Unpacking Romans 13 with Chris Nye | Episode 278

Church and Maine, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. So, I want to start today by reading some scripture because this is a religious podcast after all. So, here it goes. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God." So, that's Romans 13, 1, where Paul writes to the church in Rome on how Christians are to live with governing authorities. Now, in some cases, this passage makes sense. Of course, you do want to respect the governing authorities. But what does this passage mean when the government is less than ideal? Even Paul was writing this to a church that was living in a very challenging environment. So why did he write it? During the ice surge here in the Twin Cities earlier this year, I actually remember hearing this passage shared on social media, basically saying that Minnesota and how Minnesotans should deal with federal agents. But in watching how immigrants and citizens alike were treated, especially the fact that two American citizens were killed by the U.S. Government, it just didn't make sense to just allow the government to do whatever it pleased. And this passage has been used to justify abuses by governments, telling people that they must respect the government. But what if the government is doing wrong? What if the government is sinful? About a month ago, I saw an Instagram reel by a pastor in Portland, and he took a good look at this passage, and how it's been misused, and I decided I wanted to talk to him about this passage and how to best understand it. So the person who made that reel is Chris Nye. He is the lead pastor of Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon, and his writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Christianity Today, and other publications. He is an author of three books, the latest being A Captive Mind, Christianity's Relationship to Ideologies. Chris is currently a doctoral student at Duke University Seminary and lives in Portland with his wife, Allie, and two kids. With all of that out of the way, join me as I discuss Romans 13 with Chris Nye. Well, Chris, thank you for joining me today. And I wanted to start off by knowing a little bit about you, kind of your spiritual background and history. Yeah, for sure. Thanks so much, Dennis, for having me on. And I am born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and I was not raised in a Christian home. I was raised in Catholic education. And so some of my first moments of knowing the cross, for example, was in Catholic architecture and then in catechesis, just in Catholic education. I never had any ill will towards religion. My family was mostly secular, but my mom actually started to come to faith, come back to her faith that she was raised in, that she had kind of walked away from. But a big part of my story growing up in Portland is Portland is a very unchurched city. There's not a lot of churches. And so when she was invited to church, as she was coming back to her faith in the 90s, It was about 25 minutes south in the suburbs to like an evangelical megachurch that she ended up kind of bringing us out to. And that was where I first really heard the gospel. And that was for all the ways that maybe those words evangelical megachurch may have a lot of baggage. This community was a really blessed community that taught me the gospel, showed me the gospel, preached the gospel, lived the gospel, and then ultimately commissioned me in the gospel. It was the first place that I was really sent as a Bible study leader and an intern and a pastor. And so a really just healthy place with wonderful people. That season afterwards, I met my wife, and we've been married for 15 years. We have two kids, a six- and a two-year-old. And we've been mostly in the Portland area serving in ministry. My wife is in the medical field and serves in hospitals. Um and uh other than that we've been in the we went to the bay area for about six years but have returned to portland in the last few years i lead a church called imago de community, and um we are right in the central east side of portland and so we're an urban church uh in a in a pretty um beautiful city and environment with a lot of socioeconomic diversity you've got kind of the high-rise condos with homeless encampments and everything in between. And our church is about 25 years old, a non-denominational community, and we exist, we say, to take the whole gospel to the whole person to the whole world. And so that's what I get up to every day and get to serve this beautiful congregation of folks in Portland. So, one of the reasons and the main reason I wanted to have you on the podcast, and that's kind of shifted and changed, but it's something I saw you do on Instagram Reels, and it was to talk about Romans 13. Yeah. And specifically, I believe it's verses 1 and 2. And those kind of – it's interesting that that passage seems to wax and wane. There were periods a few years ago where that was talked about by especially people in the administration, Trump administration, the first Trump administration. And now it's kind of come back. And you kind of had an interesting take on what that verse means. And I think in a way that is not so... I don't know if I want to say literal, but not just taking it in some ways, literally taking it out of context. Can you kind of explain a little bit about the genesis of that video? Yes. Well, we were talking before we hit record here with you in Minneapolis, myself in Portland. I think these texts are on our people's minds if they know their Bibles because they have been, like you said, lifted out of context, maybe thrown across the political aisle. And this isn't the first time to have it happen, but this verse, and I've got it open right here, Romans 13.1, my translation says, let everyone be subject to governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. And And consequently, it goes on in verse 2, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted. Now, that maybe has been heard in a context like St. Paul or Minneapolis and Portland as any sign of protest, any sign of resistance to the government, any sign of disobedience. You know they'll quote this verse and they'll say well look at consequently if