28 - An Insurrection & A Season Pivot | S3E3

I (Bruce) wanted to address this from a personal point of view. It’s been two weeks since the violent insurrection that took place on January 6. I spent this time praying, reflecting, and thinking deeply on an appropriate response to those events. After the insurrection, I made the intentional decision to wait to publish an episode in which we talked about it. This decision was based on the hope that any response we had would be thoughtful.

This event is personal for me for two reasons. The first revolves around the fact that I knew the Capitol Police Officer, Brian Sicknick, who was murdered by those domestic terrorists. I was stationed with Brian in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan for eight months in 2002/2003. And while I had not kept in contact with him, it's impossible to spend 8 months living, eating, and serving with someone and not having an impact on a personal level. The second reason has to do with the number of Christian emblems that were present at a violent interaction. The Jesus that those domestic terrorists presented is not the Jesus of my Christianity. My concern is that I've heard Christians close to me spout the same rhetoric that I heard on those videos of people bent on hurting others while they stormed our nation's capital. Not only am I not okay with it, it infuriates me that my savior would be co-opted and married to an idolatrous ideology. That's not the Jesus of the Bible.

With that said, we had planned an entire season of topics that we wanted to discuss. But, it seemed inappropriate to just move on as if nothing had happened. So, inspired by The Vox podcast with Mike Erre, I thought the best thing we could do would be to call Christians up. I want to call Christians to the same place that Jesus calls us to. I want to call Christians to kingdom living; to live out the life that Christ has placed before us. With that in mind, for the remainder of the season, we will be talking through, what we believe to be the politics of the kingdom of heaven, as laid out by Jesus. For the next 10 or 13 episodes, we're gonna walk through the sermon on the mount. Please join us as we explore what it means to live as kingdom citizens, devoid and apart from worldly ideologies.

Here are the podcasts that have been influential for us:

The Holy Post Podcast: Ep 439

The Vox Podcast with Mike Erre

Timothy Gombis: Faith Improvised