Angela Weszely:
Welcome to ProGrace on Abortion: Real Talk, No Politics. I'm Angela Weszely, CEO and co-founder of ProGrace. We are a community of people who want to have the conversation around abortion. Now, it's not currently happening in our churches, because there's so much tension around the debate, and having a civil conversation is hard. The church is divided, but it's time to come together. And the way we'll do that is to model our approach after Jesus, not politics. If you feel like you don't really belong in either the pro-life or pro-choice camp, and you think surely Jesus has a better way, then welcome to the ProGrace community, a place you can belong.
Hi, and welcome to the ProGrace podcast. I am really excited to be here today with my friend, Michael Weir. So glad to have you, Michael.
Michael Wear:
So good to be with you, Angie.
Angela Weszely:
Yeah, it's good to see you. I just was at your conference, what, a month ago, I guess we were together in D.C.
Michael Wear:
It was so great to have you. Yeah, it was wonderful to be together.
Angela Weszely:
Yeah, and it was encouraging, and I'm bringing that encouragement into our conversation about the election that just happened, because I love how you take a long-term view, and that's what we're sitting at today. But Michael, for those of you who don't know Michael, he's the president and CEO of The Center for Christianity and Public Life. And I will want him to talk more about what his organization does. But let me just say at your conference, Michael, I just felt like these are my people. These are Christians who want to see a Jesus-centered way of interacting in the public square, and I love that. I know that's your passion. And with that, since we are two days after the election, what are some thoughts bubbling up for you that tie to your passion? And I know I got your email yesterday, there's a lot of work to be done, which we were going to say regardless of who won, right? I think that's the point.
Michael Wear:
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Angela Weszely:
So, what are your thoughts today?
Michael Wear:
My thoughts today, I think we have a couple of options. One, we can do what we typically do, which is we say, "Thank goodness that's over. Now I don't need to think about politics for four years." Or we could say that it's actually when the spotlight is off that more space is opened up to have healthier conversations, and to do a deeper discernment in community with the Holy Spirit about what is it about... How are we relating to politics as believers of Jesus?
And we just have to come to terms with the fact that having these conversations every four years, with the binary decision of a presidential election bearing down on those conversations, is just not edifying. It's not, it's not. We need to do the community and spiritual work now, in this season, so that when the crisis comes, and I'm afraid to say, I don't think we're going to have to wait four years for a political crisis, we could be the kind of people who could be of service to the church and to our communities in the midst of that crisis. So, that's what I'm thinking about a lot today, which is yes, no matter who won this project-based, "As long as we make a splash in the presidential election, we won't have to worry about this stuff." No, that's not how it works. And it's actually that sort of tactical, transactional approach to our politics which is part of the problem, which is part of why we're where we are, yeah.
Angela Weszely:
Yeah, and I appreciate that, that your book, The Spirit of Our Politics, I loved, it is so hopeful, but as, rightly so, you start with the problem. You start with this problem. And I'm even thinking what you just said now is the part of us that wants to retreat or just not do anything for the next four years, which I think that fatigue that a lot of us feel. You also speak to the other side of this in your book, which I'd like to start with, which you said, "The crisis today is not that Christians are now politically homeless, but rather that we ever thought we could make our home in politics at all." Right? And so this fatal error of having a Jesus that we don't think is up to the task of our greatest challenges, which means we put more faith in our politics than we should.
And I don't know if you wrote this or if Katelyn Beaty wrote this, but she sent out an email yesterday quoting you. I don't know if you know that. And your concept of political idolatry, that we confess Jesus is Lord, but our hearts and imaginations are occupied by hopes of triumph or safety through some other way or some other ruler. And so I think we can slip into either side, right? And what do you have to say to Christians? How do we right side that? How do we put politics in their proper place and elevate Jesus to His proper place?
Michael Wear:
It's a good question. The distinction here is can we, as Christians, participate in politics with our feet planted in the gospel?
