Church & State - Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation with Alex Bernardo

Spokane Valley could become a sanctuary city of a different kind. Councilman Caleb Collier says that this proposal. I'm proposing that the city of Spokane Valley issue a proclamation stating that our city is a Second Amendment sanctuary. Welcome to the fire. Welcome to the fire. Today on the Caleb Collier Show, politics, economics, and a New Testament interpretation with Alex Bernardo. Hello, Christian Patriots, and welcome to the Caleb Collier Show of Church and State Media, where we drive morality and religion over tolerance and apathy. And I'm your host, Caleb Collier. Once again, your favorite far-right shock jock, and the show that talks about politics and religion. Jesus Christ is our referee, so it's always nice and clean. Real quick, let's go to the website, churchandstate.media. I want you to fill out this form for us. Number one, you're gonna get our newsletter, which I just sent out. Also, you're going to bypass a lot of censorship, and I personally call every single person who fills this out. So if you want to talk to me, there you go. Also, check out our most recent episodes, continuing to bring very interesting guests, topics that really aren't touched by a lot of the podcasts or the mainstream media that you're listening to. That's a great one. When the pastor is the problem, great conversation. Share that with friends, family, and neighbors. Also, check out our featured guest page. We've had a lot of really interesting people over the years that have joined us. scroll through that. There's a whole list where Chris is flashing it right now. And if a name tickles your fancy, click on it. It'll take you right to the episode. I also want you to do a little bit of shopping with us. There's some great affiliates that we have listed on the website. These are all companies that I use personally that help support the show. Use the promo code CHURCHANDSTATE with all of those. You'll get a discount for many of them. All of them help support us. And real quick, Hit the donate button for us, guys. We really do need your help to continue to stay on the air, to continue to grow. Already part of great networks like NRB TV, Prepper Broadcasting Network, Faith and Freedom Television, Your News, OBBM. I mean, there's a lot that have brought us on. We want to continue to grow. We're also getting that pitch to be nationally syndicated on AMFM Radio. All of that costs money, and we are brought to you by you. So please hit the donate button for us. Lastly, if you want to get a hold of us, churchandstate1776 at proton.me. With that, let's go ahead and bring on our guest. Now, I'm thrilled to bring to you Alex Bernardo. He holds a degree in biblical studies, has spent close to a decade in Christian ministry, and hosts the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. He is also the author of Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation. And I'm really looking forward to diving into this the Bible, the New Testament specifically, might have a lot of libertarian principles in it. Who would have thought? Alex, thanks for joining us. Hey, thank you so much for having me today, man. Yeah, it's a real pleasure. You know, it's always to me, anytime I can bring on somebody who is kind of like me, you know, I refer to myself as a libertarian, but a Christian libertarian, somebody that is a Christian first, but then wants to apply libertarian principles, non-aggression principles to to daily life and to their Christian faith. So I love having you on the show. Yeah, well, man, I really appreciate it. And I feel like this is going to be a great conversation. I'm very excited to talk with you. Yeah, for sure. So before we get into the book, let's talk about your show real quick, because you also run a great podcast, Protestant Libertarian Podcast. I love the name. What kind of things are you hitting on with this? Yeah, so I do. There are times that I regret naming it the Protestant Libertarian Podcast because it could signal that I'm like anti-Catholic or anti-Orthodox, which I'm not. The Protestant for me just means that I believe in the authority of Scripture. And so what I do on my show is really analyze the Bible in its historical context. I interview a lot of biblical scholars, and that's kind of really the heart of what I do. But then I connect. Those ideas in biblical scholarship and theology with with libertarian political and economic philosophy. And so I try to intersect both of those. And so I can see that some of my recent episodes have been up there. There are episodes that I have where I'm just exclusively talking about biblical issues. And then there are a lot of crossover episodes where I talk about politics and its relationship to our faith. So that's really what I do on the show. I've had some really awesome guests on some of the best biblical scholars in the world and have a lot of fun doing it. Well, I want to recommend to the audience that they go check this out. I love what you said there too, that you're not anti-Orthodox, even anti-Catholic. And the audience knows I'm a Lutheran. We're kind of the OGs of Catholic hate, if you will. But I mean, I love my Catholic brothers and sisters. I know so many of them that love Jesus. I don't pray to Mary or really any of the saints like the Orthodox or the Catholic church does, but I do believe that these guys are Christians 100%. And I want, as you just said, going back to the Bible, what does the scripture actually mean? Because I think in America, specifically with the evangelical church, I think we got a lot of problems here. Yeah, I completely agree. And for us as Protestants, I mean, this is what it means to be a Protestant. All the reformers disagreed on a lot of issues, but they all agreed that the Bible should be the primary source of authority. And so for us, when we're thinking about what it means to be a Christian in the modern world, we have to start with the Bible and then build up a political and economic philosophy from there. We can't just assume that the political and economic structures of our day are unchallengeable and that they are the way that God intended this world to be run. And instead, we should submit even our most cherished beliefs about politics to the authority of Scripture. And if we read the Bible and realize that what the Bible is saying is in tension with a lot of our cherished modern beliefs, then our obligation is not to try to change the Bible to make it fit our modern ideas. Our obligation is to change our modern ideas to make it fit Scripture. I think that there are a lot of Christians that— and there are many reasons for this. I'm not casting aspersions on anyone. But there are a lot of modern Christians that were just never taught that they could think about these issues any differently. And I think that this is true in both professional theology and biblical scholarship, where where it's almost like we've created a box of conversation. We know that we have to have a nation state. We know that we have to have democracy. We know that we have to have all these institutions, and we can't question that. So how do these institutions fit into the biblical narrative, when in reality, we should be saying, all