"Proclaim Peace" Season 2, Episode 14 // What It Means to Be Chosen, With James Patton

https://youtu.be/FnWdNDdVk5Y

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Jen and Patrick are joined by James Patton to explore the multidimensional nature of peace, emphasizing its relational and movement-driven aspects. Drawing from his rich spiritual journey and extensive experience in peacebuilding across cultures and faiths, James offers nuanced perspectives on community, faith, truth, and conflict. They discuss the Old Testament idea of a chosen people, how that relates to diverse faith groups today, and how to avoid conflict when believing in "chosenness."

Chapters

[01:36] The theme of chosenness in the Old Testament — beauty and tension

[04:55] Introducing James Patton — career in religion, conflict transformation, and global peacebuilding

[08:45] Defining peace: relationship, mutuality, and progressive healing over harm

[12:19] James's path to peacebuilding — Peace Corps in Paraguay and the power of community

[15:02] Faith journey: from Catholic roots to Quaker practice and interfaith work

[22:34] Two models of chosenness — zero-sum in/out vs. inclusive divine invitation

[27:30] Case study: reducing sectarian violence in Pakistan by elevating identity rather than erasing it

[35:41] Truth, religion, and peacebuilding — static vs. relational understandings of truth

[41:06] Navigating simple and complex worldviews — how different people hold truth

[46:34] Integrity in practice — restorative vs. punitive justice, and the difficulty of living your values

[50:39] Where James finds peace — Wendell Berry's "The Want of Peace" and "The Peace of Wild Things"

Transcript

Patrick Mason (00:00)

Hi everyone, and welcome to the "Proclaim Peace" podcast. I'm Patrick Mason, and I am here, as always, with my friend Jen Thomas. Hey Jen.

Jennifer Thomas (00:06)

Hey Patrick, how are you doing?

Patrick Mason (00:07)

I'm doing all right. It's summertime, it's beautiful.

Jennifer Thomas (00:10)

So basically what you're telling me is that you're experiencing all the signs of God's favor. And we're gonna unpack that a little bit today to figure out what does it mean to be sort of chosen and part of the favorite of God? Does it mean you have sunshine, good weather, a good Diet Coke, or does it mean something a little bit different?

Patrick Mason (00:27)

Yeah, well I actually have Coke Zero. That's my chosen beverage today. So yeah.

Jennifer Thomas (00:32)

Bad tribe. Bad tribe choice, Patrick. I'm only finding this out about you now? Two years into this podcast?

Patrick Mason (00:37)

I'm a pluralist. I'm a soda pluralist. I will drink many, many things that are bad for me.

Jennifer Thomas (00:43)

I'm not, I'm a fundamentalist. So there we are. There is one true drink. It does.

Patrick Mason (00:47)

Exactly. Well, this segues perfectly into what we're gonna talk about today. Let's be clear. So Diet Coke, is that the true drink? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, there we go. We've got the can. Yeah, product placement. they are not a sponsor, but maybe they would like to be. we'll have our people talk to their people.

Jennifer Thomas (00:54)

Yes, it's here. It's making an appearance on the pod. So product placement. Maybe they would like to be. Ha ha ha.

Patrick Mason (01:07)

So anyway, we're here to talk about actually one of the major themes in the Old Testament is this idea that God has chosen some people, right? The Old Testament is the story of the history of the formation and the history of the people of Israel. it's an incredible story. It's actually one of the world's greatest stories that has ever told, whether or not, you know, you believe in it religiously, right? It's just like this incredible foundational story, especially for a kind of Western civilization. And but it and and it's a beautiful story in the sense that God has chosen some people, especially they they have been slaves. He doesn't choose like the most powerful, or he doesn't choose the most prominent, or the people with the biggest army. He chooses a nation of slaves, and then he liberates them, and then and then he says, Like, I have blessings for you, I have promises for you, and and and he comes into relationship with them. It's a beautiful story, but there are also some less than beautiful parts of the story, too, right?

Jennifer Thomas (02:04)

Yeah, and I think one of the things that I want to point out is that sense of cohesion, that sense of being chosen, that sense of being a people, is in the case of the House of Israel very sticky in a good way. Like it it allowed people to live through thousands of years of violence, of a diaspora, of persecution, of anti-Semitism, a Holocaust, and yet somehow that that narrative allowed them to retain a sense of self, a sense of culture, a sense of deep divine purpose, divinely given purpose, beautiful religious texts. And so I guess what I want to say is I want to start this conversation by saying, I think that sense of cohesion and sense of having a people that you belong to can be an extraordinarily good thing. And it is productive, it has been productive of a lot of goodness in the world, which is I think one of the reasons that God calls us into a sense of being chosen.

But it also can have some drawbacks. Do you want to share those with our guests, Patrick? What are some of the

Patrick Mason (02:59)

Yeah. Yeah, well well, and I think Latter day Saints get this on a level that maybe not all faith communities do, right? And there's a lot of language of modern day Israel and the House of Israel within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. but a sense of chosenness that also leads to persecution, which strengthens the bonds within, you know, and all and all of the good things that come from as you say, a sticky sense of identity.

Jennifer Thomas (03:04)

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Isolation. Mm-hmm.

