146. Why Are There No Evangelical Elites: A Roundtable Discussion

0:00You are listening to Seeking the Hidden Thing with Cryptos. Welcome to another episode of Seeking the Hidden Thing podcast. It is my pleasure today to have joining me, Ron Dodson, Jeremy Carroll, and Josh Abbatoi. Welcome, gentlemen. Thanks very much. You did it here. Great. Now, I invited you guys on, in part, because we're going to talk about this thing. There's

1:04been a couple of pieces. Aaron Ren wrote a piece, and I responded to it, and it got picked up and published at American Reformer, but asking and making the observation and asking the question of why is there no evangelical elites? And it's not in a sense that evangelicals don't become successful. It's not that they're smart. It's not that they're intelligent. It's not that they're capable. But it just seems relative to the population size, like what, 30 to 35% of the American population, that they don't seem to have an impact on the institutional life of America. The way, say, for example, in other groups, like Jews do, for example, who are statistically a much smaller percentage of the population, and yet have a much, much larger impact on the institutions. And that was not always the case. I mean, there was a time in the 20th century still yet where

2:09Jews were largely excluded from public life and from participating in major institutions in that way. So it's not like a group like evangelicals who are largely now on the outside for the most part of major institutions. But I guess today is to kind of discuss and ask, well, why aren't they doing it? And what would be the barriers? And then maybe what would be the plan? But I thought maybe I would begin because I know that Josh is a Harvard grad and Jeremy is a Yale grad. And Josh being Southern Baptist is the most evangelical of the four of us here. I thought, maybe just begin by asking, what was the experience like being a devote evangelical, a Southern Baptist, attending Harvard? Well, I would say that at the beginning, when you're from rural Tennessee,

3:10you know, and you've spent most of your life in religious institutions, so I went to Southern Baptist College and then I went to a Catholic grad school, Catholic University of America. But yeah, when you get to an institution like Harvard, it's certainly a bit daunting at first to just be surrounded by maybe the largest critical mass of highly intelligent, highly accomplished and driven people that you've been around before. And certainly, I think as an evangelical, there's certainly some instinctive bashfulness about your evangelical identity when you get to a situation like that. Although, I would say that probably the way I ultimately navigated it is a little bit different than maybe typical people would. After a year or two of being around progressive sort of activists, I very quickly learned to enjoy trolling them and enjoy

4:14like very much embracing Southern Baptist identity. And not everybody responds that way, right? But I would say that fundamentally, and then I'm just going to go straight to the heart of the question and say what I think my answer is, but I don't think evangelicals have a confident, like social identity. And part of that is a critical mass problem. We don't, the evangelicals that are elite, and there are a number who happen to be elite, but they do so in a way that doesn't bring their evangelical identity along with them. So, they're elite in a particular domain, but you might never know their evangelical. By the fact that their evangelical doesn't particularly change the way that they operate in the public, whereas, yes, I mean, certain minority groups like Catholics and Jews tend to have more of a established public social

5:16identity that they bring with them when they're in elite circles. And so even at the law school, it's sort of funny. There were a number of evangelicals there. Their exercise of the faith tended to be a very pietistic thing generally done behind closed doors, talking about more private matters, personal piety, none of which, of course, should be scorned. But the people who were confident about Christianity and the rule of law and what that says about the kind of social change we should seek, which is what as law students were all wanting to talk about. Those are generally the Catholic students. And so, you know, that's those tended to be the circles where I found myself. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's a I think it's a serious problem. Part of it is a numbers problem, and then part of a big part of it is a formation problem, I think, within evangelical institutions. Yeah, Josh, I mean, I think what you said is right. I mean, I didn't have obviously the same experience as you do because I came to Christianity later in life, although I did have to

6:20evangelical roommates who converted at Yale. And I think that actually had a huge, it was very weird, obviously, not typical for for a Yale, but I think that probably eventually sort of influenced me in certain ways, while it was a long process. But I would say, I mean, Catholics and Jews, like we could spend an entire episode on each of those and, you know, very interesting, but I think you're introducing so many different variables when you do that. I think the more interesting the imperative is to compare evangelicals to the mainline, right? And I think the mainline, even though it is falling in numbers rapidly and certainly doesn't in its own way have much cultural confidence, it would be much easier to be a mainline Christian in these elite institutions. And when I'm using that, I'm just kind of, you know, the traditional churches. I'm not not describing any value there. And I think that's what's what's kind of interesting. And I think as you touched on Josh,

