Ep. 11 Politics Formed By Faith with Nish Weiseth

Written By Sarah Bessey

Hosted by Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu

Featuring Nish Weiseth

This week, we go all in on politics, spiritual formation, and the call of this moment in time in the lead up to the American election. In this fiery talk, Nish Weiseth calls her fellow white evangelical Americans to account and argues that politics is the single largest systemic tool that we have at our disposal with which we can love our neighbor. Simply put, politics for the Christian should be institutional neighborliness. Then Jeff and Sarah have a wide-ranging conversation about the international dominance of the American evangelical experiment, spiritual formation, and politics as invitation to the intention, action, and movement we desperately need right now to move toward just a little more love every day.

P.S. This episode has an Explicit rating for language.

 

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Show Notes

Nish Weiseth

Other links mentioned in the show:

Special thanks to Audrey Assad and Wes Willison for the music on this episode. And thanks as always to our new producer, Lucy Huang.

If you’d like to be featured on an upcoming episode, just call our voicemail inbox at +1 (616) 929-0409. Leave your first name and state or province and answer this question: How are you cultivating hope in the wilderness right now? It can be something small - a song, a poem, a practice - or something big. There are no wrong answers. Just please try to keep your answer to under a minute so we can feature a few of you every episode.

 
“Politics is the single largest systemic tool that we have at our disposal with which we can love our neighbor. Simply put, politics for the Christian should be institutional neighborliness.”
— Nish Weiseth
 
 

IMAGE CONTENTS: Eight graphics with quotes from the episode. First graphic: Blue and green illustrated flourishes with a photograph of Nish Weiseth. Text reads: “Politics Formed by Faith Episode 11. Now Streaming. with Nish Weiseth.” Remaining graphics are white squares and all have the same illustration of blue, green, and maroon illustrated dots and a line drawing of an open book with a plant growing out of the pages. All quotes unless otherwise specified are from Nish Weiseth. Text for the remaining graphics are as follows: 2. “Politics is the single largest systemic tool that we have at our disposal with which we can love our neighbor.” 3. “Simply put, politics for the Christian should be institutional neighborliness.” 4. “We have a serious and fatal discipleship and spiritual formation from white American Christianity.” 5. “Spiritual formation is the process by which we are shaped by the power of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus for the sake of others.” 6. “If we are not submitting ourselves, fellow white people, to the leadership, experience, authority and wisdom of the margins, we cannot truly be formed into the image of Jesus, it is impossible.” 7. “The absolute least you could do is vote.” 8. “We need each other in this work of embodying resurrection and cultivating hope and love. In some ways, it’s like the most annoying group project.” - Jeff Chu.

 

Transcript

JEFF: Hi friends, I’m Jeff Chu.

SARAH: And I’m Sarah Bessey

JEFF: Welcome back to the Evolving Faith Podcast.

SARAH: This is a podcast for the wanderers, the misfits, the spiritual refugees, to let you know you are not alone in the wilderness. We're all about hope and we're here to point each other to God. No matter where you are on your journey, no matter what your story is, you are welcome here. We're listening— to God, to one another, and to the world.

JEFF: The story of God is bigger, wider, more inclusive and welcoming, filled with more love, than we could ever imagine. There is room here for everyone. 

SARAH: There's room here for you.

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SARAH:  This is Episode 11 of the Evolving Faith Podcast! We’re in double digits now.

JEFF: We were in double digits last week. Once again, the math, Sarah. The math.

SARAH: So this week, we’re hearing from Nish Weiseth. Nish is the author of a book called “Speak: How Your Story Can Change the World.” She is also a spiritual director, freelance opinion writer, Enneagram coach, speaker, editor, and the former host of Impolite Company, a podcast about the intersection of faith and politics. She is also the co-founder of Multiply Goodness, which is an interfaith non-profit seeking to build bridges between evangelical Christian women and Mormon women through small-group Bible studies and conferences. Nish lives in Idaho with her husband and their two kids.

JEFF: I don’t know how Nish even has the time to do all that, especially living where she lives, which is amidst some of the most gorgeous country I’ve ever seen. I would be too distracted to do anything. Every time Nish Instagrams the beauty around her house, I feel jealous or actually even like it’s probably a fraud, like she’s Googling the prettiest pictures of nature and then posting them as her own, because who lives amidst such ridiculous glory? It is almost unreal.

