#230 | Politics and Christian Nationalism with Cherie Harder

So I think that's a really important place to start, is how we do what we're doing, how we see the people that we are engaging with or arguing with or whatever it is. And are we doing it in a way that Christ would engage?

Watering time, everybody.

It's time for Apollos Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming, and I am your host. And today on our show, we're having another one of our deep conversations.

We are in the political season, and it's never an easy thing to do. We have so many different voices that are vying for our attention, so many places telling us to turn there and look there.

But we also need a voice of reason, people that can help us to think about how we are to live in the midst of this world. That's why I wanted to have today's guest on the show, Cherie Harder. Now, Cherie serves as the President of the Trinity Forum.

Early in her career, she served as the policy advisor to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, advising the leader on domestic social issues and serving as a liaison and outreach director to outside groups.

She holds an honors BA Magna Cum laude in Government from Harvard University and a postgraduate diploma in Literature from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where she was a Rotary Scholar. She is also a senior fellow at Cartus, an editorial board member at Comet magazine, a past board member of Gordon College and the C.S.

lewis Institute, a current board member of the Convergence center for Policy Resolution and Faith in Law, and an advisory board member of the National Museum of American Religion. And now for the highlight of her life, she has come on Apollo's Watered. Sheree, welcome to Apollo's Watered.

Great to be here.

Travis, are you ready for the Fast Five?

I am.

Okay, I know a little bit about your bio, so I wanted to ask you this question. Where is your favorite place from where you grew up?

Okay, so I grew up in small town in northern New Mexico called Los Alamos. It was actually where the Manhattan Project was. So everybody's dad worked for the lab. But it was a beautiful place for, for hiking.

And right across the street from where I grew up was basically just empty land. And as a kid, we would go over there all the time and you could find just all these shards of Indian pottery.

So we actually had shoeboxes full of shards of pots and, and the like. So, yeah, I think hiking in outside of Los Alamos, New Mexico would be what I sort of loved most about where I grew up.

Were any of those things radioactive?

You asked that humorously.

No, I mean, it's serious.

Quite possible. And in fact, there were signs all around about kind of like, you know, unexploded ordinances or whatever left over for the decades.

But, but, you know, hey, it was the 80s. We were free range kids. You just, you know, kind of going around among the pottery shards and the unexplored ordinances. But all was well.

Okay, here we go. Second question then, because we do like to talk about culture on here a lot. So here's a question.

What is your funniest or most memorable cross cultural experience?

Ooh, well, you may have to edit this out. So I was.

When I studied abroad as a graduate student in Australia, I mean, on one hand you think, okay, we share much of the same culture, you know, share a common language. But there are a lot of terms that were different, and I discovered that the hard way.

So, for example, I had been there only a day or two and was in the cafeteria, couldn't find any napkins, and so asked like, you know, a couple of guys behind the counter, like, where the napkins were, and they looked kind of annoyed or disgusted and told me, just go to the bathroom. Apparently a napkin means something different there.

I have heard so many of those language stories that you just, you blush. But hey, I mean, it happens. It just does. That's what happens when you have language issues. So here we go. Here's. Here's this one.

So now, though, you are in Virginia, D.C. right.

Offices in D.C. live in Alexandria, Virginia.

There you go. Okay, so the best date night restaurant is where.

You know, there's a little restaurant in Alexandria called Vermilion that I'm kind of partial to. And actually, at one point, President Obama apparently went there for Valentine's night with. With Michelle.

But it's kind of just like a little hole in the wall. It's nothing terribly posh, but, yeah, kind of partial to it.

How about this one. Question 4. The one thing most people don't know about you that they would be surprised by if they knew it is what?

Oh, there's probably a number of things, but actually, going back to Australia, I became a certified therapeutic masseuse while in Australia.

That totally applies to what you're doing right now.

Well, as an aerobics instructor, so slightly different.

Okay, that's a great one. All right, how about number five? This was. This is a little bit of eclectic, but if you are a college class, what college class would you be and why?

Oh, you know, if I were a college class, I guess I would probably be, you know, some aspect of history and literature and probably 19th century British. Just because, like, history and literature, I just find, like, it's so enjoyable and it's kind of like a portal into different worlds.

It's hard to kind of, like, keep it in a box. It allows for a lot of different modes of exploration. I studied government as an undergrad, and I studied literature in my one year in Australia.

And I will say, just as an aside, it was very funny to be studying like, 19th century or 18th century British literature while in Australia, because so much of British literature at the time, it's like Blake or Wordsworth, where it's like nature, meek and mild, and then you're in Australia where all of nature is conspiring to kill you. So it was kind of a funny juxtaposition, but enjoyed it.

When I talk to people on the show, I always want to know, how did they come to faith in Christ? How did you come to faith in Christ?

