Hello and welcome to Reclaiming My Theology, a podcast seeking to take our theology back from ideas and systems at a press. I am your host Brandi Miller, and y'all we are finally starting our series on Reclaiming Our Theology from Empire.
We look at it a lot on the podcast. There are so many things that we might mean when we talk about Empire and we are going to try to make some of those things clear in order to make a lot of our politics and our ways of organizing around each other more accessible. In this inaugural episode of the season, I am joined once again by our friend Scott Hall to talk about what is Empire, what are we talking about when we talk about Empire.
Now I want to name that we talk specifically about some of our own politics in this US election season, and I do so because I want to be a person of integrity. I want you to know where I am coming from so you can know how you want to engage with this work. The season is going to range a ton of topics and I'm so excited for them. But as we start, let's get to the basics, talking about what is Empire with Scott Hall.
Alright, well Scott, this is so fun to get to have you here because you were my very first guest on the podcast and it felt right to bring you back for the beginning of this new season on Reclaiming Our Theology from Empire. So welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, Randy. I feel incredibly honored. It's going to be a bit of a doozy. This season is one that I've been wanting to do for years, but there hasn't felt like the right time given what we'd already built.
And so since we've been building a library of resources to try to understand these concepts, it feels like we've built enough things that I think we're ready to give this the attention that I want to. And it's complicated. And so we're going to get into it in a minute because I think that especially in this political moment, and I'm sure subsequent political moments in the US in particular, these conversations will be important.
And so yeah, we're just trying to continue building this library on the podcast with your voice being a part of that library. And so as a person whose voice is on the podcast, I would love to ask you the same question I always ask, which is Scott in this season of life. What does it mean to be you? Thanks, Randy. I love that you always ask that question.
Right now, it means I am preparing to launch two children into adulthood over the next year, which is crazy. I have 17 year old twins, girl and a boy. And I think, but, but the deeper version of what it means to be me right now is me as a man and a dad and a husband is really to be humble, to work on my character, to be present, to what I'm feeling, to the emotions and people around me.
Partly to savor just the end of childhood for my children, but also because as they emerge as adults, it pushes different flat sides that I have and stuff I need to work on and they're calling me on things. If I get defensive or self protective or distant, I'm just going to be kind of pushed to the side. And so it just means being present and working on my character.
And that is not an easy thing to be doing so much of the stuff that we've talked about on the podcast has been how people relate to their younger kids, but a lot of folks have an immersion to the space where they're having to ask the questions on how they grow alongside their kids as their kids enter adulthood and how ass denying that process can be.
And how wonderful it can be and how growing and sharpening it can be and I've watched you and your partner do that in real time. And so it's I can I know it's been a wild journey and I feel grateful that you are aiming for character rather than maybe domination or being right because that would be incredibly easy to try to do. Yes, though at this point we've empowered our children enough that if I tried that, I think it might come back and bite me.
Like I don't want to I with all due respect for my son, it's actually beautiful what's happening in him. He is defining his adult self kind of against me right now in really important ways. It's not necessarily the most ego inflating experience for me as a 52 year old man. He likes to tell me how old I am how gray my hair is getting how much stronger he is than me. So, you know, that's fun. Well, hopefully it runs its course well into a mature young person here in the future.
It will I see what's happening and I'm I'm here for it. So yeah. And I think that's part of just seeing the big picture of a person's life in the context of your own and like that big picture work is hard and this is like the worst segue, but it's like it is how it feels to me. But I'm like we are going to do big picture work today that I think has been born out of a lot of the character work that you and I have done over the years together.
Like this is a topic that we've talked about together with literally thousands of people in a room trying to figure out how to engage with empire we've walked many many many young adults and people who are emerging in themselves into thinking about these values and how empire shapes us.
So this conversation is going to be our intro session in reclaiming our theology from empire on what is empire and I want to name on the front end for listeners before we have this conversation that this conversation is really really freaking complicated. And I want to name the specific reason that it's complicated on the front end so that we're not lost in the sauce of what we're trying to do here.
Because when we say the word empire there are kind of three things that might be coming up or happening. There's a specific definition like a very rigid polypsych kind of definition of what is an empire.
There is then the kind of progressive or leftist usage of empire which is empire as this reality and concept that is shaping every part of our lives particularly for those of us who live in the US and how those world views and how those ideologies and how those norms and cultures like a culture of empire.
And then for those of us who are Christian there is how the Bible engages with empire in this larger story which I believe can be pretty well summed up in how God is trying to pull empire and the ways of empire out of people and help them to resist the empires that they are a part of. And so when we say empire into the ether and we're not defining how we're talking about it or what we're talking about all of those things swirl around into this oblivion of confusion.
And so what we're going to try to do today is have a conversation that can dance between those concepts knowing that they're talking about similar but not always the same things. So even as I invite you Scott to start us out in this conversation I just wanted that to be in the room for folks and for you and I as we have this conversation.
So in the spirit of getting folks at least somewhat on the same page I'd love for you and I to collaborate in defining what are we talking about when we talk about empire. That is so well put and it is such a wide range of what people mean by empire.
I think Brandi where I've been sitting is really kind of in your third definition of sort of from a Christian spiritual perspective I'd be happy to speak to that but I don't know if you want to lay groundwork first on more just the most basic definition because I think you'll do a better job of that than I.
Yeah well yeah I'm happy to do that because I think that there's the base so what I've been realizing and I think this is the part of me that feels a lot of empathy for folks who are like let's even say in this current conversation about Kamala Harris and whether folks can vote for her because of the atrocities happening in Palestine.
The genocide happening in Palestine has become a particular red line in particular ways for folks who will go back to this idea of empire and colonialism and use that language to talk about the revolution.
I think when progressive democrats specifically or folks who would call who would belong to a third party socialist or communist parties talk about empire what they're talking about is often referring to the historical and ongoing influence of the United States and other world powers as global superpowers particularly in ways that involve the military and economic and political dominance over other nations or people groups.