Patrick Mason (03:27)

But as you say, there there is this other side of the coin that it it can lead to exclusivism, it can lead to to feeling like a sense of superiority, of arrogance, that other people are less chosen, less favored by God, and and maybe even can justify harmful behaviors towards them. And so there's all and and we see that throughout the Old Testament. There are always two sides of the coin of this sense of Israel's chosenness. It's real, it's significant, it's meaningful, it leads to great goods in the world, but it also leads to the violent displacement of the Canaanites, right? And the Amalekites and all these other kind of people who at least the Israelites believe aren't chosen.

Jennifer Thomas (04:08)

Yep. And violent displacements that are happening in this time and place. Right. That is not something that has stopped. There are still people encouraging and calling for violent displacement or executing violent displacement in the name of faith now. And I think we're seeing this creep into our own national dialogue. I think it's really easy to judge others, but we are seeing this creep into our own national and even religious dialogue about how we talk about other people that you know, whether it's saying Western civilization is the best, or, you know, there are lots of ways that are manifested that that you should only belong someplace if you, you know, belong there by blood or by birth or whatever it is. And so I think we want to spend this episode teasing out some of the big ideas of what it means to be chosen, what are some of the benefits of that and the costs of that. And we've chosen a guest who we think has a really an experience that is not going to line up probably with the experience of most of the people listening to this call. It certainly doesn't line up with mine. I've lived a very simple life just in terms of life experience. That's what I mean. Like I have been a very place-based person. I grew up in one place. I did a two couple of interludes, and then I've spent most of my adult life in one other place. So it means my experiences with humans have been limited and it has been very easy for me in to fall into patterns of you know, what it means to live in the town I live in now, or what it means to be a Red Sox fan, or what it means to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I think that's true for all of us. And we wanted to put in front of you someone whose life and rich experience has been very, very different. He's just seen the rich tapestry of God's children and understands from firsthand experience how important, you know, they are to him. I wanna pass this off to you, Patrick, but I just want to close by sharing one of the scriptures that's been really formative for me as I've thought about, wrestled about what it means to be chosen, because I think it is a good sense to feel like you're chosen by God, but how I can use that sense appropriately. And it's a really gorgeous scripture found at the very beginning of the Book of Mormon, which I think is on purpose sort of sets out a viewpoint that later, you know, the people that this story is about forget very early. They try to interpret chosenness through blood, through skin color, through a lot of different things. But Nephi says, But behold, I Nephi will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen because of their faith to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.

And I love that idea that chosenness resides with the choice to choose God. It is that God chooses you only when you choose Him and to stay honorable and true to what it means to be a disciple. So I just really love that. And I wanted to set that up as part of the framing of this conversation. That is first Nephi chapter one, verse twenty.

Patrick Mason (06:46)

Yeah, right at right at the beginning, like you said. Well, good. Well, I'm excited to introduce our guest today. who is a friend who's a new colleague of mine at Utah State University. We're absolutely thrilled to have him here. And this is James Patton. So he's just joined the faculty of religious studies and the Haravi Peace Institute at Utah State. and he's had a long career in the field of religion and conflict transformation, reconciliation, economic development. He has, as Jen mentioned, worked and lived all over the world, multiple continents, spent a lot of time in Colombia, in Paraguay, Kenya, Cambodia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, you know, the list goes on and on. He was for several years. 

Jennifer Thomas (07:33)

And now Logan. And now Logan.

Patrick Mason (07:43)

And now maybe the most exotic place of all. Logan, Utah. He was for many years the head of a really impressive non-governmental organization called the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. He had worked with the US State Department and USAID. He has a he has a master's in divinity from Harvard, masters in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School. So just a really impressive person and a beautiful soul, I have to say. And so it's it's really my pleasure to to introduce and and bring on to the podcast James Patton.

Patrick Mason (08:09)

All right, well James Pat and welcome to the Proclaim Peace Podcast.

James Patton (08:12)

Thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to be here.

Patrick Mason (08:15)

Yeah, well, I get to see you in the office and around town, but now I get to see you in virtual spaces too. So that's a bonus for me. So I'm excited for this conversation. I'm excited for our listeners to get to get to know you and your work, you know, I've known you for several years and really admire the work you do in the field of religion and peace building. So I'm excited to kind of dive into some of these questions. But as you know, we always start our episodes by asking people to define peace. How do you define peace?

James Patton (08:45)

Well, first of all, thanks again for having me on here, Patrick. It's been great to know you even better to work closely with you in the last couple months and Jen having a little bit of early interaction. I look forward to even more of that. and really wanna applaud your work. So it's really great to find myself at the end of, you know, a twenty-five year career sitting around with a bunch of peace builders talking about peace. And I know the reason we do that is because things are not always as we'd like to see them and we want to contribute to that kind of transformation. So there are some rough things out there, but it's just great to be a part of all of this. So thank you again. the answer to that question, and this is oddly, I'm sure, for all of us, always a really challenging question, even though it's it's a simple word, but isn't that often the way?

The short words give us the hardest time. So peace, for me, it's very important to think of it in terms of relationship. I mean, peace is a with, right? You're, it's it's there's a prepositional element to it, it's not a static thing. You are at peace with something or someone, or even when you feel like you're sitting by the river and you're at peace, well, you're at peace with the moment, you're at peace with the things that are going on in your life. So this idea of relationship, this witness, if you want to call it that, is really critical. because it means that there's a certain mutuality to peace, a certain experience of benefit across a relationship. And I think when it comes to peace and peace building in the more practical sense, that's a really critical distinction to make. But we rarely dig deeper into that and say there has to be a progressive relational mutual improvement in the definition of that term. Even when I'm sitting by the river, things are happening in my mind and in my body and my sense of self and my sense of my place in the world that are progressively better and improving. It's kind of a sense of there's a healing over harm, right? Like healing is being emphasized versus harm being emphasized. And I think when you put that in terms of relationships with self, with others, or even at the international level between states, that's a really helpful framing to say, okay, it's not just that we stop shooting each other. We're moving towards something that's better and better for all involved.

