"Proclaim Peace" Season 2, Episode 16 // Repairers of the Breach: Peace, Justice, and Isaiah 58, With Rev. Adam Taylor

https://youtu.be/Z2u1mXqxrM8

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Rev. Adam Taylor joins Jen and Patrick for a wide-ranging conversation about peace, justice, and the prophetic vision of Isaiah 58. He shares how his own faith journey, shaped by interracial family roots, the Civil Rights Movement, and Black church tradition, led him to Sojourners and to a deep conviction that peace is more than the absence of conflict. This episode explores why justice and peace are inseparable, how Isaiah 58 challenges transactional religion, and what it means to become a “repairer of the breach” in both public life and personal discipleship.

Chapters

[00:54] Peace defined as wholeness and right relationship

[05:20] The Jim Wallis course that led to Sojourners

[08:59] Why peace and justice belong together

[10:06] Biblical justice language: mishpat and tsedek

[13:13] Isaiah 58 in context: exile and true fasting

[17:18] Why injustice is structural, not just interpersonal

[24:15] Moving beyond zero-sum thinking

[31:53] Wages, land, labor, and other biblical justice issues

[35:32] Pastoral advice for people resistant to justice language

[43:07] How unjust systems advantage some and trap others

[49:57] “Repairers of the breach” and the call to peacemaking

[52:48] Breath prayer: “Be still and know that I am God”

Transcript

Patrick Mason (00:00)

Hi everyone and welcome to "Proclaim Peace," where we talk about how the scriptures inform our understanding and peacemaking and so that we can each be better peacemakers. I'm Patrick Mason, I'm here with Jen Thomas. How are you doing, Jen?

Jennifer Thomas (00:10)

I'm doing well today, Patrick. How about yourself? Have you gotten any vacations in this summer?

Patrick Mason (00:14)

No, not yet. But I'm going to youth conference this weekend. 

Jennifer Thomas (00:18)

That's not a vacation, Patrick.

Patrick Mason (00:22)

Then we've got a family vacation coming up soon, so that'll be nice.

Jennifer Thomas (00:25)

Okay, so these are excellent times to talk about societal peace, right? Youth conference, family reunion. You'll be able to have peace in practice.

Patrick Mason (00:31)

Exactly. Like, can't we all just get along? I have to say, the youth in our ward are terrific. I love our youth. They're great. 

Jennifer Thomas (00:43)

Well perfect.

Patrick Mason (00:44)

I am excited about our conversation today. So my wife Melissa is a gospel doctrine teacher, and she always loves teaching Isaiah.

Like one of her if if if she had like a crusade in the church, it what she probably has many, but one of her crusades would be for for members of the church to stop talking about Isaiah like it's impenetrable, or it's like so hard, or like we have to skip over it, or like I don't know what's going on, I don't understand it, right? because she loves Isaiah, partly through her, I've come to love Isaiah even more. Obviously Jesus loved Isaiah. 

Jennifer Thomas (01:23)

Mm-hmm, mm hmm. Nephi loved Isaiah.

Patrick Mason (01:27)

Yeah, exactly. And so I'm excited to talk about Isaiah.

Jennifer Thomas (01:31)

Okay, I am too. And I'm particularly excited to talk about Isaiah today because of the guests that we have joining us. So you know, I grew up as a Latter-day Saint. Most of my theological underpinnings have been, you know, through the church, through church education system, BYU. and one of the joys of of kind of expanding that in my interfaith work through MWEG has been realizing how differently some other faiths read Isaiah. And it's not even necessarily differently in a bad way. They just they are looking for different things than we sometimes are. And they are finding very different things there. And what they find there has I I think to me, for me developed my love of Isaiah much as Melissa because I'm like, there's not, it's not that this is impenetrable. In fact, he's quite direct at points about the the ways that we as people should act, what it looks like to be a covenant people, what it looks like when we're failing. And sometimes I think we dance around those because we focus on observance rather than the change that Isaiah is asking us to make in our heart.

Patrick Mason (02:30)

Yeah. And and I think and and this is a very natural thing for us to do as readers. I like the way you put it, like that what we look for is what we find. and so in the church, we oftentimes we approach scriptural texts, especially in the Bible, in support of gospel doctrine. That's why it has been called gospel doctrine class. Yeah, exactly.

Jennifer Thomas (02:48)

Yes. Restoration doctrine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick Mason (02:52)

And and so we're looking for things that reinforce our understanding of things like modern prophets or, you know, different kinds of, you know, the gathering of Israel. 

Jennifer Thomas (03:02)

The coming of the Messiah, all really important things, right? Yes.

Patrick Mason (03:07)

Exactly. Core doctrines. So that's really important. but it does mean that there's lots of other things in there that sometimes don't always make it through our kind of filter. and that they're really important to read. I I will say kind of as just a pro tip, and it is one of the best ways to approach Isaiah is through a modern language translation. and this is something that the church has formally approved of in the recent changes to the church handbook, it is for people to to use some of these modern language editions because most of Isaiah is poetry, and if you read it first of all, not in King James English. And then if you read it in a way that's formatted as poetry, all of a sudden you're like, this makes so much more sense than trying to read it as a block of text, you know, in King James. It is harder to read that way. 

Jennifer Thomas (03:59)

It does make it impenetrable, right? In some ways. Yeah.

Patrick Mason (04:03)

Exactly. That's not the way it was written. It's not the way it was meant to be read. so I think there are better ways to read it. And that's one simple way. So get it, get an NIV, an NRSV, some other modern English language translation, read it, you know, and and and see the way it is formatted in poetry and it'll help you. so that's that's why I'm excited about our conversation today, specifically about we're just gonna focus on one chapter, which I think is also sometimes really sometimes we take like these big huge chunks, like let's read 20 chapters or something like that. But like let's just read one chapter and then think about what is the message that Isaiah is trying to give us here.

