(395)S15E18 Simplicity: All Riches Come From Injustice - Interview w/Stephen Morrison
Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. In this episode, I had the privilege of interviewing Stephen Morrison, author of All Riches Come From Injustice. I thought talking with Steven would be really helpful for us at this part of our season because we've been talking about simplicity, and one of the aspects of simplicity we've dug into is the idea of financial simplicity. Because as we take a look at what it means to live simply, it's to live with fidelity. And oftentimes it is those things which lead to, the pursuit of power and control that take our allegiance away from the simple good.
Derek:And money is one of those ways, where we try to accrue great power. What I liked about this book in particular was that, Stephen used a whole lot of early church quotes. And I think that's helpful because it's a an easy thing to do to kind of critique different moral systems or different moral ideas, from our place in history and from our current perspective without really having the self reflection to understand where our biases and things are. And so by taking a look at our cloud of witnesses that we talk about, I think that gives Stephen a a very strong footing to be able to make his case. And what you find when you look at the early church is that they see things very differently than our modern capitalist system tends to.
Derek:If you were raised in the West and especially in The United States, then you have heard the boogeyman of communism and socialism kind of put forward as the the epitome of evil and the thing that we're fighting against in the world. All the way from back in the fifties and McCarthy Red Scare, the interview I did with Robert Mirapoll in our our season on propaganda and his parents were executed by the state for espionage for a communist state. And then, of course, the sixties, seventies, eighties, all the way up to Reagan when we had we had lots of assassinations of people in South America, Central America. You have Oscar Romero. We talked about Haiti and Jean Butrende Aristide.
Derek:All kinds of great evils that The United States and the West did against communist and socialist countries, all under the guise of self preservation and benevolence. But when you play up communism and socialism as being the epitome of evil, and then you take a look at people like Chrysostom or Jerome or Augustine, and they're talking about issues related to property and wealth and, you know, giving everything away, that makes it really hard to to make those ideas jive. How can I be so adamant against the position that it seems the very early church at least would have been sympathetic to? Of course, there would be lots of different ways to interpret the early church, and like Stephen says in his book, they didn't have these systems that we have today. And so we don't really know how it all would have played out.
Derek:But I think we have a fairly good idea of what their views on wealth were. They were a lot more skeptical of the wealthy than we are. In fact, we're not really that skeptical of them today. And they were much more sympathetic towards the poor and recognizing not that the poor were, were responsible for evil, but that they had great injustice done towards them. My hope for this interview was that we would be able to touch a little bit on on these concepts and try to dig into more specifics of what does this look like for our life.
Derek:But as I was talking with Steven, it became kind of evidence that that wasn't gonna happen. And that's because Steven said he focused more on a top down view, taking a a bird's eye view of things, looking at systems rather than personal decisions quite as much. And as we delved into it, I mean, it it became clearer to me that I I don't really know how much we can get into, specific dogmatic conclusions about what we should do in every situation. I know that's something that we really long for, like how can I live a simple life? But it doesn't seem like that's something that God really calls us to do, to have these prescriptions that we can just make for everybody.
Derek:And we all know different kinds of denominations and different individuals or groups that do this kind of thing that are very dogmatic and rigid, and it's just not a healthy community to do that type of thing. Nevertheless, I think our conversation might be helpful for you here. And Steven's book definitely is helpful, as he goes through the early church because what it's going to do is it's going to give you a palette for what the world should look like, for what followers of Christ should think about, for where our priorities lie, how we view the poor, how we, view wealth as a danger. And it's in having these sorts of palettes, these experiences, this knowledge and understanding, it's when we have those things that we're able to draw from them. And in drawing from them, we're able to have more wisdom and discretion in the choices that we make.
Derek:Because really, it is community that influences us. And that was a huge thing that that Steven talked about, the importance of organizing and the importance of community. Community has a significant impact on our lives. When we think about why we are so adamant against communism, why we've fomented coups and assassinations around the world as as a country, it's because we have been raised with a certain viewpoint. We've been inundated with certain views by our community, by schools, by churches, by the government, by the media, the movies that we watch.
Derek:And so what Stephen's book is going to help you to do is he is going to organize the the early church there to give them a voice into our lives and to help us, to have the the palette to make wise choices from. As GK Chesterton said, tradition is the democracy of the dead. It's giving the dead a voice into our lives, and that's what we we need to do. So point is, don't expect to come into this interview and get lots of very clear cut answers. It just doesn't work like that.
Derek:But hopefully, it's enough to prod you to move forward in your thinking and to give you something to chew on. I will put resources in the show notes as well as timestamps. So without further ado, here is the interview with Steven Morrison. All right. So just to kind of catch you up on where we are and why I asked you to come on to the podcast.
Derek:Right now, I'm doing a season on simplicity, and it's something that I've thought through quite a lot, and I'm trying to, you know, really grasp. But I'm finding that a lot of it's nebulous. And a lot of it's nebulous to me, especially in regard to economics, because of the way that our culture kind of trains us and the proclivities that we had. And you've written a fantastic work. I was just telling you that I don't read most books more than once, but yours I've read two or three times, because it's just it's very compelling to read.
Derek:And a lot of it, your thoughts, but also you draw from a whole lot of church history. And so I feel like I'm being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses as I try to sift through this. So before I get into the questions and have you help me unpack financial simplicity, I'd love for you to just do an introduction of yourself and your most recent work.
Stephen:Sure. Yeah. No. Thanks for that. And I like I said, I consider it quite an honor and and appreciate that.
Stephen:And that was definitely my hope with this book. Cloud Witnesses is a great term for it. I really did hope to kind of give voice to stuff that was for me, I was researching another larger project and I I started to really be compelled by just how much material there was around the church fathers that I've I thought thought was quite radical in terms of critiquing wealth inequality, critiquing injustices in society, economically, and politically. And so I think that's kind of where the book started off on. I think I even write in the book that it did originally as a chapter in a larger project.
Stephen:I've been saying I've been working on this this larger book on socialism for a number of years now, and this was originally gonna be just a chapter but I found myself having way too much material and it's like this would do quite well to stand up on its own. And so that's kinda how the the book came into being. As far as myself, my background, I've been a writer for about ten years. I've kind of worked my way backwards into theology. I've really didn't have any education before I started writing theology.
Stephen:So, I did this series of books called the Plain English Series where I looked at some of theologians that had impacted me and tried to understand them kind of as an amateur theologian for other amateurs and I'm now doing a doctoral program. So, I've kind of worked now ten years later, worked myself backwards into actually doing more academic research which has been really fruitful. Doing the doctorate's what's kind of kept me from being as as quick as I would want to to completing the the bigger socialism book. And so yeah. But that's kind of where I'm at now, and and I think it was probably probably through the work of liberation theologians that I became interested in the sociopolitical aspects of of Christian faith and was really impacted personally by it not just as a research interest but truly was my own thinking and and stuff changed.
Stephen:I grew up fairly conservative and so I now would consider myself quite on the left and so undergoing that transition was just from reading good books. And so it it felt quite natural to to write something that was explicitly arguing for an anti capitalist position. And so, yeah, that's kind of where the book came from and a bit of my background. And, So, yeah, thanks for having me.
Derek:Yeah. Can I ask what your doctorate is on specifically?
