Ep. 163 Preston Sprinkle - Living Faithfully in the Shadow of Empire

In this episode, Preston Sprinkle and I have a great conversation around being exiles in the shadow of the empire. He wants us to know that this nation that we are living in – no matter what nation in the world it is not my primary political identity – the Kingdom of God is. The church is a political entity itself. We dive into Romans 13, examples of the church being faithful to Jesus while taking up causes for the flourishing of the community, how Israel was designed to be upside down to the kingdoms of the world, and how Jesus subverts power. We talk about how the Kingdom of God transfers power from money and might to weakness and sacrifice and how turning the other cheek is one of the most powerful things we can do. So join us as we discover how to be faithful exiles in the shadow of the empire.

New York Times bestselling author Dr. Preston M. Sprinkle has written more than a dozen books. He serves as the president of the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender and the host of the Theology in the Raw podcast. His latest book is Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire.

Preston's Book:
Exiles

Preston's Website:
www.prestonsprinkle.com

Preston's Recommendation:
Martyr Made Podcast

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In a world that makes up its own rules, Christians need to focus on Who rules! The Christ!

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Transcript

Preston Sprinkle: 0:00

There is a profound ideological clash between how the ecclesia does politics and how the Empire does politics. You see this beautifully illustrated throughout the book of Acts where the Christian movement keeps disrupting the the political fiber of society. But they never do anything illegal. They never want to do anything that was actually against Roman law, but they were constantly challenging the legitimacy of Caesars reign.

Joshua Johnson: 0:42

Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Go to shifting culture podcast.com to interact and donate. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week. And go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now. And hit five stars. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network? Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast, where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Mark er house knock made Panahi and Brian zahnd. You can go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Preston sprinkle. New York Times bestselling author Preston sprinkle has written more than a dozen books. He serves as the president of the Center for faith, sexuality and gender and is the host of the theology in the raw podcast. His latest book is exiles the church in the shadow of empire. Preston and I have a great conversation around being exiles in the shadow of the empire. He wants us to know that this nation that we're living in, no matter what nation in the world, it is, is not my primary political identity. The kingdom of God is the church is a political entity itself. We dive into Romans 13 examples of the church being faithful to Jesus while taking up causes for the flourishing of the community how Israel was designed to be upside down to the kingdoms of the world and how Jesus subverts power. We talked about how the Kingdom of God transfers power from money in might to weakness and sacrifice and how turning the other cheek is actually one of the most powerful things that we could do. So join us as we discover how to be faithful exiles in the shadow of the Empire. Here's my conversation with Preston sprinkle. Preston, welcome to shifting culture really excited to have you on. Thank you for joining me.

Preston Sprinkle: 3:06

Yeah, thanks for having me on. Again. I really appreciate it.

Joshua Johnson: 3:08

I love this book, exiles what you were out the church and the shadow of Empire is really, I think, going to help a lot of people. It's really, really accessible. And it challenges a lot of people's thinking about what politics is how we can engage in the political arena. And so we can be faithful to Jesus in the midst of really living in the largest, most incredible empire in the world today. That has to boast. You know, for us, I think a lot, a lot of the questions that I have, when I read scripture, were reading scripture through the lens of a people that was a minority in the Empire. They were a, you know, a small group of people that were not a part of the Empire. I live in America, you live in America, we're a pretty powerful country. And so we're actually part of the Empire. So I wanted to start for an introduction to you as an introduction to this topic. How have you wrestled with that? Being part of a powerful empire but also being faithful to Jesus in your life?

Preston Sprinkle: 4:23

Yes. Yeah, man. It's been it's been a journey. I would say so yeah. Briefly, like, probably a lot of your listeners may be I was raised in America in conservative Evangelical Church, and that was just the air I breathed, you know. And in my particular environment, which is very characteristic of conservative evangelicalism, biblical values and certain in, you know, right wing, political values get kind of merged together, they get meshed together. So if you're a good Christian, you oppose abortion. You preach the gospel, you supported The military death penalty, you kill your enemy. You're against communism, socialism, you oppose Democrats because they're, you know, opposing Republicans and Republicans are more or less good. And Democrats are more or less bad. So So you have all these kinds of values and stuff, just kind of just blend it together. And again, like most Christians, that was just the air I breathe, I didn't really question it. But once I started pursuing, you know, biblical scholarship, I just quickly cultivated a passion to take all of my presuppositions back to the Bible and say, What does the Bible say about everything? That's, that's the summary of my, you know, 30 years as a believer, what does the Bible actually say about whatever topic, you know, fill in the blank. So I would say fairly shortly on my Christian journey, well, maybe maybe it's to say, the first decade of my Christian journey, as I'm trying to weed out my presuppositions that were just taken back to the text of Scripture. I started to see just these I started just kind of unravel, untangle these sort of political values, some of which might resonate with what I think is a biblical worldview and others that might not. And then, you know, I started like talking to my, it took me probably 10 years to meet a Democrat, Christian started talking to them like, oh, wait, you're, you don't sound like the devil. I'm not sure I agree with you and everything. But you also have biblical reasons why you hold to this value and that value and certain things I could resonate with, and others not. So I just started to see that I just, man, I think these ideologies of the Empire we can get to that have really hindered. Have you have clouded that political thinking of Christians living in America. And the tribalism is just once you're kind of awaken to the tribalistic us versus them nature of partisan political discourse in America, you begin to see just how I'll say destructive, it can be for the mission of the church. That doesn't mean we don't have leanings, that doesn't mean we don't have maybe even a certain political candidate that we think is better at managing Babylon than the next one. But that's that's the key phrase, right? I think having the perspective that we are exiles in, in Babylon, we want to seek to get to the city, just like the original Hebrew exiles did. But we do so as exiles, not as Babylonians. This nation is not our primary political entity. And that should apply to all Christians, all global Christians. Whatever lesson you're living in this nation is not my primary political identity. My primary political identity is in the kingdom of God, which has been spread across the globe. And when you look at our current political partisan discourse through that lens, I think it just kind of reshapes I think it reshapes everything really. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 7:43