This concept of empire isn't just limited to only traditional colonialism which will do a full episode on where a nation directly controls foreign territories but extends to modern forms of control and influence. And I think just to make that make sense because I think that can sound like the word salad that we often end up with on the internet. I think that for me I would name generally four key broader concepts that people are talking about when they talk about empire.
One is the idea of military interventions and presence for the US right the US military has bases in many many countries places we should not be and has been involved in military what we would call interventions but I would call it a lot of them over throws. Progressive critiques progressives critique these actions as forms of imperialism which is true where the US actively and choiceably imposes its will on other nations in the name of national security.
Often without their consent and often in ways that destabilize those spaces so military interventions and presence to be economic policies and globalization so the US often promotes this neoliberal economic policy or populism right like free trade agreements or fair trade agreements that disproportionately impact and affect American and benefit American corporations at the expense of other nation's sovereignty and economic stability.
It can lead nations to have economic dependency on the US and be easily exploited which is economic imperialism so yes military interventions and presence economic policies and globalization and the political influence is the third one the US has this history of intervening in the political affairs of other countries whether through co up operations and regime changes or supporting particular governments that align with American interests which I think is what we're seeing with a lot of Israel Palestine right now is a great deal.
The US is attempting to aggressively immoral ways quote unquote protect their interests abroad or protect our interests abroad in the Middle East to quote unquote protect the peace which again is the language of imperialism.
These actions I think are often undemocratic the majority of people do not want to doing these things and imperialistic and effectively undermine the sovereignty of other nations and people groups so political influence and then the other thing I think is cultural hegemony so again I don't like full academic with this but I'm just trying to give the baseline of what we're talking about when we talk about this so this is the idea that it from the US perspective.
That we spread the culture and values of the United States globally usually through the media which is seen as this kind of soft power that reinforces the US's dominant position in the world so we export our culture and then in exporting our culture demonize other cultures this can and does create spaces where we dehumanize people in the name of cultural hegemony of creating a monoculture of trying to write this is the language of make America great again it's like.
Take out any kind of cultural influence outside of white supremacist dominant society and truncate other people into that and so we're talking about empire we're not just talking about like oh this is an entity ruled by a sovereign power or a person representing a sovereign power we're not talking about like a political unit born of militarism or conquest we are talking about a dominant center of power and entities that push other people or communities to the power of the world.
So that is what an empire does and aspects of that imperial way of being and culture live inside people within those empires and require resistance both to the empire itself into the aspects of empire as a culture that live inside of us so that's my like big spiel on it but that is what what I'm talking about empire.
I'm not talking about that but this is where we're talking this is often a lot of what we're talking about in the political landscape we're in right now and just if your brain is more like my brain then it is like Brandy's brain who are listening in my mind I'm taking everything Brandy's saying and saying domination empire is about economic military cultural domination that's growing lifting our team up at the expense of all other teams.
Yes and and for what it's worth I can be more slightly more concise and I will just for the sake of our conversation because empires use tools that are particular and so I think a more concise definition would be like empires are systemic centralizations of power that are reinforced and upheld by economic structures
in our reliant on militarism and force empires use myths and national origin stories to justify their existence in history above and beyond other people and they present their way of life as normal in order to impose their structures symbols systems like flags and songs and icons and leaders as well as systems like democracy and practices to reinforce their normalcy and their goodness it creates a global version of an us that is dominant in an
us and them that is then that is then reinforced using particular tools to acquire and exert power those tools are militaristic violence and brutality for economic gain they are holding to justify moral narratives they say we are more moral more good more human. Empires are sustainable for some at the expense of others always and they present their system in way of being as being moral right and natural framing a fully realized version of their empire success as the ultimate good.
It can sound a lot like trying to make America great again like I said before so that would be my most like concise version even though that and of itself is not that concise but it's a summary. Hey come on we're here for your articulation brandy so I really appreciate the attention to detail because it can be a very imprecise conversation depending on what people mean and where they're coming from.
I mentioned I was in Boston trip through New England and the mid-Atlantic with my family and I grew up in California so my first hand familiarity with historical sites of the United States of America is like pretty distant this is the first trip I've ever made to Boston at age 52.
When COVID and quarantine happened my wife and I homeschooled our kids and the way that we did history in English was taking them through indigenous peoples history of the United States and Howard Zinn has a youth version of the peoples history that's like our perspective on the United States.
Having said that I was surprisingly inspired being at the Boston Tea Party Museum that there are these colonists who are being oppressed there's police brutality there's unfair taxation without representation and they are mobilized to react against the raining empire of the day.
And ready to pay for that resistance with their lives and I just had a moment of like that was genuinely inspiring my wife is ramping up to be in a play called what's the what the constitution means to me and is going really deep into the constitution and historically at least in the history of Western civilization.
The fact that the constitution was written in a way that can be amended and adapted to different issues coming up and then you've got the 13th and 14th amendments that are directly addressing things that were not values of the original founders when it came comes to slavery and racial issues that's a big deal those are very inspiring things but I had a moment in the Boston Tea Party Museum they do this somewhat melodramatic reenactment.
It was either Sam Adams or John Adams talking to King George and King George is like you can never like our empires everything you'll never survive without us and there's this statement that says no we're going to resist you and build an American empire that will rival whatever you've imagined King George and I was like okay there it is.
For all of the I think genuinely I'm having a new awakening of like there are genuinely inspiring things about the history of the United States for all the weaknesses and oversights but there was a DNA of an empire tendency that was not rooted out but I think as I look at the history of the United States since that time I'm coming to think of us as sort of a
shy empire like we're trying to be a little bit more covert about our world domination we use CIA black ops to take out opposition rather than just championing our desire I think of course under Donald Trump that is more overt and is more like we are going to be the big kid on the block with the big stick.
So I'm in this interesting appreciation of American roots and yet looking at the reality of the fact that it's not an accident that the pox Romana of the Roman Empire which was peace through military might that's exactly the way that the United States carries its posture as the easily most funded military on the planet.
I think it's double that of China today and so we are an empire as the United States we need to be honest about that but also recognize you know you said something about character earlier Brandy that you and I have worked together for a long time and it's maybe the thing I respect about you the most is in your aggressive attack on dysfunctional theology and abusive oppressive policies.
