Episode 059 – How the Beatitudes Could Save the World and Us. (With Dr. Bradley Jersak)

An offhand comment by Dr. Jersak prompted this conversation. “We’re pushing back against the construction of a Christianity that’s the opposite of the Beatitudes. For those who don’t want to be susceptible to the lure of power-over Christianity, I recommend praying the Beatitudes every day . . . it is a furnace of discernment like none other.” Woah…

In a world where Christian leaders and many of their followers are increasingly espousing structures of power-over, saying empathy is a sin, and even co-opting the language of “Godly Hate,”² For instance, “Christians must recover the lost virtue of Hatred. If not, Christianity will survive, but the West will be finished.” – Pastor Joel Webbon, Twitter message, May 19, 2025. there is a real urgency to re-center our practice on Jesus’ teaching in the Beatitudes.

Show Notes

In this conversation, Dr. Bradley Jersak and I explore the urgent need for Christians to re-center themselves in the Beatitudes as a guide for spiritual growth, ethical living, and community engagement. The need for this has only increased with the rise of Power-over ideologies such as Christian Nationalism, and forms of Christianity that are denying the way of Jesus in their actions.

Takeaways

• 
  
• Praying the Beatitudes can lead to personal transformation.
  
• Kenosis, or self-emptying, is a key aspect of living out the Beatitudes.
  
• Christian nationalism and all forms of power-over ideology contradict the teachings of Jesus, and this can be most clearly seen in the Beatitudes.
  
• The Beatitudes call for a radical rethinking of patriotism and can counteract misguided theology.
  
• A commitment to praying the Beatitudes regularly will serve as a “furnace of discernment” for wise discernment of what is truly “the word of the Lord” in our lives.
  

Recommended Resources

• 
  
• The Ladder of the Beatitudes, by Jim Forest.
  
• Beatitudes: When Mountain Meets Valley, by Ron Dart.
  
• Are We Done Fighting: Building Understanding in a World of Hate and Division, by Matthew Legge.
  

• 
  
• Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.
  
• You can also watch and share the video version on YouTube.
  

More about My Conversation Partner
Dr. Bradley Jersak

Bradley is an author and teacher based in Abbotsford, BC. He currently serves as the Principal of St. Stephen’s University in New Brunswick, where he continues as the Dean and faculty member of SSU’s School of Theology & Culture. He also teaches peace studies courses with the Jim Forrest Institute. Through his books and seminars, Brad shares the good news that God is Love, perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ, and that God’s love heals wounded hearts and empowers us to heal this broken world.

Find Bradley Here

• 
  
• Website: https://bradjersak.com/
  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradley.jersak
  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradley.jersak/
  
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@bradley.jersak
  

Today’s Sponsor

• 
  
• YOU! Via your support of My Writing – After being nagged by a number of friends, I’ve opened a means for you to directly support my writing work. Making this podcast takes time and money, and it’s possible because people like you buy what I create. I’ve been asked how folks can support my writing when there’s no new book out. So, here it is: I’m opening up patron support. Instead of using Patreon (which takes a cut), I’ve set up a similar subscription system myself. Here are the tiers:
  
• LISTENER TIER (Free):
  
  • 
    
  • Get my monthly-ish email newsletter, Apprenticeship Notes, and updates about new releases. Perfect if you want to keep up with my work but can’t commit financially.
    
  
  
  
• READER TIER ($5/month or $50/year):
  
  • 
    
  • Includes the newsletter and access to a monthly Spiritual Life Virtual Round Table—about nine times a year. These are private gatherings with presentations and discussions on spiritual and theological topics, sometimes with special guests. The first is June 20th on “Mammon,” featuring Rev. Matt Tebbe.
    
  
  
  
• SPONSOR TIER ($12/month or $120/year):
  
  • 
    
  • All previous benefits plus a free book from me each year—either my latest, one you missed, or a hand-picked recommendation.
    
  
  
  
• BENEFACTOR TIER ($40/month or $400/year+):
  
  • 
    
  • All previous benefits, plus a spot on my Shareholder Team with access to an annual meeting where I share updates, goals, and invite your input on new projects.
    
  
  
  
• You’ll always be able to access my newsletter, podcast, and essays for free. But if you want to support my work further, now you can. Thank you!
  

Transcription

Marc Schelske 0:05
Hey, friends. I’m Marc Alan Schelske, and this is The Apprenticeship Way, a podcast about spiritual growth, following the way of Jesus. This is episode 59: “How the Beatitudes Could Save Us and The World.”

SPONSOR

Today’s podcast is made possible by, well, me. It’s me, hi. I’m the problem. It’s me. Most of the time, the sponsors of this podcast are just other things that I make and sell–my books, my writer’s retreat, events I’m doing, stuff like that. The reason why I list these as sponsors is because the truth is that making a podcast like this takes time and money, and the only reason I can do it is because people like you buy things that I make. Well, increasingly, there have been folks out there in my extended community who’ve asked me about how to support my writing when there isn’t a new book to buy. Frankly, I’ve avoided answering that question because of my own insecurities and fears. Who am I to ask for support for my work? But a few of you have leaned hard on me. So here we go.