you rebel against the authorities you rebel against god himself and it's always used in a way that is um. That I believe is trying to subjugate a group of people, you know, and this is true in American history with a lot of Bible verses. This is just the one that I think has struck, I'll speak from the Portland context. We are a more progressive city. Now our state is more politically diverse. People don't often understand, like we have population hubs that really drive our blue stateness, but we really have a lot of conservative folks around. But in that environment, I think with the federal government being in a more conservative season, looking at progressive cities and kind of wielding this verse as a way to say, yeah, this is what the Bible says, and obedience to the authorities means obedience to God. So the genesis of that video was twofold. One, my people, I know they were wrestling with that text because they were posting about it or they were kind of posting things about it or talking to me about it. The second reason, though, is kind of providential. I don't know if I even mentioned this in the reel that I posted, but we were teaching through 1 Peter. And that's the other passage that people often quote is actually 1 Peter 3 that says, submit yourselves to all governing authorities. And so you have this dual apostolic command to be submissive to governing authorities. I just so happen, and I say just so happen tongue in cheek, I think in God's providence. First Peter chapter, end of chapter two, beginning of chapter three, where you see these submission passages come up. That was my teaching text the day after Alex Peretti was shot in your city. And I really, you know, another passion of mine as a preacher is to never or rarely shift the teaching text based off of current events. However, sometimes God providentially places you in a teaching text that your people are ready to hear with a different ear because of current events or because of something that's happened in their cities. Just like because of something, something could happen in somebody's life. You know, you could do a sermon on suffering and two days before somebody got a diagnosis for with breast cancer or something like that. Well with this i felt a responsibility to actually lean really heavily into this um because i think the question my people were asking was does this mean what i think it means does this mean when i see somebody shot uh in a city street by a federal agent uh does this mean i i can't resist that the does this mean that i i have to stay back so that was kind of the genesis of it. It seems that i don't know i'm always wondering if there's a bit of a well there is a bit of a selective nature when people bring that verse up to say you have to submit because obviously governments don't always stay the same they change yeah in a democracy so would they say the same thing if it were a different government, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't. And so it feels like they're kind of putting... A religious kind of skirt or kind of cover over their own partisan viewpoints. Yes. And I think, like I said, being in Portland, where the general political climate is more progressive. This is something a certain, I don't know what you think about this. I think politics come a lot more from temperament than we think in the sense of like, maybe the more people who are more in the temperate state or emotional kind of psychological state of strength, for example, they tend to be more conservative because those politicians exert that temperament, strength and law and order and control and things like that. They're drawn to that. They're drawn to that. And so this text, I have noticed, it does maybe depend on the side that has power. However, this is one of those texts that has the temperament of strength. And so it's kind of saying, well, submit yourselves to these governing authorities because the governing authorities are strong. But kind of what I started to bring up in that reel was the first thing we should notice about this is that that these were both sent by um you know paul the apostle and peter the apostle who would suffer greatly under persecution of rulership because they did not do what the rulers asked them to do all the time you know they they so so the very authorship should give us a window into going, okay. They didn't take this as woodenly as we're preaching it. And why do you think that people actually don't expect that people should take it so woodenly? Because, you know, again, if we're thinking about this, and not everyone knows, but some people know that what were kind of the fates of both Peter and Paul, that this... By the hands of the state, that this is not, you know, that you have to kind of take this, not with a grain of salt, but at least understanding what is being said here, and not just to kind of take it so rigidly. Yeah, I think people really are drawn to clear scriptures, because there's so many scriptures that are hard to understand. The parables of Jesus, for example. Even I would say many of the teachings of Jesus, I've been reflecting recently how I think the dominant response of his disciples was not acceptance of his teaching. I think the dominant response was honestly confusion. I don't even think it was outright rejection. I don't think it was outright acceptance. The dominant response of his disciples was confusion. So when we get to verses like this one, and I'll read it again, let everyone be subject to governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established. Paul has some verses that have this ringing clarity that people are drawn to because it says, okay, I can do that, or I can believe that. There's moments in Jesus' teaching that are like that, that we don't want to hear, but you cannot serve God and money. You'll either hate one or despise one and love the other. Those are these moments of biblical clarity that we're kind of longing for because, many of the texts are very confusing. I think what I was trying to emphasize in the reel that I posted was reading this by the authorship, which I just mentioned, but then reading it also in the sweeping context of Romans and 1 Peter, which is actually pretty similar. And I don't