right, here's this biblical narrative. Do these institutions even make sense in light of that? And that's a lot of what I'm trying to accomplish in my book is looking at biblical scholarship in particular, because that's the field that. I'm familiar with. How have these modern ideas influenced to a negative degree the way that we interpret and apply the Bible today? And I think we do need to think about these issues really critically or else we're going to get them wrong as the church. And we're talking a little bit about Christian nationalism before the show. I think that's an excellent example of modern Christians that are probably many of them genuinely trying to grapple with the scriptures and but bringing all of their modern ideas back into the text and not being able to see past their own, their own modern worldview. And so we want to. Start with the Bible and work forward. And I think that that's the only way that we can really think through this as Christians. I think that's incredibly well said, you know, it feels like, um, I like analogies, you know, Christ-liked analogies. And so I use them a lot, but it feels like the IQ test for idiocracy. You know, we're over here and we've got this square and we're trying to put it in the triangle and we're covering it up so nobody can watch us. And we're just, you know, just trying to fit it in there. And I love how you put it here. We need to first, what does the scripture say? What does our Christian faith say? And then does this fit? Does this align with what we believe because this is temporary. All of this is temporary. We know we have a final destination. So does this type of government, does this type of economic policy, does it fit with what we know as Christians? I love that. And I'm really excited to get into this with you. Before we go into your book, let me throw something at you that really annoys me. And I'm sure it probably annoys you as well. Romans 13. Now this is scripture and it has its purpose. And obviously it was It was meant to be in the Bible. But there's so many wrong thoughts about this. And I've always believed that when reading Romans 13, you have to couple it with one of my favorite scriptures, Acts 529, where we're told, you know, we're going to obey God over man. As a Christian libertarian, where are you on this? Well, I mean, if we have about four hours, I could really explain my position in detail. But I'll give you the short version. The reason why my book is called Politics, Economics and New Testament Interpretation is that a part of the book is trying to help believers and I guess libertarians think through how we actually interpret the Bible. And so one of the things that we have to do. with any given passage in the Bible is understand it in both its historical and its rhetorical context. So in other words, how did these ideas work in history, not just assuming that the ancients shared our worldviews because they just didn't, and that's a fact. And then also, how does it contribute to the larger overall rhetorical agenda of the work that it is included in? With Romans, Paul is writing a letter to believers in Rome. He has an agenda in mind, and his agenda is not to give a timeless theory of political power. That's not the purpose of Romans at all. So we have to kind of step back and think, well, when we read Romans 13, 1 through 7, what is Paul trying to do within the context of Romans? And ultimately, Romans is a letter about the identity of the church, that there is one family of Abraham. It's defined by faith in Jesus, who is Israel's messiah. And the gift of the Holy Spirit. And that is who we are as believers. Therefore, Jews and Gentiles are equally on equal footing. And he does this in a way that is trying to hold this community together that could be divided because of these different social divisions or whatever in Rome. And so he spends the first 11 chapters of Romans talking about the identity of the church. And then in 12 through 15, he gives practical advice for the church for how they need to work out that identity. And the hinge upon which the letter swings is Romans 12, 1 through 2. where Paul says, do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and offer your body as a living sacrifice to God. And so all of his exhortations from Romans 12 through Romans 15 is designed to meet that specific goal. It's telling Christians, how do you live out your identity in the midst of a fallen and broken world? And he talks about the need to love all people, to get along with all people, to show deference to others, to be humble, not think more highly of yourself, to put others' needs before your own. And within that context, you have Romans chapter 13, where Paul says, hey, submit to the authorities. We are not going to be the kinds of people that are going to start a revolution. It's up to God to judge those who are evil. And so like in general, pay your taxes, get along with the governing officials and don't cause any problems. Now we have that as a part of its rhetorical agenda. So even right there, Paul is not trying to give us a timeless theology of government. But then if you look at Paul's own Jewish background, the Jews have constantly had to deal with the problem of empire going back to the Babylonians and then through the Persians and then through the Greeks and then through the Romans. They're always navigating the tension between the promise that God is going to bring about the great restoration of Israel and bring his plans for all of human history to a conclusion with the idea that you have to deal with the pagan empires of the day. And kind of the text that has helped Jews think through what that tension looks like is Jeremiah 29, 7, where Jeremiah says, seek the welfare of the city, get along, because if you seek the welfare of the city, and he's saying this in reference to Babylon, then your people will be at peace. But then Just a couple of verses later in Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 30 through 33, he has these great oracles about how God is going to restore Israel, bring back the Davidic Messiah and rescue his people. And then the final oracles in Jeremiah are of the destruction of Babylon. So Jeremiah itself, who influences Paul's worldview, can hold that tension between we need to be at peace with the leaders, but also God is going to do something about this one day. And I think that that's really what Paul is getting at in Romans 13. It's not we have to submit to everything that the government says, because that's not even the biblical model. And in fact, like in Acts 16, Paul very deliberately disobeys the authorities in Philippi, right? So Paul doesn't submit to the authorities when his gospel is at stake. And that's the same thing that's going on in Acts 5 with Peter. So we can't just take Romans 13 out of its context and say, well, any policy that the government imposes, we have to follow at all times and in all places. What Paul is doing there is just trying to give Christians practical advice for how to manage this tension between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men. I think it's a fantastic explanation. And I think it should be rather obvious, right? It should be apparent to Christians. We can examine laws, you