Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:00:02]:

The world is often discouraging. If you're the type of person who wants to do something about that state of affairs, then you're in the right place. Welcome to To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble. Bishop Trimble's mission is to encourage 2 million people to reach their highest potential. This is the place for inspiring stories, expert conversations, and deep dives into social justice, theology and the environment. Let's address life's challenges together in the light of Christ's unending love. Visit our website tobeencouraged.com for more.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:00:53]:

Now the time is at hand to Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:01:00]:

Hello good people, and welcome to the To Be Encouraged podcast with Bishop Julius C. Trimble. I'm your co host, Reverend Dr. Brad Miller, and this is the podcast where we look to offer an encouraging word to an often discouraged world with the Bishop, Julius C. Trimble. Bishop welcome to our conversation today, my friend.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:01:28]:

Thank you, Dr. Brad. It's good to be with you. And people often ask me what I like to be called. My first name is Julius. I'm named after a grandfather and several uncles. In fact, there's quite a few Juliuses in my family. But what I often say, what I really want to be called and known as, is a child of God.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:01:49]:

Yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:01:49]:

And I think that I want our listeners to know that, Brad, as we try to encourage that, remember, you are a child of God. And so no one can, no one can dismiss or detract from your sacred worth that comes directly from God. So the Bible says, blessed are the peacemakers.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:02:09]:

Yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:02:09]:

For they will be called the children of God.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:02:12]:

I love what you're saying there about a child of God, how that's how you identify and that's really your name and all of our names, people who are all children of God. And that means all children all around the world, doesn't it? Not just certain people and not just certain groups. And I know you recently read an article that kind of has to do with this, that God loves everybody and that we all are called to be. And the Bible says we're called to be peacemakers and it's based around this theme. You just said we're all children of God. But, but you also have said in your article and in your writings and thinking that God will not be mocked. So why don't you just share with us a little bit some of the content of your article and some of the things are on your heart today about, about this, about this theme.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:03:03]:

Well, brother, this, it's in response to the The, The. The war in Iran, you know, that was initiated, at least from the United States side, primarily by our president. And I'm sure this was in conjunction and consultation with Israel. But nonetheless, this is not a war that the Congress debated over or even voted to support military intervention in Iran. So nonetheless, it started with bombings under, you know, like a video game titled the Epic Fury, something. Something like that. You know, we had a bomb. Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:03:48]:

And things were said that I just think, you know, bombed them back to the Stone Age.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:03:52]:

Right, right.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:03:53]:

Just raised the civilization. So things were said that I think really resulted in a lot of pushback on what is the reason that. That we are at war or if the US Is at war. The other thing is that there's been some controversy about Pope Francis, the Catholic bishop.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:04:13]:

Yes, right.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:04:14]:

I mean, the Pope. The Pope of the Church, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and his comments that, you know, God does not answer the prayers of those who wage. Wage war. A lot of what the Pope said, really just basically reciting scripture.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:04:32]:

Yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:04:34]:

And so I don't think the Pope was trying to be political as much as the Pope is being a pastor. Yes, indeed, as I am a pastor as well.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:04:45]:

Well, it's just led to a war of words between the Pope and President Trump and his administration. And you've responded to that as well. And I think many, many, many people of faith, even across the spectrum of Christendom and other walks of faith, have pushed back against some really just vile language. I just have to say it. That was really hurtful and hateful, and that's just not where I'm at. I don't think that's where you're at. That's where the Christian faith is at. And to help Leo and yourself have pushed back on that.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:05:22]:

And so what are we going to do? Well, what can we do? How can we respond to this? I think one way you've said it very clearly. Pope Francis said it lift up the fact that we are called to be peacemakers, not people filled with hatred and rage and vileness.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:05:39]:

Well, yeah. And I began an article quoting, referring to Galatians. One of my favorite verses is Galatians 6 and 2. And it really applies. I think it's a universal scripture where it encourages us, Brad, to bear each other's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So we should be lifting each other up. And this is not to say that I'm not defending Iran's regime or the threat of nuclear armament and so forth. I'm opposed to nuclear armament.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:06:17]:

