I Changed My Mind About Voting — Joshua Good — Ep. 100

Well, hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. Thanks for tuning in. Today I'm here in Effort, Pennsylvania, with Josh Goode, and Josh is the principal here at Effort Mennonite School where we're filming this, and he's been involved in education for a number of years. And today we're going to take a look at his journey and some of his background and how he got to where he is today. Joshua, good to have you here. Yeah, it's good to be talking with you. Tell us just a little bit about your background and some of your life journey. I was watching a video of yours that you had put out recently online that took us through some of where you used to be and where you are now.

So just fill in our listeners on some of those details of your life. Sure. Well, as you mentioned, I have been here at Effort Mennonite School, just finished my fifth year, so going into year six as a principal.

I have been in education for a while. Prior to coming here, I was in Brooklyn, New York, in the public school system, so not the Christian education world, but was there for about 13 years as a teacher for a while and then principal for a few years, and then ended there as assistant superintendent. My wife, as I've spoken, her name is Tanya, and she is from Southern Indiana. So before we lived in Brooklyn, I lived in Southern Indiana, Montgomery, Indiana, small, small little Midwest, kind of typical town for a few years. There I was in the construction industry.

And prior to that, I grew up in the Lynchburg, Virginia area. I lived there from 1979 to about 2000 and went to college at Liberty University, did my undergraduate work there. And prior to that, I was from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so I kind of did the full circle. Started out here as a little shaver and then rural Virginia, small town, Middle America, and Brooklyn for 13, 14 years, and now here for five years.

So let's back up though from where we are today and your journey in education. And I want to talk about your growing up years and the formation of how you view the world and politics. What was the foundation of that journey that you've had in voting and politics and things in that realm? I come from a family that was very interested in politics. And one of, you know, one of my early memories, you know, around politics particularly was 1984, and I was seven years old at the time.

And I remember laying on the living room floor, we had a little box radio and listening to Ronald Reagan debate Walter Mondale with my father. And then, you know, four years later, kind of did it again, this time Bush and I think Dukakis. And again, I remember listening to the debates, you know, with my family. So my father was politically pretty attuned. And I learned right away that the Republicans were the right party with a capital R, and you know, we wanted Reagan to win. And that would have been echoed a little broader than just my family. I would have heard comments from other adults in the church that I was at that kind of articulated, you know, a sense of hopefulness.

We hope the Republicans win. So from very early, you know, when I was seven, eight, nine, ten, there was this kind of sympathy and cheering from the sidelines for, you know, for various political factions. It was around that time that, you know, I started asking adults in my life, well, you know, wait a second here, why don't we vote? Like we're listening to the debates and we know who we want to win, so why don't we vote?

And I asked my dad, I think, first, and he used to say things like, well, I could vote. I don't think it's necessarily a sin, but you know, I choose not to because they might ask us to go to war at some point. And then if I voted for him, did I vote for the war? But I started to, you know, to kind of wonder, you know, well, why wouldn't we, you know, why wouldn't we vote if we know, you know, this is kind of the way we want to see the country go?

So then, you know, when I went to, I went to Liberty University then, and it was a very kind of natural transition. I started there in 1996, so I had been 19 at the time. Of course, 1996, another election year, and in this case, it had been Clinton and Bush. To back up a little bit, you know, Liberty University came out in the 1970s and it was a very famous theologian, Francis Schaefer, and he wrote this book, How Then Shall We Live? And this book was, you know, hugely influential in the evangelical world and trickled into, of course, some of the Mennonite settings. But the gist of it was Christians need to work, you know, engage with, I think is the language that he would often use, engage with culture directly, secular culture in an attempt to kind of purify or Christianize it and make it better.

And Jerry Falwell was a senior who started Liberty University, was heavily influenced by this book, came out in 1976. And he had the, you know, the epiphany that what we need is a religious kind of voting block that inserts itself into culture like Francis Schaefer kind of outlined in his book. And then we'll have the opportunity to kind of purify and make the culture a better place. So he founds Moral Majority, founds Liberty University. That was a few years earlier. And I remember when I went to Liberty hearing him speak, and he would often use this analogy. He said, look, what we need is as Christians for too long, we've, you know, politics is like a football game.

We've just been, this is what he used to say, we're just in the bleachers cheering. I thought, well, yeah, that's what we were. And I'm not sure if we were just in the bleachers cheering, but we didn't have a team in the field. He said, what we need is a team in the field. It's Jerry Falwell. So he said that, you know, Moral Majority and this Christian voting block, we need Christian politicians and we need a voting block in the field to be our football team. And that's, you know, that's how we can affect, you know, positive change in society.