The sponsor today is me, my writing, all of my work to help people have a healthy inner life and spiritual journey following the other-centered, co-suffering way of Jesus. For many of you, maybe most, the best way to support me is to hang around, right? To watch the podcast, to read the essays on my website, and to buy a book when one comes out. Don’t worry, a new one’s coming out in September. You’ll hear more about that soon. You’ll have a chance to get it. But if you’ve wanted to support my work outside of that, well, here’s your chance.

I am opening up an invitation to patron support. Now, you may have encountered this through the website Patreon, which lots of creative people use. Well, Patreon, that service, they take between 8-12% of what people give, plus merchant processing fees, which is about 3%, so that’s a lot. When someone is giving you $20 to support you, giving 15% of that to the service that provides the connection, that’s a lot, and it doesn’t feel like good stewardship. So I’ve built something similar to Patreon, but on a system that takes only the merchant fees, the 3%. So what does this mean, especially if you don’t know what Patreon is?

Well, simply put, you subscribe to support my work for a monthly or annual recurring fee. I get a donation from you that goes to basically buy time for me to do more of this work. And what do you get? Well, mostly, you get the satisfaction of knowing that your gift is allowing me more hours to write, where I don’t have to take side gigs to support my family. But also, there are some cool benefits. So here’s the tiers of my support system, then you can pick one that seems to make sense for you.

The first is the Listener Tier. This level is free–no cost. You get my monthly (monthly-ish) email newsletter, Apprenticeship Notes, and you give me permission to email you when I have new things for sale, like a book. This is perfect for anyone who wants to keep up with my writing but isn’t in a place to commit to a monthly subscription fee. If you’re here right now listening to this podcast and you like what you’re hearing, you’re finding it helpful–that means you should be a Listener level subscriber at least.

Now, if you want to support me financially, there are three options. The second tier is the Reader Tier. This level is $5 a month or $50 a year. You get my monthly-ish newsletter, just like the free tier, but you’ll also be invited to this new thing that I’m doing just for financial supporters.

I’m hosting a monthly-ish Spiritual Life Virtual Round Table. So, monthly-ish again, about nine times a year, because I scale back in the summer, I’ll host a virtual gathering where I will present, or I’ll lead a discussion on a topic related to healthy inner life, spiritual life, or theology. The topics for these conversations will be drawn from the interest shown by suggestions made by supporters like you. So people who back at this level will get to suggest topics they’d like to discuss, and then I will do the work to prepare, and I’ll also try my best to find subject matter experts to join the conversation that may include professors, theologians, and authors of books, who can be in this conversation with us, guide us, answer our questions. Now, this event is intended to be small. Only supporters are going to be invited. That means everyone’s going to have the opportunity to be seen, to be heard, to ask their questions. This isn’t going to be available to the general public. It’s not going to be recorded or streamed to the public. It’s going to be a private conversation, which means it will be a great place for asking questions, tackling difficult issues, and maybe even getting in the room with an author or someone else that I invite to be a subject matter expert.

So, the first one of these is coming up soon, June 20, and the topic will be Mammon. Mammon, that biblical word for the spiritual power of money. How can followers of Jesus deal with the spiritual power of money that seems to run our nation? The Reverend Matt Tebbe will be our special guest, walking us through that topic. He hosts the Gravity Commons podcast, along with some of his friends, and he is really interested in this topic. He’s working on a book on it. How can we deal with this spiritual Power and Principality of money and the desire for money that seems to run our lives? If you want to be in that conversation, then you need to be a paid subscriber at this tier or above.

The third tier is the Sponsor tier. This level is $12 a month, or $120 a year. You get the newsletter. You get an invite to those Spiritual Life Round Tables, and you also get a free book from me every single year that you remain a subscriber. It could be my newest book, It could be one of my older books. Or if you already have all my books, then I will have a conversation with you about what’s going on in your spiritual life, and I will pick out a recommended read just for you and send it to you–ebook or paperback, whichever you prefer.

Then the last tier–and this is just for the crazy people who believe in me more than I believe in myself– this is the Benefactor tier. It’s $40 a month, or $400 a year, or any higher amount that you want to commit. So you get all the previous benefits, the newsletter, the Virtual Roundtable, the annual free book, but you will also be part of my Shareholder Team. You’ll be a part of an annual Marc-Schelske-The-Writer shareholder meeting. At that meeting, I will update you on my writing year, my goals for the next year, and what my current projects are. I’ll ask for your input on new projects. I’ll share some of the most inspiring results of my writing journey. You will have truly insider access to my writing life and where that is headed. So that’s the scoop. Now you can always get my newsletter, listen to my podcast, read my online essays, that’s all free, that’s all available for anyone, but if you want to help me expand my capacity to write, then now you’ve got a way to do that. And if you do… man, blessings upon you.

INTRODUCTION

The last podcast episode, about two months ago, was a panel discussion that I hosted as part of launching my new book, Walking Otherward. I wanted to have a discussion about how Jesus’ way of Other-centered, Co-suffering love might serve us in the current climate of division, antagonism, and lust for power. And so I invited three friends that I respect to discuss this question with me, Pastor Brian Zahnd, Dr Bradley Jersak, and Susan Carson. I titled that discussion “Following Jesus in the Face of Political Panic, Christian Supremacy and Creeping Fascism.” Now, if you haven’t listened to it yet, I recommend it to you. It seems like the conversation becomes more urgent and more relevant every passing day.

