Nationalism, Tribalism, & Bob Dylan

Brian Zahnd is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri -- a non-demoninational Christian congregation. He is also a passionate reader of theology and philosophy, an avid hiker and mountain climber, and authority on all things Bob Dylan.

He and his wife, Peri, have three adult sons and seven grandchildren. He is the author of several books, including Beauty Will Save the World, A Farewell To Mars, Water To Wine, Unconditional?, and Sinners In The Hands Of A Loving God.

To find out more or to follow his blog, visit: www.brianzahnd.com.

Scott, Kyle, and Spencer skype in Brian Zahnd. 

There was a bet going on prior to the podcast on how to pronounce Brian Zahnd’s last name. Apparently most Zootown staff assumed it was pronounced like Zănd (with a short “a” sound, like “sand” but with a “z”), while Kyle was banking on Zähnd (like “aww”). Kyle was right. Congratulations Kyle, you get a gold star.

Brian recently returned home from Israel where he had the privilege of speaking at an edgy biennial 5-day conference called Christ at the Checkpoint, put on by Bethlehem Bible College. He’s been going to Israel almost every year for the last 22 years and has officially been called a friend of Israel. When asked if he is pro-Israel, his response [to Christian evangelicals that default to a Christian Zionist position] is:

“In the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Christians are not called to take Israel’s side. Christians are called to imitate Israel’s messiah. That is to walk in love and embrace the other…” - Brian Zahnd

The point of the Christ at the Checkpoint conference is essentially to alert the world that there are Palestinian Christian evangelicals, and they have a different view than most Christian Zionists in that they don’t believe Israelis have a divine right to the land that makes it okay to treat Palestinians with injustice; they can’t simply use the Bible to encroach upon their land. Check out the address Brian presented at the conference -- “Jesus and the Vilified Other” -- as well as his wife’s musings on things.

Brian Zahnd puts on a conference in June called Water To Wine as a gathering for those who sense the falseness prevailing in Americanized Christianity and yearn for the church to be rescued from fundamentalism, consumerism, and nationalism. He talked with us about the history of how the conference got started. In a very summed up version, he has been a pastor for 36 years of one single church.

“I’ve been a pastor for longer than I’ve been an adult.” - Brian

In 2004 he went through a massive theological transition and took his church with him. He ended up writing a book called Water to Wine, which was basically a memoir of his spiritual transition out of Americanized pop Christianity into a deeper, more substantive Christian faith. The book became quite popular with people going through a “deconstruction” phase. After receiving countless messages from pastors and Christian leaders who resonated with his story, he decided to put together this gathering so people could connect with one another and see they are not alone on this spiritual “water to wine” journey. You can find out more about the conference here or check out a recording of this year’s conference.

Is Brian Zahnd a big Bob Dylan fan?

“No, I’m a Bob Dylan scholar, let’s get it right. A fan, yeah, I mean I have all the records and all of that, but no I’m closer to scholarship level here.” - Brian

He says he’s been a Bob Dylan fan since he was 16 years old, when he woke up one morning to his clock radio going off with:

“Early one morning the sun was shining.

I was laying in bed

Wondering if she'd changed it all

If her hair was still red.

Her folks, they said, our lives together

Sure was gonna be rough.

They never did like Mama's homemade dress.

Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough…”

The song blew his mind. And the rest is history. He is now an authority on all things Bob Dylan.

All this segued into talk about Brian’s views on nationalism and the political climate in America. Brian talked about civil religion and the conflation of the worship of Jesus (who we call Lord and Christ) with the national interests. He gave a brief history of civil religion, going back to when the church in the book of Acts experienced periodic waves of persecution...not for religious reasons necessarily, but more for political ones. The Roman leaders at the time didn’t really care where you would go when you die, so that was okay to talk about. But as long as you were alive, you needed to honor Caesar as the embodiment and personification of the Roman empire. Back then, the most available means of mass communication were the coins in circulation, which had an image of Caesar along with one of his imperial titles formally granted to him by the senate -- the most important of which, was “lord.” “Lord” was a political term, as well as other titles including “savior of the world”, “son of god”, “prince of peace”, and “king of kings.” When Christians began to reappropriate these terms to Jesus, with confessions like “Jesus is Lord”, it was a highly charged political statement. It wasn’t the religious or devotional statement like it is today. By saying “Jesus is Lord”, you were saying “And Caesar is not.” That is why they experienced persecution. Anyway, fast-forward a bit...after a brief civil war, Christians got formal sanction and protection and Christianity essentially became the state religion of the Roman empire.

Brian found it necessary to define what he means by the word “empire”: “Empires are rich powerful nations who believe they have a divine right to rule other nations in a manifest destiny to shape history.” They end up becoming a problem because what they claim for themselves is the very thing God promised to his Son, so they automatically set themselves up to be a rival to Jesus Christ.

