Embracing political homelessness
Jordan Raynor sits down with Justin Giboney, Co-founder of The AND Campaign, to talk about why Christians should embrace, rather than lament “political homelessness,” what Steve Jobs can teach us about scaling ideas, and how Christians can speak less and reflect more on the important issues of our time.
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[0:00:50.5] JR: Hey everybody, welcome to The Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every week, I host a conversation with a Christian who is pursuing world-class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work.
Today’s guest is Justin Giboney. He’s an attorney and co-founder of the AND Campaign. This coalition of urban Christians who are engaging politics with compassion and the conviction of the gospel. He’s an exceptional communicator and leader and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to talk to him on this episode of the show. Justin and I sat down, we talked about why Christians should embrace rather than lament being politically homeless.
I mentioned this a couple of times on the podcast, I felt politically homeless for a while now and have felt like that’s a bad thing. Justin convinced me, this is a very good thing and why more of us should feel this way. We talked about what Steve Jobs could teach us about strategy and scaling the adoption of ideas and we talked about how Christians can speak out less and reflect more on the important issues of our day. I think you guys are really going to love this short episode with my new friend, Justin Giboney.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:02:27.4] JR: Hey Justin, it’s an honor to have you here, thanks for joining me.
[0:02:30.4] JG: Thanks for having me, Jordan.
[0:02:31.5] JR: Let’s start at the beginning, what’s your story, how did you get interested in law and politics?
[0:02:37.6] JG: I guess, a good place to start would be, once I graduated from law school, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia. I was working for a law firm in Atlanta but was always kind of talking, I had a group of friends who were always talking about politics and so we would meet up and we talk about politics or sports and there was a mayor’s race coming up and one day I said, “You know what? let’s stop being so academic about this conversation, there’s no reason that we shouldn’t step into the fray and see what’s going on, learn what this is all about” and so we were kind of somewhat nerdy.
We did some research and did some memos on the candidates and there was a state senator named Kasim Reed who we thought stood out. Pretty much, just knocked on the campaign door and asked if we could join the campaign.
[0:03:21.6] JR: That’s amazing. That was your first foray into politics formally?
[0:03:25.8] JG: Yeah, that was it.
[0:03:27.1] JR: You guys go door to door, Kasim Reed wins, right?
[0:03:30.0] JG: Kasim Reed ends up winning and like you said, we started off, it was so early when we actually connected with the campaign that I mean, even in Southwest Atlanta, which became a stronghold, not everybody knew him. We were just knocking, going door to door, introducing people to this candidate and probably over a year later, he ends up winning.
[0:03:48.9] JR: Did you fall in love with politics at the time? I mean, you have this law degree from Vanderbilt, were you like, “Oh yeah, this is the rest of my life, I’m going to plunge headfirst into politics.”
[0:04:00.5] JG: I did fall in love with it and I think maybe even for the wrong reasons. Being an athlete all my life, being a college athlete, I think in a way I was still kind of in withdrawal from that competition and was looking for something kind of to replace, maybe even the idol in my life, which was that level of competition and even the glory that you get from it.
Initially, I think I went into politics partially because of that. It wasn’t something, it wasn’t a decision that I consciously said was because of that but I think that played a part in it and I just had an interest in the power of it. It wasn’t all bad, I wanted to help people, I was interested in community and connecting with the community but it wasn’t all for the best reasons either. It’s not a reason that I would advise people to get into politics today but I just got to work spending out, that’s how I ended up there.
[0:04:45.6] JR: It’s pretty similar to my story. I’ve talked a little bit about my history with politics on the podcast before but politics is my first love professionally. In the eighth grade, I knew – I thought I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my life, I was going to run political campaigns.
First job out of school, I had a 17 years old, I ran a countywide campaign here in Tampa, Florida and I, in retrospect, eventually, I got out of it. I did an internship at the Bush Whitehouse and realized what I loved about politics was starting something out of relatively nothing and winning.
It was very much the competitive drive and for a bunch of reasons after my Whitehouse experience decided it wasn’t for me but it’s very startup like, right? I mean, you’re running this young non-profit, there’s got to be a lot of parallels to that and what you did in political campaign. Just this idea of bringing something to market, there’s a clear election date or product date and just winning. It was this competition thing for you, it sounds like.
[0:05:51.2] JG: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it was just the competition of seeing if you can win, seeing if you could win something that a lot of people wanted to – positions that a lot of people wanted to be in and I think that that drove me along with just the interactions that happened within the campaigns and stuff like that. I mean, once you get into it, it can be somewhat of an addiction.
[0:06:10.2] JR: Yeah, it is, that’s why they call them political junkies for a reason, right? How did you go from that first race with Kasim Reed to the AND Campaign? Talk us through the middle there.
[0:06:20.8] JG: Yeah, after we won that campaign, I ended up just running campaigns all around the city. City council, all kinds of stuff, running referendums here about transportation and modern infrastructure. As I was just running campaigns, I noticed that a lot of the people whose campaigns I were running or some of my friends who wanted to run were Christians but they were sort of this kind of assumption that they would have to leave some of the convictions at the door if they chose to go into this situation.
I just wasn’t really comfortable with that, specifically in Atlanta, being such a progressive spot, a lot of people just felt like their more conservative convictions, they wouldn’t be able to express those or they would really just have to build them aside completely.
Then I had some friends who were on the republican side and the tea party stuff, they felt like they couldn’t be as compassionate as they wanted to be on some issues. I just started to see this false dichotomy where when you went into the political arena, you had to either go all the way to the left if you were in a progressive space and cared about justice or you had to go all the way to the right if you were in the conservative space and cared about more order.
As I looked at the Bible, the compassion and conviction of the Bible, that justice and moral order that we see in the Bible, I just thought that was a false choice. That was kind of a false dichotomy that Christians not only shouldn’t make that decision, they couldn’t make that decision and be faithful that we needed to have the love and truth and compassion and conviction, the justice and moral order together.
That’s really what the AND Campaign was about is like look, I’m not choosing between two things that the gospel says I always have to have, not just in my interpersonal relationships but in my public witness. I have to ring these together and in as much as my party or ideological tribes stops me from doing that, I have to challenge.
[0:08:08.8] JR: What’s the short version of what the AND Campaign does today? You're running this organization full-time, how do you describe in your elevator pitch what you guys do?
[0:08:18.2] JG: I mean, the first thing that we’re trying to do is we’re trying to raise civic literacy. We want to help Christians understand the political process and understand how to be more effective within that process, right? The other thing that comes with education is helping Christians apply their values to the issues of the day which oftentimes kind of means reframing the issues and not accepting the issues in the way that they’re given to us.
That’s the education part, a lot of coalition building so I’m talking to pastors, I’m talking to faith leaders all the time, we’re building chapters all over the country to really bring Christians together to advocate. I always say that politics is not an individual endeavor and that should be natural for Christians because we’re supposed to be working in a body anyway.
What the AND Campaign is trying to do is take Christians who might be republican, Christians who might be democrats and saying hey, let’s focus on Biblical principles and do these things, and do it together and that’s the final part of it, really bringing those Christians together for advocacy and things of that nature, not for partisan stuff but for stuff that’s based on Biblical principles, whether it would be considered conservative or progressive. Just things that we should be doing based on protecting human dignity and promoting human flourishing.
[0:09:33.0] JR: Yeah, I love it. Let’s get real practical, real explicit, right? The AND stands for compassion and conviction, right? In what ways does the church tend to replace the “and” with the “or” what are some specific examples? I know everyone’s sitting there listing them out, let’s say they them explicitly if you could?
[0:09:53.2] JG: Yeah, I mean, you could take a lot of different issues but let’s start with conservatives. I think on the conservative side, there is an understanding, generally of the importance of moral order, of the port of – the importance of bringing your convictions into the public square.
I think sometimes, what is lost is the compassion. Whether we’re talking about abortion, whether we’re talking about LGBTQ rights, we could value life, we can value god’s design for our kind of interactions but do we have the compassion with it? Are we just kind of setting rules or are we making sure that our compassion is seen and that we’re fighting for justice, that we’re considering historical wrongs and things of that nature as we promote policy.
On the left, for Christians who maybe more politically progressive, where’s the conviction side of this conversation? As we fight for racial justice, as we fight for the poor, does that mean that we also shouldn’t fight for the sanctity of life when it comes to the unborn.
For some reason, I think on both sides, there are things that the Bible says is important, also that we tend to just let go because it doesn’t seem to fit with our party. That’s why the AND Campaign tells people you cannot allow your political affiliation to become religious in nature because I think one of the things we’re doing is conflating good theology with some ideological things that aren’t necessary Biblical.
[0:11:16.0] JR: Yeah, our political structure forces this kind of all or nothing mentality which I think is why so many Christians like myself feel politically homeless because there isn’t room for “And” in the two major parties oftentimes here in the United States. Where does that leave us, right? How are we to act in this political – for those of us who feel like we’re in this political wilderness.
[0:11:40.5] JG: Yeah, I would say this. I would say, embrace that homelessness, I think, I don’t think it’s a bad thing that a Christian who is a democrat feels like man, I don’t completely fit in with this, I don’t feel comfortable with the way that they treat abortion, I don’t feel comfortable with the way that they treat these LGBT issues.
As a Christian, as a Biblical Christian, you shouldn’t, at the same time, as a republican, you shouldn’t feel completely comfortable in your party, maybe it’s immigration, maybe it’s poverty, maybe it’s racial justice, both sides are fallible. If you feel – I think the problem would be, Jordan, if you felt too comfortable and didn’t feel a sense of homelessness. Now, once we embrace that homelessness and understanding that we just don’t completely fit on either side because they’re not going to get it completely right. Then we have to, I think, lower our expectations and understanding of what the party is for.
I think we almost expect it to be part of our identity. I say no, it’s a tool. If you think of the party as a tool and not something that’s part of your identity that’s going to save you in a civic way, then you really just say, you know what? Even though I don’t connect, I’m looking at this in a more of a shewed way to say hey, how can I use this tool to get things done for the kingdom, to again, protect human dignity and promote human flourishing.
Once we look at it like that, you can feel the homelessness without the kind of angst or tension that makes you feel bad about it and you say, okay, well, how do I use this? How do I use all these things to actually help get things done that are in line with my faith?
[0:13:12.2] JR: That’s beautiful. I love this idea of getting comfortable, being politically homeless and embracing – I mean, listen, we’re resident aliens, right? We’re supposed to feel out of place in this world, we’ve so long idolized party. This is me by the way, I’ll just be realy transparent here. I already mentioned part of my story, I grew up being a republican political operative, I ran a republican campaign, my first job, I was in the Bush Whitehouse.
For me, the republican party was a god, until I started learning more and worshiping more the God of the Bible and deconstructed my political idolatry and realize, I am homeless, I care about justice, I care about immigration, I care about the poor, I believe in science, it just led me in this odd spot but getting comfortable there makes a lot of sense.
All right, we view these parties as tools and can say interesting way to think about it, how do we leverage the tools, like real practically, where does that leave us on election day and thinking about how to vote and where to exercise our civic rights?
[0:14:16.9] JG: For one, you organize, right? You organize prior to the election; you make sure you organize the whole people accountable before the election. One of the things that I think that brings a lot of this anxiety that Christians have when it comes to elections and being homeless is we feel like that vote is the whole of our public witness.
What I tell people, Jordan, is that the vote is not the whole of your public witness, even if you don’t feel great about who you voted for because the options just weren’t great, your public witness is a lot more than that. Before the election, your public witness is advocating for the things that are important. Making sure that your tone and the things that you talk about are done in a way that’s glorifying to God and not just tearing people down. That has a lot to do with – what your public witness is, what do you tweak? What do you not tweak? What do you advocate for? What do you call people for and try to get them behind?
That’s a big part of what you do and then even after the election, it’s a matter of holding people accountable. One of the biggest mistakes I think people make, Jordan. Once we vote somebody in, we just defend whatever they do and we just – we try to justify everything they do, really because we feel like we need to justify ourselves.
[0:15:29.6] JR: That’s exactly right because it’s idolatry, it’s tied to my identity as a person.
[0:15:33.9] JG: Exactly, but I look at it differently I say that once you vote somebody in, if that person wins, you have even more of a responsibility to hold them accountable, to make sure that they do what they’re supposed to do. I even wrote in Christianity Today, about how I thought you know, folks in my community and myself did not hold Obama accountable as much as they should, that we were too focused on protecting him and we let the far left push him on some things that we should have been pushing back on.
[0:16:03.5] JR: Because the far left did hold him accountable, right?
[0:16:06.0] JG: Yeah, absolutely. We should have, some did and it’s not the whole group. I mean, there were some people who did but not to the extent that we could have and I think we did him and ourselves a disservice in that regard and we’re not only for – we’re not the only folks that do that but it’s important to look at it differently and say, “Hey, I’m not going to leave a politician to their own devices” You’re here to serve the people and I’m here to make sure that you're held accountable for doing what you said you’re going to do and not going too far on issues that would hurt the people.
[0:16:34.8] JR: I want to go back to something you said a few minutes ago, this challenge of reframing issues, right? There’s so much content, so much media being produced around the big civic issues of our day. How do we take those and how do we apply a Biblical view to these things, to deconstruct them in a way that allows us to reframe them and see what is true and what is not, in the narrative surrounding these issues?
[0:17:06.1] JG: Very good question and this is really at the heart of what we talk about in our book and passion and conviction. What is the framework by which a Christian should view certain issues? We talk about it through the concepts of compassion and conviction. When I look at an issue, I have to say what does the sacrificial love of Christ say about this? How do I protect the human dignity of the people that are impacted by this policy?
Because policy is never just a piece of paper and it’s like, it’s people, it’s not the – it’s not just the advocates who could be mean and ugly and sometimes that’s who we see when we think of a policy. No, think of the people who don’t have a voice that are going to be affected by this, right? How must I be compassionate towards those people, and then also what do Christian convictions say about this particular issue, right?
How do I make sure that I am professing the truth and not kind of getting into this postmodernism or relativism? How can I be truthful and at the same time be compassionate. The world presents love and truth many times as if they’re mutually exclusive. The gospel combines those and I think we have to find ways through prayer, through being innovative, to being thoughtful to combine those and how we approach politics as well.
[0:18:22.8] JR: Amen, very well said. I was thinking a lot about this in the last election cycle. I’m curious if you’ve noticed this, Christians treat their votes pretty much the same way the rest of the world does as, “Hey, I’m going to vote for the person who’s going to serve me best.” I think it’s an interesting question to ask like how can I sacrifice my vote and my power and my privilege on behalf of those less fortunate than me.
Do you see that as a healthy way to think about our votes? Is that a Christ-like way to think about our votes? How do you think about this?
[0:18:54.0] JG: Yeah, I think that’s a Christ-like way to think about our votes. Too often, I think Christians engage in what I’ve been calling the politics of Christian self-interest where our number one goal it seems like in politics is to give ourselves these iron clad protections that ensure that we could never be violated or we could never be harmed and we put our resources. We put our messaging and all of that stuff towards that.
That’s not bad, I don’t think we shouldn’t at all have any concerns about protecting our children and protecting what we see as the truth and whether it would be religious freedom or anything else but can we honestly say that that is why Christians are here. I don’t think the politics of Christian self-interest can be our priority. I think we have to again, protect human dignity of the most vulnerable and so when in conflict, when our self-interest and the interest of somebody who is vulnerable come into conflict, we have to be willing to do what’s right even if it’s somewhat against self-interest.
That’s easier said than done but I think Christians have to be willing to do that if we’re going to be who God calls us because I think on that day when we meet our maker, He’s not going to say, “Well done. You did what you could, everything you could do to protect yourself.” He’s going to say, “You know, well done. You did everything you could do to protect your neighbor and to love your enemy.”
[0:20:16.1] JR: To protect the least of these, right?
[0:20:18.1] JG: Yeah.
[0:20:18.5] JR: I think one of the responses we’re seeing from the church right now to this really hyper polarized time is just to retreat from politics, just abstaining, right? But I think this fails to recognize that God works through people, in government, in politics, in every sphere of culture, right? I’m like there is evidence for this all throughout scripture, right? I am curious, what are the characters, what are the stories that you see in scripture that remind you that God works through government? That God does his work through government and politics and the work that you’re engaged in today Justin?
[0:20:55.3] JG: Well, I mean yeah, I think you got to start, you can start with Romans 13, right? That we know that government is God-ordained so it is not something that we need to necessarily just run away from but then you can look at the prophet Daniel, you know his interactions with the government. You can look at Ezra, you can look at Amos and the things that he had to say to the government at the time to see that there is this interaction that we have to engage in.
That government and politics provides a robust opportunity for us to love our neighbor and if we omit the opportunity to do that, then we’re just poor stewards. Now, that doesn’t mean that everybody has to weigh in on every single issue. We don’t have, you know, most of us aren’t capable of doing that. You have kids to feed, you got a whole bunch of other stuff to do but we should work in and support institutions that are focused on those things and again, that is just working as a body.
We’re all not going to be on the frontlines but we all do have something to contribute and something to give.
[0:21:52.0] JR: Going back to this because this is something that I have been thinking about lately, this idea of everybody speaking out about everything. I think we’re living in this cultural moment in which every person, every brand is expected to say something about everything. I don’t think it’s always constructive. How are you thinking about that topic? How are you thinking about that reality of what is going on in our culture?
[0:22:17.5] JG: Yeah, I mean for one, we all don’t even have the capacity to be experts or to be even constructive on every issue, right? Some of the times we got to say, “Hey, if I don’t know what I’m talking about, it actually can be negative for me to speak on something.” The crazy part is not only are we expected to speak out on every single thing that happens, we’re supposed to do it immediately sometimes before we even have the facts but our tribes will push it –
[0:22:41.4] JR: We’re not supposed to reflect or think or take different viewpoints into account.
[0:22:45.1] JG: To reflect is weakness or apathy, right? Your tribe is going to say, “Hey, we’ve already decided what the narrative is, you better speak on it now.” Now if you think about it, there are several reasons why you wouldn’t want to do that and why you should be suspicious of somebody telling you to do that but we go along with it and so never – even as somebody who is running a civic organization who does try to speak out on a lot of issues, we always take our time and we realize that there is some stuff that we don’t have to speak out on because we don’t know enough.
That’s okay because you can do a lot of damage, not only to your own reputation but to the body and others when you speak out on stuff that you’re not sure off.
[0:23:20.1] JR: From the outside looking in, it seems like you guys are gaining traction pretty quickly with the AND Campaign. I mean, just in the last two or three months, I’ve had three or four friends speak, “Oh my gosh, you got to check out what the AND Campaign is doing.” You guys are seeing some hard things within the church, which I appreciate. I’m curious, what have you found to be the keys to effectively communicating hard truths in a winsome way? What’s the secret sauce there?
[0:23:47.3] JG: Yeah, I mean well, God has been good. The AND Campaign is growing and we’re so thankful for that and know that it’s not our doing that it is way bigger than us but I think what we try to do is number one, just be honest. We really do try to avoid the pressures of this ideological tribes and I think what people appreciate about the AND Campaign is that we don’t – we’re not pressured into saying something that’s not Biblical or that’s not compassionate just because the popular kids or the cool kids on Twitter would want us to say that.
That we’re willing to take on both sides and so that’s what opens a lot of people up to us is we never – we don’t just go around finger pointing or just coming at conservatives or just coming at progressives. We honestly try to be constructive and challenge whichever side needs to be challenged. Now, I think people had just been waiting to see the boldness to do that and that’s really what it is, is to say, “How are we with any message that we send out, are we being compassionate and is this can this stand up to Biblical scrutiny?”
Just putting it out there and saying, “Hey, this is where we stand and if people are going to critique it, they can critique it but it is not going to change how we feel unless we miss something but we’re going to say what we really think” and I think there is so many people waiting for that and so many people who have been let down by other leaders that just aren’t willing to push back on their ideological trial.
[0:25:11.2] JR: I love the way you’re phrasing this because I do think what you guys are doing is just putting a flag in the sand and giving language to people who have already shared your beliefs but have yet been able to articulate it quite the way you guys have been or haven’t had the courage to be as bold as you guys have been. Is that how you primarily think of the AND Campaign is just giving language to people who already share these values?
Do you also see your role as changing minds within the church? How are you thinking about that as you guide the organization?
[0:25:45.8] JG: Yeah, that’s it. We didn’t create this framework. We truly believe that this is a gospel-centered framework that allows Christians to disagree on certain issues but what we did do is articulate it for the moment in a way that a lot of people hadn’t heard it articulated before. When people hear our framework, we’ll get a lot of, “Man, that’s exactly what I was thinking. I just didn’t know how to say it and you guys said it in a way that communicates exactly what I’m in.” I think that is a big part of our growth.
[0:26:15.7] JR: That’s interesting. I read this book, you would actually love this book. If you haven’t read it, I’ll send it to you. It’s called The Leadership Campaign. Have you read this?
[0:26:24.4] JG: I haven’t.
[0:26:25.5] JR: It’s really interesting, it’s this ex-political consultants who were hired by Steve Jobs in the 80s because Jobs is like, “Hey, I kind of want to start thinking to myself as the candidate that’s like up for election, every year with these product launches.” It was really, really interesting and since then, they’ve worked with like Bob Iger or they’ve worked with some pretty impressive executives and the idea in this book is that any leader political, business or otherwise has the chance to sell ideas to basically five constituencies, right?
You have your hard support, people who are your super fans, soft support, undecideds, soft opposition and hard opposition and basically the advice is give the hard support everything they need to share your message, right? And to multiply the impact of the organization and then work like crazy to move the soft support to hard support and ignore everybody else, even undecided because it’s too expensive and difficult to move them to your side.
I’m curious to get your take on that, on that strategy and how that plays out in the AND Campaign like who you’re talking to, hard support, soft support, everybody or do you even think in these terms?
[0:27:40.7] JG: I’ll say this, I mean you’re a former campaign manager so you know you always try to speak to the base, right? You always try to consolidate or solidify your base rather as you move forward and so we do try to speak to the base but we think of it a little bit differently because even if our base somehow move to the left then to the right, we have to speak what’s Biblical, right?
It’s not we can’t just cater to any particular base but for those folks who are trying to be as Biblical as they can be in the public square, they’re trying to have that compassion and conviction and they’re not sold on, completely sold on either party or ideological tribe, that is who we speak directly to. That’s where we’re coming from and that’s who we’re really trying to bring together to change this political landscape. Yeah, there is a lot of practical wisdom in that way of thinking.
To some extent, it works out like that for the AND Campaign with the nuance of we’ve got to stay Biblical. Even if our base moves to something that wasn’t, we wouldn’t follow them there but as long as they stay there, we speak directly to them.
[0:28:47.7] JR: What does it look like practically for you guys to invest in the base, the hard support and you guys giving them tools to go out and spread this message? Do you guys do that type of work? What does that look like?
[0:28:58.2] JG: Absolutely. We have the Church Politics Podcast where we’re always giving political commentary from a Biblical world view. We also speak to the issues of the day, right? People say, “Okay, this happened. How should a Christian think about this?” and what we try to do like I said before is apply that compassion, that conviction framework to the issues of the day, very important. Talking to people about, “Okay, how do I relate to elected officials? How do I organize?”
What are the issues that I can organize on? How do I create a chapter? In kind of raising civic literacy, we also want to give folks these practical things that they can go out into their community, working locally to actually make some changes in their space and so we’re always trying to help with those tips and again, practical steps you need to change.
[0:29:47.0] JR: I love it. Justin, you’re an exceptional leader. I can imagine you’re a pretty productive guy given the impact you guys have seen over the last few years. I’m curious what a typical day looks like for you, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed?
[0:29:58.9] JG: Yeah. Well obviously, as you can tell I’m doing quite a few podcasts. I have my own podcast, we do other podcasts. I’m writing, you know whether it be for Christianity Today or The Hill. A lot of meetings with faith leaders, so always talking to faith leaders and all over the country about either getting involved with the AND Campaign or an issue specific to their locality that they just might need help with.
Those are our primarily what I’m trying to do, it’s content and it’s outreach along with education, so going to Christian colleges and universities to speak on politics and faith and things of that nature and then speaking on specific issues, whether it would be religious liberty and the interaction between religious liberty and LGBTQ rights and how can we maintain our historic Christian sexual ethic while caring for people that we may disagree with, these are all things that I think Christians need to engage more and that’s the resource that the AND Campaign wants to be for people.
[0:30:54.1] JR: What are your spiritual disciplines and routines that listen, you’ve got to be immersed in the news cycle, right? I’m assuming you’re consuming a decent amount of content on what’s going on in the world. How do you renew your mind? What are you routines that help you renew your mind with what scripture actually says, with what the gospel actually says but what we’re called to be and do in the world?
[0:31:18.3] JG: I mean, it’s prayer. Prayer is a big part of it and one of the things that you see in politics quite a bit is just a lot of bitterness and vengeance and I’m at risk of that just like anybody else and so one of the things that I tried to do as a discipline is I pray for the people who have been on my mind and not so kind of a way. Pray not just that they change in the way that I want them to change but that they prosper, that God works in my heart and He works in their heart as well.
That’s one of the things that has really been helpful for me because you can, you know, when somebody is in the opposite side of an issue you care a lot about, it is easy to turn bitter. It is easy to turn vengent and I try to avoid that. Something else I do is I have a great group of friends who I pray with and also talk through issues with and I’ve created a sort of kind of community that hold each other accountable, so we’re about to say something that maybe we’re not sure if it’s the right thing to say or maybe controversial or come off as provocative.
We run it pass each other and forward state it in and that’s just been a huge help to what I’m doing. I think that fellowship and that prayer is big in what I’m trying to accomplish.
[0:32:23.0] JR: It’s hard to hate somebody when you’re praying for somebody. It’s probably why Jesus called us to pray proactively for the good of our enemies, to do good to our enemies. That’s what he did for us on the cross, right? We were his enemies. All right Justin, three questions I love wrapping up every conversation with. First, other than your own Compassion and Conviction, which books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently?
[0:32:49.8] JG: Ooh, lately it’s been A Time to Build by Yuval Levin. I think that book has just been – it’s just a really good book about the importance of institutions that people need to read. Another book I’ve been recommending to people deals with Black history is called Capitol Men. It is about reconstruction and some of the Black representatives at the time. Those are two that I think because I think especially when it comes to Christian circles, we need to understand American history a little differently and not have this romanticized version and so those are two of the books that I have to recommend.
[0:33:20.1] JR: I couldn’t agree more. Those are great. Guys, you can find those at jordanraynor.com/bookshelf along with Compassion and Conviction, which I’ve not read but after this conversation, I’ve had it on my Kindle for a year, something like that. It’s going to the top of my reading list now, I’m really excited to read this.
Justin, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel influences the work they do in this world? We had your friend, co-founder, Sho Baraka on the show. He mentioned you when I asked this question, how do you want to nominate to come on to the podcast?
[0:33:52.1] JG: I would like to nominate Lisa Fields. Lisa Fields runs the Jude 3 Project. It’s about apologetics and she’s just a brilliant sister that’s doing so much good work in the Kingdom.
[0:34:03.6] JR: That’s a good answer, I like that. All right, one thing from this conversation you want to reiterate for our listeners before we sign off, what would it be?
[0:34:11.8] JG: I would just say, you have to be willing to be honest about what’s wrong with your side of the isle and willing and bold enough, courageous enough to challenge your side of the item isle. I think too often we see courage as challenging the other side, when really that’s the easy thing to do because you get patted on the back and you get all of these shares and retweets. What happens when you challenge folks on your side to do better? I think that’s actually a more effective way to change the political landscape.
[0:34:40.3] JR: I love that. Justin, I want to commend you, your co-founders, everyone involved in the AND Campaign for the important redemptive work you’re doing every day and for just helping the church maintain conviction and compassion. Thank you for serving the world through your excellent leadership of this movement. Guys, you could find the book wherever books are sold, Compassion and Conviction, and you can learn more about the AND Campaign at andcampaign.org. Justin, thanks for hanging out with us.
[0:35:11.5] JG: Thanks for your work Jordan. Thanks for having me.
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[0:35:14.1] JR: My first question after we stopped recording was, how in the world can I help? I love how Justin thinks. I love his gospel-centric approach. I hope you guys loved that episode. If you did, do me a favor, take 30 seconds to go rate the podcast on Apple Podcast. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to The Call to Mastery. I’ll see you next week.
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