Way we wont get any calls from our children or grandchildren taking us out of the meeting. I want to welcome you on behalf of the board of directors of the reformed institute of metropolitan washington. Find the interim director of the institute. We are dedicated as an institute for the education of churches in the community in the reformed tradition and enhancing the theological discourse related to religious life and to the common good. I want to thank the session of the National Presbyterian church for providing the venue for this evenings event. National is one of ten sponsoring congregations of the Reform Institute to, and a fantastic place. You will find the names of the communities in the brochure and if you do not have one, please let us know and we will get one to you. The Reform Institute serves adults throughout the National Capital presbytery which is the judicature e. As we say in the church in this region and throughout the flight of metropolitan region. We will have time this evening for you to visit with questions. Ask your seat to write questions down that you want to have asked of the speakers. Feel free to fill out the car at any time during the evening and we will be collecting them later on and presenting them directly to our speakers for response. Please join me in a brief prayer. Thank you for your gift giftd goodness bestowed upon all creation. Quicken our hearts and minds this night to see possibilities for bending our civic life and the courage to work towards your truth and toward justice and holding. We pray in the name of your son. At this point i would like to briefly introduce the reverend quinn fox thi was an associate pastor here at the National Presbyterian. Ive known quinn for a number of years, and hes a very gifted theologian. He began his Ministry Early on at Whitworth University in austin presbyterian seminary previous assignments were the associate pastor at the first Presbyterian Church of colorado springs. One in Biblical Studies into spiritual formatioandspiritual r Theological Seminary in california and from princeton and phd in historical theology from vanderbilt university. I dont know if there are enough alphabetalphabets in every bowll out all of those marvelous degrees and accomplishments that he deserves that recognition. A member of th the board board e reformed institute he finds great joy as an adjunct professor at the seminary and a visiting professor at the evangelical Theological Seminary in cairo egypt. So please, welcome. [applause] to begin to heal the republic. There are ithere are a number oe tonight who would like to hear the conversation about how to make it in the Presbyterian Church session meets. When it aired, we will know. If you did not preregister or have the chance to register this evening, give us your name and email and when we get word they will be able to share it with your friend. One of the hallmarks of the ecological tradition is the relationship between faith and theology and politics. The way we order our life together in our congregations is bound up. They make decisions that are authorized only after at least two councils have discerned and motivated and voted on whether or not they would be authorized to make decisions. Its also very few decisions are made by everyone. The congregation rarely ever votes as a whole. Most of the votes that take place in the churches are cast by theaters that have been nominated. The way we organize our life and conduct is what we call reform policy that has the same root as politics and it is a form of Representative Democracy and it is older than the Representative Democracy that we are familiar with in the United States of america and so particularl party further reforms in the United States of america, we are interested in politics. In the 20th century, one of the most wellknown names in the realm of politics and religion and also in reformed theology many recent public figures identified as being formative to their own moral thoughts as important in a different way his brother richard wrote famously of the relationship between christ and culture. In his famous book by that name, richard identified the type of Christian Faith as that which is the student align itself with christ changing in a positive way, transforming the culture, not avoiding it but being an influence. As a reformed christian seeks to be involved positively in the greater culture, and we have done this in many ways but particularly through participation in our secular political systems. Hence the keen interest for us in tonights topic. On your seat youll find anything more robust introduction of the speakers. So i invite you to perus deposed during the course of the evening and i will not spend time going over the qualifications. The first speaker spent his adult life in politics. And most of those have also been spent as a member of the presbyterian congregation somewhere along the way including many years here in this congregation. Pete is a veteran of three president ial administrations, and now he comments about politics and prints online, on screen, and probably other ways to do this but i am not aware of. He has just published a book that is as timely as it is welcome. The books title is the death of politics, but in the real sense it is more about the renewal and rebirth of politics, or at least makes a hopeful case for the need and possible ways for such to happen. So, he is an idea person that we know to lead us in the conversation tonight. After the talk, we will hear a response from a former colleague of pete currently serving as president of the Trinity Forum. The Trinity Forum some of you will know seems to disseminate the best of christian thought to equip the leaders to think about work and lead wisely and well. What a welcome commission. If you would like to know more information about this organization, there are brochures available on one of the data tables that you can get at the conclusion of tonights conversation. Thats