But about halfway through that conversation, Bradley, my friend and conversation partner today, made this comment. He said, “It seems to me that the thing we’re pushing back against is the construction of a Christianity that’s the opposite of the Beatitudes. For those who don’t want to be susceptible to the lure of Power-over Christianity, a Christianity built out of the desire to have power over others, I recommend praying the Beatitudes every day. It is a furnace of discernment like none other. There is no power-over theology or prophecy that can get through those first three Beatitudes. They will be fried before you get there. It is such an amazing shield of faith.” Well, we just moved right on from that and went on to discuss other things, but Bradley’s words rang like a tuning fork in my spirit.

I committed right then in that conversation to start praying the Beatitudes regularly. I wrote a responsive prayer based on the Beatitudes that our little church prayed at the close of every gathering through this entire season of Lent. I’ve included the Beatitudes in my own daily prayer liturgy. In the confusion and uncertainty of the moment we find ourselves in, Bradley’s suggestion felt to me like a needed anchor, and so I asked if he would come back to the podcast and have a conversation with me about the Beatitudes as a practice to anchor us in this present moment.

Dr. Bradley Jersak is the principal of St Stephen’s University, Director of St Stephen’s University School of Theology and Culture, and professor of religious studies with the Jim Forest Institute. He lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia, with his wife, Eden, who co-pastors the Bridge Church. He’s written over 20 books, including academic works, theology, and philosophy, and his must-read More Christlike trilogy, which I highly recommend to you.

Bradley’s a smart guy, and some of the vocabulary terms that pop up in this conversation are $64 words. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, here are some definitions to keep in mind. You’ll hear the idea of kenosis or kenotic theology mentioned. So these words come from a Greek word that Paul uses in Philippians 2 to describe Jesus’ Incarnation–kenao. That word means “to pour out” or “to empty.” So, kenosis is the kind of love that is pouring-out love, the self-sacrificial love. Kenotic theology is the theological framework that sees self-sacrificial love as the decisive quality of God. Just a side note. This is the big theological word that is used for the same thing I’m talking about when you hear me use the phrase, other-centered, co-suffering love. Bradley will also use the term kenarchy. This word derives from kenosis, and it refers to a form of government or a form of human organization that is governed by relationship and love. We’ll also talk about hegemony, but Bradley stops and defines it quite well, so I’ll just flag that and make sure you pay attention to the definition when it comes. All right. I started our conversation by asking Bradley how the Beatitudes have come to be so important to him.

THE CONVERSATION

Dr. Bradley Jersak 11:59
Well, thanks, Marc. I appreciate the question, How did these become so important to me? I do suppose that some of that was when I married into a Mennonite Church. They had a very gospel-centered theology, in a way that contrasted with the more Pauline emphasis when I was growing up. And I don’t mean that to say that they’re in competition. However, what I learned in the first twenty years about the Sermon on the Mount was that it was to lead us to almost despair, so that we would not actually obey it, but cast ourselves on Grace. Luther, or one of his disciples, had said that they were not really expected or invited to obey the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, to do so is sort of a denial of grace. This was Bonhoeffer’s critique as a Lutheran of a certain way of setting aside the practice of the Sermon on the Mount.

When I joined the Mennonites, and I was a pastor there for ten years, I saw how week after week after week, this was the ethical center of what they regarded following Jesus looks like. Within the Sermon on the Mount itself, we have what some would call the constitution of the kingdom of God. From Jesus’ own words: Who’s the wise person who builds their house on the rock? It’s the one who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. That is not an invitation to cast myself onto grace because they’re impracticable. It is a call to follow Jesus, and that will look like these three chapters.

Now, I began to have that permeate my heart and life in a way that actually transformed me into, for example, someone who who had justified militarism and had my own kind of Just War Theory, into seeing that this was incompatible with what Jesus had called us to in the Sermon on the Mount. Then I began going on mountain hikes with Ron Dart. He’s a mentor of mine. He was the fellow who taught me mountain climbing. He also ended up supervising my PhD dissertation. A huge center of his teaching is the mountain and valleys of the Beatitudes that begin the Sermon on the Mount. He talked about going up hills and down hills and also used the analogy of respiration. There’s an inhale and an exhale to this. There’s a rhythm in these words of Jesus that, if we pay attention to them, will be transformed into blessed peacemakers who hunger and thirst for justice, who exude the mercy of God. And it just hooked my heart.

Then I discovered that in the Eastern Orthodox Church, it’s supposed to be a part of our daily prayer practice. So I’m like, well… then I’ll do that. I do think it’s the most important part of my prayer life. Actually, may I just cite them to you?