Right. so there's a sense of movement, a sense of development, evolution of relationship that is better for the parties that are in that relationship. And for me that's really, really critical and central.

Jennifer Thomas (11:25)

So I really appreciate that. One of the things that constantly continues to amaze me is that we ask the same question and we get such a diversity of answers, which is I think the in the nature of peace itself, right? and you shared a lot of ideas that I think are going to relate to our later conversation that are threads that Patrick and I will want to pick up and pull at. But before we do that, Patrick and I conceptualize these conversations the way we experience them, our close conversations amongst close friends, like people that we know whose work we appreciate, who we just can't wait to sit down and have a good conversation with. We go into those conversations often knowing people, and our listeners sometimes don't. And so I'm wondering if you would preface this conversation by just sharing our with our listeners a little bit about how you came to this work. And particularly, I think I would love to personally hear how your spirituality or religiosity, how it has informed your decision to engage in peace building.

James Patton (12:21)

Yeah, no, thank you. I think the work is really personal for most of the people I know that do it. one of the things about peace building is it tends not to be just a job. People are really personally, spiritually, emotionally invested in why they do it, how they got there, what they hope will happen, which makes it really rich. The colleagueship in this space is really rich and meaningful and also can be really delicate, right? So for me, me personally, I grew up Roman Catholic. In my late teens, I set that down and probably had a pretty challenging relationship with faith for many, many years. I call that my agnostico atheist Taoist Buddhist period, which I also think we refer to as undergraduate in the United States.

And then I went to the Peace Corps. I joined the Peace Corps. I was in Paraguay as a beekeeper after getting a degree in the arts and a degree in the sciences, right? So it's the natural progression of someone's career path. And while I was there, I actually witnessed a couple of things that I that were really transformative for me. One was when I was in, you know, Paraguay, one of the poorest Latin American countries, I was in a community where I really witnessed what community looked like, maybe for the first time in my life. I had grown up, you know, in an Irish, Italian, Catholic family. So we had family all around, et cetera, et cetera. But this was really a different sense of community where people really took care of each other, partly because they kinda had to. I mean, there were they were scarce resources and when you needed something, you turned to your neighbors. You know, whether it was a dry year, you couldn't pull your yucca out of the ground.

So you went down closer to the river and the neighbors would share those, or or the woman across the street, the young woman who died of a what turned out to be a preventable health issue and left her seven-year-old daughter to be raised by by neighbors. You know, I mean it's just people took care of each other because that was the only option. And that was eye-opening for me, and I really found strong connections there. It was also a place that was strongly religious in its identification.

Kind of syncretic because there was a lot of the old Guarani indigenous myth that had infiltrated what was a strong Catholic space. But these are folks who I I think we saw the inside of a church twice in my two plus years that I was there, once at a funeral, once at a wedding. It was a lived faith that really grappled with things like questions of care, community, poverty, justice, without articulating them in the terms we get used to in the academic space, maybe, or even in the practitioner space, the NGO world. So I came home a little transformed without really understanding how and why. and then I like to joke, I fell in with the wrong crowd, a bunch of Quaker peace builders and and Jesuit liberation theologians, right? 

Jennifer Thomas (15:02)

Yeah. my gosh, the Jesuits and the Quakers? You had no, there you didn't stand a chance.

James Patton (15:10)

Yeah, exactly. What a combination. Talk about messing with my head, right? I couldn't really find my way back to the Catholic faith, not because I don't see a lot of incredible strength there and really, really powerful work. but I did end up sort of landing with the Quakers and I and I think I I I feel comfortable in that space because there's a lot more emphasis, I would say, on how we walk through the things we can touch and control than maybe there is on big questions of doctrine. You know, what happened 2,000 years ago, what does it mean? what's gonna happen in the future. that's all there because obviously the Quaker tradition is originally anchored in the biblical tradition. But I think there's so much more emphasis on how are we connecting with one another as human beings? How do we walk through this existence we have in a way that again back to the first question that heals rather than harms and how do we keep that always at the forefront of our minds. And it's not exclusive to Quakerism. I think most faith traditions are really trying to encourage us to to aspire, to to manifest what I would call the you know divine qualities of care, compassion, love, mutual benefit over what might be more of our base instincts of competition and aggression and anger and harm. So it's just a place that I have been comfortable in the way that faith manifests less around doctrinal articulation and more around reflection on who we are with one another.

So in terms of my faith background, that's sort of where I've been. But I spent the last fifteen, twenty years working in very, very intense inner faith spaces. So I was the CEO of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, which was founded by Dr. Douglas Johnson Johnson, who's an evangelical former military guy. Here I am, a progressive Boston Quaker, and we had the greatest working relationship I've probably ever had, right? And Doug was known as a very pluralist evangelical.

A lot in Middle East, North Africa, and the Far East. So I have sat in you know the Saudi desert and prayed with Saudis, and I have been with shamans in the Andes doing healing rituals, and I have been in Buddhist temples in Cambodia in chanting spaces. And so my interfaith experience is probably the richest faith experience that I have. But one of the things in the Quaker tradition that we embrace is what we call finding, identifying and elevating the light of the divine in the other, which leaves a lot of room for us to embrace what Krishna Stendhal would call holy envy, right? And seeing in a different tradition or a different doctrine or a different worship practice something really powerful that can inspire us in our own in our own faith practice.