As well. But I'm just saying we really are called to use every means we have. The church deplores war. This is what the United Methodist Church says. We deplore war in all forms of violent conflict, and we urge peaceful settlements of all disputes. We yearn for the day when there will be no more war and people will live together in peace and justice. And to make matters worse, the posting of, I guess it was an AI generated picture of the president as, as Jesus Christ.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:06:56]:

Right.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:06:57]:

Placing his hand on someone, a healing or anointing. Just a lot of people were offended by that. A lot of Catholics were offended by that. Because if it followed on the, on the, on the end of some refuting of what Pope Leo had said about prayers not being answered. Yeah. The book of Galatians does say, you know, God will not be mocked. We will reap what we sow.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:07:28]:

A lot of this happened, you know, when he, when, when Trump, you know, said some really vile things on Easter Sunday. And I think even that post you mentioned about him being Jesus came out the next week, which was Eastern Orthodox East Easter Sunday. And so just, just into the, in the face of Christianity.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:07:50]:

Yeah, we don't look. Bishop Joseph Strickland, who is a bishop that was actually removed by Pope Francis, who's a very conservative bishop, has been a big proponent of President Trump, I mean, of President Trump. And there are several bishops that have been really supportive of President Trump. Trump, a conservative bishop. But even, even they have come out and spoke. Bishop Strickland said, we don't look to national leaders or those with the most money. I really like this quote. We don't look to those with the most money or the most weapons.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:08:25]:

We look to Christ. We look to Christ. And that's something, you know, we, as Protestant, we hold that, we hold that in common with Catholics as well. Yeah, we look to Christ as Lord and not the one who has the most money or the most. Or the most missiles or the meanest talk. And, you know, you know, Pope Leo is what is referred to not. He's not only the Pope of the Vatican, the head of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church in Roman Catholicism, bread. He's called the Vicar of Christ, meaning he's that actual representative of Jesus Christ.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:09:05]:

His. According to, you know, according to the Catholic theology. So, so I think, I think it's, it's, it's kind of dangerous, thin ice to be trading on. If we're going to now, you know, get into a battle of words with that. I simply say we should pray for our leaders I pray for President Trump. But, but we shouldn't excuse bad behavior. You know, we shouldn't excuse, you know, dropping F word bombs on Easter and, you know, saying, well, that's just how, that's just how he is.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:09:41]:

Well, you know, no excuse for this. No excuse whatsoever. You know, one of the things I thought about Bishop Trimble and it's a saying that's been around for a long time, at least 20, 30 years, and it goes back even further than that in terms of its origins. And that's the phrase, what would Jesus do?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:10:04]:

Remember that?

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:10:05]:

Wwjd, you know, what would Jesus do now? So what would Jesus do in terms of the issues at hand? The war in Iran? What would Jesus do in terms of all these other things? And I just don't think war and threatening to annihilate societies and, and doing things for what is obvious financial advantage over any actual moral situation. I just don't see Jesus doing that, you know, and that keeps me.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:10:43]:

Right. If we don't. Yeah, we don't know all that Jesus would do, but we know what Jesus said or it's recorded according to the gospel.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:10:51]:

Pretty, pretty clear.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:10:52]:

It's pretty clear as pray for those who pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. You know, so, you know, love God, love neighbor. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. Now there are those who are arguing and certainly, you know, we the record, the Data says that 62% of white Catholics voted for President Trump, 58% of Hispanic Catholics voted for Kamala Harris for president in the last. And that many people believe, both Protestant and Catholics and we know some, probably in my own family and yours as well, believe in what we call the just war theory. You know, that there's a, there's a time, you know, doesn't the book of Ecclesiastes say that there's a time for everything, a time for peace and a time for war? But that goes back to we, you remember, we learned in seminary, Brad, about Augustine of Hippo.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:11:53]:

Oh, yes, yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:11:54]:

