Lt. General Charles D. Luckey on the Role of the Military in Upholding Democracy.

REV. PAUL RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:

This week on the show, we are honored to welcome retired Lieutenant General Charles D. Luckey, former Chief of the United States Army Reserve and a distinguished leader with more than four decades of service. Throughout his military career, Lt. Gen. Luckey held command positions around the world and was widely respected for his strategic vision and deep commitment to the Constitution. Now retired, he continues to speak powerfully on the responsibility of citizenship, the urgent need to preserve democracy, and the importance of defending religious diversity and freedom in America – you can imagine why I wanted him on the show!

As an attorney, he has a deep understanding of the legal restrictions the administration is defying and the significance of all the threats to the judiciary branch of government, as well as where the military fits into all of this picture.

I am so grateful to you, General, for joining us today on The State of Belief.

01:13 – LT. GEN. CHARLES LUCKEY (RET.), GUEST:

Reverend, it's awesome to be here, and I appreciate the time to speak with you and your team and your listening audience.

01:20 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I will say you are the first general we have had on the show. In fact, you're the first representative of the military, and one of the things you and I have talked about was how important it is for the various sectors of society to be in conversation with one another, especially in this moment when democracy feels under stress - at risk, even.

But before we get into all of that - and we will get into all of that - I just would love for you to talk to us a little bit about where you're coming from. I mean, you have a lot on your resume - and you're still a young man. So tell us where you grew up, how you got to these - I mean, you've been in the middle of some of the most important geopolitical moments in the last 50 years, and you have training in the military as well as legal training. Tell us how you got here: what's your background? Where did you grow up? What were your parents like, and how did religion play into all of this?

02:48 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Again, Paul, thanks for that introduction. As luck would have it, I’m sitting, right now, on the front porch of my mom's old house. It was built in the mid-70s but it's built on land that's been in the family for over 120 years. And so, as you talk about where did I grow up, I sort of grew up in a lot of places, like a lot of us - but I learned how to fish in the Bantam River and the Shepaug  River, which are less than 150 feet from me here. So it's sort of a good way to start off.

03:08 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

And here is where?

03:14 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Washington, Connecticut. So I'm in the Litchfield Hills and that's just west of Litchfield and east of New Milford, Connecticut; sort of the northwestern part of the state. And, as luck would also have it, my mom, actually, who was a Democrat, ran for office here back in the 90s and won - which is interesting, because it turned out she was the first Democrat since FDR, and she was the first woman, and, I've now been told, the last woman, to ever be first selectman of Washington, Connecticut, which is kind of cool in its own way.

And she's passed on, as has my dad. So your listeners know that when I say I'm nonpartisan and I am rabidly independent is because my dad was a Republican, my mom was a Democrat, and here I am.

So I was raised in New England, born in Ohio. My dad was a Congregational minister, United Church of Christ. I had gone to seminary after college. He served in the Second World War. My grandfather served in the First World War. Both of them were enlisted soldiers. My grandfather, who ended up earning the Silver Star, unbeknownst to him until years after the First World War, never could get past the rank of Private First Class because every time he made Corporal he got busted back down to PFC for fighting. But he served in the trenches in the First World War and then came back to the States and like a lot of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians who served the nation - I don't want to leave the Coast Guard out - returned back to civilian life and worked in New York City.

My dad served in the Second World War. He was in China and he was an anti-aircraft 40-millimeter Bofors cannon crewman. Four days after he graduated from high school he was inducted, like everybody else in the Second World War, into the military, served his three and a half years and returned to civilian life, went to college, went to the Divinity School at Yale and was a Congregational minister and died back in 1975. Which is a story for another day, but clearly had an impact on not only my life but also, frankly, my entire philosophy of life and my perspective on many things - which, frankly, have informed my experiences both as a lawyer and as a leader in the military, because I'm a big believer in what I call leading with love, and I think I learned that from my dad and from my dad's early passing on back in the 70s

So I went to boarding school in New Hampshire, went to University of Virginia undergrad, got recruited into ROTC by a buddy of mine who was a scholarship student. I wasn't. I had hair down to my shoulders, and about the fourth or fifth week of my first year at UVA, this kid came out of our dormitory and he's wearing an army uniform and didn't have much hair. And the guy looked vaguely familiar and I realized it was a guy who lived on my hall who had hair down his shoulders. And back then - this is right after the Vietnam War and the draft was over - and if you could fog a mirror you could get into ROTC. At least that's how I did it. But he had pinned his hair up under this wig and was wearing it to drill. And so he started slowly, subtly, nudging me into joining ROTC, promising me that I could get an A in military history and that would help my GPA, which was true. And so that's how I got sort of roped into ROTC.