Angela Weszely:
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Wear:
Whereas I think there is this idea, this pull, that if you're going to participate in politics, if you're going to be effective, and really that ought to be the goal, if you're going to do something, you might as well win. And if you're going to win, you better have your feet planted in politics, so you better think like a politician, you better put on the logic of our politics. And my argument is actually our politics and our public life and our communities so greatly need Christians who have put on the things of Christ.
Angela Weszely:
Yes.
Michael Wear:
So, that's what Katelyn's getting at, which is our politics is important. We're going to see the consequences of the decisions that the American people made in these elections, we're going to see those play out, and they're not going to be a fiction, they're not going to be just imagination, it's going to be real people and it's going to be concrete. Our politics is about concrete difference in the lives of people.
And so what matters, it's actually, we think that we are taking politics more seriously when we treat it as this ultimate expression of who we are. And when we identify our political convictions with the thing that is most true about ourselves, the problem is not that we take politics too seriously, but that we take it seriously in all of the wrong ways. So, we take it seriously in the sense that we want our team to win. We take it seriously in the sense of if only I could get my three point plan, if only everyone just agreed with my political opinions, then life would be perfect.
But the history of politics is a history... A, so politics is about mediating difference. And so if your vision for politics is everyone agreeing with you, that's not a political vision. That's not a vision for life in community. And then second, the history of public policy is one of people, even with the purest intentions, coming to discover that the ways in which they decided to act on those intentions was completely misguided, that the thing that they fought for didn't achieve the actual outcomes that they wanted it to achieve. And so if your identity is wrapped up in your political opinions, then when those political opinions turn out to not be quite the fix you were looking for, that could be a real wound to your identity. Or you could just ignore reality altogether, and we have a lot of that as well.
Angela Weszely:
Oh my gosh, so much of what you said is so good. So, let's unpack this. Okay, you're convicting me because I think I see what you're talking about, taking politics seriously for the wrong things or the wrong fix. So, I'll tell you, I'm tempted just to be like, "Forget it." So, help us. And I like how you talk about kingdom politics. There is this sense of how Jesus is at work in the world, and how we come together as Christians for that. And our politics should be, tell me if this is right, up under that, as opposed to-
Michael Wear:
Yes, yes, yes,
Angela Weszely:
... sitting over that.
Michael Wear:
Yes. Yeah, no, exactly right. Exactly right.
Angela Weszely:
How do we get there, Michael? What are you seeing work with people, or what's the pathway you see toward that?
Michael Wear:
Yeah, so there's a lot to say. So, I haven't said this before, but we've known each other for a long time.
Angela Weszely:
Yeah, yeah.
Michael Wear:
I think so much that is special about the movement you're building, about the work that you do, is this understanding that the things that we care about really do matter. You weren't a fool for thinking that the dignity of human life matters, that matters deeply to God. But part of what you're doing is you're saying we have been too narrow in how we think about equating a couple action steps, a couple of cultural to-dos or political to-dos, with what it means to uphold the dignity of the human person. We need to take that humble conviction.
Just to say, you could have a deeply rooted conviction that is not undermined, but is actually enlivened by humility, because then you keep your conviction in the right place. The conviction is not in... The dignity of human life depends on my strategies being correct. No, my strategies might be wrong. The human being will still be made in the image of God. We can take that basic posture into our politics generally. But what I worry about is that for all of the political deconstruction that has been happening, what's not been deconstructed is using political opinions as a weapon against other people. So, that's the one thing that hasn't been deconstructed.
So you say, "I used to be a hard line this, or a hard line that, but now I know that people who think that way are idiots, and don't deserve to..." And you just go, "No, that wasn't the pivot you needed." The pivot you needed was, yes, political opinions are important, people should be held responsible for their opinions, but this idea that I am nothing but the sum of having the right public policy views just doesn't match up with life itself.
And Angie, one of the clearest examples of this, I want people to have what I think are the right views on immigration policy, for instance. And I think that's going to be a vital issue in the coming months and in the coming years. And Christians, we just need to think very carefully about these issues, and what our responsibilities are. But I will say, I go into communities, and I go into churches that you would have the assumption, "Well, they voted for the wrong candidate." And then if you take from that decision, "They must think this about immigrants, they must think that about..." But you'd actually spend time in these communities, and some are the ones who were actually doing the work integrating new refugees into the life of the community. They were the ones putting together job fairs. They were the ones who were hosting folks who needed a home in their own homes. And so you just go, "Oh, I think there's a disconnect here."
