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It only takes a moment, but has a tremendous impact on our reach. Thank you for daring to listen. Hello and welcome back to The Bodies Behind the Bus podcast. We have an at the bus stop episode today that we are super excited about. Today we have Dr. Jared Stacy with us. A doctor is in the house. He is also an author of an upcoming book. He's an ethicist and a theologian. Welcome, Jared. It is good to be here, Jonah. Thanks for having me. You too, Jay. Thanks for having me on.
I would love to hear just a little bit more about this book that you're working on. Can you share some about that? Sure, I can. So, uh, I was raised in. Uh, fundamentalist Christianity. So that's the fundamentalist corner of Evangelicalism. Um, I went to Liberty and I was in the SBC, and I've come out of a lot of that. Uh, and this book is part of my grappling with conspiracy theory.
In my own personal experience, but also my experience as a pastor, as a former pastor is what kind of gave rise to my, my doctoral research into conspiracy theory and evangelicalism, uh, at January 6th, and then really like 300 years of American history. So it, it really is not a topic that I picked off of the shelf of saying, Hey, like, what could be the most controversial or even relevant topic?
This was something that, uh, came out of my own upbringing, my own experience in Christianity in America, I should probably say Christian nationalism. And so this book grapples with where we're, where we're at now, but also how we got here. And I think answering the question of how we got here. It is really important for answering the question, where do we go next and how do we move forward?
Um, and so I think that's what the book is kind of set up to do, is give people, uh, a broader look at how conspiracy theory has always kind of been used in evangelical Christianity to narrate the world around us. Many of us are familiar with this, and so I talk about Columbine. I talk about some of the nine 11 conspiracy theories. I, I kind of bridge all of that though to talk about this moment.
Um, and it's a moment that I'm calling a dis reality, uh, this, this moment where there's so many different realities that people we know and love are, are bound up in, and they're all colliding. What one person says is, is real, not just what they say is real, what they act or believe in, that all of this is colliding and it's where we all know this. So it's, it's difficult to, uh, you know, try and find language to do that, but that's what the book is at.
It's, it's in this moment kind of looking backwards to try and also look ahead. I am so excited for this book to come out. I agree with you that we need to be able to honestly assess what got us here so that we can make wise steps forward and understand what a step forward even looks like so we don't make the same steps forward that we've been making. Exactly. Exactly. Um, before we get into the conversation, which spoiler alert, this is what we're going to be talking about for this episode.
I do wanna give you a substack plug. So Jared's book is going to be coming out hopefully around next spring. And if you wanna stay up to date on when that's gonna drop, when pre-orders become available and also see some of the deeper dives into current events or things that Jared is working through, go subscribe to his sub sub stack. We're gonna link that in the show notes. It's called the Home Word Dispatches, and there's a ton of great content there, so go support Jared and his work there.
Thank you very much. Awesome. Yeah. Well, Jared, I am so excited to have you on to talk a little bit about this current moment. Mm-hmm. And something that Jay and I have been talking about a lot is how the work with bodies behind the bus and abuse and the culture that allows for abuse in western evangelical spaces Yeah. Is really relevant to the conversation mm-hmm. Of Christian nationalism, because we think that there's a through line there.
Yeah. With the tactics and the levers that are pulled by power brokers in order to get people in line. There's a lot of the similar tactics with coercion, um, but also this, um, idea of people being meaning makers and mm-hmm creating these different realities or different meanings within scripture that are really. Adding to this culture of Christian nationalism becoming normalized, how would you say conspiracy theories fit into that conversation? That's a really good question, Jonna.
I think first I, I want to just, uh, affirm all across the board the connection that this podcast is making between cultures of abuse and political conspiracy theories. While some of us in who've, who've navigated these spaces, like I have, and I know you both have it, it's kind of in intuitive, like, oh, of course. But from the outside looking in, it's not as easily parsed.
And I just want to say from, from a, from a, a former pastor standpoint, someone who's navigated these kind of situations myself, it, it, there is an absolute connection here. And I think, I think the, the root of this connection is really, uh, narration, it's really storytelling. And, and the person who in, in terms of abuse coverups, the person who kind of controls the narrative. Is wielding the power.
And, and so when it, when you kind of connect that though to our current political moment, um, Trump's word in many ways is creating, and for the last 10 years, let's, we have to wrestle with the fact that MAGA has been in ascendancy for the last decade, maybe 15 years, uh, to the point where now there are voters who don't remember anything really prior to that. So, um, we are grappling with this chaotic moment where any kind of story that gives a coherence and certainty is attractive.
And even if it doesn't meet certain rational criteria, it's, it's still useful. So I, I use that word, it's still useful. It's got utility for organizing, like a church, for organizing a society. And so that, that sort of utility, when you start to. Tell a different story, other things become threatened. And that's why survivors taking to the internet to share their experiences and tell the truth is seen as so, oh, those, those are keyboard warriors or, or things like that.
Uh, when it's really a contested space of, well, who gets to be the storyteller here? Um, and I think that's, that's the kind of the connection is, is really the power of story. I, I've been, I like to, I mean, I, I, I, I observe the internet. That's how I tell John I, so social media, I'm an observer. I don't know if I'm a contributor. Um, and which is I'm the front lines of the podcast. Yeah. On the internet. Yeah. There needs to be a both and Yeah.
There needs to be a both and, but what, what's fascinated me since, you know, I, I mean, I was alive during Colum, I was in high school during Columbine. Mm-hmm. I remember Columbine, I remember, I remember those, some of those conspiracy theories about Columbine and definitely remember the conspiracy theories that came out. Nine 11, especially ones that were coming out from the church.
But what I've been fascinated since I would say 20 15, 20 14, with the church and Trump, when Trump really came out and then is the, I would call it the devolving of moral clarity has become mm-hmm. So fast and rampant in churches to where I'm seeing things that pastors are saying online that I was like, they wouldn't have said this 10 years ago. And like to just see.