Stephen:Yeah. So I'm I'm focusing on Karl Barth's theology of resistance, its correlation the correlation of politics and theology in his work and its reformation background. So the the material context is, yeah, the the how Bart formulates a theology of resistance, the right to resistance, to what extent resistance is even an obligation in situations of injustice and all of that and so, yeah, quite a political thesis in itself but it I have the opportunity to work with a really great Bart scholar named Bruce McCormick, who's my adviser at University of Aberdeen. And so it's been a great opportunity. But, yeah, it's a fun subject and definitely fits with kind of the theme of politics and liberation theology and all of that.
Derek:Yeah. Well, I can already tell that I'm gonna have to do another interview with you later because we, you know, we've done a lot on nonviolence and nonviolent action and, you know, politics. I could probably talk to you all night. Yeah. But I won't.
Derek:Okay. So I think maybe one of the best places to start for this discussion would be to kind of understand our position. Because, you know, anybody out of self interest or whatnot can just kind of declare, you know, what their job, what their role, what their responsibilities, their obligations are. But as Christians, we have somebody else, you know, from the outside, the biblical text, God, our cloud of witnesses, who speak into us and to our position. And so one of the things that is very pronounced with Jesus is that He calls us to service.
Derek:And I mean, you even highlight that and you use that a lot of people would bulk at, which is the idea of slavery. I mean, two quick quotes. You say, The service of God is total and excludes the service of all others. And you say, The rich must be liberated from their slavery to mammon and given over to the slavery of Christ. That's really challenging for us to think about.
Derek:So I would love for you to lay the groundwork for us by talking about how a Christian should understand submission.
Stephen:Yeah. Absolutely. So I the way I think about submission and obedience and and all these questions is really around the fact that when Christ calls us to obedience, it's at once this moment of slavery, but it's also the true it's the true life of freedom as well. And so it's both things at once for me where actually walking in true obedience is the the only real way to be a truly free human. And I think kind of in the western world we define freedom poorly when we define it.
Stephen:Excuse me. When we define it as just the ability to do anything at any time. Just total unhinged freedom. I think freedom for a Christian is a very particular sort of freedom. It's the freedom to be who we are in Christ.
Stephen:It's the freedom to walk the way of Christ. I'm always compelled by like somebody like Juergen Maltmann who talks about we don't necessarily have need to have just a Christology, basically a doctrine of Christ, but we need to have more of a focus on the way of Jesus Christ that we're we're called to follow a particular way, not just get, you know, in a camp and we're saved and you know, all of that but we actually are invited to a pathway and we're on this journey and which is the way of Christ and and so, yeah, I I the way I think about even the term slavery in the New Testament, because, of course, Paul uses that term, and a lot the church fathers picked up on that too, is, yeah, that sense of being bound to God is actually the true way of being free, of being who we're created to be as creatures of God, called by God to walk out that gratitude and that life of joy that truly is free. So, yeah, I think that's kind of the tension that exists. And I think that we do a misservice when we assume that freedom is going to be defined by some other source, whether it's from our culture or from a particular political ideology.
Stephen:But freedom for the Christian is very much freedom to follow Christ along that narrow way. Unfreedom then is anything that is following another master or another path. And so, yeah, that's where the contrast of of mammon being slavery of of being an an a rival deity is a point I I make a lot in the book where a lot of the church fathers really have this theological critique of mammon of it being an idolatrous God who's a rival deity to Yahweh, to the true God. And so that entails a certain type of slavery, whereas service to God is a certain type of liberation. So yeah, that's kind of how I think about that question.
Derek:Yeah, it's interesting bringing up the idea that we view freedom as kind of the ability to do whatever we want. During our propaganda season, I spent some time talking about economic propaganda. And I don't know if you've read this. If you haven't, you 100% should. But have you read Corey Wimberly at all?
Derek:How public relations, I forget what it is. It has something to do with public relations.
Stephen:It doesn't sound familiar, but yeah, sounds interesting.
Derek:Yeah. A lot of what he does is he talks about, you know, the shift in the early 1900s to how corporations, you know, you had a whole lot of labor strikes and movements in the late 1800s, and that sort of goes away by the early 1900s around World War I. And he argues that a lot of that is because corporations recognized that there was a whole lot of cost to try to suppress people physically. And so they started public relations, which suppressed. And what public relations did, what advertising did was it created desires within people.
Derek:And so this idea of freedom being to do whatever you want is great, except for the idea, except for the fact that why do you want to do the thing that you want to do? And, you you have a quote from Augustine, which kind of talks about that sort of thing. It says, For on account of the things which each one of us possesses singly, wars exist, hatreds, discords, strifes among human beings, tumults, dissensions, scandals, sins, injustices, and murders. On what account? On account of those things which each of us possess singly.
Derek:And so in that quote from Augustine, he's talking about the things that we desire, the things that we then call ours, and how we get a lot of strife from that, and that really is bondage. Rather than and that causes us to seek to protect those things. We're bound to those things. So I'd love for you to maybe draw out a little bit more the irony of freedom being slavery. I think you did a good job of explaining how maybe mammon is bondage, but how is being a servant to God freeing?
Stephen:Yeah, certainly. I think definitely in the sense of it is a liberative experience of not being bound to kind of the restrictions of material demands or the restrictions of mammon. And, yeah, it is this liberation towards the true life that's a flourishing life. And I think that entails community and you know, play and joy and all of the very kind of things that are not impossible to commodify but harder to commodify and so even in just the strict sense of how like human connection and relationships is often instrumentalized because of mammon where people are stepping ladders, you know, to to your next success. Those are sicknesses in a mammon system that I think life in Christ should be the alternative to and should be liberating from or liberated from because that's the true entrance into slower life or life outside of I I'm reading the burnout society which is a really good short philosophical book and the author talks about yeah, how we we live in this burnout society because we've all become these achievement centric people.
Stephen:We're no longer kind of like Foucault talked about prison systems being kind of the model for how modern life is. This author's arguing that we're no longer in that situation but we're in the kind of internalized struggle where we exploit ourselves because we have to achieve and we have to do this and that and we have to keep achieving more and more and so we become our own kind of slave drivers and and servants and so, I think freedom to Christ means that I'm not my own. I'm not the one that's responsible ultimately for my successes or failures but that I I belong to Christ and my only duty isn't towards, you know, meeting a bottom line or achieving what somebody else calls success even myself but is is that simple and humble servant service to god and that's quite liberating, I think and it's quite radical in in a culture that does define wealth according to achievement or according to metrics and so, I think that's one aspect where it it's a liberating moment to trade service to Mammon to Christ. I think like anything, there's of course the dialectic of we're both saved and sinners and so we're we're never fully out of either situation.
Stephen:Of course, we anticipate the coming kingdom of god where we will be but what it looks like to consciously try to cultivate that is is always a struggle but an important one and I think a lot of what we're talking about is is trying to put the place pieces in the right order so that we're truly living along the way of Christ's path. And so, yeah, I I definitely think, Yeah. It can be, you know, Pope Francis everybody's thinking of him because, you know, today when we're filming this, at least, the new popes announced and Pope Francis had passed. You know, he died with almost nothing, but, you know, what a fruitful and fulfilling life that he led. But gave, you know, so much of his life, his wealth away and and lived in service to others and I think that's the best way.