know if you want me to go into that. I'm happy to. Yeah. Yeah. So with Romans, and we'll take Romans and 1 Peter 2 because I think they actually both, it's interesting, map on to this contextual note that I was trying to bring out. The first contextual note from both 1 Peter and Romans is that these are letters. And we cannot emphasize enough that Paul did not have chapters. Paul did not have verses. Paul did not have pages. Paul had a scroll. He meant this to be read in one sweeping reading, which Phoebe, who was the letter carrier that we read about in Romans 15 and 16, this woman would have brought this from Paul's, wherever he wrote this, which is debated, into this community of Rome, and she would have read it out loud in one reading. And they probably then would have read it again. And then she probably would have even extrapolated on it, or you might say preached on it. You know, exposit the passage, you know. And so this woman, imagine this woman reading, and I once heard the scholar Scott McKnight say that he believes the document of Romans was first read to about 60 people in a crammed house. Isn't that amazing to think about the majesty of this book, like the utter power of Romans? Think about Romans 8. I mean, think about Romans 1, the Romans 5 like these are some of the greatest religious texts in all of history let alone the best biblical text um to be read to a small group of people who would have heard it in one sitting okay same with first Peter now first Peter was a cyclical letter that was going to the, Asiatic diasporate but like this would have been a letter it's much shorter definitely would have been read in one fell swoop okay now why do I bring that up I I try to balance the historical critical stuff with a more typological argument, but I would say with the historical critical stuff, that matters in the sense of saying, we need to read this all together. Now the more maybe typological reading, meaning like more of a patristic reading of these texts would be the other note I would give, which is not just the context of the whole letter, but to understand the theological context of saying these are both Peter and Paul are Jews and they are appealing to a either Jewish conversion group or a Gentile conversion group and trying to thread them into the story of God with this rich theology. Which when you think about it, goes way back to the way that the people of Israel have related with government, that the way the people of Israel have struggled with power and becoming powerful and being in exile. And you have to take all of that theological context into consideration when you're reading this work. These are Jewish converts teaching about the way of Jesus Christ. And so within Romans 13 and in 1 Peter 2 and 3, there are two important things with both of those, kind of the more historical and the more theological. The more historical is looking at the higher law of God that's written within this text, the higher law of God. The two things are the higher law of God and the higher judgment of God. The higher law of God is a little bit more historical, but it's also theological. In Romans 13, for example, you've got this phrase that I've now read two or three times, let everyone be subject to governing authorities. The very chapter before is Romans 12, which is a hinge point in Romans, right? He goes through all this theology through 11 chapters. And then in 12 verse 1, he's got that famous line of saying, you know, do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And then for, gosh, I'm looking at the text right now, 21 verses, he's going through some of the great moral teaching of the way of Jesus Christ, which is rooted in Leviticus. Things like, I'll just read a few of them. Your love must be without hypocrisy to hate what is evil. This is Romans 12, 9. And to cling to what is good. Be devoted in honor and love with one another. He starts to kind of practice hospitality, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Sounds very Sermon on the Mount, doesn't it? Sounds very Leviticus, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, some Deuteronomy 6 kind of stuff. He's appealing to this. That is the standard by which our mind is renewed and we offer our bodies as sacrifices to God. The higher law of God 1 Peter does the exact same thing when he walks through becoming a holy priesthood and a holy nation that's in 1 Peter 1 and 2 I say all the time a great argument against the absurdity of Christian nationalism is to simply say God already has a holy nation it's called his church he has made that holy nation his church and he doesn't need a political entity because he is the political entity in the kingdom and he's working his way through the church. Now, how will those citizens of that kingdom operate? They will always operate on the higher law of God. And so when the lower law of the world, the governing authority that only has its authority because of God is, When that authority does not operate under the higher law of God, the Christian has every right and reason to resist and to remove themselves from practices of such government or to actively, non-violently, I would add. Resist the governments of evil through the ways of love. Love must be without hypocrisy, hate to what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another, never be lacking in zeal, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. These are all things Christians can do in any political climate, including the Roman climate that Paul was preaching to. And so we today need to think about the higher law of God. So when we see the cruelty with which any government would be acting, we will not, as citizens of the kingdom, because we're primary citizens of the kingdom, secondary citizens of America, we will resist and not participate in anything that offends God's higher law that's operating through his holy nation, which is the church. And so there will be many times in multiple nations where Christians will have to navigate that. The second thing, though, is why do we do that? Because some people would say, well, isn't that just rolling over? Isn't that just, you know, yeah, is that some kind of like, you know, liberal soft way of kind of showing that the