad for that. It's been a while since I've published with them, and they have good stuff.
[5:22] My one endorsement, my one comment on the post right now, which is funny, is Adam Hamilton telling me that it was a good post. So if you're going to have one comment, at least it's Adam. In Methodist world, that's a big deal. That is a big deal. So Adam thinks it's a good piece. so your viewers should read it. But yeah, I just never seen any sustained reflection on it, and I thought it was very salient for the season. His advice about sort of –.
[5:51] How to guard your heart, how to maintain your spiritual disciplines, your love of neighbor, your love of God in the midst of a contested election seems very relevant to our American context right now in 2024 election season. You know, there's something in that article that you shared there from G.K. Chesterton, and he had that quip of loving our enemies and our neighbors because they're basically the same people. Yeah. And the thing about that, this sounds so cynical these days, because I look at things like that, and it's like, oh, it's so nice when we actually believe that. Because it feels like it's so hard these days for us to actually see that anymore. And I mean, why is it so hard for us to not see that our neighbors and our enemies can be the same people? I mean, we talk about loving our neighbors so much and loving our enemies so much, but we're not really good at living that out, at least not so much lately.
[7:09] Yeah you know i i think there's a really increased the extent to which for especially a lot of younger people but increasingly all of us our primary community is a digital community and so our neighbors in written our neighbors in terms of people we communicate with the most become strangers i think that's a piece of it um we're we're more and more siloed off you know one of the gifts of our various technologies is that we can find our tribe no matter how unusual or dorky or how you know out there uh positive or negatively it is and so i think increasingly.
[7:56] Many of us if not most of us in american society especially younger folks are increasingly, only around people who are like us and so this this concept that you know there are good people on the other side that disagree with us becomes less and less plausible is my suspicion um what do you what do you think about that i think that there's a lot to that and i'm one of the people i don't like to always i mean i think these days we want to kind of blame social media for everything yeah but i also think that there is some truth to it too so i think our communities have become.
[8:41] More um the same especially digital communities and in some ways they're not really people that you know um yeah it's it's basically people that you what you have in common is that you hate the same people um which is not really helpful and so you don't really get to know um people it's, i'm actually it's i i found this fascinating because i'm part of this group um it's called the iowa preachers project which is it's part of something sponsored by um if you're familiar with Mockingbird Ministries, and it's a Lutheran college in Des Moines that's also part of it. It's a Lily Grant thing. And so they bring together 10 pastors from across the nation to come together. What's been fascinating about that group is that it's people from, across the religious spectrum. So you have people who are from more mainline context, but people from, I would say, more evangelical or conservative context. So you have myself and another person who are both one gay and one lesbian. And then there's also a person that's a pastor from the Wisconsin Synod Lutheran.
[10:09] And we're all in the same group together. And there's something kind of actually cool about that. I mean, it can be a bit hesitant, but I think it's also cool because you have to deal with each other. I mean, you can't just kind And I think too often we kind of go off into our little places and talk about each other, but we don't know how to live together.
[10:37] And it's too easy these days to not really have to deal with other people, even though in reality we kind of have to if we want our society to work. But sometimes i think the like digital community kind of makes us think we don't have to deal with one another yeah yeah i i very much very much agree um and it's you know it's easy right the reason it happens because it's easy that way there's there's less friction uh but then it turns out if um if we don't build those skills uh then it's actually very hard to empathize with those are different from us and um and you know and our our parties the political parties are homogenous now in ways that it used to be right there yeah they are there used to be liberal republicans and more conservative democrats and now it seems like all these categories have gotten much more ossified and i think it's even the same in our churches i mean our churches are are all either very conservative or very liberal. And in some cases, we want them that way. And I don't know, I grew up in the 70s thinking, at least back then, that we all want to be different. Of course, that was back then when we were talking about things like race.
[12:05] But it seems like the same thing still holds, that being all the same is kind of boring. But, but I don't think we believe that anymore. Um, we see sameness as kind of a safety.