Patrick Mason (17:54)

That's amazing. No, thanks for that. I think that's it's such an incredible journey. I think there's so many different things to to to to pull out there and and and I I have to say, I mean, just you know, being around you and being with you, that that that inner light does kind of shine out and and the and the curiosity and the the desire to kindle the light in other people and recognize their light. That's really transparent in you. It's one of the things I love about you. so so I want to pull on one of the threads you talked there. You talked about community and especially you like encountering this deep sense of community there in Paraguay. And so we want to kind of pick up on one of the major themes in the old testament or the Hebrew Bible, which is community.

Especially the sense these people who've been liberated by God, you know, from slavery in Egypt and have been called into, you know, in into the land of Canaan. and it turns out that there were other people there, right? That this is oftentimes, you know, conflict happens when different groups come together, and especially one group says, God told us that this was ours, right? 

And in a lot of ways that the story of the Old Testament is the story of the formation of this nation, the nation of Israel, the people of Israel who who had this covenant with God, this this covenantal relationship, and a sense that God had made certain promises to them, that they had made certain promises to God. And I think one of the tensions that we see throughout the Old Testament is the the beauty of what that means for them to come together in community, again, a liberated community, to find freedom in all those ways, but then they come into tension with other people as well who are outside their community. So that's kind of the theme that we want to talk about today. So, when you look at these biblical stories, especially in the Old Testament around chosenness, and this idea of kind of a divine calling, and it's a beautiful thing, right? That God chooses this people who had been slaves, right? I mean, that's an incredible story.

So rich and powerful, but then they turn around and then you know use violence to displace other people and so forth. So this idea of chosenness is tricky in the old testament, especially when we think through a peace-building lens. So, how do you wrestle with that? this this beautiful sense that like God has a special calling or again, chosenness for a for an individual or for a community, but then what does the other side of the coin look like? how do you think through that?

James Patton (20:25)

Well, you know, it is really a challenge and I and you're absolutely right. This idea that you have been selected to have a covenant is really powerful. The covenant working both ways, you know, that there are gifts and there are obligations, can be very, very powerful, particularly if those obligations are about aspiration to be better, be a better community, better in caring for one another, better in how you live. These are really powerful elements of most faith traditions, right? the real issue, I think, for me is when chosenness is understood as oppositional, right? There's there's an a group that is selected by the, and they are either selected, there, you know, there are a whole bunch of different ways they can be selected. It could be ethnic, it could be behavioral, it could be faith and doctrine, it could be history, but they're selected, and by implication, those who are not in that selective criteria are out, right? And not only are they out, but they don't have access to the benefit. They're not deserving of the benefit. And in the worst case, those who are in are encouraged to do harm to the ones who are out, out, right? This is where we start using. Well, God told me I gotta kill these people. Really didn't want to kill them, but God told me I had to, so you know, and then we have the divine justification for acting in ways that maybe we understand in our instincts and our spirit and our viscera are not in line with broader principles. So in my experience, there are really two ways of understanding that divine relationship and covenant, despite being part of a group that thinks and feels like they have unique relationship. It might be unique access, it might be the right way, it might be that there is a very particular protected relationship. But there are two real ways to see that. One is this kind of zero-sum way, right, which is you have to do the specific thing to join the group, and then you get favor from the divine. If you don't or aren't in that group, you have disfavor from the divine.

That's kind of a classic in and out chosenness. and and there's a godhead that sits over this group. And in some cases, and honestly, you know, we could have this discussion about the Old Testament, there are maybe other godheads, maybe weaker, maybe worse, that are sitting with other groups, or they are just 

Patrick Mason (22:44)

And then my God is smarter and tougher and stronger than your God, right?

Jennifer Thomas (22:47)

Yeah. And it becomes a battle of the gods, right? Yeah.

James Patton (22:51)

Yeah, and so there's a polytheistic issue there, and then there's real identity in-group, out-group, because even the gods are at it, you know, and the Greeks and the Romans were really good at this stuff. But the others, the other idea of chosenness that I've seen manifest, you see this a lot in the mystical traditions, but it there's a through line through almost all faith traditions, which is the divine has manifested this reality, whether it's creation or however you want to term it, right? There is divinity shot through everything. And by everything it means everyone. And therefore, the way you relate to the other, even as a chosen, a member of a chosen group, either manifests or doesn't manifest divine quality.

And divine aspiration and divine principle, right? So you can be treating the others in a way that recognizes the potential, not potential, but recognize the hand of the divine in their very existence. Right? There's a beautiful poem. it's either Hafez or Rumi, one of the great Persian you know, mystical poets. and I'm gonna do absolute terrible damage to the poem, so please know and look it and hold me to account. But effectively what it says is, what if you got an invitation to an absolutely phenomenal party, right? And you were selected to be there.

And you get there at this beautiful place, incredible, you know, building and hall, and you go in and you see all these different people there who were also special invitees. How would you treat those people? Right? And that has always resonated with me in terms of, you ascribe this incredible life and its inhabitants to a divine creation, well, everyone's been invited by the divine. How are we treating those other invitees? And who are we to treat them poorly, right? And so there's there's a different sense there, and if you really deep dive into that, and this is kind of where my theology lands, if if God, if the divine, if the Godhead's motive was creation and and goodness and wholeness and again healing and wellness, right, for the chosen, whomever that might be, or the created, then if you multiply that wellness by your behavior in the world, it necessarily reflects wellness back on you, right?