know, specifically in the United States, and we can look at abortion, for example, and say, clearly, this is in violation of God's law. And so we are not supposed to submit to the governing authorities in this case. And, you know, not necessarily calling for acts of violence, you know, like or revolution, I guess would be the better way to put it. But sometimes that is appropriate. And thank God that we did have a revolution. Otherwise, you and I would probably be over here sipping tea. Right. Yeah. And I do love tea for sure. Yeah. And I do think that there are times and places where we have to, as Christians, disobey. And I think this is where Paul, again, being influenced— and Paul— and he does this all throughout Romans, too, which is something that a lot of people who go into these conversations about Romans 13, they don't really appreciate just how good of an interpreter and how careful— of an interpreter of his scriptures, Paul is. Like Paul understands the Old Testament extremely well. And so he knows the narrative of Daniel, for instance. And Daniel is a great example of a man who finds himself in Babylon in a position of leadership. And he goes along to get along. He follows the Jeremiah 29, 7. Precept to its core. But then when Daniel is commanded to worship Babylon's gods, he refuses, right? And I think that that's kind of the position that Christians have to be in. And we have to kind of prayerfully and thoughtfully navigate how we do this in the modern world, given the fact that our situation in modernity is a lot different. Than their situation in the ancient world. And one of these modern assumptions that I think people bring to the text, which we need to kind of overcome, is that when Paul says, submit to the authorities, we really need to think about like, well, what is the authority supposed to be in the United States? And in the ancient mind, authority is invested in a human being, but in the United States, the authority is the constitution. It's not an individual president or a senator or a congressional representative or whatever. The authority is the Constitution. And so what do you do when we're living in a system— and I know that you would agree with me here— where most of our political leaders are in violation of the authority, right? Like, how do we navigate that? And that is extremely complicated and complex. And I will be the first to admit that I don't have all the answers to those questions. But that does not mean that we can just throw Romans 13 at every policy and say, yeah, we just got to follow it because that's what the Bible says. That's not— at all what's going on with Paul. Amen to that. All right, let's get into the book. Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation. Chris, if you could bring this up for the audience so they can check this out. I'm going to recommend, I haven't read this yet, but I can't wait to get my hands on it. So I'm going to recommend it to the audience already. But you are examining the politics, economic theory with the New Testament and the through that lens of the New Testament, through that lens of the Bible. And you've come up with some really, really interesting takes on some things. And you guys were nice enough to send me kind of six slides that we got here. And I want to go through those. But before I touch upon those, just tell us a little bit more about the book and why you felt the urge to write this. Yeah. So, you know, I read a lot of biblical scholarship and my degrees in biblical studies, and I'm interested in that field. And there are a lot of scholars whose historical work on the Bible I really admire. And I think that they make a lot of really excellent historical conclusions about the Bible that have this massive potential for modern application, which is really all that theology is, right? Theology for Christians. is taking what the Bible says and trying to apply it in a different historical context, such as the one that we live in. So I read a lot of biblical scholarship. And one of the things that I noticed about biblical scholars who were Christians that were trying to apply texts that deal with political and economic issues in the modern world is that they did not have very stable definitions for thinking about political and economic concepts, right? Like they very rarely define, like scholars would throw around terms like socialism and capitalism without ever defining what those words mean. And they would take these texts and say, okay, the Bible says X, therefore, we can draw a straight line between this and some modern policy proposal or some modern political philosophy without ever stepping back. And defining those terms. And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to take the work of these biblical scholars who I think are doing great historical work, but misapplying the Bible and the modern world because of a lack of conceptual clarity and say, okay, Well, let's step back and define these political and economic concepts. Let's see if there's a way to produce consistent and irreducible definitions of these political and economic categories and then use those as a framework for interpreting the New Testament. So the book is really kind of in an interesting position because I am working with a lot of scholars whose historical work I agree with, but whose modern political philosophies I disagree with. And so kind of navigating the tension between those. And in a lot of books on the Bible and politics, I feel like there are a lot of texts. That are left on the table, right? We always go to Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 and Acts 2 and 4. It's the same passages over and over again. And I deal with those in my book. But there's a lot going on in the New Testament that doesn't get brought into the conversation about how Christians should think about political and economic structures today. So I wanted to have all of my methodology and all of my historical background, like all laid out in a systematic fashion. And then just go through all 27 works in the New Testament, bringing in passages that are often left out of the conversation and thinking through how do we take these concepts, these categories, apply them to the New Testament interpretation. And then what kind of conclusion should modern Christians draw from them if we're working through the Bible historically and faithfully? So that's really the goal of the book. It is a very long book, but I wanted to make sure that I incorporated as much as possible and I didn't leave any assumptions unstated, right? Which a lot of Christian political theologies do. So that was really the goal of laying it out in that way. I love this. I believe that if enough people get their hands on this, this could be a catalyst to some real positive transformation in America. Yeah. And I think anybody looking around, I mean, we're recording this on November 3rd. It's the most important election of our lifetime, guys, in case you missed that, right? It's what we keep getting told. So yeah, we need change, and this is the way to do it. So let's break this down a little bit. The first slide that you guys sent me was James and the Wicked Rich. And you claim James is a devastating letter aimed at encouraging believers to