[12:20] And I think certainly in terms of church, if you look at like church growth strategies and how do you draw a big crowd, you know, branding yourself to clarify that you're on this side or you're on this team is one way to, you know, have a clear message and avoid some of that mess. So we're going to be, I mean, you know, you read stuff about Christian nationalism,
[12:42] like I read Tim Alberta's book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. And there are people that very clearly, you know, they post 2016, 2020, they planted MAGA churches and they draw big crowds. And, you know, not that it's the same, but a similar move. there are churches as we both know in mainline denominations that that wear all of the accoutrement of the political left and you know this is our team and come join our team.
[13:15] Yeah i i'm no i'm not gonna say what i'm close to saying something that could put me in trouble with, people so i'm just not gonna say yes yes i'm just gonna hold back we're i'm doing a sermon series at my church now called purple church where uh based on and my conference put out some resources along these lines but in our united methodist context we just went through this big schism you and i've talked about that before yeah where a lot of our most conservative.
[13:46] Congregations left um but they did they've done studies after that that our churches are still very much purple still very much a mix of red and blue there's certainly fewer conservative clergy now, but our local churches are still a mix of people. And, you know, churches I've served have all been a mix, you know, maybe different kinds of mixes, but a mix. And so how do we, and I think I thought part of why this was apropos for our situation is in our, in the UMC context, in my local church, in most of our denominations, we are a mix of people. And if we're going to, you know, as of the language I use in this, have hardened hearts towards the other side, Like, well, that's the person that's next to us in the pew. That's the person that's serving us communion. That's the person that's in our Sunday school class. You know, I think it's a really dangerous habit of mind and habit of soul for followers of Jesus because we are not all of one party. Thanks be to God.
[14:48] Yep. But, you know, I guess, you know, the thing kind of coming back to this with Wesley, because he had all these different pieces of advice.
[15:02] And one of the things that he kind of, I think you just talked about it, is that sense of. Not really having hatred towards someone who votes differently from you.
[15:19] And that's something that we don't have these days, but I think it would be kind of cool to set up the situation of what was he, what was his context and how is it so similar to where we're at today? Yeah, yeah, I could talk more about that. I won't read everything and it's in the piece, but this was, it's something, the three pieces of advice come from his journal from 1774. He kept pretty detailed, extensive journals about his ministry, his traveling, preaching, his oversight of the Methodist societies in Britain, et cetera.
[15:53] So this was later in his life in 1774. And it's in Bristol. And he's meeting with Methodists at the societies of Bristol. And Bristol had a particularly acrimonious parliamentary election that year. For those who were into political philosophy, Edmund Burke was up for election from Bristol that year, which was interesting, kind of historically. But there were sort of factions within, you know, particular sides. And there was fighting between the different sides and there was disagreement over how to handle foreign entanglements, in particular the growing situation with the U.S. colonies because it's 1774. So, you know, contentious election, infighting within groups and between groups and disagreements over foreign policy, right? That doesn't sound all that different from where we're at. And different religious groups voted for different people.
[16:57] The poor voted for this person. The wealthy merchants voted for this person. So really not that different from our context. That's why when I researched it a little bit, because I've never really known the context myself,
[17:08] like, oh, this is even more relevant to our situation than I was aware. Because I've always just seen the three pieces of advice and not heard the story behind it. And what you were naming, the third piece of advice is take care of their spirits. We're not sharp, but against those that voted on the other side. I mean, you could write that today and it would be just as relevant, you know. So the fact that it's over 200 years old and still very much applies, if not even more so, I thought was pretty, pretty interesting to get into. And, you know, second piece of advice is speak no evil of the person you vote against. And we might not have any late night talk shows if we if we did that. Your podcasts no no yeah there would not be a whole lot to talk about if you couldn't speak any evil and i think you you share something that i um i've actually begun doing and i was for uh with a i got this from a mentor of mine is um.
[18:07] Praying actually for the presidential candidates, um, which is not easy, but I think it's important to do that because it's important to one, they are in need of our prayers. Um, and two, I think that that's important because it's, you know, we're, we're called to pray for people and, And, you know, I think it's too easy at times for us to just kind of pretend that we don't have to do that. And it's important. And I'm hoping it also gets conveyed the message to the congregation that this matters, even if it's hard to do that.
