In November, on the eve of Wright’s retirement—or semiretirement, because he just got a plum gig at Oxford, and he’s not likely to stop writing anytime soon—I met him for lunch in New York City while he was in town promoting his new book, The New Testament in Its World. He’s an amiable fellow, balding and mostly gray through the beard, who’s given to cracking self-deprecating jokes about how his children and grandchildren don’t take him seriously. We discussed the crisis of American Christian identity and the decline of Western morality as we ate—light conversational fare for a theologian and pastor. Our conversation, below, has been edited for length and clarity.

Emma Green: Do you worry that the strong association between Christianity and politics in the United States—and specifically the alignment between the religious right, evangelicals, and the Republican Party—will permanently shape the image of Christianity?

N. T. Wright: Part of the problem here is the word evangelical. I know a lot of people who have basically abandoned it since the whole [Donald] Trump phenomenon.

In England, people are a bit embarrassed about the word. But I’ve taken the view that the word evangelical is far too good a word to let the crazy guys have it all to themselves, just like I think the word Catholic is far too good a word for the Romans to keep it all to themselves. And while we’re at it, the word liberal is too good a word for the skeptics to have it all for themselves. It stands for freedom of thought and exploration.

Everything gets bundled up together, whether it’s abortion or gun rights or homosexuality or whatever. All issues are seen as either you’re on that side, and it’s the whole package, or you’re on this side, and it’s the whole package.

[Read: Why some Christians ‘love the meanest parts’ of Trump]

Green: Do you think most Christian leaders, especially in the U.S., operate primarily from a place of fear about being pushed out of the culture?

Wright: That’s a good question. I do not know. There are many places where people are quite upbeat, and where Christian leaders are seeing God doing great things in their communities. And there is fear, because some huge cultural imperatives can’t fit with the Church’s traditional teaching.

Green: What cultural imperatives are you talking about?

Wright: Well, one would name the LGBT agenda. For 2,000 years, Christian, Jews, and Muslims—Muslims for less than 2,000 years, but you know what I mean—have just said, That’s not what we think a human life is all about. Suddenly, we have a cultural imperative [to embrace LGBT identity] coming in the last 30 years or so. That’s quite an extraordinary thing.

Green: I think the LGBT issue is a major tension point in people’s perceptions of Christianity, or at least conservative expressions of it. On this issue, people seem to feel that Christianity’s messages are primarily about judgment and condemnation.