Like case in point, like they had a pastor in Texas who was like celebrating that his school like was the lowest vaccinated school in the, like, I saw that state of Texas and like he was celebrating that and like, like almost like mocking people're. Mm-hmm. You know, in my opinion he was mocking and I just was like, he's bought into some, some shit that like he really believes and that man is at on the pulpit shaping and moving the congregation to believe and think away.
Mm-hmm. And I was even thinking like 10 years ago, even like some of those guys who are on the far right who in the back room supported Trump, still walked in with a, with a, I guess a line of like, we're not gonna go all the way. They don't even care anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I guess from your perspective, like that. That shift to where we're not even hiding it, right? Mm-hmm.
How does that play into this world to where we're now getting more, did you say multiple realities, or what was your term there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like dis reality and just reality. Yeah. I think, I think for a lot of people, real, even just the word reality just kind of functions as like, that's, that that should end the conversation.
And we know from experience inside Evangelicalism that just like people who, maybe they're not Christian, they kind of say, oh, reality is like, that's, that's where the facts are. But in, in this, inside the church, you have a very similar thing of just biblical. Like that's just, that's biblical. And that means the end of the conversation. There's no un unpackaging biblical and giving it. Uh, you know, what, what do you mean when you say that?
So, I think for a lot of people, one of the things I'm trying to do is give language to this shift of like, how can we talk about this? Um, because when you look at people sitting in the pews who are in many ways like receiving this message as conspiracy theory baked into Christianity, um, here's, here's what happens. And my, one of my favorite journalists right now that's covering this sort of late creeping fascism is Jeff Charlotte. He has this great line.
He's, he's been to Trump rallies, and he, he has this line. You cannot fact check a myth. And the limits of fact checking are really right here for us to see. Because what happens when you start kind of baking these alternative or transgressive forms of knowledge about vaccines and, and all of this stuff, when it kind of comes packaged to you as. The Christian story, like this is what good Christians, biblical Christians believe.
The problem or the reality of that, um, is that fact checking doesn't work in that kind of scenario, you're actually really dealing with theology. You're really dealing with needing to separate, um, this kind of form of knowledge from what is Christian knowledge, what does it mean to know as a Christian? And that's what my work is trying to set up to do, is it give people permission to say, you know, what an epidemiologist says we can, we can handle and not risk our faith.
Um, and, and so being able to separate those two together is really where a Christian ethic actually can start to be born. But it's really difficult to talk to people about what a Christian ethic might be or what Christian morality might be when you have pastors, and this is kind of my final observation to your question, is that you have pastors who are more committed to the sort of morality that makes America work. A certain way then a, a morality that is a witness to Christ.
And when you start to make the difference between, well, what do we need to say? How do we need to narrate things in order to make our vision of America quote unquote work? Versus what are the actions that we are called to, to give a witness to Christ, to our world? Those are two divergent paths. The, the, the task of Making America work or again, and I would kind of lay that onto Make America great again, right?
So we wanna contribute to our society, we want to be positive, uh, and, and share these common problems. But what we're finding is that these conspiracies and these kind of transgressive ways of, of thinking about things are being packaged into a Christian story that's already very scandalous. And so people kind of say, well, Christianity's a conspiracy theory. And once you say that. Then everything's on the table.
And I think that's a really important point because that's the language that's out there. That's what I saw as a pastor. And so in some ways, I want to very clearly say, I think it's pastoral malpractice to really give people permission to say, well, Christianity's kind of a conspiracy theory. Um, that's gonna appeal to a kind of person who's already kind of leaning into a very corrosive form of suspicion.
I'm just, I'm like, like I'm, I'm blown away that there's not more attention to how, I mean, I know there's tension to Christian nationalism right now mm-hmm. But how rampant it is in the churches and how leaders are, are not only like supporting it, but they are full on shifting and changing narratives to reflect a more America centric gospel. Mm-hmm. And. Every Sunday.
And like why, like why are we not sounding the alarm bells to be like, Hey, we've seen this play out before in other countries. We can go back a hundred years and see where this goes. And, but we're not like, why? Like what is the, I guess I'm appealing to your former pastor side here. Yeah. And even like spending time in theology, like why are there not men and women? Well in the SBC, it's just men. Uh, but why are there not other people?
Maybe if there were women, they'd be saying stuff like this, but why are there not people that, I'm sure there are people that don't believe this stuff and they see the writing on the walls. Why are they not speaking up? Well, can I, can I ask one? Yeah. Like put one little point in there with that. Yeah. I don't think it's just other countries.
I think it's really easy for us to be like, this has happened in other countries, but I actually, the more I've like sat and stared at this, especially this last year, I'm like, this is just us. Like this is the united, right? Mm-hmm. Forever, like we have utilized the church in the us the white evangelical church in particular in the US has utilized these same levers. It's just we have gotten. More and more into positions of power within the government. That's good point with that.
That's a good, I think, well, and I'm not even, so I think these have all been tools that have been being utilized in the church. Yeah. And I'm not even saying like, I don't believe in the SBC at all. Like I, I don't stand for anything they stand for. I, I, I don't even know why it exists. Um, especially with all the abuse allegations.
But what I would say is like, I would think there is some within institutions that being one of them that don't buy into the conspiracies that, that maybe buy mm-hmm. Into more of a hard line Christianity, but they're like, yeah, the Copi stuff is too far for me. Why are they not saying stuff? Yeah. Or am I missing it or No, I don't think you are. Um, I think this is where Jesus' teaching on wealth is just really, really pointed and really sharp. That's the cutting edge. Um, you lose everything.
I mean, you do, uh, you know, in, in an institution that's built up the way that we've built up our religious institutions, which are economic ventures, just as much as they're Kingdom ventures, um, there's a whole lot of material incentive, um, that's baked into that, that might sound cynical.
Um, but I think if we had time to sit down and like, I could tell my story in full and, and or you talk to survivors who've walked outta these spaces, like I, you know, there, there's a, there's a material cost associating with this, and I think in some ways too, like we've forgotten even outside of this country. So, you know, there's always the question of, well, should we look to, uh, the confessing church in Germany as, as inspiration for an analogy for this moment? But there, there was not.
