Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - How DEI Promotes Oppression [Featuring Tim and Rosa Harris]

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Does the shade of your skin determine your disadvantage? Tim and Rosa Harris join Pastor Allen on this episode to discuss the origin of DEI, the Marxist roots of CRT, and the display of God's faithfulness in their lives. Tim shares how they suspect that his open opposition to the concepts of DEI led to him losing his job in higher education. "One of the professors comes out on stage alluding that skin color and your zip code relegates you to a certain lot in life, which hadn't been my experience," Tim told Pastor Allen. "I don't necessarily see my race or my zip code as an impediment or a barrier to success." Does DEI really promote diversity, or is it leading to more division in our nation?__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

And so as he's having this discourse, my hand goes up quite naively. Because I'm one of only a few, I'm one of black people in the auditorium. So I say, well, with all due respect, sir, I don't necessarily see my race or my zip code as an impediment or barrier to success. Nor do I see that any person of any ethnicity, nor any of the white people who are in this auditorium, would have access to anything at my expense so that I couldn't achieve. what I've been called to achieve and to accomplish in life. And I just don't see race in the same context that you're describing it. My hand goes down.

A few weeks later, I'm having one-on-one discussion with my boss. When I enter the room, he's sitting in one side of the table. On the other side of the table, there's someone from HR with a folder on the table. They pushed a folder, and they tell me we're going in a different direction. All right. Well, I want to welcome everybody to our Culture and Christianity podcast. I have some guests today that I am delighted to introduce you to. They're friends of mine.

They're part of the congregation here where I serve. And I think that the opportunity we had to get to know one or the little bit was this summer. We traveled Israel together. Correct. And we went on a time when there's not a lot of tourists in Israel. Right. Which it was really wonderful. It's like we had rented the whole place for ourselves.

Yes. But we were also there in Jesus. June, which is a bit warmish in the desert. Yes. So my guest are Tim and Rosa Harris, and Rosa was concerned she was going to melt in Israel, but we did not. No, I did not. I survived.

How long have you all been in Tennessee? Just under two years. It'll be two years in October. Okay. Well, you, the kind of the heart of this story really has a little bit to do with your professional life and walking through. DEI as it has become a more, what do we say, integrated part of the broader culture from academia, as the corporate world to the church world.

And I think a lot of people haven't paid a lot of attention to even understand what it means. But maybe before we do that, I want to know a little bit about your spiritual journey. I mean, you've been at the church a bit, but tell us a little about your faith, how you got together, how you made it to Tennessee, because you're not Tennessee natives, Mississippi and Chicago, and you got together. That takes Jesus. Yes, it does.

Yes, it does. I think surviving a Chicago winter takes Jesus. Yes, it does. That's a brutal place in February. It is very brutal. Very brutal. And the winters, according to me, last nine months. So.

I heard, but we were just chatting before we started, and I heard that you told him if he didn't change the music he listened to, he was going to hell. Well, I did, but it was just a little bit more than that to it. he had previously been walking with the Lord and had backslid. He was aware of where he was based upon the book that you had gotten from the young lady. The divine revelation of hell by Mary Kay Baxter. And so, but he really wanted to go the route of the music because, you know, he was very much into that and everything.

And we were having a conversation. and that's what I said to him was, what is it about you in the music? You're going to go, as my aunt would say, to the bad place. So anyway, at that time I was living with my older brother and eventually moved to another place. And when he decided to come back to the Lord, he contacted my brother. And my brother passed a message on me. So I was going to a church. But prior to that, I actually...

ended up coming to the Lord because, as I stated, I'm from a small town in Mississippi, and even though I grew up going to church, Sunday school, all of that, having a God consciousness by not being saved, I was in a relationship, not with him, and that was a very painful thing to me. But it actually ended up being a setup from the Lord because the person I was dating, his uncle was a pastor. And he led me to the Lord. And so that was in 91. And I'm so grateful, even though it was very painful because one of my mechanisms of coping through rejection in relationships was actually to hate the person. So as I've decided, I've given my life to the Lord, I can't do this anymore.

more. And so it just, right, exactly. So that seemed like it made it really difficult. But the Lord really ministered to me and I got to know him. And in the process, I just really wanted, I'm like, where are you? I'm hurting. And the Spirit of Lord was like, you wait. I'm moving.