7:26there's both issues of formation. And this is something that my own son, who is very involved in kind of leading his youth group, has very strong views on that evangelical churches are not doing well enough. And it's also a little bit, there's a little bit of circularity here because I think it's almost a branding thing where if you kind of define yourself as evangelical, you almost put yourself outside of that mainstream. And even the question to which, and you touched on this cryptos in your initial comments, when you describe Josh as sort of the most evangelical, you to take a, a denomination like ours, the PCA, the one that I'm in rather. And you know, is that an evangelical denomination? I mean, I think it just would sort of depend on how it was sort of perceived, but it would be maybe seen as less evangelical in sort of a public

8:27sphere than Southern Baptist or certainly non-denominational. And I think perhaps not coincidentally, it's a little more towards the elite. And so I think those are all things at play. Well, and that's interesting because I know too, like in the Dutch reform tradition, we produced a number that they had the former, was it the snoops? Scoops? One of the the the physician general, I think, was the he was out of our tradition. And then of course you have the divorce family and two. See ever could see ever could. That's the name. Yeah. And then and then also the divorce family. And the Prince family believe it or not used to be and still are adjacent in a sense to that Dutch reform tradition as well too. So it in a number of senators and so forth have come hyzinga others have come out of that tradition. And so I the one thing somebody noted is that you know, sort of our tradition is kind of because of its ethnic base is sort of a straddle is

9:31the line. It's not really mainline, although it has certain characteristics of sort of a mainline because it was mainline in the Netherlands. But then at the same time, I think many of our churches are feeling a push to become more evangelical all the time, which I'm not sure is necessarily a good thing because I think you begin to take on some of the these quote-unquote bad habits of evangelicals where you say begin, you know, the comparison begin hiding your southern accent so to speak. You're not as confident about, you know, it's much easier like I do think you're right. It's much easier to say that, you know, on Presbyterian, right? People that are late then then to say on Southern Baptist. And those two things as soon as you tell somebody your Southern Baptist or you tell somebody that you're your Presbyterian, it says two very different things to people. Or at least, you know, that's generally been my perception anyways, I think. And I think that's more or less correct. Ron, did you have anything you wanted to chime in with? Yeah, I mean, I grew up, I converted as well. Later in life, like Jeremy, you know, I was

10:38baptized, Southern Baptist. And those are still to a large extent, my people. Other than my wife and my kids are the entirety of our family is Southern Baptist on both sides. And my wife's Canadian, they were general association of regular Baptists. But my in-laws, when they moved down, started attending Prestonwood, which is kind of the big mega church Baptist church here, North of town in Dallas. Anyway, but but what my experience was was, you know, I started reading my Bible in high school and wanting to know why on a lot of things and what. And I just kept getting stiff armed at church. Literally, I remember a really deep question that I had. And not that deep was, I remember asking my youth director, what does a possible mean and what did it mean in the first

11:39century? And he goes, why are you even asking that? Do you not believe? Is it not enough? You know, and I'm like, what do you mean? I just want to know my Bible. And it was it was seen as that question of why I remember being told, just read Romans 9, who are you, Oman, to answer back to God? And I'm like, I'm I want to take whatever he's got. I just don't know what some of this stuff means. And you don't want to tell me. And now that's very anecdotal. I don't think that's the case in every Baptist church, but but it was, you know, my my granddad, who was very devout. He was a fireman. And this was kind of his attitude. He was just a good old Billy Graham, you know, converted in the 1940s or 50s Billy Graham Southern Baptist. And you just kind of you didn't ask questions. And you go to church and you do your thing. And I wanted to know why I wanted to know.

12:41I wanted to know why did God do these things? It was very evident to me that the Bible was a work of literature, not that it wasn't true, but that it was put together with a sovereign hand, with structure. And I that meant something to me that spoke to me. And those questions weren't willing to be tackled in the particular community that I was in. And I think these are that question of why is uniquely human. It's uniquely image bearing and it's in it. And it is what facilitates a certain eliteness. And you mentioned, you know, Jeremy was mentioning the Jews and Catholics. They have, or at least I haven't seen Jews don't have a problem with asking why. I've never seen that in Catholics, particularly Jesuits and so on, have never shirked back from really struggling and wrestling with the wise, the deep wise. So that's kind of been

13:44my, and again, maybe that's anecdotal, but, but, but, but that's what's really, that's what pricked my conscience. Well, yours is not the only anecdote that I've heard in that regard, you know, Ron, that where if somebody gets to, you know, intelligent, they're being uppity in that sense. It's, it just seems to me at times, though, too, that the very congregational nature of many, like, not just the Southern Baptist, but also like the non-denominational, non-denominational evangelicals that there's a loose sense that we're all, that they're all kind of the same thing, but there isn't really a strong sense of a unified whole, like, that there are, that in sense that they're like a people, like in my church, we generally tend to think of ourselves as a people in that regard, partly because there's ethnic ties. But I also get the sense that whatever political philosophy there is, it's more or less identical to like the American founding,