way of Jesus is just about kind of non-violently, you know, resisting? Well, the second piece is very, very important. This is the more theological, eschatological reading, which is the higher judgment of God, which Paul says that later in chapter 13. He talks about the day being near. This is chapter 13 after he says, submit to governments. So I just did the previous context. Now, if you kept reading and did 13 verse 11, he says, and do this understanding the present time. The hour has already come because our salvation is nearer than we think. So let us put aside deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light because he warns us, Jesus Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead the way that we confess in the creeds. So one of the reasons the Christian operates under the higher law, submits themselves to the higher law, is because we believe there's a higher judgment coming. We do not have to be the arbiters of justice in the world. We believe that one day God will come to judge the living and the dead. 1 Peter is full of references to the second coming of Christ for people to put their hope in the fact that Jesus will return again. I think speaking from an evangelical non-denominational context, something my people I think struggle with is a healthy relationship with the confession that Jesus Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. There's been a lot of wreckage on that theology. I didn't grow up in it, but my people feel that. I grew up in the more Catholic space. And I think we are... Right now, in our political moment, I think people need to hear that Jesus Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, and that we wait for that. The church has always called it a blessed hope. Why have we called it a blessed hope? Because it's truly good news to have a higher authority come into the lower subjugated authorities. You know, the rulers, it says, do not have any authority other than what God has given them. And so I think there's a beautiful invitation for the Christian to live in the way of love, resisting any time the government participates with disobedience to the higher law of God, trusting that God will come and judge. And here's the big kicker. He's not going to judge based off the Constitution. He's not going to judge based off of the Bill of Rights, as great as those documents have served us. How will Jesus Christ judge the living and the dead? Through his law, through his higher law. And so he won't come in and say who's on the right side of history. He won't come in and say who's on the right side of the political aisle. He won't say who's interpreted the Constitution correctly. You know, Jesus Christ comes to judge based off of his law. And here's the other very important piece, also based off of his mercy. He judges with perfect justice of mercy and judgment. And he is able, the only one able and trustworthy to hold proper judgment over the world. And so the Christian does not posture themselves as being on the right side of even eschatology. That's, I think, the dangerous thing Christians do is they say, well, we will be the frozen chosen. and we will be the ones who are able to be in the throne room of God. I actually think the Christian posture is not positioning ourselves under the judgment of God and saying, God, I've done the right things. I really think the Christian comes under God's loving judgment and says the sinner's prayer, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And that prayer is salvation because it is the access to the merciful judgment of God, that God will have mercy on those who plead for mercy. He always has. He always will. We shouldn't expect anything else. So would you argue like Roman 13 is those two verses especially are how Christians should act, not in kind of a way that dismisses a government, but also not in a way that is unquestioning of a government? Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, because I think that's a really helpful distinction. I haven't thought about that exactly. I think you're right. I think when we say submit, by the way, this is an important maybe Greek note. The word is hupotasio, which means to place yourself under. So um and submission is a it's actually like the life of the gospel like it's just we submit ourselves unto christ he is our lord because of that we actually paul will say in ephesians 5 21 submit uh yourselves to one another out of reverence for christ before he gets into the marriage passage the passage is that the whole community of christians is actually to submit to one another. Like you and I are in Christian community and I'm constantly supposed to be placing my life under your life to say, how can I serve you? And so the entire posture of the Christian is submission. Now I say, I think your distinction is really important because you're not. The life of service is not a life of, I agree with you, and then I'll submit my life to you, or we're in alignment, and then I'll serve you. My goodness, the life of Jesus Christ would really repudiate that in about a second, right? Who did Jesus give a morsel of bread to and give him a holy kiss before he was betrayed? He gave it to Judas. Who did Jesus Christ wash the feet of? He washed the feet of Peter, the disciple who would betray him, not just John, the beloved disciple who would stay with him. And so for us, we actually are allowed to live in submission to governing authorities and understand that we do not agree. Let me give you an extreme example that might actually help us a little bit. Our brothers and sisters in the global church have a lot to speak to us about what it means to submit to governments. And particularly, I've been deeply influenced by the house church movement in China and a leader by the name of Wang Yi. He wrote a treatise that has turned into a book called Faithful Disobedience. And I love that term. What is faithful disobedience like? Well, again, this is an extreme climate where the Christian citizens of the Chinese Republic do not have the rights that many Americans have, nor do they agree that that's the best way to govern. I mean, there's a line by another Chinese leader named Jin Chiangming who says, we of course want the freedom of the Chinese