Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture invites you into transformative conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Each episode, host Joshua Johnson engages guests who challenge conventional thinking and inspire fresh perspectives for embodying faith in today's complex world. If you're curious about how cultural shifts impact your faith journey and passionate about living purposefully, join us as we explore deeper ways to follow Jesus in everyday life.
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Shifting Culture
Ep. 337 Hanna Reichel - An Emergency Devotional for Such a Time As This
When the world feels uncertain and fear threatens to overwhelm, how do we stay rooted in faith? In this conversation, theologian Hanna Reichel joins me to talk about the new devotional For Such a Time as This. We explore what history - especially the lessons of Germany a century ago - can teach us about resilience, discernment, and Christian witness today. Hanna helps us see that faithfulness doesn’t always look the same: sometimes it’s public protest, sometimes it’s small acts of solidarity, sometimes it’s simply choosing joy. Together, we reflect on how to find calm in the storm, how to discern wisely, and how to live with hope in anxious times.
Hanna Reichel is Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Reichel earned their Dr. theol. in Systematic Theology from Heidelberg University, Germany, after an MDiv in Theology and a BSc in Economics. Prior to coming to Princeton, they taught at Heidelberg University and Halle-Wittenberg University in Germany. Reichel is also a research fellow at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
An internationally renowned scholar and widely sought speaker, Reichel has authored three monographs, co-edited nine collected volumes, and published several dozen scholarly articles. Reichel’s first book, Theologie als Bekenntnis: Karl Barths kontextuelle Lektüre des Heidelberger Katechismus reframes Barth as a contextual theologian through his repeated engagements with this Reformed confession over the course of his life. The book received the Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise and the Ernst Wolf Award. Reichel’s second book, After Method: Queer Grace, Conceptual Design, and the Possibility of Theology has been widely celebrated for building bridges between Queer-liberationist and Reformed-Systematic sensibilities, as well as constructively introducing design theory into conversations about theological method. Reichel’s newest book, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional is directed at a wider audience, offering a timely resource for ordinary Christians seeking to live faithfully in extraordinary times of societal upheaval and political fragility.
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Joshua Johnson:Joshua, 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 long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, in moments when the world feels unsteady, when polarization, fear and rising authoritarianism seem to cloud our vision. How do we root ourselves in something deeper today, on shifting culture, I'm joined by theologian Hannah Reichel to talk about her new devotional for such a time as this, Hannah draws on the history of Germany, the witness of the Confessing Church and the larger story of Scripture to help us ask, where are we in God's story, and how do we live faithfully in the middle of the storm? This conversation is about finding calm When Everything Feels chaotic, about cultivating discernment and a culture of distraction, and about learning to resist fear with joy, hope and community. Hannah reminds us that faith and resistance isn't about doing everything all at once. It's about discerning what God is calling us to here and now, and joining with others in a witness that makes a difference. So let's step into this story together. Here is my conversation with Hannah. Rachel Hannah, welcome to shifting culture. Thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. You know this emergency devotional that you have out for such a time as this, I think is really important today. But as you say in your book, there is nothing new under the sun. It feels like we are in this moment that is new to us. We have to figure out, how do we situate ourselves? Where are we going? What are we doing? But we've been here before in the history of the world, you actually make parallels between what was happening about 100 years ago in Germany to what's going on a little bit in the United States today and in the world. So take me into this knowing that we are in cycles of some of the same things. Where are we situate ourselves? Where are we in the story? And why do you use Germany as a starting point for us to situate ourselves?