I think it does, too. But what so as you're, you're going into this, one of the things you did in your first chapter, you talked about the church as a political entity itself. Yeah. How is it? How is that possible? What is the church and why is it political? Yeah, take us through there.

Preston Sprinkle: 8:00

Yeah, so I begin, kind of right out of the gate, talking about the very meaning of the Greek word ecclesia, which is the Greek word translated church. And ecclesia, has deep historic political connotations. It was a significant Ecclesia just means assembly gathering. Well, originally, back in the Athenian democracy, it was a place where people gathered that men would gather together and talk through politics and decide political decisions about civic life and, and 21st century Rome, same thing like it was, it was prime the word was a political gathering. So when the Christians adopted that term to apply to their assembly, there's something intentional behind that they could have called it a Koinonia. And in some cases, they do a fellowship. They could have called it a sunnah go gay, which, you know, where we get synagogue, and, you know, the Jews kind of had that term, pseudo gay, but other other other groups did to isn't just a Jewish term. So there, there were other options that could have used to describe their gatherings, but they chose to actually see it. It's like, oh, that's theirs. That's, that's intentional, you know, like, and if you take just the basic kind of the broad definition of politics, and politics just has to do with organizing any society or community around how it interacts with each other with things like resources and leadership, and who can come in who can come out, you know, Citizenship and Immigration and legitimate uses of power? What do you do when people lack resources? And so all these kind of basic questions that we consider that are considered politically these are? These are questions that the Church of God around across the globe needs to think through? What is the nature of leadership? Who can come in who can come out? What are the criteria on there, and how do we treat outsiders? How do we treat our enemies? How do we treat people that are trying to attack us? What do we do with people that don't have access to certain resources, while other people have access to resources? So all these political questions that we think are just these national kind of questions, we have the same stuff as the church and you see this throughout Scripture where Christians were taught Talking about these the, you know, these values of the church using profound political terms, the very term gospel, or kingdom. These are political terms, they were right over the Roman Empire. And it's just it is pretty fascinating that Christians simply adopted these highly charged political terms to describe their Yeah, they're a Christian Christian way of life.

Joshua Johnson: 10:22

Well, let's get into their their Christian way of life. It is, you know, described in political terms, and they're thinking about kingdom, they're thinking about all of these political type of issues and how we live as followers of Jesus. How did they start to live? Okay, I would. So were they trying to infiltrate the governments of Rome and change the way that Rome decided to do things? Like what what were they doing? Why were they so political? And how are they engaging politically as the church?

Preston Sprinkle: 11:39

It's great, great question. There's several kinds of ways I could frame my understanding of how they navigated their sort of political identity. One would be, let's start with a, you know, a couple of Bible passages, you know, like to talk about the sort of Romans 13, and Revelation 13, tension, Romans 13, you know, submit to government authorities, and it has this, I wouldn't say it's a positive view of government, but it has a very submissive view of government doesn't praise the government, but it says God can use government authorities to accomplish as well. You know, Romans 12, talks about how the political Ecclesia should operate, you know, love your enemies, and don't return evil for evil. And then Romans 13 kind of describes how the government does things, which is actually quite different than Romans 12. But it says God's sovereign, he can actually use governing authorities. So yeah, the so you know, very submissive posture to the government authorities. Did you go to read Revelation 13. And all of a sudden, now, John, the revelatory appeals back the layers of politics and says, yeah, that government you're submitting to, it's a beast, it's been co opted by the dragon, which is Satan. No, like, it's this. It's like, wait a minute, you tried to tell me the vampire has been like, empowered by the devil, to kind of exactly what he said or the way it's not even. This is not even like a disputed interpretation, really. So. So you have these twin poles of like, okay, submit to government authorities, but also a recognition that this empire is not a neutral entity, it has been co opted by the devil, that doesn't mean even think about first century Rome. That doesn't mean everything the Roman Empire did was bad. They actually Caesar Augustus had had actually really conservative view of merit, outlawed adultery and really encouraged young men to get married and have kids so these kind of, you know, like, Focus on the Family family values is almost right on hold with like a gun, he would be been a big guest, this would have been a big Dobson town. Well, except he permitted you know, sleeping around if you're a man but anyway, they they built roads, they they they had the kept thieves at bay, they, there were good things that came from the Roman Empire. But see, a logically we have to say at the end of the day, it is a kingdom competing with the kingdom of God for how to rule the world and is ultimately been co opted by the devil. And so we need to live in this kind of tension of submitting to government authorities, and yet recognizing that this government, this this, this empire is not our home, this empire is not on our side, this empire is is trying to rule the world in a way that is in opposition to divine rule. So that'd be one way to live in or another phrase and I'll stop here but you know, submissive resistance, or submissive subversion that we are to be good citizens were to seek to get to the city we are the Brahmins are to pay our taxes and but recognizing that we that there is a profound ideological clash between how the ecclesia does politics and how the Empire does politics, you see this beautifully illustrated throughout the book of Acts where the Christian movement keeps disrupting the the political fiber of society, but they never do anything illegal. They never want to do anything that was actually against Roman law. But they were constantly challenging the legitimacy of Caesars reign. And this is that so they really navigated this beautifully. There's a scholar, Kevin row, wrote a book called the world upside down. He talks about this, it just draws us out that they never did anything. They never did whatever. They tried to call them out legally, or on legal grounds. They said we did anything wrong. But you always want to throw in that Caesar. So I think yeah, living in that that subversive tension is kind of the sweet spot where we see in the New Testament. Yeah, that's