churches. He's like, of course we want the freedom of the Chinese churches. But he makes an amazing distinction. He says, the freedom, though, must come through the way of the cross. Meaning, his point is, we are not going to politicize and power struggle our way to freedom. In other words, they're not interested in gaining political power. Because the whole thing about the empire is you resist it. Well, you resist it to what end? Some people want to resist it to the end of becoming in power, but then you just become the very empire that you've been resisting. And you end up just playing the same political game. You become the empire you were once resisting. And the Chinese church says, we're not going to become the new governing authorities of China because we already have a governing authority. His name is Jesus Christ. He's enthroned forever, and his kingdom will outlast any kingdom. So the way the Chinese church desires freedom for the house church movement is faithful disobedience. And what that means is they are going to continue to be theologically rich and bold. They have a robust, even Augustinian vision of what the church is within politics. They will not compromise their vision of the church, and that will mean that Intense persecution. Wang Yi has been in prison for the last eight years. And back in January, a recent run of persecution also imprisoned more elders from the early reign covenant church, which is in China. Yeah. These Christians are very aware of what submission to local governments looks like in the extreme. Because here's what you'd say. Are the Chinese churches resisting the government? They are. How are they doing that? Through submitting to the government, through suffering and persecution by way of the cross. Now, this is something I think American Christians almost have no category for. And I would say most American Christians not only have no category for it. I mean, if I'm frank, I don't know if we have the stomach for it. I don't know if we have the courage to lay our life down for the sake of the gospel. And so we have all these conversations on the political level of fascism and totalitarianism. And depending on who's in power. The progressives right now are saying that Trump is this totalitarian leader. But you know what the conservatives were saying just a little bit ago. They were calling Kamala Harris a fascist and that this new global order was going to be totalitarian. Okay, but lost in that conversation in the church because we're so busy arguing on the political ideological level is the question, well, is the church prepared to live under this? Let's just grant you that the totalitarian government is coming, whether it's left or right. The church is not asking, do we have the ability to live within a totalitarian? Do we have the theological strength the way our brothers and sisters in China do? Because they're speaking a prophetic word over the shores of America to us to say, would we say the same thing? Which is, like I said, what Jin Chiang Ming says, we want freedom in this country. We want the freedom of the Chinese church, but we refuse to achieve freedom through political lever pulling. We're going to get freedom, but the freedom we're going to get is going to be through the way of the cross. And through the way of the cross is through submitting to local governments to the end of our life, to the end of our life. And we'll let the way of the sword meet the way of the cross and watch who wins in the new creation. You know, watch the victory. It may mean we lose our lives. I mean, that level of boldness, and this is happening across the world. The church in Iran has faced this, the church in the Sudan, the church in Saudi Arabia, the church in the Democratic Republic of Congo. You could go on and on about the ways that the global church is witnessing this. Guess what? It's the same way the historical church has witnessed this. But we sit in this privileged kind of democratic society where we have this inability to imagine that God could work in any other way other than through pulling the political levers. Like we think the only way God is going to work is if we make a Christian nation or the only way we can make God's will could be done is if a progressive politician comes in and ends up disseminating the Sermon on the Mount through our political means. Lost in all of this is that the higher law of God can be obeyed. In Nazi Germany, in communist China, and here in America. Here's the sad reality of the state of my heart and the state of the hearts of our people. We don't want to do that. I mean, we want to vote and have the person we voted for figure this out. But we don't want to take in the person who's wounded on the side of the road and overdosing on fentanyl. We don't want to lend our clothing and our finances to other people. We don't want to get struck on the cheek and turn the other cheek. We don't want to feel the blessing of persecution. These are all the things Jesus kicks the door wide open to that the historic and global church has done. We are no strangers to it, But Americans are. Americans are strangers to this activity. And I'll say that even preaching this, you upset, you kind of upset everybody. It reminds me, I was in China when I was in seminary in the late 90s, and a part of China that we went to was near Burma, and we visited different churches in that area. Yeah. What I'm reminded of is that we had to visit these churches, and this was kind of away from maybe about an hour from the big city of Kunming, is we had to do it with government minders with us. Yeah. And I've always been mindful of that, that these people, and these people wanted to worship. And it was fascinating to see how they worshipped in this society where they didn't have religious freedom. The government could just swoop in and do it and be bold in the face of their government. And it wasn't necessarily a, like they were, you know, it was kind of that interesting kind of maybe like velvet glove, but y'all knew that the government was there and yet they still had that witness. And so, I've always been mindful of that. And when you talk about the fact that Americans don't understand that, I think you're correct. We don't. We don't know