Stephen:I think this kind of inward focused thing is is really a diseased way to live. So, yeah, I think those are sore lines. I think there's a lot of areas that could be said in that regard. But, yeah, I think it was Athanasius. I I found this quote, but I I never could find the original source, so I don't I've not used it many places, but Juergen Maltman was found of quoting Athanasius who supposedly had said that the resurrected Christ makes life a continual festival which even if he didn't say that's a that's a banger of a quote.
Stephen:So, I like that a lot. But yeah, think that's kind of part of it is just really entering life more fully, being rehumanized on the other side of the dehumanizing effects of of capital and mammon and really any other service that you could you could name there but especially in our culture, Mammon is is lord.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah, I think what what stood out to me maybe the, you know, the theme that I kind of see from that is a lot of the things that you described of Mammon being enslaving is it's kind of like individually enslaving, like I am focused on my productivity and getting what I need for myself. Whereas a lot of the liberating sorts of aspects were, you know, if you're talking about a party, a festival, that's a communal event, right? You wouldn't have a whole lot of fun if you just like turned on the music and just started like drinking and eating and stuff all by yourself. Like a lot of what you're talking about is communal.
Derek:And so it seems like Jesus liberates us because, yes, there are obligations, but it's obligations in community to others, and those others likewise have an obligation to me. So, all right, so it's still very hard for us because, you know, we are my family is not financially super well off, and a lot of people that we know are you can live paycheck to paycheck or, you know, be just one medical bill away from having significant difficulties. And so it's still hard for me to envision how wealth is a bad master. Like, I know it intellectually, but it's really hard because it's like, well, just a little bit more like that would be nice. But one of the other aspects that I want to explore is that not only is it hard for us, I think, in the West to comprehend how wealth is a bad master, it's also hard and maybe even harder to comprehend how wealth is a rival to Jesus.
Derek:And you have a really good quote from Ignatius of Antioch that addresses mammon in and I believe he calls it heresy, essentially, right, in his work against heresies. I'd love for you to talk about how do a lot
Stephen:of
Derek:Christians in our group tend to view Orthodoxy and orthopraxy and what constitutes as heresy, and how does that compare to the early church's view on what heresy was, and where does Mammon fit into all of that?
Stephen:Yeah, I think it's a very interesting question. It's something that I've been thinking about more recently. I I think there definitely is a sense that well, I'd answer a few ways. I I think orthodoxy is a concept is something that became more rigid kind of after the instability of modernity for the West, after some of the challenges against Christian faith. Post really post the biblical criticism era in in the nineteenth century.
Stephen:The enlightenment and content stuff like that. And so what we think of for Orthodoxy today is is quite rigid. I think there's some that are trying to open up to a more fluid definition but even still, I I think that when the term gets used, some most of the time gets used as a way of saying who's in and out is, you know, who agrees with my position versus yours or or whatever or this council or this creed and the most unifying, you know, creed of course is the the apostles creed, Nicene Creed. But even with that, there's there's different ways to interpret that creed and so, I think even today, we're actually kind of coming full circle to understanding ortho a little bit closer to an orthopraxis where sometimes people do define who's in and out according to like their morals or whatever else. A acquaintance of mine named David Condon wrote a really good book called Who's a Good Who is a True Christian that analyzes that very question and so I've been thinking about it more.
Stephen:His proposal is that the term Orthodoxy is no longer helpful really. I'm still thinking through what I think about that proposal. He's a really interesting scholar, though, and his research into the way like Orthodoxy is developed over time is whether or not it's defined by what we think or what we feel or what we do, whether it's morals or it's culture or it's doctrine, was a really good historical analysis of that. So I would recommend that for a really interesting dive into that as a modern question. I think as an ancient question, it's a really interesting question because, you know, because of that change, because the early church had a different concept, a different framework for thinking through what orthodoxy is and orthopraxy.
Stephen:And and certainly, I think the emphasis early on, though I it's hard to generalize everything. And and I'm despite writing this book, I'm not a expert in patristic scholarship. I know enough to have written this book, but that particular question is is something that others have written a lot about. And I but I do think there's a shift because of because of the time difference between us and then that they had a concept of orthodoxy that wasn't disconnected from orthopraxy, that those were similar, if not the same thing. And yeah, the idea of considering usury a sin, of considering service to mammon a sin.
Stephen:Even the shepherd of Ermos that I I quote in the book, one of the earliest Christian texts that almost actually almost made it into the New Testament. It's one of the most quoted texts outside of the New Testament amongst the church fathers and a really interesting text and in it, it it describes the story of, you know, this the shepherd has a dream about a tower that's being built and there's the this piece that's a circle that's not able to fit into the square blocks and you know, the angel interprets it for the for the shepherd and says, this is a rich person who's trying to get into the church. They have these edges. They can't fit and you know, the answer is in order to join the church, they would have to give away their their wealth and so there was this precedent set for this is what it means to be a part of this community of faith, this this Christian thing and so there there was a closer connection for sure between it and yeah and that that quote you you cited from from that text is is, yeah, definitely relevant. And so, yeah, it's it's something where today we don't think about as much the ways that orthopraxy are related.
Stephen:But, yeah, it's it's definitely a fruitful thing to think through and hopefully, part of the I I hope one of the things I I show in the book is that we've fallen quite a distance from that period of time where it was considered to be you know, something that was excommunicable that you could get kicked out of the church for it. Whereas today, you know, business, there's Christian business conferences and and not that those inherently are wrong but in the sense of lifting up the pursuit of wealth in and of itself, I think is problematic. And so, yeah, there's definitely a shift that's that's happened today. And I think it it is really a shift that took place because of capitalism and the way capitalism has corroded our thinking. And really, you know, people talk about capitalism as an economic system, but it's really a total system.
Stephen:It it affects how we think. It affects how we live our lives. It really affects how we we process. And so that's how in that way, it can be considered a rival deity because it it very much, you know, is the lord over most of what our concerns are about. I mean, the very practical concerns that we have day to day are very much determined by this.
Stephen:And so it's a it is a systemic critique that I'm trying to bring with the book overall. But, yeah, those those sort of personal orthopraxy questions are in there. But I feel that was a little bit of a rant, but but or a a tangent of sorts. But hopefully that answered somewhat of what you're asking.
Derek:Yeah, no, it's good. And yeah, it's helpful to understand when you look at the early church that action, and specifically actions that we wouldn't think of, like, you know, wealth and giving up your riches, were a significant part of the church. And so to be a good Christian, or even according to the shepherd, like maybe to be a Christian at all, meant to give up your wealth. Whereas today, it seems like what we've done intentionally or not, is we've actually, we've not only said it's okay to have riches, but we've said it's bad to not have riches. And you know, Max Weber talks about this kind of thing and hypothesizes how that developed.
Derek:But now you have the idea of meritocracy today, where it's the poor who are viewed as being in sin because if there's lack, it's because of some fault in them, some sin in them. And of course, sometimes that happens. Like, course, sometimes there are issues, but, you know, due to sin, you lose money. But more often than not, there are systemic issues that bring that about, even if it was a choice that they make. And it's, you know, it's interesting in my denomination, and I would bet that this is probably across a lot of denominations.