You're always the first to look in the you look at first at yourself in the mirror and say where am I complicit in some of these things before I start pointing fingers at others and I think that's I think that's a nuance that is very often overlooked regardless of your political party in conversations about empire today is like you know what before I start pointing fingers are throwing rocks I need to do that. I'm going rocks I need to examine myself.
Yes and that would and obviously that would be the hope is that we would have enough integrity to not assume that moral pureed to nism can exist because I think about like how much we how how we try to divest from systems like we might try to divest from the empire by not voting for one of the two parties but we won't go to as far to divest from the system as to quit our job.
And not pay taxes and so there's always a limit to how far our moral purity will go and I am challenged by the inability of many of us myself included in a lot of situations to not see the limits that we put on others but don't put on ourselves because there is no perfect way to do any of us kind of political resistance and justice work in this season particularly for people who say they follow Jesus like there is not a perfect way.
And we are all trying to figure out what tools we used to do that from imperfect places and to hold the roots of things like empire is a way to always check ourselves up and against what empire would normalize in us violence domination economic coercion greed us and them mentality like those that's why I want to have some of these conversations because again I said this before many iterations of the podcast so many of these conversations lead us from one kind of fundamentalism to the world.
And it makes us inseparable on either end and I think I'm feeling in my body some of the familiarity with the strategies and structures of how I'm seeing a lot of my progressive friends be that feels a lot like how I saw my evangelical friends because both are looking for some form of higher than we are ideological purity that can be gathered and I don't think that's a bad thing.
I just think it can make us act like little assholes sometimes and that to me is unfortunate and it makes the conversation much harder to have when many of us who are under the thumb of empire can't make decisions based on those ideological principles we have to make decisions based on our survival which I think the Bible has a lot to say about in this conversation about empire.
And so I can hear you even talking about oh there are these inspiring things about resistance in the American revolutionary story while also being like well they also came in murdered indigenous people and enslaved African folks and so the basis of their revolution was already corrupt and we still have to figure out how to reckon with that in real time while taking revolutionary acts within these systems that would seek to drive us deeper into a system or an institution that is not for the well being of us or all people it's only for its own domination power.
Yeah, I love that, Randy. Well, I think you gave a bit of a Bible segue. So maybe I will pick that up because a couple of weeks ago this really got my attention a young person in my life and just to frame myself you know I am a white cis straight man that lens affects how I approach this conversation and I think some of my thoughts about empire that we can get into later.
Have to do with the ways I've been trying for several years now to do a deeper deep deeper dive on what whiteness is and taking responsibility for it because I think there's a lot of alignment with how empire works and how whiteness works. Yes, but I want to share this example.
I had a young person in my life come to me and I think they were on tiktok or Instagram and it said well isn't it interesting and they because the other context is I'm a chaplain in a for youth who are incarcerated in the state of Washington and I had a young person come to me so they approach me in a Christian context.
Isn't it fascinating how all the prophecies of revelation are like coming true right now in our world today and I had this moment of like and I don't want to be a jerk and be like that's wrong but really inside I'm like well that is wrong but how can I gently come to this because because here's what I'll say in a generous spirit.
It's wrong and it's right and I think I just want to put out there the book of revelation has to be and you can add to this brandy has to be one of the most problematically interpreted books of the whole canon of the Bible the Christian Bible.
Everything written in the book of revelation was about the first century context. Okay and if that's messing you up as a listener right now I just want to encourage you seek out some scholarship Christian scholarship on revelation that is like even moderately respected in an academic context.
Let's see we've inherited those of us if you grew up in Christendom in the United States if you're as old as me you caught the late great planet earth and how Lindsey in the 70s if you're more brandy's age you probably got the left behind series the camera and one if you're a little younger you got the what's his name.
Nicholas cage you know a grittier version so we have all this misinformation about revelation that's used as fear mongering that's trying to connect everything and I recently read a book called Revelation for the rest of us by Scott McKnight he is a Anglican northern seminary professor new testament scholar that that he's he less he's even older than I am.
Any shares every different part of his life and how all the evangelicals around him were linking what was happening to the book of Revelation oh the Mattel Gorbachev and communism oh and all these different you know Saddam Hussein and Iraq working how oh that's the antichrist oh no sorry this is the antichrist so there's a lot of misinformation having said that
also the work I've done in Revelation is I think that it's a book about it's specifically about being a Jesus follower in the midst of the Roman Empire but there are principles about faith amidst empire that absolutely are relevant today and so in that sense the use they were wrong but they were right they were
right for the wrong reasons they didn't know because there are a lot of empire principles being couched as Jesus principles that really need to be unmasked because there's some deep poison of empire in the midst of Christian Christianity right now.
Yes and I appreciate that because what you're pointing to in some ways is that empire in scripture is two things it is like literal empires a Syria Egypt Babylon Persia Rome Greece like these these nations that that dominated the people God's people in the scriptures but it's also this world view that's a thread that goes through the entirety of the scriptures which we can do some of that threading work because I think there's some really interesting things that when we get the lens of empire on scripture it makes a lot of the need for
existence and why even Revelation would be the last book of the scriptures make a lot more sense but it's this world view that drives people in the Bible to play God by defining reality to fit what they desire even at the cost of and always at the cost of other people's security well being and their actual lives.
So it's this story that from the beginning to what you're talking about in Revelation frames humans struggling between the way of Jesus and the way of God the way of God in the Hebrew scriptures and the way of empire it's it's a long story talking about the same thing and so I love that you're pulling us to the end and I can pull us to the beginning in some ways but I think there's a long story of how we got there so I'm curious how we want to go about doing this because you can trace we can trace a lot in the scriptures because the scripture basically only talks about empire like for how much we can do it.
So the entire like for how much the scriptures talk about empire Christians and churches don't talk about it at all when it I think is essentially the big story of the scriptures it's the thing that Jesus is trying to save us from it's the thing that kills Jesus himself it's the thing that creates the early church in the iteration that we had it's what really is promoting where we see churches and Christians being really weird around politics right now.