Hanna Reichel:Yeah, thank you for these questions, and I'll start on some of them, and then you steer me back. If I, if I forget, will do Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel I hear so often, right? We live in unprecedented times or or even just the sense when I open the news and I see what's happening in politics in America today, that I get the sense of doom and like things are many things are happening, and many of them are terrifying, and that it's easy to get overwhelmed by that feeling, and it is obviously also really frightening, and I don't want to, like downplay any of that, but to, on the other hand, also kind of pause and say, yeah, maybe there's something in the cycle of any empire where there's a downward slide at some point and then it tips into into forms of decline that also come with unrest and Violence and all kinds of conflict. And also, really, Christians have been living under different forms of governments and different forms of empires for the for all of history. And to say, in some ways, this is not unprecedented. It is terrifying, because it affects us right here, right now. It affects our loved ones and communities that we care about. And all of that is true. And at the same time, we can maybe tap into the wisdom of that larger tradition and say, right, those who have also lived in times that were terrifying and politically unstable and so forth, what do they have to offer us? And yeah, you rightly say, right? I mostly tap into the history of of Germany 100 years ago. This is by and large because of the history I'm most familiar with. I'm originally from Germany. I've been living in the States for slightly less than a decade now, so I have a little bit of skin in the game, as well as here on the ground with my job and my life here. But I grew up in post war Germany, in a culture that was very much shaped by historical memory, right of the Holocaust, of the Third Reich, of grappling with, how can a political system go so wrong? How can so many people go along with it? Why could this not have been stopped earlier? Or might it have and so forth, and or also being raised in this posture of Never again? And also as a scholar, I'm a theologian, systematic theologian. I've worked a lot on Karl Barth and the history of the Confessing Church, which is sometimes kind of stylized into the the what kind of figures as the resistance against Nazi Germany in that time. There are obviously scholarly debates on how strong of a resistance that actually was. They did not go and take down the Nazis. They did not go and even really defend their Jewish fellow citizens all that much, but they did, in a decisive moment, kind of say the state should not have or not claim this absolute power into people's lives. And when it does, then the church has to stand up and has to confess its faith and has to say there are limits to what the state can can do and can demand, also in terms of loyalty and allegiance and obedience of its citizens. And that moment with the barman theological declaration also became kind of a model for other Christians and other moments since to do something similar. So partially, I'm drawing on this history because of that, but not necessarily because it's so heroic or so stellar, but also because it's, it's deeply messy, right? When you're in the midst of of these kinds of moments, it's actually very hard to know, you know, you do have some villains, but mostly you have kind of people that are muddling along and trying to figure out what's happening and to do the best that they can. And then, you know, you judge and we should judge them in hindsight, but at the same time, when we are in the situation of trying to figure out what to do, that is, yeah, it's not, it's not all that easy and to kind of actually tap into that complexity. But I also want to say I don't think Nazi Germany or the Weimar Republic, with the kind of Demise of democracy and a slide into authoritarianism, is the only sensible parallel and the only crucial historical resource that we should tap into. It's just the one that I'm most familiar with. In many ways. It's kind of an over leveraged comparison that we see people make, and I hope other people make other comparisons and tap into other kind of sources of wisdom. And I Oh, I also don't want to say it's not primarily a historical book, right? It's, it's also devotional, right? I use passages of Scripture, and I kind of just try to invoke this, this sense of a greater cloud of witnesses that has come before us, and I draw historically on specific witnesses that I know better than others. But yeah, the not yet. None of it is particularly new. I
Joshua Johnson:want to go back into the Confessing Church, and what we could learn from that, and then maybe what we could do better going forward. But humor me for a second, because I'm fascinated by this. How has German culture changed and shifted in a place of your never again culture of we don't want this to happen? Are there ways that Germans as culturally, are they more tentative to take action or enact things? Or what has happened after World War Two, the fall of Nazi Germany, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, like all of this, shift has taken change. What's the the culture like in Germany, and how has that affected Germans and their core identity?
Hanna Reichel:Oh, yeah. Well, that's a that's a big question, yeah. I mean, one of the things that is, I mean, one of the things that is quite different to the American context. First of all, was Germany did not have a long and strong democratic tradition, its own history of of a democracy was pretty short lived. It had, in the beginning of the 20th century come out of another brutal war, the First World War, that which it had started right with aggressive nationalism and the sense of we should be greater than we are, and we demand more. A piece of the pie in this world which went was terrible and went terribly wrong, and then they had to pay a big price in terms of reparations and and economic hardship, and also assuming, kind of politically, the sole guilt or what had happened, which also created a lot of grounds of resentment for, you know, all the people who then kind of just suffered under The day to day, economic hardships, dismantling of industries and so forth. And it became very easy for then the the demagogues, to kind of tap into the sense of betrayal, resentment and wounded pride. And I think that is that is maybe, then one of the perils that we can see today, that we see a politics, politics that is able to harness these kinds of emotions and people that are there that have have reasons, right? But then they use these, these emotions to kind of create a sense of new national unity, pride, very aggressive type of muscular rhetoric and blaming frame, blaming outside forces, blaming internal, foreign elements or just scapegoating, right, both minorities and whoever is perceived or stylized into an enemy. I think that's one of the really disconcerting parallels after the Second World War, and Germany was, you know, lost fully and completely. That war and was was quite devastated. There were different kinds of movements. There was a quick movement to also say there needs, and I'm now mostly talking about within the German churches, to also say we need to confess our guilt and what happens? And the famous first confession of guilt that happened then was one that in. That basically said, we blame ourselves for not having done more to prevent this, not having loved more fiercely, not having, you know, believed more faithfully, not having not