Derek:If you look at like the elders versus the deacons and stuff, a lot of times the elders are like your white collar workers, they're your businessmen, they're the wealthy. And then the deacons are more often like the blue collar workers and stuff, or maybe not as successful. Every church we visited when we were itinerating to do some missions work, every church we visited in our denomination was just filled with business people as elders. So I would be interested in your take on the idea of meritocracy and maybe the shift from viewing the poor the way that we do today, and how does that compare to how the early church talked about and viewed the poor?
Stephen:Mhmm. Yeah. Definitely. I think for sure the shift to kind of this this sense of really in the ancient Near East, it wasn't exclusive to the early church or even to the scriptures. But in the ancient Near East, it was basically assumed that if there was a rich person, they they earned their riches unjustly.
Stephen:I mean, that's the title of the book. And it it it's it's an assumption that, you know, Jerome is where I get the title of book, All Riches Come From Injustice and he's quoting somebody who said that that this person is a a man of injustice because they're rich and so, I think that it was assumed that if somebody had excess, it was either through some sort of robbery or from inheriting original injustice. And so, quite a significant shift, whereas today, it feels like it's, oh, well, this poor person, they must have done something wrong. Maybe they're a drug addict. Maybe they, you know, we've all heard those excuses that try to really to argue why they don't deserve, you know, a life that everybody else wants.
Stephen:And so, I I think the shift is is extremely significant. Yeah, the the meritocracy piece of it is is definitely significant. I I do think it's, yeah, interesting like you said, the denomination. Which which denomination by the way? I'm a few friends saying it.
Derek:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm part of the Presbyterian Church in America.
Stephen:Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. I mean, I I grew up in the United Methodist Church before it split and and that is probably something I remember observing as well. And whether that's a practical factor that people just happen to in a position like that, happen to have their free time to do something like that or, you know, having the means to.
Stephen:And that's represented in politics too. Right? Like, the political reality that, you know, to pursue politics usually requires to having some sort of independent means of wealth is is just kind of a natural fact of of this kind of neoliberal system that we have. But yeah, it's extremely interesting when it affects the church and leads to this kind of meritocracy in this mindset of of earning and and really it is a yeah, it it's it leads to such a dehumanization of the average day person in a way that's quite sad that worth is defined according to merit and not just because they're human and and all of that deserving of of all the things people want, you know, a house over their head, roof over their head, food, all of these things. And so, yeah.
Stephen:For sure. Yeah. It's definitely an important thing to consider.
Derek:So one of the words that you just used there, you used the idea of excess. And that's, you know, that's something that I I have long struggled with. I mean, since I I first became a deacon and started working with the poor. And in my church, like, my wife and I were both school teachers. So we were not wealthy in our church.
Derek:We had a lot of college debt and stuff. And we thought like we were really low on the totem pole. And then we start working with the poor and that gives you new eyes to recognize, wow, I have a lot of excess. Like this one lady that we helped, we had enough pots and pans that when we helped her to get started in our home, we're like, hey, we can just give her all these extra pots and pans that we have. And so it seems like but she probably could go to, I don't know, to some parts of the world, and this lady that we helped would have excess.
Derek:I think my big struggle this season, but also just in life in general, is figuring out what does it even mean to have excess? Because I know I have excess. But like at what point, you know, should you never enjoy gourmet coffee? Like, some somebody in the gifting of God has figured out how to cultivate coffee beans and do fair trade and all kinds of stuff. And they have this fantastic business, and the taste of God's creation is so good and the artistic talent that goes into creating these products is wonderful.
Derek:Like, it seems like we should enjoy God's good world too. So how do you how do you think through excess, and how do you think through what's appropriate and and whatnot?
Stephen:Yeah, for sure. I I think well, there's two answers. I think, you know, you're definitely right. I wouldn't say there's anything inherently wrong in a good cup of coffee. I'm partial to that myself.
Stephen:But I I think that the broader concern of the book was a little bit more focused on the systemic critique. Because we are all living in a system called capitalism. And we didn't necessarily, you know, we didn't choose the system. We didn't to add as necessary. We knew we didn't choose the system.
Stephen:This is something we've inherited. And we are all trying to survive and to get by in this system. And so towards the end of the book, I talk about even how, know, some of the ways to apply the teachings of the early church, especially the really extreme teachings, right? Like, give away everything you own, go to the desert, do all this stuff that that a lot of people even did in in the early church and was a really powerful witness to the gospel. You know, some of that if we're if we're trying to transfer that or to translate that to our situation today, it's not so easily a one for one equivalent equivalence because we do live in a different situation and so, you know, having a four zero one ks is just a necessity of like modern life.
Stephen:You know, or having some sort of like excess in in the strict sense of excess. But it is very much that at the end of the day, I think we, this is one of the tricks that capitalism pulls on us is that that we are because we have, you know, the ability to buy a few luxuries here and there. At because they've been cheaper, made cheaper for us and and all these things. Whereas several 100 years ago, know, it would have been impossible to imagine having an iPhone, you know, or something like that. Or, you know, a doctor or like having medicine.
Stephen:And so because we kind of have the solution that because of that, we now feel a little bit more affinity for upwardness, upward focus, whereas it would have never been a temptation necessarily for somebody in the early church or you know, in the ancient Near East because they were they knew from the day they were born, they were going to be poor their whole life. And there wasn't really a mobility. And so I guess my point with that is just to say that I think we're you know, the system critiques a little bit more where I'm interested in with the book of saying, I as an individual can only do so much, but, really, it comes from solidarity. It comes from collective power. That's how we're going to win.
Stephen:And recognizing that I have more in common with the man on the street than I do with the man in the penthouse is an essential part of of that solidarity building and and what, you know, a leftist might call class consciousness. That's super necessary in order to really imagine what it would look like to resolve some of these problems and to overcome the tyranny of mammon. And so, I think on a personal level, of course, you know, the excessness of this is it's easy to I you know, of course, on one hand, yes, give as much as you can. Do what you can. I think that's, of course, important.
Stephen:But I think because that messaging is the only real messaging in the church at the moment for large part, the the broader Western church where it's always become it's mostly become individualized. You know, you need to give your peace, all of that. I think that message is good, but I think to counterbalance that, I'm very much interested in this book and emphasizing that we also need to be able to recognize that solidarity and this this recognition that that in strict terms of who has power in society, the majority of us sitting here don't. But together, we can and we do and we can struggle together and that's why I think the end, I think if I were to do the book again differently, I would have maybe emphasized the need for like organization, stuff better because I think, you know, organizing a workplace or like working towards some sort of community efforts or mutual aid efforts or any of those things are really vital things that I hope that people make a practice of. And we've kind of lost that as a society for sure, because we have individualized everything and we've lost that sense of community connection to our neighbors and to our local community.
Stephen:And so, I think it's a lot of those things altogether. I I don't think there's one simple answer to that question. And so I think there's nothing wrong necessarily with a little bit of healthy guilt's not the right word, but I guess a prodding about about the fact that, you know, I I have the luxury to to buy good coffee or you know, to have nice nice things every now and then. But not letting that trick me into thinking that I'm not in the same situation, truly in the same situation as the person on the street because I am. I'm very much closer to that than any any way that I'd be closer to a Bezos or whoever else.
