Should the Church Be Political?

The Liturgists Podcast

The Liturgists

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2020

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jason Fileta and Michael Wear join William Matthews, Dr. Hillary McBride, and Michael Gungor to talk about politics, the church, and how we can wade through the ways these interconnected spaces in our lives affect ourselves and those around us. Michael Wear is a leading strategist, speaker and practitioner at the intersection of faith, politics and public life. He advised President Obama, as well as some of the nation’s leading foundations, non-profits and public leaders, on some of the thorniest issues and exciting opportunities that define American life today. He has argued that the spiritual health and civic character of individuals is deeply tied to the state of our politics and public affairs. Jason Fileta grew up in Wheaton, IL the son of Egyptian immigrants. The plight of the persecuted church in Egypt compelled him to commit his life to fighting for a more just world. He was chosen as a delegate to the G8 Summit in Scotland. The delegates advocated to leaders for debt cancellation for impoverished nations, fair trade policies, and increased assistance to impoverished nations. This helped launch his long-term work in advocacy focused on ending extreme poverty. You can watch The Liturgists Podcast being recorded live each week (as well as The Alien Podcast) by joining The Liturgists. We love having everyone together where we can talk during the recordings. Check out theliturgists.com and find where it says "Join The Liturgists." Also, this Sunday at 11am Pacific you are invited to join us for The Sunday Thing. Hundreds of liturgists from around the world get together via video. We break into smaller groups to talk and it is such a wonderful time. You are not alone in your doubts, questions, anger, sadness, atheism, theism, or any other thing you are going through. To find out more and to join us on Sunday, go to theliturgists.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Our world is built with stories.
0:04.0	Sometimes these stories cause suffering by pulling us apart from ourselves and each other.
0:10.0	The liturgist podcast helps people love more and suffer less by pulling apart the stories that pull us apart.
0:21.0	Hey everyone it's William Matthews. In light of the upcoming 2020 American election,
0:27.0	we thought it was important to have a discussion about the role of faith in politics.
0:32.0	On this episode of the podcast, we have two veterans who have worked for over a decade in the faith-based political arena.
0:40.0	Our first guest is Michael Ware, a leading strategist, speaker, and practitioner of the intersection of faith, politics, and public life.
0:49.0	Michael was the director of Faith Outreach for President Obama's historic 2012 re-election campaign.
0:57.0	Michael's first book, Reclaiming Hope, Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the future of faith in America,
1:04.0	offers reflections, analysis, ideas about the role of faith in the Obama years and how it led to the Trump era.
1:11.0	He recently started the Not Our Faith Political Action Committee aimed at persuading Catholics and evangelicals to vote in the 2020 election.
1:21.0	Now our second guest, Jason Fileta, is the former director of Micah Challenge USA and now the current vice president of Tierfun USA,
1:30.0	an organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty while strengthening the local church.
1:36.0	Jason is the author of Live Justly and in that book, he explores the biblical call to justice and gives tangible steps for Christians to engage advocacy for the poor.
1:46.0	Jason is also passionate about organizing people of faith towards the intersection of faith and climate justice.
1:52.0	Now I've personally known both of these men for many years now and I can tell you that they're men of honesty and integrity, especially when it comes to this space.
2:03.0	And so as we navigate this tense election season, the knowledge they share will help us answer one crucial question that we're asking.
2:13.0	Does the church get to be political?
2:17.0	So I grew up, like I think all of us grew up on some level in least proximity to faith that was very associated with politics.
2:33.0	As part of the religious right, I thought that like part of my faith, I remember I wanted to be a lawyer for a while and I wanted to argue against the ACLU.
2:44.0	I thought that would be my calling and you know it was always we're going to be Christians to the fullest degree, we'd need to be like light a light to the world.
2:59.0	But then that got filtered through politics, it got filtered through for us that was like you need to have the Republicans in and the Republican policies and was all about externals.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Liturgists, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Liturgists and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.