Marc Schelske 14:59
Yeah.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 14:59
I want to do it how I would do it when I pray, which is I introduce them from the perspective of the thief on the cross, who says to Jesus, when He has nothing to offer, “Jesus Christ, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And then, I begin to pray the Beatitudes, but the first one then is like Jesus’ answer to me. “Remember me when You come into Your come into your kingdom,” and he looks at me, that good thief, and he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek. They will inherit the land or the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice or righteousness (same word in Greek), they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.” Not just get it back, but it will become part of their character. Blessed are the pure in heart. They will see God, and it’s only when you’ve had your heart cleansed then you can actually go into “Blessed are the peacemakers,” otherwise you’re a red-eyed, angry activist. The peacemakers will be called children of God. Not the Christians! Peacemakers will be called children of God.

And of course, once you do that, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness or justice. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And then he kind of departs from the rhythm. But we’ll add it because it’s another blessed there. “Blessed are those–you–who are persecuted, maligned, those who speak lies about you and evil about you for my sake. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for so they treated the prophets who came before you.” Then he goes into, and I pray this part too, “You’re the salt of the world, and you’re the light of the world, and let your light so shine.” Well, what would that look like? Oh, he’s just told us, right? The Beatitudes. This is what salt looks like. This is what light looks like. This is what Jesus’ version of the Fruit of the Spirit looks like. I commend that for daily prayer. It’s not so hard to add it to your phone as a daily reminder, and to take the one minute of your day to fill your hearts with something that actually looks like Jesus.

Marc Schelske 17:08
It seems such a different place to root your prayer. I wasn’t in a liturgical tradition, if you don’t count childhood liturgy, you know, “Now I lay me down to sleep” sorts of things. I didn’t have any liturgical prayers in my repertoire. I think my dad preached a sermon on the ACTS model of prayer. So Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and then at the end, once you’ve done that, then you can have your grocery list of prayer requests. Or, if you’re more elevated than that, it’s all the different people you’re praying for. You know, families and the pastor and missionaries and the president. God be with all those folks. All of those prayers are really, with the exception of “Jesus, forgive me for my sins,” all those prayers are really about a desire for God to make a change in the world, to change circumstances for somebody that I love, or to change circumstances in my life, or to change circumstances in the world. There wasn’t very much in the way I was taught to pray that had to do with formation. The formation was that you should pray. Christians should pray. This is what you should do. But praying the Beatitudes is pretty explicitly a formational process. You’re asking for the change in you.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 18:23
Yeah, it’s strange because you’re using Jesus’ words, but the way you’re doing this, you’re taking his words and you’re praying them into the soil of your own heart. “Oh, he said this. Plant that there. He said this. Plant that there.” So it’s an interesting kind of praying. It’s not the only praying I do, but there’s this real sense that I’m installing something.

So we’ve talked about a furnace. I love your analogy of the tuning fork. That’s just brilliant to me. It’s like, “Ding!” What has the resonance of truth to it? What harmonizes with the life of Christ? One thing I’ll say about it is that when Ron took me up the mountain, he really wanted me to know that the first half of each Beatitude–Blessed are the, you know, poor in spirit, mourning, meek… He went further than people like Dallas Willard, who sort of treated the first half as “Blessed are the losers.” Dallas Willard was in touch with this idea that these Beatitudes are for the outcasts, are for the outsiders, are for those outside the threshold of the In Crowd. But what Ron wanted to say is that there’s something deeper going on here besides being marginalized.

We do get pushback. There will be people who say, “Well, these aren’t virtues or something. This is like your need.” Well, that’s one level of reading it. But as you climb the mountain of the Beatitudes, you realize these are aspects of the life of Christ. So Benedict XVI called it “A veiled Autobiography of the life of Christ.” He’s telling you in words, and then will fulfill it with his life every day, and then ultimately. In His death and resurrection, what the Blessed One looks like. The Blessed One dies and rises again. But it’s not just the day of my actual death or martyrdom. What Pope Benedict said was that the Beatitudes transpose the death and resurrection of Jesus into the daily life of a Christian disciple. So he would say the first half of each Beatitude, Jesus fulfilled this in his way of living, which was dying, and his way of dying, which is his passion. He fulfilled the first half of each of those as his death, and then the second half of each Beatitude is the resurrection life of Jesus.

So, yours is the kingdom of heaven, right? You lay down your life and you receive the Kingdom, but then Benedict is saying, “What would that look like for someone who’s dying daily?” What would someone look like who is living in the resurrection power of Christ daily? So it’s the daily deaths and resurrections. It’s all there in the first one. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” those kenotic…

Marc Schelske 20:50
Right? Yeah!

Dr. Bradley Jersak 20:51
Emptying oneself–the way Ron Dart would put it is learning to say no to the demands of the ego, or even bankrupting the ego. So when Simone Weil talks about the first Beatitude, she compares it to Philippians 2. She says, in the first Beatitude, “Blessed are those (in French, she goes) who voided themselves—voided themselves! Then Philippians 2, she said, be like Jesus. Instead of grasping at privilege, he voided himself. So she makes a direct connection to that self-emptying.

Marc Schelske 21:51
Right, Okay.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 21:52
Self-will is just emptied in Jesus, and especially, you see it in the Garden of Gethsemane. And so she says, “This is what Jesus means by ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,'” Bankrupted egos, saying no to the demands of my cravings.

