In this episode, we have a deep discussion with Methodist Pastor Teer Hardy. He points out that a church's real identity is found in being the Body of Christ, not in whether it leans liberal or conservative. Based on his article "Your Church Isn't Liberal or Conservative, It's the Body of Christ," he calls on congregations to prioritize worship, community, and grace instead of turning into arenas for political debate. Teer also emphasizes the importance of sacraments in bringing believers together and promotes inclusivity, suggesting that churches should approach political issues by focusing on faith-based conversations.
Links:
Your Church Isn't Liberal or Conservative, It's the Body of Christ
Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast
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[0:06] It's about the lamb. That's coming up.
[0:10] Music.
[0:34] Hello, and welcome to Church and Main, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. So what do you look for in a church? Do you care about the choir or the preaching? Do you check to see if they have programs for kids? How about looking at where they lean politically? Do you check to see if that church, especially the pastor, fits your political viewpoint? Now, in our polarized age, people can look for a congregation that mirrors their values when it comes to being progressive or conservative.
[1:23] Should people really be looking for a church based on how the people or the pastor votes? Is this something that Jesus would consider? Today, I'm going to be talking with Methodist Pastor Tyr Hardy about this topic that seems, of course, incredibly relevant to the times that we live in. In January, Tyr wrote an article on his substack that's called, Your Church Isn't Liberal or Conservative, It's the Body of Christ. So, in this episode, we talk about that article and the pressure in our modern culture to choose a side. But Teer argues that the church shouldn't be defined by ideology. He says this in his, one of the early paragraphs, he says, quote, but to begin defining a congregation with political ideology, whether liberal or conservative, is to misunderstand the church, what the church is, and whose we are. And then he adds, it is to forsake the rich and distinctive identity of the church as the body of Christ, unquote.
[2:40] A little bit about Tear. He is the pastor of Walker Chapel United Methodist Church in Arlington, Virginia. He is actually a native of the Washington, D.C. area and received his MDiv at Wesley Seminary, which is in D.C. He is also one of the hosts of the Crackers and Grape Juice podcast.
[3:02] He lives in Arlington with his wife, Allison, and their two children. So join me today as we talk about politics, God, and the church with Tear Hardy.
[3:16] Music.
[3:31] Well, Taren, thanks for joining me this morning for this talk. I think the first thing I wanted to kind of start off is to know a little bit more about you. I know that you're a pastor at a Methodist church outside of D.C., but know a little bit about your background, your growing up, your faith journey. Yeah, I currently serve at, it's called Walker Chapel, United Methodist Church, a.
[3:55] About a mile, maybe less than a mile from the DC line. If I climbed up into the top of our church steeple, I could see down into DC, things like that. The congregation is a unique makeup of professional, people who work in professional politics, with more lawyers than we know what to do with, you know, and then, um, you know, just folks who, who, who, who make up our neighborhood as well. Um, it's a unique, it's a really neat place to live. It's a great place to, um, for my wife and I to have our two kids, uh, in growing up in the church, uh, before I was, uh, a pastor, I was a security contractor for the State Department. I would design security systems and all sorts of non-lethal security measures for domestic and overseas facilities. Did that for, gosh, close to a decade. Worked within a couple of different administrations. got to see how the bureaucratic side of things work. When I went to undergrad, though, I really thought that I was going to get a job on the Hill after college. I studied criminal justice and political science.
[5:22] I don't know if you remember the show The West Wing. I thought I was going to be Josh Lyman. I thought I was going to work on the Hill. I was president of the college Republicans, an undergrad, worked on a Senate campaign at one point. I really thought that's what I was going to do. And then I got to DC, because I grew up in this area, and realized that there were...
[5:47] For that to work, there were going to be some financial things that would have to happen on my family's end to support me. And those mechanisms didn't exist. And so I needed a job. And so I got a job, you know, working within the government, not necessarily making policy. But it was within working for the government that I realized that there was a call to ministry in my life.