having stood in our faith so firmly that we could have done more about it. And that was really controversial at the time, because some people said, Well, why should we actually take responsibility, and why should we confess? Because, after all, most of us have actually lived under a repressive, oppressive and totalitarian state. Most of us were not the worst perpetrators, but had actually to fear for our own lives, and many people were targeted, especially also in the churches, who did do more and so forth. But then others said, right? Like, this is really not a confession of guilt at all. It's just saying, like, I wish I had done more, which is, you know, that's not. And others said we actually need to own, and these were people who came out of the Confessing Church, for a big part, we need to own, actually, our part in this, also ideologically, right? Where were we even in our Christian faith? So wrapped up with this project of nationalism. Where did we believe that our culture, in the way that it had been informed by the Christian faith, was actually superior to other cultures? Where? So where do we actually have, not just in terms of what we didn't do, but but like more deeply in the very ideological structures, in the very cultural embeddedness of it, all of it all, where do we actually find that we were more complicit and we would like to be, and what does that mean going forward? So there was some of that also going on, but it took a couple of generations, and there were also big projects of the allied forces that then, kind of occupied Germany helped with us to a certain degree, to say there must be grassroots democratic re education. And there must be a big portion in the in the public education, which everyone goes through in Germany. More is that you know you have to learn about this history, and you have to learn how to be watchful for the kinds of signs that lead to it. And you have to really learn why we say never again and to what exactly and and that's, that's a very strong legacy, apart from the, you know, the the kind of official trials of some of the perpetrators, which there were some kind of big and public cases, but there were also many that escaped and much that was left undone, right? We did also, over generations, have kind of people who were, you know, just served in the institutions, in the Nazi bureaucracy, who basically then kept serving, and then just, you know, changed their colors externally. And so while there is, on the one hand, a very strong kind of public education and culture that is very critical of that history, we've also always had surges of Neo Nazis in different moments of time. And now we even see rises of alt right parties that sometimes openly flirting with ancestry, and sometimes more than that, and tapping into many of the same tropes. And that's that's really frightening, because right one would think right that, if you know, maybe this is this the place where really people should have come to the conclusion that something like that should never be viable again. So I'm not, I'm not going to say that we're an absolutely stellar example. I think so. On the one hand, there is kind of a strong cultural sensitivity to authoritarian structures, and to say we need to preserve a kind of base democratic culture. And what does that mean? And obviously also huge warning flags against anti semitism and the protection and for the protection of Jewish life, which was basically virtually eradicated in Germany, right? But it's also an ongoing struggle, and we also see rising authoritarian tendencies and rising nationalist tendencies in Germany as well. And, yeah, fascinating,
Joshua Johnson:and it parallels a little bit of what's happening in the United States. So we see some authoritarianism, some nationalist policies that are taking place at the moment you start your devotional. The very first devotion there is about finding calm in the storm, with polarization, with our attention economy, where everybody is vying for attention all the time, it feels like a storm for so many people, and they don't know how to find calm, and so you're trying to root us at the very beginning to find calm so that we could walk through what we are facing. How do we root ourselves in such a way to find calm in the storm?
Hanna Reichel:I wrote this most like this became my own spiritual practice, basically, right? So when, when Trump first assumed office, and I just found myself Doom, spiraling and just trying to follow this onslaught of executive orders, and some of them were, in and of themselves, really frightening, because they were targeting, you know, specific communities and and they were dismantled, starting to dismantle certain democratic structures and and that so like the individual content demanded a lot of attention. What is happening here right now? With whom do I need to, you know, conspire to make a statement against this? Or where do I need to watch out for my neighbors here and at the same time? And we know this right? There was also this whole, this was part. Of the strategy to, like, do so much at the same time that it will just leave everyone in shock and awe, and enough of itself imbue the sense of inevitability and absolute power like nothing can stop this. This has been prepared. They're just now marching through and you better, kind of, you know, the one thing is that you're actually not able to, you know, Sue all that needs to be sued at the same time, and like even the media to keep up with the attention. But the other thing is just this impression that you get of this huge and massive shift that is happening, and that we know that's part of the authoritarian playbook, right to kind of project this image of strength that then kind of becomes self fulfilling, and that's the giving into that fear and into that impression, in and of itself, is kind of part of what allows for that. And this is what gave me pause a little bit. And this is also one of the things where I found where that immediately felt like this is a moment where we tap into our resources of faith, because we can do a lot of political analysis, we can also do a lot of theological analysis. And it also seems something more is needed. There needs to be a different kind of grounding. There needs to be a different kind of posture. There needs to be a different kind of like a place to stand on from where to then kind of source the attention and the and the strength and the integrity to now deal with everything that's happening for me, the the story of Jesus and the storm, right? Where Jesus sleeps in the boat, just was such a wonderful image for that moment to say, the storm is real, right? And in that history, it's not in that story, in the Gospel story, it's not it's not made up. It's not just an illusion. It's not that disciples are just fearful out of misinterpretation of what is happening. It is actually life threatening, and at the same time, like the panic doesn't get you anywhere, and finding that place of calm is actually what allows you to then respond to what is happening in a way that might be more life saving for you and others. And so really, this is what I've tried to do with the book as a whole, to kind of write very little lessons that kind of not just illuminate what is happening and explain or whatever. I'm not trying to explain, actually much, but but to come to this different kind of ground from where to then reflect and think and pray and take action. But it's almost a kind of liturgical movement of gathering before we can be sent again, of like turning inwards and before we can turn outward again.
