ON THE PODCAST:

Sermon on the Mount

The Beatitudes

Rich Villodas on the podcast

The AND Campaign

How to Be Christian in the Election | White Paper

How to Be Christian in the Election | Sunday School series

The Good Life of the Kingdom | Sermon

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Watch this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. 
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Guest Bio:

Rev. Corey Widmer is Senior Pastor of Third Church, a Presbyterian congregation in Richmond, VA. A graduate of University of Virginia and Princeton Theological Seminary, he also has a Ph.D. in theology from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Corey is married to Sarah, a public health nurse, and they have 4 teenage daughters.  Corey loves reading, exploring the outdoors, and pickleball! 

Note: This transcript is autogenerated using speech recognition software and does contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

Amy Julia Becker (00:05)
I’m Amy Julia Becker, this is Reimagining the Good Life, a podcast about challenging the assumptions about what makes life good, proclaiming the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envisioning a world of belonging where everyone matters. If you are listening to this podcast on the day that it dropped into your feed, then it is November 5th, Election Day here in the United States. And in this conversation, we are not going to talk about the results of the election or mention the candidates running.

but we are going to talk about a different way of approaching politics. My guest is my friend, the Reverend Corey Widmer, senior pastor of Third Church, a Presbyterian congregation in Richmond, Virginia. Corey is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Princeton Theological Seminary, and he has a PhD in theology. Throughout these past few months, I’ve been listening to Corey’s sermons and his teaching about political engagement.

So I wanted to share some of that thoughtfulness with you all as we navigate whatever political challenges we face in the days and weeks and months and years ahead. Our conversation ends with a call to be people who embody a way of love. So if you are someone who longs for a hopeful way through our political divides, this conversation is for you.

Amy Julia (01:24)
Well, I’m here today with my good, dear, old friend. He’s not old, but we’ve been friends a long time, Corey Widmer. I am starting to feel old. When get to the end of your 40s, it does kind of feel that way. So my dear old good friend, Corey Widmer, who is the pastor of a large church in Richmond, Virginia.

Corey Widmer (01:32)
I don’t know, I Julie, I think we’re both old. No! Yeah.

Amy Julia (01:48)
And we are talking today is Wednesday, October 30th. Usually my podcast interviews don’t really matter when they happen in time, but this does kind of matter because we are talking within a few days of the U.S. presidential election. And we’re going to get to that in a minute. This podcast is going to release on November 5th, Tuesday, November 5th, which is the day of the election. So, Corey, I wanted to start, though, before we talk about politics and faith and the election.

Will you just tell us a little bit about who you are and also about Third Church? I just think getting some background on your congregation could be helpful too.

Corey Widmer (02:24)
Yeah, sure. I’m so grateful to be here with you, Amy Julia. It’s so wonderful to have known you for so long and your dear husband, who’s one of my best friends. So I’m happy to be here with you. Yeah, so I am, like you mentioned, a Presbyterian pastor. I’ve actually been at this church for almost 20 years. I started as an associate pastor, then I was a church planter of this church.

started a multiracial church in another part of Richmond. And I’ve been back at this church as the senior pastor for 10 years. So I’ve really been privileged to be in a single geographic area for a really long time. And I like that’s a big part of who I am as a pastor. I don’t feel like I’m just a pastor of a church. I feel like I’m also a pastor in a place, Richmond, Virginia, which has all of its history and wounds and…

Amy Julia (03:16)
Mm.

Corey Widmer (03:22)
both goodness and scars. So I’m grateful for that. Third itself is a, I mean, depending on where you live, it could be a medium or even a small church. Probably we’re in Connecticut. It would be a large church. Yes. Yeah. We have about a thousand people on a Sunday and we’re a Presbyterian church that is also, I would say within the kind of maybe the,

Amy Julia (03:34)
Let’s remember that I’m from Connecticut. It’s very large.

Corey Widmer (03:51)
the broadly reformed tradition were mostly white, middle, upper middle-class congregation, but there is a whole lot of generational diversity, lots of social diversity and lots of political diversity. And we also have a really, really strong partner congregation that is an Arabic speaking congregation that we’re very close to and we do.

Amy Julia (04:12)
Hmm.

Corey Widmer (04:14)
We do, our youth groups are together and we do every Wednesday evening, we do a really large immigrant and refugee tutoring ministry together. So a lot of our imagination has been shaped, especially by this immigrant and refugee community. So that’s a big part of who we are as well. We recently, this fall did a class on politics on the election.

really was more about formation, more about what the kind of people were called to be in the midst of this contentious time, rather than how you should vote. Which I think is partly why I’m with you on this call right now, because one of your friends and also my friend and I named Heidi taught that class together. And so we’re really seeking, I think for the last few years, really, especially since COVID, and I can say more about that in a moment, to really take seriously the formation of our people, not just.