14:51and, you know, your theory on, on, you know, what is Christian economics is basically laissez-faire economics, and your sense of, you know, that you're individualist, your, you know, an American constitutionalist, and your laissez-faire economics. And you don't end up with something, like, say, I don't think, like, and maybe it mistaked me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem to me that there is anything comparable to, say, like Catholic integralism, Catholic social theory. There certainly isn't anything like liberation theology, but there also isn't something like, like, neo-Calvinism. You know, like, you look at this, like, I like a nice hard-bound copy, you know, the lectures on Calvin by, Calvinism by Abraham Kuiper, former prime minister of the Netherlands, you know, six lectures delivered at Princeton universities under the auspices of the LP Stone Foundation, right? Like, evangelicals aren't getting invited as evangelicals to give, you know, the evangelical

15:54theory of politics and society at Princeton. And I think there's something about that that's telling. Well, Cryptos, I think there's, I think there's a pretty easy, and I'll let somebody else talk, but, but, but, but I've had this same talk with my, with my father, who's an intelligent guy, very successful, and, and he said, well, what does any of that have to do with your salvation? So there is a, there's a satireological reductionism. And, but, but, but it makes sense because there was a retreat into fundamentalism that was necessary to battle, you know, higher criticism and some of these other things that, that created an ethnos, and what we're dealing with are the, are the side effects of, of that particular battle that was fought, that was probably necessary to be fought. And, and, you know, I'm not going to bag on the fundamentalists because they,

16:55they did, their work helped keep America, at least for a while, Christian. But I think that some of these, some of these things are after effects of that. What do you guys think? Right. I could not, you basically stole my comment. I'm glad you mentioned it, which is I think a lot of this traces back to the fundamentalist, modernist controversy. If you wanted to go even further back, you could look at unitarianism in early 19th century, which, which comes out of Harvard, right? And quickly goes into heresy. And as much as we're being critical here, I think it is important to note that we, and I'm not speaking sort of broadly, maybe if everybody who's not the mainline, but, you know, people who would closely be considered evangelical, we were right. And the mainline was wrong. And you've seen the fruits of the mainline being in the collapse of those churches, right? So it's not, but it was just that we paid a heavy price to do that. And I think what we're now realizing is maybe we threw a little baby out with the bathwater there. And people

18:00are beginning to come back and say, you know, how can we recapture some of this tradition? You know, I certainly in my church, you know, which I think is, is probably a fairly typical PCH church, except maybe geographically because we're in Montana. We're a little larger. I mean, maybe we're a little more intellectual at it, but I don't know. I think we're probably kind of typical, but, but definitely things like Westminster 1619 and Calvin and some of these other things are kind of studied as part of the tradition, not universally. And I'm, you know, unfortunately, you know, being newer to all of it, quite ignorant of a lot of it, but, but definitely among my more learned and serious, like the elders and all these guys in our church, they definitely have reference to that type of intellectual tradition. And I think really the challenge for us is to say, hey, you know, we chose the right side in this fundamentalist modernist controversy, but now we've got to rebuild things. And that's why when you look at something like, for example, the CREC, which has very, very strong social views and nobody would consider them liberal in any way.

19:08But in a certain way, they're also, I mean, if you talk to the people there, there's a certain eliteness that I think is there, even though they're kind of small. And they are because they're serious and they've thought a lot about their faith. And certainly, you know, again, I got like Doug Wilson, whether or not you agree with everything he's saying, like he's a guy who could go turn into Christopher Hitchens and did. And, you know, I think that that is going to be an emerging trend. I hope in the church, I'm certainly getting that from some of the younger people. And I think that's a very healthy thing overall. I really, I've got to build on that. So Ron stole my comment, and then Jeremy stole my follow up to Ron. So now I've got to come up with something fresh here. But no, this is, I think very precisely what happened in the modernist fundamentalist debate is this is crucial. Yes, the fundamentalists retreated from mainline institutions, although they saved a couple most notably the Southern Baptist Convention over the course of the 20th century. But