[18:54] Sure. Well, and, you know, you're only going to build that muscle if you practice it, right? And of course, it's going to be hard at first, but that's the whole point of spiritual disciplines is that they get easier over time. They become second nature, you know, the whole kind of virtue ethic idea. Yeah, I think it's hugely important. You know, I think I posted something not long ago when I said it to my church, too, that, you know, the person you're voting for and the person you're voting against are both made in God's image and loved by God every bit as much as you are. And you may not like that. You may find that difficult, but that's, you know, I think I often say that I'm very grateful that God is more gracious than I am.
[19:44] Well, this is actually one of the things that I'm also curious about. And I think because I think what it seems like Wesley was trying to get at in some ways is how do Christians act spiritually?
[19:58] During times of elections um and you know you could look back at how elections were the, 1700s and 1800s and they were pretty brutal um probably as in some cases as brutal as they were now or and probably even more so in some cases um but how how do you think that the church Why do you think in some ways has the church failed in some ways to really teach Christians how best to act during election season?
[20:37] And the reason I bring that up is that something that I saw going around maybe in the fall was someone shared something from, it must have been from maybe the magazine for the Assemblies of God in 1984. And it had this whole list of how people should act and how they should be voting and not to confuse being a Christian with a political party and all of this. But we don't talk about that today. I mean, we may talk about which issue is how Christians should vote on this issue, but we don't really act about how they should act. Why do you think that is?
[21:23] I don't know you know he's i think i've never written this up but i need to at some point but one of my, ongoing theses about church life is that in general american protestants lack ecclesiology, we lack the actual theology of the church um in a way that you know roman catholics and orthodox clearly have very well-developed, deep ecclesiologies of what the Church is and why it matters, why it's sacred and distinct from the world. Whereas Protestants, generally, we tend to approach...
[22:08] The church as, you know, sort of a spiritual club for like-minded people. It's just, it's one more voluntary activity that we get to do. I saw someone wrote something up on, you know, these days church is not competing with other churches. We're competing with other leisure activities, right? Church is just one more voluntary activity that we may or may not do. I think a lot of Christians approach it that way. I think when there's, when there's not a functioning ecclesiology of what the church is and why it matters.
[22:42] The gap that gets filled, the gap that fills that, what fills that gap rather is ideology and politics so that we become primarily, I think a lot of Protestants are primarily, I'm a Republican or a Democrat or I'm a whatever, a MAGA or a progressive or a libertarian, whatever, you name it. I'm that, and that's my primary identity, whether explicitly or not, consciously or not, that becomes the primary identity, and then I just want a church that reflects that, rather than seeing the church as something, as a community to which we belong, that is the people of God that's going to be made up of different kinds of people, and I need different kinds of people to grow in Christ and to follow along together,
[23:31] and we're not all going to get everything, and that's okay. But I think a lot of Protestants just want a church that reflects whatever their worldview is, and their dominant worldview is often ideological.
[23:44] Then the problem with that also is that then God doesn't really become God as much as a cheerleader for whatever your side is. Right. Yeah, we sort of, as much as we talk about, even in mainline circles of not putting god in a box uh oh we're very good at fitting god into our into our box actually i've got something i was just telling you offline about this um this jack danforth quote can i share that with your viewers it's yeah it's apropos to our situation um danforth for those who don't remember was a u.s senator and an episcopal priest interesting about him is that he was a republican senator and an Episcopal priest, which I don't think they make those anymore. I don't think that's very common these days. But this was early on in the book, actually the first chapter called, Are Christians Reconcilers or Dividers? And he's talking about Jim Wallace and how in Jim Wallace's book, God's Politics, Wallace makes the correct statement that God is not a Republican or a Democrat. But Danforth goes on to point out that the agenda that Wallace lays out for Christians looks suspiciously like the democratic agenda, right? So he says this.
[25:08] And I really think this is not said enough, and so I want to highlight it. Deeply religious people come to different conclusions about how faith should influence public policy. Some committed Christians conclude that their religious beliefs guide them towards conservatism. Others, like Jim Wallace, are politically liberal. The problem is not that Christians are conservative or liberal, but that some are so confident that their position is God's position that they become dismissive and intolerant toward others and divisive forces in our national life. The tendency towards theocracy is not monopolized by the Christian right. It is no advance to supplant the self-confident religious agenda of the right with a religious agenda of the left.