Jennifer Thomas (04:36)

And one of the things I want our readers to listen for is on this podcast we talk a lot about Zion because to us, both for Patrick and I, that is the pinnacle of peaceful interaction. It doesn't mean there isn't conflict, doesn't mean people are all the same, but it means that they have figured out how to transform conflict to work for them and have them build a complex society where love reigns, right? And I think one of the things that I love about Isaiah is that when I've learned to read him or see different things in him, Isaiah is constantly calling out the ways that Judah is failing to be the Zion people that God asks them to be. So part of it is observance. Part of it is he is, to your point, signaling the coming of the Messiah, signaling who will lead that Zion society. But he's also regularly poking at them and saying, You are failing, even when you try to observe, you're not observing for the right reasons, or your hearts are not in the right place. 

And there are markers of your failure, which can be seen in the desperate lives being lived by some of the people in your society. They are unwell. And that tells me as a prophet that our society is unwell and we're not aligned with God. And that is, I think, what we want to kind of explore today with our guest. So we are very excited to have Reverend Adam Russell Taylor with us.

He is the president of Sojourners and the author of A More Perfect Union, a New Vision for Building the Beloved Community, which is a really lovely book. Taylor previously led the Faith Initiative at the World Bank Group, and he served as the vice president in charge of advocacy at World Vision U.S. He was also the senior political director initially at Sojourners. He is an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church and the Progressive National Baptist and he serves in ministry at the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Adam has become a good friend of mine. I am so appreciative of his care for the world and the way he manifests it in his work, and I'm really excited to have him share his thoughts with us today.

Jennifer Thomas (06:37)

Welcome, Adam. We are so thrilled to have you with us here today.

Rev. Adam Taylor (06:40)

Thank you, it's great to be with you.

Jennifer Thomas (06:42)

I was mentioning to Patrick that you're one of the busiest people that I know. And so I'm really grateful that you were willing to spend time with us today. We are excited to share your insights with our listeners. You've been sort of a very good mentor for me as I have entered into interface spaces and have opened up vistas of things that I would like to share with our listeners. So I'm really grateful to have you with us. We're going to start with the question that we ask all of our guests, which is simple. How do you define peace?

Rev. Adam Taylor (07:07)

Yeah, well first of all, just grateful to be with you and so grateful to be able to work together in lots of ways to try to advance justice and peace. For me, peace isn't just the absence of conflict. It is also about wholeness. It is about the presence of justice, which for me really and we'll talk hopefully more about this, but justice in a kind of a more holistic way is all about right relationship, about right relationship between ourselves and God, ourselves and our neighbor, and ourselves and all creation. And so peace really has to include the presence of justice. And again, to me that's really tied to right relationship.

Patrick Mason (07:43)

That's terrific. I like that definition a lot and I think it's gonna dovetail really nicely, I think, with some of the themes that we pick up on later. But before we dive into Isaiah, I wonder if you would introduce yourself a little bit to to our listeners. and I'd love to hear you talk about your own personal faith journey. just, you know, where you came from and in terms of your faith life and and where you are now and and how that led you to Sojourners.

Rev. Adam Taylor (08:09)

Yeah, thanks for that. So, you know, my faith journey really started in the Pacific Northwest, which is where I grew up. grew up north of Seattle, Washington, in a place called Bellingham. And ended up there because it's a beautiful, beautiful place. 

Patrick Mason (08:21)

That's God's country up there. So Yeah.

Rev. Adam Taylor (08:25)

I ended up there. This kind of gets into my own, you know, origin story, if you will, but my parents made the controversial decision to get married to each other in 1968, just a year after interracial marriage was legalized in this country. And my mother's black and my father's white. And they moved to Bellingham in part because they got jobs there at Western Washington University, but they also chose it as a place that was relatively more tolerant and more inclusive than other parts of the country were at that time.

And they instilled in me this really strong belief that my generation inherited the unfinished business of the civil rights movement. And so in many ways I kind of grew up in the shadow of the civil rights struggle. 

Patrick Mason (09:03)

Had they been personally involved in that or was that just kind of in the air?

Rev. Adam Taylor (09:08)

It was in the air. I mean they were supportive. I mean I wouldn't say that they were, you know, actively, actively involved, but nonetheless.

Jennifer Thomas (09:15)

I I feel like their major, their major life decision to marry is pretty active involvement, right? It it was marking a fresh path, right?

Rev. Adam Taylor (09:20)

Fair enough, yes. Right. 

Patrick Mason (09:22)

Yeah, exactly. Especially in nineteen sixty eight, yeah.

Rev. Adam Taylor (09:24)

Yes, I I I'm glad you said that. and they certainly like by instilling these values and this commitment in me, I feel like in many ways that kinda propelled my faith journey. I became just really, really infatuated at the civil rights movement and quickly discovered the Student Nonviolent Quartering Committee, kind of the Student Armor of the Movement, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the kind of black church driver of the movement. And, you know, was an active Christian kind of growing up, but I think a real defining point for me, a kind of an inflection point was when I went to college at Emory University. And almost the first Sunday that I was there, I made a pilgrimage to Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual home of Dr. Martha King. And in that worship service, not only did I just feel such a powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, I also, you know, heard a sermon and and just heard kind of messages, not just in the sermon but in song, that seamlessly wove together a redemptive relationship with Jesus with a commitment to justice in the world. And I ended up joining the church. And that's kind of how I ultimately became part of the Baptist tradition. Later I experienced a call to ministry myself. I didn't feel called to be a pastor of a church per se, but really felt a distinctive call to try to reinvigorate a commitment to justice and peace within the church broadly. And that is really what led me to Sojourners. I went to graduate school at the Kennedy School of Government.