Yeah, you know, I was really fortunate, blessed to, like, grow up in a Christian home. So I came to faith in Christ at an early age. And, you know, there certainly has been a journey.

And, you know, the home I grew up in was, you know, fairly fundy, actually, you know, somewhat fundamentalist.

There were IFB churches and Southern Baptist churches and at one point a Plymouth Brethren church, and, you know, then essentially rolled off a mountain and found myself at Harvard and, you know, had absolutely none of my assumptions validated, you know, at all. But, you know, not just questioned, but usually either, you know, dismissed or, you know, found very curious.

And, you know, as a student, you know, had to kind of think that through. And, you know, I think in many ways it was actually a much better, a richer education as a result of it.

Because when everything that you have believed and been brought up to believe and, you know, and all the authority figures in your life, you know, family, church and the like, have kind of reinforced, you know, were suddenly not accepted and actually seen as odd or unintelligent or even oppressive. It kind of forces you. It's more mental and intellectual effort than if all your assumptions are validated.

I think there was also a real gift my last two years of college. One of my roommates was the president of Campus Crusade. The other was the president of the Harvard Civil Liberties Union.

Wow.

A brilliant woman. And we all really loved and cared for each other, but she was one of the smartest people I've ever known.

I was not as smart, probably more glibly, but she and I would kind of go back and forth and basically say, explain to me why you think what you think, like, how you got there. That was a real education to me and kind of an exposure, too, to the fact that we all have premises and givens.

There's a lot that can be logically proven or logically deduced, but there's other things that can be, you know, and there's a lot of mystery, whether you're an agnostic or, you know, or an orthodox Christian. There are. There are mysteries that, you know, one accepts or leans into or, you know, just. Just embraces.

And so it was a real kind of exposure to new ways of thinking, but also, you know, in the context of a few people who really cared about each other and. Yeah. So, you know, since then, I guess my.

My journey has moved from kind of a more fundy background to I'm now in an Anglican Church and, you know, a liturgical tradition was somewhat foreign to kind of where I started out from. Yeah, I just feel kind of really grateful for the. The winding path that it has been.

That's awesome. I love hearing those stories.

Some people, of course, think, you know, you go to a university such as Harvard and you lose faith, but it's actually, I think you're finding more and more now in a book we're going to talk about in just a moment. In the great Detourching.

One of the things that they found in their research was the more education one had, the more likely they were to be a follower of Jesus.

And there's even some research we found lately and some anecdotal things where we're seeing even revivals at Cambridge and you're seeing people come to faith in Christ. So it's just amazing to see how God works in the middle of all those environments and especially in your own story.

But let's talk a little bit about the Trinity Forum for a moment. I know that you've been doing this for Some time. It's, it's a, it's a well known ministry. But for those who don't know, the Trinity Forum.

What is the Trinity Forum and what's its purpose and goal?

Yeah, thanks for asking, Travis. So, you know, at the Trinity Forum, we try to cultivate, curate, and disseminate the best of Christian thought for the common good.

So essentially we try to provide a space and programs to offer people a chance to kind of wrestle with the big ideas of life in the context of faith.

So that might sound rather esoteric, but actually we think it's immensely practical to kind of wrestle with what does it mean to be a good person, what does it mean to live a good life, what does it mean to work towards a just society?

And so we host online conversations and like you, a podcast and Socratic forums and discussions and lectures and reading groups to kind of help people do that. And we say to ultimately come to better know the author of the answers and to know and love the author of the answers.

And this kind of grows out of an idea that the first great commandment, you know, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. You know, these questions, which are so practical for the ways we live our life, are not detached from, from knowing and loving God.

And so we try to bring the best thinking and resources to the table and kind of make them more accessible and, you know, acquaint people with some of the great Christian thinking as a way to, you know, equip and empower them to live more wisely and well.

How do you then go about finding those voices? I know that you've had a lot of people on the show. Not everyone that comes on there is Christian.

So you are interacting with some of the best thinkers in the world. Do you find that they are hesitant to come onto a ministry where they're having these discussions, or are they welcoming the idea?

You know, it has varied, but for the most part, I mean, and of course the vast majority of the people that we have on are Christians. But you're right, there's certainly people we have on who are not and you know, almost to a T, they have.

Been.

Very eager and interested and intrigued and there have even been friendships that have kind of happened as a result.

So whether it's Jonathan Haidt or Yuval Levin or others who have come on, usually they've had a point of view that we have thought has real value and is worth listening to. And they've been kind of eager to interact with other guests as well.

And so at one point, fairly recently, we hosted Jonathan Haidt and Andy Crouch talking about technology. They had not met before, but they had a lot to say to each other and to say with each other.

And I think you kind of found each other's perspective really illuminating and helpful. And, of course, you're part of what knowledge and even wisdom is. It's a conversation.

It's building on, you know, the knowledge that other people have. And we kind of believe in common knowledge and common grace. There's a lot of knowledge and wisdom that's accessible to all, not only to those who.

