Hello and welcome to Reclaiming My Theology, a podcast seeking to take our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress. I am your host, Brandi Miller, and as we continue this series on Empire, it's time to get down to brass tacks. Today we are going to start introducing the political and economic mechanisms that make empire possible and the ways that Christians are complicit in them.
To that end this week, we will lay a broad foundation as I'm joined by my friend and pastor of the people, Jared McKenna, to talk about authoritarianism and fascism. In this conversation, we offer concepts and definitions to build the rest of this season around, knowing that many of us are using the language of fascism and authoritarianism, but don't really know exactly what we're talking about, or how it's impacting our lives and communities.
One note for this episode is that the audio quality starts out a little bit rough on Jared's end. We fixed that by about minute 10, so just stick it out to get the rest of the conversation. I promise it is so, so worth it. Friends, we can do this.
I offer this as an encouragement in the beginning because I know that the world is overwhelming right now. But as we enter these conversations more deeply, as we learn and do better and find ourselves as a part of the three and a half percent that is needed to create social change, that we do so together.
So please, as a start, enjoy this conversation with Jared McKenna. Well, Jared, I'm so glad to have you here. It's been years since we've talked in real time. We've sent some voice notes here and there, but it's just such a delight to get to talk to you and to have...
Your perspective in this moment feels really important to me. So thank you for your time today. Oh, thanks, mate. And we have gone back and forward in the last little while, but I'll say it on the air. Congrats on your life. It's wonderful. I'm so thankful. when things are so difficult that you continue while everything is turning to walk in the direction of something that is hopeful, when the temptation is to hang on to something that isn't real.
and pretend that we're not spinning, or to simply lay down because of this feeling of vertigo. So voices such as yourself that, despite the constant spinning, are walking forward and inviting others to take your hand in doing that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. important it's been an important work for me of therapy and of spiritual direction and of character formation to say that
The world is going to be the world. And if I don't live as though I want to live in a different world and don't practice that world, then I won't know how to live in it when it comes. And so this season's been a particularly beautiful picture of that, even though it takes everything in me, especially as an American enneagram.
three oriented person to not just capsize into my work and trying to change everything that I may not be able to change myself and so I appreciate that and that is just a real part of life right now as my dad says we don't fight fascists because we will win we fight fascists because they're fascists so it's really important to know what we're about yes
A hundred percent. Well, that gives us a little window into you. But for folks who maybe missed you the first time that you were on, which was so long ago, and may not know who you are, I would love for you to describe for folks, what does it mean to be you? I'm coming to you from the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, found on most maps as Perth, Western Australia. I'm the son of Faye Saul and Bernie McKenna.
and their loving influence from their different backgrounds i'm first generation australian my dad migrated in the late 70s he was the last of his family He came out from Dublin, but was actually born in the north. And my mum's side of the family, Ashkenazi Jews, who married Scottish Presbyterians. So I'm an Irish Jew-ish. Aussie trying to work out what it is to follow Jesus while living on stolen land and trying to be a good dad and good partner.
pastoring two communities, one on this side of this large continent, one on the other side, Steeplechurch in Naarm, Melbourne, and Table in the Trees in the hills of Perth, and trying to live with integrity. and waste my life in ways that matter. And honestly, that's kind of an encouraging sentiment, given that a lot of us feel like a lot of what we're doing is a waste, but does not. And so I think I appreciate the...
The naming of what makes things matter, the people, the communities that you're a part of, those pieces. And just like doing things because it's right to do the things like that. Yeah. That matters so much. Yeah. Well. Well, I'm curious why you think I invited you to come talk with me about authoritarianism, because there's a lot of people I could pass. And I'm just curious why you think I asked you to do this.
I think if you bang on about something for long enough, not just merely in books or in sermons or in lectures but in practice, I think it's often the practice stuff that people... More things that have been written about the kind of stuff I've tried to have a crack at than I've done writing. And I think that's because embodying something has a power that pages can point to.
But there's something about embodiment that inspires and opens up imagination. So maybe something around rolling up your sleeves and making love manifest kind of stuff. I don't know. It certainly is that. Because I think that what I am recognizing in this moment, and I talked to you a little bit about this earlier, is that in the United States, where most of my listeners are, I'm having this really strange moment where...
This happened a lot during the election and it's happening a lot now where we're just like screaming words into the void. Authoritarian, fascism, populism, Christian nationalism, nationalism at large, authoritarianism, religious authoritarianism, all of those things. And I keep saying that it's. like people are using the right language in the right way without knowing its context at all.
And then it makes it so that when we say, well, what are you doing with that? Everyone's just like, well, I don't know. It's just it's so big or it's like all I know that I can do is call my representative or things like that. And so I feel like there is this.
Oftentimes we are stopped by not having the correct language to interpret our own experience. In this situation, it feels like we have so much language that we are unable to move into our experiences. And so I think I've seen you as a person who can move into those experiences.
effectively and therefore has integrity enough to help a lot of us who are just kind of maybe internally too embarrassed to say, I actually don't know what I'm talking about. I can feel it because I think a lot of us can feel what nationalism, authoritarianism, fascism feels. like, appropriately name it as such, but may not be able to understand more fully how it's in us, coming out of us, the places that we accept it, the places that we don't.
And so I'm going to be really curious to hear some of your thoughts about how this particular moment, particularly as it is in the US and affecting the rest of the world, is playing out. So to that end, as we start, can we start just broad? Because I know that you and I really...
are people who are interested in talking about fascism specifically, but I would love if we could start by talking about authoritarianism, because fascism really is authoritarianism when it becomes its worst. And so, yeah, what is authoritarianism? How can we be thinking about that concept? yeah i think there's a particular german theologian who was writing at the time of reagan's reign shall we say who
The book is called A Window of Vulnerability, A Political Spirituality, and it's Dorothy Sola. And this quote, and why I think this quote is so helpful, is that often when we're talking about authoritarianism, people go, this isn't authoritarianism.
authoritarianism because abc or d or this isn't fascism because abc or d and i think it's if people have a sense of what it means and have a word for it that's okay as long as we connect that to larger histories and i think some of our poverty when it comes to understanding history that if our only reference to what fascism and authoritarianism looks like in the
20th century is the Third Reich in Nazi Germany. We don't understand what inspired Hitler and who Hitler was actually cop I actually think understanding Mussolini is far more helpful than Nazi Germany partly because it's what Hitler was drawing on And it's helpful as well in understanding this large grassroots frustration that has risen amongst the lower middle class who rightly sense something and wrongly identify it.