Amy Julia (04:47)
Yeah.

Cough cough

Corey Widmer (05:09)
the things that we believe in our heads, but also what kind of people we’re deeply formed to be as what we would say are followers of Jesus and his way, his countercultural inverted way of calling us to live in this world.

Amy Julia (05:23)
Mm.

Yeah, and so maybe that actually leads to my next question. So you, as you mentioned, taught this class in anticipation of the upcoming election about political engagement and formation. You also started a sermon series, which I think is going to go through the whole Sermon on the Mount, but it’s really been focused on the Beatitudes, which some listeners might remember at the very beginning of this season, I talked to a pastor named Rich Viotas about

the Sermon on the Mount, is Matthew five through seven, Jesus’s longest and most famous set of teachings really, but it begins with these blessings. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek. And I’m just curious if you also saw the Sermon on the Mount as a way to talk about issues related to the upcoming election. Like was the timing of that intentional as well?

Corey Widmer (06:15)
Yes, it was. I’m so happy you noticed that. I’ve been thinking about that for a couple of years. And actually it was about two or three years ago that I thought, hmm, there’s going to be an election in the fall of 2024. Really want to do the Sermon on the Mount. Part of the reason for that was because, I mean, the 2020, 2021 years were very tough for us as a church. We had a lot of the same conflicts and divisions in our church that we see in the broader society.

Amy Julia (06:21)
Well.

No.

Corey Widmer (06:45)
but they weren’t just disagreements about content, about issues of politics or race. They were, I was more disturbed by the way we were disagreeing with one another. There was tremendous challenge in actually having dialogue at all. Someone would bring up a challenging issue about race or politics and there was often an immediate backlash, decrying one side or the other, accusing someone of.

you know, whether it’s woke ism or cultural Marxism or, or, or being, you know, on the other side, you know, being, not caring about the vulnerable, whatever there, it was a highly unproductive dialogue. And I saw this in my own congregation and on a broader level, I was extremely distressed by what I saw as. Uncharitable and even downright mean spirited attitudes among Christians, especially in the way that they were responding to people that.

Amy Julia (07:17)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (07:43)
they disagreed with. And so I think myself, along with many other pastors I know, were really disturbed by what we saw as a fundamental lack of Christian formation and Christian character that the crises of COVID and the political polarization and the murder of George Floyd and all these things evoked. And it caused us as a church to want to take Christian formation and discipleship.

Amy Julia (07:44)
Yeah.

Corey Widmer (08:13)
much more seriously. We sort of realized, wow, we might have a lot of Bible knowledge as a church, but we got to do some deeper work about the formation of our hearts and our character and our virtue. So we landed on the Sermon on the Mount really as Jesus’ teaching reveals a way of life and a calling that is completely subversive of our culture’s power dynamics and rather than championing.

Amy Julia (08:35)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (08:40)
things like winning out over your enemy, Jesus is calling us to meekness and humility, calling us to radically countercultural actions like loving our neighbor. Jesus is calling us to a completely different approach to life than the rhetoric and the behavior that we see modeled in our political culture right now. And rather than this sort of fear,

driven opposition centered politics that vilifies the enemy. Jesus calls his people to this way of life that is deeply grounded in trust in the father’s care and God’s care and is oriented towards self-giving love towards neighbors and even enemies. So it’s just a completely different way of behaving publicly in a society. So I did really feel like it was a strategic time to teach it.

Amy Julia (09:17)
Hmm.

Yeah, and I’m so struck by the idea of like a way of being in the world, which I think is something we talk a lot about on this podcast, both through the lens of disability, but also through the lens of faith and faith in Jesus. And I’m I’m thinking about like when I was in college, I felt like I ran in, you know, what would now probably be called like evangelical Christian circles, although that didn’t have quite the same

connotation as it does today, but more conservative, like Christian circles. And there was a sense of like, there’s only one way to vote. Like I didn’t know there was a way of being Christian in the world at that time and being a fervent Democrat. I knew you didn’t have to be a Republican, but I also didn’t understand. And I think one of the things I’ve appreciated certainly about the teaching you’ve done, but also going back now many years to, for me, it was Tim Keller’s preaching that

Corey Widmer (10:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amy Julia (10:31)
really helped me to recognize that as a Christian, my way of being in the world could go, could mean that I’m gonna vote as a Republican, it could mean I’m gonna vote as a Democrat. I could be passionately, in fact, committed in either of those directions, but it’s still going to be different than the way of being a Republican or a Democrat if I’m not thinking about how I followed Jesus. And that complicated things for me tremendously, but it also,

Corey Widmer (10:37)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Amy Julia (11:00)
was pretty freeing to really be asking, I had to ask a lot of different questions. And I think the, I’ve been listening to your sermon series, as well as to the opening kind of class that you gave on the political side of things, which we’ll talk about in just a minute. And again, I think you’re attempting to do the same thing, which is not to tell anyone how to vote, but to instruct them in a way of being that will lead to both questions and postures of the heart and towards

Corey Widmer (11:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Amy Julia (11:30)
you know, one another, that might look really different from what we’ve got out in the broader culture right now.