I'm curious how you want to do this because we could go a lot of different ways to get there. Well, let me just at least for what works in my mind to put on the lowest shelf what you're saying that literally all written scripture so let's start from what a fuller professor Ray Anderson called the theological beginning of the Bible would be an Exodus you've got the Egyptian empire and the Hebrew people who are slaves being led by God and liberated emancipated from the Bible.
It emancipated from that empire and learning how to be a people group outside of empire. Then as you've got the writings and the prophets I interpret those as threats of other empires a Syria Babylon eventually Persia and and exhortations to the people of God to not become like empires and threats.
Judgments warnings that if you do become like this these empires will come and overwhelm you and then you skid to the New Testament and everything happening in the New Testament is in the context of Jesus and Jewish people and early Christians being a marginalized people group underneath a Roman empire. So in the Bible we have no articulation of faith from the inside of empire.
It's all about defiance against empire and learning to try to be a people group maybe the only thing I would say to talk out of both sides of my mouth is I think at certain points in Israel's history at their most prosperous there's some challenges or conditions or warnings of empire tendencies beginning to emerge with very direct exhortation or rebuke from God or from the prophets to not go down that path. Yes and I think that's an important story in scripture to know.
It's an important story to know that God is always speaking to people from outside of empire trying to call them out of it.
There's this like really graphic image in Revelation 18 where God calls God's people to come out of revelation and the language is like very sexual it's like this God's people are in this like sexual in mesh relationship with empire and God is calling them to come out of that empire to separate themselves to separate their relationship internally and as a community from empire while they're still living in it and trying to survive in it.
And so the story of scripture never divorces the complicate just never divorces the story from the complicated reality that we are always trying to extricate empire from us and speak back to our empire and resist our empire but we're also always trying to survive. And so I have a lot of empathy for folks who are having a lot of confusion in this election cycle right now I will put my cards on the table because I think that's integrus to do.
Which is like common hairs was my candidate in 2020 she was my primary candidate and there were I think there were a lot of progressive values that she was espousing and I will vote for her again easily in 2024 because it's for the survival of my people. Do I think that their policy around Gaza is completely immoral? Yes. Are we complicit in the genocide of Palestinians? Yes. Do I want my grandma to have Medicare? Yes.
Do I want trans folks in my life my trans nibbling to be able to survive in their school? Yes. It is a both and and a lot of people have told me that I'm just like crossing the red line of genocide and I'm like it is happening. And I we have to push back we have to resist we have to do what we can to resist that and we have to survive and help people who are marginalized survive because what I was someone literally said to me.
The short term harm that might be caused by Democrats losing in this election is might might harm some people but it's worth it to send them a message about how they need to listen to their constituents and I was like that is immoral. It is an immoral usage of like a trolley problem right you in action is also creating death and violence and in this in a similar way that action is and I understand why people in particular situations cannot and will not vote in this election.
And I think that there are many of us who are out for the survival of people here and who are just gritting through what we can to do so and so I want there to be space for people to do whatever they need to do and to not in the name of just some kind of ideology opt out because the scriptures always are saying there is an empire.
You resist that empire with the tools that you have you also use the tools that you have so that your people survive that is the story of Esther that is the story of Daniel that is the story of Moses it is it is extricate empire from you and do what you can to help your people survive and so I just want to name that particular
particularity so that people know where my cards are and so don't want to be dishonest about where I'm coming from even as we do this series even if I hate the position that we are in because of the violence of our empire as I'm listening to you the phrase coming to mine is that idealism is a privilege and I'm speaking that as a white Christian man because in anticipating this conversation brandy I actually had sort of an evolution of the world.
I actually had sort of an evolution because I was raised really I came into a deep sense of Christian faith in really kind of a heavily anabaptist shaped movement that's sort of like it's all corrupt just distance yourself from everything political live apart do our own little thing imitate the early church and acts blah blah blah.
I think that one of the books that shaped all that was a book way back in the day called Christian andarchy and even as I thought about this presidential election season I just feel like I don't even want to go into how is it that evangelicals rationalize support of Donald Trump given his character and all of that so it's like even just based on an anti Trump vote a comula vote just seems like so much more ethically moral.
But setting that part aside I approached this conversation as well because of what you said about Gaza for example well comula is a gentler face of the American empire. But Brandy I feel like that is too simplistic for me to say it that way so let me tell you the evolution I've had because what I felt like I should feel is like we'll call it a
bit more is like well comula is better than Trump and pragmatically it's better but really she's just a gentler face of the American empire and totally evil but then Brandy I went back and I was reflecting on a common experience you and I have had of like leading college students through the book of Amos and I'm even referencing something I mentioned like through all the profits in the Bible
and sometimes when Israel or Judah are beginning to acquire wealth and they're beginning to oppress people and there's there isn't justice in the courts for the poor and they're not welcoming the foreigner and the stranger and they're not caring for the widow and the orphan and in those times profits are raised up that make the message to the people of God
and they say things like in Amos or Isaiah 58 this is Isaiah 58 loose the chains of injustice untie the cords of the yoke set the oppressed free break every yoke share your food with the hungry provide the poor wanderer with shelter and the big brandy those are antidotes to empire those are antidotes to the spirit of empire and interestingly enough the warning against you know the people of God in the scripture by those profits is saying if you don't correct these things
empires will subsume you will overtake you but I am interpreting right now these invitations for equity for justice for all people to bring the margins to the center to stop oppression and injustice that happens by economic disparities
I think those are antidote to empire and if that's true then I can actually see a common of vote as a much stronger antidote to the American empire than a vote for Donald Trump who is shamelessly leaning into nationalism, colonialism, militarism, economic domination
right is she the embodiment of the kingdom of God and the United States is suddenly the theocracy that the world has needed of course not and maybe we need to unpack that because that's the whole part of American exceptionalism that we haven't really dealt into is this myth like we're the Christian answer for the world that God has raised up no no no no
but can comala and what she is about and some of the things that you're listing particularly like justice for marginalized people advocacy for those who are not being well represented is that not leading our nation into a better antidote against empire tendencies I think it is is it the full story no is it the trajectory that's healthy
I say yes I don't know what do you think Randy I'm throwing out a lot see and I don't know because I think I'm less hopeful than you are and maybe you less like I think even the word antidote is hard for me because I'm like she's like we're going to have a little sleetal fighting for us in the world I'm like she is a face of the pun for sure but to me
I'm like if I can go fill in a box and mail in my ballot and it will reduce harm to people that I know until like and again I'm also speaking from my positional location as a black person for whom not voting to me feels like a betrayal of my people's legacy
and I will not vote for like a Jill Stein because someone described her as a grifting cicada that comes out once every four years and maybe I'm being too political in this way but I was like that's kind of what it feels like to me I think that I am maybe more critical than the hopefulness that you're expressing which I would I want to be in a place where I could believe that's true I think I'm mostly in a place now I'm like vote for a candidate that you believe can be elected