So you've gone to the doctor because you know the symptoms. And I want to encourage people, if you know the symptoms, that's a wonderful thing. And it's finding a diagnosis that actually can heal the symptoms that are presenting.
Labels are only helpful in terms of actually entering into the therapy that is needed for us to heal. Because if we have a diagnosis, and it's the right diagnosis, but we don't actually do anything about what it needs for us... actually become well again all we've got is a nihilistic sense of naming what is happening and sadly what happens on the other side is people have symptoms and the symptoms mobilize them but symptoms
when not connected to a correct diagnosis can be mobilized in a direction that actually further harms us and others i.e and this is like one of the clear signs of fascism in all its different forms and i know it's an amorphous term and there are different definitions but what it shares in in common is i have these symptoms and instead of actually looking at the economic realities that are
disempowering the majority, I'm going to aim that at vulnerable minorities. And whether it be queer people, Jewish people, Arab people, refugees, asylum seekers, which in the US get referred to as migrants and immigrants all the time, usually with the term illegal in front of it, already setting up a discourse, which is fascist. As soon as you add a legal, you've left a framework which is around what it is to respond out of our baptisms, knowing that we're in the image of God.
seeking to live into the image of God in the power of the Spirit, knowing that that image of God is found in everyone we encounter, regardless of religion, social class, orientation, nationality, passport, no passport, whatever.
ways we name these things it's like we joke about this it's like going to a dinner party and somebody bringing up the enneagram and people have been to enough dinner parties that they know their number off the conversations they've had but have never opened up a book that all been to a workshop or taken that to therapy in such a way that they could work on themselves all they've got is the diagnosis yes and so I this is Dorothy Sola and
It's a longer quote, and if you'll excuse me reading a longer quote from the 80s, but I think you'll see how it sums up this current moment. It is evident that the content of this fascist religion contradicts the message of the Jewish and Christian tradition. The God of the prophets did not preach the nation state, but a community between strangers and natives. The Apostle Paul did not base the justification of sinners on the Protestant work ethic, but upon grace, which appears...
for young and old, for the diligent and for the lazy. And Jesus did not make the family the sent... true value of human life right but solidarity of those deprived of their rights the most important norms for the moral majority are a are not contained in Christian faith, as we see from the many critical remarks against the family that appear from Jesus in the Gospels. It is characteristic of what...
she calls Christofascism, that it cut off all the roots that Christianity has to the Hebrew scriptures, that is the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible. No words about justice, no mention of the poor.
Whom God comes to the aid, and very little about guilt and suffering. Which is fascinating to step out of the quote for a second. We always assume that guilt is bad. If you're being horrific to the most vulnerable, guilt is actually... of a healthy psychology that brings you back to your true self out of this horrific practice but we'll read on in terms of the quote no hope for the messianic rain no hope
Hope is completely individualized and reduced to personal success. Check this out. Jesus cut loose from the Old Testament becomes a sentimental figure. The empty repetition of his name works like a... drug it changes nothing and nobody therefore since not everybody can be successful beautiful male rich we might add straight there's a number of things that like there can be They have to be hated objects which contain the disappointment of These values that are set up Jesus who suffers
is hungry and in poverty, who practice solidarity with the press, has nothing to do with this religion. Right? This is 1980. This is where she brings it back to an actual meeting that she attended. She goes on, at a mass meeting of thousands of voices shouting, I love Jesus. It was followed with, I love America.
It was impossible to distinguish the two. The kind of religion that knows the cross only as a magical symbol of what he has done for us, not the sign of the poor man who was tortured to death as a political criminal. Like thousands today... who stand up for the truth in El Salvador. Or we could say Palestine. Or we could say the reality of what's happening in Sudan or the Congo or Yemen and go on.
This is a God without justice, a Jesus without a cross, an Easter... without a cross which remains a metaphysical easter bunny in front of a beautiful blue light on a television screen a betrayal of disappointment a miracle weapon in service of the mighty again a miracle weapon in service of the mighty yep and in the 19th is 40 more than 40 years ago Or about 40 years ago. Yeah, this is one of the pushbacks that Zola had against the term authoritarianism.
is that Reagan didn't fit the authoritarianism definition. People said, no, this is liberalism. It's a form of conservative liberalism. And we seem to forget that liberalism and socialism and conservative... conservatism, 18th, 19th century ideologies, which for some people are like, oh, you're talking Enneagram numbers. I'm a seven. I'm a five. I'm a nine. What's conservatism? What's liberalism? What's socialism?
put a pin in those realities and those stories to open up that name accurately, those ideologies. But people forget that fascism is a 20th century reaction to these 19... century ideologies, that unlike these other ideologies that look forward with a sense of modernist hope, this is a fearful, worrisome, I feel failed by modernity, and I'm looking back
to something in history and you create a false history which you can hang on to, which is metaphors that Reverend Dr. Reggie Williams, the Bonhoeffer scholar, shared with me earlier in the week as we were talking about the reality. of Glenn Stason's influence upon him, who was influenced by Bonhoeffer. As the world spins, fascism is that reactionary, let's look back.
And strangely, what Mussolini did, Brandy, is he took his background in authoritarian socialism... and lost that it was organizing for the workers, but took with him the outrage of workers and those who couldn't find work, and then aimed it, not at it changing the system to be more fair.
And what liberalism does is it goes, we need equality in democracy. What socialism does says we need equality when it comes to the economy. What fascism does is says no, equality is part of the problem. What we need is gifted. chosen Ubermensch was the German that was picked up by the Nazis, by Hitler in particular, drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche or Nietzsche, depending on which school you went to.