Marc Schelske 22:07
That’s so good. So I have never, before this moment, thought of the Beatitudes applying to Jesus, which is sort of weird to me. I had a very, very significant theophany moment with First Corinthians 13, going, “Hey, what if this is describing how God loves?” And, even the Fruit of the Spirit. What if this is describing the nature that we see in Christ? The faith of my childhood implicitly said that there is a way of being that Jesus was, which is special and holy, and elevated. He’s the sinless one, and like your narration earlier on, we can’t even aspire to that. That’s not for us. Jesus did what we couldn’t do, and therefore our only avenue is resting in the grace that God offers us, and our access to that is through what happens with Penal Substitutionary Atonement, and aren’t you glad?

Dr. Bradley Jersak 23:01
Imputed righteousness, instead of walking in it.

Marc Schelske 23:04
Right, exactly. So the Beatitudes have always been this sort of annoying enigma. You read them and you’re like, “This is really hard. It doesn’t seem practical. The only people who could really do this have to be retired saintly grandmas and monks, because they live in an environment where other people deal with all the hard stuff.” Kind of dismissed, really. Obviously, they’re words of Jesus; We can’t dismiss them, but dismissed in the sense that there is any direct sort of application. And yet, my heritage also has a very strong move toward the Imitation of Christ. We want to grow up to be like Jesus. We take on Paul’s language of maturing in the image. That is something we should be attempting, aspiring to, in grace, through the power of the Spirit.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 23:53
In grace, through the power of the Spirit, yeah. There can be a sense in which these are just another set of new laws. I mean, they should be what we’re fighting to have in the schools as over against the Ten Commandments. But no one ever does that. Why is that?

But I also want to say it is fruit. You know, it’s the Jesus version of the Fruit of the Spirit. “If you walk with me, these things will wear off on you. My character is going to transform you. You just walk with me.” And so it’s not an imitation apart from transformation; it’s from an inside-out living with Jesus. These things are going to begin to emerge.

Marc Schelske 24:33
Right.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 24:33
And I also like to normalize them. They can be for the super-spiritual, hyper monk or something, but then you just start thinking about each one, right? The poor in spirit, the one who puts others ahead of their own interests, the mother who will rock the baby when she just wants to sleep. That’s saying no to ego, right? And then, you know, mourning, Anyone can do that, but maybe, we could sit and mourn with others. It’s not just mourning for my sins. How about sitting with those who are mourning and learn to co-suffer with them. That’s not rocket science. There’s a hospice down the road where you can go to practice this. Meekness, that’s just gentleness, right? How can I be gentle with people? Well, that is hard. It takes transformation, takes grace, but it’s ultra practical, and it’s super normalized in real life.

Marc Schelske 24:34
Well, to even think of Jesus’ life through this sequence, right? You can just go down and go, “yes, of course, of course.” These are things he did, of course. And even the meek one, people react. Certainly, Americans react badly to the idea, thinking of it as sort of being a sacred call to being a doormat. Yet, Jesus is a great example of someone that we would not consider weak, but who is meek in his interactions with folks.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 25:59
Yeah, in fact, there’s this miscalculation where modern Christians and scholars have sometimes treated Greek as a very abstracted philosophical language as over against Hebrew. And it’s just simply not true. The Greek words used in this, regardless of what language Jesus spoke initially, are very pictorial. So the idea of meekness goes back to this: You take a wild horse with all of its rippling power in those giant muscles. It’s ready for war, but you domesticate it so beautifully that a child can feed it a sugar cube without being bitten or trampled. That’s meekness. What does that look like in the real world?

Well, in the real world, it looked like this. At Fresh Wind Church, when we were leading it, there was an ex-con there who was probably a participant in murder. He was a violent man, including violence against women. He’d been through prison, and he’d come out, and was overcoming his addictions. Eventually, a meekness had come over him that was only explainable by grace. Women would bring their crying children for him to hold. Okay, this is not doormat stuff. This is a powerful, violent man being transformed by the love of Jesus Christ into someone who wouldn’t harm a baby. He might still harm another gang member, but you know, that’s a start, right?

Marc Schelske 27:26
You have this experience of having this prayer be a daily, ongoing part of your life. You use the idea of sort of planting seeds in your own soul for this kind of transformation. So let’s talk about how this might be a resource for Christians today. A lot of folks are finding themselves in this place that feels very unmoored. Expectations that we have been used to having about what it means to be Christian are being toppled. We’re seeing Christian leaders who are making a shift in their language in a direction that feels very much like a pursuit of a kind of Christian hegemony, a pursuit of Christian authority in the political or social environment. For many of us, this feels antithetical to the way of Jesus. It feels like somehow this way of seeing Christianity, or this blending of Christian language and Christian practice with national patriotism, blending those things in a way where there’s this motive for a certain kind of Christianity to become dominant and in power in the country. Certainly, we know that it has been a temptation across church history. This is not new to us, but some of us are waking up to the fact that it feels present right now in a way that we have not been used to experiencing. Okay, so given that context, how might the practice of praying the Beatitudes be an anchor in that moment?

