Caleb Campbell

Summary

The SkyePod: Caleb Campbell
Release Date: July 3, 2026 | Host: Skye Jethani | Guest: Caleb Campbell
Theme:
A deep-dive conversation examining Christian nationalism in America—its definitions, dangers, and distinctions from patriotism—and a raw exploration of how these forces impacted both the country and the American church, featuring the unique perspective and personal journey of pastor and author Caleb Campbell.

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Episode Overview

In this candid and timely July 4th episode, Skye Jethani sits down with Caleb Campbell, pastor of Desert Springs Bible Church and author of Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor. The conversation was originally filmed for a Holy Post explainer video but is presented here nearly in full, offering unique insights especially relevant during America's 250th anniversary and rising debates on faith and nationalism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Christian Nationalism vs. Patriotism

• Caleb Campbell’s Core Definition
  Christian nationalism is “a movement marked by a political ideology, a tribal identity, and a spiritual idolatry.” (04:46)

  • Political ideology: Wants Christians running government to “protect and propagate their way of being in the world.”
  • Tribal identity: Functions as a people group with a distinct culture, origin myth, and boundaries.
  • Spiritual idolatry: Involves syncretism—conflating Christianity with Americana and “empire worship,” the elevation of America to divine status.

• Patriotism vs. Nationalism
  Campbell distinguishes patriotism (love and affection for one’s country, culture, or community) from nationalism (an exclusivist and supremacist impulse).

  • “Patriotism is a word that we use to talk about your affection for, or your love for, or your honor for your people, your country…” (05:00)
  • Nationalism is the “over-love” of country that devolves into violence, hate speech, and idol worship.

• CS Lewis and Augustine Reference
  Both agree: “It’s more like the Augustinian idea of disordered loves. It’s a good thing that we, as Keller would say, have made into an ultimate thing.” (06:44)

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2. The Uniqueness of American Pluralism and the Founder’s Intent

• Historical Context
  America’s founders rejected Old World ethnic/religious nationalism in favor of binding together a people “not bound together by bloodline, ethnicity, or king, but by a set of ideals.” (10:38)

  • Quote: “There is a beauty in the fact that…we’re going to try to be a people that are not bound together by bloodline, ethnicity, or king. We’re going to try to bind ourselves together based on an idea or a series of ideals.” (10:38)

• Refuting the “Christian Nation” Myth

  • Quote: “If you’re talking about founding documents…I don’t see anything in there that speaks to the desire to bind us together under the name of Christ.” (11:35)
  • Revisionist history has led some to believe America was meant as a Christian nation—Campbell and Jethani note the dangers of this myth.

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3. Christian Nationalism vs. Christianity

• Fatal Flaws & Spiritual Dangers
  Christian nationalism is inherently a “power grab.”

  • “We’re going to use the methods of the sword in order to advance the way of the cross. And I think that this is the fatal flaw.” (14:00)
  • The Kingdom of God “advances not by the powers of the kingdoms of this world.”

• Means and Ends in Christian Political Engagement
  Campbell draws on Jesus’s temptation in the desert:

  • “The wrong way to pursue righteous ends is through unrighteous means…The means by which we pursue justice and righteousness also should be marked by justice and righteousness.” (16:38)
  • Unrighteous Means Example: “Dehuman and derisive speech about immigrants.” (18:07)

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4. The Impact on Church and Society

• Threats to Pluralism and the Church
  • Christian nationalists attempt to restrict voting rights, constitutional protections, and pluralistic dialogue to their “tribe,” which is both “unchristian…because it’s dehumanizing to their neighbors” and un-American. (18:22)
  • Christian nationalism more often means “denominational nationalism”: “I’m not hearing anyone today arguing that we should put Mennonites in charge of the Department of Defense.” (19:23)
  • Quote: “Living in a pluralistic society…allows for the church to work out its doctrinal, theological, practical differences without…asking the state to kill these people.” (19:49)

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5. Caleb Campbell’s Personal Story and Pastoral Experience

• From Extremism to Empathy
  Campbell uniquely engages Christian nationalism because of his past as a Neo-Nazi/skinhead (as a youth)—a context that fuels his compassion and patience with those caught in radicalizing ideologies. (01:24)

• When Christian Nationalism Became Concrete
  First explicit awareness: January 6, 2021.