Stephen:And so, yeah, that solidarity building, I think is what's helpful. And so that's some of the kind of struggle that comes into trying to translate some of the critiques of the early church to our situation today, at least the ones that I've wrestled through and thought through. Because I think sometimes one of the at least in my experience and and maybe this is a miscalculated claim, but my experience has been that when somebody feels that they are, you know, middle class or when they feel that they are on that upward mobility track, they're less they and then they're told the messaging of guilt of well, that's a problem. This isn't this. They're less likely to actually be enthusiastic about organizer, enthusiastic about joining together with the poor in the weak.
Stephen:Then, it would be if it's a recognition of no. Actually, we're all in this together and you might not know it yet but you're one bad week away from being in the exact same situation and fostering that kind of solidarity can also help the sense of, you know, giving and more of the tangible and person to person help, but can also help foster the sort of organizing that would be necessary for imagining a different different situation and different world. And so yeah, those are a lot of like strands. I I trying to put together but I think what the way I would think about access in that sense is is definitely involved in that. I'm I'm not as interested in making some sort of moral shame or critique of any particular individual.
Stephen:I think we all have different situations. I'm interested in the systemic and, you know, even like the I there's always parallels with the doctrine of sin where, you know, it's not necessarily just to shame people, but to recognize that we all have this common thread that we're all inheriting sin. But the answer is grace, and that's something that is a gift, and not one person can earn or work towards and all that. And so, yeah, I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's kind of how some of the disconnected thoughts I have for that.
Derek:I mean, definitely helps to explain what your goal was, the systemic. And I think you do that extremely well. You know, of course, I'm trying to think, how does that apply to me? I spent a lot of time reading Kierkegaard for this season, particularly Purity of Heart is Will, One Thing. It's my favorite book ever.
Derek:It's just so good about know, and Kierkegaard focuses on you, the individual, right? What are you gonna do? Because it's easy to critique out there. Well, not easy, it isn't easy to critique out there. I'm not gonna say that.
Derek:It's very hard if you're gonna, you know, identify on the left as socialist communist in our culture. That is hard. But it's still even harder to then apply those hard truths to your life. And I think the question was kind of a lose lose sort of question, because if you would have answered very dogmatically, that's a problem. We all know people who are overdogmatic about things and think that they have all the right answers and there's no gray.
Derek:But at the same time, when you answer more systemically and aren't able to provide more tangible individual, that's very hard because it's like, Okay, how do I apply And I don't know the answer to that. And I think it's great for us to be able to wrestle with that, but it's something that I'm gonna And maybe that's the goal. Maybe we have to keep wrestling and keep being prodded by the spirits and every decision that we make from day to day.
Stephen:Yeah, absolutely. I I like that framing of not being dogmatic. There's no blueprint for this, and everybody's life is different. And so generalizations are never terribly helpful when it comes to ethical claims or political claims or whatever. But I do think, yeah, that's a good way of putting it for sure.
Derek:So I do want to ask one more question. And know, this isn't one that I had typed out. So hopefully it comes out well and you get the gist of what I'm trying to say and it's appropriate. You know, when you were talking about how we have more in common with the person in the street, 100% like between me and Jeff Bezos and, I mean, the top 10,000 wealthiest people, right? I have much more in common with the person on the street.
Derek:I'm one thing away from being on the street myself. So I get that. But then when you think about like, well, because I'm not Jeff Bezos, I'm really gonna identify with the people on the street. I know you weren't saying this, but to feel like I don't have that much of a responsibility because I can't make a dent in things, whereas Jeff Bezos can, it made me think of, you know, Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil, how, like everybody's little evil act created the Nazi regime. It wasn't just one sadistic person who goes off and does stuff.
Derek:It's a lot of people following orders, not saying anything when their neighbors are taken away. And so I guess that's like, what would you say to I understand that Jeff Bezos has a lot more power, but if all of us emphasized our individual accountability and chose to do the small good, that would accumulate significantly.
Stephen:Yeah, 100%. No, and definitely didn't mean to emphasize that personal responsibility is not a factor. I think it's because that messaging's hit so much in the church that my aims are not necessarily to make that point exactly. But it definitely is part of it. I think absolutely bear that responsibility.
Stephen:Nobody is exempt from giving, from helping your neighbor, all of those things, 100%. I think that the other side of it too is really one way of reading some of the work of like Marx or or some of the leftist thinkers is this kind of unveiling of of the tricks that capitalism pulls to really show that to the common person, to the worker. You know, I'm a worker. I, you know, anybody that has to work nine to five or get up in the morning and do some sort of labor is part of what would be called the working class. And part of kind of what Marx is doing in some of his critiques very much is this analysis of saying the power for a new society is in our hands in the sense of it would take us working together towards this, that it isn't gonna necessarily come from some top down single, you know, lone wolf savior in the sense of, you know, one billionaire giving them away all their wealth.
Stephen:A lot of times that's a PR stunt. A lot of other times they're giving away their wealth to their own charities as a means of funneling, get get, you know, mitigating taxes. So, there's a lot of things that are like, you know, problematic about the philanthropy philanthropy term. A guy named Ryan Caggle who I'm friends with. He he uses this term, the nonprofit industrial complex, because it very much is this kind of thing.
Stephen:It's self perpetuating, and and it it it because it's still within the constraints of capitalism, it there's valid critiques of some of the philanthropy. And so being able to see how sometimes that can be actually a crutch towards propping up the very same system that led to that issue is something that I think is part of the that systemic critique. And it's part of the ways to how I think, you know, Marx and Engels end the manifesto saying, you know, workers of the world unite, all power to the people is a common refrain as well in in a lot of the social movements that have have come up, and and a lot of that's lost in the language around politics and capitalism. And it's about, you know, especially in America, it's about voting for one of two people in a party every four years and that's the extent of political action and so I think part of the systemic systemic critique for me and this is again something where I if I were to write it again, I maybe would emphasize more is that reimagining what engagement in the political is beyond just voting or beyond just this or that.
Stephen:And the same for how do you help the poor? Yes, give to the poor. Yes, vote but also try to do the things that involve look getting to the root behind what's, you know, causing poverty, what's causing this or that, and as an individual, you can certainly do things like that, you know, for example, like homeless, I'm I'm always concerned for homeless people around here in Columbus, Ohio and and seems to be a growing population. I know statistically in America, it is a growing population. But you know, all all the studies say that what's the solution?
Stephen:It's just the thing that actually fixes the problem the most successfully is just giving people homes and getting more to the root cause of the problem, not trying to fix it through some sort of secondary fix. And so it's all of these things. It's not either or. You know, it's not either I'm picking that I because I went to an organizing meeting, I don't have to go also, you know, donate or go help the, you know, the person on the street that's begging or to help my neighbor or help my friend or any of those sort of things. I I so so it certainly is both, but I think the systemic is a way of broadening our horizons, not of narrowing it, for sure for me.
Stephen:It's adding more responsibility because we because it isn't that we can't do anything. It's actually the opposite. It's that we can, but it's not that I can do anything. It's that we can. I'm not gonna come in and save the world.
Stephen:I mean, none of us as humans can write in the theological sense, but even in that regard, right, like, the kingdom of god is the ultimate hope that we have. But in the pen penultimate, in in the current, we should be working towards steps towards what it would look like to to have kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And so it's all of those things for sure. And so, yeah, I definitely think that's a great question and a great point and I think that even like a critique of saying, well, sometimes those in the more progressive spaces are like, well, let's tax bill, let's tax Bezos. You know, let's let's get rid of his wealth individually or or something like that.