Graduated from the University of Virginia, spent my sort of formative years as a line officer in the infantry and the special forces; then went back to law school, was in the JAG for a while. Left the Army active duty after the first Gulf War, went into private practice in North Carolina for a long time, stayed active in the Army Reserve, was recalled back to active duty as an infantry officer - because I had transitioned back to infantry when I left active duty - and served in Iraq. And then ended up serving on the Joint Staff and then ended up serving out at the USNORTHCOM and NORAD in Colorado, and then pulled back to Washington DC to serve as the chief of the Army Reserve.

And so like I think a lot of us, you know, sort of just way leads on to way and there was no grand plan at all. I just sort of ended up… It's like Virgil said, the fates call whom they can; those whom they cannot, they drag. So I got dragged. But here we are.

08:00 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

We're already quoting Virgil, so I think we're doing pretty well.

08:06 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

That's the only Virgil I remember.

08:09 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

You don't have to say that, that's fine. We know you could just quote it off the tip of your tongue.

But I do think that the mixture of having this framework of religion going into the military, also introducing the legal framework into it – and then you were, I think you kind of skipped over it, but you were in a very central position in Iraq. You were very much involved in trying to figure out what could be done there that would be productive and positive. And so you've seen, in a way that I've never seen, a country that was trying to figure out: how do we reconstitute ourselves? How do we create a country and figure out a way forward?

You and I actually met before the last election at a Tabletop that the Brennan Center put on, and it was basically trying to game out what would happen with the Trump administration. And we had different sides – I was typecast as a radical left activist…

CHARLES LUCKEY:

And you did a brilliant job, by the way!

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

It was very funny, people were like, you're scary good at this.

09:34 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Yeah, you scared me - and I'm a retired three-star. I'm like, man, whoa.

09:39 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

But because I've been so immersed in the rationale and the and the fervor of the very hardcore White Christian Nationalists who were really pushing and demanding for their way forward.

Now, when we think about what we were doing that day, I just remember there was a moment - there was someone who was sitting next to me who just kind of interjected: “Just so you know, the military will not save us in that moment.” And I don't know if you want to quibble with that, but later I was like, what does that mean? Because I think there was an idea, if our society tips too far into autocracy, the military is just not going to go against the president because that's the commander in chief. And I don't want to put you in an awkward position, but would you quibble with that?

I know I'm starting out with a pretty big one, but I just think a lot of us are figuring out what's going to happen, how are we going to save our democracy? And as the thwarting of the Supreme Court starts to get more and more apparent, what will keep us on the track of democracy and how do you understand the military's role in that?

11:08 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

So you're right, it is a big question, particularly right out of the chute, where am I sitting right now. But it's a fair question, so I'm not going to duck it. So, first of all, I get asked that a lot. Frankly, a buddy of mine, who's a retired academician and a former president of a fairly large university and an author, sent me a note the other day and asked me: so what's the military going to do?

And so I get asked that a lot, and my answer is going to be probably, I'll just say, unsatisfying. But the answer is, I'm not exactly sure, because I think so many different factors play into answering that question intelligently. I mean, some of it has to do with at what point in time does that question get called? Does it get called at all? What has been done between now and then to make sure that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coasties, guardians, understand their constitutional responsibilities? So I do agree with the fundamental premise that if we, the American people, are looking for the cavalry - to use obviously a bad metaphor here - but to come over the rise to save us from ourselves, I think that's a problem for a democracy, period. So I'm not trying to be guarded, I am trying to be nuanced, because I think it's an important question. I think the answer is, it depends on a lot of different things.