Who claim a relationship with. With Jesus. And so we're eager to learn, you know, where there's learning to be had.

Now, how old is the Trinity Forum?

Wow. Wow. So what's the vision going forward? Is it continue to broaden that influence to have those discussions?

And what role do churches play in the middle of this? Or do they.

Yeah, so great questions, Travis. Yeah. You know, we continue to see that as, like, the vision and the hope to continue to cultivate, disseminate the best of Christian thought.

And we do see that the way that kind of can play out in terms of promoting the common good is largely through the churches. We are not a church in many ways. We're not necessarily a ministry per se. We're a Christian nonprofit. But we also kind of see pastors as one of the.

Kind of the real target audiences in that, you know, pastors are thought leaders in their community. People are always going to the pastor to kind of ask for their input, their wisdom, their decision.

And it's a rough time for pastors right now, I think, just in terms of, like, the loneliness, the polarization within their churches. They're under so much pressure and stress.

And so part of what we hope to do is to, in addition to various guilds and thoughtful professionals writ large, we have a number of programs sort of just for pastors, even if it's just like a pastor's breakfast where we invite in different pastors to meet each other and to hear from different thought leaders as a way of both enabling them to kind of talk with each other, but also because they are constantly kind of pouring out to have a little bit of kind of intellectual and spiritual inflow as well, to get to interact and talk with different thought leaders and be able to kind of sharpen and refine their own thinking on a number of different issues. So there's so many of the people involved are through the churches.

We don't kind of administer our programs through churches per se, but we have a lot of pastors who are involved.

When you're talking about pastors and these thought leaders that you're interacting with, how do you determine who these thought leaders that you want to introduce them to? I mean, do you have certain subjects? Are there certain categories or areas that you look to? I mean, you mentioned technology.

I also know you talk a great deal about the political process. I mean, you. You. You've talked about a lot of different pieces. What are the categories you employ to select these thought leaders?

Yeah, so we largely focus on sort of three different broad areas. One would be kind of faith in public life, you know, which includes public, even political engagement. Another would be the arts and humanities.

And a third would be spiritual formation. And in terms of sort of how we pick people to highlight, a lot of it is word of mouth, is recommendations, is kind of scholarly consensus.

Obviously, there are incredible minds that we have not yet had the chance to invite. So if you are listening and you have not been invited, there's no reflection on the brilliance of your arguments or your scholarly record.

A lot of it just like folks that we know and we think very, very highly of.

So, you know, in terms of kind of some of the programs that we've hosted on faith in public life and what faithful Christian public engagement might look like, you know, there we've drawn from a variety of sources.

So, you know, there are current or past public officials that we've talked with, whether it's former Senator Ben Sasse or former Governor Bill Haslam or others.

There's quite a few columnists who basically observe, analyze, and write on this for a living that either are among our senior fellows or are among our guests, including New York Times columnists like David Brooks and David French and Pete Wehner and Tish Harrison Warren or others who are incisive observers. We feature a lot of scholars who actually kind of focus their vocational lives on, you know, on attending to particular questions.

You know, recently hosted Felicia Wu Song, you know, writing on. She has a wonderful book out called Restless Devices.

You know, the way that technology kind of, you know, not just fragments our attention but, like, literally displaces us and what that displacement does to the way we. To the way we see reality and, you know, and respond to it.

So we look at a variety of scholars, historians, thought leaders, sector leaders and the like.

For our speakers, our senior fellows, we have a group of a little over two dozen senior fellows who we think kind of represent and embody some of the best of Christian thinking in their respective spheres. And so that's a broad swath of folks. Again, it includes some of the writers I've mentioned, David French and Pete Wehner.

It includes ethicists like Vince mcote at Wheaton or Lydia Dugdale at Columbia, who does a lot of writing on medical ethics, or Bill Hurlbut at Stanford, who's a bioethicist. It includes folks like Ron White, who is a presidential historian.

But it's kind of unique among a lot of biographers that he pays so much attention to how a faith journey kind of affects a life and a work of people like Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses Grant or Joshua Chamberlain or the like. So it's really. It's a wide specter of folks. And our senior fellows, we try to promote their work. We also encourage collaboration between them.

And I have been excited to see some of what's come out of that.

Well, a few examples of that, like Kurt Thompson, who is a psychiatrist and does a lot on essentially the spirituality of neurobiology, has collaborated with Mako Fujimura, who's a visual artist, who is another one of our senior fellows, to talk about essentially how our art can kind of affect the wiring of our brains and the way we think and the way we see the world. So there's a broad swath.

And we, our guests, of course, are much broader than our senior fellows, but we're always on the lookout for some of the best thinking on the big questions of life.

I wanted to talk about politics for a moment.