It, it, it, it fizzled out. Most of the pastors took the oath to Hitler, um, in Germany when you look at even America. And I appreciate, I appreciate John's point on this. I think there's a healthy way of saying, this has always been us, there's always been this sort of teetering towards authoritarianism and, and that's kind of baked into democracy.
Um, but when you look at America, so I'll give you just a really specific example about conspiracies and evangelicalism going back to when historians kind of say, Hey, this is when it started, about 30 years before the American Revolution. There was these great revivals that swept the colonies that were known as the Great Awakenings. And for those who are familiar with like Q Anon, Q Anon seized on that idea of a great awakening and said, Hey, the third great awakening is coming.
So for even people who grew up kind of in a revivalistic type of church Q anon right now appeals to this really primal sense of what it means to be white evangelical in America. Like, oh, of course I want revival. Of course we should want to see that kind of stuff. And the question is never asked, well what sort of Jesus are is this revival for? And and a lot of times we, we have an.
A paranoid Jesus, a Jesus who's, you know, speaking outta two sides of his mouth endorsing rampant American militarism and in our economic systems, while at the same time saying like, I'm here to make America work. George Whitfield was an, an evangelist who went around preaching all the way through the American colonies. He owned slaves. Uh, and he opened up an orphanage to fund his missionary kind of excursions all through the colonies.
In my research I did, uh, I examined some of his sermons and he would go and he would preach to slave enslaved people with their masters present. And what he would do is he would preach a gospel. So he wasn't supposed to preach to enslaved people at all. So he was, he was still bucking the trend, but the problem was that he was only going so far. He still left. The economic institution of chattel slavery intact, and he was a beneficiary from it.
But the, the, the copi, so the conspiracy theory of his day was that there were going to be slave revolts, armed uprisings.
And one of his, one of his kind of co evangelist went and preached to the, this, the, the white residents of Charleston that if you don't repent, he said, God is gonna send, he said, quote, African hosts, which he was referencing enslaved gatherings of Christians outside of Charleston, that God was gonna actually gonna send them as judgment, you know, on, on these white people if they didn't repent. So. That was in 1730 ish.
If you look at some of Billy Graham's sermons in the 1950s, like unless America Repents, we're gonna become communist, it's the same sort of way that conspiracy theory kind of, kind of kickstarts, it's kind of like this noss into the engine, so to speak, that really gives this gospel urgency and, and relevancy. But at, at the core of it, it's, it's more about making society work than it is about, about letting society receive from God what it's supposed to receive.
So again, this, this idea of making America work is, is at the heart of these conspiracy theories, these stories that people tell and, and deeper in that it's just, it's just our, our material lives. It's our material possessions. We tell these stories because we don't want to be dispossessed, not only of certainty, but only, but also dispossessed of our own, of our own lives. Our economics are our possessions. It's all at stake. It's all at stake in these stories that we tell.
Yeah. That's great. And when you say make America work, you mean work within, uh, the framework or perspective of white powerful men? Yes. Right. Like all together make America work for us. Right. And who's the us? It's, it's the white. And you know, back in Whitfield's day, it was the white slave owner, uh, property owning, you know, male, that that. Mm-hmm. And so when I say, yeah, make America work, the, the asterisk is like, you know, for some, uh mm-hmm.
Not, not for all, for the rich, um, for, for the, you know, so it's, it's always those asterisk make America great again for who. And then when you see our president kind of patting his buddies on the back for tanking the stock market and saying, Hey, like, it'd be a good idea to buy today. Um, so his friends can get rich, right? Like mm-hmm. That's make America work for those people. Um, right. And the church has never been about that task.
The church has always been, it's like, how do we make society, how do we contribute to society in such a way that the poor, the marginalized, are uplifted? And that's why Jesus says they're blessed, not because poverty is inherently more holy, but because it's closer to the recognition that God is all we need and all we have. Uh, and, and that is what the church in America has forgotten, and that's what our conspiracy theories pressed down. You know, that's what they press down do.
Do you feel like the church in America in at large has ever known that? Like, is it something we forgot or is it something we never believed? Mm-hmm. I think there are, when we talk about the church, there's always gonna be varied expressions in communities. And I, you know, the, the. It's, you know, yeah. It's the African American church has in the United States been the carrier of this sort of faithfulness and this sort of witness. So yes.
And then the question is, uh, I never went to an African American church. I never heard these things, uh, until the spirit brought me into places that I did not choose and, and brought me through situations that I, I would not want to go through, um, to realize what, what I didn't know, and to realize that you never know. You just have to keep learning. And that sense of that sense of certainty, uh, God's just ruins that.
And so, yeah, I, I think that that African American church has known that, has possessed that knowledge, has worked and lived from that knowledge, um, and to the detriment of the white church. I. In America, we have told stories that in some ways can express our angst. Like, I wanna be honest, like conspiracy theories are a way for people who have developed distrust, um, to, to attempt to narrate that.
And so like that's where I kind of get on this, this cutting edge of saying, what's going on when people are sharing these things, it's more than what meets the eye. You know? I think that's something, I mean, you guys have heard conspiracy theories, like, do, do you get the sense that when someone's sharing this, that they're. They're, they're not just talking about what's happening. They're, they're, they're trying to narrate evil.
They're trying to be a moral person, even if, even if some of it sounds wild. Um, do you get that sense? Can we, can we at least kind of, can we get to that point? I do. Yeah. I think also like you can see it and like, I think the visual arts music, well, the music and film have been, and, and I'm speaking from a perspective of like a white centered, uh, place, have have been a place where we've worked those things out, where we've tried to narrate.
How we feel and how we interact with good and evil and conspiracies. If you, especially if you just watch movies like they're the center, a lot of movies or they're a plot line. Mm-hmm. So I think like I agree, like I think our society has, has been, was born on it and, and in, in a way we've, we've profited each time we've had one, like it's, it's, it's reaped rewards for us at the, um, at the cost of someone else and at least in another people group.