live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus. Why did you start? Well, specifically on this slide, and Chris, you can bring this up if you want to. Why did you start with the wicked rich? Why is this such an interesting point for you to dive into? Yeah, because this is one of these areas where I think modern theologians, biblical scholars import our modern ideas into the Bible. So when we think about wealth and poverty in the modern world, we think about, you know, there are three classes. A lot of people are involved in the middle class. And then, of course, there's this kind of implicit socialist idea that if people are rich, they are rich because of exploitation, which comes from Marx. And a lot of people really hold a watered down version of that Marxist idea. Now, when people talk about terms like capitalism and socialism, and this gets to the heart of what my book is all about, they never define those terms. And usually capitalism is greed and being mean to poor people. And socialism is loving poor people and being nice to them and giving them charity. But that's not what those two terms mean. If you read the Austrian school, which I'm very heavily influenced by, socialism is when the government owns the means of production and all economic decisions are centrally planned. And capitalism is the opposite. It's the absence of an economic system. It's when people freely produce And so a lot of people will read a letter like James, where James is very, very, very critical of the wealthy in his time, the wealthy in and around Jerusalem, and say, well, James must be a socialist then because he's criticizing the rich. But that's not what capitalism and socialism are. And then we also have to try to understand this historically in the sense that in the ancient world, there is very few people who we would consider middle class by modern standards. You have, again, like the optimates. You have the people who are on top of Roman society, like the less than 1%. And then the vast majority of people in the Roman Empire are living at middle. are just above subsistence level, right? And that's just the way that the economy worked in the ancient world. And a lot of the times people that became rich, they were rich through generational wealth, but they were almost always politically connected. And this is true of the Roman governors who had ties back to Rome itself. And it was also true of provincial leaders like the Harrods, who had been a part of these family dynasties that controlled land and that controlled the political system. And the thing about the ancient economy is that the rich were almost always rich because they rigged the system in favor of themselves. They used what we would call the apparatus of the state. They used raw political power to confiscate land from people, to oppress the poor, to withhold rights from those who were poor in order to perpetuate their own wealth and power. And so understanding that historical context, when James rightfully is criticizing the rich of his day, he's not criticizing people that are producing goods and services that people want to purchase and that make their life better. That's not what he's aiming his his his. At. He's aiming his condemnations at the rich who are rich through exploitation. And when you read through the short letter to James carefully and with that framework in mind, it's very easy to see that he is not criticizing free markets. He's criticizing people who oppress the poor, who take from them who use the apparatus of power to confiscate their wealth, that's the real critique of— or that's the real recipient of James' critique. And so all throughout the letter of James, yes, he is totally condemning rich people for being exploitative. But that's because literally— not literally, but nearly everyone who was wealthy in antiquity was wealthy through some sort of immoral means. And I think we have to keep that in mind when we're reading James. Otherwise, we're just going to wind up importing this capitalist socialist argument from the modern world back into the text and assuming that James is a socialist. But again, James would never advocate for an economic system in which one group of people gets to exercise power over the rest of society. He's actually critiquing that. So like what people want in a socialist system today is the target of James' critique in his letter. And it's just very interesting that we get that backwards because we've not really defined these economic categories, right? That's really at the heart of the problems of James. And so I have a whole section of a chapter in my book where I deal with James head on and look at all of those passages where he's criticizing the rich and show how it's not a critique of markets at all. It's a critique of people who use the system to generate wealth for themselves at the expense of others. You know, in the modern sense, I guess it would be more of a critique against oligarchies, right? versus the free market. And honestly, even with America and where we've gone, unfortunately, there's a difference between capitalism, which has really become more of cronyism, over the free market. We don't really have a free market in America anymore today. We do have that crony capitalism that's benefiting, once again, the elite, which you could apply James to as a critique. Yeah. For sure. The laws of economics are universally valid. This is something that I think we get very strongly from the Austrian tradition and the Chicago school. There are laws of economics that are universally applicable in all times and in all places, but economic situations change. I think one of the things that we have seen throughout human history is that if there is an opportunity for people in power to exploit their power for their own benefit, they will take that power. Again, this is like Friedrich Hayek has the best chapter in The Road to Serfdom is why the worst always get on top. And his essential argument is that if you create a system in which powerful people can exercise power over others for their benefit, then only sociopaths are going to wind up wanting that to be in those positions of power. And that's exactly what you're going to get. And James really is kind of is looking at a system like that and saying, as Christians, we are as believers in Jesus. We have to reject that that system because it harms people. And we don't we don't want to be in the business of hurting other people. Yeah. So R or D, pick your favorite sociopaths. Let's move over to a second slide here. Did Paul abandon his family? That is a very interesting slide. It immediately grabs the attention because people are like, what do you mean? Paul didn't have a family. Go into this. Explain this for us. Yeah. So, you know, for Paul, Paul is a first century Jew. And when first century Jews thought about the world, there were only two different kinds of people. There are those who are in Abraham's family, in other words, good Jews. And there's basically undifferentiated mass of Gentiles. So everyone who is not a part of the family of God. And this is this issue of how do we define the family of Abraham now that Israel's Messiah has come? is the biggest question that the writers of the New Testament have to deal with. And I think that we live in a— and