And in my first semester there, you get one elective course. And so you want to choose that wisely. And there are a lot of amazing options available to you. And I was actually signed up for a different course, but someone I had met recently convinced me to take a course with this adjunct professor named Jim Wallace, who was teaching a course on the intersection of faith and politics. And I actually didn't know of Jim. I didn't know of Sojourners up until that point. I ended up taking this course with Jim Wallace on the intersection of faith and politics and it really just connected the dots around a lot of the things that I really cared deeply about and was passionate about. I actually became his teaching assistant my second year and then that started kind of a friendship and a mentorship that ultimately led me to join the board of the organization and then on staff my first time around as a political director and then ultimately like after fifteen years after that to kind of come back and enter into a leadership transition with Jim, where I ultimately became president. So while I am deeply rooted in the black church tradition and, you know, ordained in the American Baptist Church and then the Progressive National Baptist Convention, what I love about Sojourners is it brings together so many of the different streams of the Christian tradition. And so, you know, I've learned a lot from Catholic social teaching. I deeply appreciate the Peace Church and its emphasis on peacemaking and so much more. So that that is kind of the ecumenical strength of Sojourners. That's also a big part of me.

Patrick Mason (12:12)

Yeah, it's fascinating to hear your story. I'd resonate with so many parts of that. My own sort of formation and transformation as a Christian, a lot of it was engaging with with reading and and and and and visiting a lot of the places of the civil rights movement, including Ebenezer and including some of the those other places and and and and and reading Dr. King and and studying some of the other people in the movement, and especially their groundedness in Christianity really has transformed my faith. And then my own journey in peace building also came because of the one elective I had to I I could choose in in my doctoral program. And I signed up with a professor I'd never heard of before, who happened to be the director of the Kroc Institute for for Peace Studies at at Notre Dame. And I met all these amazing students from around the world and was exposed to a whole different way.

Rev. Adam Taylor (12:57)

Is that David Courtright?

Patrick Mason (13:01)

No, David was one of my professors there. This was Scott Appleby.

Rev. Adam Taylor (13:03)

Okay.

Patrick Mason (13:05)

But I took a course on nonviolence from David Courtright. 

Rev. Adam Taylor (13:05)

Yeah, okay. I know Scott too, but yeah. Okay.

Patrick Mason (13:10)

So so what I did, I was in a doctoral program in history. I encountered peace studies again just through this random elective that I took. So then I took a year out, got a master's degree in in peace studies from the Kroc Institute where I studied with David and and and other people like that. So so I resonate with your story. I also love what you said that you felt called to the ministry.

And that for you that didn't necessarily lead you into to kind of ecclesiastical leadership into becoming a pastor, but there was a sense of a call to a ministry that was broader th than that, right? A a a a ministry to to to to the world, to our fellow citizens, grounded in your faith, but not exclusively centered in the church. but but how do we take that message into the world? I I think that's really powerful.

Jennifer Thomas (13:55)

So I have a question for you. I would love you to be a little Jim Wallace for our listeners. So like I was saying earlier, Latter day Saints are a little bit new to kind of peace studies and exploring this concept. And I think until our leaders sort of started extending a really pretty vociferous and and enduring call in the last five years to ask us to become peacemakers. My guess is most Latter day Saints had a pretty simplistic view of peace. It was like, hey, it's not war.

Or, you know, peace means that people are just getting along and there's there's no tension if peace is there. And I think one of the journeys of this podcast is to help people understand that peace actually means that we have to deal with conflict. We have to engage with it robustly, we have to explore it. And so I'm wondering if you could share with us a little bit what what you have learned about how peace is directly connected to justice. I think sometimes we can easily see those two things as very separate, very distinct ambitions for our society, but my guess is that you would argue they're deeply, deeply intertwined. And I'd love to hear more about that. 

Rev. Adam Taylor (14:57)

Yeah, absolutely. I do believe strongly that they're intertwined. And I actually think that that is how they are kind of captured and described in the Bible as well. And we'll get into Isaiah fifty eight as one example of that. But you know, stepping back a little bit, so when you kind of look at how justice and mercy are referred to constantly throughout the Bible, I mean they're, you know overriding themes throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. And in the Old Testament context, in Hebrew, the word mishvat, which also means to judge or to govern correctly, and then tsedek which is the way things ought to be. Unfortunately, sometimes often we translate tsedek into righteousness, and that can often take on a kind of purely individualistic understanding of righteousness, when in reality it's really meant to have a more communal understanding.

And so Mishvat and Tsedek literally show up over a thousand times throughout the Old Testament, particularly from the Old Testament prophets, from Ezekiel to Amos to Isaiah and more. And for me that that matters because so often kind of an understanding of how we are meant to make decisions, how we are meant and called and required by God to show a particular concern for the orphan, the widow, the stranger, for people living in poverty. And how we have to have a more communal understanding of what righteousness looks like and what that requires is directly tied into what it means to not only create peace, but to actually sustain peace. You know, so often, you know, conflict erupts when we end up, you know, fighting over limited resources, when we end up creating a hierarchy of human value where some people are viewed as superior or inferior, which we know directly betrays and contradicts one of the core teachings of Genesis, Genesis 1, 6, that we are all made in the very image and likeness of God. And so you know, f I I think as I've kind of reflected on the connection between justice and peace, you know, we cannot sustain peace without a greater commitment to justice, nor can we actually achieve real peace without a commitment to justice. And so and I'm I to get in this Isaiah fifty-eight text 'cause I think it's, you know, one powerful way to better understand it. But that's at least some of the ways that I have you know come to understand this inextricable connection.

Patrick Mason (17:18)

Yeah, well let's let's dive into the text. When you open it up, when you open to Isaiah fifty eight, what what what stands out to you in terms of what God through the prophet Isaiah is trying to communicate to us, obviously to to to the people in ancient Judah, but but by extension to us is in terms of God's vision for a peaceful society and just society.