Joshua Johnson: 15:30

pretty amazing. So if we take Paul for example, as he gets thrown in and Ephesus in front of the judge, and they say, Hey, you You have destroyed all of our Artemis idols. Yeah, we're not making any money anymore. But, you know, they go up and he never blasphemed Artemis. And if you look at Artemis, it's a pretty perverse type of worship, right? I mean, it's not the the greatest goddess to to have on display. And there he was putting people out of business because he was lifting Jesus up in the midst of what was happening. That's an interesting thing for, for me, if I think of, you know, a lot of my friends, you know, I, my wife and I lead a missions organization. So a lot of people that come through our missions organization really want to transform the world, right? So they have a transformative view of, of engagement in the world to change the world from the inside out. How do we do that? I think a lot of people, like the first Christians, a lot of them tore down the gods saying, like, you know, our God is more powerful. We're going to tear it down to say, your gods actually don't have power, like our God does. And I'm going to show you, and so they're trying to go through there, but Paul was was different, in which he just lifted Jesus up. And he didn't tear down Artemis. So as we're going into different cultures, or even in our neighborhoods, how do we how are we a prophetic witness in? I think that Paul was in Ephesus, how are we a prophetic witness? In our communities, or neighborhoods where what we think that kingdom values are of whatever we think kingdom values are, can start to take place without tearing things down? Is that Yeah,

Preston Sprinkle: 17:31

yeah, that's great. That's a great image guys, you're talking to maybe think of? Yeah, for a lot of friends of mine, who are missionaries like West Africa, where, you know, Voodoo is just like witchcraft just built in xiety. And, you know, I don't know if somebody said exactly like this, but I want to, you know, I want to preach Jesus so effectively, that it runs witch doctors out of business, rather than going burning down their homes, whatever, let's just show people the better thing that they're searching for. They're searching for healing. They're searching for spiritual connection. They're searching, whether they're searching for like, we have all that in Jesus. So I love I love I love that approach. You know, it made me think I mean, I don't know, I don't know exactly. boots on the ground. What exactly this looks like in every scenario. I do. I do like finding examples, though, of different churches and Christian organizations that are kind of what I would say doing politics better than Babylon. So for instance, there's a, there's an awesome organization in Chicago called together Chicago now, you know, South Chicago is notorious for its gun violence. And this gets caught up in the tug of war on debates about gun control. And every time there's a mass shooting, people use, you know, like, so the, like, people who are very pro Second Amendment, they're like, look at all the gun deaths in South Chicago, you know, these in hand guns, and they're not even using the AR 15. So you get banned and all these quote unquote, assault weapons, what does that even mean? And, and, you know, meanwhile, you have all these people in broken families and fatherless homes, and that's what's causing all this. So we need to work on the family, we need to the problem isn't, you know, stricter gun laws, it's, it's, you know, criminals being criminals, you know, and then then the left will pretty come in and talk about their side of the gun laws. Well, they just, you know, they get these guns because they go across to you know, Indiana that has loose gun laws, buy their guns and come back. So we need a ban on all that, you know, all these weapons on a federal level. So it just gets back and forth. Meanwhile, people keep getting killed in South Chicago. Together, Chicago said, Okay, that's that's a debate that will probably keep going on. And maybe maybe one side is more right than the other. But what can the church do to address this so they just created this beautiful organization called together Chicago that takes a holistic approach to reducing gun gun violence in Chicago, they they they pursue education. They help people get out of gangs, they do help single moms with with raising their kids. So they take a very holistic approach, very Christ centered approach to it all and they are actually doing the very thing that people are simply trying to vote towards based on their political leanings or whatever. So it's not an either or, I you know, I'm not against. I'm not against Christians being civically or politically involved. But I'm like, Man, I, again, if we take the church as the ecclesia as a political entity that is empowered by the holiest Holy Spirit that's brooded over creation, and we serve a risen King who is the Caesar We're all the universe like we, let's we can do some of the stuff we're wanting the government to do you know that that's just gonna keep fighting, there's gonna keep using the back and forth. Meanwhile, look, there's knees right in front of us that we actually could pursue. So anyway, that's an example of, I think, a more focusing not exclusively, but primarily on a on a church. How do I say it like church base political involvement, or however you want to? I want to frame it.