SARAH: For real. She has absolutely let the secret out of the bag - Idaho is apparently the place to be. She has always just had this gear of being able to get about three times as much done as me, and complaining probably like—well, I’ll say it this way: I complain probably three times as much as she does. Nish happens to be a very dear friend of mine, and yours as well. Like all great relationships, we met on the Internet. She was the founder and editor for an online magazine that some of our listeners may remember called Deeper Story. Wasn’t that a moment in time? She hosted a Twitter party one night— which, remember those? Back when Twitter was actually fun?— and I joined in. And we quickly realized we were kindred spirits, so I joined the writing team there, eventually becoming an editor myself, and we have been friends through thick and thin. I love her so much. When we decided to explicitly name and speak to politics at Evolving Faith back in 2018, Rachel and I called in Nish because she has such a unique way of speaking about the intersection of politics and faith. She has a prophetic and yet pastoral dynamic, because she can speak directly to practicalities while not missing the bigger picture. 

JEFF: Nish is so wise. She, in my experience, asks annoyingly good questions, which I guess is useful for a spiritual director. But I think this talk reveals a side of Nish that is maybe a little more confrontational than I had known before. And I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. I mean that in a “people, get ready” sort of way.

SARAH: So, just to set the table before we get to Nish’s talk, she was the final speaker in a morning session that included Austin Channing Brown and Sandra Maria Van Opstal. So when Nish opens up her talk, she is immediately responding to what you all have already heard in Episodes 2 and 8. Also, fair word of warning, Nish swears even better than my granny used to swear so there is an explicit rating on this episode. So friends, join us as we listen to Nish Weiseth speaking at the first Evolving Faith conference at Montreat, North Carolina.

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NISH WEISETH: Well, shit. I was talking to a friend back home about this event, and she asked me how many people were going to be here and I told her, “Oh, somewhere around 1300-1500 people, I don't know.” And she's like, “Oh, my gosh, you must be nervous.” And I was like, “No, I'm not nervous. I'm a damn professional.” Like, this is what I do. I'm usually Zen about this stuff. And then I got the email that I was preaching after them. And that's when I peed my pants.

As Rachel said, my name is Nish, and today we're going to talk about politics.

I am a Jesus-following, Bible-reading, church-loving, Holy Spirit-driven, gospel-preaching, straight, white woman who lives in a small town in Idaho, and I voted for Hillary Clinton. And today is October 27, 2018, in the year of our Lord, and Donald Trump has been president of these United States for 596 years.

And you know what? He's still racist, and sexist, and ableist. We're going to go there. And let me tell you why. Number 1, given how yesterday went and how so many of you have felt, you felt alone for so long? I think it's important that someone say this from the stage: to say that Donald Trump is racist. And for a white woman to say that. And to say that it's okay to be a Christian and love the Bible and be a Democrat. You're not crazy.

[From the audience: But we feel like we are!]

Yes, you do. But the world is a fucking dumpster fire. That's why you feel crazy. They said I could cuss. I’m not sorry. 2016 happened and it was like, fuck it. 

[laughs] Oh, my kids are watching. Sorry, Eric.

Here's the other reason why we need to go there and be blunt about it. Because our neighbors in the margins, our neighbors of color, our immigrant and refugee neighbors,

our disabled and neurodiverse neighbors and children like my son, our LGBTQ neighbors, our Indigenous and Native neighbors, do not have the time or luxury or privilege to dance around this anymore. They do not have the time for us to figure out our feelings and have silly conversations about civility and interrupting people's dinner. They don't have the time when their innocent children, unarmed children are shot in the street by police; they do not have the time. When they are constantly living in the shadows for fear of being deported. When they are staring down the possibility of their very identity being erased by our government. They don't have the fucking time.

They don't have time. They need us to step up to the plate, to step in the gap, to put our money where our mouth is, to put our bodies in some protest lines and voices on the phone and our feet hitting the pavement. That's what they need. It's time. And it's not the responsibility of Austin, or Sandra, or Jeff, or Prop, or Cindy, or A’driane, or Osheta, or Kaitlin, or Wil to ask us to please do our part. It's mine. It's my responsibility.

So fellow white, straight, cisgendered, abled American people in the audience, which is the majority of you, yours and my tweets and Facebook posts and hashtags are not enough. They were never enough. There is more required of us. And there's no time to waste. Our sisters and brothers have been sounding the alarm for years. For years. And we chose— we chose not to listen. We chose it. We need to own it. We need to claim it.