20:10generally they left. And, you know, but crucially, like they didn't totally disengage from American society, they just stopped engaging as, you know, Baptist or as members of a particular evangelical expression. And really, I think what they did was they could rely on to some extent outsourcing their public theology to the mainlines who retained their positions of power because there was enough consensus around moral issues, really until probably the 70s. Even if they didn't, even if the the Episcopalian public theologian maybe had some questions about inerrancy and you know, it wasn't entirely sure of the historicity of the resurrection, you know, you share the same public morality with them. And that started changing in the 70s. And so then I think that's really when the problem of we need to develop our own public theology and really our own public witness unique to evangelicals. That's when that started to heighten. And I think

21:13particularly around the abortion issue, but also the sexual revolution as well. So that's all happening. But the other thing that happens, and you know, I think just another point to throw out there when we talk about the mainline and our loss of access to elite culture. A lot of it, yeah, I think a lot of times sometimes the discourse can assume that if we had only kept that one institution, if we kept the resources that came with the mainlines, somehow, you know, conservative Protestantism would have remained more influential in America. But I think the counter example of that is the Southern Baptist Convention, which has history. It has a lot of recent, you know, it's it's got a $500 million dollar a year budget. It's got institutions with large endowments. It's flagship seminary was founded by a bunch of Princeton theological seminary faculty. It's got it's got some serious and we've had lots of presidents and, you know, senators and all of that. It's got that serious mainline style history at places. But nonetheless, we don't find ourselves

22:16in the position of the mainline today. And that's really because, you know, because America has changed. And I think it's impossible to have a true Protestant mainline in the way that we did a hundred years ago. You know, we need something with mainline like functions, but it's serving at different people than just speaking, daring to speak for the whole American public, I think. I'm wondering as we're talking like historically, because I think you're right, this transition, you know, that there was a sense of, you know, letting the letting the mainlines do a lot of the heavy lifting. And then there was also the the fundamentalist modernist debate. But the the unfortunate thing I think from the perspective of the mainline culture is the way that the lines got drawn in that fundamentalist modernist debate is that the fundamentalists were seen largely as unsophisticated. I could create an impression from the main the main of society that this group of

23:21people, you know, earnest that they are, you know, authentic and genuine that they are just really unsophisticated people. And that so you get that kind of double image. And then historically then you get like groups, you know, like, what is it? The fall well or the moral majority and some of these things where I think a certain degree of hope was placed in the the Republican party in that regard. And so once again, evangelicals as they did with the mainlines outsource their politics and their political identity then to these various, you know, like the moral majority movement and some of these other things that that and then never did the work of developing and establishing, you know, evangelicalism as a serious, you know, the the term that we use in our tradition, I don't know, it's problematic, a serious world in life view. That that's a sort of

24:21a comprehensive world in life view that then informs your politics and allows you not only to sort of be American, but also to critique America from distinctly even like critique the political philosophy from not just like morality, but the political philosophy from a distinctly evangelical stance and frame in that regard. And that work it seems to me has never really been done because evangelicals have all that combination of being perceived as as downscale and then also outsourcing politics to other groups to the mainlines to the moral majority and to others in the Republican party. You've never done that work internally. And so the the the the perception sticks somehow that then it's still a group of unsophisticated bumpkins unfortunately. Well, there's a there's an interesting mechanism at play, I think, where in the

25:24again, it's an inferiority complex in a lot of cases where the guys who are really willing to push the envelope and asking the deeper questions of why how can you, you know, be on that cutting edge. A lot of them end up going, you know, liberal. I think of Peter ends who is, you know, not a in any way and he does not hold to the fundamentals of the faith. Pretty good, pretty good scholar, but but but he was he was part of our team and then left, right? And so there's that there's that tension of there's that there's that fear that if you even go there, you are in danger. You're why why do you want to go to the edge of the map? There's dragons there. And so we're just going to stay. Hey, we're the devout. We're the guys who are the champions of the devout. So we're just

26:26going to stay over here. The problem is the elite are the are the serrated edge. And and what we don't have is that culture of hey, one of our guys got a little too close to the flame. Let's bring him back. Let's let's patch him up. Let's minister to him. But let's use his talents to go. For instance, I suggested at our church and we have the budget for it. Our budget is over $14 million a year. And that we should have a resident theologian who just out who just his whole job is to answer the questions that people are asking of why why do we think this way? Why do we do this? Why do we do that? I was laughed out of the building. And and and again, I love my church. I'm still at that church. It's a faithful church. And you can do a lot worse than faithful. But that's kind of the that's kind of the civilizational call the sack that we've driven into of of weren't