And you could have all kinds of public policy debates, but maybe these fundamental character assassinations... If you're a refugee, what's more valuable to you? Someone who, one person, who cast the right vote out of millions and millions and millions of votes, or that same person hosting you in their home, giving you a job, welcoming you into their church. If you had to choose, and I don't think you do, but if you had to choose, I'm like, "Do you know what? Vote for the wrong person again. Wrong person, put a tick. But thank you for loving me, thank you for-"
Angela Weszely:
Thank you for taking care of me.
Michael Wear:
"Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the work you're doing in the community that we share together."
And at our summit last year, Angie, we had Bryant Wright who is the head of Send Relief, which is the Southern Baptist development service arm. And Bryant said, "Look, we're going to have disagreements on public policy. My view is," and this is Bryant saying, and I'm paraphrasing him, of course. "My view is that once people are here, our job is to love them." And you just go, "He just blew up like five paradigms that just don't even have a category in our political conversation, but need to have a category in the church."
Angela Weszely:
Okay, I love that. Yes, they don't have a category in the political conversation, that's why we serve a God who's so much bigger than that. And they need to have a place in the church. So, you actually phrased something... We'll go to the abortion issue, that's what I know most about. And you talked about caring for the dignity of all human life. Now, Christians who are pro-life think they are the ones who care for the dignity of human life. And Christians who are pro-choice think they are the ones who care for the dignity of human life. That's because there's two people involved, right? And so my problem with the political discourse is they pit the needs of those people against each other. That's why I see only God having a way that we can say, "All right, He values them both equally. How do we, as the church, move forward to that?"
But the problem is Christians that I'm seeing demonize each other, so it's hard for them to have unifying conversations about, "How do we help both women and children?" When they're like, "But you don't care about the woman because you vote pro-life." Or, "You don't care about the child because you vote pro-choice." We don't give each other the benefit of maybe there is some theological place that is higher than politics that we agree, and maybe we're the ones who are supposed to figure that out. That's kind of how ProGrace all started, right?
Michael Wear:
Yes, yes, yes.
Angela Weszely:
But I think that applies to other issues. So, speak to that. Are you seeing some unity, some Christians getting tired of the incomplete answer that politics has?
Michael Wear:
Yes.
Angela Weszely:
Okay.
Michael Wear:
Yes, yes.
Angela Weszely:
There's some good news. What can we do?
Michael Wear:
No, I think people are tired of having these false choices imposed upon them.
Angela Weszely:
Yes, yes, yes.
Michael Wear:
And I think, unfortunately, the extremes in our politics, they think that, "We just need to be stronger enforcers of the binary. We just need to force this dichotomy even further." But I have to say it's not working, because the human spirit rebels against that. And so among the roughly third of voters in the recent presidential election who believe that abortion should be mostly legal, so about a third of voters said abortion should be mostly legal, they split 49%/49% between Harris and Trump. And so you just go 30% plus of those who thought abortion should be legal generally. And so you just go Harris cleaned up among the, I think it's like 12% of voters who thought abortion should be legal all the time, in every circumstance. Trump cleaned up among the similarly roughly percentage that thought that abortion should never be legal.
And so, yeah, you can get those folks, but you're not going to be able to so easily enforce these harsh binaries on the majority of American people who, as you said, look at it and have nuanced views, and even have a sense of conflict, internal conflict. Which doesn't always mean that they are only 75% convinced of the dignity of women, or 75% convinced of... No, they're 100% convinced of that, but they might have questions about the proper role of government. Or they might have questions about the reliability of the healthcare system. Or they might have questions about the strength of the social safety net. And so, again, this is not to say, "Any position is fine." It's just let's keep political disagreements within the box of instrumental prudential... Tim Keller called politics an "area of practical wisdom". Which does not mean that everything is up for grabs and nothing matters, it's just that we have a properly placed humility. And we are wary of, in C. S. Lewis's terms, claiming God hath said when He hasn't spoken.
Angela Weszely:
Yeah. Wow.
Michael Wear:
So, God has something very clear to say about justice for the poor, something very clear to say about the dignity of the human person. What we want to be careful about is saying that because God cares about justice, you better not disagree with me about the minimum wage being at 25 as opposed to 20, or else you're contradicting the words of God. That is, what Lewis would say, using God's name in vain, that you are trying to leverage religious authority, the authority of God, to bless your fallible political opinions. And we need to have a greater fear of God. We need to have a proper fear of God, so that we are very cautious about even approaching that line.
Angela Weszely:
I just want to stop there. That is exactly right. We are, and I hear this from Christians on both sides, I know I've been guilty of it myself, right? We are placing, "God has blessed me and my candidate." And that is what is so alienating, I think, to people who aren't of the faith, who look at us and they are saying, "You all should be different. If you say you follow Jesus, He should matter more, right?" Isn't this our responsibility, our witness to our community?
I'm so grateful that you are part of these podcasts, and that you want to transcend this politically-charged landscape in the abortion conversation and unintended pregnancy, and you want to replace the harsh rhetoric and judgment with Jesus, with His compassion and His grace. And so as we enter the end of the year fundraising period, I wanted to let you know there's a matching gift right now with ProGrace. Any new or increased gift will be doubled, and you will be reaching more people who also are feeling exhaustion, and want to see a new way of interacting and bringing hope and healing into the abortion conversation. You can go to prograce.org to give your gift. There'll be a link in the show notes. But thank you so much for locking arms. We're seeing God do amazing things as we end the year, and we look forward to how much more He's going to do in 2025 through your partnership.
I love that you talk so much Dallas Willard. Your whole book is framed out... I love Dallas Willard. Actually, after I read your book, I reordered a couple of his, because I give his books away to people!
Michael Wear:
Good!
Angela Weszely:
Because I'm like, "You've got to read this!"
Michael Wear:
I know, right? Me too.
Angela Weszely:
I got to get this back, I got to reread. Hearing God is one of my favorites. I had to reorder that, because I had given it to someone.
But this idea of your spiritual disciplines for public life, Michael, I love that. And you have three in your book, but I want to just let you speak to them now. And I want to recommend everybody read your book. But in light of what just happened and what you're seeing, what are the spiritual disciplines you're recommending for us to... Really you're just saying come closer to Jesus, and let Him inform how we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and how we love our neighbor as ourselves. And that should come higher than our politics. And I think that's what fractures our spirit, like we said, is when people put their preferred politician over loving their neighbor, or their preferred politician, we don't think, sounds like they love the neighbor, and then they're championing that person. It minimizes our witness of Christ, who does perfectly love every person. So, I don't know, I'm going on, but you know what I mean. But speak to-
Michael Wear:
No, absolutely.
Angela Weszely:
... these spiritual disciplines that you see that can bring us back, because my hope is it's getting so polarized and so bad, God needs to do something. Maybe we'll all be more ready for this. And that's why I see what you're doing as a prophetic voice, and I wanted to give you a space to talk about this. What's our pathway back? I love that you combine spiritual disciplines for public life. What do we need to do? Where do we start?
Michael Wear:
So, I think particularly in the wake of an election, the discipline of confession is really powerful. I think a lot of people feel either vindicated and justified, or completely judgmental that so many people didn't see what they saw. And confession can help break through that spirit of critique of the outside, and point you inwards to remember that you too are fallible, that you too are a sinner. I think the disciplines of fellowship and service, fellowship within Christian community, service among Christians, but also outside of Christian community, is just going to be essential, essential, essential in what's to come.
