William T. Cavanaugh — professor of Catholic studies at DePaul, director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, and author of The Uses of Idolatry, Torture and Eucharist, Migrations of the Holy, and Being Consumed — joins James Spencer and Ashish Varma for the fifth episode in the faith and politics series.
Cavanaugh begins where politics itself begins: not with elections, but with how people organize a shared life. He traces how the sacred trappings once belonging to the church migrated to the modern state, and points to the Apotheosis of Washington on the Capitol dome as a reminder that ostensibly secular nations still deify.
Much of the conversation is about idolatry — why the word is worth recovering despite its colonial baggage, and what Latin American theologians saw when they applied it to economics rather than atheism. Cavanaugh works the argument through Amazon packages, cobalt mines, and Milton Friedman's definition of a free transaction, then answers the obvious objection about whether ordinary people can do anything at all.
He closes on why the pursuit of Christian political power keeps producing the opposite of what it promises, with Hungary as the case in point.
Go deeper: Christians & Politics
Thinking Christian is hosted by Dr. James Spencer, president of the D. L. Moody Center and author of Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Each conversation reads the Bible as the final authority for life and faith, questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don't settle for a narrower vision than God's word offers.
Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction.
Episodes, articles, and questions: thinkingchristian.org
About James Spencer: thinkingchristian.org/james
The Thinking Christian Framework: thinkingchristian.org/framework
Order Digital Discernment: amazon.com
Advertising and partnership inquiries: info@thinkingchristian.org
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome
01:24 Politics before it meant elections
03:38 Ecclesia: the church as a third thing
05:30 Migrations of the holy
08:25 The Apotheosis of Washington
09:12 We didn't have to end up here
11:30 Why the fall is an optimistic doctrine
14:58 Chile, Argentina, and the habits of a church
17:17 Kennedy's Pyrrhic victory
20:59 Why Christians think they need power
22:59 Recovering the word idolatry
27:08 Economics as theology
30:31 Amazon, cobalt, and what's invisible by design
34:51 If I don't buy the bananas, who eats?
41:06 Neither the status quo nor a treehouse
44:46 Mondragon and worker ownership
46:12 What you can actually do
48:12 A migrant ministry in Oak Park
51:13 Framing a midterm election
54:34 Hungary, Orbán, and what power costs the church
57:02 The churches everyone assumed were holding
Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
