Beeson Podcast, Episode #712
Dr. Vince Bacote
Date

>>Announcer: 

Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your host, Doug Sweeney. 


>>Doug Sweeney:

Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am your host, Doug Sweeney. And I’m coming to you today from the basement of my house in the middle of a wintry day in Birmingham. There is snow on the ground. Everyone is working from home today. The city shut down. Even a life together school like Beeson is grateful for the internet and zoom, the kind of technology that enables us to continue this podcast today with Dr. Vince Bacote, my friend and guest. Dr. Bacote is Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics and Professor of Theology at Wheaton College. He’s going to be preaching in our chapel series in just a few weeks here. Given his flight arrangements and so on though for the day he’s preaching, we thought it would be more convenient to interview him ahead of time and we’re doing it by zoom today. So, Dr. Bacote, thank you very much for being with us. We’re looking forward to having you on campus.

>>Bacote:
I’m looking forward to it. It’s great to be with you. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
So, some of our listeners will know about you already, but for those who don’t, why don’t we begin by just introducing you to them. Can you tell us just a little bit about how you came to know Jesus and have faith in Christ and how you got called into Christian ministry? 

>>Bacote:
Sure. I grew up in Maryland. I grew up going to a church called Shiloh Baptist Church of Glenarden, Maryland. It was all I knew was Shiloh Baptist. I found out years later, actually decades later, that it was a national and progressive Baptist. So again, there was that split in 1961, which was about denominational politics more than like, you know, politics outside of the denomination. But a lot of Baptist churches did not choose to side with either one, so it was one of those that was National Baptist and National Progressive Baptist. But all I knew was Shiloh Baptist. That’s where I went. From a young age, I was very interested in spiritual things. Probably became a Christian, in terms of belief, probably a year or two before saying any kind of actual official sinners’ prayer or anything because there was no question about whether I believed. It was like, okay, is now the time kind of thing. Should I do that now? You know, and then eventually got baptized. So, that’s where I was really one of those kids that was very interested in being a religious person, not because I, you know, it was the cool thing to do it. It was just that I just wanted to be open to God. I don’t know if that’s the language I would have used then, but that’s what it was. 
My trajectory really was towards being a veterinarian. Went to college at the Citadel, the military college in South Carolina. My degree is in biology. While I was there, I was involved with the parachurch group, the Navigators, one of the most transformative things that happened for me. That’s probably where I had one of the biggest growth spurts of my life, spiritually speaking. And between my sophomore year and my junior year was at Navigators summer training program and that’s really where understanding more about salvation is not just being saved per se as in the words I have eternal life, but also that it’s about the life that is mine really being a life that completely is surrendered to Jesus. You know, one of these lordship of Christ types of things. 
It was such a transformative reality for me that I wondered for a while, honestly, am in know really converted? What I tell students and other people now is that no, that’s just one of those moments when you have a great illumination. And it’s such a great illumination that it almost feels like you’re starting over again because it’s so big and transformative. But really, it didn’t replace what was before, it expanded what there was before in terms of my belief. And so, so that did very much orient me to, in terms of praying, not just God, will you make me a veterinarian? But instead, Lord, what do you want with me? What do you want to do with my life? And when I graduated, I honestly had an ambivalence between pursuing seminary education or going to veterinary school. 
So, I lived with a Navigator staff guy in Memphis, Tennessee a few years after I got out of college. And pretty soon after I was in Memphis, I had a significant sense of clarity that seminary was a vocation. Now the thing was the only kinds of vocations that I knew for what I’d call a semblance of full time Christian service was you’re either going towards pastoral ministry or you’re going towards some kind of missionary occupation like being with the Navigators or overseas missions or something like that. Now I knew that kind of parachurch pursued was not, sort of, in the cards for me. But I did know that the kind of parachurch pursued that, you know, is my main job being at Wheaton College, at a Christian college. I didn’t even know that that was a legitimate thing. I mean, I knew there were people who did it, but I never, one, was very close to people who had those kinds of vocations. And second, you know, given the focus on ministry and the way that it was with the Navigators, sort of kind of front lined type of ministry, I interpreted some things that I heard that kind of suggested that there was suspicion of people who did what I do for a living now and what you do. 
But the irony is that I wanted to go into Trinity up in Deerfield, Illinois. I started there in October of 90 and it was a Navigator staff guy named Bob Price, after I got all A’s my first quarter at TEDS, said Vince, a guy like you ought to get a PhD.  And when he was articulating this, it was like turning the lights on because I had started to feel a kind of vocational dissonance. Now, there was no dissonance about preaching. The dissonance was that I knew I wanted to do more than just what a pastor does. I knew I wanted to be, you know, doing the messaging. But I also knew that I wanted to have the faith connecting to various dimensions of life. And so, then in the entire 1990s, basically, I was in grad school and went from TEDS to Drew in Madison, New Jersey. Got my PhD, did my work about faith in public life and Abraham Kuyper, particularly, connecting his doctrine of common grace to the work of the spirit and creation. And I started at Wheaton College in January of 2000 because my first daughter was born in August of 99. And this past month makes it 25 years at Wheaton, and here we are. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
Congratulations. So, tell us a little bit about Wheaton. We get students from Wheaton. Often times we know a little bit about it down here in Birmingham, but what’s God doing at Wheaton these days? What makes you excited to be a theology professor at Wheaton?