Joshua Johnson:So that turning inward phase, and that part, as we're gathering in, as we're doing that, how do we start to then ground ourselves in the ground, in the dirt, saying, I'm here with God, and then start to have some discernment of what is actually going on. I think one of the the big things that people are struggling with is their area of discernment of what is good, what is faithful. Where are we headed? What are we doing? Because there's so much information constantly barraging us. Discernment is really difficult for most people. How do we then start to discern? What does discernment look like, and how do we know that? Okay, I'm grounded now. I could go in the right direction. So
Hanna Reichel:first of all, I think it has to be as a communal process, right? It has to be a prayerful process, where it's not just me doing my own discernment, but I do this with God and in space that I don't have to do this alone, and then I also do it together with others, which give me the benefit of having sounding boards and having different voices and having some sense of solidarity and community, and others who can hold my despair when I'm despairing, and I can hold theirs when they are but also a division of labor at the end of the day that I don't have to attend to all the things. The body of Christ is large. It is diverse. There are different members that have different abilities, different positions and different kinds of access and different possibilities of doing things. And it is not that there's the one thing that everyone must do at this time. I think that's really important. And at the same time, there's no one who cannot do anything. And so kind of in that, in between, say, right, what is it that I can do here now, which, for me is also, this is maybe in the kind of Reformed sense of what confession is, right? It's not these universal creeds or the universal, timeless statements, but it is, what do we have to say here and now and so that every community kind of has to do that in their own moment in time. It's tentative and it's open to revision and critique, and it's also demanded, right? You cannot not say anything and not do anything. But it kind of, first of all takes this burden of, like it must be the whole thing and all the things at the same time and immediately, right, and whatever, yeah. But apart from this, and I, for me, the liturgical structure really became very helpful. Here as well, to also say, I don't have to do all the portions of it at the same time. And I started kind of writing individual things, because I had, like, these voices in my head of like, oh, this thing from bonifer, this might be applicable to here, or this insight from, you know, that moment in history of the Confessing Church. But then as I started writing individual, small lessons, they also, you know, they started moving around and then kind of falling into place and assembling into the shape where I was like, Oh, the structure is also something that that is important here. It's not just that I'm trying to communicate particular lessons, but there's a process where we first gather and reflect and also confess and reorient ourselves, and then we are open to to listen anew to the Word of God. And then we're open to also respond and discern what that response looks like. And then we have practices that kind of deepen the communion and the community. And these are the ancient practices of prayer and and communion and and memory and and, and, yeah, sacramental and communal practices, ecclesial practices, they can also have different faces. But I think the actual ecclesial practices serve us well here as well. And then there's a moment of kind of broadening out right and going out into the world. And so I'm also trying to kind of walk through different steps of what that might look like, rather than systematically look at what it is that is to be done or that is to be said.
Joshua Johnson:It kind of reminds me, as we're rooting ourselves in the story of God and the story of Scripture, of knowing where we are in the story helps us also rightly situate ourself and that liturgy, church calendar, just rehearsing the story helps us know, okay, I'm here, and this is where we are in the story. This is what's coming next. This is where we came from. So how does that help us? How does like story, the story structure, knowing the story of God and humanity, help us in what you're trying to do for us here?
Hanna Reichel:Well, I think, first of all, it can, it can broaden our perspective, and it can give us this greater hope, right, that if in whatever valley that we're currently in, this is not the whole picture. I think that is really important, and it gives us also, I think, a different appreciation for people who have come before us right to say they might, they might have been in a slightly different place. What they did might not be exactly what I have to do now, but I can also appreciate what they could do, or had to do, or felt they were able to do in their own moments. I might learn from their mistakes as well, but I can, yeah, I can kind of both trust in God's accompaniment of the process as a whole, and of whatever feels like an imminent threat and even an end of a kind of world, right? This is not the end of the whole world. This is at the end of the day, still, God's world. Some things are really dark. This is not the whole picture. I think that can, that can help to both kind of retain the seriousness of what is happening, but also not being completely consumed by it.