27:30can we can we handle the risk of being on that bleeding edge of the katana. And most people just say no, we're just not going to go there. Again, this is this is just my experience. I didn't go to Harvard or Yale. I salute you guys who who did. I went to SMU and UT grad. But but but but I see this over and over. I see this even in I see the same kind of of of of of of mechanism even sometimes in private equity where you get that same. Well, this is what's safe. This we can extract all kinds of value right here. We don't need to go beyond the cutting edge of value creation. What's that? You know, and so so I don't think this I don't think this is unique to theological groupings. I think this is something that is kind of a natural thing that that that mature groups have to struggle with. Yeah. You almost need some sort of a structure that you would build because I actually

28:38don't think and this is maybe where you're getting the pushback. I don't think like just that average Joe and the pews necessarily does need to go there like I you know they'll get freaked out. They're not going to go become a theologian. They're not even going to become big people in the public square. And so it's okay. But you also want to have a mechanism where you can stay inside the tent. But yet you can you know still ask questions. And if you you get too far out as you point out then yeah maybe you have some sort of structure to to kind of minister to them and bring them back in the fold. But you sort of you know you we need to put in those types of structures and groups. I mean this is a totally imperfect analogy but it just kind of comes to mind of like an opus day and Catholicism a sort of elite you know a little bit higher end and more serious you know group that's obviously very Catholic right but they just you could probably do a little bit more there. So you know what would that look like be obviously very different within our denominations but

29:39just thinking about doing that sort of a thing I think could be very helpful. Okay so I am group and I'll go ahead Josh. I think one of the key things to cultivating a group which is sort of nascent what Jeremy's saying here is a true elite has to be has to have a sense of no bless oblige to the members of the group that are less powerful and in that sense we like I think about the I so I'm a reformed Baptist I am Southern Baptist but I'm a Calvinist you know I like the 1689 confession you know so I'm kind of in the more cerebral quadrant of the SPC I guess you could say but but it's very common in my circles to see a certain sort of derision about the unwashed Southern Baptists who believe that you know you really got to be reading the King James version or who are T totalers you know I'm not personally a T totaler but you know these sorts of those sorts of things come about for a reason and oftentimes there's

30:42actually a lot to like about the reasons why they exist you know for example you know T totaling it's a strict code of abstention that has served many people in communities that are wrecked by substance abuse very well you know and so I mean if you're if you're a Baptist like me you've probably got people in your church or maybe even family members who have alcoholism in their history and and yes they strictly abstain and they they have a they believe that the Bible requires but it's it's served them like well in their communities and and really the great book on this and I reference this all the time but Charles Murray's coming apart talks about this quite a bit he's he's looking at the residents of what he calls fish town working class white communities and in that case he's looking at you know the the weekly church attenders in those communities are some of the best on sort of all the social outcome metrics and a lot of that is up to

31:42frankly strict rules that they follow that you know perhaps you know some of us might find burdensome or you know maybe we don't you know maybe we have a different understanding of scripture but but those serve those communities well and so I guess I would say like you know this is the one thing you'll see like Catholic elites for example they will they will defend certainly to outsiders they're going to defend the rank and file Catholic the working class Catholic who maybe has some different ideas than they do on particular things but but they'll defend them and I think is for some reason evangelicals when they reach and they have a tendency when they reach an elite status to feel an embarrassment about the working class members of the group so yeah I think I think that's something we need to cultivate probably addressed in our formation really is helping people get to a more healthy relationship with the very common places where the fire of vital Christianity has

32:43been kept alive in this country I think that's an incredible point because it's weird because I feel that that desire to protect that you're talking about I still feel that for my fam my you know I go to Prestonwood occasionally and visit and and it while the while the liturgy or lack there of frustrates me I want to protect these people I have this where I'm like don't talk bad these folks are faithful they're devout we may disagree and and I don't know how you cultivate that because there's less of that in the Presbyterian tradition it's always kind of well does he really get it get quiet you know I mean tell you tell me when you really get it explain it to me because evidently the angels don't really get it so I love what you had to say they're Josh it's it's one of these

33:48things where I think that you know once you you know there's a certain value in you know a simple faith for sort of the common man like not everyone has to be a theologian but at the same time there has to be a willingness to embrace and give permission for certain people within your fellowship to wrestle with complexity and nuance at a high level and like there's a tendency to then turn it back on the congregation and think that you're doing a mission by you know undermining all of the simplicity of their faith but I I've never found to be a thing but at the same time simple people do ask very difficult questions and and so then you know as you say even from an intellectual there's a kind of no less oblige to learn how to explain you know complex and nuanced things that push the boundaries of what you know and to be able to learn how to explain that to people that doesn't necessarily shatter their worldview because not