I talk about some of the research behind this in the book— but we live in a modern world where we have these very distinct religious categories. So, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, whatever— But in the ancient world, they didn't quite think like that. And so for a modern Christian, a lot of the times the question that we're asking is, how can Jewish people become Christians? But for somebody like Paul, who is the Jewish apostle to the nations, his question is, can the Gentiles become followers of Jesus. Without having to become Jewish? So in other words, how do Gentiles enter the family of Abraham, which is now defined by faith in Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit? And that's the conclusion that Paul comes to. And so this is His burden in Romans and Galatians and Ephesians, and you can see this in Philippians 3, this is a huge part of Acts, like Acts 10 through 15 deals with the Gentile question. How are Gentiles incorporated into the family of Abraham? And the conclusion that Paul and the other leaders of the early church come up with is that God made a promise to Abraham that his family would be a blessing to the nations. That promise has come to fruition in Christ, who is the Messiah, who is ruling over all creation and creation. Very surprisingly, Gentiles, without becoming Jewish, without having to be circumcised, without embracing the works of the law, without following the Sabbath and other food customs, they put their faith in Israel's Messiah. God gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit and seals them. Therefore, they must be a part of the family on equal footing with us. And so for Paul, what he does, and it's very interesting the way that he uses this language in Ephesians chapter four, is that the family of Abraham is redefined around the Messiah, right? So there is only one family and there are only two groups of people in this world. It's those who are in Christ, Abraham's family, and those who are outside of Christ. to the point where in Ephesians chapter 4, Paul can call non-believers, like so everyone that doesn't believe in Jesus, Gentiles, knowing that he's writing to a community of predominantly Gentiles, right? So he's redefined this language. And so the political payoff for this is that as Christians, our primary identity is not in our nation state or in our community or in the political party that we affiliate. Our primary identity is in Christ and as members of Abraham's family. And as Paul says at the very end of Galatians chapter three, this is 328, in the Messiah, there is no Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. And this isn't some sort of like postmodern critical theory. These identities don't matter. What he's saying is that in Christ, all of these social statuses have been relativized. We are all a part of Abraham's family through faith in his Messiah. And I think that as a modern church, we need to take that seriously. That means that when we think about who we are and what we're a part of and the mission that God has given us as a church, We start with the fact that we are incorporated into Abraham's family through faith in the Messiah and work out from there, which means whatever you think about your national identity or nationalism or any of that kind of stuff, that's all kind of a second-order question to our identity as Abraham's children. And if we don't recognize that we are a part of a worldwide family that transcends national borders, then we're going to wind up making a lot of political mistakes. And I think this is where Christians can kind of excuse— and again, people have different views on foreign policy or whatever. I got to pause you real quick. I apologize. That hard break hit and I hate doing this. I mean, you, you, what you were saying was awesome, but we're going to come back. We're going to finish this. Ladies and gentlemen, I want all of you to be a walking billboard. Some of us don't have platforms such as church and state, but you know what? We can wear t-shirts and engage in great conversations with Christians and patriots all across the country. Stand Up Now apparel is the best t-shirts out there. These are American made, owned by a Christian and a patriot, and the material, it's like getting a warm hug from yours truly. One of the better things as well is there's no tags. I hate tags, I know you do as well. I don't know how many times I've cut off a tag and ended up with a hole in my shirt. You never have to worry about that with Stand Up Now apparel. These are the best shirts out there with the greatest messages. Let me give you a few examples. There's a t-shirt out there that says armed with Ephesians 6 on it. I gotta tell you, when I wear this in town, I get a lot of comments and a lot of eyebrow raises. There's other shirts that include pure blood in Hebrew, obviously in reference to the vaccines. And also you can get Church and State merch there as well. We've got our flagship shirt. I was born for a storm with Church and State right on it. You gotta order the shirt. to stand up now apparel for t-shirts and hats all of this great merch with great christian and patriotic messages remember to use that promo code church and state and we are back and thank you for staying with us and we're going to go right back to our guests but real quick let's go over to the website church and state.media and i got to plug one of our awesome affiliates And since my guest, who I'm really, really enjoying, I mean, honestly, the man has a beautiful mind. OK, I'll just throw that out there. He did say he likes tea and I take issue with that. You know, I'm not going to agree with everybody that I have on the show, but tea. I know he's he's from Kentucky, guys. So they like their sweet tea. But here at Church Estate or the Caleb Collier show, we drink coffee. You know, I love I love coffee. All right. And I'm sure my guest does, too. And I know he's having fun with me teasing him. But check out Hunter's Blind Coffee, guys. This is awesome coffee. It's patriotic. The guy's a Christian, and it is absolutely delightful. Oh, no, he's got pumpkin spice coffee. I was just talking him up, and now he's advertising pumpkin spice. Oh, this commercial is terrible. All right, look, if you drink pumpkin spice and your wife dresses up like Han Solo as soon as the leafs start to change, ah. I'll pray for you. OK, I'll just put it that way. I'll pray for you. But get the real good stuff. Get the dark roast coffees. These are great stuff. Use the promo code church and state for a discount and you're going to get a great cup of coffee. And real quick, a reminder to please hit the donate button for us and keep conversations like this happening because they are so vital. All right. With that, let's go back to our guest. And Alex, I apologize for having to interrupt you and throw that commercial in there as well. But you were on a great rant, I got to say. And please take it back up. Oh, I love that. And just to say, I do love coffee, too. I like coffee and tea. Caffeine in any form is great and very necessary. So yeah, so I was saying, we're all a part of Abraham's family. And I don't have all the answers to all of the world's most pressing issues. But what I do know is, as a Christian, I have a really