And so, you know, at Liberty, it was, of course, you know, very patriotic. You know, I studied history there. So, you know, the version I got of history was really the white Protestant version. You know, the United States is basically a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian Western values. And because of that, God has kind of blessed this culture.

And yes, Jesus is Lord, but, you know, the government is the minister of God, as outlined there in Romans 13. And therefore, we participate in politics as rightly we should, as a Christian nation, the leader of the world. I had professors, you know, as I alluded to in my religion courses that were influenced by Schaefer and his way of thinking about, you know, about society. I forgot to mention this. Even when I was in high school then, I wrote an essay in my junior or senior year of why Christians should vote. And I made the argument, you know, Paul used his citizenship to dodge some beatings and to go to Rome.

So by the time I got out of Liberty, I was convinced Christians should vote and be involved kind of as Schaefer sort of laid out. I actually bought his book. It's still on my bookshelf, How Then Shall We Live, and was ready to, you know, be actively involved. And the one kind of hitch was I belonged to Bethel Mennonite Church and, you know, they had church standards and you weren't supposed to vote.

So I've always been more of a spirit of the law guy rather than a letter to the law, but this was too much. Like I couldn't bring myself to vote at that point, you know, while I was at Liberty or right there at 2000 because I guess I had taken a covenant agreement seriously and I felt like I can't vote as long as I'm a member of this church. So while that was happening, I also had met my wife who was from Indiana. So I moved kind of out of the state and that was, you know, there's a geographical interruption while I was, you know, leaving that church, but because of the geography of it and the voter registration, that thing, you know, that didn't really happen at that time.

So the truth is I never actually voted. I was, you know, very politically attuned and certainly was cheering and talking to people, but I have never, I have never voted, you know, up to this point, even though my position would have been that Christians should have voted at that time. So that's a little bit kind of the way, you know, my early experiences kind of fed me into the Liberty University shoot. And they were very influential. And I left there really feeling like, you know what, Christians should be involved in politics and they should vote. So you said in your video that you posted a few weeks ago, which we'll link in the video description here and in the podcast, but you say that you came to realize the emptiness of politics and you've sort of come full circle.

So how was that process of going from writing essays about how Christians should be involved in politics and your views coming out of Liberty University to the point where you are today, which is certainly not at that point? Yeah, yeah, well, I think I would say at first it was a long process. So it's not something that happened quickly, more happened kind of by degrees.

I think if I were to start, you know, and name kind of one principal thing is like once I came to really adopt a, you know, a Christianity that's centered on Jesus and embrace sort of a kingdom Christian mindset or this idea that Jesus came to found his kingdom. That really then was the leverage point that moved me kind of away from nationalism and the nation-state. And that push really came from an influence of people in my life through, I guess you could say discipleship.

There were kind of two brothers there in New York, Harlan Barnhart, Dwight Knisley, that really came from a kingdom sort of Christian perspective and from a Christocentric perspective. I used to argue a lot with Harlan and, you know, what maybe he didn't know at the time is I was listening as, you know, as we talked about things. Along with that, I had gotten some other arguments with this guy, Hans Mast, from Kansas.

Partly out of an internet argument I had with him, he started a discussion platform, Mennodiscuss. And on Mennodiscuss, I had the opportunity to go back and forth with people like Dan Ziegler, Wayne Chesley, and many others that articulated a Christocentric version of Christianity that was much different from the evangelical Protestant version that I'd heard at Liberty and pretty much adopted at Liberty University.

Faith builders, I think, played a role. I would from afar read some of their work. I read Melvin Laman's essay, would listen to the talks, the colloquies they had, Steve Bubaker and the Souders and others. I was reading some of Dean Taylor's and listening to some of his messages. My mother had been following charity for a while, so I would second or third hand read some of the remnant and listen to some of the messages.

And then, you know, later when the followers of the way people, Finney, Crivel and company came along, I bought his book, King Jesus Claims His Church. While that was happening, I was also kind of, you know, continuing to study and learn history and working in, you know, a very liberal New York City in the Department of Education. I was exposed to a lot of other historians, people that had a different perspective. I certainly worked with a number of people of color, people from different nationalities, and kind of hearing their stories and their perspective on, you know, American history and world history and, you know, how other people experience the guns of the empire, as the way I sometimes say it, with the empire being the United States.