one of the distinctions is the collections of reading this and in the conclusion of the evening you will be able to purchase a signed copy of the book, but i think you knew that when you were coming here. There are also three trinity readings on timely topics that relate actually to an entire chapter in the book on the importance of words and language. Final part of the evening to your questions, we invite you to submit on cards that are on your seats, well collecting them throughout the evening, 1 you write down your question, pass it to the outside aisle. For those sitting in the center section, the outside ale aisle is to your right. Pete. Welcome. [applause] thank you so much. Thank you. Quinn, for hosting this. Quinn, who is become a friend. And person that of great wisdom. He said that i comment on politics and newspapers, magazine, radio, po podcast, he left out in my sleep as well. You come around my house at 3 30. When our the kids were little, i would read to them get tired and doze off, you talk. In our half sleep, my kids would tell me what i would say when i would doze off, i would make political comments. I dont know if they were coherent. Thank you for hosting this, sherri, a former colleague, we were in i think tank that started on camp. I was policy director, we hired people. There were a lot of people that applied, bright people. I was involved in hiring two, one of paul ryan, and sherri was the other. I am one of those people whose legacy is hiring people who are smarter than i am and do Better Things than i do. I encourage you to visit the trinity web site. It is nice to find ones worthy of trust. And Trinity Forum is one of them, that is largely because of sherri it is nice to return to National Presbyterian church, it was home for many years, still have friends here, it is nice to be back. I wrote this book, the death of politics in a year, this is a product of lifetime in politics, people that i have met, mistakes i made, and things that i learned. The book is not primarily about me by any means but it is about me in my journey. A fond memory growing up, i grew up in washington state, we have a cabinet, in the Cascade Mountains from spring to fall we would go every weekend almost without fail, i was with my parents we would have news at top of the hour, then we would talk. I would ask my dad all sorts of questions, my formative years were in the 1970s, i ask about the palestinian war, and resignation of nixon and election of jimmy carter and on and on. We always talked about politics, even in high school, high favorite class of social studies. I had different views from my teacher but we always had good conversations and got along we well. I had two passions, one politi politics. The other is sports, i am still more passionate about sports than politics, i would check espn web site during the nba finals to see injury update on the warriors. Politics is now third to sports and faith. But writing this book did allow me to think what first drew me to politics, the and notion. But i had a sense that somebody important and meaningful of at stake. I think i was right about, that after spending my adult lives in politics, serving in government, i was in raega in reagan, ane george w. Bush administration, and i would give you my bottom line, i am not cynical about politics, i dont think you should be either. I am obligated to add quickly, i am not naive about politics, there is a dark side, there are not Perfect People in politics for sure, like there are imPerfect People in every profession, we see thisy i seduction of power. People putting their self interest above the national interest, that is true of others, including me, i am sure there are moments that i acted in ways in retrospect i would have acted differently, that is why we need people in our lives to help us see our blind spots, at the same time, there are admirable people on both sides of the aisle, i know them, i have worked with them, and i respect many of them, most are trying to do the right thing. Most of the time, trying to headache the country better trying to make the country better, they got involved in politics they had a sense they could do something good. That is not all motivation they have. That not motivation many of us that this are pure. But they did by and large get into it for the right reasons. I think that there is a dirty little secret out there, which is ill let you in on it, i think that politics is broken our politics is broken because i think our country is broken, i think our politics is angry because our country is angry. If is facile to say to me, politics is busted up and country and all of us are doing fine. And dandy. I think in fact, politics is a stage that plays itself out, in are other stages as well. But we have to change ourselves, the best way to change our politics. There is is a false hood out t. And so, either stupidity or malice has to explain why the solutions have not been implement the. That is a fa national fashionable view i get, that. Broad sweep of history shows that politics is filled with moments of grandure and moments of squaller, mostly in between. I am not cynical about politics, because politics is about justice, and justice always matters. You cant give up, if we get it wrong, so much of what we love, and cherish and know stands to be sweep away. We get our politics right, it is lead to greater human flourishing. Im not cynical about politics, i dont think it is warranted, and i dont think we can afford to be. We should be more hopeful than we are, because we have more power than we think. And find to be a theoretical pessimism but we need to be operational optimists. Now in saying, does not mean i am not worried, i am, in the bookie explain why. For now in many ways our politics, thanks to mistakes on both sides of aisle, it is largely trivial, dehumanizing, there are larging whichs that challenges that are not being addressed. And our Political Leadership is in 1 many cases dismal, in some