Trump, interestingly enough, he doesn't use that term. He used the term genius. There are special people who were chosen for a variety of reasons. And maybe we can get into some of the criteria of fascism that actually speaks to those reasons why those people are chosen and why people look to literally a messiah, a savior, a strong man to rescue them. Yes. Well, and part of it, too, is that there's so many things. There's so many things. But one piece that I feel like is important to name.
is that no term is going to fit anything specifically because of the convolution of how language works. We can interchange a lot of these concepts because they do work. So even as you're talking about like... socialism. And you're like, okay, these are all specific political ideologies. But because modernity has made them a...
hodgepodge of concepts, the attributes of those things become very difficult. And so like you were saying, people said that Reagan did not fit the definition of an authoritarian because there are ways in which authoritarianism
requires certain intentions or it's certain ideological frameworks that you can bypass and go straight to fascism because authoritarianism right generally speaking means that you were not elected and so in a democratic or so-called democratic system authoritarianism isn't something that you can say because the people chose that person in a populist context. Populism essentially being this kind of concept that
There are the people and there is the elite and the people versus the elite. The people become victorious. And so populism elects leaders to then fight the elite. And so you can see this language in how Trump sets up his fascistic ideologies where he says. Well, one of the attributes of authoritarianism.
is that it presents really simple solutions to really complex problems. So if you deport all immigrants and migrants, then you will solve the issue of crime in the United States and poverty because those people are the ones who are taking your job. So it's not just what you were saying about how...
particular communities that are marginalized are villainized. It's about... how eliminating those communities creates a solution to a problem so if you villainize trans athletes what you're doing is actually saving the family and if you save the family you save the nation if you save the nation you save god's will in the world and so There are all these ways that as we talk about authoritarianism and the slippery slope straight into fascism.
It's easy to say very I can hear a bunch of bros being like, it's not technically authoritarianism. I mean, I'm like, OK, but what is actually the hope in parsing these concepts when really what what ends up happening, I think, in my view, at least, is that.
If you take American politics at its most extremes, progressives will tend to see everybody as a... as a nazi we'll use the word nazi or authoritarian or fascist and conservatives will see everyone as a communist so taking different political years so you're taking political ideologies and economic ideologies bashing them up against each other and then saying well no that's not
And I'm like, yeah, but if it smells like fascism, if it smells like authoritarianism, it probably is those things. Yeah. Christian ideology or evangelical Christian, Western evangelical Christian ideologies and beliefs sit at the very center of why this is happening. Because I don't think that communities of people without...
pre-existing authoritarian ideologies slipped so quickly into fascism. And so I'm wondering if we can talk about some of those ideologies, because part of what I've noticed and what's been deeply disappointing... is seeing Christians do Simone Biles-level gymnastics to try to get around. why they're not fascist and why this is like a God-ordained movement in the world to save the family, to save people's lives, to save purity, like all of these dog whistles for really rich white.
you know, able-bodied, cis straight. It's all a hodgepodge. But I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit or if we can talk together a little bit about the theologies that you see animating. this comfort with authoritarianism that slips us so quickly into fascistic ideology. Yeah, I have a mate who we worked together when I was working in Romania, both for the world's largest aid.
development and relief organization. And he, Danut, is brilliant and he's fascinating. And he wrote a book that was helping countries who... Once communism fell in 1989, 1990, in the Eastern Bloc, he wrote this text for particularly Christian communities to kind of wean themselves out of an authoritarian... formation. That authoritarian formation was communism. But we've been joking and I think it was called After Communism.
What now? And I was literally joking with him last week and I said, you need to write another one after democracy. Now what? Because that's what we're... But one of the things he picks up on in the book is there's three kind of emerging... models or patterns of organization.
in the new testament and one is what we might call the congregationalist model which those who are from baptists who haven't been so thoroughly willow creaked and saddlebacked and hill songed and now elevated that people have a sense of I'm a part of community and even when it comes down to are we spending money on the Sunday school renovation or the new sound system you're expected to seek the will of God as a
member of this community and it's direct participatory democracy and training in that. And that's a... But there's also what we might call a Presbyterian model, which is more mainline denominations where it's representative democracy. And the importance of starting the story here is to understand that the initial 13 colonial...
colonies. And I say colonial colonies so people don't forget that it was somebody else's. You say colony and you forget that. But they were animated by religious imaginations that were still Constantinianism, including Pennsylvania. God bless William. But Quakers did a nonviolent form of colonialism, which they're wrestling with because they're Quakers. But the reason why they wrestle with it is actually their processes. And so this representative democracy actually came out of...
As we read the New Testament, what does it look like for us to see these different forms? And I mention this, Brandy, because the final one is the one that these people who are pushing Christofascism... as Sola would call it, or Christian fascism, as Hedges would simply call it, the American fascist, he would actually call it. And it's Christian by nature, but he just calls it American fascist.
hierarchical model, which those of us formed in Catholic or Orthodox or Anglican or Episcopal settings will know as it usually corresponds to monarchy and democracy is kind of worked into a framework of
someone having absolute control. So my mate Danute, he jokes that under communism, people got used to authoritarianism, that when it ended and sought to democratise their churches, it's a direct quote, every local church had its own dictator in the pastors or in the elders and so I actually think the attraction to This kind of fascism American fascism has been birthed out of communities that have left
A Christian imagination that sees the image of God requiring the participation of people's dignity in a community where we organize together and discern and work out. We know how to do conflict well because we've had to agree on. are we changing the carpet or are we putting this money into our support for refugees? Which ministry is this going to? All of that has been removed by megachurches.
outside of uh the prophetic black church tradition which actually does like the first mega churches look at abyssinian baptist church that bonhoeffer taught Sunday school in, like, it was a church of 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 people, and yet it was a democratic institution. Yet most megachurches have their own ubermensch, a pastor, an anointed one. a genius and there Jeff Charlotte who for 20 plus years I've been quoting around his work
understanding the far Christian right in America. He talks about how the hypocrisies become inside jokes and they became naked realities. And if these mega church pastors all turn and go, we need a pastor for our... nation and it's based upon this model suddenly you've moved away from anything that seeks first the reign of God and God's healing justice knowing that everything else will sort itself out as we share together
And instead, we're seeking a form of European Christendom. Now, take two, American style. Yes. Well, and in that, there's another layer that I think in this particular moment where we're seeing this kind of tech bro oligarchy coming to be burned in the U.S. my goodness there is a way that the megachurch model is heavily based on corporate yes american marketing and multiplicative strategies and so when you have a hierarchically based anti-democratic Dignity reducing corporate leaning.
church movement and then your god has to validate that structure and then the growth of that model even though it's more corporate than it is christian and it works because it's marketed not because it's correct or moral you end up with a situation in which There is no...
