Mark Tooley:
Hello! This is Mark Tooley, President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C., with the pleasure today of interviewing Patrick Schreiner, Professor of Biblical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, about his new book – and let me get the title correct – Political Gospel: Public Witness in a Politically Crazy World. So, a very timely topic. Thank you, Patrick, for joining this conversation.
Patrick Schreiner:
Thanks, Mark, good to be with you.
Mark Tooley:
So clearly, this book is about political theology. Why did you write it? And what does it say?
Patrick Schreiner:
Yeah. So, I’m more prone to write books on – I teach the Bible – a book like Matthew or Acts, and so, I’m not prone to write hot topic books like a book on politics, but I was watching what was going on in terms of American politics and the connection to the church, and so I teach the Bible, I’m very involved in my local church, and I was concerned with how Americans and Christian Americans were engaging with politics, and as I was reading the Scriptures, I realized, man, the Bible has a lot more to say about how we engage in the political realm, and even more than that, I make the argument that the Gospel and Christianity itself is a politic. And so, when you hear me say the Gospel or Christianity is a politic, I am not arguing necessarily that it’s partisan, nor that it gives us a certain form of government that we need to have, but rather, I’m, arguing that Jesus declared Himself to be a King, and He said He was installing the Kingdom,and He was crucified as the King, and Paul planted churches, and churches are body politics, they are new societies in the midst of another society. And so, the tendency for American Christians especially is to privatize our faith, to think it has nothing to say towards the public realm. But when I say the Gospel is political, I’m arguing that it’s a public reality that has implications for how we engage in the secular political realm. So, I’m really trying to reframe the conversation. And then the other thing I’d add to that, and I kind of mentioned this at the beginning, is just that when we think about the Bible and politics, you usually think of Romans 13, Paul says submit to the governing authorities, or you think of Mark 12, where Jesus says,“pay taxes to Caesar,” and I wanted to point out – I’m a New Testament scholar – that there’s a lot more political speech in the Bible than we probably realize. Jesus was interacting with the Roman Empire. Some of the speeches He gave actually challenge some of their ideology. Same thing with Paul. And so, Rome is really all over the New Testament, even though they’re not always named. And so, I just want to point out some of those things to our readers.
Mark Tooley:
And what are the specific problems or fads in American Christianity now, to which your book responds?
Patrick Schreiner:
Yeah. So, I mentioned one of them already. I am concerned with partisanship. That Christians so tightly align with maybe one political party, and they think that represents the Kingdom of God in full. It’s not wrong to have a political party that you feel more akin to. But when you begin thinking that fully aligns with your religious beliefs, I think we have some problems there. And then the other problem that I point out in my book is that we privatize our faith. That we think our faith has nothing to do with the public realm. And so, we have our personal religious beliefs, and then we have our public political stances, and the two never intermingle. And so, those are some of the problems that I identify, just in terms of the division that we’re seeing. The division is related to that partisanship or the privatizing of our faith. And I think there’s just another way to go about this, and that’s where I argue we need to go back to our true allegiance. We need to go back to our basic confession as Christians, and that is that Jesus is not just the King of your life. But Jesus is the King of kings, as the Scriptures put it, and by being the King of kings, that means he subordinates every human government. That doesn’t mean the government is bad. It just means they fall under his rule and reign. That’s very clear, actually, in Romans 13, as Paul begins speaking about the government, and same with Mark 12, when Jesus speaks about payingtaxes to Caesar, but give to God what belongs to God, and what belongs to God according to Jesus and the Jewish mindset is all things. And so, Caesar’s authority falls under God’s authority, not the other way around. And so, Jesus, that trap that’s set for him, in Mark 12, Jesus escapes the trap. He says, “No, the government’s okay for now, but ultimately God’s the authority.” And so, I’m returning to those key texts. But I’m also going to other texts and showing people there’s more in the Bible about politics as well.
Mark Tooley:
And obviously, as a professor of New Testament Theology at a Southern Baptist seminary, are you writing from a specifically Baptist perspective or a Protestant perspective or widely ecumenical?
Patrick Schreiner:
Yeah, I mean, I’m not a political theorist. I didn’t do political science, even in my Master’s work, I’m trained in doing New Testament scholarship. So that’s my main focus. However, I couldn’t escape being a Baptist and a Protestant, and so my political theology is very Baptistic in terms of, I believe, of separation of church and state. And I also believe that the government is given authority, and the Church is given a different authority. So, in Romans 13, it says the government has the authority of the sword, and in Matthew 16 it says, the Church has the authority of the keys of the kingdom, and I think those two authorities are distinct, and they’re separate, and that means the government shouldn’t be telling the Church what it should do, and the Church, in some sense, also needs to leave the government to their own purpose, in terms of what they’re called to do. And so, in that sense, I’m very Baptistic in my political theology. I’d also emphasize religious liberty, and the pluralistic nature of our society. Baptists, we’re very keen on that, because, you know, there were Protestants who were rejecting Roman Catholic doctrine, and they believe there need to be freedom for those things under a religion that was combined with the State. And so yeah, I am following Baptist principles. It’s woven throughout there, but it’s not explicit. It just comes at you. If you know the background you will see it in the book.