[25:54] To do so is to say to the conservatives, your basic approach is good, but your politics is bad. And I just think that's really brilliant because, you know, I don't know in your world, in my world, it seems like United Methodist clergy, mainline clergy, you know, we absorb these books on Christian nationalism and deconstructing evangelicalism and the Christian right. And all these clergy who, and, you know, I have a fundamentalist background, so I get it. I know that dance. I've done it.
[26:29] But we have this almost obsessive desire to focus on the foibles of the other side. But we're never able to question are we making this like doing the same move just on our team that you know maybe it looks kinder and gentler maybe it's cloaked in language of niceness and.
[26:49] Kindness but it's the same what danifor says it's the same basic move the the christian left is no answer to the christian right it's just the same thing redux um what are your thoughts on that But it really resonated with me when I look back at that today. Well, I think now, because it's been a long time since I read that book, but I remember that. And I actually remember, because I think at that time, Wallace had written God's Politics and all that. And I thought, and I remember reading it and it's like, yeah, yeah, God isn't a Republican or a Democrat. Wait, this sounds really, this, yeah, no, I think you're not getting the message of what you just said, because it was really supplanting, you know, God isn't here, but yes, all of these things that I agree with, God simply happens to agree with them. And it's like, no, it doesn't, you know, And so, you know, I don't think that we can reduce God.
[27:59] To something so simple. And I think, you know, we can ask God to guide us in our decisions and how we should govern and on these positions and all of that. But I feel too often we want to take whatever our positions are. And we're so, we so believe that it's God's way, which is kind of dangerous to think that we know God's mind. And that we're doing the same thing that I think we have accused, you know, Christian conservatives or Christian nationalists for a long time. And I'm not saying that they haven't done that. I think they have. But, you know, we also have a log in our eye. And sometimes we haven't really dealt with that.
[28:53] Yeah i mean the whole you know uh the social gospel movement the the concept you know the name of the magazine the christian century like you know we're we're deeply embedded in that that whole thought world too and you know maybe it's the it's the you know i went to duke divinity so maybe it's the howar was in me but i want the church to be a little bit more distinct from the world than that.
[29:17] Yeah. And I, you know, growing up as I did from a black church tradition, I understand the importance of church being involved in social justice and things to that extent. That I have no problem with. I think.
[29:37] It's always a dangerous dance when it becomes more, When we're more involved with a certain political party, whatever that political party is. When we try to make Jesus into our cheerleader for our political viewpoint, that's when it becomes dangerous. And I think that's when it becomes so much easier to hate someone on the other side, as Wesley talks about, because then we can make it sound like we're the holy people and they are the sinners that need to be punished. And strangely all of a sudden we become Old Testament and you know to smite them yeah, and that's why I came up with you know sanctification or sanctimony right because that really does seem like our options in this election season is we can be kind of wallow in our pride, wallow in our self-righteousness or we can try real hard to love our neighbors and not have hardened hearts and sharpened spirits towards those who disagree with us.
[30:49] That kind of leads me, because it's funny, I was looking back at some of my posts from my blog about 12 years ago, and I was talking about pastors and how we act sometimes on social media, and especially when it comes to politics, and it's not really well in how we treat others, and it's like, wow, not much has changed. In fact, it might have been worse since then. And I'm always kind of amazed because I feel like on social media, I always feel like, I don't see it as a place where I can just kind of let it rip.
[31:35] Partially, one, because of being a pastor, but then two, I just don't, for lack of a better word, I just don't want to come off as an asshole.
[31:48] And so, but it seems so easy for pastors sometimes, the pastors that I know, or Christians, even just people that I know that are our regular church goers just say things that if it were if it were coming out of someone who uh believed something opposite of them they would say this was horrible and it was you know uncouth and it was wrong but they're saying the same thing it's just coming from the other side but and I guess that leads me to always wonder does again I don't want I don't want to say that social media has no good redeeming value, but has that kind of been an accelerant that makes it easier for us to just kind of not, to kind of just think about ourselves, but not think about how are we treating others? And so that when we're saying something, we don't really know that or care that there's someone on the other side that could be reading that? Oh, sure. Yeah. I think, uh, it's very easy to forget the humanity of, you know, there's all, there's someone, you know, unless it's a bot, which is a thing, there are, there are bots, but in most cases, you know, it's, it's our cousin, our aunt, our neighbor, our whoever, you know, our friend from third grade that we still keep up with for some reason.