existence of authority that doesn't come from above you and I do want to backtrack a tiny bit just to name like really clearly some of the concepts that we've already said to define authoritarianism and fascism so as we continue to talk about the church and about
Christian theology, those have some just just some things to hold on to, because some of what I've been concerned about, I mean, you know, as I've said a million times, I'm concerned about so many things. But one of the things that feels particularly. prominent is that authoritarianism is this centralization of power. We've talked about this.
bit and so right mega churches pastors so this normalization of a centralization of power where power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or of a small group of people and therefore political power or social power or christian power is not accountable to the people or subject to checks and balances because they're always accountable to God and God is so abstracted in these concepts.
that God is always on their side, that God is always co-signing. So there's a centralization of power. There is limited freedom in authoritarianism. It's political freedom. So there's a limited tolerance of opposition. There are some... Some individual freedoms, but there's a heavy restriction of pluralism, civil rights, free speech. There's high government censorship. The current Trump war on the press feels like a pretty strong...
representation that you cannot dissent. I think about what happens when people dissent in Christian spaces, that you are considered a, for women, always considered a Jezebel. You are considered a...
like a wolf in sheep's clothing that you are going to undermine the leader or the pastor or the authority. And so there's this limited individual... freedom that is called freedom in the collective, that is upheld by kind of this third facet that I think about often, which is a limitation of ideology, that authoritarian regimes are... named or characterized by strict control. And it's not necessarily like a deeply rooted ideological reality. There actually may not be a lot of sense to it, but...
If the ruling party is maintaining power, what they say, even if it doesn't make sense, gets to be the literal law of the land, which is this kind of fourth component of a lot of authoritarianism, which is
the selective rule of law that says that the legal system or systems within a church might exist, but they exist to support the regime's interest or to support the leaders or the pastor's interest. It's why we see so many of these pastors who... are sexual deviants who receive no actual criminal liability or responsibility
because they are covered by their own systems that will always make sure that they seem right and holy. So authoritarianism has all of those components to it, and they kind of one-to-one pull up in. I was like, why not go so black all of a sudden? Those values pull up in megachurches in a particular way.
Yeah. Can I have a crack at the fascist like characteristics? Some of them traded in and out. So this is from Haywood who it was actually from a text when I was doing women's studies at the age of 21 or whatever. And I still.
find it incredibly helpful uh so they start with anti-rationalism and the magical kind of thinking so this is where the anti-vax conspiracies wellness without any connection to empirical uh but just a sense of it's like what you do with the vibe the vibe again i have these symptoms but i'm not going to get a proper diagnosis and so this shows up in terms of uh
Like for Hitler, it was like the astrology, the occult, even his weird take on vegetarianism is all part of that kind of wellness kind of. But Jeff Charlotte, again, he calls this Gnosticism. which I find really fascinating. He was brought up in, influenced by the Catholic, his parents were both Catholic workers, I don't think he identifies as a person of faith, but he says there's this secret knowledge that conspiracies...
Depend on and if you're in the know if you know how it works, you can get salvation And it's not salvation of your body necessarily. It's certainly not salvation of creation. Most forms of Marcy night. heresies and that catch bag phrase that is used for these different what they share in common is this antibody uh anti-creation, anti-earth, and there is this conspiracy that you can get in on that will save you from here and take you elsewhere. I find that just so telling.
The second one that Hayward puts forward is struggle. And so literally for, and Kampf translates as my struggle. And it's this sense of, it's a religious social Darwinism. So the bishop who talked about mercy and Brandy, I actually watched that live and I can't remember the bishop's name. Is it? Oh.
But you know who I'm talking about. Everybody knows who I'm talking about and everybody who's listening is just named the name. I actually watched that live late at night here and I was like, I should share that. And I decided I didn't because I didn't feel comfortable the way she talked about those.
who didn't have US citizenship. What I found fascinating is the way that simple talk of mercy, we weren't even talking about justice and how compassion actually orientates, but simple mercy... meant that she was like vilified and part of the the nature of struggle is this social darwinism that
those who need mercy, those who are like survival of the fittest, natural selection, like this kind of distortion of Darwin's theories and how it lends itself to eugenics is why... um victory is to the strong and the weak must go up against the wall as hitler put it And it's this privatization of compassion. So of course we love our neighbor. If they look like me, they vote like me. They live on the same side of town as me. They think like me. And so it's this privatized strength is the good.
And weakness actually threatens society. So disability, difference, is seen as evil. And there's this strange thing that struggle, you need enemies. Not to love, because you're in solidarity, so people are naturally coming up against you, so you love your enemies, that's who our enemies are. But the struggle actually requires this other. Leadership has elitism and military might and the valorisation of violence are the final three. So elitism...
as leadership and leadership as elitism. We kind of touched on that a little bit. But the military might, this chauvinistic... expansionist messianic it's manifest destiny right it's imperialism it's colonialism it's why italy is struggling in their fascist state so they invite invade like ethiopia and they invade Spain and it's part of this glorified struggle.
as opposed to merely the authoritarianism, is the sense that the world is war. And so Mussolini had this quote where he talks about, war is to men what maternity is for women. Woof. It's it's your natural role it what brings you into in that vision it what brings you into your fullness that you're made for and That's some of the nature of fascism and how it differs from mere authoritarianism yes and theologically speaking it makes a lot of sense why
a lot of evangelical Christians would come to a place of acceptance of that, even with what you were just talking about with war. I think about how much war language is just used in evangelical Christianity in general. but i'm thinking about the specific more the more specific concept of the seven mountain mandate i don't know how familiar you are familiar you are with that but it's this i i last year read the violent take it by force have you seen that text yeah about oh man so great
My goodness. So good. And a lot of what the Seven Mountain Mandate is for folks is this idea that Christians are to dominate the world. That the Great Commission is not a commission about discipleship, baptism, about living the way of Jesus. It's about this ideological...
and therefore moral domination of the world toward a more pure reality. And in that domination, which is rooted in an interpretation of Genesis 1 through 3 that says that God gave humans the world to dominate it, not to steward it or be responsible for it. And it says that as the world, they wouldn't use the word evolves, but develops that Christians need to have control over five or seven aspects of society, family, religion, education.
arts and creativity media and entertainment business and government that might be that might have been eight concepts or eight things but seven concepts it's always to say that the world is supposed to be shaped primarily by Christians and by the domination of things that already exist to be contorted into Christianity. And what that ideology has done has made has entrenched the hierarchy that we already are.
