Was Jesus a Marxist?

Was Jesus more a Marxist or a capitalist?

Are there any aspects of Marxism that are compatible with Christianity, and how do the two approaches differ in addressing inequality and social justice?

Jeff and Dave take a look at these opposing point of views and discuss whether Jesus’ teachings would’ve aligned with them.

Lastly, they discuss how Christians should navigate the complicated political landscape, especially in an election year.

LinkTree:
https://linktr.ee/AllisonParkLeadershipNetwork
Email:
Jeffl@allisonparkchurch.com
Davel@allisonparkchurch.com
Instagram:
@Jeffleake11
@Dave.Leake

Transcript

Dave Leake: 0:00

In today's episode, we are asking the question, Was Jesus a Marxist? Is Christianity compatible with the teachings of Marxism? We also talked today about capitalism as a reverse side. Was Jesus more capitalist or Marxist? And what should Christians do as we navigate this complicated political landscape in an election year? So if you'd like to hear more, tune in. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Allison Park leadership podcast, where we have our culture creating conversations. I'm one of your hosts. My name is Dave,

Jeff Leake: 0:28

and my name is Jeff, and we're glad you've joined us today, and again, we're in our new studio. We're loving that, and we're glad that you're part of this episode. So do we have any shout outs today for anybody?

Dave Leake: 0:39

So one thing we do every week, because we want to give thank yous to anybody who always kind of to leave us a five star review and Apple podcast because we can see your name. Yep. So this week, want to say thank you to Melvin. 6913, appreciate baby Melvin. And hey, we'd love to give you a shout out as well. If you have been a regular listener for a while, but you haven't actually taken the time to give us a five star review, we would just ask from the bottom of my heart, it would help us so much. So if you could take 30 seconds go leave us a review that'd be super helpful. Thank you so

Jeff Leake: 1:06

much for helping us with that. And so Allison Park leadership podcast is about culture creating conversations, and we talk about a lot of things from the perspective of you know, biblical theology, Dave and I are both pastors on staff, also father and son. So the what makes us work is the multi generational perspectives, and we're also talking to church leaders. And in these couple episodes we're in now, we're actually getting a little bit into political theory, which isn't our area of expertise, but because we live in such a polarized political world in some ways necessary for us to look at things and so again, culture creating conversations. How would that sort of catch phrase apply to this conversation? Dave,

Dave Leake: 1:51

every, everybody who leads any area, whether it's just even personal leadership, family, church, business, creates culture by what you do and

Jeff Leake: 2:02

how you speak, you know your attitude, your tone,

Dave Leake: 2:07

yeah, and so understanding things like Christian nationalism, which was our last episode, and then you know, Marxism, which we're gonna be talking about today, and how we should respond to it as Christians, I think, is a huge part of creating the kind of culture that we want, because, if not, you know, we're allowing the force, the forces of our world, to shape the culture that we lead,

Jeff Leake: 2:27

right, rather than the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. By the way, I'll just give a little shout out for something we're doing here at Hampton and the butler campus during this the month of August. We're in a message series related to these two podcast episodes called elephants, donkeys and lamb. Oh, so we're talking about Jesus view of politics and the fact that Jesus was a political leader as well as a spiritual leader. You know, came preaching the kingdom of God, and he was crucified, and they put over his head King of the Jews, right? So there are some aspects of his political vision that you see in his life. So if you want to catch some more information, you can jump in on the three part series we're doing in August. Love

Dave Leake: 3:12

that. So those won't get nearly as in depth as we got. No, no. That's actually

Jeff Leake: 3:17

what's great about the podcast, is that we are able to go into places we talk about things more in depth than we could in a in a sermon and conversation, I think, brings things to the surface to it's a different mode of teaching than lecture, yeah, yeah. So,

Dave Leake: 3:33

so last week, last episode, I should say we discussed

Jeff Leake: 3:39

is, was Jesus a Christian nationalist? Sure,

Dave Leake: 3:41

yeah. And this time we'll talk about is, was Jesus a Marxist?

Jeff Leake: 3:45

Yeah. Now, the reason why we're contrasting these two is because I guess you would say these are the the ends of the spectrum of political thinking on the right and the left. You know, so the left would accuse the extremist on the right of being Christian nationalists and the or white nationalists, white Christian nationalists, yeah, but right, and then the the right would accuse the the extreme parts of the left as being Marxist, sure. And so we're using those two terms to talk about some political theory and how it relates to the teaching of Jesus. Well, Marxist,

Dave Leake: 4:21

or like Marxism, isn't necessarily even a derogatory term, like some people would claim to obviously.

Jeff Leake: 4:27

Well, neither is Christian nationalism, technically, sure, yeah. But so, I mean, they're basically just political theory, right, exactly, but they're used almost like cuss words, sure, right? So you Marxist, you you Christian nationalist, whatever they're really they're not. They're just an ideology. And so what we're saying what we're so, and I think this needs to be said. So some people say, can you be a Christian and be a Christian nationalist? Or Here's the second question, can you be a Christian and be a Marxist? I think the answer to that is easy, yes, sure. But. We're really not asking the question, can you be a follower of Jesus, going to heaven and believe in these political ideologies? What we're asking is, do these political ideologies reflect the teaching of Jesus?

