Conversations with Great Thinkers

Navigating the Modern Public Square: Dr. Case Thorpe on Christian Leadership

• Jim Lanshe • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Dr. Case Thorpe, theologian-in-residence at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, brings profound insights into how Christians can meaningfully engage with society beyond church walls. Drawing from his extensive experience in global mission work and as founder of the Collaborative ministry, Thorpe articulates why faith must transcend Sunday services to transform our workplaces, institutions, and culture.

The conversation explores the concept of the "public square" and examines how Christian principles have historically shaped American democracy. Thorpe expresses concern about cultural fraying and the marginalization of Christian voices, noting that believers increasingly find themselves viewed as "outsiders" or "weirdos" in mainstream society. Yet rather than retreating, he advocates for intentionally preparing Christians to serve in leadership positions across sectors—from healthcare to education to business—where they can actively demonstrate kingdom values.

Particularly compelling is Thorpe's analysis of how Christian foundations continue to undergird many values taken for granted in secular society. When discussing human rights with non-believers, he often points out their Christian origins, which can be initially jarring for those who haven't considered this connection. As evidence of shifting spiritual currents, he notes the surprising popularity of crystal shops near his home—a sign of people seeking meaning through alternative spiritualities as traditional faith declines.

The discussion touches on Richard John Neuhaus's concept of the "naked public square," Tim Keller's observations about "moral therapeutic deism," and the striking differences between American and European Christianity. Thorpe shares a revealing anecdote about visiting Scotland, where only 2% of the population attends church, and Church of Scotland buildings stand empty or for sale—a potential preview of America's future without intentional discipleship.

Perhaps most importantly, Thorpe emphasizes that "the kingdom of God is a verb, not a noun"—something Christians actively manifest rather than merely discuss. This practical approach to faith encourages believers to find natural entry points for meaningful conversations, whether through asking about someone's tattoo or simply by living distinctively enough that others notice the difference.

Join us for this thought-provoking exploration of faith's role in public life and discover resources for your own journey at WeCoLabor.com or CaseThorpe.com.

For more information about our podcasts, see our website at www.Great-Thinkers.com

Jim:

Hello and welcome to this episode of Conversations with Great Thinkers. Our guest today is Dr Case Thorp He's an author, a speaker and a pastor passionate about seeing Christian faith lived out through the church walls. After 18 years in global mission and evangelism traveling the world, he now serves as theologian and resident at the 3,500-member First Presbyterian Church of Orlando. There he founded and launched the Collaborative, a ministry creating resources and experiences for Christ-centered professionals in the public square. He hosts two podcasts Nuance, where he interviews thought leaders on the intersection of faith, work and culture, and Form for Faithfulness, a weekly 10-minute devotional for people of faith in the workplace. Dr Thorpe's writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, westminster Journal, the Gospel Coalition, miro Orthodoxy and more. After undergraduate studies at both Oxford and Emory, he earned his Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctorate from Fuller Theological Seminary. An ordained pastor in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, dr Thorpe served as the denomination's 39th monitor at the General Assembly and has taught at both.

Case:

Palm Beach. Well, Jim, thank you so much. It's an honor. I appreciate you asking.

Jim:

Dr Thorpe, welcome to our podcast. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us today. I know from having the pleasure of listening to some of your podcasts that sometimes, as you sign off, you use the phrase how to live faithfully in the public square, and that's kind of that idea or concept that I'd like to explore with you today, again in a direction that you're comfortable with, not one that I want to in any way dominate. But can you tell us a little bit about how you define the public square and maybe a little bit of the history of faith in the public square in the context of the American experience?

Case:

Well, I know that growing up in the suburbs in the south, outside of Atlanta we were spread about and didn't have so much of that traditional public square like we know from colonial days, and so there's both the literal space for monuments and protests and gathering together that you might find in a city. But the figurative vision of a public square means so much to me because I don't like when we have a holy huddle, when we Christians hang out in the church and pretend it's sort of a country club without the valet, but rather we were charged with our faith, given it by God, that we might go make disciples, and so I think it really, Jim, it comes from an evangelistic, of an evangelism desire and knowing that if we equip well our people to go live their faith where they live their lives, particularly in the workplace or in other institutions, they are going to build the kingdom there and it's going to really have an impact. I think I'm also motivated by the way in which our culture seems to be fraying in so many ways. I am not only sad to see less of a Christian voice, I'm sad to see that we as Christ followers are sort of the outsiders now, the weirdos, the non-mainstream people that others raise an eyebrow to, but I'm also concerned with the decline of Western liberal values.