  • “I started seeing a lot of the different pressures that I was feeling as a pastor, not as a bunch of disparate bits, but as one big thing.” (22:15)

• Role of Media in Shaping Congregations

  • Campbell notes his congregants “weren’t getting that message from you or the prior pastor or the church. ...Where was it coming from?” (24:15)
  • Quote: “The screens, bro…the man on the screen quoting the Bible and telling me how that applies to politics is what was discipling so many of my people.” (24:52)
  • These influencers use the same Christian language, but apply it in contradictory ways, leading people to assume their views are supported by pastoral teaching.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Difference Between Patriotism and Nationalism:
  “An over love can actually drift into violence and things like hate speech and idol worship in particular.” (05:00, Caleb Campbell)
• On Pluralism:
  “We’re going to try to be a people that are not bound together by bloodline, ethnicity, or king. We’re going to try to bind ourselves together based on an idea or a series of ideals.” (10:38, Caleb Campbell)
• On Power and Means:
  “The temptation was, I’m going to give you all these things my way, the way of, in this case, the tempter. …When the means are not marked by…love or the fruit of the Spirit…then you’re actually contradicting the end that you’re going for.” (16:38, Caleb Campbell)
• On Pastoral Disappointment:
  “I got accused of having a Luciferian spirit of fear…And I was so struck by those accusations because these are folks that I had shared communion with for two decades. But…because Pastor Caleb’s using the same words, he believes the same thing I do.” (26:25, Caleb Campbell)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |:--------------:|:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:39 | Defining Christian Nationalism | | 04:53 | Patriotism vs. Nationalism, CS Lewis & Augustine on “disordered loves” | | 09:42 | Founders’ vision: pluralism vs. nationalism | | 11:22 | “Christian nation” myth and revisionist history | | 14:00 | Christian nationalism in conflict with Jesus’s teachings | | 16:38 | Right and wrong ways to “Christianize” society; means/ends distinction | | 18:07 | Concrete example: dehumanizing immigrants | | 19:23 | Denominational vs. true “Christian” nationalism, dangers for the church | | 22:06 | Campbell’s realization of Christian nationalism post-Jan. 6 | | 24:52 | Influence of media and “the man on the screen” in shaping Christians’ views | | 26:25 | Members feeling “betrayed” when pastoral teaching conflicts with right-wing Christian media |

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a rich, multifaceted conversation—historical, theological, political, and deeply personal—on Christian nationalism’s dangers, its distortion of both America’s founding ideals and Jesus’s teachings, and the real-life impacts seen in American churches. Caleb Campbell’s insight, humility, and unique life story give the conversation both credibility and compassion.

Recommended Action:
To engage further, Skye recommends checking out the Holy Post explainer video “Should America Rededicate Itself to God?” and Caleb Campbell’s book Disarming Leviathan.

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For full, uninterrupted episodes and additional content, subscribe at holypost.com/skyepod.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to the Skypod, brought to you by Holy Post Media. I'm Sky Jutani. This episode is being released on July 3, so Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Americans.

[B]

Earlier this week, in light of the

[A]

holiday and the celebration of America 250, we released a new explainer video, something that we honestly haven't done in a while. It's because the whole team has been busy with our launch on Substack and the integration of With God Daily into Holy Post. Plus, we just haven't had the bandwidth to do a lot of explainer videos. But thankfully, all those projects are now complete and we have finally released a new video that, honestly, I'm particularly proud of. I think it's really good. It's called Should America Rededicate Itself to God? You can get it on any of the Holy Post media channels on YouTube, our Facebook page on Substack. We'll also link to it in the show notes below.