Dave Leake: 5:12

I think, I think what we're let me, let me phrase it alternatively, I think really we're saying is Marxism compatible Christianity, because you can actually be a Christian and hold ideologies that aren't really that compatible with the teachings of Jesus, as you said. So last time it was sort of is, is Christian nationalism? You

Jeff Leake: 5:30

would say it Christian nationalism isn't really compatible with the teachings of Jesus, because it doesn't. Jesus never taught America was the center of the world, right? So, like he couldn't have it was America was not even imagined at that time. So in a similar way, we're going to examine the claims of Marxism, because there are some aspects of Marxism that seem to cast vision for some of the realities that we see in the book of Acts, where there were no needy persons among them, or, you know, there was a community that was born where everyone was taking care of each other. So some people have sort of read into you can save it, though you can. Yeah, so far down the road, but yeah,

Dave Leake: 6:17

Karl Marx was born 1000s of years after Jesus lived, so obviously he wasn't an actual Marxist. But I think we're looking at the underlying ideas right that are importantly

Jeff Leake: 6:27

18th century. Yeah, and let's just define a Marxism is concerned with the consequences of a society divided between an ownership class and a working class, and proposes a new system of shared ownership in a as a solution to the inequality that capitalism creates. That is

Dave Leake: 6:44

a hard sentence for a paragraph to understand there.

Jeff Leake: 6:48

So you want to give us a simpler one. Yeah,

Dave Leake: 6:51

let me do my best. Okay, again, I will say, as we're diving into political ideologies, some philosophy here, I think we may get some things wrong, but let me, let me, let me get let me get my best

Jeff Leake: 7:02

attempt right when we could have done that with Christian nationalism too. Because we're not, we're not like we're not professors teaching political theory. We're actually just pastors trying to wade our way through things. Yeah, so

Dave Leake: 7:15

from my understanding, I was just doing some refreshing refresher courses on this this morning. From my understanding, Marxism believes that humans are not able to achieve all that they can out of life because of the inequality of the distribution of wealth. So some working class person that's just on a factory line that's always hammering nails into a chair never actually gets to enjoy that chair, because the distribution of wealth alienates a person from the experiences that they deserve to have. Therefore they're never actually able to achieve all that they should out of life, their happiness and their fulfillment and all this kind of stuff. And so Marxism proposes that because economic, economic factors are the primary force that shapes culture and shapes people and shapes whatever shapes our world, we should take a hold of that, and it should be equally distributed, so that everybody can do the best work that they're that they're made for, that they're able to do without money as a concern that either alienates you or that gives you an over, you know, a status above everybody else, where you're oppressing the poor or you're oppressing the marginalized,

Jeff Leake: 8:31

yeah. And I think probably the way that it's being applied in our century is that it's not so much about money, it's about power structures, agreed, yeah, well, it's

Dave Leake: 8:39

probably about both. But, but

Jeff Leake: 8:40

when it started, and when you saw the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 in Russia, it was prime primarily an economic class warfare, yeah, now it's broadened beyond economics. It's, it's anything that's perceived to be the power structures of the day that may be based on gender or race, or, you know, religion and that seemed to be keeping people down and oppressing them. So you have to overthrow power structures that are that are oppressive in some way in order to create equity and equality.

Dave Leake: 9:16

Yeah, exactly. That's the very, very like layman, I think we got pretty good, yeah, good

Jeff Leake: 9:22

definition there,

Dave Leake: 9:23

absolutely so. So

Jeff Leake: 9:24

is Christianity compatible

Dave Leake: 9:25

with Marxism? Where do we want to start here, as we start to examine, I think we could look at acts as the end of Acts two, that that talks about, maybe it's the beginning of Acts three. Let me pull this up where it talks about they had everything in common. Because I think that whenever people are so I was just talking to a friend who wasn't I was talking to a friend. I don't know if it was Regis or Nick, but somebody was saying, there was somebody who, every time they would see them, they would always be talking about Acts two. Says, like, communism is the way to go. Like, look at this. Why does nobody see this? You know? And he was okay. So

Jeff Leake: 9:58

there's one. So there is. So the beginning of the book of Acts is absolutely amazing. I mean, the Holy Spirit comes upon believers, and they begin to act in ways that are counter to their own self interest, like Barnabas, who sold his houses and and gave them to the poor. And this became a trend so that they were they were radically caring for the poor. They were going after people that had no social damage. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. This

Dave Leake: 10:25

is Acts 243, a deep sense of came over. This is NLT came over them all. And the apostles performed many miraculous signs of wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together the temple. Each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all people. And each day, the Lord added to their fellowship those who are being saved, yeah. So

Jeff Leake: 10:55

I would say that Christianity and communism, okay, or Marxism, whichever term we want to use, share a common goal, and that is to elevate people, to remove the the, you know, things that oppress, to lift people that are marginalized, to take care of the poor, to make sure that Those who are suffering have their suffering addressed and alleviated. But Marxism and Christianity approach that problem from a completely different standpoint. Marxism basically says people can't be trusted to do that on their own, therefore the state has to use its force and power to take from those who have and redistribute it so it puts its trust in the collective action of the state in terms of the book of Acts. The belief is that people won't do this on their own, but when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, when you experience the transformation of the person of Jesus Christ. He changes you from the inside out, and he makes you want to voluntarily do what you need to do, to not just take what you possess and share it with others, but also to address the inequities of whatever's happening in society, to bring about, you know, solutions for those that are under oppression, but it isn't. It isn't a faith in the state. It's a face. It's a faith in the spirit, right? So one is voluntary, one is one is coercive, right? Marxism is a coercive process, whereas the other one is a voluntary movement that happens from transformation through the person of Jesus Christ, the outcome is the same, and that people are taken care of, but one one trusts the state, where the other trusts the Holy Spirit. But

Dave Leake: 12:47

technically, you could trust the state and God at the same time, correct? Because you could trust people not to murder, but still have a legislation that murdered has consequences. Yeah, you know, I