Rev. Adam Taylor (17:38)

Yeah, no, absolutely. And in full disclosure, this is one my favorite texts in all the Old Testament. So I'm particularly excited to be able to to share on this one. I learned in seminary that anytime you take a text out of its context means you can easily be conned. So I I've always think it's really important to start with the context, right? So you know, we have the prophet Isaiah who is primarily addressing Judah in ancient Israel and roughly five forty five BC. This is literally about four forty-five years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of many Jews to Babylon. And so in many ways, the Israelites are kind of smarting in this moment. And what I think is important is that the title of this particular chapter is true fasting. So really Isaiah is trying to communicate a message from God about what kind of fasting and in a broader sense, what kind of religious worship and sacrifice actually pleases God? And, you know, what is the kind of fasting and religious worship that God wants from us? 

Jennifer Thomas (18:39)

Which is particularly I would say it's particularly interesting 'cause they've lost their temple. And so what they might have grounded as their place of worship, he's saying, No, y you still can worship, right?

Rev. Adam Taylor (18:50)

That's right. That's exactly right. That's a good point. Yeah. And so, you know, one one of the things that happens in the beginning of the chapter is we see, you know, the the Israelites kind of grumbling and complaining with each other because they are engaging in fasting, but they don't feel like God is recognizing it or rewarding them for their sacrifice. And then we see this in verse three, you know, the problem appears that they're fasting.

But they're also exploiting their workers. And their fasting is ending with quarreling and strife. I mean, literally, a little bit later it says that they're striking each other with wicked fists. And so, you know, this kind of demonstrates a real challenge, right? Because here they are trying to engage in a deeper commitment to God, and yet it is not actually changing their hearts. It's not leading to less conflict, it's actually leading to more conflict. And that's in part tied to what Isaiah says later, where he in verse six says the type of fasting that most pleases God and what God wants from us is fasting that leads us to engage in work that loosens the chains of injustice. This is verse six.

And then tie the cores of the yoke. And then later he describes how we have a commitment to share our food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter. In other words, he's basically describing a commitment to both justice and compassion. And I think, you know, one of the things that I think the church has become pretty good at and more comfortable with is engaging in acts of compassion. And I'm grateful for that. You know, there's all kinds of ways that the church is providing food for the hungry through you know, soup kitchens and food pantries. There's all kinds of ways the church is providing support to those that are homeless. And again, you know, it's not nearly enough and not always enough. But I do think that compassion comes more naturally for most of us as Christians. I think the harder part for us, and it's kind of interesting to me that he actually leads with a commitment to loosen the chains of injustice and then talks about compassion. So, you know, not to say that this was intentional or not, but it seems like he starts with a commitment to justice, and that's the piece that sometimes we treat as being optional or that we don't fully understand and embrace. And the reason that's important is that so often the way that the prophets, including Isaiah, talked about injustice, is they understood that it had a structural and systemic dimension to it. That it wasn't just about the interpersonal, it was also about systems that can often perpetuate and cause harm and injustice. And that's where the kind of breaking the yoke of injustice is so important, because a yoke kind of speaks to a system, not just to an individual. And so if you have a ruler or a you know a king that is, or a president in our current context, or a congress, right, that is you know passing laws that discriminate against certain people, or that you know, deny certain people opportunities, or that exploit certain people, that is a form of systemic injustice. I'll give you kind of a concrete example in our own history, and I mentioned a little earlier just how passionate I am about the civil rights history in our nation. No amount of charitable acts and acts of compassion during the height of the Jim Crow era in the South, in our country, was going to change that system of Jim Crow segregation. That ultimately required a change in the law of the land, which is why Dr. King and so many other civil rights leaders, you know, organized and protested and had campaigns that were designed to stoke the conscience of the country, yes, but to do that in a way that would build a political will to pass the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act and then ultimately the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act. It required that change in law that would ultimately then enable African Americans to vote across the South and ultimately enabled us to dismantle so many of the segregated systems that were in place in the South. And so, you know, I think it's important as we kind of think about this text that, you know, justice does require us to address root causes.

of people's pain and of their condition. And, you know, yes, there is an interpersonal dimension to that, but there's almost always also a systemic dimension to that that we also have to see and address.

Jennifer Thomas (23:05)

Well one of the things I'd love to tease out there is that I this balance between the interpersonal and the systemic. And one of the things I'd like to point out is that you I I think you rightly argue that individual acts of goodness couldn't overcome that system. And I'd like to go a step further and say unjust, cruel systems actually in many cases prohibit individual actors from transcending their own bias, prejudice, hatred. It might be illegal for me to act in a way that I think best aligns with my conscience. If I might actually get in trouble for behaving in a way that I think is aligned with my discipleship. So so one of the things that I would hope our listeners kind of tease out and think about is that cis when we think about systemic injustice, absolutely we should prioritize those who are oppressed by those systems. But I think it's really, really important to acknowledge, and this I think we see often with Judah and the children of Israel, those systems corrupt the oppressors as well, right? It it breaks their souls. And so if you can't muster the care and desire to help for the soul of your neighbor, it might be great to start with asking, hey, by leaving this system in place, am I actually able to fully actualize my my desire to act as a disciple of Christ, right?

Rev. Adam Taylor (24:25)

Yeah, no, absolutely. And and that's a perfect segue into the other thing that I wanted to emphasize with this text. And this is my favorite part of the text actually. So what I love about this is not only are we called to acts of compassion and justice, right? He then goes on to describe that when we engage in acts of justice and compassion, then our light will shine like a noonday. We will be a well-watered garden, right? And it it's beautiful language. I mean, this is one of those texts that just kind of preaches itself. Like you could just stand up and read it and it sounds like a beautiful sermon.

Jennifer Thomas (24:57)

It's doing its job.