[6:05] I was like the de facto chaplain in our office. You know, this was back when people still worked in offices, I guess, but people would come and sit in my cubicle and we'd have little chaplain sessions, um, things like that. And it came full circle, uh, has really come full circle now being a minister to be a pastor in the same, to the same community where I first worked. Um, my first office was about a two mile bike ride from my, from my church right now. Um, a lot of folks in our congregation or state department or foreign, you know, former state department. Um, but really, the kind of the thread line that's gone through it has been the ways in which the church was a means of grace for me at various points in my life. And then in my ministry, it's continuing to help people understand that not only is the church a means of grace, God's grace in their lives, but also that because of their experience, they too are invited to be that means of grace in our neighborhood. And I think living where we live, living where I live, um.
[7:17] People aren't really often invited to view one another in ways that are not transactional, in ways that are not, how can I screw you the most so that I can make my position better or prop myself up in my organization or whatever it is, up more.
[7:38] I had a meeting with a congregant the other day and he remarked that I really only preach on one thing and that's grace.
[7:46] Well that's it's the same old song that church has been doing for 2000 years i'm i'm not doing anything new but but without that is the baseline for everything we do um everything else is just i think extra loud noise that we're kind of tacking on at the end so that kind of leads into what we're talking about today which is um an article that you wrote on your sub stack um yeah with the title, Your Church Isn't Liberal or Conservative, It's the Body of Christ. And so what was the kind of background for that article? What led you to write it? I had, that was one of those things, it was an essay that I wrote that was me, again, like we were talking before you hit record, me being a grumpy old man. I had been on a few email chains leading up to a church book discussion, and it was with the author of the book, and someone described one of the churches participating in this as being a liberal congregation. And I understand what they were saying. They were marking theologically and probably more politically where this church was landing.
[9:07] But for that to be the primary.
[9:12] Adjective that's added to a church, I found to be very problematic. And it was a lack of understanding the nature of the church and the mission of the church to say that this is, before we are the body of Christ, before we are a community of sinners and saints, before we are a people that are sustained by word and sacrament, before any of those, we're using political markers to say who we are. And I think that's problematic. I think, and so the essay, the point that hopefully the point of the essay was, you know, I, because I will, I will acknowledge that we, those, the liberal progressive conservative markers are helpful. I get it. There are communities for whom to know that their family is safe, to know that their children are safe. All this, like they need to know that this community will welcome me. And typically they want, they need to hear the liberal progressive, um, um.
[10:16] Label added. But first and foremost, we are the body of Christ. We are a community that is centered around worshiping Christ, proclaiming Him crucified, resurrected. We are a community that is sustained by sacrament. We are a community that's a means of grace in a world that is told that they can figure it out on their own. We are a community that has been justified by our faith. All of those things, I think, are first and foremost to who the church is and not the.
[10:50] Political identifiers that are, I think, easier to add on to a church than our true nature. Yeah. Why do you think it is, especially these days? Because there's a church, actually, there are a few churches that I know that I would say are on the progressive end, And almost every time that they describe something about themselves, whether it's worship or Christmas Eve or something to that extent, they almost always use the word progressive in front of it. And that always somehow bothers me because why do you need to put that in front of the Christian moniker? And I understand the reasonings that you were saying. There are reasonings there are ways that that that word kind of says things that are safe and you know as someone who's gay i get that but there's also something just jarring about hearing that and you i don't know it just always rubs me the wrong way i think part of it is that.
[11:59] For better or worse the church and i'm talking about big c church in north america now the Catholic church, little C Catholic, big C church in America has allowed itself to have more in common with political parties and political, the talking points of those parties than we do the gospel. I think most people in our congregations, and this is within the, I'm in the main line, so I would speak for the main line at this point. The most people within the main line could tell you with more certainty the political talking points of a specific party, political party, or political action group or whatever than they could discernment on the mouth. I think...