Joshua Johnson: 21:07

Yeah, I think that's, that's really good to have that example. And I want to circle back to that later in this conversation, but I want to go all the way back into Israel. He, you know, when Jesus comes on the scene, you know, he talks about the Kingdom of God right away. The the Jews, at that point, were thinking that the Messiah was going to bring a kingdom of this world, and they were looking for the Messiah that's going to take over Rome and establish their own kingdom there and Jesus is like, No, my king kingdoms, none of this world, I'm a king somewhere else, you know, all the way up until his death, chi Ephesus, saying, you know, there is no king but Caesar, Jesus says to Pilate, I am a king, but king of a kingdom, this out of this world, but even all the way back to you to Israel. You're you're going into the Old Testament, you're seeing Israel looks different already, as a people, then all of the the kingdoms around them. So even before Jesus comes on the scene, how is Israel starting to organize themselves? And how does God want them to organize the Israel into a place that is different? That is a little upside down from the kingdoms around them?

Preston Sprinkle: 22:22

Yeah, you know, I, I'm glad you brought that up. i That's, I think it's chapter two, I get into the upside down nature of Israel's kingdom. And that's something I kind of, it's something I've been thinking through it for a long time. But I didn't. I didn't think to add it in this sort of biblical theology of being an exile to go all the way back to prior to exile, then I started really digging in and seeing just how different the nation the nation of Israel was when they were an actual nation. So I look at four different lenses. One is just their very nature of kingship. And this is, you know, a lot of the stuff doesn't leap off the pages until you look at the ancient Near East background and compare Israel to other nations around them. So like, Deuteronomy 17, lays out kind of, here's the kind of King I'm looking for. Well, if you look at that against the backdrop, and it's like, you know, be humbled, don't think you're better than everybody else, don't collect a big harem. don't multiply gold, silver horses, you know, don't make alliances with other nations. You know, it's like you look at this, and it's like, that's the exact opposite of what every other king did in the world. They multiplied well, they showed off, they made alliances, they had to be powerful military, and, and it's almost like, you know, God looks at all how all the other nations do things. And he's like, Yeah, you do the opposite. So that people will know that you're not the actual King. I am. militarism. I know, look, there's a lot of violence in the Old Testament, sometimes God even commands violence. But one thing that people don't recognize is militarism. Like having a big, strong, powerful, well funded military was a sin. Like God deliberately said, You are not to have a standing army, you are not to have horses and chariots. In fact, if you conquer if you actually go to battle, and you got a bunch of horses and chairs laying around you to burn the chariots, hamstring your horses, because I don't want you having these superior military weaponry, you know that day and age and, and you see this throughout the prophets, they critiqued Israel when they did fall into militarism, economics was profoundly upside down like in every other nation. It was a it was a pyramid of economic wealth, where a bunch of elites owned all the wealth, the top kings on the land priests on the land, they had all the power. Well, God has flipped that upside down, no, the people are going to have on the land. And if a king tries to assert his kingly authority and take somebody's land, you are in sin, and they get, you know, like in the case of Ahab and de bas vineyard, and at the end of first Kings, he gets rebuked for it. First Kings second, get first Kings. So anyway, yeah, so even when the people of God were an actual nation state, they were to live in an extremely counter cultural way. And then, of course, you know, through the narrative, they get exiled, they lose their sort of nation state status. And now in the New Testament, they are still a, they are a kingdom, but now they're a kingdom of a multi ethnic believers spread across the globe living under various nations. The people of God no longer have their own literal nation state. Now they have the sort of, you know, communities that embody this countercultural politic spread across the globe underneath these secular nations. So yeah, but you see, a lot of the similar principles is sort of upside down. Kingdom nature of the nation of Israel, you see the same principles embedded in these Kingdom outposts throughout throughout the New Testament. So then

Joshua Johnson: 25:47

Jesus comes on the scene and he, right away. I mean, Mark, he's he's gone straight. The good news of the kingdom of God like, this is Kingdom language is very political. How does Jesus himself subvert the the kingdom world that he was living in, in the the Roman worlds? And how is he a subversive figure? politically?

Preston Sprinkle: 26:10

Yes. Give me all these loaded questions.

Joshua Johnson: 26:15

Welcome. Yeah, welcome.