Corey Widmer (11:36)
Totally. I mean, lot of it, I mean, you could almost say it’s the task of identity formation in a lot of ways. mean, I believe that it’s always difficult to be a Christian in the American society that we live in because there’s so many counteractive forces that are pushing against the way of Jesus, which is deeply grounded in self-sacrifice and enemy love. I mean, those are just not American virtues. But election season,

Amy Julia (11:41)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (12:05)
just intensifies those pressures all the more. And deepens the temptation that Christians have, especially to align themselves with one political party or the other. As you said, that has often been the Republican party, especially for white evangelicals, but for other kinds of Christians, it’s often been the Democratic party. And I think that the work of identity formation means that, yes, we are called to be involved in politics, but never to give our key and core identity to our

our political convictions. That’s really where we begin to kind of enter into idolatry and really, really destructive behaviors can occur.

Amy Julia (12:38)
Hmm.

Will you just pause for one sec for anyone who hears the word idolatry and is not quite sure what you’re talking about. Kind of a churchy word.

Corey Widmer (12:49)
Yes, yes. Yeah, that is a very churchy word. Forgive me. By idolatry, I don’t mean necessarily like worshiping like little trinkets on a shelf, but I think that what I would say is putting something other than God at the center of your being that you trust in, that you believe will give you identity and purpose and meaning. And to put politics in the center is to actually look to your political party or even your political figure.

Amy Julia (13:09)
huh.

Corey Widmer (13:18)
as the person who is ultimately your redeemer, your rescuer, the one that you are depending on for the things that one should only depend on for God. So that’s the way I’m defining idolatry. Yeah.

Amy Julia (13:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That’s great. Well, so going back to that, I think first class that you and Heidi were offering, which again is available, we’ll link to it both in kind of white paper form as well as podcast form. It was called How to Be Christian in the Election. And I was curious if you think there’s a difference between being Christian when we’re in the election and when we aren’t in the election.

Like what kind of prompted the title of that, you know?

Corey Widmer (13:58)
Yeah.

Well, the title, we kind of stole the title from the and campaign and we actually used the end campaign, which I highly recommend. And maybe you can put that in the show notes because these, these, this band campaign is fantastic and they’ve been doing really great work. And we depended on a lot of their curriculum, for the, for the framework of our class. but, but yeah, as I, like I kind of said previously, I, I, I do think that what’s different about the election season, especially because politics has become.

Amy Julia (14:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, we’ll put that in the show note too.

We’re good.

Corey Widmer (14:30)
so dominant in our society as almost the primary way that everyone understands power to function in our culture, that Christians especially are susceptible to the temptation of believing that in the election season, because it’s just, it becomes the water that we’re swimming in. We can begin to align ourselves with political power and political identity and even

begin to sort of deposit our hopes for our future, for the hopes of our country, for the hopes of our personhood on the political leaders that are being touted to us. So even though I think the challenge of being a Christian is always there, whether you’re in election season or not, I do think that election season intensifies the temptations in a unique way.

Amy Julia (15:20)
Well, can yeah, so let’s speak about that a little bit. Like where do you feel like Christians have gone wrong when it comes to like elections and politics? And are there like ways that we are kind of tempted to behave? Obviously, you idolatry being one, which I think is important and significant. But I’m also thinking just about those more like I’m thinking about the interpersonal ways of being. But I’m curious if you have examples like that or other.

Corey Widmer (15:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. mean, I think I, I mean, I, I don’t want to speak with too broad of a brush, but I do think that historically Christians have made two almost opposite mistakes when it comes to politics. One is what I would describe as political quietism where they said, well, you know, Christianity or the Christian message, what we often call the gospel has really nothing to do with politics, has nothing to do with the public life of the world.

is really all about the soul and it’s about heaven. And so we just need to avoid politics and just focus on things that are eternal. So let’s just preach the gospel, save souls, even ignore problems of the social illnesses of the world. One famous evangelist, D.L. Moody said, why polish brass on a sinking ship? And by that he meant this whole world’s going down. So let’s occupy ourselves with things that are eternal and immaterial.