Jeff Leake: 12:56

guess that's true,

Dave Leake: 12:57

like, just because, I mean, I agree with you, I agree with you that ultimately for a Christian but just

Jeff Leake: 13:02

so. But just like Christian nationalism puts the state at the center right and says the solution is a Christian nation, yeah? And Jesus puts the church at the center, Sure, okay. In the same way Marxism puts the state at the center and says this requires government force, yes, whereas Jesus puts the church at the center, which says, this requires a movement of the Holy Spirit and a transformation of individual people who now begin to dream the same dream to make the world a better place. Both both make the same error. They put the state at the center. And most communist countries actually see belief in God as an as a massive impediment to the accomplishment of the Marcus Marxist dream. Almost every Marxist state tries to get rid of faith. Well, that

Dave Leake: 13:53

was a part of the base of Karl Marx's teachings and writings was that, you know, because of the writings of philosophers like David Hume, who kind of brought skepticism, you know, into the world, and a lot of these philosophers who are sort of like God obviously doesn't exist. Karl Marx's idea was, I'm not sure people are still clinging to their need for God. And what his his conclusion was, people cling to the need for God, for like they have their need for God because it's of unfulfilled, basically dreams or unfulfilled potential based on social inequalities and economic, you know, inequality, I guess so it's like because somebody can't be all they want to be, because they're trapped in a prison of economics, they have to have their hope and something beyond themselves. Which is, which is God. And his idea was that all the godly characteristics that we see in Jesus or in God the Father are actually just an idealized form of what humanity should really be or placing into some higher power. So his whole idea was. Let's eliminate religion. Religion is, you know, the opioid of the masses. Religion is, is just a way to get them to quiet down. It's actually the, I think the religion is the opioid of the masses is Karl Marx, yeah, it is right. And it was what he was saying, basically, by that is, it's a drug that the higher classes use to keep the masses in check. You know, which is

Jeff Leake: 15:22

what you hear all the time when people start to criticize Christianity, right? It's a tool of oppression. Yeah?

Dave Leake: 15:27

That that those in power want the masses to believe that their hope is in something that doesn't even exist. That way, they are not revolting, basically, yeah, right, yeah. Which

Jeff Leake: 15:40

is the so, because humanity isn't living up to its potential, the only way to make it live up to its potential is to revolt against the power structures, so that then what comes after that ends up being better, right? Is that the that's the idea, yeah, whereas we would say there is a God and human structures are imperfect, but revolting against power structures isn't going to bring healing to the world. It actually is just going to bring more division, whereas hope in God and his ability to transform us with, you know, good governance structures in place, the best that we can create to lift oppression and and create equality is what we're kind of after. What's tough, Dave, is that in the New Testament, we don't get a governmental structure proposed.

Dave Leake: 16:30

Well, not until, not until revelation. Well, okay, yes,

Jeff Leake: 16:34

right, the ultimate end time when Jesus returns and rules here on earth himself. Yeah, right, right, right. But we don't actually see teachings of Jesus to say, capitalism is the way communism is the way socialism is the way monarchy is the way all of the structures that work in society are imperfect. And I'm reading a great book right now called exiles by Preston sprinkle. And Preston sprinkle basically talks about how, you know, in the book of Revelation, there is this character called the beast, right? The Antichrist and the Beast, and they are kind of work together. And he kind of documents all throughout Scripture how the Beast represents human power structures. And that when human power structures, whatever form they take, they always end up being a beast, yeah, because they're motivated by things that are not Jesus way of thinking. Jesus has this upside down way of thinking. And and the world structures have a power dominance approach. And so everything ends up being, you know, a beast that has to be managed every government, every governmental philosophy, okay? Because we would agree with is it? David Hume, yeah, okay, that that the power structures of this world, in every nation, are imperfect and

Dave Leake: 17:56

corrupt. Oh, no, that's Karl Marx, okay, that's

Jeff Leake: 17:58

Karl Marx. We would agree with that, but we wouldn't agree that humanity is the ultimate so, like, What the I never really knew this, that the attributes that we attribute to God are actually what humanity should be. It's sort of like what you see in our society, which is the elevation of self. Yeah, it's humanism. Yeah, it's humanism. Right, right? So humanism and Marxism go hand in hand, I absolutely do. And Christianity says there's a solution beyond human, right? There's a supernatural solution. There's a supernatural Creator. The more we get in touch with him and begin to align ourselves with how he wants us to live, the more transformation happens. It's

Dave Leake: 18:36

not just a solution, though. There's an authority beyond human you know, because I think where Marxism, like holds its value, is the only way we get closer to a perfect world, to a utopia, is when humans all start doing the right thing that benefits everybody. You know, their their means to the end of a perfect world is to distribute wealth perfectly, to have no bourgeoisie class, you know, no inequality of power or wealth.