Dr. Bradley Jersak 28:59
I think we should start with a word you used, because the answer is right inside the word, and it’s a word not everyone recognizes, perhaps. You use the word hegemony. For those who don’t know that word, I want to give a basic definition. A hegemony is a kind of empire that accumulates resources to its center to increase its power over those on the outside. So this is what would happen. The British Empire, they would travel the seven seas. They would colonize these other nations, and they would take their resources back to England. Those resources then made England even more powerful. So, it is pulling resources into yourself to increase your power over the other. That’s a hegemony. What Jesus is describing as God’s kingdom and the character of those who practice Beatitude living, is the very opposite of that. Self-giving, kenosis, is a self-emptying of resources into the world, sowing what we have out there. And who knew? The kingdom of God advances and grows in the power of love, not through power-over but through service and foot washing and kissing the leper.

So when you use hegemony, that’s exactly the problem, anywhere a church has reverted from the kenarchy of Jesus, his self-giving kingdom, other-centered love, and become a hegemony. You’re not understating it. It is antithetical to Christ and His way. It is in direct opposition to God’s kingdom. And at that stage, I don’t know what the red line is for lamps being removed from the lampstand…

Marc Schelske 30:45
Right, right! Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 30:47
But we used to think about it in terms of a hypothetical. Now I think we’re probably seeing it in real time. That’s really dangerous. And so I’m just going to back up. This has now permeated the land to the point where it’s harder and harder to identify with the Christian brand, because it’s antithetical to Christ in great ways. But where I first ran into it would have been in the prophetic movement. I really believe that God speaks today. I believe and practice hearing his voice, and I believe that’s a ministry that our churches can participate in. What happened, and I can locate it in time, especially through the renewal movement. There was a lot of good stuff happening, but it inherited a kind of prophetic ministry that was grandiose. And it would say encouraging things, but like grandiose things like this, “Marc, the Lord would say to you, go get your passport, because he’s going to make you an apostle to the nations. And he’s going to make you a history maker. And he’s going to make you great, blah, blah, blah.” It was all very much around flattering your ego.

Marc Schelske 32:06
Yeah, bigness, big things, big accomplishments.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 32:08
I see big things for you, very big things. Marc, so I learned a few things the hard way. After resentment, grandiosity is the number two cause of relapse among addicts, because grandiosity makes you think you’re above the rules, so you feel a sense of entitlement to use and abuse. Well, guess what the prophets did? They entitled us to use and abuse. They were just describing how to have a hegemony.

We were also really into fire. Lord, come with your fire, the fire of the spirit, the fire. They love that stuff. I love that stuff. But then I read in Proverbs, “The word of the Lord is pure, like silver refined in the fire seven times.” So I’m like, “What is the fire that will refine the word of the Lord?” And I thought, if I install the beatitudes in my heart as a furnace, and I pass every one of these charismatic or renewal-based prophetic words through the fire of the Beatitudes, almost nothing gets through. Poverty of spirit, Mourning, and Meekness? Grandiosity will be ashes by the time it gets there, and therefore, that is not the pure word of the Lord.

So, I would go into renewal churches, and I’d say, “Oh, we really want to engage the prophetic this weekend, and we want to be accurate prophets, and we don’t want tobe deceived. I don’t want to be deceived. Come back Sunday, and I’ll give you the Seventh Fire.” And then I would just teach them the beatitudes. Then I realized, as I’m doing this, it was not only necessary for a reformation of that one little stream of prophetic movement, but now in our world, this is a problem everywhere. It’s so broad that every Christian in the world should be praying the Beatitudes every day. This may be the antidote to Christian nationalism, because Christian Nationalism is a hegemony.

Marc Schelske 34:04
There are certainly folks who haven’t spent time with the academic language. You know, they hear “Christian nationalism,” and they’re like, “Oh, I’m not allowed to love my country. Is that what you’re saying?” No, no, no, that’s not it. But then, instead of being vague, the Beatitudes would actually say, “here’s a practical vision.” What would it look like to love your country as a person who is poor in spirit? What would it look like to love your country in a way that is peacemaking? In a way that hungers and thirsts for righteous and just behavior? Right? That, right there, reveals the problem of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism does not ultimately care about right and just behavior. It only cares about behavior that elevates itself, right?

Dr. Bradley Jersak 34:41
Yep.

Marc Schelske 34:41
So, if the Beatitudes call me to be a person who hungers for right and just behavior, then my loving my country is going to begin to look different. Maybe I’m going to become the kind of person who wants to hold my country accountable when my country behaves in ways that are neither right nor just. Maybe I will become the kind of person who wants to see my country invest its resources more in peace-making rather than in war-making. I may identify that I have a deep love of my country. I might use the word patriot, but the tone of what that means is gonna be different having passed through, in your language, this furnace.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 35:18
Totally. Just to help people with some definitions here, then. A patriot is somebody who loves their country. Even if you consider yourself a citizen of heaven in exile, we’re still called to bless the country we’re in all the ways we can. This is Jeremiah. He says, “The Lord says, you’re in exile. Go ahead. Buy Houses, marry wives, have businesses, and just make sure that you are a blessing to the land that I planted you.” And that’s not a problem. You could say I’m a patriot of Canada, in that sense. I care about what happens here, and I want to speak into it, because I want it to thrive, right?