[12:53] I think, I think we have given, and I, we, we, we, we've, we've allowed ourselves to become more and more like the, more and more like the empire that we've lived in. And, and the church has always been, has for 2000 years has lived within empires that have risen and fallen. The church has stayed, you know, has carried through those. Um but it really does feel like that rather than being resident aliens within the empire to um and i would great book on this is resident aliens by willimon and power was i'm looking at my copy today um with with my intern instead of using that as our frame point as being resident aliens within the empire we are just full-on empire and using the language of the empire um which is language of us versus them. David Fitch has a great book. He wrote this a couple of years ago on us versus them and how the church has become us versus them. When I'm preaching and I'm talking about what other people need to do, those sinners, those people over there, they're different from us, which isn't true. We're all falling short. We all screw up. We all confess our sins in church and then on the way out of the church parking lot, give somebody the bird. I mean, not literally, but there are varying degrees to that. Sometimes literally. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to make the left turn out of Water Chapel. I'll be honest, like, it's tough.
[14:21] But, you know, it's, I think part of it is a lack of discipleship within the church. It's where pastors, frankly, we've, me, have screwed up in the way we are forming disciples. It is allowing political talking points to carry the day, and I think it's a lack of accountability within the church for folks who go rogue, who lead the church into these political arenas that we have no business being in. Um, and it feels more and more like that's becoming the norm. And so your church has to make that decision. It feels like we have, we're being forced to make that decision of liberal versus conservative. And I'm, I serve a church that's both. I have some of the most liberal people who work in DC in my church. I have some of the most conservative people who work in DC. And so if I get up in the pulpit and say, we're a conservative church, we're a liberal church, I've already alienated half my congregation.
[15:31] That's my ramble on that, why I preach from a manuscript I do too I get it you know I mean what is it I think one of the things that I find fascinating in our culture today is.
[15:50] In some ways that are the thing that is kind of the important thing on our hearts these days is politics.
[15:58] And not as much in a way of how do we use this to solve the problems in our society, but it's more, here is my team, here is my tribe. And the church gets roped into that. So the church is on my side or my tribe or that church is on the other tribe and to the point of I remember something recently you know it's a guy I guess must have had some really bad issues with the Southern Baptists and they definitely have their problems but he was almost kind of rejoicing over how they've lost members and I kept thinking that's not really Christ-like I don't But it's that sense of you're on my team or they're on the other team and we don't have to like them and all of this that just seems to be the zeitgeist these days. I think part of it is that we have forgotten what happens in our baptism. We forget that in our baptism, we are dying to ourselves, and we are being raised, and we are clothed, not just in Christ's righteousness, but we are being baptized into His life, death, and resurrection. So, if that's truly what it means to be baptized, then we're going to be baptized.
[17:28] We're not worried about what the empire is doing. We're not worried about the politics of the day because we're worried about it being part of what God is already doing within our community, within our nation, within the cosmos, and making the present yet not fully kingdom of God fully here. I think that's part of it. I think part of it also is, you know, we forget that we are.
[18:00] Again, we are the body. It comes back to being the body of Christ, not the body of the donkey, not the body of the elephants, the body of the lamb that was broken, the body of the lamb that was slain, but also the body that rose that tells us that all the stuff that tries to pull us apart, all the things that say you and I can't be friends, all the things that say that I'm a no-good liberal preacher or that I'm too conservative politically, all those things within our baptism, within the kingdom, and especially when we gather around the table, all that stuff goes by the wayside. It's supposed to go by the wayside.
[18:39] I often wonder when we're going through our confessions or we're going through the creeds, how many people either physically are crossing their fingers or mentally crossing their fingers saying, yeah, sure, sure, preacher. The church can believe that, but I'm going to do this. And I think that's one of the benefits, one of the strongest parts of our creeds is they have survived generations, and they've kept the church throughout the generations historically focused on the kingdom of God. It just, it turns out in our practice, we, We deviate from that because at the end of the day, we also think that we can save ourselves. We think that our politics, we see that, hell, we see it right now. Sorry. We see it right now because we think our politics is going to save us. We think that if we just have the right savior at 1600 Pennsylvania, that he is going to do what needs to be done to fix all of our problems. But the reality of that is is to maintain that political power the the us versus them has to be to be present because there has to be a bad guy there has to be a bad guy and it can't be me, um which takes us back to that us versus them which puts us right back into the liberal conservative.
[20:00] Conversation uh and the the markers that we we use for our churches you know in the essay i wrote you know, the question of liberal or conservative congregations is the second question I get asked the most. The first question I get asked the most is they want to know about me. Hmm. Okay. So preacher, tell me about you. Well, I'm actually not the main character here.