hard time justifying when my government bombs Christians in other countries— and the callousness with which many American Christians view that. Well, it's collateral damage. It has to happen. American interests, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever you make of the policy behind that, I think we have to at least start with the fact that this is not ideal. As Christians, we should understand ourselves as members of this worldwide family. It doesn't mean our culture doesn't matter, because it does. Those things are all important. But we have to, I think, start with that. And this should be Um, I think that this should lead us to at least question a lot of the decisions that are made on behalf of us by our government in the realm of foreign policy. So the, uh, dispensational Zionists are not going to like your book. Uh, not very much. No, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. I applaud it, man. I applaud it. This is, this is a breath of fresh air. Honestly, this is exactly what needs to be talked about. I, I, uh, like I said, I, I Lutheran now I, I, I was never really comfortable with dispensationalism, but now I'm fully embracing covenant theology, which is exactly what you're talking about. And yeah, I think the Bible is so clear on this. I think the Old Testament, the New Testament, it is clear. It is Jesus Christ. That's what matters. It's not the nations. It's not an individual people group. It is, do you believe in Jesus Christ? Is he your Lord and Savior? Welcome to the family. Yeah, I totally agree. And this is where, you know, Romans 10, 9 is so important. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, which is important for libertarians and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, there's eschatology, then you will be saved. And I think that that's so significant. And we tend to gloss over that because I think, you know, as American Christians, a lot of us grow up going to church and we hear words like resurrection and ascension and Christ and all. And it's just we're kind of numb to what these terms actually mean. But then when we look at the Bible and the way that the writers of the Bible are using this language, they're saying something extremely profound about where we're at in history, about the messianic identity of Jesus, about the nature of the church, about our responsibility as believers. about the time that we're living. Like all of this stuff is all tied up into these words. And we just kind of ignore it because we're like, yeah, we go to church. These are very spiritual sounding words. And what we do on Sunday doesn't really impact what we do on Monday. And a part of this is because I think that in the modern world, we've built such this huge firewall between what we call, you know, like religion and politics. We think that as Christians, we can have our religion on Sunday morning. It's about, you know, our private interior feelings and having like a sense of peace with God. But that doesn't really affect the way that we think about political or economic structures in any meaningful way. And I think that we kind of have to push beyond that. But when we push beyond that, it's not we're going to, as Christians, appropriate the political apparatus so that we can win and defeat the people we don't like. It's about thinking, well, we follow Jesus, who is the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Messiah, who, according to Paul in Ephesians 1 and the writer of Acts in the book of Revelation, especially Revelation 4 and 5, is currently right now sitting at the right hand of the Father ruling over all creation, and we are his priest and his kingdom on the earth. Well, what does that look like then for us to engage with these conversations today? And I think it's a lot different than the answers that progressive Christians and Christian nationalists have traditionally given to these questions. Phenomenal. The next slide, and we've actually kind of discussed this. And so for the sake of time, maybe you want to just kind of say something rather brief, but must we obey men rather than God? Like I said, we've already kind of talked about this, but please, and Chris, if you can bring up that slide as well, please address this also. Yeah, I mean, again, going back to what we said before, I think the Constitution is the authority in the United States. So I think that there's a lot more room for us to have argument and debate about how we best follow that authority. They didn't have that idea in the ancient world. And we're left with, instead, that complicated balance I was talking about before between Jeremiah 29, 7, and then Jeremiah 50 and 51, where we are supposed to try to get along and live at peace with the authorities, knowing that God is going to wipe them off the face of the planet one day. And how do we navigate that tension in between? And this is where I think we can look to the wisdom of Daniel. We can look to the wisdom of Esther. We can look to the wisdom of Jeremiah. And you get like this great example of both Peter and. Paul and Acts. They're not revolutionaries. They're not trying to overthrow the system, quote unquote. They're trying to preach the gospel and they realize that preaching the gospel will change the world. And so as a church, if we stay focused on that message, that God has given us the task of bringing the gospel of the nations, as Jesus says in the Great Commission, making disciples of all nations and baptizing them in my name, then we will win as a church because that's the job that we were called to do. And I think that within that, there's room for us to submit to arbitrary authority when it's necessary for the sake of the gospel. And there are times that we can stand up and respectfully say, no, we're not going to do this because this compromises the integrity of our gospel. Yeah, you know, it's really interesting. And I'm not the first person to point this out. But, you know, within the disciples, you have a tax collector, somebody that is sold out to the system, that it works for them. And then on the flip side, you have a zealot who is part of a political movement that we would call patriots today that's trying to expel the Romans. And what's the answer? The answer is Christ. It's not selling out. It's not being a patriot anymore. and trying for revolution, it is Christ. And that is something that I think as Christians, we need to be very mindful of. The next slide here is, what is the kingdom of God? And that's a fascinating question. And I'm going to turn it over to you because you are the expert here. Yeah, and again, I'll try to make this as brief as possible, but the kingdom of God is just the rule or the reign of God over all creation. So Genesis 1 and 2, God is king over all creation. We are created in his image and likeness to exercise dominion over all creation on his behalf. Obviously, because of human sin, that all goes off the rail, and God launches this huge rescue operation through Abraham's family to undo the problem of human sin and restore the image of human beings so that we can rule over creation on his behalf. And so the kingdom of God is the restoration of God's rule over all creation, which, as all of the writers of the Gospels unanimously affirm— happens in and through Jesus, who is the promised Messiah. This goes back to 2 Samuel 7, where God promises David that he will have a son who will rule over all creation and establish eternal kingdom forever. And so when Jesus comes in, you can see this in Mark 1, 14 and 15, when Jesus is baptized by John and then comes into Galilee, he proclaims the kingdom of God. And he says, the time is up. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. And so Jesus is inaugurating the restoration of God's rule over creation. And in the time between Jesus's ascension and his second coming, it's up to the church to to. to be the ones who facilitate God's rule down here on earth. And so that's really what the kingdom of God is. And a lot of people, when they think about that word kingdom, they think about it geographically in terms of a place. But the Greek word for kingdom is basileia, which denotes a rule. So it's the fact that God is now ruling. We are in the time of God's rule over creation, and it's up to us to work that out. Now, within that, and you brought up dominion, and there's kind of going back to that Christian nationalism thing that we were talking about a little bit earlier here. There is a group of Christians that see that and what you're talking about with the kingdom of God, and they believe that they need to exercise complete dominion of everything here. But that's not at all what you're saying. Yeah. Yes. And again, Jesus defines what dominion looks like. And you can see this all over the place in the New Testament. Philippians 2 is the best example. Of this. Because in Philippians 2.5, Paul tells the Philippians, have this attitude in yourselves, which is also in Christ Jesus. So in the Greek word he uses is a verb for neo, which literally means adopting or embracing the mindset of Christ. And he says, here's the mindset that Christ has. Christ existed in the form of God, but gave that up and became a man. And then he died a very painful and brutal death on a cross. And that's the reason why Jesus was victorious over the power of sin and death, right? It's not because Jesus exercised power like the rulers of the Gentiles. It is because Jesus was willing to become an incarnate man and then die a death on a cross. And we call that cruciformity, and this is the fundamental Christian ethical principle. And we can see this in the Gospels. This is in Mark 10, 41 through 45, and then it's paralleled Matthew and Luke, where Jesus says to his disciples, you are not to rule like the leaders of the Gentiles. They exercise authority over other people, but instead... The greatest of my followers will become a slave of all. And that's what real power looks like. So, yes, we are called to exercise dominion over creation. But what does that dominion look like? It looks like the cross. It means that we voluntarily and willingly give up ourselves for the sake of our neighbors, for the sake of our families, for the sake of even people that hate us. in imitation of Jesus. And we go back to Revelation 4 and 5 again, which is the centering vision of the entire book of Revelation. Why is it that Jesus is the one who's worthy to open the scroll? Because he was the lamb that was slain. It's because of his incarnation and his crucifixion that he establishes God's rule. Over all creation. And us as his people are are to follow his cruciform example of love and compassion for all in every situation. And this is what Paul says in Romans 8, 29, that we are to be conformed to the image of God's Son, conformed to the image of Christ. And that means sacrificially giving up what is our right for the sake of others. And that's the exact opposite of both progressive Christianity and Christian nationalism that wants to use Gentile power to dominate others. We're not supposed to do that. We're supposed to submit to the cross. And when we do that, the church can win. And unfortunately, there are too many Christians in the modern world that want to reject the cruciform example of power that Jesus gives us and instead go after the power of the Gentiles. And that's led to a giant disaster in the American church. And I think the only way we're going to recover is if we get back to the cross, get back to following Jesus and recognize that there is no path to victory that isn't through incarnation and crucifixion. That's the only way that you win in this world, because that's what our Messiah did for us. Sincerely, that is beautiful. I thank you for sharing that with the audience because that addresses so many of the issues, both on the progressive and on the Christian nationalist side of things. They're both so in error. And once again, just focusing, laser focusing it to Christ. It's not that hard, guys. It really isn't. All right. Last two that I want to address. I'm going to throw them both at you because we're we're quickly coming up to the end of the show here. But the last two slides that were sent to me, why is New Testament right wrong? And it's W.R.I.G.H.T. And then the next one is why is a New Testament scholarship wrong? So I'd love for you to address both of those and then we'll come back and we'll promote the book and close out. Perfect. Yeah. And again, this kind of goes back to the fundamental points I was making before. So N.T. Wright, you got to take on the big dogs. He's probably the most popular biblical scholar of this generation in evangelical circles. And he makes a lot of the mistakes that I was saying before. He correctly identifies, for instance, the fact that we are the one family of Abraham and that Jesus is the Messiah. And his biblical scholarship on that is second to none. And he's defended Christianity from a lot of liberal theologians. And I really respect his work. But again, his conclusions are always within that box of modern concepts of political and economic power. So it's Jesus is Lord over all, and we should follow his example. Therefore, we need a massive welfare state to give money to the poor. What he doesn't understand is that the only way that we can have those welfare state programs is when the government puts a gun to people's heads. and takes money from them without their consent, right? So there's a disconnect there. And New Testament scholarship just suffers from that same fate because they'll recognize rightly that we have to live the cruciform lifestyle as Christians. But then because they. Only know state power as the means of accomplishing social ends, their conclusion is always, well, we need to give more money and more power to these national governments in order to implement our vision for society. Whereas the writers of the New Testament say, no, you just do it. Like, you don't need the state apparatus to do it. We are called to serve the poor. We are called to take care of those in need. We're not called to vote for politicians who are going to do that for us by taking money from other people. We're just supposed to do it ourselves. So, again, a lot of the book is addressing these questions in New Testament scholarship and theology where they're getting the interpretation right and misapplying it because they don't have good categories for thinking about political and economic concepts. And we're trying to overcome that. So my critique of N.T. Wright is not that his work sucks