We need to apologize for it in our communities. We need to repent of it. We need to choose to walk on a path that can help make it right. 

To my friends of color, my disabled, LGBTQ, immigrant, refugee, Indigenous and Native friends. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't listen. I'm so sorry that for so long, there was more that I could have done. And I didn't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Forgive me.

Maybe you woke up on November 9, 2016. Maybe that was the day it all fell apart for you. The final straw that broke the back, the domino that made everything else fall. You woke up on November 9, 2016. And you felt betrayed. You felt lied to. Pushed further out. And now you're looking back on a faith, a system, that you no longer understand. A faith system that you can no longer recognize because it chose to sell out the entire ethic of Jesus and His Kingdom for a Supreme Court seat, corporate tax cuts, and some selfies in the Oval Office.

Those were the 30 pieces of silver for the 81%. The leaders that raised you in the faith, that beat the drum of purity culture and personal morality, now apparently don't give a shit because their guy is the one that holds their political ideology.

It's disorienting, is it not? It's difficult. It's painful to watch and experience that firsthand. I want you to know that your pain and your disillusionment and your anger and your frustration are legitimate. Of course they are. Of course they are. But, my friends, like Sandra said, we cannot sit in our anger and pain. We've got to walk and move toward and figure out a way to engage in politics in a way that is sustainable, yes, but also in a way that puts the needs of our neighbors ahead of our own while we deal with our pain.

Because they do not have the luxury and privilege of waiting. 

So how do we do that? Let's break down the current dynamics of the marriage between white evangelical Christianity and politics. What we see from those previously mentioned leaders is a faith that is formed by politics and not a politics that is informed by faith. What has become increasingly clear to me is that we have a serious and fatal discipleship and spiritual formation problem in white American Christianity. I mean, let's be clear, we have a whole host of other problems we have to deal with as well. But that's one—humor me. That's the one we're going to go with today. 

What is spiritual formation? It's a good question, right? Spiritual formation is the process by which we are shaped by the power of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus for the sake of others. That is spiritual formation. I'm going to repeat that for you: Spiritual formation is the process by which we are shaped by the power of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus for the sake of others. 

And this flies in the face of so much of the discipleship that we were raised in by our white evangelical upbringings. Discipleship and formation was all about being saved by the power of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus so that me, myself, and I could get into heaven. It was always individual. It was always independent. And it was always about my own salvation. It left out the critical part: for the sake of others.

The Gospel and discipleship of my youth never mentioned that we were made into the image of Jesus for the sake of others, for the sake of our neighbors, for the sake of our communities, for the sake of going about the work of Jesus here on this earth, in this time, to see the Kingdom of God breaks through this shitshow, today and tomorrow and the next day. We are made more into the image of Jesus so that others might

Flourish. So that the last would be first. So that the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted would be blessed. We are called to be made more into the image of Jesus for their sake. So that they may be blessed. It is a formation that has others in the center, not ourselves.  

So the next question is, Who has the power to form us? Who are the voices that you listen to when it comes to learning how to follow the way of Jesus? Are they all white? Are they all straight? Are they all male? Are they all neurotypical and abled? Are they all American? If your answer to any variety of those questions is yes, I suggest you make some upgrades to your bookshelves, your Facebook and Twitter feeds, and your podcast subscriptions. Because if we are not submitting ourselves, fellow white people, to the leadership, experience, authority, and wisdom of the margins, we cannot truly be formed into the image of Jesus. It is impossible.

When the kingdom is finally here in all of its fullness, what a day that will be. The first will be last, and the last will be first. But here's a cool insider tip: We don't have to wait for that. We actually have the power to push a fast forward on that reorg chart. We can do it today. We are called to be formed into the image of Jesus for the sake of others, and we give the power of our discipleship to those whom the empire declares shouldn't have it. That's how we are formed into the image of Jesus. And then we are formed into the image of Jesus for the sake of others. Only then will we have a politics informed by our faith. 

Look, to say the politics and the government and our political system is deeply broken and fucked up would be a gross understatement. But here's the reality. Politics is the single largest systemic tool that we have at our disposal with which we can love our neighbor. Simply put, politics for the Christian should be institutional neighborliness.