Stephen:It's like, that's fine in the short term as a solution but I think the longer term is like, how did systemically we get to the point where this inequality has grown so extreme and is only getting worse and is only progressing more and more towards the to further extreme of inequality. And looking at the mechanisms of how that took place and fixing more of those root problems while also saying, he should definitely be taxed more. And he should also definitely not have this much power over political questions or, you know, all of the different soft power aspects that come with wealth. And so all of those critiques are are good. And I think, again, it's like like we were talking about before with understanding the personal questions.
Stephen:It's it is a little bit of, like, putting things in the right place of seeing that, you know, for so much because of some of the tricks capitalism polls, we do get funneled into this individualistic form of activism, I activism, which really can converge a little bit more on the on the on the border of, like, performative activism, where I do the things because I'm almost mitigating my own feeling of guilt instead of we activism, which is truly rooted in how do I build solidarity? How do I build organization? How do I truly mobilize in a way that can we can solve it? It's not gonna be my burden. It's gonna be ours.
Stephen:And I think having that broader vision is really the hope for sure.
Derek:It's like it's like carbon offsets.
Stephen:Right. Yeah. That's a great example too. For sure. My my carbon footprint was invent you know, propaganda I'm sure you know the story of propaganda tool invented by BP, part of their PR stuff.
Stephen:I don't know if that's part of that book, but very much to make this big distinction of, well, it's your carbon footprint, not, you know, like, there's this one of my favorite exchanges on Twitter, which I'll only call Twitter for reasons is where, you know, BP posted this thing on Earth Day about the company, BP, posted this Earth Day thing. Was like, what's your pledge for climate justice? And all these people retweeted is like, I promise not to spill billions of gallons of oil into the ocean. You know, calling them out for what they've done. But, yeah, that's a great example for sure of that.
Stephen:The way that, capitalism has consciously funneled our activity into individual responsibility instead of where the left used to be about the collective power of how we can organize together to fight for a better system and and a better rights for for us. And and so much of the tragedy of, like, American labor has been that those are corrupted and and not corrupted, but they've been rolled back. And, you know, since Reagan labor unions are doing so much worse and and Trump against not a very pro labor president. And so, yeah, all of those things have been kind of robbed from us as options, and so we don't think they're viable options. And it's hard work.
Stephen:I mean, I'm I'm engaged in trying to organize my workplace. I think that's a really difficult process because it is you're doing person to person work of of educating people really. It's it is a political act to educate people of saying, actually, we have power if we come together and we organize together to make this these changes better. And so it's an that's an education in realizing our collective power over just our individual power. So yeah, it's definitely an important aspect.
Derek:Yeah, that's it's very helpful, you know, to understand that you're coming at it from from the systemic point of view. And, you know, what you said about Marx kind of trying to uncover the tricks of capitalism, you know, reminded me talking about BP and stuff too. I'd read an article a while ago, you know, when you go to Kroger or whatever store you go to, and at the end, they're like, do you want to round up and donate to whatever charity? And I don't I still I always feel a little bit guilty just like I feel guilty not tipping when I go in to take out pizza, like even though I didn't sit down. There's always that level of guilt, but I'm like, I do my donating to, you know, churches or whatever organizations I donate to.
Derek:Like, don't feel that bad about not doing it. Then I read an article where they said essentially, at least what some companies, if not all of them do, is they take that money that you give. They make you feel guilty as an individual. What are you gonna do for other people? You give it the company, they take that money, they donate it, and they get the tax write off for it.
Derek:So they trick you, they cause you to feel guilt. And I think when you were referring earlier to the middle class, you know, if you can make the middle class distinct from the lower class, from the working class, then all of a sudden, they're like, Well, I don't want to become working class. So now you pit them against each other, just like you pit the poor whites and the freed enslaved against each other rather than cause them to recognize that they have more in common.
Stephen:Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's a huge part of it for sure.
Derek:Right. So I've got one more listed question for you. And I think when we talked beforehand, you said that this is the most important one. So I don't know where it'll go. But yeah, reading your book, I wholeheartedly agree with you that capitalism, and especially a lot of what I've focused on is more imperialism, which today entails capitalism a lot of times, That leads to horrendous inequity and injustice.
Derek:And my impression from talking with you and from reading your book is that you advocate for socialism or communism. I don't know how you would couch that. And I think that the the capitalist attribution of communist horrors, you know, is I think a lot of times they stretch that. You know, I've seen lots of different ways to caveat it. It Richard Wolff?
Derek:Do you know Richard Wolff?
Stephen:Mhmm. Yeah.
Derek:I've seen some of his stuff, and I like some of the things that he says, and he's helpful in understanding some more of the nuance. So I think capitalism oversells the horrors or how much of those horrors you can attribute specifically to socialism or communism. Nevertheless, I think that both systems, whether it's capitalism, communism, I think that both of those systems being enforced by a nation state or government rather than a free will community, I think that just inevitably is going to lead to horrible atrocities and injustices. I don't think it I think it just always will. And so when when you start advocating for socialism or communism, to me, it feels like it it feels like you're I understand why you're moving away from capitalism, but it feels like you're just moving towards the same thing.
Derek:And that's my impression. So I would really like for you to educate me here because I grew up in the West, The United States. I'm still in a relatively conservative Christian denomination where communism and socialism are looked down on. So I would love for you to kind of help me understand this.
Stephen:Yeah. No. For sure. I could spend, think, all night on it because it's it's the the other half of this book is the larger argument that's not just negative but positive, arguing for a specific point. And I'd say, well, two things.
Stephen:The first thing I'd say is it is correct to say that any system would lead to injustices and there's no illusion in my head or really any religious socialist that I'm aware of that socialism is the equivalent of the kingdom of God on Earth. I think early socialists maybe made some of those claims. But the idea that this is now a perfect system that resolves all of the problems, you know, there's some leftists that kind of argue that. I I think that's naive. That's that's, idealistic.
Stephen:And so it's correct that, you know, there's no system that's going to solve every issue. But then on the other hand, I think the the reason why I would opt for a particular yes to socialism is that is the recognition that it's a applied risk because we do live in the penultimate. We don't live in the ultimate. And so on the one hand, we can't take the reality of this finite choice and make it ultimate. That would be idolatrous and so correct to say, you know, not making any of these hopes an idol.
Stephen:My ultimate hope is the kingdom of god. My ultimate anticipation is the kingdom of god. But on the other hand, to realize that I am finite and so I I can't live in the clouds. I have to live in in this reality. And that means making a choice to sin boldly in the political.
Stephen:I think I like that phrasing of it is kind of where I've landed. We're making a calculated choice to to fail boldly with a particular choice that I think there's good reasons to argue has a bend towards more just, not perfectly just, but more just, or bend towards at least helping the most and and not necessarily to make like a utilitarian argument but to in the way that as you know, as a Christian, I would be responsible to particular concerns and and one of those concerns is is the care for the poor, care for the marginalized, care for the weak. I think that for all the problems of a socialist system, it at least has some viable options or solutions or even a track record for actually trying to address that issue instead of the opposite of capitalism, which is very much to exploit the poor, the weak and marginalized. And I think that's systemic. Think that's my broadest definition that I've tried to think through is that capitalist system is one that prioritizes the luxuries of the few over the needs of the many, whereas a socialist system hopes to prioritize the needs of the many over the luxuries of the few.