>>Bacote:
Great. So, Wheaton College is a Christian liberal arts institution. So, the difference between say Wheaton College and say Moody Bible Institute or a Bible college is that the education isn’t just focused on people learning the Bible. The liberal arts education at Wheaton, you learn to learn. You’re learning multiple competencies. We talk about the integration of faith and learning. It’s kind of a mantra at Wheaton College. So, you’re talking about how faith is integrated across these disciplines. And so, that’s what we do. And I think one of the things I’m excited about is that we have one, navigated fairly well all the demographic cliff types. So, the people who don’t know what that’s talking about, it’s that the birth rate has been flat since 2008. Well, that means people are saying that in 2024, you’re going to have a significant drop in terms of the number of students applying because of the drop in the birth rate because now those people will be freshmen in 2024. And so, that has drastically affected a lot of schools, not just Christian colleges because you have fewer students to fill all the seats in these institutions. And so, I think we’ve navigated that pretty well. 
I think one of the things that I’m excited about in terms of what’s going on at Wheaton now, it’s related to something that maybe we’ll talk more about later, is you know, Wheaton did, a couple of years ago, this waw called a historical review on race about Wheaton College. And it included, you know, language of corporate repentance. Now the problem with doing something like this is that some people think that you shouldn’t be doing it. Why are you doing that, you know, looking at the past that way? Other people are thinking, well you did it, but did you do enough? You’re never going to please everybody with something like that. But the fact that we did that and that we did it in a time of great polarization, I think, is something that gives me a sense of a kind of optimism about us really being an institution that has this sign out here that’s across from College Church, it’s on the southwest corner of campus, it’s Scientist for Christ and His Kingdom, that we really offer Christ and His kingdom and not just a White midwestern kingdom, but actually a kingdom that’s like the kingdom of everything, you know, it’s all His, all people, all regions, etc. And Wheaton College wanted to be a place that is committed to that kingdom, not to just newly local expressions of that. 
And one of the things that’s also, I’m excited about with that, is that next month we are going to premier this documentary that I’ve been working on about Black evangelicals. I love the kind of students that we have. One of the things that’s very important to me, and certainly the Navigators has everything to do with this, it’s very important to me to try to build mentoring relationships with students, so I very much enjoy doing that. That’s part of the pastoral expression for me as a professor at Wheaton College. We’ve got great colleagues and, you know, I like what we did at Wheaton. You know, we’re a place that, at its best, creates the opportunities for people to learn to live well with each other when they come from different places. I think one of the things that Wheaton does best is really help students to prepare to have wholistic faith in the sense that this integration of faith and learning means that faith should go with you everywhere. And you’re trying to learn how, as a Christian, to perceive, not just perceive but also think about how you participate in the various domains of life. 
And I think another thing that’s always encouraging to me is sometimes, you know, especially in this social media age that we live in, when people complain, you can get the idea that the people who are complaining are most of the people that went here. But I’ve had these, you know, illuminations in recent years where it’s dawned on me that actually, the great abundance of people that have gone to Wheaton College really love Wheaton College and are really glad that they went there. So, I’m really thankful that we’re a place where people really do feel that way and they really do love their years here. Both of my daughters went here and I’ vey glad they went, not just because hey, I’m glad you went and you’re close to home ow whatever, they really had great formative experiences here. And they’re both capable of talking about their vocation, coming out of Wheaton, in a way that I wasn’t able to do, that level of clarity when I graduated. And so, I’m very excited. Yeah, yeah. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
Tell us a little bit about the center that you lead, the Center for Applied Christian Ethics. How did that come to be? When did you take it over? And what do you do?