[33:13] Um, I think there is something about, I heard someone say this one time, but, um, the The ability to communicate without the presence of communion is somewhat a dangerous combination because we will say things to people that we would never say to them, to their faces, if they were in the room with us. And, you know, I have a little bit of a, I don't know, an argumentative streak in me, an aggressive streak in me. So I've had to somewhat mature in how I approach things. And I learned... Too late that that mute and block were friends for me um muting certain words was was good for my soul um so i've tried to mature in some of these ways so i'm certainly not uh not a shining example but i've tried to you know improve in this in this area but i think it's just it's just easy it's just too easy to forget that you know the avatar has a real person behind it um and And that's probably why, like, you know.
[34:22] I tell like our teenagers and stuff at church or even younger staff, like a good rule of thumb is if it's an important conversation, it needs to be face to face. You know, the higher the stakes, the more incarnate the conversation needs to be. You know, if it's if it's touchy, it needs to be at least a phone call. If it's a real touchy, it needs to be in person. um you know how much trouble especially younger people get into texting you know disagreement where you can't tell tone and stuff um and i think that with social media too like especially the further removed you are from someone um why get into it right like why do we let people that are that we're going to disagree with that are often not good faith actors you know why let them live rent free in our heads and um you know it's easy to do i i get it but at the end of the day like i don't think anyone's ever been had their mind changed by a facebook argument um i think you know discussion is great but where i'm at these days is unless like a facebook group is very well moderated it's not worth the hassle um there are some places like that you know closed groups for certain communities and things that are very well moderated by fair people. But those are not common spaces in my experience of social media.
[35:48] Yeah, I remember years ago, I was on an email list for disciples of Christ, pastors, and lay people. And what I remember of that group was how well moderated it was. The person who kind of led that group was, she ran a tight ship, and if you did not do well, it was like, you're gone. Yeah. And unfortunately, we don't have that as much on social media. I don't think it's, it can be kind of the wild, wild west in a lot of ways.
[36:29] Which kind of leads me to ask, you know, what do you think that John Wesley would say about how Christians should act on social media?
[36:42] I suspect he would say we should all be he was famous for getting up at 4 in the morning to read his Bible for a couple hours and pray I suspect he would say we're probably all spending too much time, trying to hear from strangers and not enough time trying to hear from God that's probably what he would say, something along those lines um, You know, that losing our peace, you know, backsliding, threatening our sanctification and our holiness over fighting with strangers on the internet is not a, you know, not a wise move. And, you know, I think for him, it was always look after the common good. Why are you getting caught up in some petty squabble? Like, go out and serve somebody. There's more important things to do in the world. I closed my sermon last Sunday, two Sundays ago, maybe two Sundays ago, with Wesley's letter to William Wilberforce, which was the last letter he wrote before he died.
[37:50] And it was a letter to Wilberforce encouraging him and his abolition work in the British Parliament. So Wesley was very much someone that was aware and engaged in politics. It wasn't his main pursuit by any means.
[38:05] But, you know, he also didn't spend all of his time, you know, writing his parliament members. But it was a piece of his overall, I think, approach to the common good and, you know, serving poor folks, building schools for poor kids, putting out medical tracts to help, you know, poor people have access to medical knowledge. Those are all political things. But it wasn't, you know, unless you elected
[38:29] this person, God hates you. Right. Which is kind of where we're at now. So that's kind of where I went in this piece. site, he says his first piece of advice is to vote without fee or reward for the person to judge most worthy. And so I try to offer, how can we imagine voting not primarily for self, but for neighbor? And in particular, if you're in a place of privilege, how are we going to define that? Economic privilege in particular, if you're well off, how do you vote? How can you think about your vote as something that is for those that have less? And now, that said, I think folks on the left and the right would make a case that their way of voting is for the common good. And that's fine. But I think we can do better than just voting with our wallets, right? Just voting to get the most stuff for ourselves and our group. I think what's best for the whole and in particular what's best for the poor. For Wesley.
[39:28] Consideration of the poor was central to his ministry throughout his life, even as a student at Oxford when they were just starting the group that became known as Methodists.