what that looks like to be able to worship freely. And it wasn't in a way that they were, quote-unquote. I think it was faithful disobedience, that they were faithful, but just by doing what they were doing, they could be a threat to the government. And that is the kind of imagination only the gospel of Jesus Christ can grant, which is how can suffering and persecution end up bringing about life? How can death bring out life? That is essentially what we're asking. And only in cross and resurrection, and I would even argue not just cross and resurrection, cross, Holy Saturday, Resurrection Sunday, and Ascension Day, this theological story is what gives us the courage to... To, to, to believe it, that, and the communion of the saints who we're all mentioning, you know, we're mentioning Christians in Burma or mentioning Christians in China or Christians across history who have endured incredible violence. And we know that the, the very blood of these martyrs, um, has been the seeds of the church. It has been what gives life. And, and it is to me, one of the greatest testimonies that Jesus Christ is up from the grave and he's not dead and that we're not, you know, you know, my friend Jason Michelli, who would say the church does not carry on the movement of a dead Jesus. You know, the church exists under a living Lord who speaks, who acts, who works, who animates through his Holy Spirit, the life of the church. And for me, one of the great apologetics of our day is the global church. You know, if I want to tell people that cross and resurrection are not just stories that inspire us to live a better life. They're actual animating theological power from our creator. Jesus is actually up from the grave. He's actually alive. He's actually doing stuff. And what is he doing? He's doing tremendous works of courage and power across our world and um and that you know um that big book by tom holland dominion is is a is a masterpiece because it tells kind of the story of the way that christianity defeated rome and um. I've reflected, I've been to Rome one time and the Mamertine prison is across from the Colosseum, which is a prison that has been kind of made a tourist attraction to say this is potentially where Paul ended, his life ended in this prison. Now that's highly contested. However, put yourself in that position. Now, the Mamertine prison has this dungeon where you can see what Paul would have been under. And you could just Google Mamertine prison and there's a little altar down there and a beautiful shrine. But you can walk out of the Mamertine prison and see the Colosseum. So you can kind of see, all right, this is Rome. Like, this is the powers of Rome. And you could kind of think, you know, I was struck when I was there thinking about this man chained, you know, to a wall. And let's put Paul there just for the sake of this illustration. And let's put Caesar and the powers of Caesar and the mayoral governing state nation office and Colosseum power, you know, feeding Christians to the lions, right? If I'm a guard guarding that cell with Paul chained to it, and he's writing 2 Timothy, his last letter, which at the very end he says, the word of God is not bound. Remember my chains, but the word of God is not bound. If I'm that Roman guard, I'm going, okay, but you are bound, dude. And your life is ticking away. I mean, there is no world in which you would imagine that that man chained to that stall, dying of suffocation and hunger, is going to defeat that coliseum across the street. Like, this is insane. And yet, what Tom Holland does in that book is prove pretty dramatically that it did. You know, the word that he was speaking through his mouth and his letters that Christ has risen from the grave would ultimately not just outlast in the way that it would like carry on, like beyond the lifespan of Rome, but actually by its very mechanisms of death into resurrection would actually just defeat Christ. Rome. And that was seen in Augustine's lifetime. He was watching the sacking of Rome and going, whoa, is this over? Is this over? And if this is over, what does this mean for the gospel? And that's where City of God's birthed. So I think for us too, in America, there is a lot of talk not just about totalitarianism. There's a lot of talk about the end of the American empire or the end of the American story or the end of the American experiment or whatever. And Christians should have a humble posture to that. I don't think we should wish that to happen. However, don't you think we should have a kind of like, well, of course, I mean, we just have that Daniel prophecy of the statue and the various levels in Daniel's prophecy. And it's like, if he was talking about Assyrians and Persians and Romans and Greeks. We should not be surprised that down the line of history, America would just be another empire that That flexes its muscle, but ultimately could not withstand the strength of the gospel's power of bringing life from death. It's funny. My church follows the Revised Common Lectionary, and this coming weekend I'm getting ready to preach Lazarus, the blessing of Lazarus. And it's interesting. we don't you talked about earlier life coming from death and i think we are not here in america good at facing that or or understanding how god in in christ works and Christ works through weakness. But that weakness has the power to raise the dead. But I don't think we see that. I think we think that it has to come through. Power. And here, it's not always necessarily military power, but political power. And it's not to say that those things aren't necessary in a functioning society, but it isn't the only way. And for Christians, it at least shouldn't be the primary way. And I'm just also reminded by some things I've heard, some readings I've had read from Martin Luther King about the importance of the suffering Christ and how good comes out of the suffering, and that I think that in some ways we've forgotten. And so we kind of look, going back to what we originally talked about, the text in Romans, as thinking, well, that's the way that things work, And it's like, no, not really. It's hard because our democracy gives us, and this is why invoking Martin Luther King Jr. Is very wise in this conversation, because