And then I'll name two others, Angie: silence and solitude, I think, are just essential spiritual disciplines for our age. And I know that you say silence and solitude, and people are thinking about, "Yeah, I took that weird weekend retreat five years ago with a Jesuit, I'm not even Jesuit." But people just have in mind silence and solitude are for these really rarefied... When you're trying to be really spiritual, you know? But what I would like to encourage people to think about is silence and solitude as just essential disciplines and rhythms, life close to Jesus, and with an identity that is more than just an amalgamation of all of the inputs and messages that are vying for your attention. And I think so many of us live life inundated with these messages and with these appeals, that we think that that is what we consist of, of just these appeals and then our reactions to them.
But if you spend a bit of time in silence and solitude, what Willard says, you might even discover that you have a soul, and you might even discover a God who cares for your soul. And that care is not based on how you're performing, it's not based on your own perception of yourself and how you're doing in the world, and how others view your doing in the world. In our politics, politics is all about performance. And one thing about the encroaching cultural influence of politics, and there've been a lot of good things about the democratizing of platforms, we each have social media page, we each feel like we're little spokespeople for our candidate.
Angela Weszely:
We have a voice, yeah.
Michael Wear:
Yeah, we have a voice. But one of the real downsides of that is it really takes up our whole... It can take up our whole imagination of who we are and what reality is. But there need to be places where we stop performing for others. And I believe life with Jesus is actually the only life on offer where there is no need to perform. And silence and solitude, if we could do that for a few hours, what we'll find is that that kind of life can actually come with us when we are in public, and we could actually be freed up to serve the public without performance, without this constant need for approval and affirmation. And what a blessing we'd be to our public life if we were the people who weren't in public life seeking affirmation that we got from the Lord Jesus.
Angela Weszely:
So, what you're saying is if we actually lived under the grace that Jesus lavishly gives us, and we understood who we are in him, we would not be... Because grace is the only antidote to performance, right? This idea that we're loved, we're under grace. We could see our fellow man in that way, then?
Michael Wear:
Yes.
Angela Weszely:
Right?
Michael Wear:
Right.
Angela Weszely:
You're basically just saying the gospel there, Michael.
Michael Wear:
Right. And here's the thing, I think grace is absolutely forgiveness of sins. Grace is absolutely the mercy of God when we fail. But Willard would say saints use grace like jetliners use jet fuel.
Angela Weszely:
Absolutely, yes.
Michael Wear:
Grace is not just for when we fail, grace is what is involved when we're blessing others.
Angela Weszely:
Yes!
Michael Wear:
There's grace in our flourishing, not just when things don't go to plan. And so, yeah, to be able to operate in public life, oftentimes we talk about grace being involved when people apologize for some kind of public failing, and it's absolutely required there. But what if we viewed grace as being necessary for the successes we're looking for?
Angela Weszely:
Yes, right, absolutely.
Michael Wear:
We sometimes have a very shriveled and actually dour view of grace. But grace is something that can give us joy, you know what I mean? So yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
Angela Weszely:
Oh my gosh. Grace is a person, right? When you think about Jesus and just He personified it. And you're right, we have dumbed it down to what happens when I sin? But it is the fullness of the love of God, is released through the grace, and we are more loved than we could even imagine. And if our imagine was taken up with that, which is why I love that you bring in spiritual disciplines, we would give that to our neighbor. It's like we can't give away what we don't internally have. And so that's why I like what you're saying, it's not a... Our politics are sick, you say in your book, but it's a discipleship issue. It's a life with Jesus issue. That's what we actually need.
Michael Wear:
Yes, yes, I think so. And look, this isn't about, if I take on this new checklist of spiritual disciplines in six months, our politics will be... We don't pursue spiritual formation for the sake of our politics. It's just that the kind of people we become, as we put on the things of Christ, are the kind of people that our politics desperately needs.
And so we want to do that with humility, we want to do that welcoming the gifts that other people have to bring to bear. You don't have to spend long in public life to know that just identifying as a Christian doesn't mean that you're providing more to public life than people that don't identify as Christian. Just the affiliation doesn't do a whole lot of good. So, we want people to bring the best that they have to bring. But we also, as Christians, just have to say, yes, it would make a difference in my life and in the life of my community if I, as Paul, said, "We're taking off the old self, with its practices, and putting on the new self." If I was taking off rage and malice, and putting on kindness and gentleness and patience, if we don't think that would make a difference, what are we doing here?