and that can be moved because I actually think that the place where I think all of my like progressive and leftist friends are incredibly right I actually don't think there are places where they are wrong like I think the strat I would use a different electoral strategy than they would use but I think that their moral compass is correct
their ideology is correct even if I think the conclusion of those things is not what I would do myself but I think the people who are most doing that care for the poor like break the yolk of injustice are a lot of my activist friends who are on the ground in their communities every single day and who are so exhausted by the many people in our communities probably many people who are listening included who only engage in politics locally or nationally once every four years
and so I can understand why it is profoundly frustrating to do the work every day and then to feel like the only options you are given are ones that go against every core value you fight for every day and that's a place that I have had to shift and I've had to move on because I think that they are right like they are right about genocide they are right about the American Empire they are right about the spirit that we are in
and I think they are aligned in many ways with some of the Jesus' resistance movements that exist which they resist the Empire fight back against violence stop violence when you can and I cannot ignore that there is also a call to survive that like God's people throughout the scriptures in symbol and in practice are being obliterated are being some because of their own doing and some because of other empires violence and greed and that survival is a noble enough endeavor
and providing space for other people's survival even at the most basic level with the scraps that are given to us by the American political system and so I think that the only every four years is a worthwhile push for me and so I think that theologically that feels complex because in some ways when you talk about the story of Egypt
you have this guy Moses who grows up in the Empire he is shaped by the Empire he is identified even as a marginalized person in that Empire with the Empire itself and its power I think I could probably identify in some ways with that like being a light skin black woman who is not like the lowest level of poverty in the US
and I have been shaped by and have been privileged in the Empire that I am in we are all byproducts of our Empire and so was Moses but God pulls Moses out of the Empire and sends him into the wilderness to get rid of the Empire that is in him and then with that goes back since him back to liberate his people from their oppression under Empire
and then God takes that people to the wilderness to do the same work that God already did in Moses pulling Empire out and as they are like well then what are we supposed to do because right you hear this refrain in Exodus, Leviticus numbers in Deuteronomy where they are like we just want to go back to Egypt
and at least there was food there like there is so much entrenchment with Empire that they don't know anything other than to go back to it and so I can see why progressives would say you are just going back to the thing you got freed from like you are just going back to that thing and I understand the will to survive and the need to survive and I can't there is no good story to encompass all of these positions that we have which is why I think we are all doing our best
because then God gives the law as this counter narrative to Empire saying that like faithfulness to God looks like the things that you said and they are supposed to like to be different, to do differently, to push their government to do differently and they could not imagine an empire like ours as brutal, as big, as dominant, as powerful like so it is just not that simple and I think not that simple as I am talking to you
I think it is just not as simple as any of us want to make it and that what is challenging is that the Bible is full of nuance for people under the thumb of oppression and our political discourse as it exists on like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, threads, whatever has no nuance and so many of us don't feel like we even have the space in the discourse to figure ourselves out when I think the Bible gives people a lot of room to figure out how to survive
I don't know, I have so many thoughts about this, like there is the invitation in Isaiah, like when they are under the thumb of empire to plant gardens and to build homes and to have kids and to build a life and to seek the well-being of the place that they are in I don't think that seeking the well-being of the empire itself but I think it is seeking the well-being of your neighbors and the people around you and being a good in the midst of empire in the ways that you can
and so there is a proactive way of showing up and like living our lives where we are rooted that is expressed in the scriptures and so I think theologically we can say like God has one view of empire but many ways of God's people being in and living in and surviving and resisting empires that we are a part of
yeah and Brandy just as me I'm listening to you and a couple things feel incredibly important I think well I'll tell a short story I have a Facebook friend who is an African American activist and pastor based in Washington DC and sometime maybe three or four months ago he put out something about Obama and just like some of the things that Trump had said and some of how Obama just appreciating looking back at some of sort of the civility
it wasn't the thing you know I remember the discourse Obama had with John McCain and even John McCain I remember this Brandy but someone was like a birther and it's like he's not born in this country blah blah blah and Obama and and John McCain said stop no he's an American he's a family man he's a good person with whom I politically disagree and even that it's just like oh my gosh remember there were it could be civil discourse among political rivals but anyway this African American pastor
activist lifts up Obama and on his Facebook feed this I'm assuming hyper progressive white Christian activist type goes off on every bad thing about Obama's presidency deportations and whatnot and I think where it led was everyone's corrupt I can't take any part in anything in the American process and I just feel like if any listeners are taking in like that position is such a theoretical it lives so much in theory
but abdicates responsibility to do what can be done for good with the power that we do have and I think of that some of what you're saying is like just because Kamala isn't your hundred percent perfect candidate doesn't mean that you say we'll forget it I'm not going to vote
and I just think sometimes those of us who are white progressives can live in this theoretical law land that actually perpetuates the status quo because we fail to participate in sort of small steps toward good even if they're not perfect in all of their aspects does that make sense
totally and I agree and I think that like what's what I'm and I can feel the like that we're having this conversation in specifics right now that are not all encompassing but I want us to do that and I wanted us to do that because as we talk about empire we can't just like what you're talking about in the theoretical and in the abstraction
because it will not at the end of the day help us to be better neighbors and better friends and so I'm couching this conversation in a current political moment in a current political complication in order for us to have conversations about what we're talking about when we talk about empire and the ways that we have to resist because that matters to God and that matters to our theological formation
and so I'm not telling everybody go vote for Kamala Harris go what it's not my job I'm telling you where I'm coming from so you understand how I interpret my own concepts and how I interpret these things and to not have the conversation in specifics is just to be like hey resist economic exploitation globalization political influence cultural and Germany and I'm like that's not fucking helpful it's not helpful
and so instead I would rather say okay what is the Bible talking about when it's talking about well okay maybe what I'm saying is that I have always grown up in traditions where people express a theological idea but never locate themselves in that position
so I can say I hate empire as a concept I think the Bible hates empire as a concept I think that empires always fall because they always subject themselves to national origin stories and myths that lead them to hungrily and powerfully dominate others
and I live in an empire and that means that how I engage with oppression and injustice with economic exploitation with violence and militarism does matter it matters and it matters not just because the Bible says so but because it costs people their lives which are precious
and so I'm trying to locate myself in these conversations more so than express just a single political narrative or a political right or wrong because that would be ironic and ridiculous and like doing the same thing I critique others for doing but I do want to talk a little bit more about the wadjiks of empire in the Bible
because I think that there are if God is calling people away from empire there are specific things that I think in the Bible are talked about more than they're talked about in our current moment so with all of that if we can't escape the systems that we're in we're all trying to figure out how to operate in them and we have this call in Revelation 18 to come out of empire what is it that we are coming out of when we are coming out of empire and what does that look like?