If you do harm from that position into the world, then you are actively harming the thing that was then created. And we all know in conflict work that harm just receives reciprocal harm oftentimes. So it actually is even bad for you and yours, right? so if the divine call is to increase wholeness, wellness, love, and healing over the opposite qualities, which I would call the anti-divine qualities, which are destroying things and harming things, then our actual chosenness obligation, if we are the chosen, is even more along the lines of the responsibility to do good to others and do well in the world. We're actually tasked with the agency of manifesting good things.

Healing things, care for and call it writ large creation. I know that's a specific term sometimes to specific faith expressions, but that is a pretty serious obligation. In my own theology, I think of it as like if there were a single act by the divine, it's to create the opportunity, the always present opportunity for manifesting divine quality over its opposite.

But that agency then lands very much on us. We have to be choosing how our footfalls land in this world. And that's a different, totally different understanding of a chosen relationship with the divine.

Jennifer Thomas (26:27)

So let me ask you a hard question. Human beings are wired to want to be in groups, right? We feel we're herd animals, even though we like to pretend we're independent actors, we're not. We're herd animals. So some of the great power of religion and faith has been to gather people into a place where they feel a sense of belonging, they feel a sense of shared purpose. and and and what I hear you saying is so expansive. It's beautiful, but it's so expansive that I can see people responding, but how does that hold together? Like if my responsibility is just to the whole world and to every person in it equally, how can a religion or a faith or a group of people hold together in a way that is positive?

And not exclusive that, you know, like God loves me more than God loves you. but but still has some cohesiveness and leaves people with a sense of attachedness. Because my guess is the people that you experienced in Paraguay would have really struggled to maintain those same relationships if they were living in two million people cities. Part of it is there was a definitional group that they had allegiance to and care for.

So I'm just interested to hear in your lived experience and I my guess is you have a really rich answer to this. How can we hold those two things in tandem? Like belonging and also retaining this sense that we owe something to everyone.

James Patton (27:57)

So let me let me invert a little bit of your question there because I think my reasoning is not we have a responsibility in in the framework we're talking about, in this chosenness framework. It's not that you have a responsibility to everyone. You actually have a responsibility to the chosenness. You have a responsibility to your better self and what the divine is asking of you.

Jennifer Thomas (28:08)

Yeah. Yes, this chosenness, exactly.

James Patton (28:21)

That's the way I see it in this framing. So if God wants the world to be whole and healed, then how are your actions responding to that requirement and that obligation? It's not actually about, well, I have to know, you know, fulano y fulano y fulano and take care of them the way they want. No, you're actually taking care of what you've been asked to do.

Right. And so in a way, your actions outward are a manifestation of your inner obligations. Right? And so this and then you get all this great stuff about like, you know, to draw from the Christian tradition, to give and not count the cost, right? Because you're not actually giving to the other so you get recognized, so that you, you know, can be seen to be doing the right thing or gain there. You're actually doing it because you are trying to navigate this imperfect self in a space where the divine or the perfect ideal way of being in the world is drawing you into a better self, right? And this is the beauty, what I call the grace of imperfection. I stole that from somebody, but the idea that we're not meant to be perfect.

Right? Because then you have a God mind and you're you're, you know, it's if the divine is perfect, then us thinking we're perfect, we actually close ourselves off to the inspiration and the call to be better. What we are meant to is to continually strive to improve, right? But it's not for it doesn't have to be for the sake of the other in the sense that you're talking about. Because then you get into all these paradigms about, well, who is the other?

You know, what has the other done? What do they deserve? How do I know what they deserve? Do I talk about deservedness? you know, I don't know this person, I don't know their relationships, I don't know their language, I don't know the way they're behaving. Well, let's start set up a calculus of who deserves good things and who doesn't, and blah, blah, blah. And I think that's an entirely misdirected way of approaching it. The question is, what am I called to do? How am I asked to behave?

Right. And then it shouldn't matter to whom I am behaving in that way. Right? Integrity, the idea of integrity is I behave the same way, regardless of who's in front of me. Right? 

There was a question that you all sent to me in advance that had to do with, you know, when do you know that someone is starting to you know, a faith group is starting to kind of set aside their values for in-group, out-group jockeying and power politics or whatever it might be. And I think that's part of the answer. Is like when you start seeing the justifications for laying down principles and values, and people start employing an ends justified of the means, kind of rationale for behavior, that's when the external is becoming much more important than that internal call and that process. And one of the big problems I think in chosenness and in group conflict is we start to then transform the divine, transform God from something beyond us that is encouraging us beyond our basis selves to something more elevated. We start transforming the image of the divine or God into something that justifies what we already feel and think and believe.

I think it was, you know, a Catholic nun who said, when you realize you've made God in your own image, when God starts to hate the same people you hate, right? And these are all the sacred texts are asking us to try to do better, right? I mean, love your enemy. Well, what does that mean?