our democracy, I would put it maybe a little provocatively, our democracy gives us the illusion that we have control and power. It gives us this illusion where, well, if we get the voting bloc and the voting bloc gets the Senate and the House and the presidency, then, you know, justice will occur. And I think, you know. King like Bonhoeffer, right? Bonhoeffer had also, he was not imprisoned for his theological beliefs. He was imprisoned because he was incorporated in an espionage community that was part of his family, and he was imprisoned for political action. Now he had rich theological underpinnings as did martin luther king jr and i think what they both did was they had the theological imagination this might be more clear in bonhoeffer um and i just am more familiar with bonhoeffer but um the theological imagination that um though he committed to these things and he did not commit he was a very conflicted person bonhoeffer, He was, this is missed in a lot of the Bonhoeffer lore. He was not some bold, let's go kill Hitler. I mean, he was deeply conflicted, deeply conflicted. And I think there's something really Christian about that. You know, that's saying, to your point, we have this role to play in politics, but ultimately, the way of discipleship unto Jesus Christ, where we're crucifying the flesh, we're living out the Sermon on the Mount, that life has more, or I should say that dying, that's what that life, that life of discipleship, which is death, has more life in it than the animating features of political power. And in some ways, both of them. You know, who were killed, like, let's not forget that they were executed, both, you know, King assassinated and Bonhoeffer hung in the gallows of a concentration camp a mere two or three weeks before the troops of the Allied troops would have freed that concentration camp. And you look at them and you go. Did their political action, what gave more life to the world, their political action or their dying, their death? And that is a question that Christians should humbly kind of contemplate to say, does the way of the cross really produce life and power? And why are we still talking about Martin Luther King Jr.? And why are we still talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer? And why do I believe centuries from now, we will be talking more about Wang Yi than about the People's Republic of China? Because I believe that death is life, that the way of the cross is what produces resurrection. And as much as our governments are producing power and honestly soliciting us and captivating us, you know, they're taking our freedom because we think by political ideology and political activity will produce the life of the world. And I think there is life of the world to happen through political activity, but we have to have a larger imagination. And I think that the best examples are the people that work at that kind of political ends. I don't know if you're familiar with the civil rights leader, John Perkins. We just lost him. And I find him still, I think his life still speaking richly and deeply. And, you know, his whole conversion experience happened when he was imprisoned and beaten by white men outside Jackson, Mississippi. And his conversion story, you know, he was a Christian at the time, but he says he was reconverted in this prison cell after having been beaten when he realized that he hated the white people as much as the white people hated him, if not more. And his confession in his storytelling is he says he realizes he says I was a bigot and. I just am struck by how few, speaking as a white guy, how few white people have ever said that phrase. That is a gospel level humility that only, again, comes through cross and resurrection and the belief that when I confess my sin with my mouth, God can use that for a redemption that I have yet to understand. And Bonhoeffer was the same way. I mean, Bonhoeffer was wracked with tons of guilt and confliction about what would I do? You know, he had to sign a document. Like if I'm in the room with Hitler, I'll kill him. And he was a nonviolent pastor. You know, I mean, there is a humility, I guess, that way I'm saying that like God uses that humble place in our heart to unleash a good. We maybe think he could not unleash because we think we need the power, we need the pride, or we need the rights. We need our rights. And it's like, man, these folks I'm mentioning laid down their rights and laid down their lives for the sake of the gospel. And it was of great risk. And John Perkins was very fortunate to live till 95. He had many moments in his life where it was not looking like that. Death threats and all kinds of trouble and persecution and, um, a remarkable long life for that man. I have just a few more questions before we wrap up, but why do you think, especially here in America, we do, I think, in some ways, why do you think we don't trust the gospel? Because it seems like we feel like we have to trust the powers that be for whatever, but not in the power of the gospel. I mean, I'll just speak from my personal experience as one who regularly doesn't trust the gospel. I think I pretty much operate every day as if I control a large part of my life. And only in seasons of suffering that God has brought into my life has that been shattered. So there is a false sense of control, which is pride. And then I think there is, in America particularly, an anti-gospel of what life, happiness, contentment really looks like. And that happiness and contentment comes through manipulating circumstances that benefit us in avoiding suffering. And an avoidance of suffering and manipulating circumstances in our life keeps us really busy. I mean, I have two children. I don't want them to go through anything bad. I spend a lot of my life manipulating circumstances to make them feel good and have them have a good life. And that's not a bad thing at all. However, Jesus tells us in this life, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. You know, that's a remarkable verse that Christians, like we talk about the promises of God, you know, he'll never leave you or forsake you. You want to know one of his promises? In this world, you will have trouble, you know? And I think the