So, yeah, I a hundred percent agree with you there. And I think that that's what makes it hard is that it's hard to wake up from that and it's hard to even see anything different because this is a generational thing. Like this is not something that just happened overnight. My concern though is that it feels like it's ramped up to a level to where it's either you're in or you're out and, and if you're out.
Uh, like if you don't believe in it and you're out, then, then the, the Christian aspect that is coming into this is, well, now you're, you know, a demon or you're mm-hmm. You're possessed or you're in judgment of hell and you're against us and, and we can't have anybody be against us. And like, I don't know how to bridge that. Like that to me is the frightening part, is that, that, that it's become this anger and this anger and tone that it's like if your mom or dad believes it mm-hmm.
And you don't, that may be it. Like you may not, they may not wanna talk to you anymore. Um, so I don't know. I don't know if I have a question with that, but that's, I think my concern is that it feels like it's at such a fever pitch, uh, to where it doesn't feel like there's room for conversations. Yeah. I think you're naming for many of us just pain and we, we, we've. We've been in this moment of dis reality for so long, and the news cycle and the speed of information is such that.
Being able to account for the loss. Um, I mean, in some ways that's, that's what I hope my book is able to do is give language and space for that kind of mourning. Um, and that kind of fracturing, I mean, I saw it as a pastor and I saw it splitting families and kitchen tables and, and church communities. And we, we've all seen it. Um, and everyone, and, and I, I wanna like affirm that everyone does like, rightly kinda want, like, what are we supposed to do?
Like how do we, how do we, and I, I think really the first thing is just it's appropriate to grieve and mourn, um, some loss of common ground, some loss of, um, you know, the ability to talk and it, and from that place of pain, it can be really easy to lash out and, and say thing like pathologize people. And I think that's something that I've, I've wrestled with and grappled with in talking about this in public is how do we raise this, this crisis? How do we enter this crisis?
While refusing to hold others in contempt, while recognizing that the sort of disre reality that swirling around us does have consequences beyond just like politics as a hobby horse, like people are, are being, uh, not just deported, but disappeared. Like these are the things that are happening on the, the outer edges of society.
And I know many people, like for example, right now, would look at things like, you know, um, screening international students for, um, various political views and saying, well, we, you know, uh, now I was an international student in the uk and the, the reality that the government could, in many ways, just, I, I hope people see that it may not be centered on you at this moment.
But some of us, it, it may never be centered on us because of the way that we look, because of the tax bracket that we're in, because of the jobs that we have. And so I think it's really important, and that's what the church as a community is, is supposed to do, is actually be the place where these stories and these slogans and these narratives are actually emptied of their power in our midst.
But unfortunately, they're being supercharged and they're being supercharged, not just through overt, like there are some really clear on-ramps. Lemme be very clear about this.
Like there's some really clear on-ramps to conspiratorial thinking, to baking conspiracy into, uh, Christianity through like huge organizations Turning point USA is one, theos U. Like there's these ideas that, that that percolate kind of on the edges that you start to say, well this is Jesus and this is kind of what it means to be biblical. And, and we, we don't have the time to separate that. Um, but then, so it's not just overt and I, it is also silence too.
It's just churches that say we don't talk politics here. And that leaves politics then off the table. Then you can choose to believe any conspiracy theory that you want. Um, but the challenge with this, and I'll just kind of, I wanna hear from you guys, but I, I keep, the challenge with this is that for many pastors, they don't have the time, the energy or the desire or the ability to be a fact checker. And that's what we think we have to be to fix this.
And I think what I want to suggest is that the subversive power of the Christian story is sufficient to serve as a buffer between us and the conspiracy theories that make things, that claim to reveal things. Um, and so I, I'll just kind of quote, uh, Brian Brock, he has this great statement. He's a fellow ethicist and he says that the only thing that the church knows that the world doesn't is who sustains it.
And that completely flips things on its head because we as Christians, if you're raised in evangelicalism, we all have this sense that apologetics is like, means we have to have all the answers. But what if we started to think like, no, the one thing that that, that we know, that we confess is that Jesus is Lord. But that, that doesn't get to get stretched over everything in the sense that, you know, you know what goes on behind closed doors. The Christian knowledge is not omniscience.
I. Christian knowledge is not omniscience, but that's what's happening when people are kind of sharing conspiracy theory as an expression of their faith. Um, that's what's happening when you mention like Turning Point or Theo u mm-hmm. I think Prager can be in there. Yeah. Uh, yeah, that's another one. What has been interesting is watching pastors who, when I was in the thick of it mm-hmm. They were like the edgy pastors. So like Matt Chandler was the edgy dude when I was like really in it.
Like he was the cool one. Yep. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, people know where we stand on that as a podcast now, but, but like, he headlined Theo's conference one year, like mm-hmm. It has been so. Like brought into the forefronts of Yeah. Evangelicalism. Like the, like, I mean I think Matt is probably considered like pretty vanilla now at this point. Mm-hmm. In the grand scape of things. And like vanilla Matt, who again has his own problems, you've heard about them on the podcast mm-hmm.
Is like headlining this conference that is filled with people that were like, wasn't the OU part of the like worship revival, Sean Foyt stuff that was going on too? Or was, was it not him? I don't, there was, I don't, I don't know. Potentially. I dunno. So some of my re Yeah, like what you're talking about with like Sean Foyt and that, I mean, it, it's this whole net network. It's this whole ecosystem. Yeah. And so there's different pools that people are playing in.
I think we can say enough to be confident, like Yeah. Like there are certain influences and connections between the OU and those sort of movements. And I think what's really difficult is in a political moment where like. Like certainty is such a credit to make America great again. I, I think the, the challenge is that the church is moving at, at the speed of politics, and it's moving at the speed of this moment. And really, it's not like there's a lack of answers.
It's not like there's a lack of, of, of a word. There is a word. And, and, but the church's attention to that word is being silenced by a rogue word, like by Trump who's organizing all of this stuff. And when, and I, you know, John, when you, when you talk about revival, I'm, I, I don't think we've, I don't think we're prepared to really wrestle with the fact that a resurgence in religion and a resurgence in Christianity in America that the data shows us.