Amy Julia (16:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Corey Widmer (16:44)
and just leave politics for them to do to the politicians. I really think that’s a mistake because Jesus, I mean, the first confession of the Christians was a Jesus Kurios, which means Jesus is Lord. That was a challenge to Caesar. It was a political statement. And if Jesus is Lord, it means he’s not just Lord of heaven, he’s Lord of the earth. And that means that his Lordship has implications on society and culture and the Christians should be concerned about how the vulnerable are treated, how government functions, how freedoms are given.

how societies are taking care of its most vulnerable population. So I don’t think political quietism is the answer. And I think there’s a lot of Christians right now who hate so much what’s going on in politics that their answer has been to just plug their ears and run away. I nothing to do with any of this. And as much as I would like to do that, I really would, I don’t think that’s the faithful thing. So that’s one mistake, political quietism. But then on the sheer other side is what I would call as political supremacy is that like

Amy Julia (17:23)
Yes.

Yeah.

Ha ha!

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Corey Widmer (17:42)
Seeing politics as the main vehicle for spiritual and societal change, and even the main vehicle for the advancement of the kingdom of God. When Christians begin to rest our spiritual hopes for a nation and community on a human leader or a human political party, when we have been told explicitly over and over again in the Bible to not ever give our allegiance and faith to a political leader or a political human agenda, there is no political party or any human

political leader or platform that aligns fully with Jesus’ kingdom and his platform, if you will. And when we rest our hopes in a political leader or party in that way, we have given politics ultimate power. That’s idolatry. And I think that there are many, many Christians who are doing that right now. So I would say those are two very serious temptations that all of us are prone to.

fall into, and especially during election season. I think we’re prone to do that. And it’s hard to skate the middle.

Amy Julia (18:43)
Yeah, that’s really helpful. Yes, yes, totally. And continuing to try to escape the demonization that I think is happening and kind of dehumanizing ways of not just from a policy perspective, but from a literal, just a rhetoric perspective. I’ve actually, because thankfully I’m in contact with lots of people who do have different political views.

Corey Widmer (19:02)
Hmm.

Amy Julia (19:12)
many of whom either share a common faith or share a common experience of being parents of children with Down syndrome or both. And so I have been in conversation with people who would not usually be in conversation with each other about this political cycle. And it is amazing how quickly the rhetoric can become just really, yeah, really dehumanizing and the assumptions that we can make about each other, you

Corey Widmer (19:19)
Hmm.

Amy Julia (19:42)
can just really be, yeah, destructive. So this is actually, you wrote, this is in that white paper, you wrote the, or maybe you quoted somebody else as saying, I don’t know, the modern two-party American system should create conflict for every Christian. And I wanted to talk about that a little bit. You’ve said some things, but you then, I think, went on to write about hyper individualism and how that comes out in our political system in two different ways. So I think if you could like maybe,

Corey Widmer (19:46)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Amy Julia (20:09)
define hyperindividualism and talk a little bit about where that comes from and then also how it manifests on both the right and the left.

Corey Widmer (20:12)
Hmm. Yeah.

I think I actually learned this from, you mentioned Tim Keller earlier, I think I remember learning this from him years ago. But basically what that means is that all of our modern political systems are shaped by the enlightenment. It’s shaped by the enlightenment values. And those were deeply individualist values as opposed to more ancient collectivist or communal cultures. And what’s interesting is that that hyper individualism that is birth and enlightenment

Amy Julia (20:23)
Are we okay?

Corey Widmer (20:46)
is expressed in different ways within our two-party system. So historically, like liberals or progressives, have said that the government should have much more control over the distribution of income, but should, you know, people should have complete freedom and liberty when it comes to their individual moral choices. Whereas conservatives, and again, I’m speaking with a broad brush here, but conservatives has historically stated that the government should have much greater say and control over morality.

things like marriage and sexuality and abortion and so forth, but leave people free as individuals to do whatever they want with their wealth. Right. But what’s interesting is that both both parties are operating within the same philosophical framework of enlightenment individualism. And what that done what that has done is it’s created a binary where it is just impossible to fit the biblical ethic into either of these positions. know, evangelical

Amy Julia (21:28)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (21:43)
conservatives have historically sided with Republicans because they emphasize the concerns of personal morality, know, like marriage and, and, and, abortion, things like that. Whereas mainline Protestants and African-Americans have typically sided more with Democrats, which emphasize social justice and social morality, things like justice for the poor and equality for minorities and care for the environment. But here’s the thing. This is what’s really key is that neither party

represents the fullness of the values of Jesus in the kingdom. If you vote for one or the other, it forces you to leave one whole part of the biblical ethic, which at the door, because the biblical ethic encompasses both social morality and individual morality. So you just have to, you cannot be in this system and vote for any candidate within the two party system that fully embodies the comprehensive biblical ethic. And this is why when you see people like

Pope Francis, who is like really staunch about abortion or has a traditional sexual ethic on marriage, but then is like decrying capitalism as abusive to the poor against the death penalty, anti-gun. Like people are so confused. Is he a progressive? Is he a conservative? You he’s getting attacked on both sides. Well, what everyone agrees on is Pope Francis is a Catholic.