It's not a passive thing to sit and in the abstract love them while we're also bombing, destroying, torturing, and killing them. It's actually, what do we mean by love? We need to challenge ourselves on these concepts. So if I'm loving my enemy, what is love? When I think of the people I love, my kids, my family, I think I want the best for them. I want them to be more whole, more healed, right? So, how do I do that with an enemy? Someone who's doing stuff I can't stand. Well, if they were more whole and healed, maybe they wouldn't be doing that, maybe they wouldn't be so hurt, maybe they wouldn't be so toxic and damaging in the world. That might actually have a massive ripple effect benefit. So again, you know, if we think about this in terms of my identity requires me to do this. And let me share a short anecdote. I know I'm giving a 10-minute answer here. But a short anecdote of that I think is really relevant. We did a project in Pakistan at one point on trying to diminish or mitigate sectarian violence, which is a big issue, Shia, Sunni in particular, but also some of the Sunni sects. And we went in with the idea of, okay, we're gonna get everyone to recognize they all have these shared values, a shared heritage, they're all coming from the same, you know, background and texts and blah blah blah.

One of my friends was at the time running an early AI analysis program. And he really wanted to he was doing it for for actual for defense industry, but he really wanted to apply it to peace building. He said, Can I do this on your program before you implement the program in Pakistan? So he said, Sure. So he he looked at all of our assessment of our field analysis, had conversations with our partners, and he came back, he said, You're doing it wrong. I said, What do you mean? He said, if you go in there and you try to push away sectarianism and say it's not about belonging to your little group, we're all one. He said, You will get almost certainly backlash from that and maybe even harden the divides. He said, what the machine is telling us is if you elevate certain aspects of belonging as strong and meaningful and values-based and aligned with principles, but celebrate that as if you're a good Diobandi, if you're a good Wahhabi, if you're a good Shia, then you will behave this way to others, then you'll have a much more positive impact. That program was extremely successful. 

Jennifer Thomas (34:05)

So they're retaining so they're retaining their identity, yeah.

James Patton (34:09)

And then, of course, you've got Amarcia Sen's work on multiplicity of identity, which is we're not just one thing, right? So we actually create bonds in multiple ways through nested identities. So, you know, James Patton, Spanish speaker, soccer player, former, because my name is busted up, now professor, former, you know, NGO guy. All these different things have connected me with wildly different people. What starts to cause problems is when we reduce our entities down to singularities. I am just the this in-group, and everyone else is the out group. And then I start to align that with certain values. I simplify it and I say, if I am part of this, then I have to believe all these platform pieces. And these are good. And anything that's not that is bad. Right? We're watching this in our own society and our own politics now in the United States. Then we start ascribing spiritual value to it or moral value. So this is not just bad, it's evil.

And then we start to attach existentialism to it. It's not just evil, it's dangerous and deadly. And I can't survive if the other survives. So this oppositional idea of identity has now become so reductionist and so dangerous that the this is the gateway to genocide, right?

And that's where you start, you know, there are all sorts of tools and practices to try to break down those singularities and that reductionism. but it's really about that multiplicity of identity. How can I see part of me in the other? Right? It's really hard to hate someone if you share something with them.

Patrick Mason (35:34)

So how do we especially thinking about a a kind of Old Testament context, and and this would be true for other religious groups as well. I'm thinking about the sh the sh the Shias and the Sunnis that you're working with and and so forth, how do we factor in truth to all of this? Because because a lot of these groups, right, of of course they value love and care and compassion, care for the other, care for the stranger, all of these kinds of things.

Now we also have truth, right? And in the old testament that shows up in very particular ways, right? There is one God. and it's a little confusing in the Old Testament, is like, is it just like he's Israel's God and he's better than all the other gods, or really are all the other gods, they don't even exist. They're just made up, right? they're truly false gods. and there's only one God. So this idea of scarcity, this idea of oneness, right, this idea that actually there are some things that are better than other things. There are some commitments, there are some beliefs that are better than other beliefs. There are things that are truer than other things. So how do you sort of run into this kind of system that you're talking about?

James Patton (36:38)

Well and the first thing I wanna say is I do not hold any kind of ownership over truth. and I would never claim to. I hold ownership over my little tea truths that I hope are able to evolve over time. and there are things I believe are better and worse. but I don't agree on, again, I go back to relationship, right? There are people I disagree with and people I wish thought differently and acted differently, right? But as a peace builder, but also as a pragmatist, I think you got two ways to change people's minds. One is coercion, you force them, and the other is persuasion, you convince them, right?

Coercion only lasts and it's only as good as the amount of time you can keep them coerced, right? You keep someone down, keep them from behaving a certain way, and you're winning the argument. The minute you remove that, you haven't changed anybody's minds or hearts. So for me, persuasion is a much stronger way to approach things because people actually transform. And then they become an agent for sharing those ideas, right? So when it comes to sharing truths, those two approaches I think are valuable, different and have different practical outcomes. Now, with respect to true capital T truth, for me personally, again, I fall back into if what is true is good, particularly in a religious context, right, I think goodness is must be mutual and multiply.

I also think it must be relational. So when I think what's true, I don't think in static terms. I think in relational terms. I believe that it is more true that if I respect someone, that if I care for someone, even if I disagree with them, I believe it's more true that I'm more likely to persuade them and build a relationship with them around things that I think are important.

I think that's a truth for me, James Patton, right? I do think there it's it's true that certain behaviors are harmful that people are engaged in, right? But again.