primed for and said that the hierarchy when you are at the highest your job is to change everything to make it into your image so even as we see a lot of trump's cabinet picks a lot of it is shut down vital programs for the people in order to create domination ideologically over a concept or like a made to be moral. The thing and what that does what I think is most concerning about that is that my partner and I were talking about this and she was saying I thought this was really brilliant that
It prioritizes the will of God over the way or the character of God or the heart of God. And so in that kind of Christofascism, you actually don't have to worry about what God's heart is as long as God's told you what to do. And if what you are supposed to do...
is dominate, if what you are supposed to do is obey your governing authorities, if what you're supposed to do is find an authoritarian who you can say mirrors Jesus, then the heart of God actually doesn't matter. You can do what you said in the very beginning, which is erase the God of the Hebrew Scriptures.
scriptures in favor of saying, well, we know the will of God. And so it doesn't matter what we feel. It doesn't matter how people experience it because obedience to this God, obedience like Jesus to the point of death matters more than anything else. And so what that does functionally for most. christians is kills our ability to discern because if the only thing that you have to do is obey then all you're doing is listening like a soldier for a command
to follow rather than discerning what is actually right and good and moral. And it's an abdication of oneself, of our human dignity to violence, to domination. to war as it is to modern or to maternity oh my god what brandy like famously french revolution uh liberty equality fraternity uh Mussolini took that and he replaced it with order, authority, justice. What's fascinating, Orbán...
And you're like, well, why are we talking about Hungary? It's only got a population of larger San Francisco. His whole take is God, homeland, family. And this is like a direct influence on the, this vision of a return of Christendom is a direct influence on Trump's administration. Like it's not. Like it's literally the consultants that have been hired and the Heritage Foundation and their Project 25 program.
is literally based upon what orban has been doing in mobilizing and just last week he was meeting with the far right in we this week we have a election in germany and he is meeting with the far right in germany who were explicit tired To Nazism in the past and neo-Nazi today and is meeting them because of their ability to actually restore Christian Europe and this hardline right actually getting into bed with
what used to be a more moderate right party and he's in his fifth term and this is who trump is looking at as like a model yes like literally quoted in The first debate against Kamala Harris was praising Viktor Orban for how he is and who he is. It's not even masked. It's straightforward. dictatorial authoritarianism being praised by other authoritarians in an anti-incumbent global experience right now.
And if Americans actually understood Hungarian, they would know that he is directly quoted in the lead up to the last election as one of the things why he should be elected for a fifth term. The quote is, into the Trump administration and involved in its central planning. That's what he is saying nakedly in public, making it clear you should vote for us because and his far right network across Europe for the European Parliament, which is actually the third largest.
party in europe right now which is like terrifying its big phrase is make europe great again it's that explicit yes yes and if we want to even be Closer now with Trump's lapdog, Elon, or Elon's lapdog dog, Trump. Who knows? elon was calling into the same that same same german far-right party to yes yes influence to give support to garner support and so it's not again it's not even veiled anymore and that's why i'm wondering for us as we talk about christian ideology
How is it that Christians can so justify this? Because I think that a lot of people who listen to this podcast, and I use this word very intentionally, feel like they're going crazy. Because people in their lives, like normal church-going people... are throwing their full weight, full hope, full support, full, I would call worship, behind this regime. And it's objectively immoral.
anti-Christ ways of being. Yes. And they're asking the question, how did we get there? How did we get to the point? And some of it is what you talked about earlier, like that the conspiratorial, when you lean to conspiratorial, you create.
a Gnosticism that says there's a secret knowledge that you can unlock that will then save everything. So people who feel desperate or feel like something is wrong or have the symptoms, but as you said, not the correct diagnosis, might lean into that. And I'm just curious if we can talk a little bit more about... those people might be experiencing because for me one of the things i'm convinced of and i feel deep in my bones is that
During these next four years, we're going to see another wave of what a lot of us would call deconstruction. But the net to catch people who are coming in this window of time is much smaller because there's a lot less empathy or compassion for people who are. turning back toward the way of Jesus now when we think they should have done it 10 years ago or eight years ago or whatever. And so I'm wondering if we can get into the psyche of or the theology of these folks who are so...
conspiratorially linked into this authoritarian mess right now and make a little bit of sense of it. Yeah, yeah. Brandy at the moment. uh as a team we came together um at steeplechurch and we're like we need to actually do a series that directly combats fascism and the rise of fascism particularly in the lead up to our next election here in Australia where like we have a Timu Trump that is and a billionaire who has
Literally started, it's called the Trumpet Party. And he is explicitly going, we're going to do Donald Trump in Australia. And he's pouring. Like, this is a whole party. And so to go to part of... your question and the reason that i brought up what we're teaching at steeple is that we're actually entering into the apostles creed because unlike the nicenean creed it didn't come from above it actually came below so heraclitus in the late second century this record of
early Christians and their baptismal formation and it is about political allegiance and the word I believe is much more about not an ascent to a number of boxes to tick to quote unquote get saved because even the term salvation is so pagan for us we we don't associate with deliverance liberation good news for the poor and the earth
And it was written in response to those two heresies that we mentioned before, Marcionitism. And Marcionite, literally, a quote from here, he talks about bodies are dung-covered flesh. So his view of the body, sexuality, reality.
was so negative, he actually wanted to get rid of the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, and just have parts of the New Testament, because he saw that the Creator and the Savior... were different that the creator was bad but there was a god called father above the creator who was good and so this early creed is actually you're being immersed into a reality into a community that pushes against this anti-earth antibody uh ideology and so justin martyr in the second century
and it's weird that I know this off by heart, but I've been saying it for over a decade in some of his writings pushing back against this teaching, because you said it was anti-Christ, and I totally agree with you, but only if your Christ is Jesus of Nazareth.
That is true, yes. Otherwise, this is completely pro-Christ. Bang on, yeah. Because this is a Christ who... has nothing to do with the historical reality of that Jewish-Palestinian man suffering under occupation and his non-violent campaign calling on people to drop all other allegiance.
and take part in the reign of God breaking in. Justin Martyr says, There are those that say that when they die, their souls are taken to heaven, and there is no resurrection of the body. They are godless, impious. heretics and so the weird thing and jeff uh who i was quoting earlier he talks about this as well it's not that trump isn't religious if that is not pious
Like, there is no sense of wholesome, humble goodness. But it's deeply religious, the thing that he's taking part. Like, a good God saved his life. It's this sense of providence. And this religio... has no use for Jesus other than upon the cross to save a little part of us, which might be referred to as a soul, for some other reality. And in the meantime, we've got to make sure that we control all of reality so people hear that message to the benefit of a few.