Rev. Adam Taylor (24:59)

But what he's saying here is that like my my wholeness is tied to the wholeness of others, including and in some cases, particularly the most vulnerable in in my sphere of influence. My, put in slightly different words, liberation is tied into the liberation of others. And it really distills another core theme that is in the Bible, which is one of interdependence. That our lives are in fact interdependent. And that's true not just of our neighbor down the street, but also true of those that are, you know, within our our nation's boundaries, but also it's true for the entire world, you know.

Jesus made it clear that God loves the entire world and gave his only begotten son for the whole world. And so I think this kind of understanding of our independence is also central to how we understand both justice and peace. Because when we swallow the lie that we are somehow kind of atomized, disconnected individuals that can just act on our own self-interest, that is not aligned with kind of a biblical understanding of justice, let alone a biblical understanding of what our responsibilities are to and for one another. And so I just love the way that this captures that and and you know I I had a chance to study abroad in South Africa in 1995, just a year after Nelson Mandela was elected president of kind of a new South Africa Africa after the end of the apartheid system. When I went there, I I fell in love with this African Southern African philosophy called Ubuntu. So Ubuntu is this kind of core understanding that I am because we are. And again, it's it's is this kind of way to express the ways in which our lives are woven together, that we are in fact interdependent. it very much builds on the golden rule that we are called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. 

For me, like this text is a way to both highlight just how important justice and compassion is to God and how our fasting, our you know, religious worship and sacrifices should ultimately lead us into that. And when we do that, we then become blessed in the process. It's not just the person that is hurting or the person that is living in poverty or the person that is oppressed. We also are able to experience a greater sense of shalom, using another another word here, but you know, a sense of wholeness of flourishing as a result. And it it really helps to break us out of this kind of zero sum mindset or what many, you know, scholars call limited good mindset. That, you know, if any other group benefits, then it has to come at the expense of me.

Jennifer Thomas (27:38)

Come out of my pie. Yeah.

Rev. Adam Taylor (27:39)

That's right. And I I don't, I mean, yes, we live in a world of limited resources. So I'm not naive to that. But I think in our broader understanding of how God works, it God is a God of abundance. And, you know, there are ways in which, particularly if our lives are interconnected and interdependent, we have got to act as though that's real.

Jennifer Thomas (27:59)

Well, and I just want to point out, and then Patrick, I'll let you ask a question that I I think what you highlighted at the very beginning of this chapter, this idea that the judo was approaching fast from a transactional perspective. It's like, hey, we're doing this because we want to get out of it from Jehovah, what we think we're owed. And he's saying, No, there's the whole point of this is transformational. Like if you if this isn't transforming you to be more like me or to build the society that I have called you to build, then we don't actually have a relationship. And so I love the way that you've just really beautifully articulated that that transactional relationship with God is always going to fail. It will never be sufficient to be changing ourselves, much less our society.

Patrick Mason (28:44)

So I I wanna come back to to the text in in a minute, 'cause there's so much more to unpack there. But I wanna ask you know, we we have listeners who are across the political spectrum, prim primarily in the United States, but but some some outside as well. And and I'm thinking, you know, of some of the ways some of the the the words and language we've used so far, words like oppression and liberation and systems, these these these are words that for for various reasons have sort of been coded left, at least in in in the American political spectrum, right? And you work at the intersection of faith and politics. You're you're you're not naive to to to the way that even language gets coded one way or the other and and then and then that that that influences what people bring to the text, what they can see, what they can't see in the text, what the Bible is saying to us. So can can you just say a word about how a chapter like this, and and and the language we use, I mean it's it's speaking a message that that is not that that can't just be put into to our political partisan boxes in twenty first century America. It's not like, this this chapter is like a lefty text, but but I could find another chapter that like, you know, fits a you know a a sort of right wing text. I mean how, just say more about like how the Bible maybe breaks down some of the ways that we typically talk about politics.

Rev. Adam Taylor (30:06)

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one thing just to clarify, I mean, the organization that I have the honor of leading, Sojourners, we're an ecumenical Christian organization that is deeply committed to justice and peace. But we like stridently resist being put in one political box or another. You know, we are nonpartisan, so we, you know, are not aligned with one part or the other. We also don't feel like our faith fits neatly into the broken political categories we have of left or right or repo or Republican-Democrat. And you know, sadly, you know, a lot of language, as you said, has been co-opted or has been kind of misappropriated. You know, social justice has somehow become this left-leaning term, though I don't think it should be, right? So what we try to do is try to kind of start with biblical principles, right, and priorities. We know that it's critical that we start there and we try to apply those to the messiness of politics. And for us, you know, one of those core principles is that God throughout the breadth of the Bible shows a particular concern for those that are marginalized and those that are vulnerable. Right? So we should too. I mean that that you know sounds obvious, but I'll just put put like plainly, that's an important place to start, right? And as I said earlier, in the Old Testament in particular, the most vulnerable and marginalized categories, if you will, of people were widows, orphans, the stranger, or people that were immigrants, migrants, and then people that were living in poverty. So what I try to reflect on, and what we try to reflect on, is who are the modern-day equivalents of those?

Who within our midst today are the kind of modern day widow, orphan, stranger? And and clearly we have very much so, right. 

Jennifer Thomas (31:46)

And sometimes it tracks one to one, right?

Rev. Adam Taylor (31:51)

We still have sadly, and we can talk about this, we still have nearly 40 million people living in the quicksand of poverty in this country, right? And we could also talk about this too. I think the way we define poverty sets the bar too low. We actually have more like a hundred million people that are living in or very close to poverty. There may be one paycheck away from poverty or one crisis away from poverty. But we know that there are many people that are living in poverty both in the United States but also around the world and in many other places that form of poverty can be even more extreme.