Stephen:And I don't think that means that there's no luxuries. It's priorities. It's choosing to put as an economic structure, a political structure, mechanisms in place that protect the the needs of the majority over the exploitative tendencies of the few. And so the to the question of personal freedom and systems, I think that it's inevitable that any sort of there's always an authoritarian aspect to governing to any, you look at like a homeowners association, nobody likes them. But there any sort of organized body is going to entail some degree of authoritarianism just by definition of being an authority.
Stephen:That doesn't mean totalitarianism or tyranny, but it just means that there's, you know, an authority in place that people submit to. And so I think some of the more anarchistic critiques of socialism are, I would argue, a bit utopian because I don't think capitalism's a genie that we can put back in the bottle. I think we don't go backwards. I think we go through it. And the central contradiction that I think Marx and Engels identify with capitalism, one of the many contradictions, but one of the central ones is the the fact that this is now a system that has done this great thing of revolutionizing industry and and technology and all these things.
Stephen:It's it's led to quite remarkable developments, but it's and and one of the the interesting developments that they they make a lot of is how it's led to the fact that nothing's created in no nothing's not created, but nothing's produced by one person that any sort of commodity, any sort of product is a community product. You know, you you take any any example and there's many hands that have been involved in that process, like an iPhone from designing it to building different components to putting those together to shipping it to getting it sold, all of those things. There's dozens, if not hundreds of hands, not thousands of hands involved in any given commodity and product that's been produced. And and even on different levels of, like, how we get around and and transportation and all these things. There's there's always this new sense where on the one hand, communities be been built quite rapidly.
Stephen:But the contradictions in place when all of those things that are produced commonly are then owned privately. Whereas the resolution to that and the German term Aufheben is a Hegelian term which means sublation where you you you overcome something by also integrating it kind of resolving it, right? In in this sense is kind of the term that they've used to describe the process of socialism, which would be the thing that resolves that tension by instead of, you know, we produce everything commonly, but now the resolution is that we also own it commonly. And that would look like having some sort of government system in place that that, know, whether it's state ownership or whatever else. And nobody knows what some ideal utopian future could look like.
Stephen:That's hypothetical. We live you know, the now but I think I was even having this conversation with a coworker today about Amazon and and the fact that it seems to own all these things and it seems to be the one stop shop for so many people. But then it's funneled into private hands Where something like that is actually a they've built a utility that could be publicly owned for in in the you know the profits of that and all that could be funneled into good. And so are some of things I think through that. I think in terms of looking back into the past, I think there's definitely valid critiques of past attempts at revolutionary changes or of socialism itself.
Stephen:One of my favorite facts to throw out is that, you know, we we have this socialist state or, you know, there's there's debate about China that, you know, a lot in the West like to talk about it as not being socialist. They see themselves socialist and I think in a lot of the metrics, I think you can make an argument if they aren't in name, you know, in in actual fact, at least they're moving in some direction towards that. The majority of their largest companies are owned by the state, all of that stuff. And so one of the things that I've I am quite impressed by is the poverty reduction in in China and how in since, you know, they eradicated eradicated total poverty, I think it was in 2019 when they made that official. But lifting 800,000,000 people out of absolute poverty is a staggering and remarkable thing.
Stephen:And I think as a Christian, I can look at that and say, yes, there's faults and critiques and very valid ones about them. But I would say that that's something that you know, that's a remarkable success that I think is worth realizing. And so, I think not that that would be as a way of saying that, you know, this is perfect and and all of this. And so it's such a complicated thing. Right?
Stephen:And I think we we like to think in these binary black and white and like, oh, this place good, this place bad. And I think there's valid room for more nuance. But those are some of the things I I think about around that question. I think that it is important because because the the systemic critique that critique, sorry, does raise that question of, okay, but then what's the solution? Right?
Stephen:You know, making this critique has that that question of what's the solution. And I think in the simplest term, yeah, that that whatever we call it, going through capitalism to its natural conclusion is or or not its natural conclusion, but going through it to our chosen conclusion is necessary because it has a conclusion. It could be fascism. It could be the complete breakdown of society, or it could be something more hopeful and more for the good of all. And whether we call that socialism or whatever else is, you know, doesn't mean as much to me as is actually trying to prioritize the right things.
Stephen:And so, yeah, those are some of the thoughts on it. I think it's always a difficult subject, but I but I do think in terms of trying to make that calculated risk as somebody that Bonhoeffer has this great phrase that everybody who acts becomes guilty. And so we can't live in this situation where we think we can't be guilty. We do have to act, and even nonaction is still being complicit or guilty in regard. And so making a choice to say what can be done for for society.
Stephen:And I think sometimes these discussions get into this kind of ideological battle of, like, hypotheticals. Right? But I think talking in terms of concrete, what could actually be successful even with its pitfalls is kind of where, yeah, I tend to land with a lot of that. But I'm conscious that that's something that is a penultimate yes. It's not an ultimate yes.
Stephen:I think that I can work towards that in a finite way, but not in an ultimate way. And so always trying to clarify that and then also trying to realize that my ultimate hope's not in any particular system, but in the kingdom. And so, yeah, I I love to hear your thoughts on some of that. I I think that, I mean, pushback on on whatever you feel free to ask. I I think it's yeah, it's it's, yeah, it's a complicated thing but I I think it's definitely something that is what I'm currently working through, obviously, with the next project that's related to this one.
Stephen:But also, I'm thinking about a lot in terms of, like, what's, yeah, what's what's worth spending our time towards, you know, we have limited time on earth and stuff.
Derek:Yeah, no. I mean, I, I, what you say resonates with me. I really do understand. Yeah, I have a good friend who is a libertarian, like more of a true libertarian, not the annoying libertarians, you know, who I mean, you know the type. But he's like, he's a very thoughtful libertarian who recognizes, just like you in socialism, recognizes some of the problems.
Derek:And he just is extremely thoughtful, and I really understand where he's coming from. And he does really great work what he's doing. When you make your arguments, I really understand where you're coming from. And I can fellowship with you and my other friend. And I think that you guys both have hearts for Jesus.
Derek:I think with with what you're saying, what still causes me to feel a lot of dissonance is, you know, a lot of a lot of what we spent our time talking about was economics and the problem with hoarded economics. And actually, in this season on simplicity, talking about fidelity, the antithesis of fidelity oftentimes is seeking power and control. And Kierkegaard talks a ton about that in four different ways that you can betray the good and you can become double minded. And it's by trying to obtain power or control over a situation for whatever reason. And so what the answer is if you end up going to something like state control of stuff, it's like, okay, the state now is being entrusted to disperse wealth, and so now we're dispersing the power of wealth.
Derek:But the way that we're doing that is by consolidating the power of politics. And so I'm very skeptical of consolidated power. You know, I'm more of Eileen anarchist in the vein of like Elul, but probably more so like Anabaptists, like Werner Ehler, if you're familiar with him. And so I just yeah, I think that's where it's like, Okay, you're trading one power for another. And having lived in Romania and talked to people who were under communism there and their experiences of, you know, the police force and whoever, they had all the bananas and all of the stuff that they hoarded for themselves and the people had nothing.