How do I adjust that? How do I work with that? How do I adapt that? I mean, if I just slaughter them, I haven't actually put any kind of argument out in the world that we as human beings could be something different, right? And that's just really hard work and it's really bloody and it's really awful. And we've tried that our whole history as a species and still are arguing over really basic stuff, right? I also think it's true, absolutely true, that we will be in conflict over ideas, over resources, over all sorts of stuff. That is natural to the human condition. So what do you do with that truth? What do you do with conflict? Patrick, you and and I and Jen, I'm sure you know John Paul Laderock's work on conflict transformation, which at the heart says conflict is value neutral. It's where it goes that that creates value. Religion can be the same way. I use the hammer as a metaphor. A hammer is value neutral.

It's a true thing. A hammer is a true thing. It can knock things, you know, into other spaces. But now how do you use that hammer? You can build a house with it, or you can cleave somebody's noggin in with it, right? And so the truth manifests in how it how what what it creates in relationship with other things.

So I might be dodging your question, I'm acknowledging your question. I just am reframing the idea of truth. I don't think truth is or ever has been static. And I think we get caught up in that in ways that we know viscerally are untrue. We try to cling to static truths, even though we see in our lives, everyday lives and relationships and histories, all of the exceptions to those truths.

And so I think that frustrates people, that creates more insular groups, that creates groups that are more reductionist in their identity, more oppositional, because they're so stuck on the static truth being true that it creates fear and it creates limitation. Whereas if it were the relational truths that were true, right? Around harm, compassion, and care over harm and hatred. Okay, well, now do we talk about how what that looks like?

I may disagree with you on the things you're doing. I think they're harmful. But because I'm gonna act not in a harmful way towards you, maybe we can actually talk about finding a way that's good for everyone, mutual benefit, right? And there's where institutions evolve and relationships evolve towards something better. That for me is true.

rather than just a specific doctrinal point. Because if all those things were obviously true and they manifested as true over and over and over again, you wouldn't have religions breaking into little pieces all over the place, which they all do and all have done throughout history, because those static things don't sustain.

Jennifer Thomas (41:23)

So I'm gonna play devil's advocate here. I think you have just described a beautifully complex and nuanced perspective on truth that is reflective of a beautifully complex and nuanced life. You've lived, obviously, you've just described to us, you've lived all over the world. You've had all sorts of interactions with people. Most human beings, probably many of them who listen to this podcast, have had a much more limited experience.

I would just speak up for all the ding-dongs in the room where I say that since I'm not thinking in depth and in complex ways about, you know, deep thoughts, most of what I do is I move through the world based on a set of truths. I assume that a certain set of things are true. I take that for granted. I've analyzed them, I've assessed them, and I move through the world. I think that's how most people move through the world, assuming that they've got a capture on a little bit of capture T truth, and that takes away some of the effort of living, right? I can't.

Think of I can't litigate everything every day. So, so, but how do we help people like me, dummies like me, live in a world of complex, deep, thought thinker, th thoughtful thinkers like you? and how do we accommodate both of those worldviews? Do you see what I'm saying? Like, how can I, how can someone like you work with someone like me who has a more simplistic version of truth? And how can you help me not push that version of truth into into a place where I feel like I have to be in combat with people who also have a simplistic version of truth.

Patrick Mason (42:47)

I'll do a friendly re amendment to that, Jen, to say that I'm not sure it's just simple versus complex, right? In the sense that the people with truth systems have very elaborate and complex and rich theological traditions. I mean, people go for years and years. Yeah. I mean, with thousands of years, you know, thousands of pages, you know, of these kinds of things. So I appreciate the the you know the humility in the question.

Jennifer Thomas (42:54)

Okay. Elaborate truth systems, yes. Well thought out, yes.

Patrick Mason (43:14)

But but actually there's complexity on both sides too.

Jennifer Thomas (43:16)

Yeah. Okay.

James Patton (43:17)

Well and I agree a hundred percent. And I wouldn't say that simple truths means simple thinking. I don't agree with that at all. and again, you know, my nuanced explanation is autobiographical. I'm just trying to explain how I get there, right? I don't think it requires that kind of extreme nuance and depth of thinking to grapple with this, right? it can be simple and honestly should be simple. There, there's in my mind, aiming for simplicity is a positive thing because simplicity suggests integrity and consistency, right? Now simplicity at the expense of thinking about something at the expense of testing it, I don't agree with that. But if you find that your truth holds, then there's something strong about that, right?

And that's what I think really a good positive reinforcement. What my argument is really is simple truths in theory or in doctrine that in practice violate the very essence of the truth itself. So for example, right, I know progressive friends who think religion is all the problem. I have conservative friends who think you know gay people are are a big problem. And yet both groups are probably thinking, I want the best.

Jennifer Thomas (44:16)

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

James Patton (44:30)

Best for my community and humanity. Whether they think about it deeply, I bet you their instinct is that thing is doing harm, right? religion's doing harm. gay and lesbian relationships are doing harm. Like there's a sense in their truth that this is a harmful thing. They're against it, not because they want to hate people, they're against it because they're afraid of it and they think it's harmful. That's just that is a pretty solid motive, right? Is you want to stop harm. I'm with you 100%. But then if you turn around, you bomb a church, or you turn around and you and you, you know, drag a gay person behind your pickup truck so they die. Like, how is that consistent with not doing harm? That's where I that's what I mean by n filtering truth through relational action, right? Like that's where I want to see integrity. If someone comes to me with a list of consistent truths that are simple and they hold and they manifest them in relationship, I'm all in. I don't care where they're coming from. Right?