We also know that we are living in the midst of many people that are living in this country that don't have documentation, that you know, some came as refugees, some came legally across our border, but they are still in our communities. And so what is our response to that? And obviously that's become a very controversial issue in our politics as as of now. but I do think that there's a very clear commitment in the Bible to, you know, call us to welcome the stranger or the immigrant in our midst. And again, we can debate what welcome means, right? But I think at the very least it means that we'd try to like probably, involves at least some empathy, some compassion, some you know, commitment to try to be in relationship with them, right? the other thing I I just wanna kind of highlight is that you know the you know gonna kind of say something that again maybe is obvious, but you know the kingdom of God is never on any ballot perfectly, right? Politics inherently is about imperfect choices. And so I think that we have to bring kind of a humility to this. And we have to kind of leave room for the reality that we are going to disagree on the best kind of policy solutions to very complex problems. But again, there's so much that I think we could build common ground around if we really started with those first order principles that again, I think are pretty clear from the Bible. And again, a text like Isaiah 58, you know, really helps point us in this direction. The other thing I'll just emphasize is that, you know, the biblical prophets, you know, certainly, you know, were clear in condemning various forms of idolatry, but they are also really clear about, you know, condemning and expressing God's anger toward many different forms of exploitation and injustice. They literally talked about wages. They talked about landowning. They talked about you know people that are denied opportunities to work.

And so, you know, those are really modern-day issues too, right? And so to me, that makes those issues very much biblical issues and things that we need to be able to wrestle with and address now. Last thing I'll just mention really quickly is that there's a really there's a book that I really recommend. It's a it's a big book. So just be honest about that. 

Jennifer Thomas (34:35)

We have some big book listeners, so go ahead.

Rev. Adam Taylor (34:39)

Appreciate that. So it's called Kingdom Ethics, and it's by Glenn Stassen and David Gushy and in it there's a lot in it but one of the things they do is they go through both the Old Testament and New Testament and they basically identify four what they describe as root causes of injustice that show up across the Old Testament and New Testament.

And for them, those four root causes are various forms of domination, various forms of exploitation, various ways people are excluded from community, and violence. And they basically make the case that if you think about any situation of injustice, some combination of these four root causes are at play. And it's really important that we identify them. We kind of decode the situation to understand what is what is at the root, what is ultimately perpetuating or causing this form of harm. And then how can we address that root cause to then restore a right relationship? And so I found it really helpful because those are again, those root causes aren't left, right, or left. They are just root causes. The solutions to them, again, can be something that we have to wrestle with and discern together. But, you know, one of the things that frustrates me is that, you know, as I as I kind of alluded to, I just think that there is so much rich common ground that we have that we could build upon. But instead, so often we are shaped more by our kind of broken political imagination and political rhetoric, which then confines our ability to find common ground rather than the other way around. If we started from this kind of rich shared set of understanding from from first order principles, it would actually enable us to really be salt and light in our politics and and help to transform our politics in some pretty powerful ways.

Patrick Mason (36:20)

I love that answer and and I can imagine it it is so often that that in especially in the political sphere we we start with policy debates and policy divisions in different ways and and what what would it be like if if neighbors or or fellow church members who who knew that they were on different sides of the political aisle, right? I mean this is usually not a mystery to to to people what if instead of starting with a policy debate you actually sat down and read Isaiah fifty eight together?

Or read Matthew twenty five or or or read some other like shared text and and it's like we both believe this, right? We both believe this is God calling us to the world. Let's talk about that first. And then and then we can maybe then, you know, debate some of the policy things. But it but I I suspect those policy d disagreements, they would be real, they would be substantial, but they would maybe be a little less vicious if if if we started from from a sense of of shared values.

Jennifer Thomas (37:20)

So I'm gonna ask you maybe a little bit to put on a pastor hat. Do a little bit of healing of souls here. So I I have kind of two versions of this question. Version one is if I if I'm listening to this podcast and I'm feeling a little pricked, like either either because I'm like, that just sounds too woke for me, or whatever, you know, whatever it is that is sort of agitating me. Can you tell me from your experience, what is sort of the best spiritual medicine for that? How do you feel like people can move towards a theology of justice, really embrace mercy if they've been immersed in a political and social culture that has has trained them to think otherwise, right? What are some of the early steps that you feel like our listeners could take to start to transform their hearts, particularly on this topic, on exploring and learning more about how they can can and should be following this counsel from Isaiah to to create a peaceful society built on justice.

Rev. Adam Taylor (38:27)

Yeah. It's a great question. I mean I think one place I would start is really thinking and reflecting on God's character. Who do we know God to be? We know God is a God of unconditional love. We know God is a God that loved us so much that He gave us His Son, and His Son sacrificed His life so we could have everlasting life ourselves. And so if God's first attribute is love, then you know it in many ways like justice is our way of expressing love in the world, God's love in the world. So it maybe is another way to think about justice or reframe justice that again is less about, you know, these kind of political ways of thinking about it and more of like, you know, it it it's core, it's love.

Jennifer Thomas (39:07)

It's love, yeah.

Rev. Adam Taylor (39:08)

Right. I think another way is to really get proximate to the people that are hurting.

And that our suffering is a result of injustice that so often then breeds conflict and even violence. And you know, I would imagine many of your listeners already do this, but you know, just encourage all of us to take even more steps to do that. I think one of the things that has been really painful to see is that particularly when we think about, you know, for example, people that are living in poverty, there there is still a lot of scapegoating and blame that exists in our our rhetoric and in our dialogue.

Jennifer Thomas (39:42)

Mm-hmm. So much.

Rev. Adam Taylor (39:45)

And I don't think that's the first kind of response that we should have. I mean, yes, we know that people may s make mistakes and and many people have made, you know, bad decisions.