It really led me to kind of reevaluate the sort of Protestant Liberty University narrative of the United States being basically a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian values that's, you know, blessed by God and, you know, we need to do our part in advancing that by, you know, electing Christians. So on the history side, I really started to kind of reevaluate this kind of story that I'd heard, you know, from Liberty.

And I really got kind of firsthand experience from people who represented ethnicities and groups of people that had had very negative experiences with, you know, with the United States. So putting those two things together, you know, over the course of about, you know, 10, 12, 13 years, I really started to move, started to move, started to move.

And eventually kind of landed, you know, with perhaps, I don't fully agree yet with everybody, which is no surprise, but perhaps kind of melded a lot of those things together. But I'm at a place where I consider myself an apologist, if you will, for kingdom Christianity. And I really think that, you know, that Christocentrism is starting with Jesus, his life and his witness and how we apply that, how his life and witness, his teachings and his death and resurrection then ushered in the kingdom of God, which is being built. It's come on earth and is coming in a greater way in the future. But I've really adopted that and therefore have rejected the nation-state as, you know, being kingdoms of this world.

I don't think they're sufficient for salvation of society. I don't think they're the means. I sometimes use the word to describe myself as apolitical. That's not because I think the ideas of a kingdom Christian don't impact polity. I think they do, but we don't use the machinery of the state to do that. And foundationally, we don't use violence and coercion as the method of change. So that's a little bit the story of how, you know, I moved a little bit at a time kind of away from that. But I think the Anabaptist vision is compelling. I think a kingdom Christianity is compelling. I think there's a lot of people right now that are in a spot where Jesus as king is a message that really, really resonates.

So your mind has been changed and you would say that the kingdoms of this world are not where we as Christians should be investing in voting and political involvement. But there are many professing Christians and they argue, and rightfully so, that government policy affects people. And aren't we as Christians slacking if we're not helping to shape those policies? Are we not supposed to be assault and light by those means? And what would you say to that, having been there at one point and now being at a different spot? How do you address those arguments and concerns?

Well, there's a continuum, right? We live in society and at some levels, we must, as a matter of living, engage with politics. And, you know, at a very sort of distant level, you know, we engage through things like zoning regulations and speed limits and these sorts of things. So there's a little bit of a range, you know, when you think about our involvement with government. And voting, you know, represents, you know, a very kind of direct participation in that. That said, you know, good people of the world, I respect, people that I respect do vote. And I advocate for not voting, but I acknowledge that, you know, that it's something that people feel, some people feel like, well, you know what, I wouldn't insist on it, but if someone asked me for my opinion, then, you know, on this particular policy, like sometimes there's referendums, right, as an example, I'm going to vote.

So I don't know that I would right away say that, you know, is 100% off. I advocate against participating. I think, you know, I'll just add this in here. To me, once you begin to vote in, you know, in the political system regularly, you become, you know, part of a voting system or voting block. And with that comes political loyalties, comes political factions, comes political favors. The voting allegiances and political loyalties can come very quickly. But I think at a foundational level, I think what I would ask to that is, well, what is it that we believe about, you know, how to change society? You know, if we believe that, you know, through appropriate government policy and through effective government, you know, government leaders, we can, you know, improve the society for people, then it makes a lot of sense.

And that to me is, that's really what progressivism is about. And in a sense, you know, the liberal, and I'm using liberal in a classical sense, idea that through the democratic process, we can fix society is really at the foundation of that. And I would even take it, when you think hard about it, you know, it's a little like saying government can save society and government is the salvation, is our salvation.

But, you know, government, the nations of this world, they operate kind of fundamentally, or I sometimes say it this way, they use an, they have an ethic of violence and coercion. At the end of the day, if, you know, a given policy seems good to you, might be bad to someone else, say it's wealth redistribution or something like that. If you don't see it, you know, their way, somebody with a gun is going to come to your house or to your neighbor's house and through, you know, the threat of violence or violence coerce, you know, a given behavior. But, you know, that to me, that's the opposite of what Jesus does. It's the opposite of what Jesus did.

It's the opposite of what he lived and taught. And, you know, in the kingdom of God, if we have the faith to believe it, that the tools for, you know, enacting kingdom policies are much more effective and more powerful are the tools of Jesus around, you know, things like suffering love, things like telling the truth all the time, things like giving rather than receiving. So I would encourage, you know, I would encourage us to say, look, you know, government is not, you know, is not the answer to, you know, to life's problems. If I believe in political solutions, then I would feel that that pull to vote.