Amy Julia (22:50)
Right.

I’m gonna go.

Corey Widmer (23:06)
He is being guided by a theological framework for his political vision that is antithetical to a two-party system. And so he just doesn’t, it just doesn’t make any sense. And so I just think Christians have to be accepting of that discomfort. And if you ever feel like really comfortable with a political candidate or political party, that just shows that you are really blinded. You’re really not seeing the whole picture of what the Bible teaches about an individual and social ethics.

Amy Julia (23:10)
Yeah.

It kind of makes me, so hearing you say all of that, think is where I, like, so anyone who’s hearing that and I could imagine is like, so why would that quietest way be the wrong way? Because there’s no way to do this right. Like there’s no way to do it right is part of what you’re saying.

Corey Widmer (23:46)
Yeah, yeah, because we’re supposed to be involved. Yeah, Jesus, I mean, we’re told to be salt and light, to be engaged in society, to work for the shalom of your neighbor, to pray, to be engaged with your neighborhood, your community. Politics is actually one of many ways you can love your neighbor. So we have to be involved. And yet if we’re involved, it’s always going to be in a way that feels uncomfortable and awkward and never fully fits with our Christian convictions.

Amy Julia (24:16)
Yeah.

Corey Widmer (24:17)
because we’re, we just have to be okay with that. And even when you vote, like if you expect to go in the voting booth, expecting to vote for a candidate that fully embodies the fullness of your values, good luck with that. I mean, this is why Stanley Howard says the first thing you should do after you vote is get on your knees and confess your sins because you have, you have just voted for someone that does not fully embody the values of Jesus. And

Amy Julia (24:29)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (24:43)
you know, sometimes I Christians get a little confused about that and can even start to manipulate their ideas about a candidate to comport them to their Christian values when in reality no candidate can do that. They start to justify the platform of a candidate, say, see how Christian he is or see how Christian she is, when actually that’s just not the case and it’s silly to try to do that because you will never be able to vote a candidate with comports with the Christian worldview.

Amy Julia (25:08)
Seems like that’s also might be part of where like our trouble with seeing politics as a kind of by definition compromise, like a place of compromise. I was talking with our son William about he actually this is kind of cool. Our son William is like a kind of political nerd and has been since he was little and he was asked to speak in front of his school about why he cares about politics so much.

Corey Widmer (25:22)
Yeah. Yes.

Amy Julia (25:39)
So we’ve been having these conversations and he was talking just about the ways in which we were talking about people who have actually been able to accomplish bipartisan legislation, whether that was actually we talked about our mutual friend, Danny Avula in Richmond and Richmond William got to spend a week with Danny who was running for mayor and got to see some of this kind of like across the Republican Democrat divide happening. And he was like, I could really see that that had to do with this.

Corey Widmer (26:02)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Julia (26:08)
understanding of the common good, like this desire for the good of this city. And we were talking about how that might be easier on a local level than it is on a national level. But I guess my point is just that I do see there being so much idealism that can go into our politics that it makes us hard to understand how we could vote for anyone who’s not perfectly conforming to that ideal and how we

Corey Widmer (26:10)
Yes. Yeah.

Hmm, definitely.

Amy Julia (26:35)
certainly can’t accept any sort of compromise on legislation because it does not conform perfectly to that ideal when actually, and I guess, you know, again, this kind of perhaps Christian vision that can be idealistic when it comes to face to face with the real reality of, you know, yeah, well, you’re not going to get everything you want and it’s not going to be perfect. I don’t know. I think that is a what can make people want to walk away.

Corey Widmer (26:38)
Right? Right?

Yeah.

Amy Julia (27:04)
B, make people want to justify and not really attend to the ways it’s never going to be perfect.

Corey Widmer (27:10)
hear you saying is that a healthy democracy is built on compromise and persuasion and being willing to meet in the middle and work together. And we never actually fully get to a place where all of my deepest convictions are embodied. And actually, if we insist on that, that actually can end up brutalizing other people. And I think we’re going to get into this a little bit, but I think that’s what’s happening to our society in a little bit, is we have so little common ground anymore.

Amy Julia (27:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Corey Widmer (27:38)
is that we’ve turned politics into an existential fight for survival in which one side must have their vision, their complete vision, their alternative vision of society fulfilled, which makes it very, very difficult to compromise anymore.

Amy Julia (27:42)
Mmm.

Yeah, I really appreciate the way you put that. And I remembered my third point, which was humility. And that does kind of lead us back towards the Beatitudes, just that it takes a tremendous amount of humility to compromise, to not get exactly what I want, to not know exactly what to do all the time and yet say, I’m going to I’m going to roll my sleeves up. I’m going to be engaged. I believe this is a way to participate in loving my neighbor, even if imperfectly. So I’m curious, like.