You mentioned politics and faith in public life, I'm assuming out of these three categories, just knowing a little bit of your background that faith in public life is probably. Is that the one that you gravitate to the most?

There's a lot in my background that kind of, you know, orients me in that direction, although with the humanities as well. But I think it's fair to say, especially this year, we'll be probably focusing more on that because there's an acute and pressing need to do so.

Which leads, of course, to the question, how do we engage? I mean, that's a huge question. I know, but of course, we see it becoming more and more polarized, depending on what your media diet is.

In some respect, that's influencing us to the left or to the right. How do you keep going on in the middle of this culture, which seems so polarized. And I'm not talking just about polarized between left and right.

I'm talking about within the church itself. Yeah, that becomes so often. We've had Russell Moore and Albert Mueller on the show and they differ very widely. Same with Pete Weiner.

These are all Christian people that, that disagree very much with where we need to go within the political sphere. How do you keep a right focus and engaging in that way?

Yeah, well, I mean, that is a big question, Travis.

We got all the time in the world.

We could be talking for hours about that.

This is not going to be a comprehensive answer, but I think one really important place to start is by paying attention to ways and means and not just ends. And that when we are called to follow Christ, we're called to follow his way of doing things. You know, to love him, but also to emulate Him.

And there's a how that is so often, I think, disregarded or even, you know, kind of derided. You hear a lot of rhetoric and writing about how these are such desperate times and the times are so dire that really it's time to panic.

It's time to throw all constraint to the wind. It's do or die. It's flight 93, everything's going down. All bets are off. Really.

It's a fear mongering to encourage us to all essentially become little Machiavelli who believe that the end justifies the any means. And that's actually completely counter to kind of the most basic sort of discipleship instructions that Christ gives us.

I mean, he calls us to come and follow him, to learn his ways, to emulate them, to follow in his footsteps.

And so when one kind of engages politics or the public or the culture or whatever with an eye towards means as well as ends, you start recognizing the people that you are disagreeing with or fighting against. Presumably these are your neighbors and not just kind of disembodied enemies to be vanquished. These are neighbors that you're called to love.

I mean, we're called to love our enemies as well. But let's start with our neighbors.

You know, this is usually someone who lives down the street who thinks differently than you on a different issue, but making them into an abstraction to be vanquished. That's often valorized as like a sign of courage or, you know, being sold out, but it's actually counter to the way Christ engaged with others.

So I think that's a really important place to start is how we do what we're doing how we see the people that we are engaging with or arguing with or whatever it is, and are we doing it in a way that Christ would engage in? One of the readings that we put out is called politics, morality and civility. And it's.

It draws on the story of Vaclav Havel, who had a very different approach to becoming president of the Czech Republic back in the early 90s. And, you know, at the time, the Czech Republic had depolarization, lots of corruption. There were certain parallels, kind of where we are now.

And what he did is he actually took much of the summer off for reflection, which is certainly rather countercultural.

But he wrote a series of letters to his wife, and one of them, he talks about how he has come to the conclusion in the course of his reflection that the only way to pursue justice and mercy and humanity and flourishing is justly and mercifully and humanely and with an eye towards the flourishing of others. In essence, if our ways and means contradict our ends, we're never going to reach the ends that we desire.

So I think a place to start is by following the way that Jesus showed us.

I remember discussing very similar question with a mutual friend that we have, Pete Wehner. And Pete was saying that if we continue on that path, I mean, really, we're going to lose. So in other words, we should lose now to win later.

But that's hard to say when you have that Constantinian temptation. Russell Moore has written on that. I brought that up with Dr. Mohler and he did not agree.

He said, I'm kind of tired of the argument, honestly, and people can listen to that online. He said, I'm tired of the argument because if you have the opportunity to do good and save life, you do it no matter what.

How do we talk to those who say, okay, let's say that the means that have been employed have been negative? I mean, this isn't anything new.

Like you said, it does accomplish some degree of ends, in essence, and the degree of which people are talking about it is talking about abortion specifically and saying that we have the opportunity to save human life. How do we engage conversationally with that question?

Well, a lot to unpack there. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that rarely. Well, maybe there's an example of it. I cannot think of one.

When someone has been shamed or harangued or insulted into agreement.

Right.

You know, you might be able to be coerced into complicity, but you haven't won them over.

You haven't persuaded them in any way when that happens in the case of abortion, I mean, I have worked on pro life issues during my time in Congress and pro life.

I also know that a full pro life ethic and platform is not only legal, it's also persuading people, casting a vision for a culture of life and what that means. And that's, again, that's not done by insult. It's sort of interesting if one actually looks at the stats for abortion rates.

Actually if you just go to, say, the National Right to Life website, it basically includes the two groups that kind of gather those stats. One I think is like the cdc and the other is the Alan Guttmacher Institute. And you'll kind of see that they go up and down in various ways.