That's the fascism. And so the question is, well, does Christianity prime us for this? And I think we have to confess that some forms of Christianity really do. For sure. Some forms of Christianity, but a bit like capitalism in itself, the seeds for its undoing are actually baked into the bread. Like for any fundamentalism to hold up the scriptures.
And for people to take that seriously and refer to Jesus, if anybody lends a little bit of momentary attention to the actual contours of the life of the Nazarene. Fascism is undone. If anybody spends any time with the prophets, with the wisdom literature, with the Jewish scriptures. Fascism is undone. And actually, the wrestle to undo that is actually going on in Scripture. It's the battle between what Wes Howard Brooks refers to as the...
religion of empire and the religion of creation. And Brandy, as you and I know, Jesus clearly comes out on one side of that battle. Jesus takes a side.
Yes, yeah. Justo Gonzales would call it the battle of two kings or the battle of two temples. Like what type of Christianity is being expressed? What kind of story or mythology is being uplifted to dictate what is reality? I think a lot about the... the mythology of Caesar Augustus and his rise to power and the parallels to the ascension of Jesus and this story that comes forward where...
you know, a hundred years before the book of Acts is written and the Ascension is given any kind of credence or is told by Luke, who is a brilliant author. Yeah. There is this story in which Caesar Augustus is... Well, you know, what God was is Octavius. Octavius. So Octavius is the nephew of Caesar, Julius Caesar, the first Caesar. Julius Caesar is unable to have kids. He cannot.
control his own family legacy post his death. He's pretty sure he's going to get assassinated. And so in a last ditch attempt, he... adopts his great nephew Octavius and says like this is my heir but when he dies Mark Antony is this strong leader he's a militaristic leader he's charismatic Octavius is literally young and weak but he's politically salient and so there is this
this sense by the senators that they can control Octavius, that Octavius is charming, politically adept, and Marc Antony is just kind of too much. And so it's this battle between brawn and political savvy. And At Caesar's death, Octavius gets up and he sees a political moment where he sees that there's this comet that's going through the sky for seven days during Julius Caesar's funeral. And he says, I...
That is my father, Julius ascending to be among the gods. And in his ascension, which you have all seen, that he is the... That is God. And if he is God, then I am the son of God. And the senators then go up and say, well, we were there when he ascended. And he said we would be his witnesses in the world. And if that's the story that he's telling, and the Jesus story is starting with the story of Jesus pulling his disciples in lieu of these senators.
up to the mountains saying, you will see in my ascension and you will be my witnesses and my disciples. There is this setting up of two kingdoms, of two temples, of two religions, of two religious mythologies. And it is...
wild to me that we can't read, because in Christianity, evangelical Christianity in the U.S., we are not taught to read the political that is not even veiled in the scriptures. And when you cannot read the political, you will just see it as Jesus is going to power and then he's giving power and if all Jesus ascends to do is
gain power, to give power to his disciples, to dominate the world, then of course you're going to end up with an anti-earth and antibody thing where you do the thing that the disciples are doing in the Acts 1 story, which I think is fascinating, where two men in white robes, the same ones presumably who talk to the women to read.
direct them when they're staring at the wrong thing. Say, why are you staring at the sky? Why are you staring up toward the powerful and mighty thing when the thing that you've been invited to do is among each other? And so this look, this vertical look to something higher.
to authoritarianism rather than the Jesus that can be found in the people that you're already with is such a wild deviation from the core messages of something like Acts that is used as the primary colonial motivator and motor for so much of this. Christofascism that we're talking about.
Yeah, so Jacques Ellul talked about the subversion of Christianity, and we don't get that Christianity was a subversion of empire. So it's not merely it's a clash of two different empires, the empire of Caesar and the empire of Jesus. It's not merely an alternative empire. It's an alternative to empire. It's the undoing of empire. And to associate Jesus is Lord is to say that the crucified one, which is what...
Anybody, if they knew anything in the ancient world or were telling the story, would know that reality, which we forget is a shameful, it's not a story of the worst thing you can imagine happened and then happy ending. Like, here's a rabbit out of the house. The cross and the resurrection are one. The power we see at the cross is the power that rose Jesus from the grave. The revelation of what the unspeakable creator and liberator...
is in nature is seen in this power that, as Rene Girard put it, Jesus died because to continue to live would mean compromising with violence. And so the refusal... to undermine integrity. As your partner put so well, when with, as in God's will, is reduced to a mere sense of force instead of desire that God longs for something. realizing that the early Christians were known as people of the way because they lived a certain way.
As in, they're not the people of the intention. They're not the people of this is the end that's in mind. But the only way to the end is actually this way of confronting integrity. to a reign which is breaking in that knows no coercion, that humanizes, that liberates, that undoes all domination, injustice, evil and oppression. And what it was to be invited into that.
was the subversion of all those terms. So Jesus is Lord, which might be described as the shortest creed in the New Testament that sums up realizing that creeds were a way of summing up the story.
in a bumper sticker, not so you reduce it, but that you can carry it around with you and then unpack it. It's like a hard drive. Hard drives are just a paperweight, an expensive paperweight, unless you're storing something on it. And if you've got... these stories storied on something that you can carry around and unpack with you but ultimately we are those hard drives we are those like
creeds like we are to be like people should look at like the ridiculousness of christians spending money at a super bowl on ads and how many like millions or whatever when you know what would actually impress people
Just go and do some of the stuff Jesus was on about. Don't make a thing about it. Don't announce it on street corners. People will be so... incredibly moved by the forgiveness of debt or coming alongside people who are returning citizens out of the prison industrial complex that is one of America's major industries, which is exporting around the world or coming alongside desperate...
people seeking safety just like us that we refer to as refugees or immigrants or migrants or whatever that that is the stuff that is going to move people that is the stuff that's truly going to that's what subverts the subversion of Christianity, not mere ideology. Like, Brandy, I love you heaps. I'm so glad we're talking again. But this conversation is just another conversation unless it becomes the kind of conversations that lead to embodied.