So Brandy in anticipation for this conversation I've been sort of re immersing myself in the book of Revelation and you know I think part of the the travesty of the young person I mentioned like oh all these prophecies are becoming fulfilled and sort of that you know
like a list dispensationalist like connecting all the different the mark of the beast and these things to like these people these historical moments is it puts the blame like out there and and of course the scholarship that supports those kinds of readings of Revelation is really shoddy but I think maybe even a deeper reason to reject that reading of Revelation as like telling the future
and interpreting events that are happening now even though it was written in the first century maybe the deepest reason to reject that comes from the mouth of Jesus who said be careful take the take the log out of your own eye before you try to take the spec out of your neighbor's eye which is to say I think the point of the book of Revelation is that empire is perpetually a threat
and presence to the people of God and the church Richard Bachman says at the root of Babylon in Revelation the metaphor of Babylon is a corrupted and corrupting civil religion and spiritualized politics you mentioned Revelation 18 come out of her come out of Babylon one of the specific exhortations to make it like kind of put it on the lowest shelf of what does empire look like for us today to name and reject in Revelation 18
there's the kings and the merchants and the ship captains who are all devastated at the empire falling why because of their loss of profit money it's about money Revelation 18 this the thing of the merchants they will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargo cargo of gold silver precious stones linen purple blah blah cargo of cinnamon and spice incense mur of horses and carriages and human being sold as slaves
so one of the clear hallmarks of empire in Revelation is that profit is more important than people and that is challenging because nowhere in United States politics are we going to hear someone saying let go of economic prosperity yes no you're not allowed to say that why because we are all complicit in kind of liking the fact that this empire has us with a lot of stuff and a lot of money
yep that's real yes definitely and to even play on that in Revelation right we have the image in Revelation 13 of the beast which is often interpreted as the symbol of empire or Rome itself
I think like you're saying it is it's about this but it's not about this and I think again I think Revelation is meant to be an apocalyptic like a revealing like the like you know right those this word apocalypse like the revealing or the unveiling of how empire is always trying to force itself up against our spirituality to create violence
and that when religion and empire get intertwined the violence is exponentially brutal because it's yeah it's undergirded by things like exceptionalism so this image in Revelation 13 is of this beast that is an empire that demands total allegiance and worship
the empire like the beast is portrayed as corrupt in a blasphemous entity that stands in opposition to God and is ultimately destined for destruction and so when I hear a lot of people talking about the inevitability of the fall of the US empire I'm like yeah I think actually scripture agrees with that and there are consequences to that that are playing out and so we can say like you're saying this is about exploitation of people and how the empire does that
and we can say that empires demand ultimate allegiance and frame themselves as the one thing that can save us it's when Donald Trump says things like you only need to vote for me once and you'll never have to vote again or like you know they are weak and I am strong and I am the one who will keep all of you safe they're trying to get us into World War 3 and I am the one who is trying to save us and all you have to do is bow down to me
and the people in his inner circle if they are not in total allegiance to everything he's doing they get fired they get denigrated they don't win their elections because he goes against them in primaries and so we can see the way that total allegiance plays out in our American politics in a particular way but you can also see it in the DNC I watched so much of the Democratic National Convention I did I've been I'm I think more about American politics than I do about theology
if I'm being totally honest with listeners it's something that like that I've been studying for years and years and years and years and years and years particularly electorally the DNC was just one long conventions or just long rhetorical rallies that's all they are and I watched them say the same thing
these people are terrible and we will save you if you elect us we will save you Donald Trump say I will save you from World War 3 Democrats are just saying we'll save you from Donald Trump it's a low bar it's one that I accept but it is a low bar it is a low bar and so you can see this way that like this beast that demands utter allegiance these people these God kings these kind of theocratic leaders are demanding allegiance that requires us to to bow down in the rhetoric at least
so even if we find ourselves in a space where it is the best option of bad options our job is still to de-throne these folks as icons and idols that will save us and instead say it is as activists are saying our job to create the world that we believe in because I think that's what the early church believed and did in in the time that John is writing Revelation yeah yeah I really appreciate that Brandy and I think I think what I hear you saying is yes I am voting for the best option
so that now I can get back to the work of the people of God of losing the chains of injustice and untying the cords of the yolk and suddenly a press free and breaking every yolk and that has to do with American economic practices across the globe and it has to do with doing something about trillions hundreds of trillions of US spending on the military and it's certainly yes it's yeah I think it's what's hard yeah a ceasefire in Gaza of course we all want that
should we have a conversation about the US supplying Israel with weapons to create disproportionate damage in response to a horrific attack of Hamas no we shouldn't is that the thing that Kamala is going to run on of course it's not should should followers of Jesus be advocating for such deeper levels of pushing against you know empire tendencies of the United States I hear you saying yes so vote the best you can with the options but don't
but don't think there went the whole work now I'm just going to coast with my US passport and be like everything's great and that is the problem is that many of us only get involved in this particular moment and then come back in four years and critique how nothing that we want to see happen happened while not being involved in it ourselves because at their core empires are instruments of injustice they are they are built on bloodshed and violence and greed at least superpowers like the US
and if that's the case then we have to be people who are engaged in anti imperial anti colonial work around the clock I think I like I'm very for these third party movements and again we're talking about a particular moment in the US right now so this may not age well and that's fine you're going to tell us to go for FK right now Brandi my god thank God that man dropped out his little brainworm hit in a bear
high in the central park that man is wild that man is a wacky doodle full on what going third party and I think that what I think that organizing has to happen year round it has to happen between these moments we are in a critical and kind of stressful moment right now and that organizing is less sexy when it's not in the national line light all the time and so I think that followers of Jesus have to find creative ways to be involved in politics
and the best way that we can do that y'all is locally because what Jesus followers do in the scriptures to counter empire first starts with dealing injustice in their communities themselves in the cities that they're in and in the countries that they're a part of in that order so it's never critique and dethrone Rome first it's who in your community is not being fed because people with power and privilege are doing the distribution of food every day
it's who is being killed in your community because they don't have adequate resources to not be under the thumb of empire as poor folks are like those are the things that scripture is concerned with first and I think our activists friends have tons to teach us about resisting empire in that way it's about going to school board meetings it's about going to town halls it's about voting religiously in ever who may be not religiously in the context of this conversation