They've actually gone way down, are basically at kind of lower levels than they were when Roe v. Wade happened. You'll also notice something else which is that they actually rose during the Trump administration.

They fell during the administration before that. And so there's very little kind of correlation between the partisan background, whoever is in the White House, and abortion rates.

There's something else is going on.

And I think one of the big things that has happened is the advent of new technology has made the case that life begins so much sooner, so much more compelling. It's just, it's kind of hard to ignore to that point.

Part of what we're hoping, I would think we, as Christians are hoping to do in terms of our public engagement, is to articulate and embody and point to the kingdom of God and what that looks like, what it means to be the beloved community, what it looks like to live injustice and to love your neighbor and to encourage the flourishing of others. And that's not done by essentially oppressing your neighbor, you know, into compliance or, you know, insulting them into silence to.

Be winsome and yet enact laws that would enable to restrain the evil, but to enable the good at the same time, but having a greater moral framework of life with all aspects of life in the middle of all that.

I think your point has been made to look at the comprehensive system and not just have a political knee jerk reaction because as you've noted, and we've talked about this a little bit on the show, where we see, looking at gun rights here for a moment, that if you have a Democrat going office, gun sales go up because people think that's going to be taken away. And the same with a Republican going into office. People think, I'm going to take abortion away. So that goes up.

But it is still cultivating a vision of human flourishing and offering something for the greater public good. How do we help people to do that? I mean, that's kind of the age old question.

Because if I were to talk to Pete Wehner, I talked to Albert Mohler, both of them mentioned the flourishing of society. We're all looking for the flourishing of society.

It's the, the ways in which we go about the flourishing of society within a republic such as our own. Getting into the political sphere again. Can we have a liberal democracy without Christianity?

I'm not sure, but I think it's unlikely.

You know, and if you even just sort of look at some of the statements that, you know, the founders and the framers, you know, made, you know, George Washington took the occasion of his farewell address to talk about how religion and morality were indispensable supports to the Constitution.

You know, you look at sort of Madison and, you know, John Jay and Hamilton kind of wrestling as they wrote the Federalist Papers about what kind of citizenry, what kind of character among the citizenry is necessary to sustain, you know, a republic.

Edmund Burke talked about the fact that there needs to be, you know, he was talking in the context of England, not, not the US but obed to the unenforceable. Essentially. Laws can't cover everything.

There need to be shared norms and mores and a certain consensus about what is right and wrong, good or bad, to kind of help bind people together. I think some kind of shared moral consensus.

And that has been kind of rooted largely in our past in broad shared norms that if not Christian, were certainly compatible with Christianity. You'll kind of help that.

Now that is not to say, of course, that there was not incredible hypocrisy and ways that we as persons and as a people just fell disastrously, catastrophically short anyway. It also shows us that there are always religious entrepreneurs who are willing to build an entire movement around error.

You know, the Southern Baptist Convention became the Southern Baptist Convention in order to justify slavery and develop theological arguments to do so.

So, you know, one of the things that I think we need to be aware of is that we as fallen human beings, we always have an appetite for error, especially error that benefits us in a certain way. And one of the things that we often do is we rationalize that and we cherry pick verses and we come up with good arguments.

And it does kind of indicate that there should be a certain amount of epistemic humility, which is not at all kind of a relativism. It's more of an acknowledgment of kind of the challenges to our ability to always perceive and embrace what is true and what is wise.

So, kind of to your question. Yeah, I think one of the things we need to do is sort of help build support for a vision of flourishing in the good.

And part of the way that happens is by showing or modeling something beautiful that other people see and think. Yeah, I want in on that.

You know, I've heard that people will go where they're loved, you know, and when there are relationships and communities where, you know, for all their imperfections, there is real love and caring and concern, there are going to be a lot of people who say, I want in. I want to be a part of that.

It's interesting you mentioned that. I had a professor when I was in seminary. He said, scratch a liberal and you'll find a fundamentalist underneath.

And I think there's some truth to that in that I find that the people that are most passionate on a liberal cause usually have been people that have lacked a sense of belonging or even being listened to from those in the camp in which they have come from. And that's caused an unnecessary estrangement. We have those competing things that we always have to work through.

Then there's the demonstration of the gospel, and that's the love, Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. Then there's the great community in which that's worked out.

And when you have proclamation, demonstration, but then the cultivation part, those three work together.

But if you're missing any of those pieces, and I think that demonstration, it's not just an intellectual argument as you've already alluded to, because we're not just heads on sticks. We're talking individuals that want to belong, that want to be heard, that want to be listened to. And oftentimes we find that we're not.

But in the midst of a society right now where we have people that are clamoring to provide a different vision for the flourishing of society, specifically Christian nationalism has occupied a lot of media attention. Whether that's due or undo, I'm not sure. But you've seen it taking space within even our current government in different spaces within there.

How do we talk to our people about that, that lean that way? I mean, first of all, I think we have to have a definition. I did a poll online through our YouTube page.