Yes. I got a mate, Dave Andrews, and he says, one person can make a point, two people can have a discussion, but three people can create a space. And we need to create spaces, right? We need to create spaces that can push back these distorted, idolatrous heresies and embody something gentle and humble that is maybe more vulnerable than we feel comfortable with.
But as Eric Fromm talks about, fascism is actually the fear of freedom. Yeah. Yes. And what we're in the business of is actually creating free spaces for free people to realize their dignity. And that there is a goodness that isn't about this fixation on the goodness in us, but it's a goodness between us that flows through us when we don't...
damn it up and block it off and keep other people from experiencing it. If we are open to the spirit that enters into this kind of freedom that we're invited into. We can create those spaces. And all it takes is a little bit... I keep saying at the moment it's the importance of mustard seeds and yeast is that you don't need as many seeds as you do earth. You don't need as much yeast as you have dough. It just takes a little bit of faithfulness to the subversive way of Jesus.
And everything else starts to fall apart. Everything starts to rise into something bigger. Things start to grow that actually make space for the birds of the air that everybody else are trying to shoo away. Yes, yes. Well, I just did a conversation recently with my friend Tracy G about desire and talking about what it means to know what you want in the midst of empire for that reason. Yeah, right. Wow. Because if...
fascistic realities are anti-freedom. What they do is they ask us to trade our freedom in exchange for the articulated sense of safety, of security, or like in, you know, in Christian space, salvation. So if you trade your, your will.
And you say, not my will, but yours be done. You trade your whole self. He is greater than I. He who is in the world is, you know, he who is not in the world is greater than the one who is in it. You can say to people, trade your whole self for this abstracted idea later.
and it will be yours. And so much of an anti-fascistic reality is to tap us back into who we are as human people and desire, such that we would know our own dignity and the dignity of others, and that dignity would be a primary motivating force in the world. Because what salvation looks like... like in a lot of christian communities right now is
Well, even by title, like Penal Substitutionary Atonement is a legal argument. Christus Victor, its first version, we could talk about Christus Victor 2, but Christus Victor 1 is the idea of militaristic victory. And so if you have war and if you have... legal as your ways of salvation and we have governments that have made themselves omnipotent omnipresent and omniscient all-powerful all-knowing ever-present right then of course we are going to
take those abstracted ideas of God, of heaven, of hell, which I don't believe in, of salvation, of all those things, and say, well, that is, of course, the closest proxy for God. And so I think this dignifying of who people are feels like the significant...
change back and it's fascinating to me because there's ways that uh one of the tests i use often of churches is does your church spend more time in the epistles than it does in the gospels because if your church spends more time looking at letters taught to specific communities about
purity or calls to law for particular reasons, but you don't know the story. If you trade law for story, you will... you will choose safety security militarism and violence every time because laws are not meant to protect people in the laws in the the sorry maybe it's better said legal systems in fascistic governments serve the authoritarians, not the people. And so when you find churches that are more legalistic, more legally oriented, then they are story oriented.
you know you've missed the beat. It's why Jesus says in Matthew 20, right? The Gentiles, their rulers lord over them, but not so with you. The greatest among you will be the servant. It's why Philippians will say of people, do nothing out of vain conceit, but consider others better than yourself. Do things that are in the interest of other people. When Jesus is...
you know, reflecting on the story of Israel, he's often referring back to this kind of kingship. And if you're talking about kingship, you're talking about Saul and the ways that like when the people chose Saul, God said, this dude is going to be bad to y'all. Y'all can choose him. And I think it's like in like somewhere.
the 15 to 18 range God's like when you call on me like when you get what you want you get what you want and there's this different call to mercy that has to happen among the people when people choose away from that way and so I think it's a difficult thing to be in the US trying to navigate. How do you stay human and soft and tender in a world that is increasingly unethical, increasingly violent, increasingly distorting the way of Jesus, increasingly lacking humility?
engaging in militarism like how do you do that and so I guess I'm wondering even as we as we close like how
What are some steps that people can take toward what you're talking about? What are some steps that people can take toward not being one or two but being three? Because I think that authoritarianism and fascism... cost so much to our sense of being they require us to be less human yeah and i'm wondering how in a moment where being human becomes more and more deeply painful in a fascistic reality how do you hold on to tap into and
and enter into your own humanity. Oh, Brandy, I love what you do. That's such a beautiful question. It's such a wonderful way to actually land this. I've reached for... something that's recently arrived that I contributed to. It's actually a children's Bible. And it's a children's Bible. It's simply called God's Stories, as told by God's children. And it's a children's Bible that I'm so thankful to see, not just a diverse... of Americans contribute to.
But a diversity of scholars from around the world and how do we make scholarship actually pertinent and accessible to little people? How do we let it be the start of a conversation instead of scripture ending conversations? And I had the honor of being asked to do the triumphal entry, as it's often called. And I said, could I also please do what that leads to, which is Jesus's holy troublemaking.
in the temple the next day after he cases the joint and i read this because a i think this is work that we don't have to be tertiary educated to access We don't need to know the definition of fascism. As I said it like that, what comes to mind is Brother Martin, Dr. King saying, you don't need your...
You don't need to know Einstein's theory of relativity. All you need is a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love. And in saying that, I think we need stories that... produce conversations and so this is a little bit that i think speaks directly to that from my telling it says so the disciples brought the little donkey to jesus and jesus rode that little donkey from east
towards Jerusalem. Jesus was making fun of all the rulers and their war horses and their empires built on violence, showing the crowd that God's kingdom is nothing like that. And everybody got Jesus' joke straight away. Brandy, I think one of the things we need to do is rediscover Jesus' we'd say here a larrikin. like a troublemaker, a tongue-in-cheek. We need to feel the mischief-making.
That is discipleship. We need to know that it's going to cost us everything, but we're going to go down laughing. And it's laughing both at the tragedy and it's also... It's knowing, and this is over as well, that a gift is a joy and joy is a gift. We need the kind of joy that comes to returning to ourself, knowing that.
The self we need to die to is our false self. It's our empire created self. It's the self that consumeristic fascism... hoists upon us and says you need to be something else you need to fix this box you need to uh it's the self that Mussolini wants men to embrace in war and women to embrace in maternity. And we're like, no, that's what I need to die to and step into the vulnerability.
of knowing that the consequences might be, as Daniel Berrigan would say, if you're going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood. But how do we get the joke of Christianity? Actually, Zizek makes the same point as a communist atheist philosopher. The joke of Christianity is actually the cross, and here is God upon the cross.