Joshua Johnson:As you were talking about this devotional in this book, it is helping us not see that we're not we're in it alone. We're actually in it with a community. There's a communal aspect of this, that discernment is communal. That brings me then to you know, in part two of your devotional, the the devotion of Be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. Or, you say, choose your battles, avoid traps. Also reminds me of and, or I'm still in the middle of of watching and, or so we're, we're choosing, yeah, choosing battles, avoiding traps at that time, knowing when to actually stand up, when to, you know, gather with people and bide our time. When is the right time to to act? When is the right time to gather as community? What? What is that starting to look like for for us as we're knowing when to act and what to do and what to say. And it's not all at once, but there's a bite sized piece here and there that adds up to something greater. Yeah.
Hanna Reichel:I mean, I it's something I grapple with constantly, and also I, you know, one of the my primary context in which I do my own discernment is the context of teaching at a seminary with students, many of whom are going into ministry or into other kinds of professions, or many of whom come out of different ecclesial contexts and have already done significant ministry. But so it's it's not immediately my own context is less immediately with congregations and communities and more with people who are also already or becoming faith leaders in their different contexts. And I can see, and I feel these targets as well, that there can be an urge to like, yeah, we must, you know, we must stand up immediately. We must make the strongest statements. We must do this right now. It is very important that we get it right, and and others who are very cautious. US, which, you know, in the political moment that we're in, is also not completely unfounded. I mean people who are afraid that their visas might be taken away, that their communities might be targeted in a different way, that they might not have access or not get a job and so forth, like all these things are legitimate concerns, and I think especially in a political climate where we can also see that opposition is, you know, there are token things that get immediately weaponized as, oh yeah, this is a sign of imposition. We will clap down, clamp down. Hard on it. We have seen this right, like there are punitive strategies immediately at work, against universities, against the press, where we can see that things that appear to be public displays of opposition, whether they actually are or not right, or lack of loyalty or ideological alignment immediately gets, get punished and become also exemplary cases that then frighten others. And I think this is one of the portions where I'm like, I'm actually going back and forth of like, when is that the right time to make big public statements? Because part of it is, it's very important, right that not everyone just simply folds or also muddles through and does not raise their head and forces that is very important. And some of the more important work might be less vocal and more on the ground in some ways, and to do the right discernment between these is very, very hard. I mean, the choose your battles wisely. Lesson, it does talk about, you know, Jesus being asked about paying taxes, and like giving this awkward kind of evasive answer, right where he, like they can't quite pin him down, right, like they can't use his answer to immediately say this guy is a revolutionary, and he, you know, wants to overthrow their regime or wants to defy it openly, and so we're literally just going to go ahead and crucify him. He doesn't give them that easily. And at the same time, the answer he gives also doesn't actually leave much doubt that, like this is not the kingdom that is the highest, that demands the highest loyalty, and another one does so, like he kind of tries to thread that needle in that moment. And, I mean, even in that moment, he gets kind of, and we see this happening with his passage, right? Like he kind of it also you can throw, you can fall down the horse on both sides with that as well, right? Like, is it enough of an of raising and opposition, and at the same time, he does actually get crucified, you know, a few, a few steps down the line for precisely that kind of non committal statements at that moment,
Joshua Johnson:but he knows when the right time was. And you know, you could see the week before He was crucified, he was he was saying more, he was he was doing more things to get him to the place that he knew that he needed to get to. And so we have to do some of that work, and knowing when the right timing what he's called us to do. And then in your answer, right there, one of the things that political authorities are trying to do is trying to induce fear in us. And what's the antidote to living in fear? Then how do we then maybe cultivate some joy, or do some some things to say, even in the midst of a fear based culture and a fear based regime, we can actually root ourselves in the rejoice always aspect of what Jesus is calling us to in the midst of difficult suffering and circumstances.