[20:23] You know, whether it's in Bible study, whether it's in preaching, we are not the main focus.
[20:37] But we live in a world where the algorithm tells us that we are. And I think that's also part of, we've lost our identity of who we are and whose we are. Yeah, and that brings up, you kind of bring up some kind of talking about the body of Christ, and you bring up Luther theologian Robert Jensen. And there's a quote in here I thought was interesting that you use in the article from him, the Church, according to Paul, is the risen body of Christ. She is this because the bread and cup in the congregation's midst is the very same body of Christ. So, what does it mean to be the body of Christ, especially in a culture that is polarized and tribalized and wants you to pick a side? And to kind of be this other thing. Yeah, I think it comes back to how we approach the table.
[21:39] We have, again, this is, I'm speaking within my tribe of Christianity, all are welcome at the table because it's Christ's table, because Christ is the host. And because all are welcome, that means that I am receiving, I had the potential to receive communion from someone that I have very different political ideologies with. When it comes to gun control, when it comes to abortion, when it comes to immigration, we could have very different.
[22:15] Public policy positions. But I think one of the strongest things the church can do is how we view one another through the sacraments. So, you know, at my church, we use intinction, right? Post, we don't, yeah, we use intinction. I've actually never been to, the only church I've ever been to that drank out of the cup was the Episcopal church my grandparents grew up in. And my grandfather told me earlier, he goes, the reason we sit in the front is because we want to be one of the first people to drink out of it. He goes, you never want to sit in the back row. So that was practical. But so what I try to do when I'm holding the cup is I'll look, They'll say, you know, Dennis, this is the blood of Christ shed for you. And as, right, either as I'm saying that or after I say it, I look down at the cup and I can see your reflection through the cup. That's how we view one another. If we view one another through this sacrament, through its Christ body and blood that binds us together, it helps us set that other stuff aside. Now, but there are churches for whom the sacraments are not viewed as the centerpiece. And I get that. There are different traditions within the church. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful to any other tradition. I just know for me, it's that. That's the starting point.
[23:38] It's one of my biggest pet peeves with my tradition is that we have the practice of communion once a month rather than weekly communion. I wonder how much the church would change if that was the practice, if we took the sacraments more seriously in our corporate worship and not just in me talking about it. Like this coming Sunday, I'm mentioning something about the sacraments and how we are a body held together by the sacraments. And on my sermon, I'll put a little end note that says, just kidding, we'll see you in two, we'll do that next Sunday.
[24:16] It's part of our tradition. It's a whole thing, but yeah. How do we do that though in a world—our world is so saturated by all of these other messages, whether it's on TV, but especially on social media. And some of that is even coming from our fellow Christians of this language of pick-a-side, and that we don't talk about the body of Christ. We don't talk about the sacraments and how those hold us together. You know, how challenging is it to have this message in a culture that is so dead set against it and so seems to want to, they're kind of having another gospel?
[25:05] I think part of it is as a preacher, being committed to preaching that same old song week after week, to being committed to preaching about God's grace.
[25:17] There's the temptation to try to be a prophetic preacher in the midst of our days. My experience with that is the people who are self-appointed prophetic preachers are preaching in an echo chamber. What the bishop did at the Washington Cathedral the other day, now that's prophetic preaching. And she wasn't using, what I would say is she wasn't using political talking points. She was quoting the prophets. I don't know if she uses a manuscript, but if she had a manuscript, you could go through and footnote everything that she said, tying it back to the prophets. I think that's part of it. So it's being committed to that same old song week after week. It's being gentle with your congregation as you're bringing them and understanding this is going to take a lifetime time of undoing, because it's taken multiple generations in the making. Part of it's understanding that white Christian nationalism has infiltrated every part of the church in the United States, to the point that even within the mainline, we are—we, making space for Christian nationalism to be present. I mean, I see a lot of people giving a lot of kudos to the bishop in the National Cathedral for what happened the other day. But if you notice the procession at the beginning of that service, the American flag is front and center.