>>Bacote:
The Center for Applied Christian Ethics emerged in the 1980s, so even before I went to college, it was starting to happen. There were people who wanted to start talking about ethics across the curriculum. One of the people, there was a guy named Paul DeVries who was starting to do some events around that. Eventually, it kind of becomes a center by the late 80s. And by the late 80s, Alan Johnson, my former colleague, became I guess maybe the first official director of it. And the goal then, I would say, was mainly how do we get ethics across the curriculum and how are we encouraging people to think about ethics not just in terms of how do I decide about nuclear war or something like that, but also how is that, how are we thinking about ethics in different circumstances, you know, in your work life, etc.? So, after Alan retired in 2001, no 2000 actually, my first year that I was here, Ken Chase, in the communications department, was the director for about four years, then Lindy Scott, who was one of our foreign language profs, became the director. And then one day, in 2006 I believe it was, Jeff Greenman comes into my office and says, “Vince, Lindy Scott is going to Whitworth. That means the directorship of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics is open. I think you should be that person.” Now, I was the only other person in the office, so I had to respond to what he was saying. But I was not looking to become the Director of CASE. 
For me, a faith connected to all of life, a faith that is lived out, where theology walking around, that has been very important to me, arguably, since I was in college. I didn’t know to call it theology in terms of how we talk about our faith, how we categorize it, ethics being about how we think about how we ought to live. But to me, there was always a sense that ethics and theology need to be like this; they need to be together. And I was certainly confounded by the fact that it seemed to me that for a lot of evangelicals at least, I don’t think it’s only evangelicals but this is the word I was inhabiting, that for a lot of evangelicals, the emphasis on getting the message right, talking about the information, being committed to truth, etc. is like that was talking about this thing that kind of floated in the air, so to speak. And then ethics was this occasional thing that depended upon whatever crisis you cared about. And then you think about how we ought to do something about that, when to me, the bigger thing was how is what our beliefs showing up everywhere and informing how we perceive and respond to everything. So, I say all that to say, is that even though I wasn’t looking to be the director of CASE, it really was something that was very fitting for me. 
And so, for me, what I’ve aspired to do as the director is to emphasize the place of moral formation. In other words, how are the events that we put on helping to facilitate moral formation on campus and beyond? We have an annual theme and as the director, you know, I’m sort of like the host of the event. We sometimes do things on our Facebook page where we might talk about, you know, what’s a contemporary ethical challenge or we’ve asked people, hey, what do you think is one of the ethical challenges and then I’ll address that. or sometimes we have guests, I’ll do the interviews with them about that. And so, now, I mean, I’m getting close to almost 20 years of doing this, which is very interesting. When I think about how long I’ve been doing this, oh wait, I’ve been doing that longer at Wheaton than I haven’t been doing it at Wheaton. And I think one of the things that has been a blessing about that is that’s also helped me to think more about how institutions work because of being in this kind of director role, think about the administrative dimensions of things. It’s been an opportunity to have a certain kind of leadership on campus, you know, outside of the theological studies department, and people have really responded positively to what we do. The goal is how was the various kinds of programing that we have, various lectures or panels, etc., how are we helping people to think about what it means to really live Christianly. How ought you to live Christianly? I mean, just how we are to live in terms of the kind of people that we are, the kind of goals that we think about that we’re heading toward, and of course, you know, stuff like deontological or rule ethics, you know.  What are the commands that are given to us that we can discern or put into practice? And so, to me, it’s just important and a great opportunity from this side of things to have a role in that on the campus.

>>Doug Sweeney:
And among theological scholars, you’re best known for the work you’ve done on Abraham Kuyper over the years. It seems to me that somebody who had done the kind of theological scholarship you’ve done is well positioned to lead a center and apply Christian ethics. Have you featured Kuyper at all, or you try to sort of keep him in just your scholarly-