Some people, yeah, some people trace, trace the just war theory back to Augustine of Hippo. But even when I looked, looked this up, I said, well, what did he talk about? He said, well, war is, war is only okay to save innocent or to defeat evil. So, you know, you really have to make a case that if you're able, you know, in the case of World War II, stopping Adolf Hitler from committing genocide and you know, one would argue you know, I'm sure you know, well that in Iran, where they're not killing some of their own citizens and so forth and so on, but war is not, Is never to be the first option. And I say this, I've said this publicly in an article published by United Methodist News. Whenever the bombs drop, children die.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:12:50]:

Yes, innocents die. Children die. We know. Elementary schools bombed, for instance, and just the tragedy of all of that. And, you know, we know there was atrocities happening in Iran. They all, all around the world. But how does that justify further murder? You know, how does that justify further killing? And it seems to me the just war theory has been stretched to beyond its limits to justify people going to war for other motivations rather than the just war. That's just my take on things.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:13:30]:

Maybe not a lot of people, but I just think we as men and women of faith and churches and Protestant and Catholic and otherwise cannot just stand by we while this is happening and say, well, it's just the way it goes. We just can't do that. We need to speak up. And that's why I appreciate your article so much and your leadership in the United Methodist Church. But let's kind of take that, my friend, to how can this leadership, this response to what I certainly consider an unjust war be carried out in local situations where, whether it be local pastors or churches or those who are really struggling with this right now as a moral dilemma?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:14:18]:

Well, I think we need to stay close to what the Apostle Paul says in the Book of Romans. We can't overcome evil by doing evil, but overcome evil by doing good. I'm paraphrasing, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And so if anyone is in Christ, we know this from our theology, that we become new creatures. What does it become mean for us to be new creatures if we don't embrace the work of peacemaking, reconciliation, using every instrument at our disposal to bring about positive change and for bring coming together, as opposed to saying we've got the strongest. We've got the strongest military in the world and we got more bombs than you have and we'll stop you from getting a bigger bomb sounds like real bombs. Yeah, we'll. We'll blow you.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:15:18]:

Will blow you up and yeah, for your civilization.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:15:22]:

That's the words of a bully, isn't it? It's a bully. It's a bully approach. Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:15:25]:

Yeah. So I don't think, I think, I think those of us, the church deplores war, but we, you know, we support people's choices As a career or a calling as out to do. To serve honorable in the military. And. But we do believe that we can, you know, living together in peace is not just a pipe dream, but it does take, it takes a hard work to do that. And that's what we expect of our leaders. Yes, I think we need to stop lowering the bar of expectations. So when we elect persons to leadership positions, particularly to the highest position in government, then we, we, we should expect them to do everything they can to keep us from not being in war.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:16:16]:

That's why when Bush was President, Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq, there was such a pushback because we, we really want our leadership to address threats against the country, but not to, not by way of foreign policy. To use war as, you know, as our foreign policy.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:16:41]:

Yeah, I think, you know, we've somehow. War and using military force. I'm not talking about the military themselves now. I think a lot of them are pretty sane people, but I think we have people who have said that war, instead of being a last resort, our response to provocation is kind of a very early response to try to manipulate and to cause economic assets or things like this to happen. The moral ground has been ceded to forces that are not, you know, or not for peace. They're there for war. As a leveraging point, your thoughts?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:17:24]:

Well, absolutely. I mean, I'm not an expert at all on all the things that, that the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said, but they did. I saw, I saw an excerpt. We're saying he was quoting or leading the prayer. You know, that was supposed to be from the scriptures. That actually was a quote from the movie Pulp Fiction.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:17:48]:

Just ridiculous and a little mixed.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:17:51]:

A little mixture of Isaiah and Sam Samuel Jackson together.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:17:56]:

Yeah. If that's not justification or manipulation of the scriptures and everything else, I don't know what is it. Just making it fit. Agenda is. And, and we're, you know.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:18:05]:

Yeah. You know, remember we were in seminary and our professor said, you know, you know, you can't, you can't come up with a sermon and then bring a scripture in kicking and screaming, trying to fit the scripture, the sermon. You're supposed to do your Bible reading first and your exegetical work and don't, don't come up with a good title and then try to squeeze in Jesus. And sometimes I think, you know, we come up with a justification for what we want to do and then want to sprinkle some Jesus on the top of it. And that is, you know, that's that's some of my criticism of Christian nationalism,