And I said, is Christian nationalism a good thing or bad thing? And then I gave three responses. Yes, it's a great thing. No, it's heresy. It depends on how you define it.

And that's been the overarching question is how do you define this? Because some people say, well, I'm a Christian and I believe in America and I believe in the founding document of it.

So if you want to call me a Christian nationalist, fine. But that doesn't seem to be the form that is being so portrayed within the media itself.

It's more of, as Pete said, a toxic form of Christian nationalism. How do we help the people understand this and move forward in the midst of our pluralistic democracy?

Yeah, yeah, these are great questions, Travis.

I gave you like 10. I feel so bad. I'm the worst at asking questions. I give like 10 questions in one. So pick one. Pick one of them.

So where to even start? You know, first, I. I definitely agree that, you know, kind of the understanding of what Christian nationalism is, it does seem to be fuzzy. It's.

It morphs and it also seems to be political.

You have heard a different talk show host or whatever say, oh, well, Christian nationalism is the belief that, you know, that the country was founded on Christian principles.

And, you know, my gosh, if you define Christian nationalism that way, you're going to have, you know, a huge chunk of the country, you know, who would fall into that category. And I don't think that's the case.

Not long ago, I had the real pleasure of getting to talk with Rich Mouw and Paul Miller on Christian nationalism, and they have both written books on it. Rich Mouw has written a book called how to be a Patriotic Christian.

Paul Miller wrote about what Christian nationalism is, and they would define it quite differently that Christian patriotism being a great thing, Christian nationalism, not so much. And part of this kind of goes back to, you know, what we were talking about earlier.

You know, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. So that's the first thing you do. Then you love your neighbor. You know, Augustine talked about virtue being the proper ordering of your loves.

And so, you know, I don't want to put words in a rich's mouth. He's very capable of speaking for himself.

But I think he would basically say that a Christian patriotism is a well ordered love of country, which is you love your country, you love God more, you love your neighbor even more. But they all kind of inform each other.

A Christian nationalism, by contrast, would be kind of more of a Syncretism of the love of God and a love of country.

And that love of country in terms of like being more nationalistic, it's more exclusionary and often kind of domination oriented, you know, such that, you know, my country, right or wrong and better than yours essentially, as opposed to, you know, a love of country which you know is the kind of love where its injustices are not a matter of indifference or celebration, but you know, are, you know, like loving any person something you want better when wrong is done. I think just kind of anecdotally generally what we think of when we think of Christian nationalism are people who have kind of syncretized the two.

Well, I think C.S. lewis talked about this.

Anytime you kind of have Christianity and it's usually, you know, whatever it's being combined with, it kind of comes out on top and you know, and God's second banana.

Talking about that again, getting back to the flourishing of society and talking about Christian nationalism, I actually went and read the Christian Nationalist Manifesto.

Who wrote the Christian Nationalist Manifesto?

Andrew Isker and Andrew Torkba. What kind of theology of politic do you see at work within the world and that we should advocate for it?

There's a few things I will say, you know, in talking about Christian nationalism generally the, the people who talk most about being Christian nationalist, there has been kind of an interesting thing that sort of happened sociologically lately. And to a certain extent this is also around the term evangelical in that, say 15 years ago or so you asked what an evangelical was.

You were probably more likely at least to get a response either paraphrasing Bebington's quadrilateral, certain theological qualifications to basically define someone who fit that role.

Increasingly, self reported evangelicals have never heard of Beving 10 or as quadrilateral, are increasingly not likely to really go to church much at all. It has become much more of a tribal term rather than a creedal one. And with Christian nationalism there's something kind of similar at play.

There's certainly exceptions to this, but a lot of times the folks who would call themselves Christian nationalists, it's pretty heavy on the nationalism, you know, and much lighter on the Christianity as opposed to something kind of like fairly vague.

You know, there was a lot of attention paid a few years ago to Christian Smith, sort of moralistic, therapeutic deism, a lot of Christian nationalism. It's sort of nationalistic, authoritarian deism and, but light on, you know, the explicitly Christian content.

It's much more of a sense of, you know, God has blessed this country. It borrows from some of the metaphors and language of Christianity, talking about, you know, us being Israel and the New Covenant.

But in terms of actually following the ways and means of Jesus and distinguishing between his kingdom, which is not of this world and the one that is, has been pretty light on that.

How do we cultivate a winsome attitude as we try to go about these discussions? Because I think putting our heads in the sand doesn't work. We need to be able to engage civilly, lovingly listening posture as we go about this.

How do we cultivate that?

Yeah, well, you know, first I should say it's not easy. If these things were easy, they would be done. There'd be far more widespread than they are.

When I mentioned epistemic humility, I want to explain that just a little bit because so often people think like, well, you're talking about relativism and absolutely not. Dallas Willard talked about how a sense of certainty said nothing about the reliability of the information.