Case:

Of Western liberal values I don't mean capital, L liberal in politics, but the notions of democracy and free speech and freedom of religion, it really. And those are all based on Christian principles. And it worries me that much of our national dialogue seems to be going in the wrong direction. Dialogue seems to be going in the wrong direction. So I think the church has played an incredible role in America's history. We have a new phase and century ahead of us and I wonder is the church ready? Are our people discipled well enough for what's coming?

Jim:

Interesting thoughts. Let me see if I can pick up one of the threads that you just mentioned, and I don't know if you recall when we were having our discussion about setting up this podcast, but I had mentioned to you a theologian that I had read a number of years ago, by the name of Richard John Niehaus, who had written about the naked public square. At the time he was lamenting the fact that if the public square is naked with regard to, or neutral with regard to, faith issues, it could cause some serious problems for society.

Jim:

Well, Newhouse is one of my literary mentors. It shaped me very much. I had a subscription to First Things in college.

Case:

I'm that kind of a nerd and when he passed, actually I wrote an editorial that the Orlando Sentinel here published, and it was surprising to me to see how many other Newhouseans were out there that really resonated with that.

Case:

Newhouseans were out there that really resonated with that. You know, a naked public square leaves us as humans to have our innate natural selves unleashed. Dwells in us all will begin to run things, so to say, come out in the way in which we lead institutions that are not with an eye towards the common good. Now, I'm always keen, especially with non-believing friends and neighbors. I'm always keen to explain. I don't envision a theocracy, certainly not, but I do think that the church has not been so effective at preparing people for those top leadership positions in the bank, in the public school system, in the surgery chief that runs a hospital. And it's imperative that we do that.

Case:

I'm reminded of a story when the tsunami hit Japan and took out the nuclear plant and killed tens of thousands, it was actually, yes, fukuyama, it was actually Walmart that had the infrastructure and the supplies. They were on the ground helping people before the Japanese government. And I don't know what that conversation looked like in a boardroom in Bentonville, arkansas, in the immediate aftermath, perhaps discussing what could we do. What can we do, and I don't know the faith level. I imagine there were a number of believers and evangelicals in that room. Don't know fully, but I know by golly those folks had been shaped by a western mindset where uh disaster needs to be uh to have a response. People need help and they were willing to put their company resources on the line to get out there and do that. I don't know if 100 in 100 years, the leaders of such major corporations, global corporations, will have such a heart, a desire for the common good, and we have to be raising up our people for that.

Jim:

What a great answer. Let's pull the camera back just a little bit from the point you're making and make it a little broader, and talk about religion and democracy from your perspective. Am I correct? Was it John Adams that said the system doesn't work without a?

Case:

moral foundation to it Was it John Adams.

Jim:

He did. And George Washington, one of my favorites, said in his farewell address, as I recall, that we could never build a system of government that could pass enough laws to govern all aspects of human behavior.

Case:

So I think it remains to be seen. I don't know if I want to see it or I hope that in seeing it there is a revival of religious faith or some shared value system amongst people that enable the necessary levers of democracy to work. But I am quite proud as a Presbyterian that more Presbyterians signed the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence than any other. I love to quote King George III who spoke of the American Revolution as that Scott Presbyterian rebellion. Right, but in our Calvinism quite a number of those convictions translated into American society and it served us well, I believe, and it needs to keep serving us well long into the future.

Jim:

Yeah, certainly in early America the Reformed tradition is very much woven into the texture of the country is very much woven into the texture of the country. Whether or not that still exists today is maybe something we'll talk about a little later during this discussion. But I wanted to ask from your perspective, do you see religion as being a?

Case:

retreat? Well, it depends on where you are in the world. Certainly, the global church of the South and the East is booming.

Jim:

In this context today, in.

Case:

Western European nations and somewhat in America, not as much as in Europe. Certainly, religion is in retreat and that's what the sociologists tell us. At the same time, in the last six weeks now I know you can't judge a movement or test society on a six week time window there have been numerous stories of massive conversions on university campuses across the states. There have been a number of very remarkable events for young adults and young people. So we'll see on that. But I saw a statistic recently that a significant part of our population, when they heard the word evangelical, thought it was a political party. They did not understand the stripe or tribe within Christianity that evangelical originally meant and represents.

Case:

As you mentioned, I'm in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and we've even had that conversation. Do we change the E word because of the role it's been playing in politics? So I don't bemoan Christians being very active. I think that the Trump phenomenon is sort of a post-exilic voting pattern for Christians and I can explain that more if desired. But religion is in retreat and it matters to me that it not be so.

Jim:

I am going to throw a tiny little curveball at you in connection with it. I'm going to take the liberty of reading to a sentence or two because I'd like to get your reaction to it. But there was an eminent sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania years ago who was a cultural critic and at the time, he profoundly influenced contemporary thought with his exploration of the intrinsic relationship between the so-called sacred and social orders.

Jim:

His central thesis and this is what I'm going to ask you to comment on- it posited that no culture has ever sustained itself without being rooted in a sacred order, and that, in order to understand what he's saying, you have to take a look at his perspectives, examining the foundations, implications and relevance for cultural dynamics.

Case:

Well, I'd like to see his research or better understand his argument, because it's only the last 200, 300 years with the Enlightenment.

Case:

Do we have this concept of secular? The Enlightenment, part of its agenda was to drive religion into the home and make it a private club of sorts that you go to, much like Rotary or a bowling league, and I fundamentally reject that or a bowling league, and I fundamentally reject that. I think faith should be out there and there should be integration, that we should break down that sacred secular divide. So, looking back then through history, the role of the divine, the role of religion, is always quite paramount and present. So I don't quite know. I think we do have this secular experiment and it only seems to continue to degrade the human experience.

Case:

I think about the sexual revolution and how it has put women at such a different place, and certainly we needed women's liberation on a lot of things. But the sexual revolution has so degraded sexual relations that women get used and men are not committed and you watch that trajectory on into the future and it's not a good one. Maybe that will. This is the Benedict option and Rod Dreher's argument that the church will become an island. The church becomes an island of safety and security as society gets more chaotic.

Jim:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, now, the Benedict Option is an interesting theory, right, yeah?

Case:

Oh, yes, rolling alone.

Jim:

Yeah, I don't know if you've ever come across an author by the name of Robert Bella, but yeah. So During the 1950s it was somewhat described as the apex of the faith movement in America. You had the ascendancy of Billy Graham, and Reinhold Niebuhr was a towering intellectual figure in Christian thought, actually way beyond Christian thought. Bella wrote a book about American civil religion and he posited that the American civil religion was a kind of a monotheistic, non-sectarian civil religion that existed within the United States, which drew on sacred symbols from the nation's history. Now scholars created a cottage industry out of analyzing Bella's thought, because people have all kinds of different ideas, but I've always viewed it as being Judeo-Christian-centric and that that was integral to his thinking. I don't know if and I'm not asking you to, if Bell is not on top of mind right now, I'm not asking you but generally, do you think that there was a period of time when it didn't mean that everybody subscribed to any particular denomination, or even that you necessarily had a church?

Case:

Well, whether they were willing or not, they certainly carried with them an enchanted understanding meaning a biblical worldview of beginning and ending of time, the place and role of the church it's, even if somebody didn't appreciate its value, certainly its power and its role. I think that his observations on what entails our civic, civil religion for the American experiment and our symbols and such, is very wise and keen. For sure I like to use the words of Tim Keller, the very well-known Presbyterian pastor that grew a 6,000-member church in New York City. He recently passed and we'll miss him for sure. But he spoke quite often of moral, therapeutic deism that a lot of people will say they're a Christian, but they don't necessarily mean being filled with the Holy Spirit and an active relationship with Jesus Christ. Rather, it's moral therapeutic deism.

Case:

Morals there's right things and wrong things. It's therapeutic because it's all about me and if it makes me feel good, if it makes me happy. And then deism yeah, there's a God out there, but I don't want to get into the specifics. Yeah, there's a God out there, but I don't want to get into the specifics. And so I think in this age that is probably harder to fight and I don't want to say fight, but harder to work with and to share the gospel with, because it's sort of like silly putty. It's not solid and it can move and shape and form, whereas if you're trying to explain faith to a clear atheist or a Muslim or someone from another faith, you've got concrete worldview and values to deal with. So I'm grateful we have some moral, therapeutic deism. But again in 100 years will we and is the church ready?

Jim:

That's a really good question and, given your comparative youth, we're going to let you in charge of making sure that that does turn out to be the case. How's that?

Case:

I again.

Jim:

I think you and I exchanged one or two preliminary ideas before our conversation today and I mentioned to you Bonson and Holland and Huntington. I don't know if you had a chance to give any thought or look at any of the comments by any of those people In looking at some of the work that those people have put out. Bonson, for example, talks about cultural Christianity in the context that you just used. It is in crisis because of a breakdown of personal responsibility and moral accountability. Values that, he argues, stem from a proper Christian worldview and I'm wondering if that resonates with you at all.

Case:

Well, when your worldview is the big bang to empiricism scientific inquiry being the only source of truth to what's in the future. Well, I don't know If I die and just become worm bait or if there's anything afterwards. When you've been taught that in our schools, the public schools, lean in that direction, clearly, that I do think it leads to the breakdown of the moral system and the family, because you lose the sinew of why those things matter and how one's trajectory in life unfolds and why it matters. When I was in 10th grade we were in the biology class and Ms Fronick I remember her name. Ms Fronick was a solid Christian and here she was in the suburbs of Atlanta, so she had all these obnoxious Baptists and Methodists and I was the one or a few Presbyterians obnoxious Baptist and Methodist, and I was the one or a few Presbyterians. And when we started our unit on evolution, she got up front and she had the biology textbook and she had the Bible and she said now I know some of you in this room pointing to the Bible have very clear ideas and understandings of how the world works and I appreciate that. But you know what, while we're in here together, we got to focus on this book, pointing to the textbook. And she said so help me, let's try not to get into the theology, but let's just kind of stick with what the textbook says.

Case:

Now, she was a faithful believer. I really appreciated what she was doing. She was trying to keep everybody from just going nuts the whole time and struggle with the scientific concepts. But if that is your only word or teaching on what really matters, we lose touch, we lose connection with our history, with our future. Our teleos is off. That worries me. It's been interesting to see how, since COVID, the number of students leaving the public school and going to charter and Christian schools. We just had a newspaper article this week that Orange County and Seminole County they have less students they expect for next fall than in previous years. And, jim, there's 1500 people a week moving into central Florida, 1500 a week, and yet the schools have less students. Part of this is DeSantis voucher system where you can go anywhere you want with good scholarship money.

Case:

But I think people are moving on and tired of the empirical narrative alone.

Jim:

Yeah, it's a subject for another day that I'd love to explore with you because, for better or worse, I got a theological degree.

Jim:

That institution may want to withdraw that degree at some time, but I also have a law degree and I think the trajectory of Supreme Court decisions that really took any kind of faith-oriented studies out of the classroom has had profound societal consequences and remains to be seen where all that's going to shake out. But I wanted to again play off another theme that you raised during your last comment, and it reminded me a little bit of an intellectual who taught at Harvard for a number of years. He's passed not too long ago, samuel Huntington. But he talked about cultural Christianity in geopolitical terms as being the bedrock of Western civilization, making it distinct from other civilizations such as Islamic civilizations or Orthodox ones, that sort of thing, and I thought a little bit about some of the news that I've been seeing. I don't read the British papers that often, but there's a lot going on in Britain right now that makes me wonder if they're not losing their culture because they've become pretty secular. Well, we have supported a church plant outside of Edinburgh.

Case:

And I had sabbatical two summers ago and I spent a month with the church plant and the pastor's, become a good friend and it was interesting to learn 2% of Scots go to church 2% and that includes the Roman Catholics. There's a whole lot more Roman Catholics and it was just so sad. But what that translated into was the fact that Tom would chuckle at some of our social issues that we were struggling with particularly at the time was transgender bathrooms and folks using the opposite sex bathroom and he said, okay, we've been doing that for 10, 15 years like such, like, such a passe subject for us now. And we do look to Western Europe and there's been a number of initiatives we've been a part of that. It's worth studying so that we're prepared and that we can guide the church now to keep from getting to such a future. There's a professor at the Free University in Amsterdam, stefan Paas, p-a-a-s, and he does a lot of research on the state of the Western European church and what we need to know and how we need to adjust. We need to adjust. So globally.

Case:

Americans are known for our faith commitments, our large percentage of the population that is faithful. It's unique. I have learned from listening to my global friends how we seem to incorporate our faith with our politics, even more so, particularly because of the large voting bloc evangelicals have become, and other nations. They just don't have that thought, they don't have that connection, and so, even within this church plant in Edinburgh, there were people on either side of Brexit, people on the liberal and conservative side, and it just didn't. Nobody cared, it didn't seem to be an issue, whereas I can't tell you how often, as a pastor, I'll have a church member say to me how can you be a Democrat and a Christian, or how can you be a Republican and a Christian? And so we seem to meld those in ways that other countries do not, and it makes for a different church. I think the free market way in which the church was allowed to thrive in the American context has made us much stronger as opposed to the state churches of Europe.

Jim:

Your anecdote about going to Scotland makes me smile, because Presbyterian Church was so entrenched in Scotland. Well, it's very sad you go to the Church of Scotland webpage and they have buildings for sale.

Jim:

There are 30 or 40 church structures, gorgeous little stone churches in the middle of nowhere but it's so sad stone churches in the middle of nowhere, but it's so sad. You know we've talked about, I guess, this process of secularization and some of the counter trends that are going on at the time. But would you, if you're taking the view from 35,000 feet, would you say that the secular West still remains Christian and moral and philosophical assumptions?

Case:

I think we're divorcing, would you say we're really divorced from those things at this point. There have been appeals made to attorneys and deposits put down on legal fees.

Case:

But there still is that remnant not remnant. There is those, the echoes of Christian faith in our culture that a lot of times we don't even realize. I enjoy conversations with folks that are not believers, that are more in an apologetic type direction, and I'll point out the fact that human rights is based on a Christian worldview. And for the people that first time hear that, I mean it's half, it's partly offensive and it makes their brain kind of crunch. And then I challenge and say well, you know why do you care about other people? Oh, because they have inherent value, whereas 300 years ago you had your slaves, they were less, they were subhuman, they didn't necessarily have value of the divine.

Case:

You go back into the pre-church days of Western Europe where the Germanic tribes ruled. It's a radically different understanding of the human and the fact that spirits inhabit the trees and the rocks and the caves. Our Christian worldview has demystified is that the right word Demystified nature and so so much of what we believe and do today, even if it is based on Christian philosophy, it's not readily understood, but it's changing. And just around the corner from my house is a store that sells crystals and, jim, let me tell you that place is packed all the time it is packed and at first I thought, man, you got to sell a lot of crystals to pay that rent, and yet they are making great money. And it terrifies me to think there are people that think there's power in that rock, that I need to get one of those purple quartzes and wear it on my chest as an amulet, and it's just, it's so foreign to me, but yet it's growing. It's developing. We got to be out there as the church.

Jim:

Yeah, well, you know, in terms of apologetics, if you are not consciously or subconsciously or unconsciously drawing your ethics from Judeo-Christian principles, then where are you getting them from? Are you an Aristotelian scholar in New American?

Case:

ethics.

Jim:

There's got to be some underlying system for what you're doing. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Well, I have found this really interesting. Do you have any concluding thoughts before we walk away from this discussion? Is there some question that you wish that I had asked you, that I have not? Well, I do think it's important to move from the philosophical to the pragmatic.

Case:

What are your thoughts? People, be that kingdom of God maker in the public square. The kingdom of God in scripture is a verb, not a noun. It's something that breaks out and it's revealed, and so we as Christians are called to go and help make that pop out and reveal itself wherever we go. So you know, jim, most people don't even realize their worldview and they're acting in ways that are quite ignorant, not any fault of their own. So the more we can articulate these things and the more we can do. As a good friend of mine would say, when, when tell me how he raised his children, we can just kind of shrug our shoulders and say, well, we're different, as he raised his girls, and they would complain and say, well, we're different, as he raised his girls, and they would complain, oh well, why do they get to do this and we have to do that? And he's like, well, we're different. So understanding that difference but then being able to translate it in a way that spreads the gospel so important.

Jim:

Yeah, I've always been a big fan, particularly when I'm meeting people for the first time and starting to very gently understand what, if any, ideology they have.

Case:

I have a newsletter that I write and my last issue was on seven different ways to get into a faith conversation, and the first one actually is tell me about your tattoo. Now, jim, you don't strike me as a man with a tattoo, if you do all due respect, yes, yeah, well, I don't have any. I tease with my young adult children.

Jim:

I say, look, if you get the temptation to hang out the window, wherever you get it.

Case:

But it's. It's interesting how tattoos carry so much meaning with individuals With individuals, and so it's a great way to get into a vulnerable and a real conversation quickly when you say, hey, tell me about your tattoos and they'll tell you things about themselves they might not normally. Oh, let's do it.

Jim:

Interesting Well. I think for today we'll leave it there, but I'm hoping that I can somehow or another convince you to do this again in the not-too-distant future. Before we sign off, can I ask you to turn that up to tell our listeners where they can find out more about you and your ministry, the collaborative we have a?

Case:

very comprehensive website with lots of resources. It's at WeCoLaborcom, we Co Labor, wecolaborcom and then CaseThorpecom. There's no E on Thorpe, but Casethorpecom. You can sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter called Porch Life and send me an email. I'd love to connect with folks. That's how you reached out, jim, and so it's a good thing.

Jim:

Exactly, and. I want to encourage our listeners to follow. You've got so much good material out there that it is really worthwhile In an era when there's so many things commanding people's attention. Really, what you're putting out there is something that people should pay attention to. It'll help them a great deal. Okay, thanks so much. I appreciate it.