Jeff Leake: 19:06

Well, you know,

Dave Leake: 19:07

well, I'm just, I was, you know, I was rereading some of the rise and triumph of modern self, yeah, which we've talked about a lot, but not for a couple of years, one of our favorite books. Yeah, it's really good. But, you know, whereas so you were talking about the hope that we have, like you said, for Christian nationalism and for Marxism, the state, the government, is central, whereas Jesus or the church is central for us. I think what you mean by that is the best way to get close to a perfect world. Or, as Jesus said, you know, Kingdom Come on earth, as it is in heaven, the best way that Christians believe to get close to that is to see the church rise up, to begin to distribute, you know, to meet the needs of people, to share, you know, and to be one, and not

Jeff Leake: 19:51

just that that, but to influence other structures of society, to do right by people as well. Exactly right. So it's the abolitionist protesting and trying. Trying to end slavery. It's the, it's the non government agencies that are created to help distribute food during a disaster or a crisis. You know? It's, it's, it's the creation of medical clinics in in refugee camps. It's, it's finding ways to bring solutions to a broken world, but not through coercion, yeah. Rather, instead, by a movement of people who are moved by compassion, the,

Dave Leake: 20:26

I would say, the movement of every single Christian and every church giving some of what they have to aid those that are in need. That would be the that would be

Jeff Leake: 20:37

the with the structures around us, yeah, so that, so that there's more justice. And, you know, a sense that society is working for the well being of the people who live in it,

Dave Leake: 20:51

whereas the opposite side is that we can't trust most people to do what they should. Therefore, the state should legislate. You know, I guess we, we don't even you talk about Christian nationalism, but we were doing the contrast. The state should legislate that way there. What? So Marxism actually is broad. It's not just communism. Socialism also falls into there. Think there's something called statism and liberalism or progressivism. There's a bunch of stuff that would, that would come from the philosophy of Karl Marx, but that that especially communism, it's the state should have the power to make sure there's an equal distribution of wealth. The problem is that, while I don't think I mean the The idea sounds good, it hasn't ever really worked.

Jeff Leake: 21:32

No, in fact, you know, one of the things that Jesus teaches is you can tell whether a tree is good or bad by the fruit. Okay, so Marxism sounds really wonderful. Let's,

Dave Leake: 21:44

let's be specific and say communism, okay, well, no, socialism has had better success than communism.

Jeff Leake: 21:52

You have to, you'd have to make the case for that. Okay, although, although okay, just to be balanced, technically, the United States has partial socialism now, and so does Sweden. Sweden, okay, socialist nation. Let's just stay with the United States. So we, we, in the 1930s in the Great Depression, created a social a social network that everybody lives with in our country that has socialistic aspects to it. So security is part of that. Medicare and Medicaid is part of that, welfare is part of that. None of that was in existence prior to those moments. So all of those are we can't just let people who are poor go without any means of support, so that now even those who are coming into our country as immigrants, they come into some kind of safety net, because we have socialistic aspects as a part of our country. So we're sort of a mix of capitalism and socialism in the United States. So is Sweden a mix of but if you talk to people in Sweden, they would tell you they're not really completely socialistic. They have a strong capitalistic engine and a heavy emphasis on social programs as well. So every society, I think now, in our culture, in our world, has a little bit of a mix of these two things. There is no extreme capitalistic societies, but there are some extreme socialistic or communistic societies. Well,

Dave Leake: 23:17

even communism, I don't even think that what's maybe, maybe I'm ignorant. But my understanding was that I don't think China is even as far radical communism as the Soviet Union was. There's, there's more degrees it

Jeff Leake: 23:30

it was under Mao Zedong, sure. Yeah. I mean, so let's just look at, let's look at some of the stats with Marxism, because this is what's really concerning to me, is that the end of Marxism, if Marxism takes over, it always ends in incredible violence. So prior to Karl Marx writing his political theory, you have the French Revolution. The French Revolution is basically happening at the same time. A couple years after the American Revolution and the French Revolution, they were actually starting to move towards Marxist thinking, even before Marx started to pen his writings. And so there, there was this class warfare where the the, you know, working class rebelled against the aristocracy and used the guillotine to cut the heads off of everyone who was wealthy. And then they seized their, you know, palaces and their possessions. And the idea is that it was going to be equally distributed. But then what happened? And this is what always happens with Marxism. As soon as that takes place, a ruling elite arises that begins to make decisions for everybody. So you have another aristocracy that comes, and then before you know it. You have a Napoleon who becomes a cruel dictatorial leader who starts to kill people. This is what happens in Russia. You have the 19 7017, Bolshevik revolution based on Marxism. And within 30 years, you have you have Stalin who starved out 9 million. Of the population and killed them. Mao Zedong was a radical Marxist, and I don't know they say, as many as 45 million people died in China under his revolution. Actually, here's what Daniel goldhagens argues that the 20th century, communist regimes have killed more people than any other regime type. In fact, I read somewhere just recently that communist Marxist regimes are responsible for more deaths in the last century than all of the other conflict deaths in human history added up. It's over 100 million. Yeah, so it's like, if you have to, if you look at the fruit on the tree, trust in the state to be equal, and it always creates a ruling elite that becomes dictatorial and eventually becomes murderous. And, you know, I've sort of seen this up close and personal, because Mel's your mom, her family ministered in Nicaragua. And you know, there's a conflict between capitalism and Marxism in Nicaragua, the Contras and Sandinistas that have been in conflict. Well, Daniel Ortega, who was the Sandinista Marxist figure in the in the 70s and 80s, eventually takes on power there and has now become just a dictator and everyone suffers when that happens as a result. So I think the fruit on the tree of the Marxist thought process has been demonstrated. And this is, this is what sometimes mystifies me, is how that's that storyline is not discussed. How many people have died because of Marxist regimes. Because you hear like, for instance, the Crusades are often talked about, as you know, when religion goes bad and nationalism takes over, and okay, that whole thing, but there was only 10s of 1000s who died in the in the wars and the Crusades, you'd say only it's still horrible. It is, but in comparison to 100 million, yeah, sure, like you would if you would say, which, if you ask someone who maybe didn't know the conversation, which do you think was responsible for more deaths, the Crusades or communism? And people would probably say, the Crusades, probably right. So there was as many as 1.7 million who died from the Crusades, but most of those deaths happened as people were trying to travel from Europe to the Middle East, and they died because of sickness or disease, or whatever, things that grew up. It wasn't so much because of war. That doesn't take away from the fact that the Crusades were the worst episode in Christian history, or the Inquisition, or the Inquisition, but we're still talking about 1000s, not we're not talking about millions of people, so

Dave Leake: 27:43

I we're also talking about a distorted version of Christianity. Yeah, right, exactly that got really twisted and obsessed with power.