Hanna Reichel:Yeah. I think that is very, very important. I mean, yeah. And just quickly back to the like he did get more decisive, right, or maybe he found the right moments. And I think the we cannot abandon, the we cannot leave the site of the cross. We have to stay with those also get crucified in our moment. I think that is an important part of Christian witness. Always. Part of it is even if and when we cannot do anything. We cannot leave those sites and and that like extension of solidarity and and presence even and witness. But we do have to also use whatever privilege we have, whatever ground we have, whatever stand we have right, and not give that up prematurely out of fear or even prudence or discomfort. I mean, there's I believe in that strongly that we kind of need to stay in the spaces of friction and not avoid them. Yeah, but then, how does the fear not consume you? I mean, does you know often people's, I don't know what the what the count is, but people often say, like, how many times the Bible says, Do not be afraid. And often, like, even the gospel gets prefaced right? The announcement of the good news gets prefaced with the Do not be afraid. So even even the goodness may induce some of the fear, but there's a legitimate fear, but the other side of it is, yeah, it is. It is a part of the shadows that are cast by the light, right? And so focus more on the light and on the on the shadows in that sense. So don't give into the fear. And for that, we do need to cultivate the joy. We do need to cultivate the community. We do need to make space and give time for the experiences that are not that cannot just be subsumed by the current political moment. So part of part of resistance actually also means to insist that this is not all there is to life, right? It is not just terrible. It is not just the downfall of whatever even as all of that is happening, we are also gathering, we're also celebrating, we're also embracing one another, we're also sharing meals. We're also celebrating one another's lives and pursuits and and all of that creates the life which then we need to protect from the onslaught of whatever is happening. But there must be this life that is worth protecting, and that is more than than practices of self care so that we don't get fully eaten up. It is this insistence that grace is first and foremost. We already exist. Our community is real. We will lean into that and and embrace that and then defend us and expand it,
Joshua Johnson:because we're defending that we're nourishing our community, as we like to say, as we come together. This is the life that we want to protect, and this is the life we want to make sure that we can live. I think one of the things that is really fascinating here, I think a lot of times when we think of like resistance, or rebellion against the authoritarian regime, being faithful in the midst of all of that and trying to move forward, you think of really just, you know, progressive leaning thought. But you you talk about here is that you want to be a little bit more conservative at times as well, that there is actually a balance between, you know, rooting ourselves in a greater historical tradition and story, and then, you know, the progressive type of moving towards, really The margins and the marginalized, the neglected. What does that balance kind of look like? How can we root ourselves in, you know, conservative action and progressive leaning action at the same time? Is it possible?
Hanna Reichel:Yeah. I mean, many of the things that I'm trying to do here are kind of dialectical. So there's a lot of holding things in tension, and at some point I even, and this is half apologetic, right? I say I think, but it's only, it's only half joking. I think this is even in and of itself, part of the resistance to authoritarian ideology, because part of what it tries to do is to eliminate friction and eliminate tension and have everything aligned. And we can insist that we don't have to all think alike, and we don't have to exactly believe the same things and value the same things. And actually, that is part of the thing that we're trying to protect. And, and there should be a wide space here, and that will last, you know, eliminate it will even, you know, there will be lots of internal conflict if there's, if there's something internal like that. But, yeah. I mean, what are the labels of progressive and conservative? People can discuss up and down, and then, if you're more on the progressive end of the spectrum, maybe you think of those who are conservative as sometimes too narrow, or there's a particular self interest. But you might also say, right, there are particular values that this is about. And how about we think what these values are, what gets valued here, and what then, what kind of action then becomes necessary because of that? And on the other hand, more conservative, you might think of the progressive side as like, going wild in all kinds of directions. But there's also a lot of there's a concern for the for the for the vulnerable. There's a lot of empathy and altruism here that, you know, there's, I think, yeah, many of these values could be framed as more conservative values as well, easily. So I'm trying to say some, yeah, I mean, and radicalism is always about roots, and conservatism is about conserving something. So, I mean, I think the question is, what it is, what is it that we try to conserve, and what is the kind of future that we want to make possible, and for whom, and I think in that kind of balancing, the I mean, I don't know balancing, maybe never, but like both insisting right, like the good things that we have inherited that are worth preserving and are also worth extending. Too many, yeah, that that is something I would want to insist
Joshua Johnson:on as you continue to move forward in here, you have your many members, one body, you have diversity, and you have unity within the church. This is why I keep going back to Ephesians four. And I love Ephesians four, because Paul is talking to Ephesians. He's rooting us in unity. And Ephesians four, there's, you know, one body, there's one church, there's one Lord, there's one baptism, and we're one. But then, you know, grace was given by Jesus to different members of the church to do different things. You know, the apostolic, prophetic, the evangelistic, the shepherding and the teaching. We have diversity of gifts that we actually have to honor one another, and those and the diversity, and they're different members of the. Each each of the body. How does that help us then live in this world as we are, like, saying, hey, there is actually a one humanity, and there are different gifts. And we can, you know, appreciate each other's differences, and say we're for that, but we're also for some of this unity that we're called to, you know, the same purpose and the same Lord, the same baptism with in all of the church, yeah,