It only told you about the state of mind of the subject. Having an epistemic humility does not at all require us to kind of lay down convictions.

What it does mean is acknowledging that as a fallen and limited human being, we have certain limitations of perspective as well as a tendency kind of, you know, endemic to our race towards motivated reasoning. And so it means kind of acknowledging that and having a certain both curiosity and willingness to listen to others.

Now, often you can listen quite a bit and like, walk away more convinced than ever of, you know, the rightness of one's cause or thought or conviction.

But what an epistemic humility does is open one up to listen to ask questions, but also just to realize there's often things to be learned, even from someone with whom you may disagree.

And I think part of, certainly not all, but part of what has happened is we have gotten kind of so locked in to opinions that we actually don't even really know all that much about. I think just recently Jimmy Kimmel had a few people on.

They ascribed a certain action to one presidential candidate and said, oh, I'm so sorry, I got the wrong guy. It was the other one. And the way people reacted to the statement completely flip flopped.

I have before Trinity form, I worked within conservative policy circles. It has been interesting to me to see total flip flops on various issue areas from what they were before. And it's just sort of disregarded.

There's been a certain emotional or psychological kind of digging in that seems to be kind of divorced from policy or principled conviction, such that, like questioning A particular candidate is seen as somehow an insult directed towards one's person. And if one's responding that way, yeah, I would take a step back and kind of ask, you know, myself, what's going on here?

Why is it that I'm acting like I'm attacked If someone criticizes my candidate, why am I identifying so closely with them that I'm taking umbrage over what should be a policy disagreement? You know, I. I can say this. You know, having worked in the White House for President Bush, it was very common for people.

You know, you see people at a party or whatever it is for people to come up to tell you all the things that they don't like about what your boss is doing. You know, it was just part and parcel of the job.

You know, you're like, Mrs. Bush, I can't talk about this right now.

Usually they like her. They were like her husband about whatever it was that President Bush was doing. And that was never fun. And we work for a person.

And I have a great deal of respect and admiration for President Bush. Not a perfect man, not a bazar, but I think there was a real sense of honor and dignity and tried to do the right thing.

The way you see people react now is so much more extreme, where there is a certain identification that's going on that is strange, a personal identification that goes beyond policy alignment, goes beyond principled alignment. And I think it's something that if one finds oneself doing this, to sit and think and reflect on a bit.

Technology plays a role in all of this. One of the things, of course, we've seen is the algorithm now is determining so much of what we get.

If you click on anything online, you're going to get more of that. I was talking to a mutual friend of ours about technology and who would remain nameless.

He doesn't like to be on the Internet very often, but he's been in the scientific community for some time.

We were having a discussion about AI and technology, and he said, it's with generative AI, the problem is going to be in 50 years, when in his mind libraries will be no more.

And instead of having some 35 books that Oz Guinness has written, there'll be 500 books that he supposedly have written, and you won't know exactly what's his and what's not. He said, you're seeing just a. A total erosion of trust in what you see online.

And we already know that now with what's there, how do we keep ourselves sane in the middle of a Internet that is Continually moving us to one extreme or another.

Yeah. Oh, Travis, like, it is a great question. It is. It is the big question.

Because, yes, what you've described is definitely happening, and it is really unsettling and unnerving. We're a big country. We're a diverse country.

You know, I think in the past, part of the ways that we have, you know, kind of sought to deal with differences, you know, around what is good or bad, better or worse.

We've been a pluralistic country, and we have found ways to try to kind of, you know, accommodate difference and adapt to it and still kind of forge a consensus. But we are at a new point.

It is a different thing to have disagreements over good or bad than it is to have disagreements over what is true or false, real or unreal. And that's definitely kind of where we are at. We're increasingly able to essentially construct, even unwittingly, our own bespoke reality where the.

Essentially, the information that we receive via algorithms, as you were describing, is sort of tailor made to either provoke our fear and hatred or confirm our biases.

And that's largely what we get, because the people who create the algorithms have figured out that that is what will keep you engaged, that's what will keep your attention, is that which provokes your fear or loathing or confirms your own sense of superiority. Trying to fight against that is. Is really difficult.

At the same time, I think, boy, does that underscore just how vital how sanity protecting the spiritual disciplines are, because the disciplines are all about, you know, attention. Where do we place our attention, and what do we focus on? You know, disciplined Bible reading or prayer or fellowship or church attendance.

It brings us into recurring contact with people who are not like us and ideas that are not our own and contexts that are strange to us.

And it forces us to engage in a reality that we have not constructed, that we have to respond to, as opposed to our own kind of bespoke algorithmic input stream. And so in many ways, I think, gosh, the ancient, eternal kind of biblical wisdom here is, boy, is there a practical need for it.

And that need only grows, I think, as technology is leading us from, you know, further into unreality.