But Christian Nationalism is another thing. First of all, it’s an -ism. An -ism is an ideology, and it’s not just Nationalism, but let’s start there. Nationalism is about the dominance of a people group. So German Nationalism is not patriotism of Germany. It is that the Germanic peoples would dominate all of the countries where they’re planted. So that’s why Germany needed to take over Austria and Czechoslovakia, and Poland. And it was a hegemony because it needed the resources to feed the German nationals, so they’re pulling in these resources. So Nationalism is about people groups. Christian nationalism, then, is about the dominance of a Christian nation, usually white, but it’s about dominance. It’s about power-over. Like Christians should have power over America or Canada. They should have power over the government. They should be in charge, to the exclusion of others. That’s not exactly patriotism in any way. It’s dominance versus kenosis.

Marc Schelske 36:57
That connection to kenosis is such a good one because it contextualizes the invitation of the Beatitudes in a way that makes kenosis–the pouring out from Philippians 2–so much more tangible. What does it mean for me to be a person living out this kind of kenotic love? What does that really look like?

Dr. Bradley Jersak 37:18
Yeah,

Marc Schelske 37:19
I’m presently not being invited to be crucified. So, what does that look like for me? And then the Beatitudes say, well, it might look like not being driven by ego. It might look like intentionally looking for ways to make peace. It might look like desiring, craving, coveting right and just behavior in your community and being part of that. Those are much more tangible. And then I think of ways we can begin in our own circumstances, thinking about how I make a difference where I find myself? Well, these are some very practical ways. Your offhand comment earlier was sort of mind-breaking. What would it be like if every Christian were praying this prayer every day? Because it seems like a lot would have to change about the nature of our way of engaging the world,

Dr. Bradley Jersak 38:05
Yeah, and even just to pray it mindlessly, because you never know what’ll grow down there, right? I do have people ask, “Are you saying then that there’s no place for participation in government?” Oh, no, but it’s a participation of civil servanthood. So my father was a civil servant in the government for 40 years, helping farmers who were going bankrupt not to hang themselves, helping small businesses with some funding so they could hire summer students who couldn’t find jobs otherwise, and helping little communities apply for grants so they could have their museum or their library or their smallest bridge in town upgraded. I mean, that’s quite practical. It’s not non-engagement. It’s just service-focused rather than power-focused.

Marc Schelske 38:51
It seems like even just the one Beatitude, you know, hungering and thirsting for righteousness–if we understand that dikaiosynē encompasses both what we think of as holy living and just living, equitable living towards those around you. Wouldn’t that open up a pretty constructive path if someone were like, “I want to be on city council.” Okay, great. Go be on the city council as a person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Yeah. I would love my school board, my city council, the guy who runs the water district, I would love all those to be people who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Seems like that would be a benefit to all of us.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 39:27
Yeah. So, for example, the mayor of my city right now really cares about homeless people. He ran a service station, and he just saw two blocks away the homeless camps, and then he got on the city council. He said “I don’t know what to do, but let’s talk about, let’s have a conversation.” And now we elected a mayor, and he’s making tangible efforts to care for the most vulnerable people in our community right now, and I love it. He’s using his space in self-giving service, rather than power-over dominance.

Marc Schelske 40:02
This is so intriguing to me. I think that in the formation of the kind of Christianity I grew up in, we certainly cared about people’s behavior. I mean, sometimes way too much, in ways that seem unhealthy now. But that formation was really more about becoming skilled in certain Christian practices, right? Like becoming good at studying the Bible in a certain way, becoming good at retaining Bible verses in your memory, and becoming good at participating in certain kinds of church events. And even then, when you had gifts–you know, I’m a musician, so what’s one of the best things you can do as a Christian musician? Well, you use it to help the church service. So, you become part of the church service. Even to the point that, I think, folks whose gifts weren’t the kind of gifts that show up on stage very well could sometimes feel like there really wasn’t a place for them to be Christian, to enact their gifts for the body. The Beatitudes present a formation that’s really not about any of that. The point here is not to become more skilled at your Christian practices. The point is, I mean, is this crazy to say–to become more like Jesus?

Dr. Bradley Jersak 41:22
Yeah, II Corinthians 3, towards the end, it says, anyone who turns to the Lord, they’re going to behold Him. And as they behold Him, the end of beholding is that they’ll be transformed, transfigured into the image of Christ. So, I behold Him, and that’s what changes me. Well, anybody can either read or hear the Jesus of the gospel. That’s a way to behold Him. It is about saying, “I’m gonna follow Jesus. I’m gonna watch how he did it. I’m going to let that rub off on me. I’m going to let him–his words and his actions–change how I see people.” What’ll happen is that you won’t read very far into the Sermon on the Mount until you’re like, “Well, wait a minute. But what about this? And I don’t know about that?”

So, one of the great griefs I have about our culture right now is how I can spout the very words of Jesus without commentary in a conversation, and the percentage of Christians who who reject what he says is assaulting So, for example… oh, I always try to quote the fellow who who did this study because it’s good to give credit, but his name has slipped my mind. He’s a Church Health Consultant who goes to churches all over. Hundreds of churches, and they range from conservative to progressive, and he always likes to put those words in front of them. He’ll say, you know, how do you feel about these words? Your enemies, bless them, pray for them, forgive them. The percentages, after thousands of surveys in churches where the people doing them were active. These are the people who show up for a Church Health Conference, not the Sunday or even Christmas Christians. 74% of conservatives said that it is compromising with unrighteousness, and 72% of progressives said that it is complicity with injustice. So these are active Christians across the spectrum, at almost three-quarters, who don’t like these words. Well, neither do I, but just stay there then and undergo them, and let them press on you. Argue with Jesus about it. Ask your whatabouts. But then let these words talk. This is the amazing thing. If we sit with the things that discomfort us rather than evade them or interpret them away, it might help us to change.