34:52everyone needs to stare into the abyss and have the abyss stare back at them but there are a few people in your congregation who you know from an intellectual from a theological perspective have to learn how to go out as you say run to go out to those margins because you know for example in in philosophy learning how to grapple with the critiques of postmodernism because once you go into elite circles it's all postmodernism all the way down and you had better learn how to navigate that world and then once you get out there to you know it's strangely enough you discover that there's a lot of actual powerful tools here if you're willing to not be afraid to you know upset somewhat the you know a nice neat tidy simple understanding of the world and I think then you begin to get out into you know once you begin to do that you you can establish a foundation where you can have you know an evangelical way of doing economic relationships you know that where we

35:53is evangelicals and say like well I get it that there's people out there in the world that do business that way but we don't because these are the way this is the reasons why we don't do business that way and you can lay an actual intellectual foundation for it that's sophisticated and nuanced in that regard well Strauss was by no means a Christian maybe not even a faithful Jew but I think he really understood the biblical principle that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter and as the glory of kings or God's royal people to search a matter out and that is that wrestling with the these things is part of what propels us forward and so we've got to be about that now here's a here's a question that you know I think because Aaron Ren published additionally from his piece he got a whole bunch of comments and one of the comments that he made in this thing of you know you had a number of people who had you know gone to Harvard gone to

36:56Yale gone to Princeton and talked about their experience and one person made a very insightful observation I thought maybe throw it to you in terms of like what's the best way to cultivate this so he was saying he says you have a certain group of people they get to Harvard and what do they do when they get to Harvard they go and they get involved in all of the you know the Christian groups at Harvard you know that they've I think the you know power to change or whatever they're they're naming themselves nowadays you know and they get into the and the Christian groups and then they don't build any networks with the other elites who are at the same level as them they stay sort of within their Christian fold so there's that question the idea is I guess the question is is it better in this regard and I guess this is always the argument over Christian schooling right is it better to go out into the public school and engage in the public schools or is it better to

37:56join and in a Christian school and then go out into the world so you know as you're engaging is it better to network with other elites and build those bonds and leave your group you know people or is it better to do it from within and build an elite group from within that then can project outward once it has the strength yeah I mean we we've always had in our family a little bit more of an engagement model I think just due to our different backgrounds and and whatnot but I think you it to me it's such an individual case I mean it depends on the kid for example if you're a parent and it depends on you know just the the adult in other cases right you just have to like how much are they how strong is their character how much are they going to be tempted by what's out there you know how how strong is and well educated hopefully are their views um

38:58you know I do think again you know having said that we shouldn't uh I think that Catholics and Jews are not the the best comparative I've mentioned the Catholics I'll now mention a Jewish example that I think is actually also relevant which is when the Orthodox Jews and most of them were showed up here uh in America they basically get wiped out in a generation because they had no immune system intellectually they were been so closed off from the world that modernity was sort of put in front of them they had no way of dealing with it and all these guys kind of run off and become atheist communist because they didn't have it then later on what happens is the the remaining Orthodox folks who are left get smarter and have then spent the last decades rebuilding a sort of faith tradition um that has allowed them to keep their religious views but remain but be more engaged in the world and so you begin to see within Judaism in America now a growth of Orthodoxy that is

40:00uh I think not as low status um as it might have been in the past so again I mean I think broadly that can be a model for us I mean I think we we had to do what we had to do in the fundamental as modernist controversy we we were right um but now it's time to kind of rebuild um the ability to question and um you know and ask hard questions and and to build up that internal elite hey I would add to that I it's not as if there's some confident like dominant mono elite culture like in these elite institutions I mean you you have um first of all they celebrate diversity to a wild extent so you do have like you know you'll have um people from all over the world often at these universities who might be you know Muslim or communist or Buddhist or whatever else and then you've got all the you know religious and cultural diversity just that comes up through America um you'll have people who are really into racial identity especially you know sort of um

41:07minority students at these universities you'll have um you know various you know Jewish and Catholic groups it I think in some senses it's probably been easier than ever like very actively be um publicly a particular like a particular culture while also like moving in elite circles it's um you know it's it's not like there's some confident you know American orthodoxy that that um you know is all that you're going to be getting uh oppressed by it every turn um you know certainly our views will run up against the orthodoxies of um you know modern society in some ways but but there's not a substantive culture that we're competing with I guess we're competing with a vacuous like multi-culturalist public square that has about everything um and so like in that environment I think I think really the task more is like evangelical organizations at these schools don't actually they don't actually like understand how to how to work I mean they're they're doing um