What if our politics was no longer just about me and the amount of my annual tax return? What if our politics was no longer about me and my economic security? What if  politics was no longer just about my child's education, but the education of every child? What if politics wasn't just about my health-care premiums, but whether or not every person had access to quality health care that didn't bankrupt them if they got sick, or had surgery, or wanted to have a baby? What if our politics was no longer only about our national security, but about the security and safety of those fleeing countries ripped apart by violence and war? What if politics was no longer about whether the criminal justice system would treat me fairly, but whether or not it would treat everyone fairly? What if politics was no longer about whether my civil rights were protected but if everyone had the same rights that I did? What if politics was no longer about keeping my own dignity intact but whether or not it protected everyone's dignity, regardless if they were born here or not. What if our politics was no longer about putting kids in cages. 

What if? How do we get this kind of politics—politics that doesn't revolve around me but around others? The absolute least you could do is vote. You guys, that's a super low bar. We're about to have an opportunity to engage in a faith-formed politics on November 6. If you are not registered to vote, you can go to vote.org or votesaveamerica.com and get all the information that you need to register, which you can still do in many states. If you need help registering to vote, you can find me and I will personally help you register to vote. This is the thing that will cost you the least, but can possibly have the most power. And you know what? There are a lot of places that are actively trying to make it harder for our sisters and brothers of color to vote. And by exercising your own right and engaging our power to vote with them in mind, first is one step closer to ensuring that their civic right is more protected.

Here's some other things you can do. Find local protests and marches and sit-ins and events that are speaking truth to power on behalf of the vulnerable. Put your body on the line. Get on the phone. I know you guys are all into texting now. I say “you guys,” like I don’t text religiously.

Get on the phone and call your representatives in your city, state and national governments to talk to them about issues that affect your neighbor and not just you. Elevate and volunteer on campaigns where candidates represent vulnerable populations. There are more women of color running for office right now than ever before in history. Get to know those candidates and their platforms and put your money where your mouth is and donate. 

But there are some other things that you can do in your everyday life. Are you in a conversation with someone and they say something racist, sexist, bigoted, or ableist? Call it out. Use that privilege that you were so freely given for the sake of those who are being disparaged. Call your friends and family to a higher standard. And if you are the one that is called out, and trust me, you will be, because formation is a process that will take a lifetime and beyond—newsflash: you never really arrive. If you are the one that's called out, be humble. Own it. Own it, apologize for it, repent, and move forward with that new knowledge that you just gained. 

[From the audience: Stop crying!]

Right? This is not easy. Trust me. I've had to apologize many times for saying something really dumb, ignorant, offensive, or careless. I've had to do it in public. But you know what? The only thing it hurts is your damn ego. Being corrected is a gift. Receive it.

My friends, I pray— And yes, I do pray. Still. Probably more now than usual. I pray that you will be formed more fully into the image of Jesus for the sake of others. I pray that your formation is led by the voices that have been silenced for too long. And I pray that we will always have our politics formed by our faith, because there is no time to waste.

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JEFF: If you’ve been listening to and loving this podcast, join us for Evolving Faith 2020, the Live Virtual Conference, on October 2 and 3. Which is coming up soon!

SARAH: So many of us are engaging in good, hard, holy work right now to dismantle white supremacy, cultivate love, reimagine and build a faith that works not only for us but for the whole world, and to find our way in the wilderness together. We need to be reminded of what matters, who is alongside us. We need connection, inspiration, good conversations and laughter and, who are we kidding, probably some of Jeff’s tears. 

JEFF: My tears? Whatever. We need some hope too. We are gathering not in spite of these turbulent times, but because of them. Speakers for this year are not only us but Jen Hatmaker, Sherrilyn Ifill, Audrey Assad, Kate Bowler, Padraig O Tuama, Propaganda, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Barbara Brown Taylor, and so many other wonderful human beings. So please join us. 

SARAH: And don’t forget: your registration gives you full access to all of the content until April 1, 2021. We have set a big, rowdy table in the middle of the wilderness, and together, we will have a feast. We’re saving a spot for you. 

Go to evolvingfaith.com and register today. You won’t want to miss this moment with this community, It’s pretty special. Okay, now back to the show.

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SARAH: Well, in the words of Nish, Well, shit. 

JEFF: I know. 

SARAH: See, this is what I mean by that particular morning! It’s hard to encapsulate it, because it was Austin, and then Sandra, and then Nish, all in the span of less than two hours. And people wonder why my hair was on fire by the end! I remember after that session that you tweeted something like you never wanted to hear a man preach again after sitting at the feet of these gifted and unquestionably called preachers. And I think that's how a lot of us felt after this. If people wanted to go back and listen to these episodes straight through, you would get an idea for how that morning felt and you’ll get a sense for the mood in the room by the time Nish finished preaching.