[C]

It's free for everyone.

[A]

It's about 12 minutes long and it tackles the way that some Christians are thinking about the 250th anniversary of our independence and and the integration with Christian nationalist ideas and what does it really mean for us to be dedicated to God at this moment in our history. The video heavily features my friend Caleb Campbell. He is the pastor of Desert Springs Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona, and he's the author of Disarming Leviathan. Loving your Christian nationalist neighbor. Response to the video so far has been really good, and that's because Caleb is a wonderful communicator and he's got a very compelling story.

[B]

He takes a much more empathetic and

[A]

compassionate response to Christian than many other people do, honestly, frankly, more than I do. And that's because of his own surprising background. He, as a young man, was a Neo Nazi. He was a skinhead. Obviously, he's not in that movement anymore, but because of his experience there, his response is different to those who get caught up into Christian nationalism. So we thought because of the response to the video and the themes of the video and it being the holiday, it'd be great to release my entire conversation with Caleb Campbell on today's Skypod episode. So here's the backstory of what you're about to listen to. Caleb came to Chicago a few months ago to do some speaking gigs, and while he was in town, he came out here to our studio in Wheaton, and we filmed this interview knowing that we were going to use bits of it for an explainer video around July 4th. We didn't know exactly what that video was going to be yet.

[C]

We just knew it was going to

[A]

be something about Christian nationalism, something with Caleb's story, and something for America 250. But we didn't know for sure. So we talked for like an hour in our studio and captured all that footage, knowing we were going to pick little useful bits out of it for the explainer video. So what you're about to hear is that full conversation with very few edits. And that may not sound exactly like a typical Skypod interview, and that's because it wasn't meant to be a Skypod interview. We were using it for this video, so that's why it might sound a little bit different. But I think you're going to be really blessed by Caleb's story. You're going to find his insights really helpful and hopefully it just enhances your celebration of Independence Day this weekend. So here's my full conversation with Caleb Campbell. If you want to get more from him, check out his book Disarming Leviathan and I'll be back next week with another Skypod episode. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend.

[C]

It wasn't like evangelicals weren't talking about politics, right. It was just not okay to talk about it in the local church.

[D]

Yeah, because one of those Democrats might show up and we got to get them saved.

[A]

Ah,

[C]

When people ask you for a succinct definition of Christian nationalism, what's your go to?

[D]

So Christian nationalism is three things at the same time, at least as it's being expressed currently in America. It is a movement marked by a political ideology, a tribal identity, and a spiritual idolatry. Okay, so the political ideology, the shortest version that I know how to say it is Christians should be in charge of the government to protect and propagate their way of being in the world. The tribal identity is it refers to a people group with its own culture, origin story, founding myth, dreams for the future, fears, outsiders, insiders, and in that sense it functions like a people group. And then third, a spiritual idolatry. It is a form, as it's currently expressed, of what's sometimes referred to as syncretism, the mixing or conflation of Christianity with certain aspects of Americana and empire worship, the elevation of the veneration of the state, in our case the United States of America, to a divine or semi divine status.

[C]

What do you say to those who may identify as Christian nationalists but argue, I'm just a Christian who loves my country?

[D]

Sure.

[C]

Why is that not an accurate definition?

[D]

Yeah. So nationalism, especially when we're talking about politics and matters of state means something. It's usually a conversation about who gets to be in charge, which people group get to be in charge. If a person says, well, I'm a Christian and I love my country, well, you're talking about patriotism. Patriotism is a word that we use to talk about your affection for or your love for, or your honor for your people, your country, whatever you might want to call it. CS Lewis is really helpful, at least for me. In his book the Four Loves, he talks about different types of patriotism. He doesn't use the word Christian nationalism, but he. He does hit on it. And the healthy patriotism that he talks about is your love of family extended out to your people, whoever your people might be. And it's the land, the culture, the food, the music, the way people talk, the stories. And it's a love and affection for that. And, you know, it's. You're oftentimes born into that like you're born into a family. Whereas a nationalism or what he talks about is corrupted or even demonic versions of patriotism. An over love can actually drift into violence and things like hate speech and in idol worship in particular. And he's thinking as a, you know, a citizen of England in the 1950s as he's processing this stuff. And just like all forms of idolatry, we can love a good thing, but when we love that thing too much, it can start to consume us and we become idolaters in the process.

[C]

So it's more like the Augustan idea of disordered loves. It's a good thing that we, as Keller would say, have made into an ultimate thing.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

But there is something.

[C]

It isn't just nationalism is not just patriotism taken too far.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. So it's. It's like somebody, when you ask them, you know, what's your biggest shortcoming? I just love my family too much. Right. It sounds like a positive spin on a negative trait, but. So what is the difference between patriotism, a love of one's home or country or people, and nationalism?

[D]

Yeah, I think that at least today, American Christian nationalism relies upon patriotism and then corrupt or entices it to. To. To fuel the Christian nationalist movement. So it does require that you love your people and love your way of being. What. What Christian nationalism then does is it supremacizes your expression of love for your people and your definition for the people. And I think as Americans, this is especially key when I think about loving my country. In my imagination, I'm not thinking about Maine or Minnesota or Chicago. I'm thinking about the Sonoran Desert. I'm thinking about tacos, I'm thinking about music that I have grown up listening to. But that's not America. That's my experience with America. And in fact, I have more in common culturally with folks who live in northern Mexico than I do really with people from Maine. The topography is the same. It's the Sonoran Desert. We're used to eating similar foods. We're all using even similar lexicon, even though there's two different languages, similar imaginations of how things work in the world. And, you know, when I talk to people from Louisiana, I feel like we don't have much in common other than maybe some shared memories of things that happened at the national level. And so I think for Americans especially, it's important to recognize that what we call patriotism is a love for the expression or experience of America that we have. But we're a large people and there's all sorts of other American experiences that I have no familiarity with. And I. I see in the American Christian nationalist movement the taking of one expression of being an American and then trying to project that over all the others, saying this is what it means to be a real American. And in that way it supremacizes a version of being an American over and above all the others, and then tries to put pressure on all the others to either be silenced or be removed from the equation.

[C]

We are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country this year. And when you go back and read the founders and study what they said, nationalism was not unfamiliar to them. The Europe they came from or their families came from was having a significant nationalist movement at that time where all the Italian speaking regions of Europe wanted to become Italy and the French speaking parts, France and the German speaking provinces becoming Germany. That's nationalism. They could have imported that idea and said, hey, we're establishing a new country here for a specific narrow kind of people. But they didn't say that. So speak to your understanding of how Christian nationalism as it's being expressed today is actually contrary to the founder's vision of what this country was supposed to be.

[D]

The beautiful, beautiful principle of pluralism in America is so powerful in my mind when, when I think about being an American, I think about how proud I am of the fact that we've tried to do this and for all of our sins and all of the evil that we've propagated. There is a beauty in the fact that you know, in that era, some people got together and said that we're going to. We're going to try to be a people that are not bound together by bloodline, ethnicity, or king. We're going to try to bind ourselves together based on an idea or a series of ideals. And I think that's extremely beautiful.

[C]

Well, let me interrupt you there for a second, because what about those who say, yeah, that's true, but they did want us to be all bound together by Christianity.

[D]

Oh, well, then why didn't they say so?

[C]

Right.

[D]

I mean, if you're talking about founding documents that found the people, I don't. I don't see anything in there that speaks to the desire to bind us together under the name of Christ. I, I would have guessed that it would have been explicit. We're a group of people from all these different places, and we're bound together by Jesus.

[C]

But that's the mythology that's arisen is that people have kind of done revisionist history on the founding and say, no, no, this was founded to be an explicitly Christian country. And anyone who's advocating pluralism or secularism is defying what the founders wanted.

[A]

A lot of people believe that.

[D]

Yeah. I think also in the Exodus narrative of the Bible, a lot of people who were freed from slavery wanted to go back to Egypt when things got tough. And I think that that instinct to go back to a Western European way of binding yourself together is the same revisionist history that all of us wrestle with. We misremember or we have this weird revisionist nostalgic view of the past, forgetting that there were really good reasons why the founders decided to do what they did.

[C]

And

[D]

I don't think that we need to only relegate the argument to the founding documents. I think we can expand the conversation to how was life for people living in those environments? How was the faith? I mean, let's take Germany. How were Presbyterians treated when the Lutheran Church had so much power? If we were in England and we were maybe Mennonites, how might we be feeling about the fact that there was a state church and an ethnocentric? So I. Not only do. I think that the founding documents, they don't lead us to that idea. I think the wisdom of understanding what's happened in our history can also lead us to the idea of, or at least the value of trying to bind ourselves together, not based on bloodline, ethnicity, or king.

[C]

Okay, so we've talked about how Christian nationalism may not fit our national values and ideals and founding. How does it contradict Christianity and the teachings of Jesus? Where is that non conforming to what Christian nationalists are advocating for?

[D]

Yeah, a lot of what I hear American Christian nationalists today advocate for is the use of coercive government power to propagate more government power for Christians. So it seems to be a power grab and we're going to use the methods of the sword in order to advance the way of the cross. And I think that this is the fatal flaw is the argument is we want to make America Christian, which I think. I don't think that governments can be Christian. I think Christian means giving full allegiance to Jesus and people do that. And the desire to get more state power in the name of advancing the kingdom of God is fatally flawed because the kingdom of God advances not by the powers of the kingdoms of this world. I think in a sense it's a form of simony where we think we can leverage the power of the spirit, or depending on how you read Acts 8, we can. We can leverage the spectacle of spirituality for our own gain in the name of Jesus and think we're doing something good.

[C]

What do you say to the person who says, well, wouldn't America be better if our laws were more just? If things that we know from our Christian theology and scriptures and convictions are wrong, are legally wrong, and what if our educational system and our judicial system and our healthcare system, what if all those things were guided by Christian morality and principles? Wouldn't that be a better America? And what's wrong with pursuing that?

[D]

To answer the first question, yes, as long as the means in which we pursue that end are also godly and righteous and marked by the way of the cross.

[C]

Okay, So I mean, this is an important distinction because I think some people hear criticism of Christian nationalism and they assume what you or other critics of Christian nationalism are saying is, keep your Christianity completely out of politics. Keep your Christianity out of the law, keep your Christianity out of the public square. But that's not what you're saying. So what is the wrong way to pursue those things versus the right way?

[D]

The wrong way to pursue righteous ends is through unrighteous means. The temptation that Jesus experienced in the desert when the Spirit, after his baptism, the Spirit drives Jesus out to the wilderness. The temptation is not bad. Ends. All of the ends that the tempter dangles in front of Jesus are actually good things that frankly, are already promised to him. The temptation was, I'm going to give you all these things my way, the way of, in this case, the tempter. And that, I think is helpful and instructive for how the evil one often works. Presents as an angel of light. It's a slight deviation from what God has called us to just a slight deviation. But a slight deviation has massive negative effects. The means by which we pursue justice and righteousness also should be marked by justice and righteousness. When the means are not marked by, let's say, 1 Corinthians 13, love or the fruit of the Spirit. Philippians chapter 2. Deference to the other, whatever it might be, when they're not marked by those things, you're actually propagating injustice and unrighteousness. So even though you might claim, hey, I want a more just society, if you're using unjust and unrighteous means to get there, then you're actually contradicting the end that you're going for.

[C]

So give me an example of an unrighteous or unjust means that is being advocated by Christian nationalists.