[26:42] Even in that most, you could call her, you could say that's just a liberal church, progressive church, they're heretics, all those things, but Christian nationalism is still present there. The church is still offering blessing upon what the empire's doing. I think one of the best ways is just to name it. I don't know what the solution is. I think it's when you see it, name it in a gentle way.
[27:12] What's Caleb's name? What's his last name? Caleb just, Coleman, I think, just wrote a book called Disarming Leviathan. And it looks at Christian nationalism through the lenses of a mission field and not through this thing that we have to defeat, but rather as a place where the church today can be a means, you know, church can be a means of grace in that space. That's my language, not his. But approaching it from the point of a mission field and not something that has to be fixed. And that changes the way you look at it, because it's not us versus them, it's us together. And i think that's part of it i think get the hell off of social media i i was joking with my intern this morning pastoral intern this morning i i jumped on my phone to check an email before i came to the office and 20 minutes later i had gone down this rabbit hole of instagram and i had no intention of getting on instagram just get off of it say you know i have the i have a 11 year old son and he has um we got he has a phone he's in middle school and i have a whole bunch of feelings about 11 year olds with phones, but, um, it's locked down. So if we can't do stuff, lock your stuff down, create those safe, you know, the same, you know, as a pastor, we're supposed to have boundaries and all these different barriers, not boundaries to keep us safe, to keep all those things, put them up for yourself in other areas of your life.
[28:33] Don't feel like you have to be the one to fix your church or your pastor or the people in the pews, because the reality is like, we trust if we believe what we're preaching, if we believe the creeds, if we believe in our baptismal covenant, if we believe what we say when we're at the table, that it's not up to us to fix this on our own, that we can rely on Christ, we can rely on the presence of the Holy Spirit, we can trust that the Holy Spirit's going to take us there, kicking and screaming if necessary, towards the kingdom of God.
[29:08] We just need to be open a little bit to that provoking. Um, and then I would say there, there will be moments, um, where we do have to speak up, I think a little harder, um, when people try to put these labels on us and say, sure, yeah, we are a liberal church, but we're also a conservative church, but we're also, um, you know, we're also all these other things that you may not want to say that we are. And there are ways I'm interested in finding the ways to share that we are a safe congregation for all people.
[29:47] In the Nine Method Church we have what's called reconciling congregations we're a reconciling congregation, we're a place for all people regardless of their sexual identity their orientation, any of those things, but we're also a church for people of all abilities we're a church for people of all races And how can we lean into that level of inclusivity to help articulate that we are this, you know, that's how we view being the body of Christ?
[30:15] One of the things that this seems to boil down to, and you write about this in the article, is ecclesiology and understanding the nature of church. And I've always kind of long believed, especially within my tradition in the Disciples of Christ, is that we don't really get ecclesiology. But I'm beginning to think that that might be a larger problem than just in my denomination, that I think it's a cultural thing.
[30:41] And so you know what role does ecclesiology have in our current moment and what is the role of the pastor in kind of promoting that type of ecclesiology so an ecclesiology is how we understand what it means to be the church right crackers and grape juice we if we use a big word you got to say what it is it just what it means what does it mean to be the body of christ um and and so to, build out a robust ecclesiology, or just to start with a basic ecclesiology. I think it's to try to keep Christ at the center of everything you do. So at my church, I'm a word nerd. So we have ministries. We don't have programs. The community center, Madison Community Center down the street, They have amazing programs. My kids love them. Walker Chapel, we have ministries.
[31:38] We have a fellowship hall because that's where we gather. We use the language of the church that we already have to help establish that ecclesiology, help people understand what we're doing and why we're doing it. So whenever I introduce something in a service, we'll go from the sermon to a response of him. And I won't, I don't say now pull out your hymnal and sing him one, two, three, as a response to hearing God's Word proclaimed, let us now, now we will. Fleming Rutledge would be upset if I said, let us. Now we are going to respond with our own words, with our own voices. So I think part of understanding that ecclesiology is keeping Christ at the center of everything we do, whether that's in worship, whether that's in ministry, and it's in missions too.