>>Bacote:
I mean, I’ve had the occasional situation I’ll bring up, and certainly on occasion we go over in class, [inaudible 0:18:22] political theology, starting next week. It’ll show up in there. But I try to be, you know, to have a range of traditions. Let’s put it that way. What’s unmistakable is that there’s this Kuyperian or I would say neo-Kuyperian because, you know, Kuyper was calling it Neo-Calvinism because he wasn’t’ just cutting and pasting. He was, I think sometimes in really good ways, contextualizing. And so, the goal is not just cut and paste him but to be kind of informed, influenced by him, but also doing my own thing. So, I’d say Neo-Kuyperian because, you know, got this whole show up here. And the thing is, I’ll read Kuyper, like if I haven’t read him in a while because I’m doing other stuff. I’ll read and then, you know, I’ll just kind of like, put my hands up and go, well that’s why there’s the residence, isn’t there? So, because he just is so much about what I’ve read I him that has been very helpful for me in terms of framing how to think about public engagement, think about a basis for public engagement. And of course, there’s just the fact that his life was kind of a walking public theology. He had this person that was a minister, stepped out of official church work and went into politics, became a professor, helped found political party, helped found the university, became Prime Minister in 1901 to 1905. Like many people who when they get to that perch, it was only okay when he was Prime Minister. He was probably more influential before that. But he was also still somewhat prolific after that. 
So, he was just truly someone that was, the way Nick Wolterstorff put it, definitely kind of an intuitive genius that was very much committed to a faith that he wanted to have engaged the culture, but he did not want the church to be running the culture. He wanted Christian principles, you might say, to be directing culture, but he didn’t want to convert the culture. So, you couldn’t all him a triumphalist. I think people see that he was Prime Minister, or they’ll read certain things. There is the famous quote about there’s not one square inch of the entire creation over which Jesus Christ does not say mine, who is sovereign over all, does not say mine. That quote is not permission to say because it’s all His, therefore we ought to be run it. But it was the fact that all of those domains are His, therefore we ought to be in those domains. And if you can, depending upon your context, be formative, be formative. 
But how anyone who’s moderately Calvinistic even, and he was more than a moderate Calvinist, for sure, you know too much about depravity to ever think that any Christian being in charge of things means that everything’s just going to work out the way that it should. You will have a healthy skepticism because, you know, at least, how should we put it, the undertow of depravity will still play a role, even as a person may be growing in their sanctification. So, you could never really be a triumphalist if you’re going to have integrity about what you say you believe if you’re thinking about it in some kind of Neo-Calvinist vein. But there are people who will use dimensions of Kuyper’s language and say oh, this seems to be a reason for trying to take a hold of things, and that’s just not who he was. And also, there’s just the fact that he was the leader of a minority movement. He becomes Prime Minister by having a coalition, including the Catholic parties. He couldn’t really imagine actually taking over. He longed for benevolence to be informed by these Christian ordinances. But it was a desire, not something that he thought, and I will make it happen and therefore it will happen. It was not a possibility. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
You have more work on Kuyper up your sleeve or you want to write about other things moving forward?

>>Bacote:
At the moment, there is a very long overdue eschatology and ethics book that I’m hoping to finish, and now he says it for a podcast, in this year of Lord 2025.

>>Doug Sweeney:
Shout out to your editor. 

>>Bacote:
Yeah. And yes, my acquisitions person, he’ll be happy to hear that. And so, that’s the big thing right now. I mean, there’s lots of other ideas. People have asked me about doing other things. There are certainly other things here and there about Kuyper that, I mean, he shows up even if I’m not specifically writing about him because of how formative he is for me thinking about his wholistic faith, a faith that touches everything. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
Well. We can’t wait for all of it. We got you on the show in part because you’re a fascinating all-around guy, but also because you’re about to preach in chapel down here in Birmingham, Alabama at Beeson Divinity School. I don’t know if you’ve finished preparing your sermon, but in so far as you started thinking about it, tell our listeners a little bit about what you’re going to say in the pulpit because in connection with the dropping of this podcast, we’ll have a link for them to the sermon itself. 