avoidance of suffering and then, yeah, I think the way of the cross is the antithesis of the American dream, right? And so, I don't know, especially as someone who was not raised in a Christian environment necessarily, I think I was more formed by, yeah, American cultural ideals. And I even think about beyond what I'm talking about with power and pride and control is just a sense of identification, you know, that comes through. Presenting yourself and who you are and, you know, making your identity known and all that stuff, as opposed to I've been very influenced by Catholic thought in this way of like, of being a created being and have like our body being made by God. There's a really rich Catholic theology of the body. And like, I think it starts with just being a creature, just being a created being and how that places you in a position of dependency, humility, curiosity, because you're like now more curious about, okay, why did God make me? And how did God make me? And those kinds of things. And Americans are thinking that we get to create who we are. And so there's just a lot... And this is where I'll just flatly say, I've told my church this a lot, you do not live in a Christian nation. You don't live in a Christian country. I mean, you just don't. Because we don't live in a Christian world in that sense, in that theological sense. We live in a world where in the kingdom of God is breaking in to a world that Paul and Jesus would say is run by the prince of the power of the air. You know, this is Satan has a lot of Satan, sin and death have a lot of tyranny on this world. And so that's what repentance, the journey of repentance is. But it's a great question, one that I want to take with me and reflect on, too, is just, yeah, why do we not trust the gospel? And it makes me think about preaching, too. Your Lazarus text is beautiful because I just feel—don't you feel like this as a preacher? You're writing all these words down and trying to figure out how to say this, but at the end of the day, the preaching task is the Lazarus task. Like you're asking through this word that dead people would be, would come to life, myself included. And that's where you throw these prayers up as we preach every week, right? Where we just go, I am asking God alone to do this because I can't raise the dead. I can't bring people out of American ideological captivity. I mean, goodness, that we're wrapped up like Lazarus and stuck in the grave for days. We smell. Who can bring us out of this? Only Christ. And so that's, I think, maybe that's where that text is really speaking to me right now as you're thinking about it is... The beauty of the gospel, though, is that more hinges on God's activity than ours, right? And so my inability to trust the gospel is the problem that God has come to address. However, the way he will address it is through Lazarus come out, like his word calling upon our life. And so I think that is what, as I leave and contemplate that question, why do I not trust the gospel, is honestly this beautiful prerequisite into understanding what the gospel is, which is like it's not based on my ability to trust it every day, but it's on God's faithfulness to enact it upon my life. And as we walk through christian discipleship it is the slow submission to that process of god's word. Renewing and transforming and overtaking us um so that the love of christ you know paul says that famous verse the love of christ compels us the better translation is found in a few translations that say the love of christ controls us i i which i really it's stronger isn't it isn't that That's compel makes it sound like it's like inviting, but control makes it sound like it's owning us. And in many ways, that's what saints, the great ones, the great ones of the faith are the ones who are just controlled by the love of Christ. Now you have something that I have to think about over the next few days. This is good. This is the blessing of community, Dennis. It is. If people want to know more about you or kind of read up maybe past articles or things, where should they go? Well, I preach regularly at Imago Dei Community, which is spelled like the Latin, based off the word image of God. And so we're we've got podcasts and a website if you just put imago de community portland in there you'll you'll get that um i write a sub stack uh along with that that um i i am i'm trying to be regular at but i put a few of these kinds of thoughts out there and the sub stack is just c nye so just my name chris but just the letter c nye.substack.com and it's called cut for time And it's basically I'm always trying to preach shorter. So I just take things that don't fit in the sermons and try to put those out in the inbox. And so my sub stack is there. And then I am not on any social media, really. But the Instagram that you mentioned is my one portal out. However, during the time of Lent, I've decided to just lay low on that one. But you can look me up on Instagram, just my name, Chris Nye. All right. Chris, this was great. I hope to have you back on sometime soon to talk more. I love talking with you, so I'm down. Let's do it again. Okay, cool. I love good theological discussion, so this was great. Great. Thank you. Thank you. So, as usual, if you have questions or comments, and I would love to hear those questions or comments, feel free to send me an email at churchinmaine.substack.com. I'll include a link to Chris's website where you can learn more about him. Also, if you want to learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes, check us out at churchinmaine.org. You can also visit churchandmain.subsec.com to read related articles. I have one up there now that is about how God walks with small churches. Please consider subscribing to the podcast on your favorite podcast app and leave a rating or review. When you do that, that actually helps others find the podcast. There is a link if you want to make a donation, and so So, if you want to do that, please consider doing it. I would be very thankful if you did that. That is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. As I always like to say, thank you so much for listening. It really does mean a lot. Take care, everyone. Godspeed, and I'll see you next time.