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:18:41]:

which, you know, you and I went to seminary a long time ago together, but I can still hear some of our professors at Garrett Evangelical in Evanston, Illinois, saying, exegete the text. You start with the text. You don't start with your own personal bias. You start with the text. And so I think we've got this backwards. Many people have got it backwards and they've got their theology warped in a way and such to meet their personal agenda rather than actually following the agenda of Jesus Christ.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:19:14]:

Brad, as we bring this to a close, you asked me, well, what can folks do? What can. Well, I think one of the things we need to advocate for reallocation of our national priorities. What do I mean? The president is asking for something I think is like $1.5 trillion. You know, this would be the largest military budget in the world. And they're coming up with things to justify the money for, you know, space weapons and, you know, the new B2 bombers and so forth. And when we advocate, you know, I think our budget reflects our priorities. So when we cut money, I just reading in the news today, we're cutting money from research, cancer research and other research.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:20:02]:

Yeah, incredible.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:20:03]:

Yeah, we're reducing. You're reducing funds for. For equitable housing, we're reducing funds for removing environmental dump sites and so forth. And yet we're asking that, you know, they're asking the Congress to give more money for more weapons and to replenish the weapons that we're using up in Ukraine and selling to many other countries. I think if we can realign our national priorities to more humanitarian purposes and sustainable peace, building work and reinvest in. This is an unpopular thing, but I think Methodists are certainly part of the history of reinvest in the possibility that the United nations can be a vehicle for peacemaking rather than saying the strongest can go alone. What's wrong with people coming together around a table, around a common meal, discussing what are the possibilities for addressing child hunger across the globe? What's the possibility for addressing tuberculosis that still kills millions of people across the globe? What's the possibility of bringing peace whether it's in Ukraine or whether it's in Congo or whether it's in Gaza or whether it's in Iran? You know, you know, we should invest more dollars in peacemaking than bomb dropping.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:21:34]:

Kind of wonder, what would Jesus do in those situations? What would Jesus do? Well, my friend, the, you know, we talked about some, you know, pretty intense things here today, and I want to say thank you for your article that you've written and some bold statements there and, and thank you for stepping forward as a prophetic leader in such a time as this. But you know, the name of our podcast is To Be Encouraged. So my friend, what kind of encouraging word would you want to leave with folks who are listening to your voice and mind here today?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:22:12]:

Well, I think one of the bedrock scriptures that I have as part of my mission statement is from First Thessalonians, the fifth chapter, verse 11, which says, Therefore encourage one another and build up each other as indeed you are already doing. Wherever you are, whatever you do, whatever your calling is, you and I both, we all have responsibility and the opportunity to build each other up rather than tear each other down. So I think that's what I'm going to do this evening when I go out to an event I'm planning to go to is just to be a be. I don't have a speaking role, I don't have a leadership role, just to be an agent for of encouragement in the spaces that we find ourselves. I think that that will work. If we can choose to be an agent of encouragement and affirmation and peace building first by speaking words of peace, then I think we can make a difference.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:23:11]:

And if an agent of encouragement can somehow be contagious, I think that's the Christian message. I think that's what Pope Leo is really saying. I think that's what you're saying. And women of faith are saying, let's speak out and be agents and advocates for peace because, you know, blessed are the peacemakers, right?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:23:32]:

And maybe that's the answer to the question, Brad, what would Jesus do?

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:23:36]:

Indeed. Indeed. Well, thank you for sharing today, my friend and we will look forward to continue to hear from you you as we speak. Peace to the powers that be here on the To Be Encouraged podcast. And we do thank our listeners for tuning in here to the To Be Encouraged podcast with Bishop Julius C. Trimble. I'm your co host, Reverend Dr. Brad Miller.

Reverend Dr. Brad Miller [00:23:57]:

Thank you for being with us here on the podcast that looks to offer an encouraging word to an often discouraged world.