[32:35] The mission work that we do in our community is not there so that high school seniors can get their community service hours. The mission work that we do is not community service in general. If you want to do community service, the Lions Club, the Optimist Club, they have opportunities for community service. I'm not diminishing what they do, but they do it for a different reason. When we are engaged in either hands-on mission work or financial mission work, that's because we believe that what we're doing right then and there is advancing the kingdom of God. So I think it comes down to how we talk about what we do. Words matter, as we're finding out right now, right? An executive order with a few dozen paragraphs can really change people's lives. And I think words in the same way can change the way we view the church. It's one of why i'm so angry that the like evangelical church is now a political marker rather than being the baseline of what every church should be because by definition every church is evangelical by definition every church should be proclaiming um christ resurrected like that's what we are doing like that's, If we're going from a straight word definition. But again, that's where we've allowed the world, the empire, to co-opt our language. So part of it is just taking it back.
[33:57] Now, three-syllable words like ecclesiology probably aren't the most helpful. There's probably a better way to do that. And smarter people than me will figure that out, I hope. But I think part of it is just having that robust understanding of who we are and who we are not. Is in you know i think the only way you can find out who you are not is to first identify who you are one of the things that i've always been interested in is how do we we talk about these things and and and i think as you've been saying to not label each other yeah but we all come with our own biases we all come with our own beliefs and and deeply held beliefs on especially when it comes to politics on different opinions, different things. And so the question that I always think about is how do we balance our own biases with this higher purpose? Because I think sometimes what I've seen is that we talk about the higher purpose and that we're not here about biases, but they're really kind of here, but we're not always aware of that. So I don't think it's necessarily ill will.
[35:11] I just think we're not always doing a good examination of our own thoughts and everything. So how do we kind of keep ourselves honest?
[35:22] I think the first part is not being offended when you realize you have biases. It's not a bad thing. It's who we are. I have, because of my experiences, because of the way I was raised by my parents, because of the things that my family went through as a kid, because of all these things, those influence who I am today. And if I keep a, if, if I'm not aware of those, those will have a negative way for me to impact the world. Or negative way for me to view the world. And then I can have a negative effect with people around me. But if I, if just in acknowledging them, I think it frees us a bit to be able to see the world differently than we've been. So I think first and foremost, just not being afraid to say that you have them, to have the courage it takes to have people around you help you uncover those. And if you have a friend that says, hey, this is something I'm noticing. One, having those friendships. God, we need those friendships more than ever right now. And I don't think, I think those are hard to come by anymore. But listening to those people in your lives. But the other part of that is being open to hearing other people's stories, other people's experiences. As a straight white guy who has had little difficulty in life.
[36:51] My experience is very different from someone else's experience. And if I don't hear other people's experiences, if I don't take the time just to sit down and shut up and listen, not with the need to interject my own experience into the conversation, not needing to justify my own past or anything. If I just sit and listen to what someone's saying, I think I can learn and that'll expose more about what I've, my, my, my own, my own experience, my own biases in the world. Um, I, I think, and I'll, I'll say one more thing. I, I think also not, Going back, I think it's to not be afraid to know that you're going to mess up. But you have to have that network of trust and people who are willing to journey with you through. I think that's the beautiful part of the church is we do make a commitment to being with one another and to journey through life together.
[37:57] To know that you're going to screw this up. Along the way, I'm going to say the wrong thing. I'm going to do the wrong thing. And I maybe think I'm acting in the best possible way, but I just don't realize it. And so it's being willing to take that criticism at the same time. Not in the way we think of criticism as being terrible. My wife used to teach. She used to be an art professor. And once a month, they would have critiques for all of her students. And the students dreaded it. Um, because they viewed it as, you know, the professor Hardy's coming in, just nitpicking everything. But really, if you don't know where you can improve, if you don't know your shortcomings, you can't get better.
[38:42] We need people to help us call out our sin if we're not, if we are not willing to confess to it, we need people to call us out on it. Um, cause biases can turn to sin if it goes unchecked. Um, cause it does harm to not just to, um, the people in our community, but it does harm to our relationship with Christ. Because in our biases, we are failing one way or the other to see the other person across from us as a fellow member in the body of Christ, as someone who was made in God's image, as someone who had the same breath blown into their lungs this morning that I had blown into my lungs, that I'm up and going. They're up and going because of the same God. Yeah.