I do want to thank you for coming on the show, and I know that your time is somewhat limited. So let me end with a final question here. What is one water bottle that we can leave our people?

As we've talked about a lot of things today, I know it can be quite dizzying for people, but what's one core truth that people can hold on to as a result of this conversation.

Well, I love the water bottle analogy. That's great.

And I think I'll just sort of pick up on what we were sort of just talking about, which is both the invitation and the balm of, you know, of the spiritual disciplines in a conspiratorial and crazy making time. I think it was the poet Mary Oliver who talked about how attention is the beginning of devotion.

Kind of where we place our attention generally indicates what it is that we will come to love.

And at a time when essentially the cultural current is pushing us towards conspiracy, towards anger, towards loneliness and alienation, essentially, it pushes us towards detachment from our fellow humans and into kind of essentially Internet hordes raging at each other to return to essentially the. The sanity promoting disciplines that point us towards the author of love.

I just think the invitation to that hopefully is all the more beautiful now.

I love that. How can people then keep up with the Trinity Forum and all that you're doing there?

Well, thanks, Travis. Yeah, so our website is just ttf.org at least two Fridays a month.

We host a program we just call Online Conversations, where we do something very similar to what we're doing here right now, which is I have the incredible gift of getting to talk to some of the wisest people around on Big Questions and so would love for people to join us for that or our Conversations podcast. And it's also just been a real joy to be with you today. So thanks, Travis.

It was a joy. Thank you again for coming on. Apollos watered. I would recommend anyone check out the Trinity Forum. The Conversations are great.

We've had some of the similar guests and they have a whole lot more to offer you because they have a much bigger staff, so they can do a whole lot more. But really, it's been a joy, Sharif, having you on Apollo's water. Thank you.

You bet. My pleasure.

During this time of political confusion and social isolation, as well as the middle of this cancel culture in which we find ourselves, it's nice to know that there are voices of reason, voices of sanity, intelligent voices who can delve beneath the waves of cultural outrage to see a better way forward. They are lighthouses on the shore. They.

They really do provide light to those in cultural darkness, helping all of us to see who Christ is and how to live for him in the midst of this time.

I'm grateful for Cherie and the Trinity Forum's work, but I also want you to know that they're not the only ones that are out there doing it we have similar aims.

That's why I wanted Cherie on the show, and that's why we have so many guests that overlap, because we want to help you to be biblically faithful and fruitful where you are. We believe that the two are not mutually exclusive. You can be biblically faithful and fruitful in your ministry. That's why we're here.

It is a challenging time in which we live, and I know for you, ministry leader, that it's extremely challenging. But I want you to know that we're partners in the battle with you.

Last year, I was part of a group that met to talk about cultural regeneration and what role the gospel plays in that. There were over 30 intellectuals united from various sectors. And what struck me about the meeting was that there weren't.

While there were a lot of great Christian thinkers, there were no pastors. And for us, that was a shame.

I mean, how can we talk about any change or influence without the very people who are in the places where that change in influence is most happening? That's why we were there to represent you and to give you a voice.

I do want to speak to you for a moment, if I may, because pastor and ministry leader, we believe that you're a lighthouse where you are. We believe in the church and we believe in its leaders. We know that the enemy has come against us pretty hard over the past few decades.

But while there are scandals and a lot of different credibility crises going on, we believe that there are the shining few like yourself out there that are trying to be Christ or shine the light of Christ into the darkness. And I want you to know that we understand the pressures and the pain points that you feel week in and week out.

We know what it's like to wake up on a Monday morning and feel depleted, exhausted, to not want to open that email or respond to that text and to wonder if we are doing any good at all whatsoever. We know that the political season is gearing up, and for many, we're already in the middle of it.

But we also know the toll that it can take on churches and especially pastors and ministry leaders. That's why we're here for you, to be a voice of reason and encouragement to help you where you are.

We want to bring you the best, brightest and most innovative voices that can help you find clarity. You carry a tremendous burden, and we want to help carry it with you. You're not alone.

You have so many criticisms and challenges before you, and we know that there are many cultural idolatries and powers of darkness at work trying to keep you down and keep you back and keep the gospel held hostage. We want to clear that away to remove those cultural idolatries that are keeping the gospel in check. Check.

And help you to thrive where you are so that you might accomplish the purpose for which God has called you. We believe in you and we hope that you believe in us.

And if you believe in that mission to be to help you be faithful and fruitful where you are, well then please consider partnering with us. Go online to ApolloSwatered.org and click the support us button.

Whether it's a monthly amount or a one time gift, anything helps because you are enabling other pastors and ministry leaders to hear the most important voices that need to be heard right now in this cultural moment so that you might have your faith watered and then water your world. I want to thank the Apollo's water team for helping us to water the world. This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollo's Watered.

Stay watered everybody.

And I'm on a roll.