and we should all hate him. It's that his work is fantastic, but he's drawing the wrong modern conclusions about how we should apply them as Christians today. And I appreciate the correction there, the N.T. Wright. I read that as New Testament, the theologian. Thank you for that correction there. It's a great name for a biblical scholar. It really is. N.T. And then Wright. What a good name. I know. It truly is. But once again, you absolutely nailed it. And when people rely on the government, there's no joy in that. When I decide to give up my time, my resources, my cash to helping somebody that is in need, There's a joy that comes with that. Giving through taxes or really, like you said, the government putting a gun to your head, they have no joy in that. And honestly, what we see is that they do a terrible job of it. And there's example after example of that, not just in America, but throughout the world. of state assistance, just being an abysmal failure. So once again, reminding Christians, hey, we do have a duty to help the poor, to help the orphans, the widows, but it's not through government. It's through our actions as individuals. Amen. Yeah. And again, you're absolutely right. Not only is taxation immoral because it's from a Christian perspective, because it relies on the arbitrary use of force, but it's also just entirely ineffective. Like it creates generational poverty where people are mired in just like cultural degeneracy and debauchery, unable to get an education, unable to get a job for generations, generation and generation. And we have to try to break that cycle. And like I would point everyone to Matthew 25 when Jesus says at the end of history when he returns to separate the sheep from the goats, we don't get points for voting for politicians. We are the ones who are supposed to feed those who are hungry and to clothe those who have no clothes and to give to those who have no money. Like it's our job to do it. And no, and there's no example in the New Testament where any of the writers of the New Testament say that the only way that we can solve poverty is by delegating that responsibility to a third party. It's always on the people of God to do it. And so what I want to encourage every Christian to do is recognize that we do have an obligation to help those that are in need. But that means that like, we have an obligation. It's not these third parties, it's the church, because that's what God has called us to do, and we can't give that over to someone else. We're abdicating our responsibility if we do so. I completely agree. Well, the book is Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation by Alex Bernardo. We're bringing that up. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. Just kind of in a closing statement, because we actually run just a little bit over, and I apologize for holding you a little bit, but Tell people once again why they should order this book. Yeah, I think it's really great. If you're trying to understand how your Christian faith intersects with political and economic ideas today, then this book is for you. And it's very exhaustive. So you can read it from start to finish. It holds together that way. But if you're interested in using it as more of a reference work, just kind of seeing what I say about certain passages or how the Austrian school can relate to some concepts in the New Testament, it can also be used that way as well. So I would highly recommend it. It's a great resource. And I think that for $ 35, it's a pretty good deal considering how much you get out of the book. So highly recommend it to everybody. Yeah. Like I said in the beginning of the episode, I cannot wait to get my hands on this book. I am going to pour through it. And I think it is going to be of a massive benefit. And we're going to see conservatives that maybe read this book and suddenly they question, wait, why is Trump going to send us $ 5, 000 if the Republicans hold the midterms? Wait, isn't that socialism? That's the kind of conversations that we need. And we really need to be living out our faith. with the non-aggression principles applied that you find in libertarianism. Alex, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. I need to close this out, but if you hold on one more minute post-production to say our goodbyes, I'd appreciate it. But thank you for your work. Thank you for writing this book. You have a fan in me. I will thank you, Caleb. Absolutely. All right, ladies and gentlemen, there you go. A phenomenal book that I hope, as you get your hands on this and start to read through it, will transform the mind, transform your mind and really have you examine some preconceived notions that you've built with Christianity or with your political beliefs because this is a book that ties it all together and once again points to the one source of truth that I love. That's Christ Jesus. The Caleb Collier Show of Church and State is brought to you in part by Colonial Life Spokane Independent Agents, Finders Insurance, and Mark37. com. I'm Caleb Collier. I was born for a storm. Welcome to the fire. Hey, this is Caleb Collier with Church and State, and I want to tell you about a great product, Liberty Cigars. I know for myself, there's nothing grander than sitting around a campfire. having a great theology discussion with a group of men while smoking a cigar. That's why I love Liberty Cigars. Every cigar has a story to tell. Not only are you going to be smoking the finest cigars on the market, but you're also going to get a history lesson with every single one of them. From George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, the heroes of the American Revolution, generals, presidents throughout history. I'm telling you, I absolutely love Liberty Cigars. I need you to go to libertycigars.com. Use that promo code CHURCHANDSTATE You'll get a discount and you'll also be helping to support Church and State with everything that we do. This is Caleb Collier with Church and State. Are you tired of your device spying on you? Ladies and gentlemen, we live in 1984. Your phones, your tablets, your smart televisions, they all are spying on you. And this is why I heavily endorse mark37. com. This is everything you need for your digital privacy. Phones, tablets, laptops, all of them are ghost protocoled. So that means that you are in charge of your own data. Just go to churchandstate.media, scroll over to shop and hit mark37. com for all of your privacy needs. Make sure to use that promo code church and state. Hey, this is Caleb Collier with Church and State. And I want to tell you about methylene blue. For a long time now, you've seen the Maha people using methylene blue. I thought I'd give it a try. You know what? It helped me considerably, not only with mental clarity, but also with insomnia. Now you got to be careful with methylene blue because the market is filled with with counterfeit products. But Best 365 Labs is the greatest methylene blue on the market. Telling you, take this stuff, enjoy the benefits, and also have a little bit of fun when going to the bathroom. I need you to go to best365labs. com and use that promo code CHURCHANDSTATE. You're going to get a discount. You'll also be helping to support Church and State and our pursuit of truth.