Corey Widmer (27:57)
Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Julia (28:21)
as you think about all of the things we’ve just talked about, and again, without telling anyone how to vote, how should individuals respond? Like, what do you want to see from your congregation as people go into election day, but also as we kind of navigate political issues more broadly as a society?

Corey Widmer (28:44)
Yeah. I mean, one thing that I mean, for the people in my community, I mean, I think my first and foremost longing is that their deepest allegiance and commitment would be to Jesus Christ and his kingdom, not to a political figure or political ideology or even to a nation state. I mean, we can be proud to be at Americans, but if we give ourselves over to being American as our first allegiance, this is ultimately distorting to the gospel.

There’s a very serious danger of Christian nationalism rising right now that essentially employs government and power to enforce sort of hegemony through civil religion. every time Christians have used political power and political force to advance their cause and their desire, it has ended up to the detriment of the Christian faith. Because as NT Wright says, it seeks a kingdom without a cross.

It seeks power without self-sacrifice and love. So, you my first hope is that Christians would repent and turn away from thirsting after the power of politics and as a way to advance our cause and see that the way of Jesus, his kingdom advances through love, his kingdom advances through self-giving, his kingdom advances through tiny acts of…

Amy Julia (29:43)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (30:08)
mercy and justice and care for the most vulnerable. This is how his kingdom advances. You know, I also would love, I think another call would be for us to be better thinkers about these issues. If you’re a Christian, I think that we fall too quickly to what James, the ethicist James Mumford calls package deal ethics. That when it comes to moral issues, all the complicated issues that we think about right now, whether it’s the environment, whether it’s guns, whether it’s abortion,

Amy Julia (30:34)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (30:38)
We too often allow our answers unthinkingly to be determined by what side of the political spectrum we see ourselves on. I mean, there’s no rational reason why someone who is, you know, pro-family would also be pro-gun. There’s also no rational reason why someone with a rainbow flag on their car would also be committed to fresh produce. But we group these things together in these package deals and we become unthinking.

And really, as Christians especially fail to apply the depth of the Christian tradition and the biblical ethic to all the complexity of issues that we face. And it’s never going to fit into a political platform. So that’s another thing is just urging us to be better thinkers and not be captive to the political binaries. And then I guess the last thing would just be to be people of love and curiosity. I think if we’re deeply grounded in deep trust,

And if we are non-anxious people who trust that there is a good God who loves the world and who loves us and one day who promises that all will be well, then we won’t be captive to fear. And when we’re fearful, we’re terrible listeners, we’re not curious, and we tend to want to take control. But if we can practice being not fearful and not anxious,

and deeply trusting instead in a God who loves us, knowing that we’re the deeply beloved ones, then we’re free to be curious, to really understand people who think differently than we do. We’re free to dialogue with those that we disagree with. We’re free to compromise. We’re free to take a risk. We’re free to extend our hand to people that we might see as enemies. mean, all of this is born out of knowing that we’re loved and knowing that we can trust that God is good.

and that he’s good to us and our world.

Amy Julia (32:37)
I am struck just even in hearing you talk about the historical situation of the early church that had essentially zero, if not the opposite of, mean, whatever negative political power is, and yet they’re following the way of Jesus ultimately, really, yeah, of the political system and certainly of the situation for the most vulnerable. I want to turn just in kind of the last, I don’t know,

Corey Widmer (32:46)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

was transformative. Yeah.

Amy Julia (33:06)
10 or so minutes of this conversation, 10 or 15 minutes up to the Beatitudes because I do think they tie together the way of Jesus with what we’re talking about. And so I’m wondering if you could just remind us of like what the Beatitudes are because people may not know. And then we’ll talk a little bit about how that might give us, especially for those of us who are finding ourselves in that place of like, I don’t want to be.

Corey Widmer (33:10)
Hmm.

Amy Julia (33:32)
in this polarized political place and so I’m tempted to just run away, you know, how that might give us a way forward. So yeah, can you remind us of the attitude?

Corey Widmer (33:37)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So the Sermon on the Mount, like you said earlier, Amy Julia, is Jesus’s most famous teaching. It was probably a collection of teachings that Matthew kind of archived and curated and put together that Jesus kind of taught in different settings at different times. But it’s grouped together in three chapters, Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And it’s grouped into three distinct parts, an introduction, a center, and then a conclusion.

And the Beatitudes are the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. It’s chapter five, verses one through 12. And Jesus makes several sayings that are quite famous where he says things like, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. There’s nine of them actually. And he’s really operating almost in the position of a wisdom teacher here. There were many people at the time who often had little

Amy Julia (34:30)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (34:35)
sayings like this, like the Hebrew word is ashrei. They’re talking about this is what it means to live a life of goodness and a life of blessedness. It actually goes really well with the theme of your podcast, What is the Good Life? And there were many teachers, ancient teachers, both Jewish and Greek, who taught about what the good life consists of. Having, you know, everything from like

Amy Julia (34:46)
Yeah.