Jeff Leake: 27:51

You can also look at the contrast between capitalism, with all of its imperfections, and communism when you look at North Korea. So you have these two nations that are right next to each other, and I've ever seen this, they have this visual that shows

Dave Leake: 28:06

a flyover, yeah, at night, electric

Jeff Leake: 28:09

night, and you see one part of Korea lit up with electricity on the other side completely in darkness. Yeah? Because Marxism never it produces equality, but it means that everybody's equally poor. Yeah, right. It doesn't produce an equality that was dreamed about in this utopianism. So I just think, I think we have a little over 200 years of history of this thing, Marxism and the trust in the collective will of the state. I think we have enough evidence now to say that's not a good idea well,

Dave Leake: 28:46

so let's clarify here. Because you're talking about political ideologies, we're comparing them. Is it compatible with Christianity? Was Jesus, you know, teaching these kinds of things? I think that for both political systems we've discussed recently, there are probably some parts of it that have ideals of Jesus, teaching Jesus and in them. And then there are some, some part neither of these is a proposed, like, perfect political system that it's like, well, this is what Jesus wanted. We're just describing in detail where it maybe goes awry where it's not compatible. And I would say so. I actually think at some point we should, we should talk through the parts of Marxism that are compatible with Christianity, because we read Acts 242, or whatever, you know. But I do think that there are the ideals of Marxism, the vision, the vision of it. I think that there is merit. I think that we can, maybe we could move closer, in some ways, without necessarily the ideology. So I want to get there in a second. Well, it's

Jeff Leake: 29:51

like, it's like the vision of Christian nationalism. Do we want the entire nation of America to be Christian? Absolutely. Do we want every person who's alive today? We to find Jesus as their Savior? Yes. Do we want them to live according to Christian principles about sexuality and life and all the other things? Yes. Do we believe that the state is the answer to that? No, I think the same thing is true. Do we want to see people you know, freed from the bonds of oppression and set free from things that hold them down and treated with dignity and equality, and want to see the poor taken care of, and we absolutely yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Do we believe that the collective action of the state is the way to do that? No, no, no, no, no, right? I think that's the problem is this, and this is part of I think what drives the conflict today is there is one commonality between both left and right, and that is the belief that the state, the election process, the government structures, is the solution to what ails us, but the

Dave Leake: 30:51

the alternative Are you? Are you going libertarian, where it's like the let, the least, the less the state is involved, the better. Is that more in line with teaching? I

Jeff Leake: 31:00

think, okay, so, because I actually think that the American experiment of the recognition of the tendency of humans to be selfish and sinful, therefore we need checks and balances. Actually, I think the American system is designed to force people into the center to have conversations, because you have Congress and you have the Senate who are supposed to come together to pass legislation that they compromise on, to come up with ways, imperfect ways, imperfect laws, to be able to and then you have, you have the president who has a role, and you have the Supreme Court that has a role in all designed to have checks and balances, to force us into the center to negotiate solutions for our country. I actually think that as imperfect as that is because you can say, well, laws were negotiated that were evil and oppressive. Yes, that's true, because every economic and governmental system is a beast, but the checks and balances system of our Republican, Democratic system actually forces people to negotiate solutions. I actually think that does that? Does that free us from corruption? No, does it eliminate wealth and power structures that are oppressive? No, but I don't see a government structure on Earth created. Who's it's done that, like, show me which government has actually accomplished that goal, then we use that as our model,

Dave Leake: 32:28

sure, by the way. So just to be clear, because I think sometimes you always, you say that you think people always think I'm whatever, like whatever. I'm not even sure which side you will think I'm on, that they hear my thing and they sound like a Marxist, yeah, or sound like a Republican, or whatever, I feel like I'm very, like, very much. I guess apolitical is the wrong word, because I do follow it to some degree, but I feel very much in the middle. You know what I mean? I think I don't feel like I'm close to you. I don't know that

Jeff Leake: 32:57

you're in the middle. Here's, here's what I would describe. And this is, I think, what we're trying to achieve in this conversation here. And that is, we want to be able to dispassionately, yeah, pull ourselves away from the concepts that are happening and objectively evaluate them based upon the Scripture and based upon what seems to be pragmatic and effective and principled. And we want to have a response to those things that are not fueled by partisanship, that doesn't put you in the middle, because it would depend on the issue whether you're in the middle or not.

Dave Leake: 33:32

Yeah, you're right. You're right, but I'm saying I don't think I would fall into either party line.