[39:40] I'm reminded there's an article i haven't read all of it i need to um but i have actually heard an interview by the authors in vox um of a kind of a gen z adult who has changed basically it's about it's i think it's entitled why i changed my mind on volunteering um and she was someone who thought volunteering doesn't really make a difference and you know it's political action And, you know, and it was basically what it ended up being is kind of people thinking, like, here's my tweet on this. It's going to make a difference. And it's like, no. And she has learned that it's important to how are we volunteering? How are we caring for the other in our society? And I think sometimes, especially in our day and age, we can think that saying something on social media is the same as action in the larger world, and it's not.
[40:42] It doesn't necessarily move the needle towards the better world.
[40:47] Yeah, there's a, yeah, and it's, I think, you know, this is where an Augustine or a Wesley would, would talk about how much pride is built into that kind of behavior. If we're not careful, how much of it is really about, you know, do I really need to say this or is it because I'm managing my brand, I need to be thought of as this kind of person to, to be in these circles and to fit in.
[41:13] But yeah, it's much easier to change your Facebook profile picture than it is to actually go out and help someone, serve someone, donate, volunteer at the food bank, serve a meal, all those things. And I think, you know, moving forward in our society, one of the real gifts the church has to offer is a place of community and service made up of different kinds of people, different ages, ethnicities, generations, worldviews, perspectives. Because increasingly, there's just very few places of incarnate community that are going to offer that. You know, a lot of we're so siloed off that if we're wise, we will celebrate and teach that, hey, there is still a place where different kinds of people come together, not because they're perfect, not because they agree on everything, but because they serve something higher together. And there's more maybe there's more meaning in that than in our little clubs of sameness that we prefer to get into. Mm hmm.
[42:21] I agree uh and you know we we can go back to the 12 disciples and think about the fact that there was a tax collector and a zealand among among the 12th right jesus had these ideological and political opposites in the in the among the 12th and uh i suspect it wasn't easy it was probably pretty awkward uh there's also something in that yeah yeah there's also a lesson in that for us i I think. So I think one of the things I wanted to, as we kind of getting closer towards the end is, uh, the interview is there are a lot of pastors out there that are not looking forward to the next few days or weeks. Um, let's hope days. Um.
[43:09] And I guess my question or my question to you is what sort of advice would you give pastors, um, as we kind of maybe face a very contentious election, probably a contentious aftermath where people are going to get caught up in, in all of the drama. Um, and there will be drama. And so how do you help people remember who they are, um, and whose they are? Because I think it can be very easy to forget that. Sure. And I'm not an expert, but a few things that I've practiced and tried to practice. Some of it's liturgical. I mean, you've had conversations on here recently about Election Day Communion. That's something I've found valuable for years in different ministry contexts.
[44:03] I've also started the habit of after elections and also after kind of contentious world events or tragedies sometimes, especially if it's close to a Sunday. In our tradition, we have a remembrance of baptism service. There's a liturgy in our hymnal for that, for remembering our baptism. Sort of an elaborate version of when Roman Catholics enter a church, they touch the water and touch their heads. But we do it with, there's a, we have an actual liturgy for it that, you know, you have to be careful, make sure people know they're not being rebaptized.
[44:40] But I'm planning on doing that the Sunday after the election. And the point I always make is, we've spent this, you know, months and months now, if not years, where our culture, our news, maybe your friends and family tell you that, you know, the most important thing you do, and the most important thing you are is how you vote. And how you identify politically in the church as the body of Christ, our baptism is our primary identity. We are, you know, that Galatians 3.28 language is baptismal language. To be in Christ means that all these other identities are relativized. You know, Jew, Greek, slave, free, male, female, all those things. We are those, you know, we are those secondary identities, but they are secondary. And I think naming that, you know, our primary allegiance versus our other allegiance, or you might say the primary narrative of our lives versus our secondary stories.
[45:32] That we are all caught up together in this larger story of God's redemption in Jesus Christ. And we're going to disagree on other matters. And there's important conversations to be had. But we're going to do that with
[45:44] love and with grace because of Jesus, because we are primarily his people. And wherever we fall politically, we have to love one another as the body of Christ. And also recognize that, Church unity is not a new struggle. Read the New Testament, right? The Corinthians are crazy. You know, all those places. So you can also name that this is not a new struggle. This is not a unique struggle.