Corey Widmer (34:58)
being in a position where you are an authority and people obey you, to having a compliant wife, to having children who are successful. I mean, there are lots of lists like this. And so what Jesus was doing in one sense was not unusual. He was a wisdom teacher and a rabbi, and he was teaching about how to live a good life. But what he was doing was so utterly subversive because he was casting a vision for the good life that was completely inverted in the ancient world, just as much as it is today.

Amy Julia (35:27)
Yeah.

Corey Widmer (35:27)
that he was saying the good life is not to be happy, but it’s to be those who mourn. And the good life is not to be wealthy, but it’s to be poor. And the good life is not to be powerful, but to be meek. I mean, he was just being nuts, right? Like flipping the values of the world on its head. And I can’t even imagine what it would must’ve been like to hear them for the first time. We’re so used to them now, but it just must’ve astonished his original hearers about this vision of the good life. And he was…

actually inviting everyone who heard him to believe him and to actually trust him that what you have been told about the good life is not true and I’m actually inviting you into a different vision of the good life because this is what it means for you to flourish, to embody these things.

Amy Julia (36:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I have returned to the Beatitudes just because of our experience as a family with a child with a disability over and over over again, because it feels so counterintuitive that, again, the way of vulnerability and neediness and dependence and being often stigmatized within the world that

Corey Widmer (36:23)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Amy Julia (36:44)
comes along with disability a lot of the time, that that would actually be the good life, which we certainly have experienced as a family that as we have kind of been invited into Penny’s identity, that has also given us a greater taste of this wider, broader, like more beautiful and good way, but it’s so different than what I assumed.

Corey Widmer (36:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

my gosh, I know. to think that, I I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you know, I was with you and Peter in that time. And to have a child born with Down syndrome in a world like ours is to be told you’re going to, is not the kind of child that you were supposed to have. This is breaking all of my assumptions about the kind of family and the kind of child and the kind of future. And yet what has Penny done? She has opened up.

Amy Julia (37:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Widmer (37:36)
all of us to a world of goodness and beauty and mercy and kindness and through experience, through that vulnerability, through what it’s like to live life with someone who is more vulnerable, you have been open to goodness in a way that wouldn’t have been possible unless you had been given that gift of vulnerability. That’s the secret of the Beatitudes right there.

Amy Julia (37:53)
I know. Right. Yeah.

One of my favorites of your sermons was about the aerobics of the Beatitudes. was, think, the concluding one

Corey Widmer (38:03)
yes, yes, yeah.

Amy Julia (38:06)
But I wondered if you would share

with listeners here because I loved it just as a embodied way to consider living this out.

Corey Widmer (38:15)
Yeah, so I got this idea from a commentator named Dale Bruner who talked about the three postures that exist in the Beatitudes. He groups them into three groups, the first being, the first four, which are all about our need. He calls them the need Beatitudes, know, those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek, they’re lacking in power, those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, they’re lacking in what is just.

And all those four people are kind of on their knees. They’re in need, they’re empty, longing for something. So that’s the knees, okay? Imagine yourself on your knees, okay? You can even do it right now if you’re listening. You can get on your knees. You’re in a position of readiness to receive because you’re empty. Then what he says is those people get filled up. They get all they need from God. They get the kingdom of heaven, they get comfort, they get an inheritance, they get righteousness, and they’re filled. And then Jesus puts them on their feet.

Amy Julia (38:55)
Get on your knees.

Corey Widmer (39:12)
and says, blessed are the merciful. That’s those who extend God’s compassion. Blessed are the pure in heart. That’s those who extend God’s wholeness and integrity. Blessed are the peacemakers. That’s those who take fractured things and put them back together again. So what do we do when we get filled up? We get on our feet and then we start extending God’s mercy, justice, and compassion to the world. That’s the second group. And then the third group, Jesus gets real dark. He says, blessed are those who are persecuted. Blessed are you when people insult you.

and persecute you and say bad stuff about you. Rejoice and be glad. Again, pretty counterintuitive, but Jesus is basically saying, if you do all these things, if you try to advocate for the poor, if you seek to be a vehicle of mercy, if you try to mend broken things and get in the middle of conflict and people who are deeply divided and you try to bring healing, you’re going to get knocked down. People aren’t going to like it. You’re going to get thrust. You’re going to get thrown down on your back.