Hanna Reichel:I mean, I would always want to say that. I would want to insist on the unity and and also insist that it's something that we don't make, and it's not the Unity doesn't consist in kind of the the common denominator among us, right? It's external to us that unity is God, and we belong to the body of Christ, and we're all engrafted into it in some extent, right, to some extent. And this body of Christ is the broken body, and it will be. And this is part of what we're grappling with, but this is actually part of the grace, right, that all of us who are broken in our different kinds of ways, who are complicit with different kinds of things, who are struggling with different kinds of struggling with different kinds of things, get to be part of that body and don't get given up by God, I think can also make us more capacious and maybe merciful, of extending some of that grace to others, I think part of that also is insisting on holding each other accountable for where we fall short, and calling one another to accounts where we need to do more and different things, but it also and in a moment like this, it means not everyone has to do the same things, and maybe not everyone is comfortable doing the same things, and maybe not everyone is called to do the same things. We do need people who are out in the streets protesting. Some of us will be very vulnerable if we put ourselves in a protest, we risk the deportation or worse. So maybe not everyone has to go protest now, but every protest needs people who make signs, or who cook meals, or who then wash people's laundry, right? It's an ongoing and extended thing, or who make pamphlets. So that's something that people can do at home who are not comfortable being in the street. And we need that not everyone can participate in a protest. We will need people who are in a public school system and insist that, you know, we tell slightly different, more critical versions of our own history to the children who we need people in the courts, in the immigration courts, in all the courts. We need people in different institutions who at some point will be willing to resist an order, even if they, by and large, are in institutional conformity with what is going on. I think that's, to me, also been one of the really striking things, going back to the history of the Confessing Church. When we want to look at them as like they're all the heroes that resisted, they're they all fall so short. And then at the same time, it is so interesting that at some point, at least especially as kind of the history shifts and becomes even more horrifying. And like actual atrocities are happening in the in the war and then in concentration camps and on the streets that, like it is people who actually stayed in certain institutions that were fully corrupt that made a huge difference, right? Who now said I'm gonna, for example, I'm just gonna push some pencils lower, and will mean the military cannot actually advance as quickly as it wants to. Or I will document what is happening, and this will be, this will I will pass this on to people outside of this country. I will preserve this for posterity. Some sort of reckoning will only be possible if people who are inside the system take record, um, some sort, some forms of warning, right of alerts to people who might get targeted, can only be possible if there are people who are inside. So while I'm not precisely wanting to, you know, recommend being a part of a corrupt system in some ways, we all are. We all are constantly part of institutions and and communities and systems that are corrupt in many ways. And it's important to kind of draw the lines in one's personal integrity. And it's also not a one and done measure, right? And I think to have the capacity for that to say, regardless of where you find yourself now, and regardless where you still would be in five minutes and half a year down the road and so forth. There will be something that you can do in terms of a Christian witness that will make a difference. Um, so So not to be like, you know, either I'm the most radical opponent and like, give my life for the cause, or else nothing matters. Like, so many different kinds of witness will be needed and will be valuable where they get to protect people who are targeted, where they get to call attention to things that are happening, and where they get to stop atrocities
Unknown:every now and then as well.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, if you look back on the resisting church in the past, what can we learn from them, them, where they didn't go far enough, or they didn't do as much as maybe they they should have, or they regretted afterwards saying, oh, we should have done more here or there. What can we learn as we're going forward today, where maybe we could faithfully stands in our day and age? Edge.
Hanna Reichel:Well, I mean, I would say one could learn to earlier on, cultivate the life of the faith that he keeps its eyes on the cross, that from there, goes into the sermons of where to stand and in whichever time to build relationships and community before you need it. So because, yeah, a lot of the things that we need happen, we need them before we know that we need them, right? I think this is maybe right. One of the, one of the big lessons, is the always too late lesson say it's so well, you know? I mean, we started this conversation with the like, you know, Don't give into the storm and the fear and so this was also a bit of maybe intention here to say, on the one hand, right, don't get on to the storm and the fear wholesale. But on the other hand, also, don't delay, right? Don't, don't wait for things to get much worse. It's as serious as it will get. It's serious enough to now invest in joy, invest in community, invest in relationship building. Invest in grounding yourself in faith. Invest in thinking what your faith means in your life. Invest in where discerning now what are lines that you're not going to cross and that you shouldn't cross. And make place. Make plans, right? Like, what are you going to talk about with your loved ones for when that moment comes? Have these conversations now. Have the contingency plans, right? It's not that they're Yeah, I think, you know, not in a kind of fear mongering way, but in a kind of discerning way, yeah, to take our faith, our integrity and the lives of those around us seriously enough to think through it. Now,
Joshua Johnson:can you talk to the Christian who is in the system, the institutional system? So in Christendom, that some policies that may make people more marginalized and oppress people on the margins actually create for somebody that is in a a certain segment of the population in our country feel more safer, feel like they have more comfort, and it feels like life is better for them that way. How? How is something where there is flourishing for all good for people where they have comforts and they don't actually feel a really encroaching on their own life at the moment, how, how is working for the flourishing and the belonging for all people? Actually, Jesus centered and good for all of us.