JEFF: I grew up in churches where women weren’t allowed to preach. They could pray and make announcements and maybe even offer a testimony, but they did not preach. And I grew up in churches where someone like me wasn’t allowed to preach. So what I said on Twitter wasn’t meant to be a swipe against my own gender so much as it was a statement that these are tremendously gifted, Spirit-filled humans who have something profoundly important to say, from a perspective that has long been devalued and even ignored in many of our faith communities. So I know that guys can be delicate flowers, delicate yet manly, of course. And some of them might accuse me of prejudice against men. And that is not it. There’s a Calvin professor named Kristin DuMez who recently published a book called Jesus and John Wayne, which talks about the toll that American evangelicalism has had on American society precisely because of the toxic masculinity that has been knit into evangelical culture, life, and theology. So while obviously there are men who offer goodness and wisdom and godly counsel and teaching from the pulpit, one way of addressing the consequences of the biases of evangelicalism might mean having more men sit down and giving those who are not men who are gifted and called more access to the microphone. It might mean listening more to the many wise and learned women as well as nonbinary people who bring their perspectives on Scripture and their understandings of God and their ways of seeing the world, because we can all learn from them. We need them.

SARAH: Exactly. We are all made in the image of God. And so if only one image bearer gets to preach or lead or whatever, then we’re missing whole aspects of God’s very nature and image in our formation. And that is a tragedy and a loss for so many reasons. There is not a single time that I have preached, whether I have been in a small rural town or a big city, everywhere— that I don’t hear at least once, “This is the first time I’ve ever heard a woman preach.” And there is usually someone also who has like this tone of surprise, like “wow, girls can preach!” Which, just, bless it. Anytime anyone ever says that ever again, I just want to send them Nish and Austin and Sandra and be like, “Here, case closed.” One of the things, though, I do want to say is Nish names this beyond gender identity though and also names ableism, the lack of neurodiversity, white supremacy, all of it in terms of the image of God that we’re listening to and being formed by.  

JEFF: It humbles me every time I return to the Gospels and see all the folks that Jesus talked with—and I say talked with, because Jesus didn’t just heal and preach; he listened. He listened as others spoke and cried out and shared their life stories. And I think one lesson for us in that is that we can always do a better job of listening and learning.

SARAH: Okay, so we are airing this the very first time two months before the next US presidential election. And it is a bit eerie how timely this talk feels right now. Also, disappointing. But you’d never guess that Nish had prepared and delivered this two years ago. It feels so urgent and important for where a lot of our American audience is right now. So when Nish says that “Politics is the single largest systemic tool that we have at our disposal with which we can love our neighbor. So simply put, politics for the Christian should be institutional neighborliness.” Which is a great quote. So what do you think that means for our community, our listeners, right now? You are all, especially our Americans, in a very fraught moment with a lot of complexity and suffering. And I think it doesn’t do any good to not acknowledge and name that as a very particular experience a lot of our listeners are having right now. I mean, the dumpster fire burns on. So as the token American in the room, can you speak to what institutional neighborliness would look like now particularly for the Americans who are listening right now?  

JEFF: So institutional neighborliness would be you not playing your Canadian card right now. 

SARAH: I’m trying my best to be hospitable.

JEFF: Sure. As the token American in the room, that line has really stuck with me. I think sometimes when we hear the word “politics,” many of us just feel instant exhaustion, partly because we conflate politics with partisanship. I’m a registered independent. I always will be. Neither party entirely reflects my convictions, and I do not need another label. I think what Nish is calling us to—or at least what I hear in that call for institutional neighborliness—is an interrogation of how we live together. Partisan politics is one aspect of it, but definitely not the whole thing. Politics asks: What are our shared values and principles? How are we governed, both formally and informally? Who gets to make their voice heard, and why? These are questions we ask in churches, for instance: Churches have politics. These are questions we ask in families; families have politics. These are the questions I’d love my fellow Americans to ask. Who gets included and who is excluded when we use the pronouns “we” and “us”? And for the Christian, the call is to love. So what does it look like to love one’s neighbor through the candidates we elect, yes, but also the policies that we support, the ways we interact, the nonprofits we get involved with, what and who gets to dominate the headlines and what gets left on the cutting-room floor, whose stories are told and re-told and lifted up and which ones are just ignored? And how are we being loving in all those aspects of our lives together?