“Jesus gets demoted from being actually Lord to the secretary of afterlife affair. His job now is to get us into Heaven when we die, but between now and when we die we’re comfortable with Caesar running the world.” - Brian

And at times the church will have great ambition to control "Caesar's sword." We somehow think God is working simultaneously with America and the military, and that Jesus Christ raised up America...when in reality, we are the first nation to experiment with entirely secular governments. He says people tend to have a religious devotion to the nation. They pledge allegiance to the nation, instead of pledging allegiance to Christ. He goes on to talk about how evangelicals were pretty much apolitical until about 1980, when they jumped into the political arena assuming that Republicans were right about everything.

“Evangelical Christianity is little more than the religious wing of the Republican party.” - Brian

He says the problem with these Christian evangelicals is that they haven’t perceived the kingdom of Christ, so they put their trust in a political apparatus and become completely beholden to it. They fall deep into the trap of partisanship, seduced by angry tribalism, and destroy their witness. He claims that a lot of his work today is “trying to evangelize Christians and help them see the radical nature of the kingdom of Jesus. It is not something that has a nice easy side by side fit with the agendas of a military economic empire...it’s altogether different.” He is trying to help them perceive the kingdom of Christ and understand that there’s something other than Right, Left, Elephant, Donkey, Republican, or Democrat...there is Jesus and his kingdom and the church. The church doesn’t need to directly try changing the world by coercive means through “Caesar’s sword”. The church is the world as already changed by Christ, so we need to be kingdom-minded and live as an authentic expression of the kingdom of Jesus right now.

This discussion led to his thoughts on pacifism and how and why he votes.

“I’m sincerely non-partisan. I’m not an elephant or a donkey. I’m just not.” - Brian

He also says he is not a pacifist. He does, however, hold to a position of non-violence because it's what is taught and modelled by his Lord. He says that he is attracted to violence and seduced by its power, but it's incompatible with being a disciple of Jesus. So by nature, he is a violent person, but in Christ he realizes that he’s called to a different way of living, which puts him at odds with a lot of America and Christians. He makes it clear, though, that his opposition to war is never manifest in opposition to the soldier. He wants to be careful of any romantic glorification of the warrior culture. But his problem is not with the soldiers, it is with the masters of war.  Brian also pointed out how it is odd that we are the only “militaristic state” that doesn’t have a draft.

“We want to be a nation that’s militaristic, but we don’t want to have any skin in the game.” - Brian

He ends the podcast talking about what he loves about America -- the entrepreneurial spirit, the vision of creativity, the big, open spaces, etc.. He says that while it is in a bad spot right now, his main concern isn’t for America; it’s ultimately for the church. Can the church be something other? Can it be distinctive? Can it embody something that resembles the Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew 5-7)? He has hope that in this younger generation, the church will be comfortable with being counter-cultural and not simply floating along with the current of American nationalism...that it will be comfortable going a different way.

Scott, Kyle, and Spencer debrief the podcast

Spencer admits he doesn’t know anything about anything and that he feels like he needs to go home and read a dictionary.

Kyle talks about how pledging allegiance is engrained in school and has become so normal, he never thought to question it. It’s just something you do. But considering what you’re actually saying when you pledge allegiance is definitely worth thinking about. However:

“I am proud of America. I am proud to be an American. I don’t feel like I have to back off being proud that we’re so blessed to be in America. And I love so much of what America does stand for.” -Kyle

Scott talks about how Jesus is for the nations, the culture, the diversity. But when nationalism becomes something like “America is destined by God to be this empire that’s going to rule the Earth and mix the church in with that, that’s totally dangerous.” It is God and the world...not God and country.

The crew discusses the importance of making a distinction between the war and the warrior. They question how it could change people’s view on war if they were actually boots on the ground. As in, if you’re going to be pro-war, you go do it.

“It’s one thing to vote for something that will send other Americans to war, but when it’s going to send me or my kids to war, I think that probably changes some of our viewpoints on it.” - Kyle

Spencer brings up how a lot of people tend to lump everything into one whole thing...but a lot of the military are just there trying to help people. Which brought up a couple of quotes (slightly paraphrased, but you get the gist):

When fighting the enemy be sure you don’t become that enemy. - Nietzsche

What is an enemy? An enemy is someone you don’t know their story yet. - Brian Zahnd

This conversation with Brian has sparked questions like how can we tangibly love people more? What would it look like to love people like Jesus did, with no walls, no barriers?

At the end of the day, our hope and confidence can’t be in the government...it needs to be in the Kingdom, at all times, through the ups and the downs.