[39:25] You actually mentioned a word there that made me kind of think about in what role does confession have in all of this? That was actually a tradition I didn't grow up with, but I think especially in seminary, I went to a Lutheran seminary, so that kind of became part of it, and I included in our worship services. So where does confession fit in all of this? I think confession at the very basis is the acknowledgement that we've screwed up along the way.
[39:59] If there are folks who say, well, I don't need to confess, I don't do anything wrong. Well, I mean, we may have some narcissistic things we need to work through, but really, at the end of the day, confession is an acknowledgement of our sin. It's how we have fallen short of the two things. Jesus told us we had to do two things. We had to love God, and we had to love everybody else. Confession is how we've screwed that up since the last time we confessed. Um...
[40:29] And it can often come off, it can often feel, I think we often can, more emphasis is given to the confession than it is to the absolution, right?
[40:42] I can write a really good confession. I can write a corporate confession for my congregation. I'll make them feel like they are no good, rotten, dirty sinners. Um but the confession the you know the absolutions of the in the the forgiveness is the best part the name of jesus christ you are forgiven and then they say to me in the name of jesus christ you are forgiven um like i think that's the powerful part it's to know that we don't have to be afraid to confess our sins because it's before that last word comes out of our mouth Christ has already forgiven us. Like that, and it's not because we did anything to make the world any better, to right the wrong that we just did, but we're hoping that through that absolution, through that acknowledgement of our forgiveness, that we are going to be a bit more Christ-like in our dealings, in our interactions with the people around us.
[41:42] So in a few um we're recording this a few days after um president trump's inauguration yeah and it feels kind of like we're at this it's like one of those weird science fiction movies where it feels like you've gone back in time to some point in time you know and i yeah you're looking looking forward to it the same way I am.
[42:11] But what advice would you give for the church in the coming years? Because I think it's going to be, I feel it's already kind of this lineup, which side you're on. And we're kind of responding to every little jot and tittle of anything. And so how do we after all that we've talked about and in keeping a focus on the sacraments on ecclesiology and the body of christ what advice do we you give to people because this is going to be a crazy four years so one of my goals so uh one of my goals for 2024 uh was stay do not allow the um burning hamster wheel of doom to consume the oxygen in the room and when i told my church, my lay leader at my church about this. She's like, well, what does that mean? I'm like, well, it's the United Methodist, General Conference, and it's the election. Those things are going to happen, and we can acknowledge that they're happening, and that there's a space where the church has something to say.
[43:18] And then we can do that. But I am not going to allow the doom and the gloom and the fear to consume the oxygen in everything we do.
[43:32] Because as the body of Christ, I am, you know, Christ is the main thing in all that we do. It's not the guy who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. it's not what the talking heads on CNN or Fox or any of the other networks are saying, turn those damn things off. Um, if you, that'll be the best thing you can do for your mental health this year is delete those apps, like get that, like set time limits, give yourself 15 minutes top of the hour. You'll know what's going on and move on. Um, but don't allow, don't give it more oxygen than it needs. Now there, if things happen where, um.
[44:14] Where, where people are being harmed. You're damn right. The church has something to say to that. Um, but it's not going to be my political talking points. I'm going to use the words of the prophets. I'm going to use the words that Christ himself told. Uh, I'm going to tell my congregation in my community that, you know, if you think that we can elect our way into the kingdom of God, you're a fool for thinking that. So that's what I would say to folks. But I will say don't keep your head in the sand. Don't pretend it's not happening. The potential for people to be harmed is real. The church I serve, we have a food ministry that primarily serves the immigrant community in our in our in our county here um and i'm i'm afraid for them.