SARAH: Those are such good questions to bring into this season. Are there other things you’re doing or practicing to try to remember that or to hold onto that call for love right now? 

JEFF: It is super-hard. I’m not going to say I am particularly good at this. I do think a lot about who or what I’m reading or listening to or following on social media. And I try to ask the question: Who’s not at the table? Who’s not in the room and why? Sometimes I have a good answer. Sometimes I don’t. But I think it’s always a worthwhile exercise, to pay attention to that and to ask why.

SARAH: You know, that actually connects with something Nish said in her talk. Because one thing not a lot of people may know about Nish is that she’s actually a spiritual director. So she doesn’t just write op-eds about politics and host a podcast and fact-check; she actively works in intimate spiritual journeys with people. And I think that came across here because she asked us something very similar to what you’re saying , which is, “Who is forming you?” And I think this is a bit of an indictment of that. Who have you given the power to form you, the voices that we listen to, the ones teaching us how to follow Jesus? And if they are all white, straight, male, neurotypical, abled, American, then it is long past time to change. We are seeing the fruit of that being borne out right now. We are being formed whether we admit it or not. It is a worthwhile question to interrogate ourselves with right now. 

JEFF: I know it was hard for some folks in the room to hear that they should do anything differently than they already have been. I also know that there are some folks in the Evolving Faith community who might harbor a feeling that this message is not for them, that they have “progressed” past it in some way. And I just reject the linear nature of that thinking as well as the implication that some of us have arrived at our spiritual and moral destination. Because we all have work to do. We all have ways in which we can learn and grow and be humbled and listen better. I think it’s a cyclical process, not a linear one. 

SARAH: Absolutely. I think especially acknowledging that, for instance, if we’re talking about books and things, you know, white supremacy is an absolute reality in Christian publishing and it’s been part of the air we breathe in our spiritual formation particularly for the audience that she was directly addressing right then, of white evangelicals in America. And so we can’t really deny that - it’s only become more clear in the months since this talk (although it was abundantly clear already!) So needing to seek out teachers and leaders and voices— whether that’s on a bookshelf or in our real walking around lives and relationships and communities— that’s needed for us to be fully discipled well. 

So that makes me think, though, that I think we should name this is a particularly U.S.-centric white cisgendered evangelical-focused talk. And so really, neither one of us was the primary target audience for Nish then. And so I appreciate that she does make it very clear who she is there to talk to. She’s there to talk to the 81% who voted for Donald Trump. And so it’s maybe a little bit awkward that we’re the two people who are here talking about it 

JEFF: I think Nish wasn’t just talking to Trump voters, though. I think she wanted to galvanize the hand-wringers or those who didn’t vote for Trump and just were feeling sad about it and couldn’t imagine what they could do. She wanted to wake some folks up and let them know that we all have choices and opportunities to do good and to love our neighbors better. I think it was actually as much for those who claim to be progressive as it is for those who identify as evangelical, because Nish is asking people to do some serious interrogation of whether they’re just thinking good thoughts or whether those thoughts actually translate to action. So her question—“Who are the voices you listen to?”—is so important to return to, again and again. And I’ve noticed that even among folks in the Evolving Faith community, so often, the answer is, People who look like me, people who have had my experience, people who have walked the same paths. Why is it that we struggle so much to learn from people who have had different experiences and people who have walked different paths? What is it within us that makes us so desperately want to feel seen and heard and understood, even in our reading material, and what is it that keeps us from being able to see, hear, and understand those whose lives and journeys have been significantly different from our own? I think Nish was trying to get us to empathize—and I use “us” intentionally here, even though I wasn’t her primary target audience and you weren’t either.

SARAH: I think that’s a great, great point. Because one of the things that we did hear from a number of our international listeners who had maybe tuned in via livestream that year was that they did sometimes feel more left-out in the more American-centric conversations around politics, I think in particular that year. And I would imagine that is also happening in this season of the podcast and in a lot of content that’s being created right now. Sometimes that’s the nature of the beast, right, for better or worse, the dominance of America’s version of Christianity has deeply influenced the global church and we are all grappling with the fallout of what Rachel called “the unholy American trinity of white supremacy, patriarchy, and Christian nationalism,” which was back in our first episode. 

JEFF: So do you feel left out, as a Canadian?