Jennifer Thomas (45:27)

So I hear you saying that the way you can hold those truths is to be true to them. Is is to say, okay, the reason if I think that an outgroup or someone else is doing harm because they're not holding consistently with the truth, then I need to behave in a way, and I think you've explained this beautifully in your previous answer, I need to be behave in a way that at its most high level is me acting consistently with my truth system, not acting in opposition to my truth system and justifying it by saying I have to act oppositionally, I have to do violence, I have to do harm, in order to preserve the good of my truth system. So you're saying that the only way this can hold is if people who hold these deep, complex truths actually live up to them.

James Patton (46:10)

Well, and that's where complexity comes in.

So a hundred percent, this is the work then that we do as peace builders, because this is not easy. It might be easy to say, but it ain't easy. Even for people who are completely aware of it and committed to it, right? And I'm looking at y'all and myself, because honestly, there's plenty of work. I always say I've got so much work to do on me. I don't I shouldn't be bothering to try to work on anybody else. As long as I keep working on me, maybe I'll do something worthwhile. because you can tell yourself all day long.

I need to love that person, the dignity and divinity in that person who I see doing harm. But every single one of us has people in our world that we think, my God, if they would just go away, if I could just make them go away, right? And honestly, that manifests in our institutions. So you have two very different strains of justice thinking, which I would align with those strains of divinity thinking I talked about earlier, which is punitive justice and restorative justice, just to create rough categories. Restorative justice is fundamentally grounded in the idea that I can address bad behaviors and bad attitudes and all this other stuff in a way that creates better wholeness for the whole community, including the person who's the perpetrator of something we don't want them to be doing.

Whereas punitive justice thinking is you did something wrong, you're gonna get punished for it. Now, there is room for accountability and restorative justice, but these are the complexities around these things. It's not that you should have integrity, it's how to do it. And this is where religion comes in. Religion has so much guidance on this, right? Yeah, you're imperfect. Here's some ideas on how to try to get better, right? Go pray on it.

That to me is the greatest function, positive function of religion. Now it also functions entirely the opposite way. And going back to Patrick's question and your question about truth in the Old Testament, there's a lot of really strong punitive justice stuff in some of these books. And whether we like it or not, and again, I'm speaking for myself, I have seen in every doctrine I've encountered.

Plenty of room for cherry picking the things we like that reinforce our current attitudes. I think if we were really not hard on ourselves, but if we pushed ourselves to allow the divinity in our traditions to challenge us and elevate us in the places where we have these weaknesses and these contradictions, then

We might all be moving towards a better place together, right? Faith can do that. But faith can just as easily, and we have infinite examples of this, be a place where someone goes, look at this six-word, you know, passage. This is everything I said is terrible about the other people and gives us every reason to murder them. you know, and again, we come back to the autobiographical. I'm talking about me.

Patrick Mason (48:51)

Yeah. Yeah.

James Patton (48:57)

Right. And I would never say that this needs to be how anyone else sees something because I'm sure I'm missing some things. But for me, I've landed at this place where I really believe we can be better to one another. And I believe that will help us as well. It's kind of this, you know, collective selfishness. I believe I can challenge myself more to deal with the people I'm in conflict with better.

And I would hope that, you know, maybe along the way I've picked up some ideas on how to help other people who want to do that. I'm not saying that an exclusive in group, outgroup divinity is wrong. I'm just saying it's different than the one that I feel called by. and and we can navigate that and negotiate that throughout time. We're not going to force everyone to agree with us. That's called fascism, right? Authoritarianism. 

Patrick Mason (49:44)

That's what we're trying to avoid. So no, I think this is so helpful, James. I mean, this is this is why I mean just listening to you, it's like that's why I'm excited for you to be in the classroom and and teaching courses on religion, violence, and peace and interfaith leadership and teaching a whole new generation of students to work through all these issues, and and to come to come to their own understandings of these things so they can go out and and be peace builders in the world. Well, as we wrap up, you know, there's lots more that we could talk about, but we always wrap up with the same question. And you've talked a lot autobiographically and so forth, but we also want to land on this question of not just how do you define peace, but where do you personally find peace?

James Patton (50:23)

Yeah, thank you for that. And can I be overly clever about this and use Wendell Berry to respond for me? I'm a big fan of nature. I should be spending more time there. I'm really a big fan of being with my loved ones in quiet in nature. but Wendell Berry wrote a a pair of short poems that I think one answers the other. And if you don't mind, can I read those? Is that okay? 

Patrick Mason (50:46)

He's a friend of the show.

James Patton (50:49)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the want of peace I think captures a lot of my angst. So the want of peace says, All goes back to the earth, and so I do not desire pride of excess or power, but the contentments made by men who have had little, the fishermen's silence, receiving the river's grace, the gardeners musing on the rose.

I lack the peace of simple things. I am never holy in place. I find no peace or grace. We sell the world to buy fire, our way lighted by burning men, and that has bent my mind and made me think of darkness and wish for the dumb life of roots.

That's our day-to-day challenge, as the singer Patty Griffin said, you know, sometimes it seems there's way more darkness than light, right? But then he responds to himself with a shorter poem called The Peace of Wild Things. When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound, in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water, and I feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free.

Patrick Mason (52:17)

Very nice.

James Patton (52:17)

And that's what I hope to find here in Logan.

Patrick Mason (52:19)

Yeah, thank you so much. so grateful for your insight today and for being with us and sharing all of that and your own path and journey.

Jennifer Thomas (52:27)

Yeah. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it.

James Patton (52:27)

Absolute pleasure and a blessing. Thank you both. Really appreciate it.

Jennifer Thomas (52:37)

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 (52:50)

"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.