Against the backdrop of today’s polarized climate, where nationalism and political power often overshadow more profound connections, Curtis Chang and Pastor Caleb Campbell offer a refreshing perspective in this podcast episode: beliefs follow belonging. They assert that understanding and transforming our neighbors’ entanglement in political ideologies requires a shift in focus from changing beliefs to nurturing relationships. Their conversation illuminates how fostering genuine connections can pave the way for meaningful change and hopeful transformations, shifting the narrative from divisive politics to inclusive community.

By exploring Caleb’s own powerful journey from disenfranchised churchgoer, to neo-nazi, to his ultimate transformation to an evangelical pastor with a strong heart for community, this conversation provides a unique insight into how the church can address Christian nationalism in a healthy and constructive way.

The following excerpt has been edited for length and clarity.

Caleb Campbell: The apostle Paul seems to go to great lengths to say that anytime there’s othering in the church, it’s a huge problem. I’ve also come to see the beauty of the diverse local congregation as a primary means of discipleship because I don’t usually have to practice long suffering with people who are just like me.

I’m invited at that table of union communion to practice the fruit of the spirit and to see Christ in the distance between me and them not to see an enemy. And so over time, that’s not only dismantled a lot of those spaces of ethnic or racial supremacy, it actually flipped it completely upside down to seeing, though we are all parts of an ethnos, the distance between us is actually magnifying our vision of God. It’s not a threat. And that’s been radically transformative.

Curtis Chang: It sounds like you’re looking at the fruit of the spirit in a spirit-filled community, filled by the spirit of Jesus, and seeing something attractive, winsome, hopeful, meaningful. I think that’s a beautiful picture of how we get converted and how we get disciples is belonging then beliefs. And then the fruit of those beliefs and belonging. It’s a lovely, and I think a very biblical picture