One of them - and I will go this far because you've mentioned it earlier - you know, I took an oath to the Constitution of the United States; and the first time I took it as a regular Army officer was as a second lieutenant at the University of Virginia in the spring of 1977. And the oath is “To support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. And to take the obligation freely, without any purpose of evasion, and to well and faithfully execute the duties of the office upon which we’ve embarked.”

And I go back to Gen. Milley’s sign-off, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his emphasis on the oath and that it's it's to support and defend the Constitution; and it's not an oath to a person, and frankly, it's not an oath to a piece of ground or to the motherland or the fatherland. It's an oath, essentially, to an idea and a legal framework for us to sort of work through our challenges as a free people in a free land.

At the risk of speculating a little bit, Paul, if we get to a place where senior leadership the US military believes that we are no longer playing by the Constitution as, if you will, the sort of overarching rulebook for how we conduct self-governance in this nation - I don't know how that plays out. I'm cautiously optimistic that at some point senior leaders will be emboldened by the fact that they have an oath and that the lion's share of them will remember that the oath is to the constitution and not to to a person, I think.

I think I'm a little guarded about this part of it, but I'll go so far as to say I think sometimes civilians sense that that the military is so regimented that whatever the commander in chief says, goes. And as a judge advocate, or as a former judge advocate, I will tell you that I spent a lot of my time - and I wasn't a judge advocate on active duty for all that long, but, you know, five or six years - I spent a lot of time talking to soldiers and commanders about the rules, and what's a lawful order and what isn't.

And I was involved in several different military operations, and one of them comes to mind in particular was Just Cause in Panama, I had a young noncommissioned officer come up to me - I'd been on the ground for maybe a week or so - a young noncommissioned officer came up to me and he said, hey - I was a captain at the time - he said hey, boss, I just want you to know that that course that you gave in the law of war, it actually kept me from doing something really stupid when we had a couple of POWs and somebody thought we should just shoot one of them because we've run out of those little flex handcuff things.

And so I'm cautiously optimistic that there's a line there where the US military will say, you know what, this is not what we do. Now, where that line is and whether we ever get to that place, I don't know, but I have a lot of confidence in the character and the integrity of the majority of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and all of their leadership.

And I keep leaving the coasties out of this and I don't mean to, but I just think it's really important for the American people to have a high level of confidence that the people that are serving in the uniform of the United States of America are, by and large – they are a reflection of American culture, to be sure - but by and large are people of character and integrity; and most importantly, are committed to selfless service in the support of their country, their countrymen, each other, and in the mission. And I think that that focus on selfless service will pay big dividends in a pinch. So we'll see where it goes, but that that'd be my thought.

17:13 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I found that, actually, very satisfying. It also underscores - I'm sure I've heard it, but that oath that you quoted that all service people are taking is really important. And it makes me think that maybe really underscoring that right now within the military - but also, actually, among all of us, I mean, as citizens, we're not held in the same way, but it feels like that emphasis on the Constitution and the rule of law - and it doesn't say that, I guess, in there, but when you focus on the Constitution, you're referencing the rule of law. So I just found that helpful.

And I'm curious how civil society could be helpful, as we think about shoring up the Army, shoring up the Marines, shoring up the Navy, the Coast Guard, all of it, the armed services. I don't know if we have a role to play, but I do think that the way you laid it out felt very encouraging, and I'm not sure that the average citizen is thinking in those terms.

18:38 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

So let me flip the script, because I think that in a way, if you think about it - and I can't speak for every civil position, but everybody who's in the United States Congress has taken that oath. It's an oath of office, right? I suspect, although I don't know it to be true, that in most states there's some sort of oath that elected officials take. I mean, the whole notion is you're serving the people, not yourself. So I just think sometimes there may be some military people reminding people, hey, you know, we're not the only ones that take the oath!

19:24 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I love that. I think that's super smart. I just remember, my father passed away last year, a year and a half ago, and he was a JAG in the Air Force, as well. He served in the Reserve for his entire life, reaching the rank of colonel, and, you know, I was not called in the same way. I had no friend in ROTC urging me on…

19:54 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

For a grade in military history, remember.