So this is where kind of the conspiracy theory comes in and we think, well, we can just unseat conspiracies with data. We can't even prove our faith with data. Um, that if we were to go back into a Timeish machine, which is impossible, if we were to stand there and witness the crucifixion of Jesus. By the logics and the stories told of that day, you and I would all conclude like, oh, this was just an insurrectionist who'd been murdered by Rome.
That passing that line from the meaning of an event to faith data does not render that for us. It doesn't do that for us. And so that sounds really disheartening to people who are like, wait a minute, you mean I can't like share data to help unseat people from conspiracy theory? I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's a place for data, but reality is more than data. Like God's reality is more than what the data says.
And so when there's talk of revival, when there's whispers of revival, when people point to the data and say, look at the youth who are, who are flocking to Theos U or Turning Point USA, we have to be attentive enough to the word to who Jesus is to say and and what sort of Jesus is being held up in their midst because antichrist. Can be lifted up and worshiped in a way that's impossible to distinguish except by our fruit.
So then that, that invites the question, what are the fruit of these movements? Where, where, where, where are they asking people to put their hope and their trust and their security? And it's, it's in, it's in, it's in America. It's in making America great again. Because when you cross that line and you start to criticize tariffs or the administration in any way, shape, or form. Then, then, you know, those are the stakes and that's revealing.
That means to me that the church's attention to the word of Christ has been kind of supplanted from this attention to a rogue word and our, our captivity to data and to facts. I'm not saying they're bo, I'm not saying they're wrong, but I'm saying that they're, they're limited in their ability to, to cultivate attention to what, who God is and what he's doing among us, and that that's, that's, that's a uniquely Christian way of approaching the problem.
I have a question that while you were talking, it kind of sparked this question. I'm not sure exactly how it flows into the conversation, but Sure. No, we can, we can follow it, but some of the, some of the conversations that I've been having surrounding Christian nationalism, abuse, and the through lines that we're talking about, the beginning of this conversation has been that. Rural America has been largely left out of the conversation.
Yeah. Yet I feel like that is where a majority of radicalization is happening. And I, I wanna know what you are seeing on your side of things with conspiracy theory. Yeah. In regards to the church in rural America, the white evangelical church in rural America. Yeah. And how are, are conspiracy theories being utilized in those spaces to create extremism, um, and for political gain? Um, yeah. And it's actually, uh, targeting people that are oppressed.
Like what the rural, poor white Americans that are experiencing oppression in our country.
I think, I mean, and that's a really good question, and I think it, I. The whole, the whole point of following Jesus and, and the way that he brings our attention onto things that we otherwise might not give our attention to, I think is, is precisely the sort of, you know, we can't be reactive in this moment, even though everything, everything in us wants to be, and conspiracy theories are that kind of reactivity of like, let's blame this person or that person.
So, um, to that question of like, rural America and, and the stories that are told, you know, I've, I've been doing a lot of thinking about Steinbeck and, and about Grapes of Wrath and, and for those who are not familiar and, and are not gonna go read a novel, and that's totally fine.
Grapes of Wrath followed, you know, poor rural Americans who were being displaced from their farms in the Midwest through over farming, but also through a complete, you know, economic, uh, overturn where big corporations were coming up and, and mechanizing farm equipment and buying farm land. That's a huge generalization, but he followed these.
Who, who they basically became, um, you know, vagabonds like going around the country and, and it's a story of this family and how they, they provide for each other, but the challenges that they face along the way. I, I really think that Steinbeck is resonant now, that, that, that, that idea of what America has always sort of done, um, to the working class.
And I think it's, I think before we pathologize people in for attempting to relate their problems to express dissent, um, I think we need to be able to adjust for, and of course there's always this very progressive sense where, oh, like those aren't the facts. Like, you know, and there's this sense of contemptuous enlightenment, um, on the left in America that leaves the working class behind. And, and so I think that question is spot on.
I think that, um, I. In, in, in the, in the vacuum of any very clear, like economic policy to help, uh, the working class in America, in these rural communities. So I saw it in Scotland too. Scotland wanted to go and be independent, and the concern was that Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow were going to kind of get all the focus if they were to become independent, leaving rural Scots. And this, it's the same in, in the States in in many ways.
Uh, and so all that to say, I think conspiracy theories can be a very easy way for people to express their frustration with the lack of representation. But what happens is those conspiracy theories are taken and kind of used to delegitimize their very real political claims. So speaking as a churchman, speaking as a theologian, I think my first question would be, I. Does the church see itself as a place where those conspiracies are, are sort of reinforced? Or does the church see itself as this?
We are part of what it means for someone's political claim to reach us. Like, yes, in a democracy, we, we have a political claim, we make a claim on our representative like you're supposed to represent us. But in a, in a, in a kingdom sense, each of our neighbors has a legitimate claim on our lives, and that's a political claim.
We are responsible to them, for them, just like they're responsible to and for us, I think that's really easy to see in Jesus's teachings, especially when he's like, Hey, if the Roman tells you to carry their pa their pack for two mile, you know, a mile you go too. And unfortunately, we turned a teaching about encountering the oppressor. Really rendering the oppressor as a human being. Right? Because if you go a second mile, what are they saying?
Like there's, that, there's the story that Rome is oppressing us. I'm, I'm kind of getting on my soapbox here 'cause this is a good question. Um, but that, that teaching of saying like, go the second mile force this Roman oppressor to see you as a human being and you see him as a human being, that's a different sort of politics. And so I think in many ways churches in rural America, not all have been this place where conspiracies have been sewn up.
But it, but to your point, it is this, the soil of radicalization, like political descent, political frustration, and that's exactly what the Grapes of Wrath was attempting to, to, to show the public in the 1930s, was that the way that we are treating these farmers across the greater Midwest, um, that's how fascism rises is, is is this idea that you can mobilize the working class. Without, also without changing property relations, and that's getting into the scholarship, but that's fascism.