[45:11] I don't know what's going to happen. I will see them in, I'll see that group in two and a half weeks, two weeks now. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if they're going to come. I don't know if we need to readapt our ministry. And I think maybe that's also part of it, is being willing to adapt to how the world around us is changing. Adapting towards the kingdom of God and maintaining that ecclesial understanding. I can't talk. The seminary words trip me up. understanding what your role is as the church and as the body of Christ versus what the political folks are going to be telling you you should do or anything like that. Yeah. It's a tough time. I tell you what, seminary, you always joke, seminary didn't teach me how to unclog the toilet right before service started. Seminary did not teach me how to go from political upheaval to pandemic, to insurrection, to political upheaval, to political upheaval. And I think maybe that's perhaps understanding that those things have been going on throughout the generations. And it went on in the Bible. Right? I really think within the main line, maybe it really is just getting back to like.
[46:29] A challenge for me is getting away from like thematic sermon series. And maybe, I mean, my, our mutual friend, Jason says this, that he's doing this now, just preach through a book of the Bible and trust that God had, you know, the same thing that God had to say to Israel and X, you know, the book of Exodus, like that will apply to us today. Um, in one way or, or another. Um, but the God is still speaking through this text and we don't have to try to find, you know, the trendy, catchphrases or things, you know, try to tie it into the New York Times as best as we can. Stick with the same old song of the church.
[47:16] So if people want to learn more and maybe read this article, but also read other articles you've written, where should they find you? Yeah, they should head over to my sub stack. If you go to tearhardy.com, it'll take you there. Or if you just go on search tear hearty it's like beer but with a t um on substack you'll find me there um you can find me over on crackers and grape juice with uh my dear friend jason michelle um we have taken a hi we took a hiatus um it was going to be a six-month hiatus then it turned into a 12-month hiatus and now it's turned into an 18-month hiatus we're coming back in february um we are coming there's.
[47:53] There's a stack of books I'm supposed to read and interview people about from a couple publishers. Otherwise, they're going to stop sending me books. And as a pastor, I love books. So I got to get back on that. But yeah, it's in at tear hearty across social media. I mean, I would love a follow on Substack. I'll be shameless. I mean, that seems like it's the new frontier for what What I've noticed, I don't know if you've noticed this, Dennis, uh, it's that on, there's more meaningful engagement there than on Instagram or Facebook. So if you're looking and I'm not just saying this to promote, promote myself, but if you're looking for actual meaningful engagement and dialogue, I think that's the space for it. Um.
[48:36] Because it's, you can engage in a variety of different arenas, whether it's, you know, theology or cooking. Like there's just, it really does have everything in a way that doesn't get cluttered with, you know, whatever garbage Instagram's pushing me or Facebook's pushing me this week. Yeah, I kind of agree. It's kind of the, what I really envision social media to be. I love their notes feature for that reason. And it's just a lot more of a breath of fresh air. And their CEO was not in D.C. on Monday at the inauguration. So that tells you something. I don't know if they have a CEO. I don't know enough about the company. One way or the other. They do. It's kind of an interesting company. Yeah. I think it's whoever the guy who leads it, I think, is kind of techie, but not in the same way that a lot of the others are. So yeah some of i mean i've i've made some really good friends on sub stack that i haven't actually, gotten to meet uh same here i hope to hope i don't know how to make that i don't know i don't know how to do all those you know meet and greets in person but we'll trust that the internet will stay live for a while to keep us connected yep well tier thank you so much for taking the time to chat and um hopefully we can do this again this was a really good conversation All right.
[49:59] Music.
[50:27] Is your church considered liberal or conservative, or maybe it's considered a purple congregation? How receptive is your faith community to welcoming someone of a different ideological viewpoint? And if you're a congregation that is a purple congregation, how is it working? How is it working with people on different sides of kind of the political spectrum? I'd love to hear what your thinking, so please send me an email, and that can be sent to churchandmain at substack.com. I'm also going to include the links to Tear's website and also to the article itself. If you want to learn more about this podcast, listen to past episodes, or donate, please visit us at churchandmain.org. And you can also go to churchandmain.substack.com to read related articles. I would hope that you would consider subscribing to the podcast, and you can do that on your favorite podcast app. And wherever you listen, if it's possible to leave a rating or review, I hope that you can do that as well. That allows for others to find this podcast. Well, that is it for this episode of Church in Maine. Thank you so much for listening. Take care, everyone. Godspeed, and I will see you very soon.
[51:55] Music.
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