Michael Rhodes — lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College in New Zealand, former pastor, and author of Practicing the King's Economy and Just Discipleship — returns to discuss his new book, Reimagining Biblical Politics: What Scripture Says About Public Life and Why It Matters.
Rhodes wrote the book deliberately without addressing contemporary American political issues, hoping to give a partisan-divided church something it could use together. His argument is that Scripture speaks about politics constantly, and in many voices: John says get out of Babylon, Jeremiah says seek its welfare, Paul says submit and also flees a trial he considers unjust, and the Hebrew midwives lie to Pharaoh and are blessed for it. Underneath the diversity, one claim holds everything together — the Lord reigns.
He distinguishes outpost politics, the public life of a people living under God's reign, from pilgrim politics, how that people engages nations that don't recognize it. Both are political; only one usually gets called that.
The conversation turns to why churches gather less diversity than their neighborhoods, what Rhodes learned from a conversation after Trayvon Martin's death, and why Daniel worked for Nebuchadnezzar and criticized him anyway.
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
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Find more from Michael at https://michaeljrhodes.substack.com
Chapters:
00:00 The book, the podcast, the Substack
02:12 A choir of political voices
06:25 Faithful action that doesn't look alike
09:38 Outpost politics and pilgrim politics
14:04 Why blurred lines are a gift
18:34 What Scripture demands and what it leaves open
22:33 Rounding up at the checkout
25:07 Where local political action actually happens
29:09 Is justice the church's job or the state's?
32:33 The house church in China
34:19 The lines churches inherit
38:13 Who arranges the chairs
42:00 Same footage, different verdict
46:13 Who sets the table
51:30 Daniel worked for Nebuchadnezzar and criticized him
52:20 Learning to see what you're not seeing
59:49 When presidents quote Scripture about America
1:03:12 Designed poor: a Memphis neighborhood
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