And at the same time, like we are called to try to support them, love them, help them seek transformation in their own lives, right? And so, you know, it it at least from my experience, when I've been able to build a relationship with the people that are, for example, homeless or people that are needing to go to a a food pantry each and every week, that has not only like reshaped my understanding of some of the things that they are dealing with, but it's also like really changed me in the process. And so I think that's another important pastoral step that we can take ourselves. And then the the third is, you know, I think as Christians, we have to resist the temptation, and I would even call it an idolatry, of being overly ideological in in our mindset. You know, w w w we should be, again, committed first and foremost to these kind of core principles, and then we might have a strong kind of leaning or even kind of allegiance, if you will, to a certain ideology, 'cause we think it just better explains solutions and the and the world as we understand it. But that in itself can become a false religion. And so, you know, I think we're called to resist that and and also just be kind of driven by evidence about what actually works. So, you know, there's been I'll I'll just use one example just to make it a little bit more concrete. I personally feel strongly that it is really shameful that our nation has not increased the minimum wage nationally from $7.25 an hour for almost, I think the last time that was done was about 15 years ago. Now many localities and some states have increased the minimum wage. But we have this kind of ethic in this country, this belief that if you work full po full-time, you won't be living in poverty. You shouldn't live in poverty. And yet at 725, in almost every place in the country, you will be living in poverty, or right?

Jennifer Thomas (41:49)

It's like that's a candy bar and a bag of chips now. Like a small bag of chips, right? Yeah.

Rev. Adam Taylor (41:52)

That's right. That's right. And so you know there's actually a a bill that's been proposed recently in Congress that would increase the minimum wage to over twenty-two dollars per hour nationally.

Now there there are, you know, this is where it gets into a political and ideological debate. There are I think s you know, some valid concerns out there that if you increase it too much, that that is gonna cause some businesses, particularly small businesses, to suffer and might lay off staff, et cetera. But then we have to go back to the evidence. Okay, well, where has it been increased and did we see that happen? And ev all the evidence that I've seen is that in fact it has not happened in that degree. That in in a lot of localities and municipalities that have increased it dramatically, we have not seen a real increase in unemployment. So I'm just using it as an example, is where like we can have a healthy debate about the implications of of a policy, but if we actually believe that we want to reward work and we want people to be able to provide for themselves and their families, like to me it's a no-brainer that we should be increasing the minimum wage. And so the way I try to frame it, it's little differently than I think a lot of times it just gets debated in our in our politics. so that that's kind of one one concrete example of how we can kind of apply our faith to these these real you know serious challenges in a way that I think can be really transformational.

Jennifer Thomas (43:08)

So I don't think this was your intent, but sort of maybe it was, maybe you're a genius. You are. Well, we'll say this was your intent. I think one of the things that's really interesting is that what you just laid out, those steps or those asks of of Christians, actually in many ways are the direct antidotes to domin domination, exploitation, exclusion, and violence. Right. If if we go through those steps, we actually are by that very active self-transformation pushing against societal forces that are asking us to build a society around those kind of four horsemen of the apocalypse, right? And so I really appreciate that. I just wanna point that out.

Rev. Adam Taylor (43:50)

No, that thank you. Thank you. And and you know, there's another side of this too where, you know, I think that we also have to be more conscious of the ways in which we too can benefit unjustly by unjust systems, right? So there there's another book that I highly recommend called Poverty by America.

It's written by Matthew Desmond. He's a sociologist. It became a New York Times bestseller a number of years ago. And I think it's a it's a really critical read to really understand how, in many ways, we have an economy that is kind of rigged to benefit certain people and to either harm or disadvantage others, right? And, you know, it's everything from housing policy to, you know, people that are struggling and and of low income often have to but either can't access credit or have to pay a lot more for it because of those factors. It's just kind of two two concrete examples. And so, you know, that's another side of this too is like, you know, how can we be not just more aware, but how can we be an active change agent to try to ensure that we have an economy that works for everyone? And again, and I know that gets into lots of different political choices and and challenges. but I think it's incumbent on us to be able to identify sometimes some of those more invisible things that are happening that are actually causing people to be stuck in poverty and make it a lot more difficult for them to get out of it.

Patrick Mason (45:15)

Before we ask, as we're running out of time, but before we ask our last question, I want to ask one penultimate question. I want you to help apply this text, especially for Latter-day Saint readers. so I don't know if you're aware, so but one of the practices in in our church is that on the first Sunday of every month, we call it Fast Sunday. and that people within the church, if they're able to, they fast for two meals or up to 24 hours. so no food or water. And then they and then they they take whatever they would have spent on food during that time at the very least, and then donate it to the church is called a fast offering. And then that that money is used to to help those who are in need. it's distributed often at the local level, but also globally as well.

So I think what this is really meaningful practice for for a lot of people and and and there's also a sense of connection with greater connection to God through prayer while while you're fasting. And I think for a lot of people this is a meaningful practice on the level of sort of individual charity, right? that through my fast, I'm mindful of the poor, I'm mindful of those who are going without and I'm gonna make a a financial donation to to help them. I think it's a beautiful practice. But but at the very beginning, you you talked about the, that God isn't just talking about charity here. he's he's talking about sort of something beyond that as well. So if I know you're not a Latter-day Saint, but if if you were to, you know, to give advice to to some of your Latter-day Saint brothers and sisters, how do we take this beautiful practice within our church and and without doing away with the individual charity that that is really, really important, how do we take this text sort of a step further? To think about how our fasting can be a means towards greater justice.

Rev. Adam Taylor (46:59)

Yeah, well first I I just want to echo that is a beautiful practice. I wasn't aware of it, so that I'm grateful for that. I have two ideas. One is in addition to giving to a charity that's doing really good work, think about giving it to an organization that does advocacy work that you trust and believe in. I mean certainly sojourners could be one. I'm a little biased there, but there are many other good ones out there, right?

Rev. Adam Taylor (47:20)

But that is, you know, doing some of this work to try to change policies, budget decisions, laws, whether at the state level or all the way up to the federal level, that that can make a real difference in people's lives.