Angela Weszely:
Exactly.
Michael Wear:
This is the thing that gets it. I don't know if this is what the Lord demands of us, but that doesn't mean that would change. The Lord is all about renewing things. Believe me, these aren't factless checklists of what... The Lord is saying, "This is the abundant life I offer. And out of the abundance of that life, all sorts of good things and blessings will flow." And so, yeah, but gosh, we need...
The thing I'm concerned about, complacency and cynicism in the wake of the election. I think there are just some people who are going to say, if you wanted Trump to win, "God did it, everything's going to be taken care of now." And if you didn't want Trump to win, there's this real sense of, "What more could possibly be said or done?" And this is a moment where Christians have to offer a positive vision for life. That's what people will be looking for, that's what people are looking for now. Not just fending off the bad, but what does it look like to pursue the good in a moment such as this? And Christians have to be the kind of people, as people of hope, who have an imagination for positive possibilities for our future. And if we're not able to offer that, we are forsaking the mercy and grace that has been offered to us.
Angela Weszely:
Oh my gosh, preach it. I'm so moved, thank you. This is why I wanted to talk to you and talk to you so soon after the election. And, of course, I have a confession to make, as I'm sitting here listening to you. So, I watched so much TV on Tuesday and then Wednesday, and my husband was like, "You're watching the news?" I was like, "Yeah, no, I don't know what it is." Just took in so much information. And this morning I got up to have my quiet time, which I try to do every morning. And I started by reading a news that was in my inbox about the election. That's how I started my quiet time this morning.
And I finally put it down, and I picked up Life Without Lack, another Dallas Willard book that's so beautiful. And I don't even know how I found it, but at the end, he has there a day with Jesus. And I just knew, "Okay, I've got to put this down." To your point about silence and solitude. "I've got to put down the news right now. I think I know enough. I think I've taken in enough."
Michael Wear:
I know too much, yeah!
Angela Weszely:
And even just as he talked about the day with Jesus, I could feel my spirit filling up. And I put a bookmark in there so I wouldn't forget. And I was making this note like, "Yes." And you just solidified what it is. I think we don't understand what that does to our soul, to keep taking in so much information about the "conflict", quote, unquote, and not have that time with Jesus, where He brings, like you talked about, the mercy and the grace. So I just want to, I'm confessing my... Messed up with that, and I'm planning to take a day with Jesus. Wouldn't that be great for all of us?
Michael Wear:
Angie, I would confess my sin, but I think we're running out of time, unfortunately.
Angela Weszely:
Very funny, Michael, thank you. You just stay up there and pontificate on your holiness.
Michael Wear:
I too have had an IV drip of polling data over the last 48 hours, I must confess, yeah.
Angela Weszely:
Yes, exactly. Way more than I need to know. And I'm not saying we don't do that, but we need each other. That's why I so appreciate what you're doing and the community you're building, because I need what you said today. We need each other to remind us who our Lord is, why we're on this planet, and then other things are subservient to that. And to your point, we'll be able to offer so much more good. So, thank you for what you're doing. We're going to point everybody to your book and your conference and all your things in the show notes, but just grateful for our partnership. And I get encouraged knowing there's a group of people who think this way. I see God stirring that up. So, I pray for you all. Let's just gather-
Michael Wear:
Thank you.
Angela Weszely:
... the most people and make a change.
Michael Wear:
Yes, yes. Yeah. Love you, Angie.
Angela Weszely:
All right.
Michael Wear:
Thank you for the work you do, and grateful for this community. Thanks for having me.
Angela Weszely:
Absolutely. Thanks, Michael.
We're so grateful for you, and are here to support you, to provide a community where you feel understood and safe, and in which you know you're not alone in wanting more from the Christian response to abortion, unintended pregnancy, and other divisive issues. How can we help you have better conversations? We would love to hear from you about anything that's on your mind. Email us at [email protected] to let us know how we can support you. Thank you.