>>Bacote:
I see. Well, the big think is that we have an opportunity, a new reality that we inhabit as Christians because the spirit has come, because we’re post Pentecost people. And nowt he spirit who was, you know, episodic in terms of, you know, being on persons like prophets or kings, is now the one who lives within those who are God’s covenant people and now we have a possibility, and it's not a possibility of just presence, but I’s a possibility of power because we were able to live for Him. It’s an interesting language because Paul is juxtaposing living in the flesh versus living in the spirit in Romans eight, and he’s very clearly saying, now because of this new reality of the spirit, there’s a possibility of transformation for us, of being people who live more and more like God. You know, he goes on to say, you know, “The spirit himself bears witness to our own spirit that we’re children of God.” You could argue that part of what’s happening in nine through eleven is that he’s talking about how we are able to live like little of children of God, to become people who reflect more and more that we belong to God, and that’s what I want to emphasize. 
I might also emphasize, we’ll see, that this is one of those passages that helps us to have what I like to call a high nematology as opposed to a low nematology by which I mean that I think a lot of times, for whatever reason, I don’t think it’s malicious so let me just lead with that, but I think there are a lot of Christians that have a big father, a big son and they kind of whisper Holy Spirit or almost a mute Holy Spirit, or sometimes even if they say, no I mean, I’m all about the spirit, well but you’re only about the spirit in terms of, you know, maybe talking about regeneration and spiritual gifts or something. But if we’re going to have a fully trinitarian faith, that fully trinitarian faith I one here we recognize that the third person is co-equal, co-eternal, etc. but also, that this third person is the one who is living within us, you know, making us these living temples who are able to become more and more reflective of the one to whom we belong. 
Becoming reflective should not be interpreted, so I guess this will make clear that I’m not a Wesleyan, does not mean, okay, so expect perfection. That’s not the point. The point is that thought you are on the way somewhere, and you are not in a kind of jail where you are unable to do anything that God asks Christians to do, that you can only wish that that happens, but then nothing happens. I often tell my students, I say look, you may have a long-protracted struggle about fill in the blank. And then my question to them is, is that the only thing that’s happening in your life? And then when you think about then you are a Christian, do you think about who you were when you became a Christian and who you are now? Are you the same person? Has anything changed? Is anything different? Has there been any transformation? Chances are from those people, that answer is yes. 
And if that’s yes, then point is that the spirit being in us now is moving us, transforming us towards becoming these people that reflect the one to whom we belong. You could even say, I’m not sure I’ll say this, but it’s that, you know, the path of holiness is through the spirit’s transformation, holiness being belonging to God, which is the fact about us, the practical in this in this being living like we belong to God. And living like we belong to God doesn’t mean that you necessarily do inhabit certain traditions of holiness expression that people might think are boring or irrelevant or just quite like being in a moral prison, if you will. No, it’s really, the way I write about it using the language in my political-sci book is it’s really the re-humanization that is happening to us is happening through the spirit who are becoming more fully what it is to be a human being, and there’s a lot to being a human being, not just certain markers of what holiness is supposed to be. It's really, what’s the fullness of being a human being? And the spirit makes this possible and that passage, I think, is one of the ones reminding us of this great reality. And of course, you know, if there was lots more time to talk about, you know, you get into the whole question of the relationship to Romans seven or something like that, but I’m not going to do any of that. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
Well, sounds good. We’re looking forward to welcoming you down here. Dr. Bacote, I hate to say it, we’re out of time. But I do want to note, Beeson Divinity School and the listeners to its podcast are pretty serious about praying and we like to end our interviews with guests by asking them, do you have anything that the fellowship here at Beeson might be praying for you about in days ahead?

>>Bacote:
Let’s see. One, finishing the eschatology and ethics book. And part of which means having a great liberation of writing where, in a way, I write like I don’t care, in a way. In other words, not being thinking, I mean, I’m almost 60 years old, what am I trying to prove to somebody? You know? So, writing, you know, and trying to serve as best I can in that writing. And then second, with this Black evangelical documentary that’s happening next month, that that rolls out well, and also that the telling of that story really is a catalyst for telling many many more stories about people that if we think about them and think about the work evangelical, we’re not just thinking about the current complicated public associations of the work evangelical. We’re thinking about people with who really are trying to be good news people and they’re people that people should know. And so, I really would love prayer for all of that to roll out well. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
Yeah. Sounds great. Listeners, we have our prayer card before us here. Tell us just 30 seconds more about how you’re going to roll out the movie because a lot of our people are going to be interested in that. How can they see it and learn about it?

>>Bacote:
Sure. So, no one will be able to see it until February 21st when we premier it on campus. After that, people will be able to stream it on a website the CT is putting together called blackevangelical.com. So, we’re not trying to monetize that. Certainly, I and my co-producer, I guess you call us, Ed Gilbreath, are happy to come and, you know, have a kind of screening situation or are happy to come speak about it and show the film. That’s certainly a way that we’re willing to do that. But it will be accessible through that website and people will be able to stream it that way. 

>>Doug Sweeney:
Thank you. Thanks for your good work, my friend. Listeners, this has been Dr. Vince Bacote. He is Professor of Theology at Wheaton College in the Chicago suburbs. He also leads the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton. And he’ll be here at Beeson Divinity School preaching in Hodges Chapel in just a few weeks here. Can’t wait to have you here, Vince. Thank you very much for being with us. 

>>Bacote:
It is a delight.

>>Doug Sweeney:
Alright listeners, goodbye for now. 

>>Announcer:

You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of Samford University. Our theme music is by Advent Birmingham. Our announcer is Mark Gignilliat. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our producer is Neal Embry. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify.