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French Friday: Fear the World vs. Love your Neighbor
01:01:11
David French says there are two kinds of churches: love-your-neighbor churches and fear-the-world churches. Using these categories, Skye Jethani and David French look at two stories in the news. First, a controversial article about the crucifixion in...
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- [00:01]
David French
Guess what day it is. It's French fry day. It's French fry day. So grab your fries and say hooray. David French is here to play on French Friday. It's French fry day.
- [00:17]
Sky Giattani
David. French. Happy French Friday. How are you doing?
- [00:21]
David French
I'm doing well, Sky. Thanks for having me back. I always appreciate it.
- [00:24]
Sky Giattani
We appreciate it. Because you don't. It isn't like you're under contract to come back. You do this of your own accord. And I'm always amazed every month when you say, yes, it is just after Easter. It's been an eventful week already with the passing of the Pope. And, you know, things in Washington are still kind of crazy. But you wrote a piece, an editorial in the New York Times on Easter Sunday that caught my attention. I want to talk about it a little bit.
- [00:47]
David French
Sure.
- [00:47]
Sky Giattani
You contrast two different kinds of churches, I suppose you could make this Two different kinds of Christian communities, two different kinds of Christianity. Let's talk about these two categories, because I think they're very helpful in framing all kinds of things that are going on. What are these two categories that you lay out for us?
- [01:03]
David French
Yeah. The two categories are a fear the world church versus a love your neighbor church. And look, I know life is complicated. I know the world is complicated, and it's very difficult to jam things into two binaries. So, for example, you know, I fear the world church would have love your neighbor elements to it. Love your neighbor church would have some fear the world elements to it. But I'm talking about the dominant tone. And. And here's how I kind of defined it, Sky. And this is referring to a lot of my own experiences, both growing up and as an adult. And I've been in both kinds of churches. I've been in both kinds of religious communities. So I grew up in a much more fundamentalist church that was really dominated by the kind of fear the world, fear the world mentality. And what is that? What are some characteristics? Suspicion of secular education. Inherent suspicion of secular education. Not that. Well, I'm choosing a religious education, but I could have chosen secular. It's just not best for my kid. I'm talking about, like, serious, serious aspersions at secular education. Serious aspersions cast at really secular knowledge of many kinds, aspersions cast at secular friendships. Secular ideas being deemed inherently bankrupt. A sort of view of the church is kind of under siege, that what we need to do is train up our kids to be ready to fight, ready for the persecution, ready for the argument. Kind of putting you in this defensive crouch. In a way, or approaching the world with kind of a posture of hostility, self defense, a more apocalyptic worldview that says the persecution is coming, let's be ready for it, let's prepare for it. So I've been around that. And then the contrast is very dramatic between a really healthy, functioning love your neighbor community, which doesn't look at the world as a threat, and much more looks at the world as an opportunity, an opportunity to serve, an opportunity to connect, an opportunity to love other people, to redeem, to rescue. And so those two postures create very different outlooks on on the world and very different postures towards the world. And so when I was writing about this on Sunday, I was writing about it because I noticed that a lot of the people sky, that I talked to are really struggling with their faith have come from that fear the world paradigm. And it's just difficult for them to reconcile.
- [03:35]
Sky Giattani
You've written about this kind of stuff before, but you didn't use these categories exactly because you have talked about the fundamentalism of your upbringing and a lot of the fear of the world stuff you just described. There is a mark of religious fundamentalism, essentially. So here as I was reading the piece, I was thinking about my own experience in church communities since I was a kid. And honestly, I don't think any church I've ever been significantly a part of had leadership that was a fear the world kind of leadership. They were all love your neighbor kind of leadership. That was the sermons, that was the theology, that was the posture of the church leaders. And yet every church I've been a part of has had some significant portion of its community, I think really operate more out of the fear the world way of thinking. So it brings me to this question. When you look at the churches maybe you've been a part of or other communities you know about, where's this really coming from? Is it coming from the church leadership? Is it something else? What is it that makes a community bend in one direction or another?
- [04:38]
David French
I'm so glad you raised that, sky, because if I'd had like a thousand to fifteen hundred more words, I would have really dived into this a bit. I think one thing that we have learned is that we consistently overestimate, especially in the world of politics, the influence of pastors that, you know, a lot of people are coming in and saying, well, if pastor said this or if pastors said that. But, you know, I spent my entire life in the evangelical church in more fundamentalist wings and more evangelical wings, but in my entire life. And that sort of in, under the umbrella of evangelicalism. And in that period of time, I can think of very few pastors I've ever had who really dove into politics from the pulpit, for example. And most of the pastors I've had exactly fit your description. They're much more love your neighbor oriented, although the congregations were not always right. And I've thought about this and I think part of it is that when you're an evangelical, you don't just belong to a body, a local church body, you belong to a larger culture that has a lot in spite of many different denominations, many different independent churches, et cetera, non denominational churches. The evangelical culture itself, especially the political culture, especially sort of pop culture evangelicalism really has a lot of uniformity. And beginning in, you know, I don't know when some people would trace it to the rise of the moral majority. I put it a little bit later than that perhaps. But the culture of American Christianity, evangelical Christianity became much more fear the world. It became much more, you know, gird yourself for battle, be ready, you know, and men's ministry advertisements where the man is like wrapping his hand, like he's a boxer. Right? You know, this kind of messaging and this kind of, these kinds of images really, I think flow out of this bigger evangelical culture which you've called, I think the evangelical industrial complex really does, especially in politics, posture towards fear the world.
- [06:48]
Sky Giattani
And do you think part of the reason for that to be going back to my evangelical industrial complex is because it's just easier to sell?
- [06:56]
David French
Oh yeah.
- [06:58]
Sky Giattani
Like you can scare people and then they want to be a part of your ministry or contribute to your ministry or buy your book or come to your conference or vote for your candidate, whatever it might be. Fear does that so much better than we have an eschatological hope and we should love our enemies. Even that doesn't work as well in motivating and scaring people. So the marketplace of evangelicalism is kind of predisposed towards that end of the spectrum, the fear of the world. End of the spectrum.
- [07:26]
David French
Many of us will quote the wisdom of the world. I mean the wisdom of God is foolishness to man, right? That the world's wisdom is not God's wisdom. But what I would say is when you see all of this fear based messaging, this is the church embracing the world's wisdom. This is how secular political parties raise money, this is how activists raise money is it's the fear. It's the fear. It's the fear. And so what you're beginning to see or not beginning you've seen for decades now, is really the church adopting the ways of the world for political mobilization. And this now permeates everything. So much so sky, that if you're not on the fear bus, you'll often face incredible backlash because you don't know what time it is, so to speak, or you don't know the urgency of the moment. And so it's not just that they've adopted the wisdom of the world, this fear based messaging that dominates worldly politics, but also they're making an almost a faith litmus test that, you know, going all the way back to the beginning of the Trump era. One of the chief ways that people would attack me, for example, or ways that I've seen them attack you and Phil and others at Holy Post is you just don't get it. Sky, everything, the sky is falling. Everything is on the verge of extinction. And the fact that you're not. That what's left of our hair is not still on fire is evidence of a character defect. Yeah. And so you see this everywhere.
- [08:55]
Sky Giattani
Yeah. I brought this up before, but one of the more constant criticisms I've received is people upset with me that I'm not more angry.
- [09:04]
David French
Yes.
- [09:04]
Sky Giattani
And it's a fascinating critique that somehow we've made anger into a fruit of the spirit and evidence that God is with you if you're angry. Okay. There's another element to maybe explain some of this. I know you're familiar with Jonathan Haidt, and he wrote a book a number of years ago called the Righteous Mind. And he delineates in there the difference between this gets a little muddy with these categories. But he talks about the difference between a conservative mind and a more progressive mind. And a conservative mind has a higher level of disgust, likes things clearly delineated categories, not mixed. And the more progressive mind is kind of okay with ambiguities and mysteries and category mixing and all that sort of stuff. And I remember many years ago when I was an editor at ct, I was in a sort of private meeting between two theologians that were debating a hot topic of the day. And over the course of that few hours, I began to realize that the primary difference between these two men was not their theology, it was their personalities. Like their basic brain chemistry was very, very different. One was very black and white, kind of an engineer, you know, had strict categories of things. And the other was more artistic and free flowing and open to ambiguities and mysteries and things. I was like, that's really the fundamental difference here. Do you think some of what leads us towards a community that's a fear the world community or a love your neighbor community may come down to some of just those personality traits that we.
- [10:33]
David French
Are inclined toward without question. Sky. I think without question. You know, we don't have to go all Myers, Briggs or Enneagram and to say that people have dispositions, they have orientations, they have things that they are sort of personality types or characteristics that they're nationally drawn towards, characteristics that they kind of that repel them, like we're different people. But what I would say is, you know, if you look at that sort of kaleidoscope of temperaments and personalities, each one of us has an orientation that. But that in some ways we don't need to indulge all the way. So, you know, part of the sanctification process is that is learning that aspects of our personality, sort of like aspects of how we react to things or perceive things, are not exactly shaped and molded by Christ. They're more shaped and molded by our nurturing, you know, our upbringing, our geography, our history, et cetera. And it's not to say that everyone then should conform to the same, very similar type, but it is that as we approach the world, we should be aware that the lens with which we approach the world is often quite fleshly, quite generated by our own temperament and disposition, not so much by the Holy Spirit of the living God. And so that's why, you know, when we always talk about Micah 6, 8 on this podcast, and that's the walking, humbly element of this is sort of this acknowledgment that my orientation, my disposition that feels quite natural to me, may not be the right way to respond. But often what we do is we sort of say, well, that's my personality, and we double down on it. I remember going back many years when I was brushing up against Gothardism. I was in a relationship where I was sort of at being pulled into Gothardism. And I was kicking and screaming and fighting it. And one of the things that was off putting to me about that world was they were very interested in were you a prophet? Were you a servant? Were you like, what was your sort of personality type in this spectrum of gift of gifts? And what I kept seeing was prophets acting like giant jerks. And then when somebody questioned them on it, said, well, you know, I'm a prophetic personality. So, yeah, part of this is just personality, temperament, disposition. But also that's a reason, it's not a rationalization. Those are two different things.
- [13:08]
Sky Giattani
Okay, let's Apply these categories to some of the stuff that is happening right now. Let's begin with this. There's a. I don't know if it's a tempest and a teacup, but there's this controversy going on with an article that C T published about the crucifixion. I was not super on top of this. Some of the folks on our Holy Post team were, and they kind of filled me in on it, and I read it. So it's by Daniel Silliman, and he wrote an article called Was Jesus Crucified with Nails? And it unpacks the thinking of one theologian and scholar who argued that in the early 1st century, most Roman crucifixions were actually not done by nailing people to a cross, but by tying people with rope to a cross. And so it called into question some of our assumptions about the New Testament. Of course, in John's Gospel, there's that famous scene after the resurrection where Thomas said he wouldn't believe unless he could see the wounds. And Jesus says here, put your finger in the wounds on my hands, where the nails. So there is New Testament argument that Jesus was indeed nailed to the cross. But this has blown up into some kind of massive controversy around C. T. And why would they even publish something like this? Do they not believe in the inerrancy of scripture as you encountered this article and the aftermath? And I should say Daniel Silliman has since published an apology and that he does affirm the inerrancy of scripture. But when you encountered this whole thing, how did you see it through this lens of fear, the world, love your neighbor? Does it fit here at all? Or what explanatory power does it have? When we encounter this kind of stuff?
- [14:43]
David French
It really fits. Because if you were afraid, if your disposition is that I'm living under threat, well, one of the things that you're going to be very afraid of is anything that has a whiff or a hint of what you perceive to be heresy. And so theological orthodoxy, within often a quite narrow frame, becomes sort of the absolute foundation. It's the fortification. So that. That your. The theological orthodoxy, your sort of view of. Of what is and is not biblical becomes very much that this is your fortification, this is your stronghold. And when people are questioning something or, you know, maybe taking a. Maybe taking a, you know, an interesting look at inerrancy or rethinking interpretations of the wording in John or things like that, that isn't interesting. That's not something that raises curiosity to you. It's Just a threat, full stop. It's not even something that's irrelevant. Like in a million years, why do you spend 10 minutes of your day thinking about just one CT article out of many? Why are you turning it into a days long controversy? Well, you're turning it into a days long controversy when you feel like you're in this constant combat, that you have to constantly confront your opposition and that anything, anything that could potentially kind of weaken your theological strengths becomes a threat. And so this is how a lot of people, this is, this is why in many ways the church, and this has been the case long before we even learned what cancel culture was. This is how elements of the church have in many ways perfected cancel culture. They just don't think of it as cancel culture. They think of it as, you know, faithfulness, orthodoxy, etc.
- [16:40]
Sky Giattani
They used to go by the term excommunication.
- [16:43]
David French
Exactly. But they have perfected cancel culture and they can't see it. They don't see it. They will often hate cancel culture in the world and just view this as like spiritual hygiene. Yet in the world, cancel culture is viewed as ideological hygiene. Right. Or ideological accountability. Here they're calling the spiritual accountability, but it really is closing people. It's inflicting pain on enemies. Anything that can question or create any kind of curiosity or doubt becomes the enemy.
- [17:17]
Sky Giattani
So when I read the article in ct, the controversy had already exploded. So I was probably tainted by that as I read it. But as I read it, I was trying to pretend, okay, if I were gonna respond, I can understand why people didn't like the article.
- [17:32]
David French
Sure.
- [17:33]
Sky Giattani
And I can understand why somebody might want to critique, push back, write a rebuttal, write a rebuttal, offer push on CT a little bit to whatever, something like that. But the fury that was unleashed about this was interesting. And what it makes me think is there are some people who have really taken it as a virtue to constantly be seeking offense.
- [17:55]
David French
Oh, for sure.
- [17:56]
Sky Giattani
What can I be offended by? It reminded me when I was an undergraduate at Miami. I'm wearing a Miami sweatshirt right now in Oxford, Ohio. I was a double major in history and comparative religion. And I obviously took a lot of religion classes. And I always hated going to the classes about the Bible, New Testament, Gospels, whatever. Because this is a state school, it's a secular school. Professors had very progressive ideas and all kinds of stuff, but invariably those, those Bible courses would attract fellow evangelical Christians who were not religion majors into those classes. They took them as electives or audited them or whatever. And then when they invariably would hear the professor say something that didn't fit their theological views or their view of Scripture. They would have a fit, they would lose their minds. And I had to eventually stop sitting with some of my evangelical friends in these classes because I was so worried about the way they were presenting the faith. So professor says something like, well, you know, scholars aren't certain that Paul wrote Second Corinthians. Oh my gosh, people lose their minds. Of course he did. And it's like they're always looking for something to be upset by rather than just going, well, yeah, that's a view of a non believing progressive professor for whatever reason. And I can absorb that viewpoint without taking personal offense to it. And now I see that constantly. I mean, that's basically the, the coin of the realm on social media. Regardless of what your beliefs are, you have to take offense at everything. What is it about taking offense that makes us feel good?
- [19:23]
David French
Well, you know, I think what it is, is for a long time, again, this sort of goes back to that fear, the world culture that says your role as a member of the church is to persevere through this horrific persecution. You are going to be facing incredible adversity for your faithfulness to Jesus. And so this creates this kind of fight or flight default that if I'm not engaged in battle for Jesus, I'm not living out my Christian life. And so this eagerness to take offense, it's not that they would even say I'm taking offense. They're saying I'm doing battle against error.
- [20:07]
Sky Giattani
I'm defending the truth or defending the faith.
- [20:08]
David French
I'm defending the faith. Right. This is, and so they, they would be deeply, deeply offended at the comparison to say university snowflakes or cancel culture in the university because they don't like those people. Those people are fragile. They can't handle disagreement. I can handle disagreement. I just am a warrior for righteousness. And so, so they really flip it around. And it's not a fragility in any way in their mind. It's a boldness. It's a, it's a, it's an example of how courage works. And so this is how it gets flipped away where they would be just mystified by the cancel culture objection. Because I'm not some sort of university snowflake like those people. I am a courageous warrior for biblical truth. And this is how you fight for biblical truth. And yet if you're on the outside looking in, you're seeing, I don't see one bit of difference between you and Some of the campus snowflakes, they feel exactly the same way. They are fighting for truth, they are fighting for justice, and they're imposing accountability for error. And doesn't that sound exactly like what some of these folks are doing? But again, they'll back up and they'll say, well, that's over debatable things about race and gender, et cetera. We're on the hardcore undebatable arena of biblical truth, when the reality is, Guy, you and I both know that there's a lot of room for argument and debate, even if you are an inerrantist on the meaning and interpretation of various scriptures. And there are different kinds of people who would be broadly under that range of inerrantists. You know, I would categorize myself in that way, but I don't have the same interpretation of Scriptures as everybody else does.
- [21:55]
Sky Giattani
So here's the disconnect for me, though, David, if you're one of those campus secular snowflakes, you are not claiming to follow Jesus Christ, who is the antithesis of a snowflake. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you are claiming to follow the person who, though he was equal with God, emptied himself and took on the form of a servant, though he could have called upon 12 legions of angels to rescue him from his enemies, chose not to. And. And he remained quiet like a lamb being led to the slaughter and allowed himself to be beaten and humiliated and crucified like that is the antithesis of a snowflake. To have all that power and strength and yet surrender yourself to injustice and ridicule and humiliation and brutal death like that's the one we claim to follow. And yet when we display that kind of fragility, that inability to tolerate disagreement, dissent, humiliation, aren't we betraying the very thing we claim to follow in a way that a secular snowflake is not?
- [22:59]
David French
Well, this goes back to a theme sky we've talked about a number of times where it seems as if people almost adopt this view that Jesus went to the cross so that I don't.
- [23:10]
Sky Giattani
Have to, which Peter totally disagrees with. In 1 Peter, chapter 2, he left you an example that you should follow in his steps, suffering for what is right.
- [23:21]
David French
Jesus says, take up your cross. Right? I mean, so. But there really seems to be this idea that the one thing we must fight against is. It's not that persecution is something that we experience and persevere through. Persecution is in essence an act of war. It's a declaration of war to which we reciprocate to which we retaliate. And then we often just completely redefine persecution. Calling what is, calling something that's really more like annoyance or insult and calling that persecution. Of course, that's something that a first century Christian would be stunned about to see what we call persecution being actually persecution. But it really is interesting. And this again gets back to that difference between the fear the world church and the. And the love your neighbor church. In my experience, these love your neighbor communities, again, they're not perfect. They, they will have elements that are not perfect. But these love your neighbor churches, they actually have a posture towards the world that is open, armed and a posture towards ideas that is open hearted. And you can tell the difference almost immediately when you see it.
- [24:45]
Sky Giattani
Okay, so the other current event story that I thought these categories could help us understand a little bit is all the retrospectives that are going on around Pope Francis and his passing on Monday. Folks are looking back at his pontificate and some people look at it through the lens of fear the world, and they see Pope Francis as a figure who in their view was too lax on doctrine, wasn't keeping the boundaries of orthodoxy tight enough. And then there are people who see him more as, no, he was just emphasizing the love your neighbor side of stuff and was being more merciful to those on the periphery, to historically marginalized folks in the church, sexual minorities, divorced people. You know, pick your category. Have you been seeing that too, in the rhetoric and the stories around Francis? And is there benefit from hearing both of these perspectives, or do you think one is more correct than the other?
- [25:39]
David French
Yeah, I've been hearing this rhetoric and I did a roundtable discussion for the Times this week on this very topic. Like, what is the legacy of Pope Francis? And I had a more conservative Catholic and a more liberal Catholic both talking about him, and they both had a very similar assessment of him is that he was a pastor and he was very pastoral. And I found that very compelling myself about Pope Francis. And the thing that I liked about it is that a lot of people are outside the church, don't really even know what it means when you say someone is pastoral. They don't really have a sense of that. They think of it as, well, somebody who's more like, say, a religious pundit. In other words, they're sitting there boldly proclaiming the truth, whereas somebody who's pastoral is actually not, of course, they're proclaiming, but they're also living in a very particular way, in a way that is, that is merciful, a way that is kind A way that is tailored towards treating people with compassion. And you saw that and it exuded from Pope Francis. And interestingly enough, some of his more controversial moments happened during his pastoral moments. There was this a time when a, I don't know if you remember this guy, but a young boy comes up and asks about his atheist father who had died and you know, what's the fate of his atheist father? And Pope Francis gave this beautiful response about, you know, this atheist father had baptized his kids into the church. That is an act that God loves. God loves his father. I mean, it was very beautiful. And he got in. This boy who was sobbing and weeping was, you know, loved and comforted in just this powerful and profound way. And a bunch of people jump in online and say, well, this should have been. This was the ideal moment for the turn or burn message, right? And you're thinking, wait, hold on. What is it that we're asking of this person? What is it that we want this person to be? And I'm not Catholic, so my assessment of what we want or need from a Pope, I mean, take it with the biggest grain of salt that ever existed. But the fact of the matter is that Pope Francis, in a way I thought, lived out that pastoral lifestyle in a way that I thought demonstrated to millions of people who don't really connect with the church. They showed what a good pastor can be. And I think that's a very, very powerful witness for Jesus.
- [28:15]
Sky Giattani
Yeah, there's that Walt Whitman quote and I'm not going to get it right.
- [28:21]
David French
That's.
- [28:23]
Sky Giattani
I found it. Here it is. Walt Whitman in one of his poems said, do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. And I think any, not just pastor or pope or priest or bishop, but any Christian needs to be able to draw from different aspects of who we are in Christ. Given the moment we are presented when it's a little boy grieving the loss of a father, it's probably not the moment to put on the Helen Brimstone side of things. It's the moment for compassion and empathy and comfort. And there are other times where maybe there needs to be a more prophetic to your whole thing of if you're a prophet, then that's an excuse to be a jerk kind of stuff. There's a place for hard hitting truths, but to draw from the multitude of what we are in Christ is just wise. So to come after somebody because in a given moment they're not doing what you would expect or want them to Do Seems, seems awfully like what the religious leaders did to Jesus at different times.
- [29:24]
David French
Right. You know, and it's very interesting because Pope Francis was called in many ways a revolutionary figure. I mean, people use those terms to describe him. But again, here's my outside of the Catholic Church take. So again, all caveats. I saw him in many ways as quite orthodox, in ways that more accurately represented sort of what orthodoxy was, that, yes, a Pope is going to be pro life and Pope Francis pro life. Absolutely. But he had this expansive view of what it meant to value life and all sort of the best ways of historic Catholic teaching that included immigrants, for example. He was talking about stewardship and responsibility and caring for the creation. And he would talk about climate change. And all of these things in the US in particular are extremely hot button. This is very hot button political stuff. But if you pull out of the politics for a minute and get out of the horse race of who's being helped, Team Red or Team Blue, by the Pope's various statements, I think what you saw in Pope Francis was one of the more holistic views of what it meant to operate with love and care for all people in this world. And I had this, again, going back to this conversation. Leah labresca Sargent was one of the folks who was talking and she put it beautifully. And I can't say it exactly as she said it. I don't have it right in front of me. But essentially what she was saying is, she was saying that what Pope Francis was saying is there is no such thing as a throwaway person. There is no such thing as a lesser person. So whether you're talking someone in the womb, whether you're talking about a person, a baby who's been exposed to HIV in Africa and is being given life sustaining message, life sustaining medicines through pepfar, or you're talking about this migrant family crossing the border, all of, none of them are disposable. All of them possess dignity and worth. And I think one of the things that is so telling about our time is the different factions of American politics place different emphases on, on different vulnerable populations. Pope Francis was placing an emphasis on all vulnerable populations. And that was extremely countercultural.
- [31:55]
Sky Giattani
Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. He put the same emphasis on all vulnerable populations. And in our politics we tend to vary that. But the other way of looking at it is different parts of American politics sees different groups of people as different levels of threat. Going back to the fear the world piece. So one side sees migrants coming into this country undocumented as people in desperate need of help. The other side sees them as an invading army of terrorists and gang members who are there to steal our children and eat our pets. So the perception of threat versus opportunity is significant. And it felt like most of what I heard Pope Francis say and what I read from him, he wasn't driven by threat and fear and was trying to ratchet that down and call us to love people as our neighbor and view all people as equally worthy of dignity and respect. That seems awfully Christlike.
- [32:55]
David French
It does. It does. And, you know, the one thing we know is Christ just confounded the political expectations and demands of every faction. So here you have, you know, sort of the. At the. In the. In the first century, you have a large community of people who are groaning under Roman oppression. And they want a. Wanted an insurrectionary. They wanted some. A revolutionary. And the Romans wanted a completely compliant and obedient subservient subject. And Jesus was Jesus. He was neither the violent revolutionary leader, nor was he ultimately. Nor was he ultimately just Rome's compliant subject. And so he was confounding every part of the political spectrum. And I don't know why we would think in the year of our Lord 2025, that the same Jesus would fit so well in one of these two political parties. That. That is just mystifying to me, Sky. It's utterly mystifying and is doubly mystifying when we've seen these two political parties shift their positions on various issues quite considerably over the last 10 years, but with the same people saying with the same fervor that Jesus is with the new party and the new ideology every bit as much as Jesus was with the old party and the old ideology.
- [34:26]
Sky Giattani
Well, that's a perfect transition for the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, which is another piece you wrote earlier in the month about the Supreme Court and its emerging conflict with the White House. So you know a lot about the law. Obviously, you're an attorney. You know the Constitution and constitutional law, and you understand these topics. You discuss them all the time with Sarah Isger on advisory opinions. But I want to get into this because most people are not as informed as you are, David, and you're going to be our guide. A lot of the political rhetoric that I'm hearing is that there is either a current crisis or an inevitable crisis coming between the Supreme Court and the Trump administration. And it appears like that intersection may well be around deportations and the current story and what the Supreme Court has ruled on is a case in which the Trump administration has deported a man to an El Salvadorian prison that they have their own admission has said is a mistake, that he made an error in this, but they won't bring him back. Give us some of the detail. We don't have to get in the minutiae of the case because people can read about that elsewhere. But explain why this is the case that appears to be the tip of the spear on this conflict between Trump and the Supreme Court.
- [35:43]
David French
Yeah, this case is getting all the attention. Not necessarily because it is the most egregious case. It. It's egregious. I don't want to rank all the egregious cases, but in many ways, it's the most clear case. It's the. It's the case that's the easiest to understand on multiple levels. So here's clear, clear point number one. Clear point number one is the administration actually confessed, admitted that it deported him to El Salvador in error. Here's clear statement number two. That was the one place they couldn't deport him by court order. He was told he couldn't go there, so there's a court order blocking him. The administration admits. Admits that they did it in error. Clear statement number three. A district court ordered them to take action to effectuate or facilitate his return. So, in other words, try to do something to get him back. Clear statement number four. The Supreme Court nine, zero says you are to facilitate his return. So all of these things are very, very clear. And at each stage, the Trump administration, administration either made mistakes like deporting him or has acted in defiance of the clear meaning of various court rulings. And instead of complying with the court rulings, what they've done is they've tried to muddy the waters by sort of casting him as an MS.13 gang member, by casting him as a spouse abuser. And now, look, there's evidence, There is evidence that he may have been or is MS.13. It's thin evidence. It's not very strong. But there's some evidence and there's some evidence that he was a spouse abuser. All of those things are totally irrelevant to the underlying legal issue, which was, is he supposed to be in a prison in El Salvador? And the answer is no.
- [37:32]
Sky Giattani
Okay? So my understanding, please correct me if I not got this right, is what the Supreme Court and the lower courts have essentially said is you need to facilitate bringing this man back to the United States and give him due process. In other words, if you believe he's not here Legally, if you believe he's a gang member, if you believe he's broken the law, then you need to prove that Trump administration in a court of law and then possibly deport him or do whatever it is that the law calls for. But you can't skip that process. So they're not declaring this man innocent. They're just saying you need to give him due process.
- [38:04]
David French
Well. And at the very least, you don't ship him to the country where a court has ordered him not to be shipped to.
- [38:11]
Sky Giattani
Right.
- [38:11]
David French
Okay. So, you know, the due process point applies to all of these Venezuelan. I mean, all of these detainees in El Salvador who were shipped out because they were shipped to El Salvador before they were given an opportunity for hearing. And he's one of them. Right. But then he also has this extra element laying on top of this, which is this was an outright defiance of a court order. And now the Trump administration is doubling down by defying yet another court order to try to keep him there. And to do it, it is absolutely engaging in a public PR campaign to cast him as like this, like the second coming of Osama bin Laden or something.
- [38:48]
Sky Giattani
Okay, so explain why some people are calling this a constitutional crisis, or is that hyperbolic language?
- [38:55]
David French
So I am sky one of my resolutions, I'm not going to call it a New Year's resolution is, but it's a resolution is I don't want to get too busy putting on labels like constitutional crisis, impeachable defense, like these kinds of labels. The reason why is everyone soon starts talking about the label and not the underlying action. And so I want to. So here's what the underlying actions are that I'm very worried about. So the underlying action is that the Supreme Court9.0 said that Trump has to facilitate his return. Facilitate. And told the Trump administration in the court order to be prepared to explain the steps. So, steps. That's affirmative. Right. What are the steps taken to secure his return? Now, of course, they don't have jurisdiction over El Salvador. They can't order the president of El Salvador to release them. There's also some weird things about how much can the Supreme Court commandeer foreign policy? So, for example, could the Supreme Court say, you cannot give El Salvador foreign aid until they release? I doubt they could do that. But could the Supreme Court say, you have to claw back the millions of dollars that you sent to El Salvador to keep these people if they're being put there unlawfully, can I require you to ask for his return? Those kinds of things? I think that might be Much more in the court's authority. But what's happened is rather than doing what any other administration would have done before, which is to diligently try to effectuate the court's order, Trump is essentially trolling the district court and the Supreme Court. They are not lifting a finger for this guy. They're interpreting the word facilitate as essentially like acquiesce, so that if El Salvador lets him go, well, we'll, we'll let him back in the country as opposed to trying to do anything to actively facilitate his return. It's obvious bad faith, it's obvious trolling. And I would tell anyone who's listening to this, who thinks, well, they're just making aggressive arguments, why don't you go to a federal court and try to do this to a judge?
- [41:03]
Sky Giattani
Well, yeah, okay. That was my point. My question is, if. Forget a federal court, any court, if you and I. Any court, any court, if you and I flat out deny Judge Judy, Judge Judy, if you or I defy a court order, what would happen to us?
- [41:17]
David French
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if we defy a court order, number one, we're going to lose our case. Number two, we're going to face contempt charges. And so we would. Defying a court order would place us in a world of hurt. And also, there's this other element here, because a lot of people I see defending Trump are very angry at some of the rhetoric judges have used, such, for example, 4th Circuit Judge Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee who's known as one of the most stalwart conservative judges in the entire judiciary, just scorched the Trump administration over these. No due process deportations. I mean, just scorched them. And, and in that circumstance, people were like, well, that's bias. And I think, have you ever seen a federal judge angry at a lawyer who he thinks is disrespecting the court? No, no, no. This is normal stuff. What's abnormal is that it's the Department of Justice behaving this way.
- [42:15]
Sky Giattani
Right.
- [42:16]
David French
Not that courts respond like this in the face of defiance.
- [42:18]
Sky Giattani
Okay, so that gets to the point, like if a lawyer, if you or I or anyone else defies a court order or treats the court disrespectfully, we can be held in contempt. That could be a fine. In worst case scenarios, it could be imprisonment. But that doesn't work when you are the President of the United States or the executive branch of the government, the. The Supreme Court. My understanding, again, you're the expert, Correct me if I'm wrong. The Supreme Court could issue a Contempt of court order. But to enforce that, they rely on U.S. marshals, who fall under the Judicial Department, the Judiciary Department, and that's under President Trump's authority. So you're relying on Trump's own Department of justice to enforce the Supreme Court's ruling. Why would he do that? This is the kind of constitutional breakdown that people feared. So where does this go?
- [43:15]
David French
You know, that's a great question. The answer is nobody knows. Right now, nobody knows. And so when I wrote the piece you're talking about, the point I wanted to emphasize is what we must do is just quite simple. Ask the Supreme Court to do its job, no more, no less. Okay? And so when we say Supreme Court, do your job, that is not the same thing as saying Supreme Court, enforce your judgments.
- [43:43]
Sky Giattani
Right? That's not their constitutional role.
- [43:45]
David French
They don't have that power now. They have contempt power, et cetera. But to actually force enforce a judgment where someone is compelled to take action would require the political branches of government. I interviewed Jeffrey Sutton, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who's a 6th Circuit Chief Judge of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Sutton is, you know, when you. There are a few judges in the federal courts who are like the judge's judge. In other words, other judges look up to this person as, you know, a true sort of authority, not just on constitutional law, but what it means to be a judge. And he said, look, David, we don't have the power of the purse. We don't have an army. We can issue orders, and in the very short term, we can direct a U.S. marshal, who, by the way, works for the Department of Justice, to take someone into custody. But we can't imprison somebody that's a Bureau of Prisons, that's executive branch. We don't have the power of the purse that Congress has. So we rely on the political branches to enforce our judgment. Now, what happens if they are worried the political branches won't enforce the judgment? This is where the rubber meets the road. For the court, there's a kind of a branching path. The bad path is to say, okay, if we rule the way we want to rule, then we'll be defied. That will hurt our legitimacy. So let's find a way to rule. Now, there are certain circumstances where a little bit of judicial jiu jitsu can be helpful. Let's find a way to rule that our judgment will be enforced, but we won't abandon. But we're not going to be totally abandoning our constitutional convictions. So this is the jiu jitsu model. Of course, you have the compliance model, which is like Dred Scott Plessy v. Ferguson, which is there's the dark spirit of the age, and we're right there with it. I don't think the court is there. I really don't. I think it's going to be choosing between the jiu jitsu model and, for lack of a better term, the independence model.
- [45:39]
Sky Giattani
Well, the fact that they ruled 9.0 already on this case shows that they seem to be united in standing up for the law. Okay. The idea that the court should do its job, Great. So far. I don't know if everyone would agree with this, but I think so far, many of us would say the court is doing its job. The problem is the political branches of the government appear not to be. Yes, Donald Trump, the President of the United States is not following a lawful order of the Supreme Court. And when the president doesn't fulfill his oath of office, it's supposed to be Congress that holds the president accountable for that through various means, the most extreme of which is impeachment and removal. So what do you do if two of the three branches of government aren't willing to do their jobs? Does the system break down? Are we seeing the limits of our constitutional order when the two political branches won't do what they're supposed to do?
- [46:41]
David French
Well, we are. We are. And we're learning how much the American constitutional order in some ways depends on the honor system. It depends on political branches of government, the judicial branch of government, choosing to do their jobs. And so then what happens when one or more of the branches does not choose to do its job? And in that piece, I argue this is not unheard of. We've seen it before. And I went back to Brown v. Board of Education, 1954 Supreme Court gets this case challenging the very idea of separate but equal, which had been established by the Supreme Court and Plessy v. Ferguson. And one of the great stains on the Supreme Court, historical stains on the Supreme Court. And so they have another bite of the apple on whether separate but equal is going to remain the constitutional law of the land. And make no mistake, they knew there was no political will to enforce desegregation in the South. They knew that if they could declare segregation to be over and they were gonna face resistance. But what did they do? They declared segregation to be over. What did they do? The next year, they issued in Brown 2 a ruling that said, with all deliberate speed, you have to desegregate. What did the Southern states do? Massive resistance.
- [47:59]
Sky Giattani
Right.
- [48:00]
David French
And so it was not till so 54, Brown is decided in 57. They tried to desegregate Little Rock High School. They successfully do it, but then they shut down the high school for the next year. Sky.
- [48:14]
Sky Giattani
Yeah, but wasn't this also the case in which Eisenhower, President Eisenhower sent in.
- [48:18]
David French
Federal troops to enforce and nationalize the National Guard and federalize the National Guard, and he had to send in active duty troops as well.
- [48:27]
Sky Giattani
So that's a story of the president, the executive branch, executing the law as defined by the judicial branch. So the two branches are doing what they're supposed to be doing even if the states are resisting or even if Congress is not on board.
- [48:41]
David French
But that was only one school district. So the federal government. Yeah, the Eisenhower administration did not enforce school desegregation. So, you know, you look at it, you have 57, Little Rock High, Central High School. You have 62, the Battle of Ole Miss, you have 63, George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door. The last school district didn't desegregate in the United states, guy, until 20 freaking 16, 2016. So think about how much the political branches resisted the Supreme Court after Brown. But we look back on that and we say the Supreme Court did its job. And one of the things we can't just look at the short term results of a Supreme court ruling. Brown vs Board of Education is now the law of the land. Even though there was massive resistance, even though it was in some places a decade or two decades before the the ruling was complied with, the existence of that as the law of the land has its own value, and that value is made manifest all the time currently because one of the bedrock elements of American constitutional law now is equal protection under the law.
- [49:50]
Sky Giattani
Okay, so I love that story. It's a beautiful example. And I'm not sure it applies here. David and here's why. Okay, Brown versus the Board of Education was a ruling about public education in the United States. And yeah, there was massive resistance and it's taken decades and decades and decades to desegregate our schools. But it slowly happened. What we're seeing right now is the Supreme Court issuing rulings about the functioning of the executive branch itself. And if the head of the executive branch, the President of the United States, doesn't want to obey, there's no repercussions. That sets a precedent where future presidents now know they can just flat out disobey a ruling of the Supreme Court. And it'd be like almost if Brown versus the Board of Education were really specific to the desegregation of one school and the School just said no and kept saying no. And kept saying no and kept saying no. That's a little bit different here because we're talking about one office in the government that is resisting the ruling of the Supreme Court. Why should any president in the future submit to any authority of the Supreme Court that would limit the powers of the executive branch?
- [51:13]
David French
Yeah, that's a really good question. And you're walking down the very darkest timeline.
- [51:20]
Sky Giattani
That's what I do.
- [51:21]
David French
Yeah, you're walking down the darkest timeline. And that dark timeline would mean that the truly meaningful precedent isn't the Supreme Court's precedent of statement of constitutional law. The truly meaningful precedent is the president's precedent in defying the Court and the.
- [51:40]
Sky Giattani
Congress's precedent of not forcing him to obey the court.
- [51:44]
David French
So I would say to you that that then creates an open question as to which precedent is gonna predominate. Okay. Which precedent is gonna be the most enduring precedent going forward. But unless the Supreme Court issues the clear ruling, we don't even have that dilemma.
- [51:58]
Sky Giattani
I agree. I mean, I'm grateful they gave a clear and nine zero is the best way to do it. I'm grateful that they did.
- [52:04]
David French
But that's where it becomes incumbent on a political opposition. And for civil society to say the important precedent going forward has to be the ruling of the Supreme Court. And I'm looking right now at the Democratic Party, and I'm seeing that they're at a crossroads. Some of the Democratic Party is very much in the corner of. We have to be the party that upholds the American experiment, the American Constitution. We have to be the party that upholds basic norms of American constitutional governance. And then there's a faction, Morse, on the far left. It's like, ha. That's old. Think, guys. What you have to do is fight fire with fire. I mean, this is this kind of the Trump argument you've even heard of. I don't know if you've heard this term, but it's kind of. It's kind of a term of art that says a dark. It's blue maga.
- [53:04]
Sky Giattani
Right.
- [53:04]
David French
In other words, they're trying to imitate what they see as the key to MAGA success, which is this anger and defiance and this illiberalism. And illiberalism. Right. So I think that what you have to do is give the forces of light as much ammunition as possible.
- [53:22]
Sky Giattani
Okay, so I want to read a quote from your piece. I thought this was absolutely dead on, but it's also really disturbing. You wrote this in this moment. Think of the courts as a rear guard, capable of delaying constitutional collapse until the American people finally understand that the life and health of the Constitution is up to them. If they keep electing men like Trump or sycophants like those in his Congress of cowards, then we'll lose our republic. Essentially, what I interpret that to mean is the political branches of the government, the presidency and Congress, are taking their cues from their voters, from the American people. And if we want to maintain this Constitution, if we believe a president should be held accountable to his oath of office and obey the court's orders, it's up to us to put people in power, in Congress and in the White House who are going to fulfill that oath and follow the Constitution. But if we don't care about the Constitution, they're not going to care about the Constitution. That doesn't fill me with a great deal of hope.
- [54:25]
David French
Sky. I'm not overrun with hope right now, but I do think that one of the things that we can do is we can do our best to create the conditions for renewal. We cannot guarantee that renewal will occur. We cannot guarantee that we're not sliding into Putinism with sort of a world where there's one strong man who's confronted by competing strong man. We can't guarantee any of that. We can only do our best to try to create the conditions for renewal. And I think when I think of the role of the Supreme Court, I see them as indispensable in creating the conditions for constitutional renewal by unabashedly, courageously sticking to the text and meaning of the Constitution when Donald Trump challenges it, or any president, not just Donald Trump, but in this circumstance, Donald Trump is the source of the problem. And so, yeah, there's. I kind of have two mindsets going at once. Mindset number one is, or, you know, two lines of thought at one line. Line of thought number one is, okay, what is it that a. What is it that can be done to try to preserve the republic in this moment? What can we do to try? That's line of thought number one. Line of thought number two is, will it work? And while I have a sort of a clear blueprint for line of thought number one, what can be done? The will at work is very hazy, and my confidence that it'll work is probably at a low ebb.
- [55:59]
Sky Giattani
Okay, before we wrap up, I like that phrase, the conditions for constitutional renewal conditions. I mean, that feels pastoral to me. It feels like parenting. It feels like ministry. You can't make your children what you want them to be. You can Create the conditions for them to become what you hope they will be. Same thing in a church. You can't make people be followers of Jesus. You can't make them disciples, but you can create the conditions in which following Jesus becomes possible. Similarly, we can't make everyone in our country value and hold up constitutional ideals, but we can create the conditions. You mentioned one, and that is that the Supreme Court actually, and the rest of the judiciary actually rules in constitutional ways. Are there a few other things you think are essential for creating the conditions for constitutional renewal?
- [56:49]
David French
Yes, actually. I think that if we actually want real constitutional renewal, we're going to have to have accountability. And so I do think there's two ways we can move forward in a constructive way. One is much less optimal than the other. The less optimal path is just we move on. We just move on. In other words, after Trump's gone, you get a new president in who conforms much more to constitutional norms. Everyone kind of wipes their brow in relief. Not everyone. You know, most of the country wipes their brow in relief and says, let's not do that again, and we just go forward. The preferable way to introduce, to deal with this would be through accountability. So you not just have a changing of the guard from old leadership to newer constitutional leadership. You also look back at what was done before, and if anyone did defy a court order, if anyone did defy a corridor, at least seemed to get away with it for a while, impeach them and bar them from office forever.
- [57:55]
Sky Giattani
I agree. I felt like that's kind of where we were after the 2020 election. In early 2021, there was a wipe our brow. Wasn't that a crazy couple years? We're not gonna do that again. We're gonna hold Trump accountable for January 6th. We're gonna bar him from future office. He faced whatever, 39 indictments for various criminal activities while he was president and beforehand. And. And nothing came of it. Not only did nothing come of it, he got reelected. So the idea that, well, after this term, we're gonna be serious this time. We're not gonna let anyone off the hook. We're gonna hold people accountable. We're gonna make sure that we reinforce constitutional rule of law, blah, blah, blah. I can understand why you're at a low ebb here, because there isn't a lot of evidence that the American people want that.
- [58:41]
David French
True. 100% true. But as I pointed out in my. In my piece, you would need a super majority for that. No question. You would need a super majority. And for centuries, there was no such thing as a supermajority for racial equality didn't exist. Right. But then the worm turned. And I think the worm turned, by the way, in part because of the moral clarity and constitutional clarity of the Supreme Court. Obviously, the worm turned more because of the courage of civil rights protesters. But I think the Supreme Court had a role to play. And next thing you know is you had a super majority. You had a super majority for civil rights. So we look at the current stasis in American politics. This 5149 back and forth switching of power, inability to break the deadlocks, total inability to achieve super majorities for almost anything. And we think of this as the permanent condition of American politics. It's not. It's not the permanent condition. It will change. We don't know how, we don't know when, we don't know the timing. But I would submit that if you have that constitutional clarity, if the worm does turn and if there is a super majority rejection of what has occurred, then you have your constitutional remedy right there and you've created the conditions for the constitutional remedy. So plan for success, guy, plan for success, hope for success. But we don't necessarily expect success. Those are different things.
- [60:10]
Sky Giattani
Well, I think you've given us a, a term to fill our prayers that God would turn the worm. All right, David, thank you for your writing and analysis, your insights into these strange times. And I hope that everyone listening will be encouraged to follow a faith that teaches us to love our neighbors rather than fear the world. And hopefully find other like minded fellow people on that journey so that we, we can together at least turn the worm in our little part of the world rather than the whole country. Thanks for being with us again.
- [60:44]
David French
Thanks so much.
- [60:45]
Sky Giattani
Sky French Friday is a production of Holy Post Media featuring David French and me. Sky Giotani music and theme song by Phil Vischer. This show is made possible by Holy Post patrons. To find out how you can become a Holy Post patron and to find more common good Christian content, go to holypost.com.