The other one is related to that. It's a little less about how do you use, you know, the money that you would have spent on food. But what if, you know, maybe that the time that you would have normally been eating that meal, what if you write a letter to your member of Congress to encourage them to, you know, provide greater leadership on issues that impact vulnerable people and people living in poverty. Again, you know, you can tailor that to whatever your convictions are and whatever you're you're pa most passionate about. But what one of the things I believe very strongly is that our democratic system with all of its flaws, you know, much more compromised when people do not participate. And one of yes, voting is is a probably not, you know, for me is kind of the the most important way we participate, but also how we build relationships of accountability with our elected officials is crucial. And I have seen through lots of different campaign examples and experiences in my in my own career how when we've been able to generate hundreds, in some cases thousands of letters or phone calls, we have been able to influence and change the heart and mind of a member of Congress to do something that has a major impact on on people that are are suffering and that are vulnerable. One concrete example of that is early in my career I was very involved in influencing Congress and the Bush administration to do something about the AIDS crisis in Africa. And because of just a groundswell of pressure, you know, President Bush did the right thing and he created a gigantic initiative called the President's Emergency AIDS plan. And over the course of about twenty years, there are over twenty million people who are alive today because of the generosity of the American people as a result of that initiative. And so for me that is like our values being projected in the world in the most positive way. And I say our value like our Christian values being projected into the world. So anyway, there are two ways.

Jennifer Thomas (49:23)

I would just say and add to that that for those of the listeners who aren't aware, MWEG has been working really diligently to try to preserve that program, both with members of Congress. It has saved millions of lives and absolutely it's a gorgeous example. I think of bipartisanship as well, right? Whereas the faith call for a group of people who were diverse, they were Democrats and Republicans, something about their moral compass said, Hey, this is an act we need to take and they were able to do it together.

We need to let you go. I could talk to you for another hour, but I just want to end by saying one of my very, very favorite, and I'll try to not cry when I talk about this, concepts in this, in this particular chapter you selected to share with us is this idea that what Isaiah says to us is that when we act in the way that he's calling us to act, we become repairers of the breach. It's such a beautiful phrase. it it, you know, calls to mind Christ's atonement. It invites us, essentially, I think it's a gorgeous synonym for peacemaking. If peacemaking isn't repairing the breach, I don't know what it is. we've talked a lot about how to repair that breach societally. You've shared some beautiful, beautiful examples. Your work is hard. My guess is it takes a pretty significant toll and that there are days when the misalignment of the path the world is on and the the path that you would desire it to be on are quite significant.

So I just want to end this conversation by asking you where you find peace yourself. How do you repair that breach within yourself and kind of what source do you go to to find personal peace?

Rev. Adam Taylor (50:56)

Yeah. Yeah, I I love that too, repairs of the breach. And then it also goes on to say and and and restore streets with dwellings. I find it in part by trying to connect to and think about the the cloud of witnesses that came before me.

Certainly, you know, the long list in Hebrews, chapter 13, but also, you know, more recent ones. I mean, I I was heavily influenced by and inspired by Congressman John Lewis. I think one of our our nation's leading and most courageous advocates for voting rights in our nation's history. And you know, I think about the sacrifices they made so that we could have a brighter future and that we could have a more just and and hopeful future. So that that's a big way. I also I'm one of my kind of spiritual disciplines and also, you know, I guess health disciplines is a runner. I was a a sprinter when I was, you know, growing up and through college, but I can't sport anymore, so I just go on runs. But I try to do a 5k run every weekend and I do it in this place called Rock Creek Park, which is a beautiful park that runs through Washington, DC. And there's some something about running for me that I commune with God and I feel a sense of peace. I can kind of clear my mind of all of the the noise and the traffic and sometimes the the the frustration, despondency and other other emotions as well. And in the middle of this creek, after I'm done with the run, I kind of have this spot where I kind of, you know, boulder jump into the middle of the creek, and then it's my prayer rock, and that's where I I I do a prayer. And there's a prayer that that Father Richard Rohr taught me a number of years ago. I'm not sure if he originated it or not, so but just giving him credit. We basically take the psalm that says, Be still and know that I am God. And you you know you take a deep breath in and you say the whole thing.

And then you just break it into pieces. And so, you know, you start with be still a no that I'm God, and then be still a no, be still, and then be. And that is just my way of again feeling God's presence, but also just feeling a sense of peace. And so I'm grateful that you know He taught that to me. I've been doing it for over a decade now, if not longer. And it's it's been my way of getting some peace.

Jennifer Thomas (53:05)

That is a gorgeous meditative practice. I love that. 

Patrick Mason (53:05)

Beautiful. Yeah.

Jennifer Thomas (53:09)

I might be stealing that from you.

Rev. Adam Taylor (53:10)

No, please. That's why I'm I'm sharing it. That's

Patrick Mason (53:12)

I will too, without the running.

Rev. Adam Taylor (53:15)

Right. I know that the running's not a prerequisite to that.

Jennifer Thomas (53:18)

We can find a rock, Patrick. We can do that. 

Patrick Mason (53:20)

Right. We have lots of rocks in Utah. right in Boston too. Adam, thank you. This is just so inspiring. Thank you for all your work. Thanks for everything you represent and and all that you're trying to do to to try to be a repairer of the breach. Thank you.

Jennifer Thomas (53:35)

Thanks for giving us this time. We really appreciate it.

Rev. Adam Taylor (53:37)

Pleasure. Right.

Jennifer Thomas (53:44)

Thanks for listening to this episode of "Proclaim Peace." To hear more, you can subscribe on a podcast app of your choice or on YouTube. You can always find full show notes or transcriptions at proclaimpeace.org.

Patrick Mason (53:58)

"Proclaim Peace" is a partnership between MWEG and Waymakers. You can learn more about Waymakers at waymakers.us. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.