19:57 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

But he would stand up every time the Air Force song was played in this little town on Cape Cod, they played all the different, and it made us all so proud. And so there was an integrity to him. And he was also a law professor. So this idea of how important the law - and because you’ve practiced for a long time, you have a lot of expertise in the law - how do you understand the law functioning right now?

I have to say there's both: things that are encouraging, but other things that are just mystifying to me as someone who grew up with this idea that, you know, the law had to be respectable to be respected, but there was an idea that we could come to some legal agreements and that the law could do good. And so I'm just curious, what is your take? You know, putting on your legal hat - and not keeping your faith hat and your military hat too far away - but what is your understanding of the role of law right now in our democracy?

21:14 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

So yeah, I do want to get to the faith hat, and I think I told you I spent four years in the EFM program of the Episcopal Church. But I go back to, in the Army, we have a thing called the Soldier's Creed. And it's actually a wonderful document: “I'm an American soldier, I'm a warrior, member of a team, I serve the people of the United States. I live the Army values, always place mission first, never accept defeat, never quit, never leave a fallen comrade.” And we go on and we talk about our readiness and being tactically and technically proficient, our adherence to values. But at the end of it, Paul, we finish out with, “I'm a guardian of freedom and the American way of life. I'm an American soldier, I live by this creed.”

So I spent a lot of time in command of a couple hundred thousand soldiers, talking to them about what's the American way of life. And you know, obviously, I have a view - which I'm going to share with you in a second. But what I would tell them is, it's not important for me to tell you what you think it is, but it's important for you to think about it - because you're committing, potentially, your life to defending the American way of life. So what does that mean to you?

And I said, you know, some of you probably first start thinking about the Superbowl and ads and fast cars or F-150 trucks or whatever. I said, but I would submit to you it's fundamentally about two things: it's about the rule of law, and the opportunity for all of us that the rule of law, essentially, aspires to provide for everybody who's here. I said, now I could be wrong. I mean, I think everybody should have their own sense of what is the American way of life that's worth giving your life to defend. But for me, that was the operative going-in assumption as to the thing I was defending, potentially, with my life - and oh, by the way, putting potentially a lot of soldiers in harm’s way to do it, and, hopefully, very responsibly, mitigating risk where I could.

So I think that the rule of law is fundamental to the American way of life. It isn't just an ancillary benefit of being an American, it's fundamentally a part of what being an American is supposed to mean. We, ultimately, place the law above ourselves, and we obey the law. And if we choose not to obey the law – which, of course, is a prerogative - then we, at least as adults, we expect to, potentially, acknowledge there are consequences. And it could be incarceration or it could be X, Y, Z or whatever; but so to me, that's the big idea.

Now, to the extent that your question goes to, how do I think it's doing right now? I think I've written and spoken about this fairly openly. I think it's under siege. Now, whether my own, probably somewhat romantic, optimistic view is the law will prevail. I know there's a lot of Americans who don't agree with me about that. But I just think the rule of law is so fundamentally a part of the, by and large, the American cultural philosophical DNA that I still hold to the belief that the American people – and, again, this is non-partisan, I'm not talking about people who voted this way or voted that way, this has nothing to do with politics - this has to do with, I think there's a a lot of Americans out there that in their heart, soul, gut, call it what you want, know that none of us, ultimately, are above the law. And if we get to a place where one of us is or several of us are, then that's not what those guys were doing when they signed off on the Declaration of Independence in ‘76. So I don't know if that helps or not, but that's sort of my view as a soldier and as a lawyer.

25:42 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Well, I would say polling reinforces your position that the average American person does not support the subversion of the rule of law. They don't like it when they talk about arresting Supreme Court justices. They don't like it when there is direct thwarting of a ruling by judges or the Supreme Court. So I think that you're right. I think that the question then becomes, at what point is the crisis? Because we're kind of in it right now, in that there have been orders by judges and the Supreme Court - and I know there's various interpretations, but ultimately to bring back people from El Salvador, to stop renditions, to support due process.

And I think we're in the moment where we're finding out, but I do think that it's a very interesting idea that the rule of law is essentially the sin qua non of American life. And it's also like, if you don't like the laws, we encourage you to change them! Bad laws have been in place. And so that is a huge part of what we mean by the rule of law, is, change laws that are bad. And we've had bad laws, and then we've made progress, or we've made, sometimes, not such progress, but I think it's important to say that that doesn't mean the laws themselves are immutable, but that, actually, we've established laws, then we get better and better - and once we have laws, they get followed.