Derek:During that time, they built the People's Palace, like the heaviest building in the world filled with marble and chandeliers that four people can fit in. It's like a room, a chandelier that's a room. So, yeah, it just it feels like you're trading one power for the other for for another.
Stephen:Right. Yeah. No. And that's valid and and very much a a real critique and and a valid critique I would agree with for sure. I think the only thing I'd say with that is how, you know, talking about like, dictatorship, you know, stuff like that.
Stephen:Like, you know, the system we live in now doesn't feel that different in the way of, like it gives the appearance of like democracy or it gives the appearance of this. But but really, it's the people that own the resources and that own the wealth that have the true power in the capitalist system, even though we, you know, we feign democracy and we feign that that we have a say.
Derek:Yeah. I would add to that. Sorry to break your
Stephen:But
Derek:I think what we are good at doing is exporting our violence. So I think like the Open Veins of South America, the book, how Europe underdeveloped Africa, those show you two continents where we have the illusion of peace, and it's because we export our violence.
Stephen:Right. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. And I do think that the effort towards I think in the day to day, the realistic fact is that, you know, we still live in this system and and whether what the next one would look like is still an open question. And I think, you know, we're talking about if we're speaking specifically of the West or The United States, what that might look like is definitely different than any other historical precedent.
Stephen:And so, you know, just to say in as a wave of, like, raining in some hypotheticals, I, you know, I don't think that some system even, you know, I would name China or something is is something that on their situation is is an interesting example, but not one that would correlate directly to our our situation. And so recognizing that. But then, yeah, I think that there's valid critiques in that, but I think part of that is actually, you know, Marxist critique very much of how politics is the superstructure that's built upon a base, which is the economic base of of of who owns the means of production is a is a way that I would think through some of these questions. Because like what how how does the state develop? What is a state?
Stephen:And where does its source come from really is an interesting element in this that I think is worth considering because I do think that, like, you know, what's the goal of a state and what's it kind of geared towards is definitely something that is not worth just throwing up hands and say, well, they're all evil. Because I think there's ones that have a particular purpose. And I think, like, you know, the example of Romani is a good one. The example of, The USSR is a good one as far as an abuse of that power. And I think there's ways to be afraid or or to be cautious of healthily cautious of giving total control over that.
Stephen:But I but I think having some sort of reimagining of what it would look like to have a true checks and balances. You know, we have that phrase in in American government, but actually to have a real full fruition of democracy is I think what ideally a social state should look like. Is truly not just democracy in name or in terms of, you know, like we said, voting once every four years, but truly of having a say in how the system is run. And and I think ideally that's kind of what a social state should look like. And and so I think yeah.
Stephen:I I think that there's a lot of important conversations around that that can and should happen. But I but I think for sure that, the reason why I'm, for example, not an anarchist is because of I think that there's well, on one hand, there's no way that I think an anarchist system would overcome imperialism as a threat. But also on the other hand is being a little bit more of a utopian going backwards, at least in my understanding of of how some of it is or coming to a kind of primitive arrangement of like a of a post money or or or pre money situation. And so I think the critique of states is valid, and I think there's always room for that. But at the same time, I think it's just a pragmatic necessity.
Stephen:And so, arriving at this sort of more nuanced, I guess I guess what I'm saying is is to arrive at some sort of a nuance where there are different goals for different states and realizing that another sort of system is possible and building it on the basis of those very same critiques that you're raising would be a fruitful goal. And so I think when people do hear that term, you know, socialism or or whatever, they it is a fearful term. Like you were you were saying it's very accurate to say that in the West, it's become the boogeyman of sorts. But being able to imagine a world where the priorities of human need over greed are actually systematized, where these mechanisms that Marx analyzes about how capitalism leads to inequality and is erosive and all these things of political life and of freedom can be implemented to then construct a system that those mechanisms are then worked against the owning class in order to have mechanisms in place to protect the good of of the people. So, yeah, those are some of the thoughts for it, I guess.
Stephen:I I don't know if that tracks, but it is always a thing, like I said, that it it's it's very complicated, and and it's not something that I think should live in the realm of just an either or or of like a a black and white, but but definitely in a more conversational realm. And like you said, having community, you know, people that are on the vaguer to sense of the left, having that sense of in the now, you know, working working in in the moment. And even if having some vision of the future doesn't line up, I think that's kind of just hypothetical at the moment. But it's still worth having that conversation for sure. But in terms of like day to day activism and and how we work for the good of the poor today.
Stephen:Yeah. So those are some of the fragmented ramblings, I guess, of that.
Derek:No, it's it's very helpful. And, you know, I sympathize with with all of that for sure. And, yeah, we'll see what happens. I'm glad that there are people who are trying to do what they think is is best as they're discerning how God wants them to move out in the world. And, you know, I might have hang ups with with different sorts of things or, you know, convictions to go a different way.
Derek:But I really appreciate the work that you're doing. I think that was the last question I had for you. So if there's anything that you would like to add or any any works that you'd like to plug or, you know, any questions you feel like I should have asked that I didn't, just lay them out there.
Stephen:Yeah. No, I think covered a lot of the heart of the book for sure. A lot of the heart of the project. I do think it's come up a lot that there's areas in the book that if I would have written it differently today, there would have been more maybe pragmatic steps. And whether it's around organizing or community building and and stuff like that that that we've talked about.
Stephen:But, I'm really appreciative that, you know, that you've read the book as closely as you had and that it clearly has resonated. And and I've I'm thankful that, like, I think I write in the book how my, you know, the least case here is I hope to put these quotes, kind of give them their space to, really challenge us in a number of ways and to lead to these sort conversations. And I certainly don't prop myself up somebody that has an answer to any of these questions. But that's also part of the power of, you know, being in community and being a body, not being in some individual that has all these answers. And so, yeah, having those conversations has been really fruitful for me as well to to meet people that read the book like yourself and and other people and and to discuss these things has been really good.
Stephen:But, yeah, definitely having the freedom to to think through these things in a in a productive way and and to really have the conversation is is better than than not. Or to brushing it aside or to to limiting it to certain set of presupposed answers. And I think that's where it gets messy to try to describe what this would look like both in personal life, practical life, political life, imagining a different future, all of these things. It gets really messy and difficult because we're consciously refusing the premade answers that have been handed to us. And looking back to the church fathers and looking back to scripture and trying to say, I think we've missed something along the way and to try to wrestle with that.
Stephen:I think that that's the term you used earlier, and I really think that's the best description of what this means. I'm wrestling with what it means to live in a system under mammon and what it means to be a faithful servant of the Lord in that in that way. Yeah, it's difficult work, but necessary work. There's grace in all of it. There's grace to fail.
Stephen:There's grace to sin boldly and to make mistakes. But I think that's being on the way is better than thinking that we've arrived already or or we have all the answers and stuff. So I hope it comes across in the book that it's not yeah. Like a prescription, but it's very much just a conversation. So but yeah.
Stephen:So in that regard, I very much appreciate your willingness to have me on here and and have a discussion and to talk through some of these things and talk about the book. So, I very much appreciate it and your time and your questions were thoughtful. So, Well,
Derek:thank you again.
Stephen:Yeah.
Derek:That's all for now. So peace and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to non violence and Kingdom Living.