Jeff Leake: 33:36

Okay, well, so, so here's what I said, said about earlier. I think both the left and the left and the right side of the political aisle in the United States has this deep belief that the next election, that the next political figure, that the operation of the state is the solution for our broken world. And they're moving more and more away from each other and less and less willing to talk to one another. Okay, so that's a big problem. The second thing is, most people, because of the way that social media and the news cycle and the way that everyone's talking are fueled by partisan perspectives, and they they oftentimes end up forming their opinions based upon what they're they're in group is saying to them they're not dispassionately looking at evidence or situations or figuring out, how do we find common ground? How do we come how do we build a bridge here? What can we do to solve this problem that brings both people together to have a conversation so no one feels excluded like that? That's the part of it. I think that we're missing in our society, and it does require for you to be a little bit dispassionate in doing that. Now, some would say that's because you have privilege, that you have the ability to do that right, that you can actually dispassionately, and others would say that's because you have no backbone, like if you really stood up for what was right and what the Bible teaches. Then. So there's just a. Tremendous amount of pressure not to, not just to be on either side of the political eye, but to to parrot what partisan thinking would represent. What we're trying to do in this podcast is to pull ourselves away from that for a minute and to ask some hard questions about Scripture and Jesus's thoughts and what's worked in the world, what hasn't So, yeah, yeah.

Dave Leake: 35:25

So I have one more thought on on the effects of specifically communism, but it's probably a little bit more broad. It's probably Marxism in general. Is that, like just sort of having, to my knowledge, having read up on this, almost without exception, in Marxist states, especially communist states, Christians come under heavy persecution,

Jeff Leake: 35:46

Oh, almost always, yeah, because God is the enemy of complete trust in the state,

Dave Leake: 35:51

yeah. And so because of that, I mean, they're, they're like, often thrown into prison, they're often killed. So from a perspective of is as Marxism compatible, and

Jeff Leake: 36:03

we should say not just Christians, sure, yeah, you're right. You're Jews and Muslims as well, right, right, isn't it? Is? It is Marxism, and its belief in the state and in its belief in humanism, sees all religion as an enemy of its objectives, yeah,

Dave Leake: 36:21

it elevates humans as the highest authority, and any challenge to that squashed. So anyway, so I think if we're asking the question, you know, is Marxism compatible with Christianity? I think that, like there are principles and vision that are in line, but I think the methodology and the reliance on the state is actually really dangerous for Christianity. We just talked about this last week. You were saying you think that Christian national nationalism is more dangerous

Jeff Leake: 36:52

to Christianity than to America. Yes, yeah, right. I think Marxism is the same. It's

Dave Leake: 36:57

probably dangerous to both, but I think it's dangerous to both, yeah, but I think it's very, very dangerous to Christianity, right? So okay, so then here's, here's my sort of concept question. Okay,

Jeff Leake: 37:07

let me just add this one last thing in here. So some would say, Well, I'm not, I'm I'm on the political left, but I'm not a Marxist. Okay, there are some phrases that are used now to describe certain political movements that actually would lead you to Marxism without you realizing that's actually what you're believing in, and that's a phrase called democratic socialism. Democratic socialism, if you break that into pieces, is this. So you often hear this phrase, this is an existential threat to our democracy. So again, technically, America is not a democracy. It's a Republican democracy. With democracy with limits. So what, what I think some parts of the left part of society want is a majority rule where there is no limits.

Dave Leake: 37:51

Describe the difference there? Okay. So like, what, what is a Republican democracy versus what you just Okay, so

Jeff Leake: 37:58

the Supreme Court creates limits on what the majority can do. The function of the Electoral College creates limits on what the majority can do. The legislation of Congress and the negotiation that happens in the Senate creates limits so you have checks and balances. The thought is, as soon as soon as you have a majority, that majority should be able to use its power socialism, then democratic socialism, to extract wealth from whoever they want, to extract it from, to distribute it to the masses. That's basically Marxist ideology. A democratic republic is you can have a majority, but that majority population can't just do whatever it wants, and it can't just act in a way. It has to be limited by other checks and balances so that you don't end up with a populist movement of democracy which then overruns and destroys the other side, which is what happens? What happened in Russia, what happened in the French Revolution? So there is some forces at work that want to destroy the limits on one side or the other, which, which? So, if true democratic socialism happened, it would end up moving towards Marxism, okay? Because it's, it's a way of saying, whatever the people want they should get. And our historic structure is whatever the people want they should get, unless it's against the law, right? Or unless, unless the courts overrule it, right? And so there's always checks and balances in our system, and the desire to remove those checks and balances is is a concern, because it will move us into a more violent stage of our history. Okay? So,

Dave Leake: 39:54

so I'm trying to understand this. I'm looking at democratic socialism online. So basically, it's no. Private Ownership of anything and everything is collective ownership. Is that?

Jeff Leake: 40:04

What's the Marxism?

Dave Leake: 40:06

Yeah, what's the difference? I think I need to understand. I'll look this up later, but I don't really see why that's different than communism. I'm sure it is different in some ways, but I

Jeff Leake: 40:14

think it's just another phraseology for the Marxist political philosophy. Sounds better than Communist Party, right? Okay, so, well,

Dave Leake: 40:25

here's, here's my follow up question in the meantime, as I'm looking this up, is, I guess. Okay, so we talked about the different ends of the political spectrum, in terms of Christian nationalism. Now we're talking about Marxism, but let's, let's flip it to the other side of the economic spectrum shall we? Shall we, say, with socialism or Marxism versus capitalism? Do you think that Jesus's teaching was more in favor of capitalism?