Hanna Reichel:I think working for the flourishing of all people will be good for all of us. Whenever we do that by centering on the margins, right when we take the temperature of what is happening there, when we make life better for those who are marginalized, life will be better for all of us. All our systems will be more stable for one if we don't exclude and oppress. I mean, you know, maybe the occasional billionaire might have to pay a little more, but then they won't get eaten. You know, that might also be a long term benefit. But so I think, right, there's a the Christian faith is really not utilitarian in and majoritarian. In that sense, Jesus goes after the one sheep, not after the like. Doesn't say, Oh, I have 99 sheep and they're comfortable, and that's a high good, and I should preserve that good. What is the loss of one sheep? If I can keep 99 sheep warm and sheltered like that would have been a very prudent judgment to make. And this is kind of one of the parables I think, at the center of our faith, the Good Shepherd is the one who makes sure no sheep gets thrown out to the wolves. And the safety of the 99 sheep is only worth so much if that happens. And, and I think that's, I mean, part of the story of Scripture. And kind of the recurring refrain, I think, both in the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament, is God, in case of doubt, will opt for that one sheep, you know, for the broken read, for the marginalized and oppressed, for the smaller brother, for the you know, the one that did not have any rights, for the widow, for the orphan, for the stranger in The land, that is kind of the recurring refrain. And that's even, you know, the big Matthew judgment they see, you know, like, when have we done this and done this? Like, well, what you have done to the least of these? That's kind of the thing that counts. And I think ideally, this will also mean that if we make sure that at the margins, no one gets left behind, that everyone will be accounted for. It's an encompassing movement. It's not one that plays out one group against another, but that says we need to like the you know, our grace, our compassion, our building needs to extend all the ways to those that are in the margins. And this is how we create flourishing for all
Joshua Johnson:that's really, really good. It. If people pick up this for such a time as this, this emergency devotional that you have or communities read this together. What hope do you have for this devotional?
Hanna Reichel:I hope that it allows people to find others and sit with others and think through things for themselves. I'm not trying to give anyone a recipe of what to do. I'm trying to share my process of trying to work through this moment. I'm trying to offer what things were helpful for me in this and I'm like my hope would be, to kind of invite others to do the same. And if any of what I wrote here is helpful for that wonderful. If other resources are more helpful, that is great, right? There's so many other stories in the Bible. There's so many other historical episodes that we can draw on, and communities that we can learn from. And this was just the stuff that I knew
Joshua Johnson:Hannah. This is a great devotional. This is a great book, and this is really helpful to root ourselves within the story that is happening today, to know that this is not new that has happened before, that we can learn from the past, and we could learn from Scripture. We could learn as we focus on Jesus and the cross and where we are going, and what is our purpose here on Earth, and what does it look like to live faithfully. It's a fantastic resource, so I really do hope people go out and get it. It's really good. I have a couple of quick questions at the end. I like to ask one, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
Unknown:Does it have to be specifically the 21 year old
Joshua Johnson:self around that time? Yeah, your younger self?
Hanna Reichel:Yeah, it will. It will probably also be something along the lines of slow down and don't try to do everything at the same time.
Joshua Johnson:That's good. You wrote this book for yourself, your younger self. This is perfect. When it comes out of something that you actually need in your life and you're wrestling with, struggling with, that's the best.
Hanna Reichel:It has at least an audience of one. I know that, yes,
Joshua Johnson:exactly. So that's really good. Anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend,
Hanna Reichel:well, I mean, one of the things that I found really inspiring as I wrote this was Tim Snyder's on tyranny. And if your readers haven't read it, I recommend it highly. Tim Snyder is a historian, scholar on fascism and different authoritarianisms in also Eastern Europe, not just the Nazi scene, has recently left the country the kind of canary in the coal mines, some people might have noticed. And he wrote that book and the first Trump administration, and he tried to do something like that, right, to, like, pick lessons from history on what one might learn right now. And I found that hugely helpful,
Joshua Johnson:all right, for such a time as this will be available anywhere books are sold, so go out and get it now. Hannah, Is there anywhere you'd like to point people to, anywhere specific you'd like to point people to, to get the, get the book, or to connect with you?
Hanna Reichel:Well, they can get it directly from earthlands, if they'd like to. And Christine Dumas, who some may also know, who's also been doing a lot of work on, especially a whole, how certain versions of Christianity are kind of wrapped up with the contemporary political moment as well. She's convening a big kind of book reading club in the fall. They read some Snyder. They're going to read the devotional. So it's also a possibility to sign up for substack. She does awesome work, but that would also be a place to find others around the nation who are maybe asking similar kinds of questions.
Joshua Johnson:Excellent. Well, Hannah, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for rooting us within the story, and rooting us into a place where we could actually discern what is happening, what is going on. We could find some calm, and then we could gather others in community to be able to figure out what we can do from here and go from here. So it was fantastic. I really, really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you.
Hanna Reichel:Thank you. You.