[D]

Dehuman and derisive speech about immigrants.

[C]

That's pretty straightforward.

[D]

Brutality is okay because those people are not humans. They're monsters.

[C]

So this is where you get sort of the Venn diagram overlap of unchristian and un American. Because the system that our founders set up and the generations prior to us, refined over time is one in which a country of 300 plus million people with a lot of diverse ideas and differences are supposed to work out those differences through persuasion, through elections, through voting, talking through. Talking through compromise, through the courts, through things like that. But it seems like Christian nationalists are saying, well, no, only certain people should get to vote, and only certain people should have constitutional rights and only certain religions should be protected. Only certain ideas should should be allowed in our schools or. So they're eliminating the pluralism in order to take the dominant position themselves. That's unchristian then, because it's dehumanizing to their neighbors or others in this country who don't share all of their same beliefs.

[D]

It's also really bad for the church. And here's why we in practice are rarely actually seeing Christian nationalism. We're almost always seeing denominational nationalism. Here's what I mean. I'm not hearing anyone today arguing that we should put Mennonites in charge of the Department of Defense.

[C]

That would be kind of weird.

[D]

That would be weird. Mennonites have a history of being known as being a bit more pacifist. They'd probably defund the Department of Defense and fund the National Park Service. I guess. This. That's not what we're talking. So when we say Christian, almost Always the, the purveyors of American Christian nationalism have a very acute expression of Christianity that they're talking about. And here's why. This is dangerous for the church when that group gets into power. Well, any denomination that doesn't directly align with what they're talking about, they're out, they're dehu. You know, they're, they're demonized, they're maybe in some cases defunded, you know, losing protections, properties taken over. And if someone is thinking, oh, no, that's blowing things out of proportion, I would just reference Christendom in Europe and how denominations settled a lot of their beefs through violence. I think that living in a pluralistic society like America allows for the church to work out its doctrinal, its theological, its practical differences without turning and looking at the state and saying, can you come kill these people? Because I'm tired of having this argument about if we should baptize babies or do believers baptism. And that, I think, is lost in this conversation, that the health of the American church, as much corruption and sickness as the American church has within it. One of the healthy things is I can sit with people with whom I fundamentally disagree with theologically, and none of us are worried that they're going to call the mayor to have the other one killed or arrested or jailed or silenced or put pressure upon or having

[C]

their church building taken away or closed. Yeah, yeah. Let's pivot to away from kind of the, the abstract idea of Christian nationalism and talk about your story a little bit more. When did you start seeing this was a real problem in your community rather than just something you read about in books or was theoretical?

[D]

So as I've reflected on this, the first time I remember thinking about Christian nationalism explicitly was January 6, 2021.

[B]

That late?

[D]

Yeah. I'm not a smart guy. I do know that I was thinking critically and had kind of a bad taste in my mouth of, like, the religious right movement early in my, early on in my development, which would have theological development, which would have been early 2000s, I remember thinking, oh, that's that, that conflation of, you know, religion and politics, that's probably not good, and it's not good for, you know, the mission of the church, but I did not give it a lot of my attention. January 6, 2021, I, I, I started seeing a lot of the different pressures that I was feeling as a pastor, not as a bunch of disparate bits, but as one big thing. And what I mean is from 2016, so I became lead pastor, Jesus Springs three weeks after Trump announced his candidacy for presidency. I had no idea what was coming my way.

[C]

Most of us didn't.

[D]

And we had a great lead pastor transition. Rick, who was my predecessor, did 30 years there before me. He's still my pastor. It was really, really good transition. But about a year in, maybe a few months in, I started getting weird pushback around things like caring for refugees or immigration or talking about racism. And that was strange to me. And I thought, well, maybe, you know, maybe this is what it's like being a lead pastor. But as the years went on, the pushback got more and more intense. And I remember thinking, oh, that person's mad about that topic, and then kind of leaving it there. By the time we get through 2020, I'm starting to see this is all one big, massive movement. There's something binding all of this together. And that's where I started seeing this. As you know, this is more than just politics. This is tribalism, and there's something spiritual happening here.