Jeff Leake: 40:51

I don't think you ever talked about capitalism. I mean, technically, the parable of the talents, would that be sort of capitalistic? I don't really think it is. I mean, well, it talks about personal responsibility and taking what you have and doing something with it, and the more fruitful you are, the more you get rewarded. I mean, in some ways, that's that's how a capitalistic society works. Capitalism basically says, if everybody works in their own self interest, but we are have an open and free trade system that it ends up elevating everybody. Okay, so, but if you look at the industrial age, so I'm a student of history, and right now my my studies are taking me. I want to study everything from the year 1865 to the year 1920 that's my post Civil War

Dave Leake: 41:41

right before the Great Depression,

Jeff Leake: 41:43

yes, right, yeah. And because there were so many things invented during that time, I mean, it totally changed our world. But that was also the industrial age. Right here in Pittsburgh in the 1880s there was an oppressive system created with the steel mill industry, where people were working 10 hours a day, six days a week, seven days a week, with an intense heat, and they would not live into their 40s, because the the, you know, robber baron, sort of corporate giants like cornea, Carnegie and Frick and others who are their names are on everything In Pittsburgh, yeah, yeah, they were running things without any kind of policies on a 40 hour work week, a minimum wage, certain policies that protected the workers. So that there were revolts, like in Homestead. Here in Pittsburgh, there was this revolt. The workers revolted, and there were shots fired as the Pinkertons and everything. Yeah, all right, the Pinkerton society, which were the detectives, were fighting against the workers. And so Pittsburgh has been a center where people, because of the steel industry, were cruelly oppressed. Actually, the Salvation Army was formed during that time, because in Great Britain there was so much poverty, if you think of stories like Oliver Twist or the, you know, the Christmas carol Charles Dickens, they were all about the fact that the industrialism of the world was creating orphans and poverty and child labor. I mean, capitalism, to its extreme, is a harsh task master, just like communism in its extreme, is a is a murderous mob. Okay? So at some point, the church stepped in to be a part of the solution. So William Booth created the Salvation Army, and they're raising money and taking care of the poor. That's why you see people standing outside of Walmart still collecting funds, because it was formed during that era to deal with the economic disparity that was happening in the world. Eventually, during the Great Depression, we created some safety nets in our government governance structure, so that you have welfare and Medicare and Medicaid and all the other things that come with it. But for a little while, capitalism, one run crazy, was incredible. People became greedy for the almighty dollar. But I think if we put into the context of this conversation a book that we've also mentioned called factfulness, I think we would have to say that capitalism, globally over the past 100 years, has caused economic development in countries that maybe never have experienced that before, and that life is getting better globally, for for more people now not equal Okay, so it's not like you got the guy that runs Amazon and then that capitalism has now made everybody as wealthy as what's his name, Jeff Bezos, right? But people are rising in their level of economic well being all over the world right now, and I don't think that's a result of Marxism. I think it's probably a result of the fact that we do have a balance now of capitalism with some socialism in. Did that is actually probably making the world better than we realize, but you would never know that by the political conflict that goes on right now. Sure that that actually there's a recipe that maybe is working in some ways, right but, but you know, the threat of both sides taking power is created such a height of hysteria that there, there isn't the willingness to step back and recognize, okay, this is working. Let's make this better, like we should both sit down at the table and figure out how we make this immigration system work for people, right? Like that. That isn't happening because of the hysteria that's created. That'd

Dave Leake: 45:38

be great if we get back there somehow. I don't know what it would take to do that, but it will be to not just have the, you know, the good the good guys and the Hitlers, because that's, that's like, that's just, and that's, that's

Jeff Leake: 45:53

every political commercial now, like, it's, we're this season, where every commercial that comes on, it's like, oh My goodness, it's it's propaganda from both sides of the aisle, 100%

Dave Leake: 46:03

and propaganda is skewed information that becomes misinformation. And like to to create fear loyalty against, you know, the enemy and for the good guys, essentially, like, like, there's so much propaganda, like, things that are not really true, that are supposed to alienate you from the other side, yeah, and I guess, like, man, just having these conversations. What my takeaway is, there's really no perfect political system, but there are things that we should care about, that we should maybe be voting for there are people that should really matter to us, because they matter to God, often those that are forgotten, that are, you know, downtrodden, that are marginalized. But I feel like what I'm taking away, I think, overall, from these last two conversations, is that in an election year where there is a lot at stake. In some ways, we have to actually put our trust and our hope, not in not in the state or in a leader, but in Jesus, yeah, and in the hope of what he's bringing us into, and do our best to be influences in every sphere and circle of society that we can be in. Does that feel about right? Yeah. Okay,

Jeff Leake: 47:17

let me so there's one concept that I'm teaching in this series on the weekends at at Allison Park church that I think is an important one, and that is that the church so we say, so we just put our covenants completely in the church and not have any kind of faith in the government system. Here's here's how I look at it. I think this is an important thing. I think that Jesus created the church to be like an embassy, an embassy that's planted in every nation, that carries the interests of heaven and and provide represents Heaven's Will on Earth. So in Second Corinthians, chapter five, it talks about how we are Christ's ambassadors. So technically, I'm a foreigner and a stranger here in this country, I'm a citizen of heaven, and I've been sent here as a pastor of a church to lead an embassy so whoever wins this next election, my responsibility as a spiritual leader is to lead an embassy in my community for heaven's interests to be done here on Earth. So does that mean I engage with political systems? Yeah. Does that mean I pray for political leaders? Yeah. Does it mean I want to serve my community in ways that make things better? Yes, because my job is not primarily to represent Republican or Democrat. My job is to represent heaven so and and basically Second Corinthians five says we're, we're Christ's ambassadors, as though God was making his appeal through us be reconciled to God. Verse 18, it says, We have therefore been given the ministry of reconciliation. So people should drive by a church and say, that's an embassy of heaven. If you go there, they'll help you get reconciled to God and to one another. Yeah. So we as Christians shouldn't be known as dividers. We should be known as reconcilers. Our mission on earth is to reconcile people to heaven. Yeah, and that means Heaven's Will done on earth in the way that we treat each other, in the way that we operate in society, in the way that we preach the person of Jesus Christ as the solution for your soul. And so I think if we see ourselves as foreigners planted in our nation as an embassy. And I think this is true. If I go to Nicaragua, I'm I'm representing Heaven's interest there, yeah. If I go to China, I'm representing Heaven's interest there. And whoever's in power, I'm going to work with those people in power and pray for those people in power so that Heaven's interest can be represented here on Earth. My primary identity has to be that, yeah. And I think if we think that way, and we end up in a Marxist society, we would need to speak up of the dangers of the state trying to stamp out the church. Sure, I think if we live in a Christian nationalist society, we would have to speak of the dangers of the blurred lines between the. Mission of the church and the mission of America, right? And so I think, I think we have to separate ourselves in some ways, to recognize what our real role is in the world, which isn't as an embassy of heaven, rather than a representation of a partisan point of view. Good and Heaven's interests are not submitted to the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Sure, they're, they're, they're above both. Jesus rules over everything, and we need to submit ourselves to Him first and then, and then, you know, vote what you want to vote for and voice what you want to give voice for. That's okay, but we can't ever lose our calling as reconciler. That's

