Mark and Rex have a candid conversation about the shocking mixture of Christian nationalism, white supremacy, and political extremism seen during the January 6th riot at the US Capitol. The event caused them to reflect on how Jesus approached topics of faith and politics.

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

Welcome to Jessup think I'm your host Mark Moore, and your co host Rex Gurney. And Rex on the show today, we're just gonna have a candid conversation about faith and politics. It's It's such a supercharged topic right now. But I think in a very bipartisan way we can really examine, what does it mean to be a Christian? And and intermix faith in politics?

0:34

All right, Rex, I know we we kind of talked about this show, and we both talked about maybe approaching him with fear and trepidation. I think we've we've done that with other shows. But we, but we both felt that it was really important for us to, for one, just kind of reflect on what's been happening in the United States, right? politically, and, and that includes the conversation of faith. And we were, I think, really blessed to have jemar tisby back on the show. And we recorded that show a day after January 6, we recorded that show on January 7, so we got to kind of hear him reflect on that. And, and that really, was thought provoking for me. And I think it just opened up for us a way to have a conversation about faith and politics right now in America, especially in light of January 6,

1:29

well, as we mentioned before, when we were, you know, kind of scoping out the tone we were going to take on this podcast, and yeah, thinking about places to go and places not to go and, you know, but you know it, this is just one of those moments that that you have to confront it or talk about it or think about it, because the The situation has almost forced a reflection and a conversation. Yeah. You know, and is has not just, you know, professors at a Christian institution that, you know, are professional and academic lives kind of cohere around some of these questions. But yeah, just as Christians, this is, this is an important thing to talk about, and a necessary thing to talk about, in light of recent events have kind of, you know, brought it to a head, but this is a rise. This is something that didn't start yesterday. Yeah, that's true. So it's a worthy topic of conversation.

2:32

Yeah, it really is. And, and our hope today is that we can do this in a bipartisan manner, that this is not going to be picking one party or one group and, and, and looking at them or shaming them or anything like that. It's really just having this conversation because because politics are a really important part of our lives and important part of our nation. And as we engage in politics, we can't help but bring our faith into politics.

3:04

Right. Right. And it's interesting, because I'll ask this question. Because in a class I teach and Christian perspective, we do, you know, do a week about faith and politics, because it's such a constituent part of our of our of our lives. And it's interesting, I've seen this now for a number of election cycles. That, you know, there's always a section of our students that are engaged, and you know, that they're here for that, I think, yeah, yeah. selves in one way or another is kind of culture warriors. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. And you know, this would be one of the places to go if one wanted to become a better one. Yeah, but I've also noticed more and more students just being totally apathetic. You mentioned the word politics, and they just don't even want to engage it at all. And write interesting that. And this is coming from folks that are maybe on, you know, marginal, the margins of the Christian community, but it's also people that are dedicated Jesus followers, they just don't want to have anything to do with it because they feel it's so divisive. Yeah. But you know, you can't I mean, you it's unavoidable, you can't you can't