Podcast, 2022
Craig Harguess
51. Jesus the Anarchist with Alexandre ...

Our Foundations

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42. Is Political Power Devilish with Mark West

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In this episode, Craig speaks with author Mark West about his article, Is Political Power Devilish, and his book, What He Said: Living the Sermon on the Mount Transforming American Culture.

As a self-proclaimed Xvangelical(a term for a former Evangelical who now centers all scripture interpretation on the words and actions of Christ, with a focus on living out His kingdom right now), Mark helps us strip back our political attachment to a nation-state so we may return to Christ’s vision for us, not a politician’s. 

Mark does not want us to deconstruct our faith, but rather renovate it from its complexities so we can refocus on what Jesus said and did. Christ’s challenge for us is not easy, it is hard to love one’s enemy, to turn the other cheek, to not worry about tomorrow, to not outsource our responsibilities as Christians through electing “Christian” leaders to politics, but our call will always be greater than any nation past or to come.

Our King and our Kingdom are not of this world and Mark invites us to rise to this challenge to be the body of Christ in our everyday life, not at a ballot box.


You can connect with Mark and read more of his work at mark4libertas.wordpress.com and purchase his book at markwest-author.com.

TIMESTAMPS:

01:52 What Mark has been up to

  • Spiritual pilgrimage, culminating in his book

  • God Archy, “that’s me in the corner”

    • Mental health advocacy

  • IF YOU NEED HELP, PLEASE REACH OUT

06:13 Covid Anxiety

  • Some people are afraid to reacclimate to public life   

08:38 Deconstruction/Renovation of Faith

  • Not tearing it all down, taking away the bad, but realigning one’s faith with what Jesus actually said

  • Jesus did not go around debating people

  • We make it more complicated but Jesus keeps it simple

11:02 Love your enemy is a command, not a suggestion

  • Your “enemy” should be the hardest person to love, but if you can love them then you can love everyone between you and your enemy as well 

  • Keith Giles, Jesus Untangled

  • Red-letter Christain heretic

  • Simple to understand, hard to do

  • Leave the bad beliefs behind, and renovate the misshapen into something better, that more fully honors God  

 13:59 Renovation of Faith and The Political stance of Christian-Anarchy

  • If you want no government what would you have done about Nazi Germany or Slavery?

    • Nazi Germany and Slavery were made possible via a goverment that assumed power/authority it did not have

  • As Christian Anarchists, we recuse ourselves of using governments to get others to do something, even if it’s the “right” thing

  • Christianity comes before the anarchy

    • Craig: “I’m only an anarchist because I’m a Christain”

17:19 Mark’s Article, Is Political Power Devilish

  • “Exhausted and defeated” - we are worn out by our current political system

  • Mark’s run for Governor

    • Had been preaching twelve sermon series on Sermon on the Mount

    • Felt Christ calling him away from politics, that they were opposite to what Jesus taught

    • Fell into a deep depression 

23:06 Moving away from politics entangled with faith in Jesus

  • Chris Polk

  • Looking to the early church for a model of how to interact with the state

  • The Temptation of Christ

    • Satan tempted him at the end of his fast when he should be weakest

    • Satan offered to give him the authority over all the kingdoms, implying he has the authority over them making them of the devil, not of God

  • Daniel’s prophecy

    • Had an image of all the kingdoms that have existed, and smashes them because Christ’s kingdom is different, it is not of this world

  • The political systems of our world have a violence based authority, while Christ’s kingdom is the anthesis of this

  • “Divine right of kings” is being applied to our political leaders when we think they will lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven

    • Jesus was asked to be king by force and almost killed for refusing, it’s just not our thing as Christians

32:45 Mark’s book: What He Said: Living the Sermon on the Mount Transforming American Culture

  • Why he wrote the book:

    • Felt he received a message while preaching the sermon on the mount a message American Christians really needed to hear

      • What we hear: if we get the right politician or policy or program in place then things will be transformed

        • This gets reduced to solganism and hashtags, “make America Christian again”

      • Jesus said plenty that is good enough and we don’t do it--put the slogans down; he’s calling for a whole life transformation

    • Chapter 8 was the hardest to write

    • Dietrich Bonhoeffer: what the world needs to see is a new monasticism, he saw back in Nazi Germany what we are seeing today in today’s Christianity 

      • Bonhoeffer also wrote on the sermon on the mount

36:50 The Early Church did not seek power

  • They actively helped others rather than electing people to do it

38:32 Chapter 8 - A series of Don’ts

  • Don’t collect earthly treasures, don’t worry about your life, don’t worry about today, and don’t worry about tomorrow 

  • Jesus told us not to worry, and when we worry we get distracted from advancing the Kingdom of Christ