Dave Leake: 50:40

good. That's good. Any closing thoughts beyond that? I mean, that's pretty good summary, I think, right there. Yeah, cool.

Jeff Leake: 50:45

So for those of you who might think Dave is a Marxist, we just want to tell you, yeah, no, but

Dave Leake: 50:54

it is weird like

Jeff Leake: 50:56

we have to state here is that Dave often plays the role of antagonist in these conversations, right? And he'll we'll walk away from a conversation. He'll say, I know people are gonna think this about what I think. And actually, Davis just doing his job as the prompter of conversation here to represent all points of view

Dave Leake: 51:15

you. So I hear later that you told me somebody said something to you, and I'm like, wait, what?

Jeff Leake: 51:25

Yeah, so this is also part of what we're doing. Like you might also hear me say something giving voice to a point of view, and think, oh, that must be what Jeff thinks. We're really just trying to have an open conversation to dissect some things. And then you'll hear us inject thoughts in there. But please don't pinch, pigeonhole us down to a particular category, because we are truly just trying to represent a thing, the think the culture of heaven in these conversations, I

Dave Leake: 51:51

guess, yeah, so let me just, we'll close in a second. But I guess, like the re just to, just to restate this, I think that it's rare to find people discussing both sides of an issue in their fullest strength, or we're not making straw man arguments where we're not just saying this group people sucks the way they think is the devil, and they're Hitler's and right? You know, like it's rare to do that, and to try to give credit and understand where people are coming from, or, you know, their world views where they might and so I think like getting into nuanced conversations where we can represent both sides in a fair way, and try to understand what is our culture and what actually is scriptural, is helpful, because just because something's cultural doesn't mean it's bad, but it also doesn't mean just because it's cultural, We have it as a value that it is Christ like and so I think the only way to have really good culture creating conversations is to have nuanced, you know, discussions where we fairly represent both sides to the best of our ability,

Jeff Leake: 52:55

where we're humble enough to say, this is what I think I could be wrong. Yeah, exactly. This is how I see this verse of scripture. But I'm not sure I have a full picture on it. Like, this is what this person has said. I'm still making up my mind on that. Like, it's okay to be humble and to listen to another point of view and to come to the table with open minded conversation. We've lost that, yeah, from our society. This is what our this is what our country needs. We need to come back to a place where we can have conversations about things, and we can leave and say, I don't agree with you, but I want to work with you. I don't agree with you, but I love you. I'm for you, I'm behind you. Yeah, I think you're wrong, but, but, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to be your your friend. I think you're wrong, but I'm not going to label you as a you throw the list of all

Dave Leake: 53:46

the labels well, especially if, and you sit down across from somebody, and you know, they're a Democrat or a Republican, and instantly you're like, I'm not even sure if this person's a Christian. I think that's what goes through people's heads, like, based on the very limited factors I know about this person, I question their salvation, and

Jeff Leake: 54:03

then you start making assumptions. Well, I know this person posted this on their social media, so they must agree with everything else. And until you've actually had a conversation with someone, you really don't know what they think. And so, yeah, this is humility, empathy, bridge building, as well as being very much firm on certain things that are unchangeable, right? Like, we're trying to be really clear about even social values that we're not compromising on in any way, shape or form, sure, but at the same time, like, there are certain things the Bible does teach, there are certain things we do believe and and so but representing heaven, that's a heavy responsibility, and how we do that involves not just the right ideology, it involves the right tone and the right attitude and the right kinds of speech. There's so much more to representing heaven than just the right political thoughts. So

Dave Leake: 54:59

that's good. Well, thanks for being a part of this discussion, this sort of two part political discussion that we got into, which is not usually our kind of thing, but yeah, so glad you joined us. As always. I would just love to make the asks that we always do. If you're a part of the regular podcast family, we have the awesome park leadership podcast family, you would really do us a solid by helping us to spread the word, and that could be through a number of ways. If you're on YouTube, you can like and subscribe and hit that bell for notifications. If you you know want to share this with a friend through text or social media, let them says there's that little arrow that you can directly hit, share, send to somebody through text, and obviously, as well on whatever platform you're listening to, if this is a podcast form Spotify, Apple podcasts or whatever else, if you can like and subscribe, sorry, not like and subscribe. If you could leave us a five star review that helps us to spread the word a little bit easier. It only takes maybe three minutes of your time, but it helps us a ton, and we would love to give you a shout out. So yeah, thank you for being a part of this, and we'll see

Jeff Leake: 55:59

you guys again next time. Yep, you.