And so that’s the movement is on your knees, on your feet, on your back, on your knees, on your feet, on your back. It is great because you get filled up and then you’re on your feet and you’re doing all this great stuff and you’re thinking, wow, this is awesome. I’m going to win a community service award. But then you get knucked on your back and where do you go when you’re on your back? You go back to your knees and you’re empty again and you’re ready to be filled. And so it’s just this continual movement of grace. And what I pointed out in that sermon is that this is actually,

Amy Julia (40:17)
I’m

You

Corey Widmer (40:40)
This is actually the postures of Jesus, that Jesus first begins on his knees, he begins in abject humility and poverty, he emptied himself and made himself nothing. Jesus is filled up by the Spirit at his baptism and he has this amazing ministry of healing and extending God’s compassion and justice. And then what happens? He gets pinned down on his back and crucified. And this is actually the pattern, the aerobics of Jesus is the aerobics of his people. And it’s a very different…

pattern than the narrative of American politics, which is about fortifying your base, seizing power, gaining control, winning legislation. This is the opposite of that. Jesus is saying, in my kingdom, it’s a different pattern. It’s a different way of engaging and being in the world. And the map that he’s giving us is the Beatitudes.

Amy Julia (41:21)
Right.

Thank you so much for that. I love it. And I will again link to that sermon in the show notes as well. I mentioned this at the beginning that we’re talking a few days before the election, but this conversation will air the day of the election. And we know right now that we don’t know who’s going to win this election. We also know that there will be a large portion of our population that feels upset about the results of this election, no matter who wins. And a number of

Corey Widmer (41:46)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Amy Julia (42:03)
You know the opposite number of people who will be probably rejoicing no matter which way it goes So I’m wondering if you have any counsel as we come to the end of this time for Christians who are because there are plenty of them about to have a president that they don’t want and For Christians who are about to have a president who they voted for you know like we know that that is true that they’re gonna be Christians on both sides of this vote and both There’s a way of being for all of us. That is certainly not about gloating

Corey Widmer (42:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amy Julia (42:32)
or again, kind of wielding power in a dehumanizing way or demonizing way or anything. yeah, do you have any thoughts about that?

Corey Widmer (42:37)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do. I’m glad you asked that question. I mean, I am very concerned about this. A recent study showed that 23 % of Americans believe that violence might be an alternative to stabilizer democracy, which is a very disturbing number. And so, you know, I think for those who are disappointed with the election results, one of the first things I would say is,

a pretty radical thing is to accept the results of the election. I don’t mean, you know, do the necessary processes that we have in our democracy to explore the legitimacy of an election, but at some point, actually being a faithful follower of Jesus who loves our neighbor is to participate in the mechanics of democracy. And that sometimes means accepting results that you’re not happy with.

Amy Julia (43:34)
Mm-hmm.

Corey Widmer (43:35)
Because in democracy, political disappointment is always better than having your own despot in power. And for Christians, we deeply believe that no, there is no one single acceptable outcome of election. If you believe that, then you have tied one candidate to the future of the Kingdom of God, which is idolatry. And so acceptance is actually a really Christian

response. And I think we then move on and we work constructively. We pray for wisdom, we pray for those in power, we work for the good of all. Our main call in life has not changed, which is to follow Jesus in the pattern that he’s laid out in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, continuing to love and serve our neighbor. And ultimately to hold our leaders accountable.

to what we see as the way of justice. For those who are happy with the election results, I would remind them that they are still called to be part of the loyal opposition. There will be things in the days ahead that you just need to remember that the person that you voted for, that you’re excited about, is not someone who is always going to perfectly embody the values of Jesus and is not always going to be

Amy Julia (44:45)
Mm.

Corey Widmer (44:59)
doing things that are aligned with God’s vision for life. There may be things that happen that are good, there may be things that happen that are really bad, that denigrate life, that distort the image of God, that neglect justice, that neglect compassion. So no matter who is elected, there are going to be ways that Christians have to be the loyal opposition because we have limited allegiance, always. We pray for our state, we work for, you know.

Amy Julia (45:10)
the

Corey Widmer (45:27)
good, but we give our ultimate allegiance to Jesus and we know that every nation state and every human leader will fall short. So I hope that we can embody that. That’s tall order in our current political environment right now, but ultimately I think it’s embodying the way of love.

Amy Julia (45:49)
Well, that seems like a good place to end this conversation. But truly, as an invitation to embody the way of love, but I also appreciate just those very practical, both acceptance as well as loyal opposition seem like really good. For me, those are good handholds. So thank you for that and for all of the work you’ve done this fall and for this conversation. I’m sure there are many people who…

Will be really grateful as we potentially go into a couple of days of uncertainty and perhaps a season of Some measure of unrest we shall see but regardless to be reminded of that More core calling for those of us who do seek to follow Jesus Is a really really good way to go into that season. So thank you for that

Corey Widmer (46:36)
Thank you. was great talking with you.