42:07you know they're often um you know again very patistic very like we're gonna hunker down and and do a Bible study we're not gonna really do a lot of talk about how this relates to the institution that we're in and maybe what we should try to be doing in the institution like do we have agency over how this institution looks and feels and and the the bigger aims of of the institution we're really just trying to survive like as Christians well we pass through this institution so it's a very sort of defensive hunkered down uh posture that doesn't have a lot to say to the broader to the broader community or if it does have much to say it's going to be extremely accommodating it's not going to be confident stating like a positive alternative vision but rather sort of a hey here's where there's a couple common touch points let's talk about those only so a little less oh I was just going to say maybe characterize Josh's opinion like a little less um you know Bible study information which is fine thing to do but maybe a little more

43:11skull and bones in response to you know in that regard to like listen we can get in we can we can we can do a lot the evangelicals are of sufficient number in America that they could do a long march through the institutions if they were focused about it and so instead of like okay yes you need Bible study you need faith formation you need to keep your faith strong but you also need to think about it in terms of um again kind of a skull and bones type organization but then also what is our particular philosophy theology of governance of economics of of doing all of these different things like if we were to get there and do things from an evangelical perspective what would it look because right now the the current head of the OMB is an evangelical but what would it look like to run the OMB from an evangelical perspective like do can anyone even answer that question I'm sure Russ Vogue he could probably have a good answer well well I mean you know look

44:16yeah I mean I think I think you've you've said a number of times on this on this spot you know that evangelicals do have sort of a basic default sort of normy Americanism right yeah and I think that's I think that's probably true um I think that um you know we we still think of ourselves somehow as like we're sort of the default American view where the default American position is evangelicals we we maintain the faith that was prevalent in our founding um like the founders did we continue to believe in the constitution um the constitution works well for a virtuous citizenry which we used to have and if we had our way we still would um and so so um yeah I mean I think that many evangelicals that they're standing actually on the shoulders of like an incredibly sophisticated tradition we just don't always understand how we don't understand the steps together and we don't we don't like we've lost our ability to I think like arguing a reasoned way and defend that

45:16and we instead like we get to quick bromides about you know about uh sort of schoolhouse rock approach to politics or economics and that sort of thing um you know I do think you know but I guess I am planting the flag that ultimately I think evangelicalism is Americanist um but you know we we we need to we need a significantly enhanced ability to defend that in a reasoned way sorry part of the issue is the very evangelicals that are least afraid of using power are kind of the worst evangelicals and that and just and that's sad we've got to and that goes part to I think it's part of answering the question you're asking crypto is do we have are we training folks to the folks that are capable with any evangelicalism to take power but but when they do so to do so

46:19faithfully and so instead of Russell Moore's and other folks I don't want to throw a sling a bunch arrows I don't mind slinging them at him but but but can we can we can we exert power and not lose our soul in the in the in the in the first place and this is part of the evangelical tension right is we as as evangelicals we have a healthy respect for the temptations that come with with power and and the impact that can have on degrading your soul and and so uh you know again I think that you know you look up and you see well I don't want to be like that guy is this where we're headed you know um and that's a hard that's a hard circle to square yeah we do have to purge the anabaptist tendency however in I think uh our our church you know with all do respect my anabaptist

47:24friends um and it's interesting because even say it in in my church I mean we are relentlessly non-political from the pulpit and yet like a third of the Republican Party of Montana is executive board probably because it's a church I mean so there's an U.S. Senator um so I mean there is there are some tensions there but there's always a desire again I think as you point out Ron it's the it's the better ones who really do want to kind of inherently they understand the problems they don't want to drag politics in and and make the gospel secondary to it and all those things um I support but again this is where I think uh the sort of emerging understanding among some of the more aggressive young uh sort of theobro types and even folks who are not that as much out they're ideologically to say no you know the more you care about your fellow man in a gospel way the more actually you do have to be involved politically and that there's actually really

48:29properly understood no tension there and I think that's ultimately where we need to get and I think again we we don't need to do that in a way that that makes the gospel secondary I think the gospel the gospel exists in the world and um uh you know and if and for the world um and the you know if we understand that rightly I think it will lead to better political engagement well the preamble to the great commission is in sconce is is everything is uh the foundation of all of the great commission is Jesus being granted all authority and power in both heaven and earth so we can't shirk back from it um even though that's kind of the the safe space right as well you know that anabaptist idea of man can I just grill can I move far enough out to where I'm not going to be impacted by any of this you know I'm smart yeah I'm gonna make my money I can just I can just kind of encapsulate myself uh yeah and it's a powerful temptation yeah but again you know I think