27:28 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Well, and Justice Roberts basically said, hey, if you don't like the decision of the Federal District Court, that's fine. That's why we have Courts of Appeal - and I'd love to talk about Judge Wilkinson's opinion…

27:48 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I do want to just spend one second on that, because Judge Wilkinson - who is, I think, a Reagan appointee - and a lot of my more liberal friends were like, I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with any of his decisions. And then he wrote something that was as clear and as as – I just found it striking and strident, in the best way, about like the rule of law and where we were and about the clarity of this moment. So Judge Wilkinson's decision - if you Google it, I should be able to, maybe I can pull it up and we can read just a section of it, but it is worth the read. It must have been 20 people sending it to me. And my family - which has a lot of lawyers - were just like, did you see it? Did you see it?

28:42 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

I very rarely put stuff on LinkedIn that people have to read other than every once in a while one of my columns, but I posted the order. I said, this is mandatory reading for everybody. And again, I don't care about the politics. In fact, I will say this about Joe Wilkinson - because I've actually argued a case in front of him in Richmond, years ago, in the Fourth Circuit, a case I had appealed out of the Middle District of North Carolina at Federal Court. And I mean, Wilkinson, he’s tough and he's conservative. And I was arguing a case on appeal as a defense counsel and it was an uncomfortable 25 minutes, but I got tremendous respect for him. Which goes to my point: So you lose a case or you lose an argument. Fine. You don't call for the judge to be impeached! You appeal or do the best you can in the internal system.

29:41 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I'll just say,  you know, my great-grandfather, Louis Brandeis, was in the Supreme Court. Most of his career was spent in dissent, you don't win all the time. And then sometimes those dissents became majority opinions later. But anyway, Judge Wilkinson, we're giving you a shout out here, and that's really important.

30:14 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

I just wanted to touch on the point that that the chief justice made as it pertains to what's the appropriate remedy if you don't like what a judge ruled. I could get into other decisions of really fine jurists that have been just pilloried by folks, and, I'll just say, in a very disquieting sort of way. But all I'll say about this is, I think the rule of law is under stress. I am not of the school that believes that we are at a constitutional crisis yet, as I think I've written before. You can sort of see it swimming into view, maybe. I think that's what Judge Wilkinson is talking about, as well, in his order. It's almost a plea back to the Executive Branch to say, hey, can we just cool it down a little bit, you know, and get back to kind of sort of how we do stuff? So, I don't think we're there. I'm not saying we won't get there, but I don't think we're there just yet. That'd be my view.

31:28 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Well, can I read this one? I'll read the last paragraph from Judge Wilkinson, because it goes exactly to what you're saying: it's not too late, but it's on the horizon. It says: “It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see this case as an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naive to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.”

Boom! I mean pretty good, I mean talk about it.

32:13 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Mic drop, mic drop.

32:15 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

But it says everything that you just said, but in more kind of finessed language in the sense that this is the incipient crisis and there is still time - but in some ways it's on the Executive Branch to make sure.

So, anyway, we're going to come back, you and I are going to come back together, and we're going to see how we did with predicting this if we're allowed to do this podcast in the future. But the way we really connected was, you were like, hey, reverend, I'm also really interested in religion. That does not surprise me, by the way. I mean, one of the best parts of this kind of moment of crisis and stress is how many people from different sectors, all across different sectors, have said, I'm actually working out of my faith. That's not what I lead with, that's not my organization, but I am working out of a faith context, and that has been so gratifying, that I have been introduced to so many great new people who see our work and say, just so you know, I'm connecting with you on all kinds of levels, including the fact that I'm working out of a faith context, even as I work in a grassroots or a secular or a military or whatever.

So you're kind of in that camp, but a little bit, stepping your toes, I've already said you've got to go to seminary and become ordained, but you keep on thwarting your call somehow.

33:53 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Well, my mind's still open.

33:57 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Oh good, and then I will just claim that I was the one who did it, just like your ROTC friend, I will claim entire credit.