But if we believe that the kingdom of God and Jesus are the solution, then perhaps we don't feel the same pull there that we would otherwise. If we as kingdom-focused Christians are not comfortable with voting or using the political system to affect change and bring about good things in society, what is our responsibility? What can we do? What should we do? What is our role as kingdom Christians living here among a political system? My thoughts on that are, we should do what Jesus did.

And the power of that to change the world, the power of his example and his life to change the world is, you know, is just, you know, immeasurable. And it goes far beyond, you know, the United States. You know, the United States is strong now, but they won't be forever. The Roman Empire was really strong, you know, when Jesus was born, and there's been a myriad of other empires that have come and have went. But the kingdom of God, you know, still stands. Here it is, the gates of hell, you know, will prevail against it. So to me, that's the push. You know, there's a pastor from Chicago who goes by Pastor Choco, says, you know, the local church is the only hope for the world.

And it's in, you know, us, you know, doing our part to do what Jesus did, which is lay down his life, take up his cross, you know, and serve others. And in so doing, you know, Jesus conquered death, he conquered sin, gained the hope of, you know, what Jesus did, he gained immortality, gave us the hope of immortality and the resurrection of the dead. But it's in that, you know, Harlan, I've spoken about him earlier, he used to say it like this, he probably got it from somewhere, but, you know, the cross is not, you know, it's not only the means of salvation for society, it's the method of salvation.

And it's, you know, as we follow Jesus, that's how we impact the world. As we give of ourselves rather than accumulating goods, the suffering love of Jesus, you know, the extent to which we can embody that, you know, Jesus talked about telling the truth, simply not, you know, no need to swear oaths. The power in, you know, staying married to one man and one woman and really, you know, loving people like that in true ways.

That's the power. So that to me is, you know, that's the answer. So rather than, you know, embracing a methodology of violent coercion and guns and laws and rules and these sorts of things, embracing, you know, the way of Jesus and the, you know, the power of Jesus, picking up the cross like Jesus did, that's the way that we impact the world and grow the kingdom of God.

What would you say to people listening, people watching who maybe are where you were right after you graduated Liberty, you know, 22 years old, 23 years old? I'm sure there are people who hold that view of what you did then.

And if you could speak directly to them or to your 23-year-old self, what would you say? Well, if I was speaking to my 23-year-old self, I would say, you're too hardheaded and you need counseling.

But in all seriousness, when I came out of Liberty University, I had a lot of passion and conviction and a sense of rightness, meaning like I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on, you know, where we needed to go politically as the United States.

And, you know, if I were just to say something to myself, then I would say, you know what, just keep in mind, you know, you're 22 or 23. And yes, you've learned some things at Liberty University. You know, I affirm those things, but continue to be a learner.

You know, here's some other perspectives you would want to read. I would recommend some books, some of the ones which we've already spoken about. I would encourage, you know, my younger self, you know, get to know people that have, you know, different perspectives that may come from this at a different angle. So that's what I would say. Just, you know what, continue to talk to people, read, you know, some of the, you know, some of the books around, you know, Christocentrism or the, you know, the kingdom kind of Christian mindset in order to push the thinking a little bit. And then, you know, if there's kind of one thing is I just would ask people to, you know, think about Jesus.

What did Jesus do? What power did he tap into? And if, you know, if we're going to be Christians, if we're going to be a Christian country, then I would expect every politician to be like Jesus and embrace, you know, his model of nonviolent suffering love, welcoming immigrants, you know, ministering to the ones that were downtrodden and the marginalized, you know, people of society. And people of the church are doing those things. Yes. You know, the kingdom of God is not restricted by any geographic location. And so the people of God, the kingdom of God, yeah, is welcoming immigrants. Yes, they are. Yeah, I often say, like I like to say, you know, we belong to a nation.

We use this term kingdom Christian. And I get it, right? But kingdom, you know, they use the word kingdom, but in a sense, you know, the word kingdom just at that time particularly meant political state. And, you know, today we might use the word nation or nation state. So I like to say, you know, we belong, we belong to a nation state where Jesus is president.

And immigration is open. And, you know, we have socialism, but it's not coercive socialism, right? This is not Marxian. This is volitional socialism. Followers of Jesus give rather than receive. And they care for each other. And it's beautiful. Like to me, the local church, again, you know, is the only hope. Like it's the kingdom of God is a beautiful thing.

And it, you know, it presents, you know, the answers to the world's issues. The nation states, you know, you don't have to study history long to see that there's a lot of, you know, empty promises, a lot of broken dreams, and a lot of dead people at the hands of the nation states.

All right. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. Thank you, Josh, for joining us. It's good to spend time here together exploring this topic.