Marc Schelske 43:23
That feels really wise and helpful in this moment. I think that most of us would say, if I’m going to pray a passage from scripture, it would be a lot more comforting to pray the 23rd Psalm. There are passages like that that soothe my limbic system and help me visualize a better future, and I want to pray those because they feel more comforting. But the Beatitudes are inviting us to be part of the process of bringing comfort to the world.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 44:33
Yeah.

Marc Schelske 44:35
There’s a lot about the way the world is that’s uncomfortable. It’s a uniquely modern problem of people who look a lot like me, socially, economically, and ethnically, that we’ve been able to build lives where not a lot challenges our sense of comfort. And so then we’ve built churches like that. Don’t challenge our sense of comfort. We get bugged when the pastor preaches something that is pointed.

Dr. Bradley Jersak 45:06
Let’s use that as a segue for a moment, moving from an individualistic reading of the Beatitudes into a corporate reading. So this is not just what the Christian could look like if they imitate Christ, but it is what Jesus’ alternative society will look like. When Gandhi was reading this daily and putting it into practice, he said that if people took the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount seriously and really put them into practice, it would not only solve the problems of Christianity or of India, but of the whole world. It is a prophecy par excellence, if practiced. And I think that’s the proof of it.

So often we’re like, “Yeah, but what about this?” And we make a hypothetical that we don’t have to obey. But Jesus says it’s, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” That’s the children of God. And he says, (This is from Chapter 7) “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will unto the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” That’s a challenging thing, but it also smears the boundaries really badly. And it tells you that someone who may name the name of Jesus may not be following Jesus at all. It could just be an incantation they use. And then there is someone who would not think to claim the name of Jesus, and is unlikely to darken the door of a church, and yet they’re living this way. It’s very possible that they might have entered that sort of Kingdom reality.

That makes me ask this: if you have Christians who aren’t following Jesus, and if you have people who have other faiths or no faith, who aren’t claiming the Christian brand, how do you know which ones are following Jesus? Oh, I know! The Beatitudes. Turning to Christ will probably look like this at some point. From the perspective of the thief on the cross who has nothing left to offer, they can pray this and see what Jesus does by way of death and resurrection in them.

CLOSING REFLECTION

Marc Schelske 47:16
Bradley quoted the words of Pope Benedict the 16th: “The Beatitudes transpose the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ into the daily life of a Christian disciple.” I don’t know about you, but this is what I need. I grew up in a church with a very strict list of behaviors that were acceptable for Christians, and I inherited the legalistic heart to go along with it, but what Bradley is suggesting with the Beatitudes is something completely different. Rather than a new list of rules to obey, this scripture becomes a furnace of discernment. I love that.

As I face the struggles of my life or the struggles in my church, as I think about how to participate in the conversation and politics of my country. I need guidance. When I take my concerns, my questions, and I run them through the Beatitudes, I submit myself to the Beatitudes, I can start discerning more clearly where self-centered, ego-defending ambition is poisoning my perspective.

Ever since that book launch live-stream, when Bradley made his off-handed comment, I’ve been praying the Beatitudes. I try to pray them every day, and already, in just that short time, I’ve seen myself become more aware of my ego in my transactions, my interactions with others, more aware of the marginalized around me, and even have begun feeling more courage to stand with those that our society weighs down with unnecessary burdens. There have been a handful of situations where I wasn’t sure what to do, and by actually taking my concern through the furnace, I had clarity about what was the right next step. So, following Bradley, I just want to recommend this practice to you. We’re facing enormous difficulties in our world right now, so much division, so much pain, and even deep disagreements about what is true. In a moment like that, we need an anchor that is deeper than our own thoughts, and I think the Beatitudes offer us exactly that.

May you say no to the demands of ego, may you comfort those in mourning, may you stand with the meek, may you hunger more for right and just living. May you be merciful, even as your Father in heaven is merciful. May you grow in purity and have the courage to be a peacemaker. May you bear up under persecution and be willing to do what is right even when it costs you. May you be salt and light.

Thanks for listening.

The notes for today’s episode, and any links mentioned, can be found at www.MarcAlanSchelske.com/TAW059. Also, I mentioned that I wrote a responsive prayer version of the Beatitudes that our little church prayed at the close of every service during Lent. Well, I put that together for you in a nice PDF that you can get from my website. That’ll be linked in the show notes too.

Did you like this? Did you find this conversation helpful? Well, there’s more where that came from. I already gave you my whole pitch to subscribe at the beginning of the podcast today, so I don’t need to say anything more about that now. You can opt in if you want, at www.MarcOptIn.com.

Until next time, remember in this one present moment, you are loved, you are known, and you are not alone.