But go ahead. Tell us a little bit about how faith plays into this general's life.

34:15 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

This general's life.

34:17 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

That's, by the way, the title of your new book.

34:24 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

I was working on The Role of the Wilderness in the Age of Epistemic Warfare. But I'll take your counsel, reverend, but we'll see.

So I think that, as I think for most of us, as we are on a faith journey - whether we know it or not – you know the French theologian, “We're not human beings having a spiritual experience, we're spiritual beings having a human experience.” I think over time, I’ve become more and more – and some of it is age, some of it experience – more and more cognizant that only in embracing my own, what I call “magnificent insignificance”, am I able to become more humble. Not modest, but humble, in terms of sort of staying outside of my own self and thinking about others in ways that perhaps I hadn't thought about them before, if that makes any sense.

And so to me, I started off in the Congregational Church, as I said. My dad was a Congregational minister, and my dad baptized me, and my dad confirmed me. I spent time, as I moved around the military, in different faith communities: Presbyterian Church, Episcopal Church, back with the UCC - I say back with the UCC, back to the UCC Church now, but frankly, the denominations have never been sort of the driver. For me, the driver has been more of the community in which I find myself and the commitment that the community has to most spiritual wealth and to mission sort of outside of the church itself.

So you know, I spent a lot of time in the first Gulf War studying Scripture a little bit more deeply. I came back from that and got myself involved in the EFM program, as I said, for the Episcopal Church, a four-year sort of weekend Bible study thing, but fairly extensive exposure to things that I hadn't really understood before about the Bible. And then over the years I've thought often about ministry and what does it mean, and believing very much that there are many, many ways in which we can minister, and and then try to figure out, sort of dial into, what's my job now.

Because I think where I was 30 years ago, my faith journey is not where I am today. And and I do think about it, as I've shared with you in another conversation. I do think about, are there ways I could be more effective and, as you would say, lean on the faith?

I think I sent you a piece that I wrote several months ago when I was back at my dad's old church in Middlebury, Connecticut, and really had an absolutely wonderful experience, on many levels. But one of them, Paul, and I think I did share this with you, is sort of getting back to, okay, so what do I owe to the secular world? What do I have to render to Caesar versus what do I owe the Almighty -  and Almighty writ large, which I take as sort of humanity outside of just, you know, the architecture of the United States. What do I owe to humanity writ large?

As a lot of us, I'm sort of on a faith journey, and I remain curious and open-minded and try to learn as I go. I am, as I think I've also shared with you, very concerned about the Church sort of writ large missing the opportunity that I think this moment presents for all of us. Because I think, as I've shared with you privately, I'm very comfortable having this sort of conversation with you, because I don't believe this is a political conversation.

There are people who, I guarantee you, will hear this and say, that general shouldn't be talking about politics - and to them I say, I'm not talking about politics. And if you think this is about politics then you need to rethink what politics means in America, because what I'm talking about is something that goes way beyond the political realm. And I think the Church's opportunity to move into the space that - I mean, you know way more about this than I do, so I'm not going to talk about loneliness or people being despondent or people being sort of atomized by technology to the point where they feel genuinely alone, abandoned, socially inept at connecting with other human beings. I'm not going to talk about any of that, but I just think that there is such an opportunity for the Church to not only do amazingly powerful work for the country - recognizing that that's not the Church's mission; the Church's mission is to do amazingly powerful work - it doesn't have to be American work, it just has to be... I mean, we're talking about something that transcends.

40:02 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

It's also about the people. That's when you say, I'm not talking about politics - you know, politics is another way of talking about people, and the Church is definitely about people. And so what I think you're talking about is, how do we reach out to people? And I think right now, part of the problem with our politics is that we are seeing people are trying to find meaning, and unfortunately some of the meaning that they’re finding is in unhealthy ways. And some of the ways that people are forming is, I would say, unhealthy to diversity and unhealthy to a broader democracy.

So how do we invite people into community? I think you would be a really valuable voice in that, and know we will continue to encourage you in whatever way. I'm a little bit biased, because I do think that the Church is amazing. I wasn’t going to be a minister, especially not working in churches, and then I worked in a small church in Manhattan. And exactly what you talked about, what moved me was the fact that we had people from different countries. We had people who were sick; we had people who didn't speak English very well; we had people who were homeless; we had people who had AIDS. And we had middle-class people and we had professionals - in that place, they all felt that was their church and they felt like they belonged.