Mark Tooley:
Now much of this recent conversation perhaps emerged even since you completed the book. But a lot have talked about Christian Nationalism, and a renewed advocacy for perhaps even a confessional state and a government that has the power to suppress heresy and blasphemy, does your book touch on this controversy at all?
Patrick Schreiner:
It does a little bit. Yeah. As a Baptist, I think a Christian nation is a confusion of categories,because 1 Peter 2 tells us that the holy nation is the Church. That doesn’t mean it’s tied to ethnicity, or even to geography. The Church, the ecclesia, is actually spread throughout all nations, and so I think it’s a confusion of categories to put geographical borders on Christianity. And so, I don’t think Christian Nationalism is the most helpful term. I know people define it in different ways, and I understand it’s a complicated discussion. But I do think it’s a bad move personally, and what I’m not saying, I do think Christianity has, and should continue to influence the nation. I do think that’s important, and I think people’s religious beliefs should be brought into the public square, and actually it’s necessary that they must be brought into the public square. But I do think that’s different than arguing that there should be a fusion of Christianity with American life, and that the Christian voice should be privileged, and that the Christian religion should be instituted by law. So, that’s where I go to Romans 13, Matthew 16, in terms of, there are different authorities that God has given the Church and the government, and those two should not overlap, although sometimes, as we saw during COVID, and we saw during other moral issues, sometimes it’s difficult to know how it should overlap, or when it should overlap, or what are we to do when it overlaps. So, the classic example is when the government told churches to stop meeting, right? Did the government have the authority to dothat was a big discussion in Baptist circles. Because the Scripture says we should meet as churches, but the government also has authority over public health, and I think that’s part of their ordained role. And so, there was a circumstance where the Scripture told Christians to do one thing, and the government told them to do another thing. But I actually think the government, in most instances, was still operating under their jurisdiction. And so, I think, Christians are called to obey the government in that instance, because they are called to promote public health.
Mark Tooley:
Do you believe that the clergy and the institutional Church have a vocation for addressing political specifics?
Patrick Schreiner:
Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah. One of my big arguments is that, in my tradition, there’s been a tendency towards what I call quietism, where, as I mentioned at the beginning, we make our faith purely privatistic. We make it a personal belief, but it’s not a public stance. But I think, as you go to the Scriptures, if you go to the New Testament, Jesus is very concerned about how society is going. He’s very concerned about the poor. He’s very concerned about the outcasts, and he’s very concerned about morality. And so, you go back to the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, Jr., he very much used Biblical principles to advocate for desegregation, and I think we should be speaking into the public sphere in that sense. Now, it’s difficult, because, obviously, asyou know, politics is very divisive amongst people. We see that in the Church, and so I encourage pastors and leaders to speak very clearly where the Scriptures speak clearly and to recognize where things get more complicated, because it’s very easy to take one Biblical verse and smash the rest of them and say, “this is what the Bible calls us to do,” and it’s way more complicated than that. And so, part of my book is not to answer policy questions, not to answer immigration questions, not to answer economic questions. I feel that I don’t have the expertise for those things. I appreciate ethicists and people who know those issues better than I do who can inform me. But I think Christians especially might have a tendency to speak more strongly than we know on some of these issues that are more complicated than we might realize. And so,let’s speak really clearly where the Bible speaks clearly about caring for the poor, about not murdering children, about ethnic harmony, so forth and so on. But then, how do those things play out in each nation? That becomes more complicated,
Mark Tooley:
And you spoke of the dangers of combining Christianity with partisanship. Is it not possible that some Christians, as individuals, are called to specific partisan engagement? Not all Christians necessarily, but some are, and will come down to different conclusions in their partisan engagements?
Patrick Schreiner:
That’s certainly right, Mark. And as I said, I’m not saying that all partisanship is necessarily bad. It’s when it comes becomes a totalizing, “this is the party that represents me in every single way.” I don’t think either party is going to ultimately represent for a Christian, the Kingdom of God. And so, throughout the book I actually point out that there’s two calls for Christians in terms of actions that we are to take towards the government. One is to submit to them, and so to follow what they’re doing because they’re providing good and order and peace and justice insociety. If a government is functioning properly. If that is what they are doing, we are to submit to them and support that as Christians. But when the government stops doing that, when they start promoting injustice, when they stop punishing the evil, or start punishing the good, as the opposite of what Romans 13 says, then we’re called to subvert. So, there’s two different commands: submit and subvert. And my concern with partisanship is that sometimes we put our blinders on. And because this party represents a lot of our values, we think it represents all of our values. I just don’t think that’s always the case, that one party is going to represent all of our values. So, there’s always going to be time within a political party, it’s not wrong to be tied to a political party, but there’s always going to be times where you say, “you know what, I’m a Republican, or I’m a Democrat. But I don’t follow all Republicans or Democrats on this issue, because I have a higher morality that I follow.” And as I’m watching the different partiesbecome more extreme, Christians are finding themselves more and more in that place that they’re realizing, “there’s a lot of things I can align with this party on or that party on. But there’s some things that I would really disagree with this party on.” And so, the question becomes, whatdo you do in that instance? Do you leave that party? Well, maybe not always, maybe not always. Sometimes you stay with it because it’s closest to where you find yourself at the moment. But as I’m looking at people who are in the church, it seems like, cable news especially, and some of the talk show hosts and podcasts, are kind of whipping us into a fervor to say, if you go against this party, you’re going against God’s commands and God’s will, and I think that’s going a little too far.