[46:16] Those are things I found. And in terms of as pastors, how do we kind of function? I think a lot of it is, you know, guard your heart, know yourself. I find that I have to limit my exposure to, you know, I can only do so much news, so much commentary, so much punditry, so much Facebook. And I just got to watch when I start getting kind of amped up or anxious or overly interested in what people are saying. And I have to, for me, and people are different, I have to pull back a bit just to make sure that I'm grounded and centered. In part, because I don't want my preaching to be reactive to this stuff, right? I want it to come from a more grounded place, a place of communion with God and peace with God. And I can't do that if I'm really wrapped up in all the catastrophizing.
[47:09] And I think we can't remember enough. I think your word is good that we can't blame everything on social media. We do have to remember that the algorithms are incentivized to keep us angry and keep us clicking and keep us scrolling. And so we are swimming upstream, right? The waters we're swimming in wants to take us into the raging waters of anger and outrage.
[47:32] And it's a countercultural act to not get caught up in that. And we have to be very intentional, I think, about how we do that as clergy so that we can be really present for our people, especially when we have people on different sides. No matter where we are, Edward Friedman uses the language of differentiation. You know, how can we be connected but not overly identified with the anxieties and fears and angers of our people? We have to be able to kind of hold center so that we can be present to others.
[48:08] Those would be my thoughts. I'm sure you have some good thoughts as well. Yeah, you know, I think it's interesting on social media. I've become much more like when I see something that... Maybe I agree with, I'm, I'm always kind of curious where it's, it's coming from because, you know, sometimes it can be a, I think a good source that's, you know, bring out a fact or they've, they've researched it or it's something that they're just kind of spinning so that it can kind of cope and make you feel better. And so, you know, it's almost like you always say, at least for me on social media these days that I have to be more aware of what's out there. Yeah. And it can be too easy to kind of just seek everything that you agree with and not be a little bit more.
[49:11] I don't know if suspicious, but critical is probably the better word of, of what's out there. Um and and also to learn to not immediately react to everything yeah because i think so much of social media is just you're reacting and and before you know your brain is engaged and i think you need to i just kind of i kind of wish in some ways that we would i mean years ago that people would teach talk about that kids need to be more uh media literate um and it's like we kind of need to have everyone be more social media literate and for sure no what's out there what is it saying um don't always react you know think before you say something um yeah it's it's it's important because too often we just kind of launch into whatever we're going to say um i add one other thing to that connected to the like be critical and that is be curious i think curiosity um is a real balm for a lot of the stuff we're describing um, There's a book I would encourage your viewers to look at, and it's called I Never Thought About It That Way by Monica Guzman. Oh, yeah. I've heard about that one.
[50:32] It's really good. One of my church members recommended it to me, and I've used it as the basis for some of our after worship. We do kind of a coffee hour thing after worship instead of a traditional Sunday school model. But I've used some of her stuff from that book as the basis for our conversations to go with this Purple Church series. There's really good stuff in there about how to stay curious um really good examples and stories and she begins the book by describing how you know she's had to learn to be curious about her own family because she is the daughter of first generation mexican she's the daughter of mexican immigrants um and she's a journalist who like lives in seattle but after the 2016 election she had to talk to her parents who are Mexican immigrants who voted for Trump. And she could not like make this make sense in her world. And so she's got a real, like she is an example of, you know, from herself of having to, to find some, some ways of being curious rather than judgmental to even understand her own family. And, um, you know, so she's, she's taken the medicine that she's prescribing, uh, but really helpful stuff in there. My, my church members have responded well to it. Um, uh, It's not a religious resource. She's an author and journalist.
[51:48] But really good stuff in there that I think if practiced could get us out of
[51:55] some of this cultural gridlock that we're in. But I think that turned to curiosity. I heard it said one time when the going gets tough, turn to wonder. Shoot for wonder instead of judgment.