And I was like, wow, where else in New York would everybody, once they walked into that door, feel like a full part of the community? And I was like, okay, so maybe this is something I can give my life to. So I really encourage that, and I'm looking forward to continuing to get any words of wisdom you have out there. I think you have a lot to share.

42:14 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Well, I appreciate that. The only thing I'd say in response to that is I think it's Brian McLaren's book Life After Doom, and I think that that book has helped me, among other things, understand the difference between grief and despair. And I think the place I see the Church being able to really move in and and help is in that space, sort of recognizing that there's a love component to grief. You know, you miss what you had, but you're not giving up. But it's okay. It's okay to grieve, but it helps to grieve together and to be in the community.

43:03 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Yeah, well, you know, shameless plug, Brian was on this show talking about that book, and he's an incredible author and inspiring, and I think he was trying to help people not give up. And I think right now, the role of a lot of us is to say, we’ve got to keep on and we've got to get stronger and we've got to show up in really important ways.

The last kind of tricky question I want to ask you is, you know there has been some talk about the Insurrection Act being invoked, and I think that that would have implications for our National Guard. And I'm just wondering if you have any insight into what you could imagine happening if that actually does get invoked, or if there's other ways. I mean, even more recently, there's been talk just that they're kind of gearing up for a summer of discontent. And I'm just curious how the military is factoring into, or how the Reserve is factoring into this effort. But how do you read those tea leaves at this point?

44:26 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

So there's a lot of different ways I could come at that. I'm going to give you sort of a non-legalistic answer, although I'm pretty familiar with the act and have spoken with a lot of folks and worked on a lot of aspects of modifying it for the benefit of everybody. Frankly, I don't regard that as a, again, a Republican versus Democratic issue. I regard it more as a balance of power discussion, and I think my personal view of it is it should be structured more sort of like the War Powers Act, where the first mover can be the chief executive, but at some point there's an accountability component to the whole construct.

But leaving that aside, I would say - because you talked about the summer of discontent or whatever - I think that, and I haven't done this, but I actually owe you a lot of products already, so be careful how I phrase this, but I probably need to go back and read a little bit more of Martin Luther King, some of his earlier work. I think that this is a time when leadership at scale needs to - when I talk about leadership, I'm not talking about the government. I'm talking about those who are concerned about potential government overreach - need to be messaging peaceful protest, peaceful conversation, critical discussion. That violence begets violence, and I also think that violence could very well create a - I won't say pretext, necessarily, depends on how it manifests - but create a reaction that would be unfortunate, strategically unfortunate for the country.

46:20 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

That's a point very well taken. And actually, it reminds me, in another life, I was also interviewing people, including John Lewis, Rep. John Lewis, who was referencing the incredible discipline and training that went into the nonviolent resistance that they were doing, and he said, no one could go out there and just do it. They had to go through a training, they had to be prepared. I won't use the military because it's not the same thing, but in the sense that you couldn't, you had to be prepared for what was going to come and not react with violence. And that took lots of discipline, and I think that that can be a spiritual role.

I think that's what I'm hearing you talk about, is that this is about training, discipline, understanding the broader mission of what you're trying to accomplish, and how you're going to accomplish it, and I think that that's a super important point.

47:21 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

It goes to the the difference between strategy and tactics. Strategically, it's important that people stay cool. Tactically, that can be hard, because in the moment, they're amped up, but that's where discipline kicks in.

47:49 - PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Retired Lieutenant General Charles D. Luckey is former chief of the United States Army Reserve. In that position, he was responsible for manning, training and equipping a force of more than 200,000 soldiers and civilians across 50 states, five territories and more than 30 countries. Having completed three combat tours, he is a practicing attorney and a leading voice for American values at home and around the world.

Lt. Gen. Luckey, thank you so much for joining me and all of our listeners on The State of Belief.

48:19 - CHARLES LUCKEY:

Paul, it's been an honor to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and all your listeners.

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