39:32 Don’t collect earthly treasures

  • Matthew 6:19 KVJ

    • When we collect earthly treasures we want to get something from them, we are focused on the wrong treasure, Jesus wants to give not get

    • All our stuff will sit here, collect dust, and go bad - nothing here last

    • In Christ, we can find things that will last forever

  • Pursue the things you can store in heaven

    • The true treasures are the fruits of the spirit in our life

    • The fallacy of the American dream: work hard and get a bunch of stuff, but people are where we get our rewards

  • Mammon - God of material wealth and blessing

    • Can’t have two kings God and Mammon(often translated as money)


43:45 Don’t Worry About Your Life

  • Matthew 6:25 KVJ

  • Jessica Green - being prepared

  • If we are working together we should be able to provide for each other and not worry 

    • We like to make sure we are provided for

  • Mental illness and faith

    • Mental illness is irrational, takes away the ability to see tomorrow coming

    • Jesus is telling us to look at the flowers, the birds, and everything else that works without worry

      • The worry get in the way, when we go to the store and take more than we need, providing for ourselves at the expense of our neighbor, we all have less in the long run

    • Live the kingdom life by thinking about the other

48:12 Don’t worry about today

  •  Matthew 6:31-33 KVJ

    • “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be provided for you”

  • We are called into christ to be a new creature a new creation, all the chasing distracts us and keeps us from what we are supposed to be

  • The real issue with Christians in America is we are not living Kingdom lives

    • Blame LBGTQIA community or entertainment or Donald Trump and Joe Biden

    • If Christians in America lived by the sermon on the mount the country would be transformed

50:09 Don’t Worry About Tomorrow 

  • Matthew 6:34 KVJ

  • “Why worry about tomorrow? Each day has enough trouble of its own”

    • This moment you are in is the most important moment of your life

    • Live in trust that God will keep his promises

51:56 Kindness is Key

  • Matthew 5:5 KVJ

    • “The gentle are blessed for they will inherit the earth”

  • Inheriting does not mean all the possessions and goodies

  • False dichotomy: if I hurt you I will buy you something to make up for it; more stuff makes things better(money, accolades, achievement)

    • All Jesus is calling us to is to be kind

  • Humility to not always have the place you think you deserve  

  • The only thing we are entitled to in the gospel is to have less than our master did(aka Jesus who they killed)

  • Culture of disenchantment among Christians

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41. Is the U.S. Constitution a Christian Document? with Mike Gaddy

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“We the People..” have you ever stopped to consider who was included in that “we”?  

This week Mike Gaddy returns to discuss the question: Is the Constitution a Christian document? Join us for a trip to 1785 Philadelphia where we look inside “the room where it happened” and uncover the possible motives and supposed religiosity of the 55 white men who devised the system that we, two centuries later, are still trying to untangle our basic Liberties from.

Many Christians on the political right, and even the left, considered the United States Constitution to be a Christian document. Yet, the founders avoided consulting with or even making reference to the teachings of Christ or any Deity, Creator, or Higher Power for that matter, in the formation of the Constitution. When we look at what the founders said and did we are left with a very different image of the motives that may have inspired the document that for too long Christians have been misled to see as divine.

You can connect with Mike at rebelmadman.com. He hosts two radio shows, Addicted to Your Own Destruction, (Fridays at 12 PM EST) Forensic Autopsy of Consitution & its Characters, as well as Addicted to Our Own Destruction (6 PM EST) On Rev radio.

Timestamps:

1:35  Mike’s Episode on Succession (Ep. 24)

2:12 Does the Christian-right view the constitution as God-Breathed?

  • It’s important to look at how both sides view the constitution in relation to their Christianity

3:31 What Mike has learned from his studies of the Christian Right and Left

  • Jury Duty selection and biases

  • We should be led by evidence rather than emotion

5:38 Were all the founders Christain?

9:59 Why Mike is so passionate about this topic

  •  Believing something false is going to affect our decision-making process over and over again

  • False narratives don’t bear good fruit

13:10 How did we get to the Constitutional Convention?

17:38 Term Limits

22:26 Term Limits, Taxes, and the Federalist push for the Amending the Articles of Confederation

26:24 Did the founders at the Constitutional Convention act like Christians?

  • “Thou shall not steal” includes taxes

  • Quakers in Philadelphia provided a written proposal to Constitutional Convention asking them to outlaw slavery - given to Tinch Cox (president Quaker foundation) and Benjamin Franklin

    • Was never read to the convention for consideration

    • Antislavery/Abolishing slavery was never discussed

  •  When slavery was discussed:

    • Luther Martin - known drunk, longest sitting attorney general in US, not a Christain by any record

      • On the topic of slavery: “the revolution was grounded in defense of the natural god-given rights possessed by all mankind, but this constitution is an insult to that god who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American slave master.