in every local election to make sure that people in our communities can live because empire in scripture outside of it is a tool of injustice and it's an instrument of injustice that inevitably falls historically it always does and so we have to be people who are creating safety nets and systems that can catch people when empire does fall and for me under like a Harris administration you can create more safety nets and have a better slightly better context to organize those safety nets in
and so I'm not even being like oh she's the greatest person in the whole world or what I'm like it's just the conditions I'd rather organize and fight for revolution in and that may be small it may be insufficient it may be full of ideological holes but it's how I understand this tension in scripture between survival and this ideological purity that is the fall of these empires
and I have to hold that carefully and I don't really know how right now and I'm trying to learn that as we engage with these issues more deeply but that's where I'm at yeah and just just to add one little tiny additional element to what I hear you saying Brandy is as a as a democratic person in myself who grew up with
republican parents always the message I would hear about the democratic party is it's sort of big government versus small government and I think some what you're saying that for those of us who do identify as progressive and Democrats is to say yeah it's it can't be that the end of the story is hey we empowered the big government people to go handle all the injustices and so that I don't have to think about it and I can think about myself and live my life
and I hear you saying no way like I elect someone who creates the best context for revolutionary anti-empiry choices and then get busy living them out in your context I love that yes
because I think it's all we can do because I think I personally get overwhelmed when I go online and it's just like burn the system down fight a revolution for revolution and I'm like okay but what is the better world that we're imagining and I actually don't think I myself am capable of imagining that better world outside of my local context it's why I work I don't know I don't know if people
even know this I work at a church and I decided to work at that church so I have integrity to the values that I espouse on this podcast that I have a real place to live out the values to have impact to have some kind of influence in helping people who are deconstructing their faith and finding a new way to divorce myself from these ideologies and to help other people do the same like I do it to test the stuff in real time
and so I think that as we engage in this season the season as in reclaiming our theology from empire we're giving a potent example of how complicated this is as we dive into other concepts because we are going to do episodes on exceptionalism, militarism, nationalism, colonialism,
apocalyptic ideology, God kings and theocracies like we're going to do militaristic violence we're going to do all of those things because it matters and because it allows us to start to identify the places that we get to pull empires logics from us first the idea that violence is ever a suitable answer the idea that some people are more human than others the idea that the more we consume the happier will be
the idea that some God king Messiah president whatever is going to save us none of those things are true none of them are true and none of them are good and all of them are like caricatured in the religious right in the United States right now in a way that's really easy to point to
and in such never pull them out of ourselves and so for me as I look at the scriptures and the story of how God invites God's people to be free of empire or to get free of empire the way that the prophets call people out of death dealing activity the way that God calls them to resist and be activists together to do good
that all matters to me like I just don't think we're too good for the basics in this conversation and me screaming about empire and abstraction is never going to help people pull that out of themselves being on the ground with people doing the hard character work of asking where dehumanizing violence lives in me is what I need to do at least as we start this season on reclaiming our theology from empire
love it thanks for doing this work bandy so I think what I'm wondering with all of that is I say in all these big and fluffy words like let's not live in abstraction whatever let's let's get rid of dehumanization in us like that is still abstraction as we are people who are reclaiming our theology from empire over the next many many weeks what is some advice that you might have for folks or some characteristics of Jesus or things that might help guide us as we do this work
I'm surprised that I have an answer but I actually have a very specific answer I think we each need to get ourselves really close in relationship to a marginalized community that shares a marginalized identity that we do not have for me that's why I'm with youth who are incarcerated every Monday afternoon it changes me I see youth all of whom are raised in poverty all of whom are dealing with levels of trauma all of whom are victims of sort of being invisible in this sort of American system
and I just I need it for my engagement and pushing against empire to be real and not just like self-righteous platitudes yep yes yes and I think that's so important because a lot of us are speaking outside of the communities that we're saying we want to be a part of and are speaking in languages that like I always say you've heard me say this over more than a decade I think
that if granny from the block cannot understand the language we're using for her revolution then it's not sufficient to save us that being in proximity to people and learning to speak the language of the marginalized as marginalized people like in my case or alongside others who are more marginalized I am matters
and I think for me like some of the acts that we choose are really really simple like right now we're in a massive COVID surge and like you can wear a mask on your plane or a grocery store like we be to be anti-empire is to be anti-sacrificing the vulnerable and elderly for our own comfort
it means figuring out where our dollars go like I recently went into the 403 B.I. have from our time working for an organization and was like oh some of these stocks invest in weapons like how do we change those things where do my dollars go how do I spend my money and who does that affect because if if this is about economic exploitation and consumption then where our dollars go really really matters what we do with our bodies around other people
really really matters how we engage in local politics around policing really really matters and so I think I am trying to ask what are my defaults around what makes me feel economically secure where my money goes and where I get my money from how much security do I put in weapons ones that we might own and ones that are well wielded by people around us that make us feel safe or even just globally
yeah our spending like it just feels like a lot of those things can only be done in our local communities how are the unhoused folks who are living in tents and RVs like overdosing on fentanyl how are they being offered a space of justice and compassionate care
like that's the stuff I have to do every day that changes my own heart in a way that changes my vote in a way that I would hope could change something in our empire but honestly I don't even have the hope that it can change that much and so we're trying to figure out how to survive in the midst of something imperfect
and so for me that's some of some of those those are so many just to add to that like this is even more in the broader category of spiritual formations so much of our lives lives are lived on screens and in our heads and with ideas and in our minds you said the word body like putting our bodies in different places where we feel things we I think we assume too much about not needing that and as we do that with our bodies
it pulls us out of things and it's like you can't know how much you needed it until you're experiencing it and you realize oh I was just going to read this book on the fentanyl crisis I was just going to follow this blog which yes read books yes follow blogs let yes listen to this podcast and that doesn't replace bodily physical proximity with victims of empire that just makes it a whole other conversation in a way that words can't explain.