Mark Tooley:
Are there any particular thinkers, theologians, ethicists, historically or contemporary, who have been especially influential in your thinking?
Patrick Schreiner:
Augustine, The City of God was hugely helpful for me. So, I went back and read through all of that. Other people that I’ve read, I’m trying to think, I wrote this book a little while ago. Jonathan Leeman is a Baptist political theorist that I’ve read that I found really helpful. And then one of the things I did which I think was unique to my book is I read a lot about the Roman Empire, and its practices around the first century. And so, reading some of the early primary sources from historians about the Roman Empire, and seeing how Jesus interacted with the Roman Empire. So let me just give you one example. I know we don’t have a lot of time. But one example that I didn’t know about until I start reading was, in Jesus’s baptism, the dove comes upon Jesus in his baptism, and it’s labeled as the Holy Spirit. What I didn’t know, and maybe I should have known this, but in Roman times they practiced augury, in which they watched the flight of the birds. It’s actually where we get our term inauguration. It’s why we have an eagle on the back of our quarter dollar in America. But they watched the flight of the birds, so, as Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they both had the flight of the birds connected to them. But Romulus saw twice the number of birds, and so, therefore he was selected as the first king, who ended up becoming a Caesar of Rome. And as you look through the history, you see, they watched the flight of eagles especially to decide who was the king, because the flight of birds was an indication that the gods were selecting this person. So lay that on top of Jesus’s baptism. I think the most simple way to interpret Jesus’ baptism is the flight of the dove is indicating his Kingship. But what sort of Kingship? Well, if they were watching the flight of the eagles in Rome. And suddenly the flight of the dove lands upon Jesus, what is that indicating? Well, a new King has come. But the way that He enacts His Kingship is by peace, it’s by sacrifice and peace, not by the conquering eagle. And so, there’s an example where I thought, “Wow! I’ve never thought about the Greco-Roman tradition and how that interacts with Jesus’s baptism and the flight of the dove.”
Mark Tooley:
Hmm. Very interesting. I had not thought of that, either. Would you insist that all Christians have a responsibility as citizens of their society to be at least somewhat politically engaged? Or could some claim a rightful vocation to abstinence, and simply declare, “that’s not my calling”?
Patrick Schreiner:
Oh, that’s a great question. Maybe I’ll answer it this way. What I say in the book is that the most politically active thing you can do as a Christian is to be a part of your local church, because I’m trying to reframe that political conversation, saying, when we go before the congregation, and we hear the Word preach, and we take up the sacraments, and we pray to our Sovereign, those are the most political acts we can do each week, because we’re actually reminding ourselves of our true allegiance. And so, in one sense, my answer to you is, we’re all political beings, and we can’t not be political beings, because being a political creature is to be a public creature, we’re all public creatures in some sense, so we really can’t divorce ourselves from being public creatures. But I think your question is probably more specific in terms of how do we relate to secular politics? I can only answer that as a Christian, I think Christians are called to love their neighbors. Jesus’ two greatest commands are love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. I think being involved in secular politics is a way for us to love our neighbor. Now people will do that in different forms. I’m not saying everyone has to be a servant of the government or serve in a capacity that takes up a lot of their life. But I do think we should be involved in some ways, because we care for humanity and politics is about the organization and governance of a people, and it’s supposed to bring flourishing and peace and happiness to the citizens of that country and to the world. And as Christians who care about people being made in the image of God, we should care about those things. And that’s even a word to myself. I think I could be more politically engaged in different ways, and I think other Christians could be as well. And I know that sounds crazy, because probably people think “oh, Christians are way too politically engaged. We want to get them out of this.” But if we reframe it around, we care about humanity, I think we do want to be politically engaged. And Iwould start at the local level. A lot of people think, “Well, that means I need to vote.” Well, what about your neighborhood? What about your community? You can start very locally.
Mark Tooley:
Patrick Schreiner, professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, and author of Political Gospel: Public Witness in a Politically Crazy World. Thank you so much for a very interesting conversation.
Patrick Schreiner:
Thanks Mark, for having me. Fun talking to you.