So if this is our sense of what power is, if this is our embrace of a weakness that is not like the absence... of force but is actually a different kind of force it's a force within and amongst instead of over and against then in those circles of Three, we can create spaces to help people recover their dignity as children of God, as siblings together, of what it is to take seriously. Well, as...
I sung as a kid, in my experience of church, this strange reality, there's not a friend like the lowly Jesus. No, not one. No, not one. The Jesus knows all about our struggles and he will guide till the day is done And it's a strange sense of this weak vulnerable Lowly Jesus is also the one we referred to Lord. And that Lord is not an affirmation of authoritarianism. It's the undoing of it.
We've got to do that work with our kids, with storytelling, with imagination, in community together. And it's as we open those things up and as we redeem... um violent metaphors as subversion rather than um violent metaphors as affirmation um that's the creative work and you'll know you're doing the work when you start laughing, when you start weeping, when you start opening to all you are. Jung says it's the shadow that laughs. And if we can be attentive to what...
we need to minister and heal the fascists within ourselves. And then we can help other people out of fascism. Woody Guthrie, and I'll finish with Woody Guthrie on his guitar. And I have a picture of it in our living room. His guitar, it says, this machine kills fascists. We need the arts, we need creativity, we need poetry, we need imagination to kill the fascists in ourselves and others so people can take part in God's reign. Yes.
Yes, because in this and not to say the man's name again, but one of the things that you can tell that Donald Trump hates the most is being made fun of. is the way of MAGA, of fascism being made a mockery of. And the way you make a mockery of fascism is living fully as yourself, in your lives, as our communities, to the point that we laugh. It really is. that that we laugh and smile and have joy through our and in our existence matters because it makes a mockery
of single lane thinking that says that there is one way to live, one way to be. There will even co-opt the language of narrow way that is less, that is obviously in that case, not about liberation and justice in a way of being an empathetic community together, but about. getting in line, about standing in straight militaristic warrior lines for the sake of something that will never save us. And I think that you're right. And the way I'm thinking about it is that...
We have to get to know the Jesus whose feet were on the ground rather than the one whose head is in the sky. Because I think that when Jesus becomes... So heavenly oriented, so abstract, so esoteric, where everything that Jesus does is about some kind of abstracted salvation rather than what he is. Why I'm obsessed with the book of Luke. Jesus just walks around. eating and drinking and laughing and being criticized for doing it and so i'm like if you want to know if you want to fight fascism
Go be like Jesus. Build subversive communities of people who are not like you. Affirm the dignity of people who you do not understand. Let your heart be moved such that it moves the hearts of others. And I think for people who are in churches, That is a radically difficult thing to move toward, but such an easy thing to do, like such a good and easy thing to do. And so I think that oftentimes the fight against fascism seems impossible when really the fight against fascism is.
how we build our communities, how we do mutual aid, how we opt out of systems that are oppressive, how we spend our money, how we are generous and engage in those things. And so I appreciate those calls that you've given. And we're going to do some giveaways of y'all's book once I can get my hands on it. And so because I've been obsessed with the idea.
of children's stories saving adult Christians from... fascism from authoritarianism and from evangelicalism which honestly shouldn't probably be conceptually all in the same thing but american evangelicalism as it exists yeah in your context i get it i get it and maybe As you were saying that, I was thinking of Reverend Dr. Jacqueline Grant and her text, the white woman's Christ and the black woman's Jesus. And there has been a movement.
pushing towards an abstraction of Christ away from Christianity in American progressive circles. And my dear friend who's been so kind to me over the years and such a big influence, Richard Rohr, it was our first ever Inverse episode. And I'm like... Richard, this is a bad move. I love you, but like this, and people could go back and listen to that episode, but it's a bad move because it's in, it's in Jesus of Nazareth.
that we get all the definitions for all those things. It's in that Jewish Jesus, that Palestinian man under occupation and his nonviolent campaign, that everything is subverted. Because without that...
We are trading in photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, where it's Timu Christianity lending itself to fascism. Yes. Yes, it's Jesus through the game of telephone, through... thousands of hands of people who are unreliable narrators of their own stories let alone the Jesus story and so I think we have to let Jesus be the only reliable narrator of his own story and if Jesus is the reliable narrator who is found in
the bodies of the marginalized and the oppressed in whom his body associates then we can find our way back and i think that so much of this window of time not just in the U.S., but globally, is finding our way back to that Jesus. And so I appreciate that invitation. So good. Jared, I love talking to you. It's been a long time. It shouldn't be this long next time. But is there anything as we close up that you want to plug? Where can people find you in the work that you do in the world?
I too want to plug the Gospel of Luke. If people haven't spent any time in Luke, maybe spend time in Luke. Things that I'm working on... Well, if you're in Narm, Melbourne, you're more than welcome to find a safe space for dangerous discipleship with Steeple Church. If you're here on Wadjuk Noongar land, there's table in the trees, like, not by design, but...
But most of our families have been with us for four years. We all have someone in the family, particularly our children who have autism. So if you're needing, if you're autism and you love Jesus. Like if that's your reality, it's a really great safe space for people on the spectrum. For St Stephen's University, my mate Steve, who's in Cape Town, and I, we're doing a series called Good on Wood, which is about the lives of saints and contemplative trouble.
in a turbulent world. So if you're looking for examples, lives of people who've been pushing back against some of the realities that we're talking about, that's a great place. And of course, with Dr. Drew Hart, our favourite anabolactivist scholar, there's Inverse Podcast. which is starting up soon that's probably enough right i love i love a buffet of options so yes thank you so much thank you so much for being on and for being a friend it's such a wonderful gift to get to be
making mischief and in cahoots with you from across the world. Amen. Keep doing what you're doing. It's really important. Walking forward while the world spins. Thank you so much, friend. Thank you for listening to another episode of reclaiming my theology. If you like what you hear, you can help us out greatly and help others find the show by telling your friends or by giving a minute of your time to give us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast.
You can also join us on Patreon at patreon.com slash reclaimingmytheology or pick up some merch from our merch store at reclaimingmytheology.com. It's a lot out here. And even as we look into the exhausting reality of institutions and leaders, we seek to resist and hope and pray and find more clever ways to, as always, do a little bit better together. So thank you for being on the journey. We'll see y'all next time.