I had an experience years ago Dr. Jonathan Tran he's a professor of theology at Baylor University he said something that hits what you're getting at Brandy he says look if you're living in the United States you can never fully extract yourself from empire
try to live off the grid it's like well you have the political protection not being invaded because you're within the boundaries of Turtle Island in the United States he said but you can choose to live prophetically in one or two areas and that makes a difference
and yes you know in my younger self that felt deflating because like what I'm going to totally extract myself from the empire and in reality those prophetic choices yes they change our context but also they change us and then we have new eyes to see so we get to keep on being those revolutionaries in the midst of empire
yes and that is hard work and it is good work and it is work that is at the center of the Christian story and so it cannot be avoided and it cannot just be theologized like it's part of why I wanted to have these conversations in the practicals of the US political system in the moment right now
because I know that I could make myself seem super righteous and smart by just like lobbing around theology of empire I've written dozens and dozens of tons of pages on it I could for sure do it and it does not matter if it doesn't make someone's life better like you're quiet times every day don't matter if they don't make someone else's life better
like reading a million books being able to critique empire to its death won't actually kill it it just makes you tired so like our revolutionary ideas are only as revolutionary as they are applicable and practical to people in our own lives who we need to answer to for how we protect in their lives and Christians suck at that we would prefer an ideological purity I've worked with evangelicals for my whole life like would prefer ideological purity to actually doing something
and we have to do the character work and know that the things that we believe are insufficient to change the world if we don't do things about them and so I appreciate that exhortation to understand where we're coming from and what things are and recognize that the inevitability of the fall of this US empire I hope we have the character to care for each other well rather than live the dystopian realities that people would anticipate we would
well put well Scott thank you so much for this conversation I'm so delighted to get to talk to you anytime because you're one of my dear friends but also because I think it's just these are complicated conversations and I'm sure I'm going to people are going to be bothered by many many things that I say over the season
that's okay like that we're trying to create a space to open dialogue like that one of my main pedagogical approaches in this podcast is that in having conversations we would model dialogue that we would hope that other people would have and in having dialogue know that we are all theologians
like that we are all people who get to do public theology in our conversations with other people regardless of agreement or not and so I love that I get to do with that with you and that I've gotten to do that with you over many many years and I know that you do really good work so Scott what would you like to plug as we close out our time together sure well thank you for having me on Brandy you know in some ways I would say empire is a political manifestation of a God complex
we should be at the center we should be deciding and ordering the world as we see fit the work that I do is related to helping those of us who are white better understand ourselves and take responsibility for our presence in the world
and I think the link I'm making is if we are white people who are U.S. citizens we are like doubly unaware of the God complex that we have that centers ourselves and assumes it's appropriate for us to be in the position of dominating and ordering things of the world
and so I have a podcast called white people work that's the beginnings of that conversation but really what I love to do and my hope of that podcast and where it leads me to is being invited into coaching white folks that want to grow and training and working with groups who are white who want to understand better understand themselves and take responsibility for the conditioning we've received that gives us a God complex and who wants to be a God complex
and who want to step out of that and that's the work I love to do it's what I feel like I was kind of put on earth to facilitate and y'all he's good at it like the work is deeply researched over many many years of yeah research and study but also just experience doing this stuff on the ground there aren't many white men I engage with
I always say that my life is like a parking lot with a limited amount of spaces for white people and Scott gets to fill one of those spots thank you brandy I feel very good and so yes I will add links to the podcast in our bios so please check out his work for those of you who identify as white
thank you again so much for joining for another episode of reclaiming my theology if you like what you hear you can follow subscribe rate review please just tell a friend about the podcaster send it along to somebody it goes a long way to helping folks find the show which makes it way more sustainable for us to keep making it on our side
you can also join us on patreon at patreon.com slash reclaiming my theology five bucks a month goes a long way to help us again continue to make the show in the ways that we do for y'all during the season we're going to be back to a weekly or biweekly rhythm and so you can expect more content along with supplemental content to continue to do it or doing
I know that a lot of these things because they land in the realm of the political might lose a little bit of the base theological so we'll be doing some extra things to make sure that that stays after part two
so you can expect a lot from us in the coming months and just know that we want to see a difference in our cultures and our society and we know that a lot of that starts with our theology so please join us offer questions critique feedback as you are able and as you want to and let's continue to do a little bit better together talk to y'all soon