[C]

And obviously they weren't getting that message from you or from the prior pastor or from the church. Some people, I think, outside of Christianity, outside the church, think that our congregations are these radicalizing communities, that, that they' there are pastors and pulpits spewing all kinds of political rhetoric all the time, when in fact, it's quite the opposite. Usually these topics are rarely talked about in churches. So as you started seeing these things pop up in your congregation, where was it coming from? Where were people having their ideas and values formed if it wasn't from you and the church leaders?

[D]

Yeah, the screens, bro. Like the. The man on the screen quoting the Bible and telling me how that applies to politics is what was discipling so many of my people. And the person on the screen with the Bible varies. Sometimes they were a radio personality, sometimes they were like a cable news personality, sometimes they were a YouTube person, personality influencer. So it came from different places, but it was all kind of the same vibe, fear mongering. You know, you would listen to these folks and they would stir up anxiety and they'd throw some Bible talk in there, and then they would help people deal with that anxiety by giving them something to do. Usually somebody to fear, somebody to hate. And something to do, and that's something to do was get out the vote, promote this candidate, you know, take. Take over the school board. And what I had failed to see was just how influential that was on the congregation I was serving. The trick that a lot of those folks on the screens are pulling is they're using the same words I use. So I thought, love your neighbor as yourself, that I. I never would have thought that somebody in my congregation hearing love your neighbor as yourself would have been applied to gun rights. But I watched people say things like this, you know, Jesus is crystal clear sky. We're to love our neighbor as ourself. And how could we love our neighbor as ourself if they are being attacked by a madman with a gun, if we do not also have a gun? I was oblivious to the fact that that kind of stuff was happening. And so what would end up happening is people are listening to that Monday through Saturday, and then they come to worship, and I say, love your neighbor as yourself. And I don't give all the nuance and caveat of, by the way, I do not mean that this should support your, you know, particular, you know, preferences on the nra. And they thought, oh, the pastor affirms what I believe because he's using the same words. And so when I would say something slightly contrary to that or that might call that belief into question or that application into question, it was met with. I believe it was met with the feeling of betrayal. Pastor Caleb has betrayed me because he was on this side, you know, in their imagination, but now he's on the other. Somebody's influencing him. He's demonic. I mean, I got accused of having a Luciferian spirit of fear, Lucifer being the bad guy, one of the bad guys in the Bible. And secretly, I'd become a secret agent for the left, all these kinds of things. And I was so struck by those accusations because these are folks that I had shared communion with for two decades. But I believe that it felt like a betrayal, because the working assumption was, is because Pastor Caleb's using the same words, he believes the same thing I do.

[C]

Okay, that makes some sense how you're describing it. And I have my own stories that conform to that. Here's my question, though. If somebody new stepped into your church in 2016 or whenever in that era, and they'd been marinating in social media, cable news, YouTube, whatever, the algorithms were feeding them, and they had their views shaped by that, and then they hear you say, love your neighbor, and they get that all makes sense, why they would make those assumptions. How do you explain, though, the person who's been in your church 20 years, who's heard Bible teaching, and they've been in Sunday school classes, and it isn't like they came out of nowhere, how do you explain that person not grasping what Jesus means? And the apostles mean when they talk about loving your neighbor or not returning evil for evil or pick your passage? Why were they so shaped by these warped messages using Christian language despite having been in the church maybe their whole lives?

[D]

Yeah, this is my fault myself and I think some of my people.

[B]

Don't worry, this is not the end of the episode. There's actually plenty more. But to listen to the rest, you need to be a Holy Post plus subscriber. So head over to HolyPost.com SkyPod and sign up. For just $5 a month, not only will you get uninterrupted episodes of the Sky Pod, which means you'll never have

[A]

to hear this dumb announcement again, but

[B]

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