[52:08] She says, what am I missing is a big question. What am I missing here? I know I'm missing something. What is it? Rather than they're evil, they're stupid, they're wrong, they're dumb, they're not informed, they're not educated. Um which is you know it's it's junk food right it's easy um but it's it's damaging the community and democracy ultimately yeah i mean i think um another book i've been, listening to actually is david brooks um how to know a person um and his is doing a lot of that act of asking questions and having wonder um about people and i think that we don't have that in our society anymore. We're too quick to judge. And I want to know, why do you believe the way that you believe? Instead of saying, well, you're evil or you're wrong and I need to correct you because that doesn't seem to work.
[53:09] And I don't know why people still think it does, but I don't know. Those, I think, are some good things, and I don't know, it's not going to be solved tonight, and not even this election cycle, but I do hope, I hope that there is more curiosity and wonder, and maybe to even understand our own baptisms, because I think that would understand who we are in God.
[53:46] And that everyone, even the people that we don't like, are children of God.
[53:56] Absolutely. So if people want to read the article or learn a little bit more about you, where should they go? Yeah, the article's on ministrymatters.com, all together, one word. It's on the homepage right now. You can also find me on Facebook or Twitter, and I've posted it. Okay. And I'll make sure I put it in the show notes, too.
[54:23] Yeah, that'd be great. I post up at Firebrand as well, and I'm always happy to hear from readers, and it's always good to talk to you, Dennis. If you want to apologize to your viewers, you know this. Your viewers don't. I'm on my cell phone because my two computers both failed in the attempt to connect to your lovely software. So I have a really nice podcasting setup I've used before on your podcast, but all of it was for naught tonight. So hopefully my iPhone, my advanced iPhone works okay. But apologies for my lower quality effort than normal. It's okay. It turned out fine. And I can understand that. So, well, Drew, thank you for coming on. And thank you for the advice as we head into this election time. And we'll have you back on again. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, Dennis. Thanks for having me. And thanks for letting me talk a bit about the article and pointing folks to it. And I wish you blessings as you minister in this tough season as well. Thank you. All right.
[55:30] Music.
[55:59] So, what were your thoughts about that conversation? I thought it was a really good conversation. I enjoyed it. I thought it was very helpful. But I'd love to hear what you're thinking. And you can always drop me a line. You can send an email to churchinmain, all one word, at substack.com. I put a link in the show notes to the article itself. So, check it out. Give it a read. And let me know what you think. And also, if you want to learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes or donate, go to churchinmain.org. You can also visit our substack at churchinmain.substack.com to read related articles. I hope that you would consider subscribing to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. Consider leaving a review that helps others find the podcast. And I hope that you would also consider sharing it with others. That would also, I would love to do that so you can spread the word.
[57:01] Before we conclude this podcast, I thought it was, it may make some sense to offer a prayer. There's just a lot of anxiety concerning this election, and I wanted to offer a prayer. And it's a kind of one that I wrote up for this morning where I serve as pastor. And so I'm wanting to share portions of that prayer and hope that it will be a prayer for you, whether or not you have voted yet, that you will pray this and offer your own prayers as we enter into this time to decide who will lead us in these next few years and as president. So please join me in this prayer.
[57:56] We come to you, God, with anxiety and apprehension. Our nation is divided by politics and we are fearful of each other. We are worried on who will win or who will not win. We're worried about election violence. We are just plain worried. This morning we offer and pray for safety and for calm spirits. We give thanks to those who choose to volunteer at polling places all around our nation. We are thankful for them as they engage in this important civic duty. And we call on you to protect them as they do their work.
[58:43] Lord, we pray for those with who we disagree with. It's so easy to argue and to forget to see the other as a human being. Give us eyes to see them as your children. Forgive us when we say that we should love our neighbor and never really do it. Give us courage to love those who vote differently. And Lord, we pray for your church. May we be a true community that seeks to love God and our neighbor. Help us to be such a community that is known by our love. And we pray for the candidates. We pray for Donald Trump and for Kamala Harris, as well as their running mates, J.D. Vance and Tim Wolves. God, may you grant them wisdom. And may whoever win govern this nation with wisdom and justice for all. And we offer all these prayers in the name of the one who is our friend and our Savior and our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. That is it for this episode of Church in Maine.
[1:00:01] I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Again, thanks so much for listening. Take care. Godspeed. And I will see you very soon.
[1:00:11] Music.
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