Preston Sprinkle: 26:18

Yeah, yeah, I have. So I have a chapter on what I would consider. From our vantage point, they would be subtle ways in which Jesus's teaching and even some of his actions and behaviors subverted the legitimacy of the Roman Empire. And I see sudden, they're settled in our eyes, but I don't think they would have been so subtle to the first century readers, even like, I'm going to somebody, I can go to the birth of Christ, the birth of Christ, especially in Luke two, you know, look to the Christmas story. Why does it begin by mentioning, you know, these political rulers? I'm blanking on the names that was a Augustus and curious, curious, who cares? I'm curious, like that. But it's like he mentions these, these political, Roman political rulers, and then uses a lot of lordship language to describe the birth of King Jesus. Well, that is subtly, subtly or not so subtly, saying something that it while all these human rulers are trying to rule the world, you know, Luke ascribes these very political titles like Lord, to, instead of God to King Jesus. So this is like this is the birth of a new emperor. And it's easy. It's almost like colored with that kind of language. Like if you read Greco Roman literature, you can even you know, read their glowing reports of the birth of a new empire. And look to and Matthew one and two is not terribly different from those kinds of celebrations of the birth of a new political ruler, because he was a new political ruler, not one that's going to overthrow Rome. But but also not one that's just going to live in our hearts is some king in our hearts, but isn't going to really affect kind of our material involvement in civic life. So yeah, that would be one I mean, or the temptation of Jesus, I mean, where he's offered, Satan offers Jesus, the rule over all the kingdoms of the earth. And we often read that and think, oh, that's just a lie. You know, Satan doesn't have power over the kingdom of the earth. But it's like, Well, let's think biblically. Like, we have deep Old Testament legitimacy for seeing kingdoms of the world being co opted by Satan. Daniel 10, is a classic example of Yeah, the, you know, the, you know, Michael, the archangel get Yeah, Michael, you know, going off to do battle the Prince of Persia, that he's going to do the battle to Prince of Greece, meaning there's these demonic powers that are sort of CO opting these earthly empires and the angels are doing battle with them, you see, and Revelation 19, that the dragon has authority over the beasts. So I think and both scholars, I was shocked, but not shocked to see when biblical scholars kind of taken for granted. Yeah, Satan has caught up to these empires. And he was genuinely like offering that to Jesus. And Jesus said, No, I'm not going to do that. So yeah, there's a lot of the stuff that we often in the gospels that we often see, we often read this kind of more narrow, like, healthy spiritual living lens. And there's some of that fasting and prayer and so on, you know, but there's just a lot of Political Theology baked into the gospel narratives as well.

Joshua Johnson: 29:34

Yeah, there's Islam Political Theology, right there. And I'm just thinking that Yeah, okay. It is subtle to our eyes. But even in Luke four is Jesus talking about a new type of Kingdom isn't Jews, they're like, I'm gonna throw you off a cliff. And because I don't like it, even so the Jews weren't even enjoying the political nature of Jesus saying this is actually for all nations, and not just for us, the Jews, and they didn't like it. And then of course, you know, he was he was sent to be killed as well. So, I mean, I think that in American history, you see that, you know, with Martin Luther King Jr. You have have these political people that are trying to do it in a third way right there. They're going in in a different way and people on both sides don't like it because they're kind of CO opting power. So you know, MLK, Jr. was was killed and assassinated. So, as they're, they're siphoning off power. As the church itself would siphon off power from the Empire, How then shall we live? Like what is it looked like for us as the church that siphons power from the Empire, not in a way that is coercive, not in a way where I'm, you know, I'm going to tear things down. But because we live in a radical way of Jesus, and so it's going to take power away. And I think power is a lens in which a lot of people are thinking about right now. Right? So we think about power constantly. How then shall we live in this way? Where we know that there's going to be opposition?

Preston Sprinkle: 31:21

That's a great quick Yeah. When you say Siphon Power off the or siphon? Can you take

Joshua Johnson: 31:27

power from the Empire? I really think that Jesus Himself did the same thing, right. This is why he, even with with, with Israel, that they thought the power was going to come through political power and overthrow human governments. But because there's a different type of power, which is the power of the kingdom of God, which is upside down from this world, it actually takes power from whatever we have here. I think it siphons it off it sooner to this upside down power. And we're actually living a totally different way. And so I'm thinking that actually takes it it takes people away from the Empire, because they're actually now being exiled into this, you know, church community, and this Jesus community instead of the, the political arena where they have control over things. It's, it's the same thing for for us, for me as a missionary when I lived in and Jordan, I, I needed to make sure that when Muslims came to Jesus, we didn't see throngs of Muslims coming into the church, because they would think that there would be a political overthrow, and their way of life would be, they wouldn't be able to do that. So, but the church itself, they're like, oh, it's like, it's a different way of life. So the government really doesn't have as much power because people are living a different way of life then the political way of life. I hope I explained some of that, okay.