49:35it's all these things are generational and I sense I mean my my my kid is I mean I have a few kids but my kid who's very passionate about these issues uh go follow Jeremy son he may not be the most representative but he definitely has a community and it seems to be a growing community of very like-minded young Christian men who are out there to you know to to take up the sword on behalf of Christ and not just uh you know sort of be meek and and also to be very serious and thoughtful about their faith and to you know he sort of he recoils from all of the cringe elements as he would put them of the modern evangelical church and is sort of trying to situate um within a broader you know in our case a Calvinist sort of theological tradition it is it it it is interesting that like it's too bad that Josh had to duck out um and uh I know

50:38that you have to head out to Jeremy but it's um I guess the one thing that that I still I guess maybe find problematic or potentially problematic for the evangelical is this is this notion that you know you're defend being defenders of and I think that Josh is correct in acknowledging it of being defenders of sort of Americanism in a sense of like being defenders of the American constitution of individual rights of you know laissez-faire economics but I wonder if that then puts evangelicals in a position of more being servants to the nation servants to the empire so to speak then being distinctly their own people that can a sense like are they capable of speaking prophetically to the flaws in that same system you know despite all of its strength and I think this is the question I have in it because I think that that

51:41because I would I argued the same thing and I think that Josh is correct in this that um you know that that is the case but does that then put you into an awkward position where it becomes very very hard to articulate your own distinctive voice or even critiques of that same system well it's it calls to question what people think of as see their mission as being as part of this Protestant thing is the is the purpose and I think evangelicalism falls on a certain side of this generally is the purpose of Protestantism to be a separate a completely separate new church that is more that that we just had to rise out of the ashes because everything else had gotten so bad or is Protestantism meant to be as the as the original Protestants were a prophetic

52:44voice to the whole of the church as a reclamation and reformation project and if you're on the ladder then you generally see the need for this whole elite question and this need to speak in a way that communicates to the to the whole of the world for a a a reformation if you see yourself is just the faithful remnant that is separated the kind of neo-acinic movement um you know the Essenes separated in the first sent well in the in the in the first century BC kind of out and did their own thing and wrote their own books and and everything if you see that as the purpose of a of of of of Protestantism then that's going to lead you more to this separated path that you don't really see a need for this elite formation this this speaking to the rest of the world and and I understand that but that's one of the reasons when I write or talk I'm like no the whole

53:46purpose of this is you you're kind of larping if you're not a prophetic voice and it doesn't mean it to everybody's job but we are a royal priesthood and and that means we're part of this thing together um a a you know uh first Peter 29 if if you're a royal priesthood then you know priest in in Hebrew uh cohang means uh it's like house servant it's your job why Jesus said you blind guides he's saying you it's your job to be able to show people through God's uh house so to speak and I don't think you can abandon that I think it's part and parcel of Protestantism to be that prophetic voice and that's why this is so important to me um but I think some people some movements evangelicalism really kind of reject that I don't know what do you think Jeremy? well I think the the excess I mean I agree with with you and I and I would say that I think the challenges we have and you know be interested I could argue with uh with our Baptist friend Josh

54:51about this to some degree but to me it's the excessive congregational polity and even worst maybe being alluded term but non-denominational I mean I think there are intelligent arguments that I think one should take seriously that non-denoms are not even really Protestants in the sense that there is a Protestantism is a historic movement of reform you know of the church and that non-denominationalism is something uh um entirely different because you're kind of removing yourself and saying well that doesn't matter and actually I think to form this elite it is important to have reference to a tradition um now again you can do that as a Baptist 1689 you know he talked about I think Protestants are often and I include myself here you get a little bit leery about going back to stuff that's older Catholic things but we really shouldn't um because you know the the church was unified with its courts and all back then and

55:52it should be okay to go look at uh you know the social teachings of uh of you know Catholic some of the ninth century or whatever if they've got something useful to say so I think that these are are things we're thinking about and I think the more that we can I guess maybe at a high level just put structure around what we do as opposed to becoming hyper Protestant where you're just this the centripetal forces everywhere right um uh I think the more that we are able to centralize to a degree what we're doing uh the more we'll be able to play any lead circles yeah that's a good that's that's a good way to end and I really appreciate because I know all of you gentlemen are are very busy and I thank you for your time and um this has been a really pretty good um discussion and um yeah again um for all the best sharing with your with your um with your hearings hopefully they come soon and and you pass through with glowing color so

56:56well thank you for your credit for you thank you yeah take care gentlemen and um I guess we'll see you on the other side absolutely you