SARAH: Um, I don’t know if left out is the word I would use. Sure, sometimes. But not exactly either. I mean, it’s definitely American-centric, given the roster of speakers, the primary audience, the location. I think a lot of us, though, who have been accustomed to sit on the outskirts of the American evangelical experiment, we’re used to having to recontextualize that for our own location and story. So my hope for the future is that we would set a wider table here, because I know that our primarily American audience would genuinely benefit from global voices, where their experiences aren’t necessarily us or our experience. But I say that while also saying that the rest of us don’t get a pass just because we’re not American. Even the smug Canadian in me can admit that. Even if the specifics are different, the realities of white supremacy are just as present here. And so the call to institutional neighborliness is still mine to take up. And I also think we can take the spirit of everything that Nish was saying, which was something very definite and invitational about discipleship, that stands no matter your nationality or residency. 

JEFF: I think it’s important to note that it’s not just that America’s version of Christianity has deeply influenced the global church; as you suggested, it’s that America and its vision of exceptionalism, which has so often been rooted in theology, has deeply affected the entire world, Christian or not. And this is a result of spiritual malformation, and we don’t get to blame that on God.

SARAH: Yeah, but I do get to blame America, right?

JEFF: I think the song goes, “Blame Canada.” 

SARAH: So that’s actually a pretty good segue to this, because I want us to talk more about her definition of spiritual formation. Because that’s for most of us to consider and even integrate. She said, “Spiritual formation is the process by which we are shaped by the power of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus for the sake of others.” And I really like that. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind talking a little bit more about that for us since you have sort of taken up the mantle of leading the spiritual formation side of Evolving Faith.

JEFF: It’s funny that I lead the spiritual formation aspect of Evolving Faith’s work, because I think every aspect of our work could theoretically be under the umbrella of spiritual formation. And that is not my attempt to take over. Spiritual formation is the life’s work of every Jesus follower: How do I, day after day, night after night, week after week, year after year, become a more faithful, more wholehearted disciple of Jesus and a more loving, more compassionate child of God? Though Nish says that spiritual formation is the process by which we are shaped by the power of the Holy Spirit, which seems like kind of a passive thing, I don’t want anyone to think that we don’t have a role in formation or malformation. It’s precisely because so many pastors have failed—and in fact have been failed themselves by their predecessors, professors and elders—in their own work of spiritual formation that the U.S., which remains a majority-Christian country in self-identification, the U.S. is where it is as a society. And we inflict that on the entire world.

When I was in seminary, I was struck by the heavy emphasis on leadership, on being spiritual trailblazers and innovators. But leadership is a concept that appears almost nowhere in Scripture. Discipleship—how to be obedient to God, how to be a follower of Jesus, and by extension, how to be a good neighbor—discipleship is a way of life that’s discussed over and over in Scripture, much more than leadership. In the Hebrew Scriptures, for instance, there’s this sense from the people that we need a king! We need a human king! And the implicit response is, But God is your king. But the people keep saying it: We need a king! We want a king! So this obsession with leadership goes way, way, way back. And yes, I know obedience isn’t a popular or trendy word, but we can try to separate God from the people who claim to speak for God, and we can try to understand obedience to a loving, nonviolent, and just God as different from obedience to, say, your local pastor or your denominational authorities. And look, if obedience is a word you get hung up on, first, I want to know why, but second, okay, fine, I just mean we’re called to be more loving, more nonviolent, and more just—and Christians believe the one who issued that call was Jesus and the one who accompanies us in that work is the Holy Spirit. So then the question is, How do we, together, move toward that way of being in the world? And that, as I see it, is the work of spiritual formation.

SARAH: That is a really good perspective and widening of it. So you’re telling me that making billions teaching “leadership” isn’t in the cards. Dammit.

JEFF: I mean, go for it.

SARAH: Okay, so the truth is, I actually do have a very strong allergy to the notions of leadership as I was taught it in the 80s and 90s. That form of leadership, like you mention, left such a wake in my life. And so I am almost pathologically resistant to being anyone’s “leader” and I really prefer to see myself and so by extension our work too, even though apparently you’re taking it over, as being “alongside” of people.

JEFF: So it’s kind of like we don’t see ourselves as podcasters, yet here we are.