Preston Sprinkle: 33:05

This is fascinating. And honestly, this is I like conversations not monologue. So I'm, I'm learning I hear you I feel like you're teasing out. Like I'm thinking theologically and then you're teasing out kind of what does this look like in real life and I love where you go in it that my initial saw is like truly seen weakness as power. And this is a Walter wink and others have done work on that, that the nature of the specifically even like the non violence in the New Testament is not because of passivity. And this is why I don't like the term pacifism. I like Crystal centac. Crystal centric, militaristic, non violence, are you how are you like it's turning the other cheek is actually a form of power, not weakness in God's kingdom, washing feet of your enemy, is a form of power, not weakness, even though that's going to be viewed as weakness in the eyes of the broader culture. We see this beautifully throughout the book of Revelation that that amazing throne room scene and Revelation five, where John here is about the lion of the tribe of Judah, who has nicarico conquered, which is a military term. So he expects to see this, this warrior, he turns around, he sees a slaughtered lamb. And Richard Baucom, has done good work on this where throughout the book of Revelation, you often see this, this combination of hearing and seeing, hearing and seeing, he hears about a lion turns and he sees a lamb. And whenever you see that, that kind of tension, the thing he sees is sort of defining or redefining the thing he hears. So it's not like you have a line over here and a lamb over here, the land, the slaughtered lamb, the crucifixion, the nonviolent crude, while the violence so he absorbed was the means by which he became a kingly lion and conquered the beast, it was co opted by Satan. And this is not again, this is just all over the place in Revelation so that, again, this happens on both sides of political aisle were maybe being co opted a little bit by the political parties, they're a little bit blind to that danger of using the power of Babylon to fight against sort of their enemy because both sides of the political aisle will use that kind of power you know, more money more shame, you know, attack this person dig up dirt on this, you know, tear down your enemy, so that you can get up here you know, we need more mountain you know, it's just, you're using the power of Babylon to be rule the world, you're just doing everything wrong and we Christians get sucked sucked up into that. No cultural weakness is actually a good thing. It's how the first Christians turned the world upside down. So I'm just kind of thinking out loud trying to decide to follow your thoughts after you have Allah, what do you think? Is that kind of where you're getting out of the habit? I

Joshua Johnson: 35:57

think so I think it is turning the other cheek as your being your enemy, it's those sorts of things are actually the most powerful. That's when I've seen communities transformed. I mean, it's the same thing that has happened to us in you know, in Jordan, one of the people that started to, to love Jesus wanted us to visit them all the time, he ended up being killed by a, it was just a Muslim NGO worker us wrong place wrong time, he was breaking up a fight, the guy just shot and killed him. But his whole tribe was calling for revenge, who's calling for the murder of the brother of the person that killed this man Achmed. And because of that, that's what they've been doing for centuries. It was an it's an eye for an eye, it's a tooth for a tooth. And this is what, hey, you've taken one of ours, we're going to take one of yours, we're going to show you that we have power, as well, you know, but during that time, as they were starting to call for that, we had another woman who started follow Jesus, you know, in our work, and we were reading the story of Jesus calling us to love our enemies. And so she called us a couple days afterwards and said, A, you know, Joshua, Meredith, I have been calling all my relatives, I'm in the same tribe, as this person. And I've been calling all the wives and telling all the wives that we need to calm her husband's down. Because Jesus says, to love our enemies, we need to do something different. And nothing happened. Like there was silence on the streets. After that there was peace, that there was no revenge. And I think that, after centuries of living one way of power for power, to actually start to follow a new way of, I'm going to turn the other cheek, and I'm not going to take revenge in this moment, actually puts the power back into those people's hands more than taking revenge would ever have done it. And so I think that's where, you know, as we, the church of were standing up as a prophetic witness, and saying, This is a new way of life and living. Again, that's what the early Christians did. That's how we turn the world upside down. That's how generations of people that have been following one way will start to follow it a new way, a way of Jesus. It's the same thing. I think that's happening in our political lives. Because it's all it is, is shot for shot from one side of the aisle to the other, like, a, you just took one of ours, you gotta compromise and we'll take one of yours and going back and forth, back and forth. There's got to be a third way, there's got to be a way of living as exiles. Right? As the church.

Preston Sprinkle: 38:50

Yeah, it does. It just discourages me when I see Christians who again, I think are too embedded in a certain partisan mindset. They just take, they just get it feels good, it feels good and great. And they take pride sometimes when somebody of their tribe, you know, oh, and somebody the other tribe, you know, or shames them, or makes him look stupid, or beats him in a debate or yells at them louder. You know? Again, it's goes both both ways. You know, and it's like, why do you mean is that is that though, does that feel like the Christ like means by which we produce good in the world? Like that's just that's like using the ways of Babylon to produce good money? I just not you're you're you're getting sucked up in the vortex of this, us versus them political back and forth. That's just again, it's the way of the beast, not the way of the Lamb. So

Joshua Johnson: 39:40

how do we follow the way the lamb and this political, hotbed culture that we live in right now? Oh,