And so your question, to answer it very, very pointedly and not as long-winded as I just did, is yes. And that's how fascism starts. I, I was fascinated with the tariff dialogue where, you know, you had the tariffs come out and we've had, I mean, like the world has seen tariffs fail time and time again. Yeah. We've seen 'em fail, but I was fascinated to watch those that were defending the tariffs. Mm. And, and to see, especially when the economy was just.
And it's still not, you know, we're still in, in trouble, but especially as the downturn happened and the panic happened, to see people respond in a way, um, to the tariffs. That reminded me kind of what you're saying to where they were buying into this conspiracy of like, you know, uh, uh, God has this, like God has this. Yeah. And like, and Trump knows what he's doing. Capitalists always win, you know, but, and some of them were very angry, like, you don't know how to mm-hmm.
If you're, if you're, I saw one person say like, you don't know how, if you, your 4 0 1 K's down, like you don't know how to invest correctly, like illogical things that, that made, that like mystified me. I was like, this is right. This is crazy. But when you're talking about that, like. Uh, what you were just saying, like that to me is a missed reality to where those individuals, they've, they've so bought into a narrative to where God is, is controlling Trump.
And Trump is controlling the economy. Yeah. And that whatever Trump does, he has a vision or a plan from God. And I'm not making this shit up like this. People think this. Yeah. Oh yeah. I know. I know. Yeah. And then when it's, when there's a, there's a, there's something that happens that they don't back from it. They double down on it. They double down, they keep doubling down. Yeah. And like to me, like as you were talking, I just keep thinking about like how.
I love to look at those individuals and say like, there is some pain and hurt that they're experiencing. Mm-hmm. Maybe from an economical level that we don't understand or can't see, and yet I feel like the church could be in a place in those communities where they bridge that gap.
Yeah. Where they step in and say like, the community's experiencing unemployment because of the plant leaving or because of layoffs and the church being able to have a narrative and have a conversation with the community that helps unseat some of that soil or pour, you know, pour some fertilizer on those weeds that are growing to potentially do that. I just don't see that, like I, I don't see that happening. I see it sometimes happening online.
Mm-hmm. But I don't see it happening in a broader sense. I see more of people from the church standing up and saying, yeah, we believe that that is happening. Like we are getting layoffs and we need, yeah, Trump's got a vision and this is Trump's vision and we're gonna get there. We just gotta get through it and. I don't know if there's an answer for the church to make that shift. I don't know if it can In America, I don't think it ever has except with the exception of like the black church.
Mm-hmm. But is it possible for the church to become that? Has it ever even been that and can it become a place to where it is creating, it is a safety net to say mm-hmm. Point people back toward a different way. Um, that's, yeah. That is the question. And I think, yes. I think the answer is yes. I think it can.
And the, the question is, and I'm, I'm thinking of, I'm, I'm like, I'm a dad, so I'm thinking maybe in my kids' time, like the decisions we're making now as a family of saying, okay, like, where do we wanna spend the next 10 years, 15 years? Like, what could reasonably occur? I think in many ways it's probably happening in, in ways that we're not noticing, just because it's, it's not this. News drawing until there's a victory. There's not really any news worth reporting.
Um, and I think there is a lot of that type of communal, but so long as I think the church sees itself as an institution that it has to defend so long as churches see themselves as like survival strategies of like, these policies have to serve us, um, then I don't think it's prepared to risk what it'll take to start being an advocate for the common problems in its, its in our community. Um, so I think that there's an economic question there, like there's an economic tension.
Um, did Jesus really mean what he said? You know, when he said that the flowers are clothed and, and that the birds have homes? Um, and let's be very clear, that seems incredibly arbitrary and totally dangerous advice to follow unless you put it in the context of God's care. Unless you're willing to, to test that and be faithful to it, um, you will never meet. You know, uh, a financial advisor who works with Dave Ramsey, that'll tell you. That's good advice.
You'll never, you'll never, you'll never hear that. No. Something I've been thinking about. You won't. No, you just won't. Um, something I've been thinking about a lot, and, and again, when we're talking about the church right now, we're, unless we're specifically talking about the white evangelical church in America, um, I have really been grappling with like, is that faith even compelling?
And I don't think it is, like the faith that is being sold in white American evangelical spaces is not compelling. Hence why conspiracy theories are so, they're more compelling. Than the Jesus of the White American church. And I believe that the example of the black church in America, and I believe the example of survivors that choose integrity at great cost to themselves. Mm-hmm. That faith in Jesus is compelling.
So. Mm-hmm. What I wonder and ponder on quite a bit when it comes to where we're at and, and what does this look like for us to all be in this Christian nationalist hellscape that we're living in right now, like what is the way out? And I don't know if there is capacity for that within white evangelical American spaces at all. Yeah. Like, I think it's going to be like. I don't know if a can outside of like the lightning bolts of God coming in and I don't think it's gonna be the same voices.
'cause they like, yeah, we don't know. All of us on this call have stared at this and mm-hmm. Jared, you've stared at it in a through scholarship and study. Mm-hmm. Yet we were raised in a space that, that had, that sold a faith in a Jesus that for the most part is not, uh, congruent with a character of the God of the Bible. So what, like, I just, I don't know that there's a way for mm-hmm. These like megachurch Yeah. White spaces to actually change because I don't think they know another way.
'cause I don't know that. I don't know that Jesus and faith in Jesus actually exists in those institutions. Yeah. And I feel, I'm not trying to sound elitist when I say that. I'm not trying to say like that. You can't have faith in Jesus and be in one of those institutions, but I do think that at a certain point you hit a fork in the road where, yeah. Yeah. Something do you really believe in Jesus or not?
And if you do believe in Jesus, then you're gonna have to ask some really hard questions or like, what are we doing? We have a catalog of episodes where those questions were asked for survivors and the church turned the other way. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's happening everywhere. And I feel like.
One of the things that I had to coming out of evangelicalism that I had to grapple with, and maybe you guys can relate, is this sense of wanting to repair, you know, the work of repair, the activism of a repair.
And then I realized, um, that that's not what I wanted to just, not, not inside of me, like I had this realization, but through conversations with colleagues and, um, through attending other churches outside of the country, like realizing maybe I don't wanna spend the rest of my life like fighting over, uh, you know, if, if I could put it really bluntly, like it is just a damned label. That, that the idea of contesting the label Evangelical as sort of like a brand revival.
Like, I'm not interested in rebranding. I'm not gonna spend my life for, and in that interest, it is nothing for a label. You're not like the PR guy for evangelicalism. Exactly. None. None of us. And if there's something about evangelicalism that when you, when you kind of step out and into the margins or even outside of it, that you, you kind of are at risk for retaining a lot of its impulses. Um, and and that's one of 'em, right? Like, oh, we can, we can, we can do this.
And, and I think in some ways, um, that's always like playing a card game with cards under the table. That's not really, that's not really playing all your cards. You like saying, ah, like, you know, to to, to quote an atheist. Um, Nietzsche says, only where there are graves can there be resurrections. Now, he wanted to put Christianity in the grave, but other theologians who engaged with Nietzsche said, Hey, you were more right than you knew buddy.
Uh, and maybe you had some, maybe you had some good critiques of the European Christianity. Um, and that's besides the point. But my point in sharing that with evangelicalism in this like ative, what do we, what do we do now is I think many of us who have those who have never been in these spaces and those who have found their way out of these spaces can see very clearly that sometimes coming to faith. Is also experienced as an apostasy.
And, and until we're able to grapple with the cost of that, like apostasy, um, like Paul meeting Jesus on the road of Damascus was repentance, but it was also a sort of apostasy from the faith that he was practicing. And until we're able to grapple with that and really weigh like Jesus's words to be born again to Nicodemus, um, those have been reduced and flattened. And it's, it's not like. One, mechanical, pray the prayer. I mean, look, I, that was me.
And in some ways I just kinda would say, look, if anyone can change, like anybody can change. If I can change, um, and I don't feel like I've changed totally. Right? But like that sense of Luther's first thesis was all of life as conversion. And I feel like over the last five years, all, all that's happened in my life is being converted over and over and over again. Um, and being unsettled and being ruined and, and recognizing that that ruin and that risk is actually freedom.
And that's precisely what conspiracy theory baked into Christianity's trying to push down in a way. Like, we know, we know. And, and, and the minute that you say, I don't know, but I trust, you know, like you, then, then you get into some really difficult stuff because that's what abusers also want you to say. And so it gets into this really perilous venture of faith, but coming out from under an abuser. Like Hagar saying, I know where I've come from, but I, I don't know where I'm going.
That's what it feels like. And, and I think that's the testimony of survivors, but I also think that's the testimony of kids who just maybe just survived being raised in an evangelicalism that had you thinking, 'cause this was my experience that one day I was gonna be asked, are you a Christian at gunpoint in my school cafeteria? Yeah. I can't tell you how many times that story, that narrative framed my devotion to Jesus.
Um, and, and so I, I kind of say all that to say I don't, I don't know if I have like a, a, a really solid answer in terms of do this X, Y, Z, but I hope in some ways that I can at least give language to what it looks like to leave to that, that leaving can be freedom. That that risk and that ruin can actually just be part of.
You know, uh, there's this Dutch resistance pastor who when the Nazis occupied Amsterdam, which is where Anne Frank was during World War ii, for those who were history buffs, this pastor said, um, he celebrated the ruin of the church in Amsterdam. He said that the era of pious church life is at an end, and he just had a funeral for the church. He said, all right, it's over. Like our rot has been exposed. We have not resisted the way that we should have.
But then he has this line that says, the church is the church by faith in becoming the church again and again, that's not rebranding, that's not huddle. The executive pastors and our brand managers together and putting a better face forward and, and, you know, putting a post on social media that's like ruin and. And that's where things are born. So if that sounds like preaching, it is.
And I think, I think the reason it sounds like that is because there's a whole world of a difference in, in being liberated from a rogue word, um, and finding yourself face-to-face, face with a living word that demands your life. And that's risky and that's ruin this. And that'll look different for each of us as we figure out, I think, what it looks like to be responsible.
But I, I wanna land this by just suggesting, 'cause I get asked all the time, like, how do you talk to people who are like in this? Like how do you, how do you frame that? Um, and before I answer, I'm kind of curious to hear from you both. Like how, what have you learned from answering kind of conspiracy theories or getting into those kind of conversations? I. Um, I mean, I, I think you, I think the first thing is, is just to listen, uh, more than anything, to, to show active listening.
Like, you know, I'm listening and, and, and trying to, uh, um, I. Yeah. Try not to say anything right away. Yeah. 'cause typically, I I, when people are in those places, 'cause I mean, I've been in those places before too. There, there is something that is going on in their life that, that has impacted them. That they're connecting to this conspiracy theory or this belief in a way that is giving them some sort of hope.
And that hope, um, is usually directed toward, sometimes it's directed toward things that are negative on and because they don't know any different. Mm-hmm. Or because that's just how they've, they've grown up and they've been raised and they, so giving that attention to, to listening to the story and asking questions about the story, I think are important. I think we make a mistake by always trying to say like, I've gotta prove a point, like in this conversation.
Yeah. It's more about, to me just. Connection with the individual and connecting with the fact that they're experiencing something that I don't have language for and they may not have language for yet, but I want to be present in the conversation, so that's good. I will say that I have had to do a lot of studying in this because my gut is to freak the heck out when I hear something crazy, especially with God's name attached to it, like, what are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense.
That's not logical. This does not add up. This does not look like Jesus. That is heresy. Like that's my gut. Yeah, you've got, all of our listeners have heard me do that before. Um, but I've been really pressing into looking at deradicalization work, deescalation depolarization lately. Um, I actually just sent over a little free e-course to our board at Sacred Wilderness about depolarizing within that this organization, braver Angels does that. It was so good. And it's free.
I'll, I'll link it in the show notes. Um, yeah, that'd be great if any of you wanna do it. Um, but something I've been really wrestling with is that, um, the cognitive dissonance that gets turned on in people where it does literally doesn't matter what you say, if you trigger that in someone mm-hmm. You're just actually further pushing them into the conspiracy theory or the belief or the extremism. So I will not say I am good at it.
I won't say I've learned this talking to people and now I'm an expert. But, uh, I wish I was. But I do think that it has made me be more mindful, especially with loved ones, which I think many of us can probably say. We have loved ones that are buying into at least some of this, if not full sail in it. Um, is. Asking questions that, asking questions. And it also, it comes back to, again, when I've been thinking through this like through line of how are these things all connected?
This is something that we encourage survivors to do in high control religious spaces. And now like reframing this to, we're dealing with cult mindset, right? Um, at a national scale right now, but inspire curiosity. You know, be a person that's safe to be curious with to the extent that you can. And I think especially those of us on this call, or the majority of our listeners that are coming out of white American evangelical spaces, we have the privilege to do that.
Like we can put our bodies on the line to sit and listen to the garbage, right? Like, it's not there. We can be that. Um, so that's kind of something I've been working through and also working through really hard. How to, how to see the humanity in the people in front of me. Mm. And to not let go of that. Because I think once we allow, and I'm seeing the rise of it on the left, like quickly. Yeah. The dehumanization. Mm-hmm. Of the far right.
And I think once we get into that space where we're allowing dehumanizing rhetoric, where we're talking about other human beings as if they are dirt or giving them labels even, I think even labels, like I've been working not to call people abusers. 'cause that's not who that person is. They're actually an image bearer of God who is abusive. Mm-hmm. So some of that is, I don't know if that answers your question. No. Yeah. But this is some of the stuff that I've been wrestling with.
Like, how do I, as someone who still believes in Jesus, walk in this and model Jesus to the people around me, and it's. Hard. Yeah, I mean, I, I love that question because too, it it, it reflects the relationships that each of each of us are responsible for. And I, I want people to hear in some ways too that, um, you know, and, and I'm probably more at risk of this because I studied it, is like turning this into like an academic exercise or an intellectual test.
Um, and, and that's risky for a lot of reasons. The first being that I. No one's a project in that way like this. And we're dealing with real lives. We're dealing with real consequences of these things. Um, and I think the language that we use in many ways, like our words, build worlds and, and those worlds can he us in or they, they can reflect God's word and what he's doing. And so I, I think it's, I think it is important that as far, so there's this novelist that I talk about in my book.
Her name is Rebecca West. She was writing, and I, I'll just kind of maybe leave with this or contribute this on my side of things with this question is that she said she was trying to describe how World War I happened. We're not gonna go back and do a history lesson on that, but it was really complex and they were all Christian nations. By the way, that's one of my favorite things to point out is like every single major nation in World War I was a Christian nation.
So that's Christian nationalism, that's what it does. Um, but she said, I'll never be able to explain it. She said, it's not that there weren't enough facts, it's that there were too many. And, and the challenge for our day, a hundred years on from that is that we have so many facts, so many different facts. And the stories that we tell about our world are, are leading us to gravity in in particular ways. Looking at these facts is consequential and these facts is not.
And, and in so much information I wanna give people, and, and Jay, I think you said it, uh, and Jonna you did too. The, the, the curiosity, the the, the, the willingness to engage in conversation in a way that we, um, dispossess ourselves of the need to be right immediately. It's not that we're seeding that there's no such thing as truth with a capital T. Um, it's not that we're, but more importantly we're leaving this door open that. We ourselves do not possess all the facts.
And I think that that's a really healthy common ground and place to be. Um, but I wanna encourage people too, this is an active, like we have not found anything that is, is, can be scaled to really deradicalize from conspiracy theory. Um, and one of the things that is not really often talked about is the way that religious belief is baked into these things. So what I'm really focused on is how do we, how do we talk about Jesus that's theology. Like how do we talk about God?
How do we do theology in a way that allows for this separation between these, these conspiratorial narratives and, and how we talk about God? And I think that that's a work that God is in. I think that that's something that we can trust the spirit to, um, bring about in its own way. Um. But it's so much more than just swapping facts back and forth, false facts, alternative facts. It's an encounter and it's not efficient. It's not efficient, it's not efficient at all. It's slow. It's slow.
And it really, it, it deeper, it deepens entrenchment into conspiracy theory. So don't do that. Like, if we could say one thing clearly, like, don't argue in that way because it does actually just further deepen those divides. Um, a more, we've already said it, but asking the questions. The one thing that I, I think I is, I've used this before, but just this metaphor to help people conceive of the, of the work is, is putting pebbles in people's shoes. I don't know what that looks like.
It may not be a fact. It may be the, the, the ethos of the, you know, the, the way that someone feels when they're in your presence. Um, in a way of, Hey, this is safe. I don't have to have my guard up. It's, it's, I. You know, the, the family divides are real. Um, and we don't have to diminish the consequences of our moment, um, by refusing to have conversations. But we can be people who are never offended.
We can be people who are endlessly curious, um, and confident that given a, given a hearing, um, the word of God is something that is going to ruin our chosen and cherished narratives, um, for what we think is at stake. Because I don't think what we think is at stake is actually at stake. Um, and, and that sort of encounter and transformation is what I think my work is hopefully geared up towards. So. Hmm. Beautiful. Wonderful. Yeah. Thank you so much.
This was, so, this sparked a lot of thoughts in me and things that I wanna go wrestle through, and I, I'm sure it did for our listeners as well. I really look forward to your book coming out, so we'll be sure to post about that when the time comes or maybe even have you back. Um, sounds great to, to hopefully have more to say when it's all said and done. I, I think you probably will. I'm sure you're learning things as you go. Yeah. To be honest, we kind of all are at this point.
Yeah. Yes. But please go subscribe to Jared Substack, keep up with his work, and reach out to us. Send us an email if there was something in this episode that Yeah. Sparked curiosity in you or questions that you have, I'd love to continue this conversation. All right. Thanks Jared. Thanks so much for having me on.