instances there is cruelty and patpathological dishonesty. You see a sharper eyes in feelings of aina ant pathy that people have for others it used to be that people done their children to marry someone with a different faith, now more likely they dont want someone to marry a Different Party than they are. And there is a sense in which people view folks who hold views different than they, not as wrong but as defected as people really almost subhuman. That they are driven by malicious motives. Reason they dont see the things the way that i do, they want to hurt the country, and i want to save the country, that say problem. There a pull pulse hate, were shouting at each other, sometimes we seem to be living in different worlds, for much was time i grew up in politics and spent in politics to use analogy of a mountain, people would look at summit of a mountain, say we need to get too summit, we just have different paths. Different paths, but the same summit, now it seems like were looking at different mountains and different summits. Were dividing ourselves to children of darkness and children of light. There is a sense all true resides with me, not with the other side. I do think that our political culture is sick. Somebody i in i quoted in book said politics is a rock throwing contest. I do want to given the nature of this even focus on the roll of faith in our politics. And what i think it has to say. I will begin with a positive. Religious faith in most the Christian Faith played a key role in me many of great social movements in our history. And there are figures from lincoln to Martin Luther king and on and on, people of faith who made our country better because they stood for justice. And they were motivated because of their faith. That is what drove them. To do what they did. And founders if you read the writings of founder believe that religion of essential to providing a moral basis for free society, jefferson referred to religion at alpha and omega of our moral live, and washington said that relin religion was sut for our free society. And you jetson faith at our jet is son faith at our peril. Christopher hitchens a wellknowning ain atheist, he dd 4 or 5 years ago, he was a friend of mine, he was easier to chat with in person than on television. I had several conversations with christopher. I invited him to speak at white house at one point, and had a conversation about religion, with a friend of mine. Who passed away. We talked cs lewis. I had discussions with christopher on this idea about how does anining a atheist how u arrive at a moral position without a truth or authority to appeal to. I understand you can do it, i would not question people who cant live moral lives, they do all of the times, maybe many more than those of people of faith. Philosophically i never understood how you get that point. That how you root it in something substantial, i think faith that provide that and theologically. As best i see it Christian Faith as i understand teaches theological truths apply to all of gods creation. It was never men t meant to be privatized. Whatever one thinks about christianity it does not portray god as i did distance or removed or remote, he wanted to instruct us on how to live in this life by participating in human drama that is incondition incarnation. So, the god of judism and christianity requires to us care for justice and other faith as well. So, if christians care about politics, about justice, then there is an argument to be made that some should care about politics. So that is on the positive side, now dangers that i see. I think it is easy to damage faith and politics when they are intertwined, that is a theme that i have written on. First piece i wrote a letter to editor home from college, warned about what politics could do to faith. John lock, i think most influential intellectual voice on the founders, he a person of Christian Faith was wary about the interception of faith and politics, he had just been through two centuries of religious wars on european continent. It stirs up political passions and it takes already strong feelings and emotions you overlay that with a sense that god is calling you to do this. Then you are in a debate, god is on my side, and say theo satan n yours. There is a seduction of power that happens, i have seen it chuck, who was famously adviser, to nixon before his conversion to christianity talked about it. A moral arrogance that can happen. Phil yancey one of my favorite authors, i wrote a book years ago, what is so amazing about grace, he said, i bring up christianity what is it that coming to mind. And he said almost without exception, people he spoke to would bring up culture war issues and political issues, never once did anyone bring up grace. And that struck him as it should strike us, grace is at the core of the Christian Faith. And yet somehow when christians are out in the public square, what they are signaling is not grace. But antepathy. And sheldon wrote a lovely book, he recounted his days in antiwar movement, during vietnam war, he said he was caught up in mood and actions of 1960s, he said christ would have me oppose a unjust war a good deal of hating, and christ gradually was pushed to the rear. Movement goals and not god became first. I think that making god secondary, to make him nothing is quite simply the mortal danger in social action. In view of the i the inmations f virtue, that is a car cautionary tale as well. It is essential that we get it right. My final point about american politicians, i am worried, i am not hopeless, and i dont think you should be either. My short advice to you is seem to me, take part of words of great novelist, she said in one of her letters we need to push back against the age as hard as it pushes again you, this age is pushing against us, we have to muspush back. I spent a fair amount of time in book explaining what that means. Take on mantle of citizenship. First context is essential we have faced worse periods in