Preston Sprinkle: 39:48

man, I Yeah, it's possible. I think we need Christian leaders to make some bold, do some bold things for the sake of political discipleship. Meaning, you know, the last two elections have increasingly gotten more polarized more and more churches divided families torn apart. I mean, I've heard just, you have to share I mean, just churches divided over stuff that's not easily like a doctrinal point anymore. It's all like somebody denied the Trinity. It's like, you know, this church, you know, wore masks and this one didn't hear or say something like, is our like, how are we going to take on the, you know, the principalities and powers of this present evil age if we can't even take on the pen? is about a mask you know, it's like but I think that leadership at the top taking risks meaning they'll probably lose some people because people were are so deeply entrenched in a political viewpoints and they esteem that over gospel unity. But yeah, it takes some risk and really help people to just come back to the Bible I think come back to your Christian values and don't get sucked up in a partisan mindset doesn't mean you can't lean a direction and other doesn't mean you can vote for this or think this Babylonian leader is better ruling Babylon than this one, but help them cultivate the perspective of their Babylonian leaders were in exile, like can you imagine? Like I just I read I titled the book on purpose, and I keep I keep on because they bringing us back to that kind of metaphor, like, can you imagine, you know, Jewish synagogues in Babylon dividing over whether nob Unitas is a better ruler over Babylon than Nebuchadnezzar? Or whether, you know, when Cyrus and the Persians kind of conquered Babylon? Was that better for them? Or worse? Should they support Cyrus or should they support now but notice? Is it the whole thing to seem silly? You know, it's like, well, I don't think they thought they would capture the about about an opinion. You know, I, I mean, in reality, I think Cyrus is probably better than Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar tore down the temple, Cyrus helped build it for ulterior motives. It wasn't like he was like, you know, just trying to do good things for Jewish people or whatever. But I just don't think they would have divided their synagogues for like, what you think now, but I just How dare you look at it, you know? Or what if a bunch of what about like immigration policies, you know, gosh, we got a lot of Assyrians, you know, hopping the fence and coming into Babylon? Like what the Jewish exiles would, would they have, like, divided over? Whether there's too many Assyrians coming into battle enough, just like, so. I think if we, I think, honestly, like, helping people to understand the maybe the, you know, it's often framed to Church State distinctions, that's fine use categories people are familiar with, but just like, how deep that distinction should run, so that when not yes, but when we get involved in civic life, we do so as people who are strangers and sojourners, and in a foreign land, try to try to help that foreign land, be it better foreign land, but we're, it's still a foreign land. You

Joshua Johnson: 43:00

know, I've, I've said the words, and throughout this conversation, but I really think that it's really helpful what you do in your book, taking the transformative view of and political engagement and engagement in our communities. And contrasting that with, you know, you have another one, but I want to talk about the prophetic witness view. Those are the two that I really want to talk about. Because I think the the cultural preservers that say, our culture as is going to hell in a handbasket, we need to get the culture back, we'll try to take more of a transformative view, because they're trying to hold on to something that they feel like is going away. But I don't know if that's going to be effective enough moving forward. And I love what you say about the prophetic witness. Can you talk a bit about the difference in distinction between the two? And why is being a prophetic witness the way that you are saying we should step into?

Preston Sprinkle: 44:06

Yeah, I appreciate that. And this chapter was a one is towards the end, the second last chapter, and I was most nervous about this one or the last one because I feel pretty comfortable with like a biblical theology of Israel and the kingdom of God, all this stuff. I know the Bible stuff I talked about, which is like 80% of it, but then I'm like, Okay, people are gonna say, Okay, now what, but so why, like, well go ask your local political theologian, this is not my primary area. But it would be it would be disingenuous to not at least tease out some thoughts. And so So yeah, in that. Second, last chapter, I talked about three different approaches was detachment, or you could call isolationist, it's kind of like you just remove yourself from society. Another is transformation, you change society for good. And another is almost like an in between, in between. It just takes a somewhat different approach is prophetic witness. You do speak truth to power, you do address evil around you. But you do so without being co opted by the very systems you're trying to change. And so I you know, one thing I'd say is, I think, you know, theologically citizens of God's kingdom should at least be cautious of, you know, sometimes even opposed to working in and through the demonically empowered authorities of the earth to bring justice to the world. And so I think, whatever civic or political involvement we have, I think it should, it needs to come with what I would say a biblical theology of, of empire so that we're always a bit suspicious of the powers to be even as we try to maybe change this reform that you know, change that law. One theologian a couple actually, a couple of one says Christians should whatever political involvement they have, it should be ad hoc. You know, Martin Luther King is a classic, classic example. Here's an unjust law, and I'm gonna fight to try to change it. As far as I understand from King in the civil rights movement, he, it wasn't a particularly Partisan Movement. And he did. So he used methods of non violence, like Christian methods to, you know, produce good in the world. And, you know, it's funny when he turned around and started, you know, condemning the Vietnam War, a lot of people that were on board with him with the Civil Rights stuff didn't really like the Vietnam stuff. But again, that kind of ad hoc, like, as I see, Fit, I'm going to address something that I see wrong in the world, but it's going to be deep, it's going to be done as a, as a firmly planted citizen in God's kingdom. And again, I'm not saying MLK did that perfectly, or if he would do it that way? But let's just say it to you, the United States is similar to is a kind of Babylon, which I argue in the book biblically, I do think the case can be made. Is God going to transform Babylon, biblically speaking? And the answer is, Well, the answer is no. I mean, he's got a crush Babylon, you read, Revelation 17, and 18, like, like any kind of worldly empire that is trying to rule the world, not while not somebody, the Lordship of Christ is, under God's judgment, God will redeem Babylonians individuals. But in terms of the broad system, I think we need to be really suspicious about that system as a whole. And one more thing, I just think we need to be extremely suspicious about partisan Allegiance. I have a friend of mine, Josh brother talks about, you know, it's good for Christians to have a lien like that I lean in this direction, I lean towards it, but not a bow, like you're bowing the knee to a certain tribe. I like that distinction. I think liens can be healthy and good, and we're all going to have them. But a bow can be dangerous. And one thing I want to, I guess, add is the, the entire system is trying extremely hard to turn your lien into a bow. They don't just want your vote, they want your total allegiance, they want your wallet, your heart, your you know, it just be being again, wise and shrewd and suspicious about those kinds of systems that simply are at work again, I could show that theologically. But also just do some research on things like social media algorithms, just stuff that just like people are trying to bend you in one direction and, and just to be be alert to that. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 48:10

that's so good. So Preston, if people read your book, exiles, what do you hope that people will get? Get out of it?