SARAH: Yeah, clearly, I am delusional. But this way of talking about it has helped us to form a lot of what our work is here at Evolving Faith and helped us to find a path for this community that doesn’t center us as leaders on the stage but as part of something. We don’t primarily see ourselves for instance as like a justice organization or some progressive pseudo parachurch but I think we just discerned there’s a huge gap in formation and discipleship, a need for honest spiritual formation that is for the sake of others, and life-giving and bears good fruit. I think we see that as a big part of our mission. If our listeners haven’t heard it yet, our mission is to “cultivate hope and love in the wilderness, pointing fellow wanderers to God as we seek to embody resurrection for the sake of the world.” 

JEFF: We need each other in this work—and by “this work,” I don’t mean Evolving Faith specifically but the work of embodying resurrection and cultivating hope and love, which is for all of us. In some ways, it’s like the most annoying group project that ever got assigned.

SARAH: What? You don’t love group projects??  

JEFF: I only love the ones where I get to do them with you, Sarah. But this is almost worse than high school, because it feels as if the burden of the work is often not fairly distributed. And yet I can’t really complain, because... Jesus, right? I mean that literally. Like, Jesus kind of bore an unfair burden of the work, you know? So who am I to whine about my part? 

SARAH: Are you Jesus juking us?

JEFF: I neither confirm nor deny the allegation. But I did grow up Evangelical, so maybe it’s just muscle memory. For the record, thought, I feel like Nish has Jesus juked me plenty of times over the course of my friendship with her.

SARAH: That is one of her great spiritual gifts. Which actually reminds me of something that wasn’t mentioned in this talk in particular that might be helpful for people to know because she’s mentioned it and referenced it in other places. But Nish actually didn’t grow up religious. She came to faith in adulthood. So even there, she brings a different perspective than you or I. For us, some aspects of this might feel like a “Jesus juke,” right, but if you don’t have that baggage or if you have done the work, it’s actually a really generous and wise invitation and perspective. So as much as it kills me to admit it, you’re not wrong. I think sometimes this is the hardest work of the wilderness. Not figuring out what we need to toss away from us or release, because usually by now at this point it’s abundantly clear what has not served us well or what is bad fruit. But it takes discernment and maturity to begin to understand, What are the things to hold onto? The things that are worth carrying forward in a reimagined way? And I think that spiritual formation is a way we can do that very thoughtfully. So what does that even look like?

JEFF: It is almost cliche to say this at this point, but maybe for a reason and maybe in a way that invites us to look at it anew: Growing into new and deeper understandings of Jesus’s call to love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might, and to love your neighbor as yourself. We say these lines so easily. But how do we actually love God well? How do we love our neighbors well? How do we love one another well? That’s what Nish was talking about, and that’s what I’m hoping for, even as we admit what arduous work that is. Nish reminds us that it’s not just good feelings; it’s intention, and action, and movement toward just a little more love every day, in a world that so desperately needs it.

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ERICA: Hi, my name is Erica.

MIKE: And I’m Mike.

ERICA: And this podcast is giving us hope. We are living in our own wilderness in Jakarta, Indonesia. And we’re so grateful for this podcast as we have been grappling with a lot of the same questions from our own upbringing in the American church.

MIKE: I was raised in the Baptist church and I’m still dealing with the drama of watching Thief in the Night. 

ERICA: So we’re grateful for this community as we feel like we’ve finally found our people. 

MIKE: People who probably wouldn’t even judge me if they found me today going to the grocery store, weeping over broccoli after listening to Jeff’s message. So thank you.

ERICA: So we’re just very grateful, and this is definitely giving us hope now. So thanks. Bye.

MIKE: Thank you!

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SARAH: You can find all the links mentioned, info about Nish Weiseth and her work in the world, plus all the links to call in to share your own voices with us, our After Party Facebook hangout, and a full transcript—all in our show notes at evolvingfaith.com/podcast. You can find me at sarahbessey.com for all of my social media links, my newsletter, Field Notes, and of course my books. 

JEFF: Friends, please sign up for my newsletter at jeffchu.substack.com and find me online wherever you find people online—I guess it’s that social-media thing. The Evolving Faith Podcast is produced by us, Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, along with Lucy Huang. Thanks to Audrey Assad and to Wes WIllison for the music that we hear every week. And join us next week as we listen to our friend Osheta Moore, who leans into the nuances of being a peacemaker during times of conflict and evolution. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Evolving Faith podcast, friends. And until next time, remember that you are loved.

Sarah Bessey
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Ep. 10: Under the Wings of the Spirit with Dr. Cheryl Bridges Johns