        • Geroge Mason only one who agreed - calling it a “crime against heaven”

  • Gandhi: I like your Christ but I don’t like your Christianity

  • Were the founders there as delegates to protect the rights of the people or to protect their financial interests?

  • Federalist: Oliver Ellsworth and Robert Livingston “we are not here to discuss moral or religious issues, we are here to discuss commerce”

34:11 Samuel Bryant - The Cloak of Divinity

  • Antifederalist

  • Federalists will have to “cloak their message in divinity to sell it to the American public”

  • The easiest thing is to get people to believe what they want to believe

  • Patrick Henry - Federalist used his Christain image to push the constitution, though he was most vocal against it (the invention of fake news) 

  • 1 Samuel 8 KVJ - choosing a King other than God(probably a bad idea)

39:57 Daniel Dresback (American University Professor) - “one of the most striking features is the absence of the acknowledgment of a supreme deity…”

  • Articles of Confederation and Declaration of Independence included acknowledgments to a supreme being

  • Franklin noted lack of prayers in the second constitutional convention vs. first

  • Alexander Hamilton referred to it’s lack as avoidance of foreign aid

  • 12 of 13 colonies has Christian oaths in their states’ Constitutions; Article 6 Clause 3 Federal Constitution did away with these

  • Flip Wilson - Christians and Lions; Christians got a great coach but their team is shaky

53:33 Henry Abbot - North Carolina ratification convention delegate

  • Foresaw what Article 6 Clause 3 impact would be

54:59 The Fraud of “We the People”

  • The population at the time was about 3 million.

  • The “we” excluded: women, non-land-owning white men, and enslaved people(about 700,000 at the time)  

  • The “we” was about 65,000-80,000 people were eligible to vote out of the 3 million

 57:00 Have things changed since 1787?

  • Constitution created a system

  • Voting as states the 55 delegates rejected a Bill of Rights but made provisions for slavery

  • The first power they gave congress was unlimited taxation from unlimited sources 

59:19 One Verse from New Testament repeated throughout countries founding

  • “Stand fast therefore in the liberty of which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with the yolk of bondage”

  • Did they do this, did they protect the individual, or did they protect their own interest?

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30. Anarchy in Action - A Look at Agorism with Joshua of Our Foundations Podcast

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Is Agorism an ideal that meshes with the teachings of Christ? Are agorism and anarchism similar or are they distinct ideals?

In this episode, Craig talks with Joshua, founder of Our Foundations, a podcast focused on agorism and how it overlaps with Anarchism and true Christianity. Joshua explains how agorism looks in everyday life and how we might implement these principles within society. Joshua draws out the stark contrast in how the first Church, the Church of Jesus, functioned in comparison to how the Church, as a whole, functions today. What is a Freedom Cell and how might you utilize one in your everyday life? Not only does Joshua give us a lot to think about, here provides real-world examples of how he has overcome the challenges of living out Agorism...one of which is the Freedom Cell. 


Links & Starting Points:

1:29 Joshua’s Background 

  • Started digging into economics, political theory, and Bible studies 

  • learned about agorism and related it to political philosophy 

  • started podcast

  • anarchism: political philosophy 

  • agorism: a way of life or applied radical libertarianism 

  • Samuel Edward Konkin 3rd, SEK3

  • grey and black markets

  • red markets: anything involving violence, theft, war

11:00 In the kingdom of God this is our system within the system 

  • impacting the state starts on a personal level 

  • personal responsibility is both anarchism and Christianity 

  • applying these principles in our own life so it can have a personal impact 

12:50. Examples from the early church

  • settle disputes outside of court 

  • Bible gives guidelines for settling disputes outside of the state 

  • welfare is a personal and church responsibility 

  • if modern Christians viewed the church the way they view the state things would be completely different 

  • the church, as a whole, doesn’t exist the way Jesus intended 

20:20 Christians want to outsource responsibility to the state 

  • it is a church on individual responsibility 

  • society has been taught to obey and respect and authority without question: teacher, textbooks, experts 

31:20 Historical Patterns/Cycles 

  • Vin Armani and the Dim Age 

  • leaving material age, entering mystical age 

  • spiritual focus 

  • disregards fact of Bible or science 

  • technology: cell phones, artificial intelligence, genetic therapy, MRNA vaccine 

  • The Church is awakening a new religion. 

  • going against it will and you will be ridiculed, fired, blacklisted 

  • people are searching for spirituality 

  • true Christianity is something that will fill the void

51:43 Agorism group and Freedom Cells

  • online platform for like-minded people to organize 

  • a way to develop real local connections 

58:05 Joshua’s Plugs