Preston Sprinkle: 48:20

I honestly at the end of the day, it's an extremely simple thing to view your primary political identity as in the kingdom of God, not in the kingdom of whatever nation you're living in. And you know, that's the third 30,000 foot level, but like, I would love for people to view their sort of political identity in the nation from that perspective, what what what, what real, like, example of that is, is how we use the plural pronoun. We talked about this briefly in the book about do we do Christians in America? Do we refer to our leader, our military, our troops? While our troops are, you know, overseas, and our troops are there? Like what what does that even mean? Like, would the Apostle Paul ever have called the Roman military like, Oh, those are our troops there? Yeah, our troops are at the border defending against the barbarians are trying to invade, you know, our, they're crossing over our border. And this, this use the plural product? What if we only use a pool a plural pronoun, in reference to the global multi ethnic kingdom of God spread across the nations? You know, we don't really have we plural we don't have borders unless you want to count like repentance and faith is kind of a spiritual border. We don't have we don't have a military so we don't have troops unless missionaries would be the closest thing to kind of our troops who are kind of over there somewhere, you know, like, expanding our kingdom? Sure. Okay. Those I guess those are our troops. So but it is that's an interesting test case of how easily Christians use the term our but what about Christians in the other 179 countries? or what have you? Like? Are we okay with Christians in Germany talking about our troops, their German troops are Christians in Iraq talking about ours, you know, like, it's just gets weird really quick when you started thinking about the actual global kingdom of God. So, yeah, that that honestly, if you just just a slight shift in thinking of, oh, okay, let's let's imagine this as if I actually was an exile in actual Babylon because that kind of realistic situation and 25 or two years ago, we can kind of, I think, I think that that is an actual really good case can be made biblically that we should have that same framework today.

Joshua Johnson: 50:32

Great. Press. A couple quick questions here at the end one, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give For

Preston Sprinkle: 50:40

me, specifically, this is gonna sound not as spiritual as maybe you're worried, but I would have told my 21 year old self go to Costa Rica for a year, while you're single, young, adventurous and learn Spanish. I just, I just like I was, I was in such a hurry to get through school to get a job to get married, do all this stuff. And it's like, those are great things, and they'll come in time. But man, that would have been so amazing to learn a second language fluently. Do you? Did you learn Arabic? And then Jordan or

Joshua Johnson: 51:07

I learned Arabic? And yeah, it's been seven years since I've been back. So it's, it's gone by the wayside. And I would it would come back pretty quick. But sure, I haven't used it much back in the stance. But yes, it's interesting, starting to think in a different language. I

Preston Sprinkle: 51:23

would also more spiritually, say, pursue a thoughtful, godly, older, more mature mentor or mentors, maybe a formal mentor, but I look back at like, some of my classes, I had professors and I just kind of sat and learn and took notes everything like man, I, it would be cool to have kind of a long lasting relationship with some of these, you know, Christian heroes of mine that I you know, sat under, in my earlier days. It's

Joshua Johnson: 51:50

not too late precedent. It's not too not too late. Yeah. Anything that you've been reading or watching lately you recommend?

Preston Sprinkle: 51:59

I've been reading a lot actually on the Palestine Israel situation. Yeah, some really fascinating stuff. Let me recommend this actually. Okay. There's a podcast called The martyr made podcast by Darrell Cooper. He did a 30 hours podcast series on the history of Israel Palestine. It is one of those brilliant, well researched, humanizing for like America was balanced, you know, perspective. So if anybody is interested in that conversation, I would highly recommend absorbing that it's actually and then he did do well, a couple years ago, his thoughts on Ukraine, and he has like two and a half hour thing on the situation Ukraine. so eye opening guys, brilliant. So yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 52:43

Cool. That's exciting. How can people get your book and then connect with you? Where would you like to point people to? You got a lot of stuff going on. So what would you like to find?

Preston Sprinkle: 52:54

Luckily, I've got a unique name. So if you just Google Preston sprinkle, you'll have a few websites and go to Preston sprinkle.com. My podcast, the origin era, I podcast twice a week. And we talk about everything pretty much. And in my book, exiles comes out March 5, and you can find it anywhere books are sold, which mainly means Amazon.

Joshua Johnson: 53:16

find on Amazon or your local bookstore. Yes, anywhere books are sold through

Preston Sprinkle: 53:22

the book, Empire.

Joshua Johnson: 53:25

Exile, an exile live like it acts out, I go to your local bookstore and order it there. It may take two weeks to get there. But it's worth the wait. It's worth the wait. And I really do think that this book is worth away. It's fantastic Preston, you've done an incredible job walking us through, you know, the biblical theology of being an exile, the Political Theology of the church and what that looks like. And I think it's going to help a lot of people. I highly recommend this thing. I really want a lot of people to read it. And also, thank you for this conversation. It was really fun. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, Joshua. And it was really, really good. So thank you so much. My pleasure.