You just wait. And eventually he brought me out of it. But there were other things that he was doing. He was healing me emotionally. And I'm so grateful for that. but that was after I had met him, of which we were just friends at the time. So you can tell how you get to the Lord. You know what I love about that little piece, the window you gave us,

is so many times we think Christianity is about just avoiding hell. Right, exactly. And the reality is our faith brings a wholeness to us that we can't achieve any other way. Absolutely, absolutely. And in the most broken places in our lives, God steps in. Yep, yeah, yeah. That's an important lesson. So, Tim, what's your contribution to this?

Tell us a little bit about your professional background. My professional background. I'm actually in technology. So I did my undergrad in Illinois at Northwestern University. And I graduated with a bachelor's degree. Northwestern's the Vanderbilt of the North. Is that how they labeled that? Exactly.

And I worked at the Chicago Tribune for 30 years. And then after there, I moved, we moved to Texas. for a few years where I worked at a nonprofit faith-based. And how we got to Tennessee was actually, it was God's Providence. We had, during the pandemic, we had actually found World Irish Church online. And we had been visiting in Murphysburg for probably 20 years. 20-some years. Because we used to come, because she has a lot of family here.

And so as we started thinking, well, if we ever get to Tennessee, we know where we're going to go to church. Right, right. And sure not, the Lord opened a, miraculously, opened up a door for an opportunity that opened up just last October, October 2022. And so we've been here almost two years. And that's how the Lord, within two years, he's opened up so many doors and has all my jobs, is giving me favor. And it's just been wonderful. Well, I know you have some experience in the corporate setting with DEI, maybe under some different labels.

You know, I find that we don't always, we're not always introduced to those things with the same labels. But tell us a little bit about your experience with that and what you learned and the perspective you brought. Sure. So the story actually predates before DEI and CRT became more mainstream after the George Floyd incident in 2020. This goes back to 2017 when I was working in higher ed at a university. and they offered management training for all of, you know, director-level employees. And this was being sponsored by our Graduate School of Management, which is one of the top in the nation. So I was looking forward to it.

And so we had an all-day session, and then in the afternoon session, one of the professors comes out on the stage. He's an African-American gentleman. And as he's going through his lecture, I'm hearing this repetition of certain terms that I hadn't heard before. along the lines of unconscious bias and fragility and privilege and oppression, the oppressed versus the oppressed. And then as he's speaking, he's eluding that skin color and your zip code relegates you to a certain lot in life, which hadn't been my experience. Many of the people who have coached me, mentored me, spoken to my life. But by and large, albeit some were black, a lot of them were white. And so as he's having this discourse, my hand goes up quite naively.

And I'm thinking I can have this conversation with him because I'm one of only a few, I'm one of black people in the auditorium. So I say, well, with all due respect, sir, I don't necessarily see my race or my zip code as an impediment or barrier to success, nor do I see that any person of any ethnicity, nor any of the white people who are in this auditorium would have access to anything at my expense so that I couldn't achieve what I've been called to achieve and to accomplish in life.

It really comes down to personal choices, making sacrifices, putting yourself in a position where you can learn and grow, and I just don't see race in the same context that you're describing it. My hand goes down, and so he's looking at me. Like, okay, what's up with this brother? Now, a few weeks later, I'm having one-on-one discussion with my boss.

When I enter the room, he's sitting on one side of the table. On the other side of the table, there's someone from HR with a folder on the table. So it's a different setup. And I've seen this before when you're actually going to have a conversation with something about performance. And so as I sit down, they pushed a folder and they tell me, we're going in a different direction. We're going to pay you a certain amount of money for you to separate from the university. We will, you know, we'll launch you sign this and promise not to, you know, sue us. You know, we'll part ways.

Now, I had just had a performance review that was very good. It was stellar. So I couldn't understand what they meant by going in a different direction. So I'm very frustrated. So at this point, I go ahead and I signed the agreement. after four months of extended pay, which turned into what? 18 months. 18 months of no income.

No income. Now, God and his providence had already provided for this 18 months. She could speak to that. So when he had worked in corporate America, he had been there for about 30 years, and at various times they had buyout programs. And so they had one, which, you know, one of the things is that I believe that the Lord place people strategically in your life. You know, sometimes that you would help them,

but at other times he has them there that they would help you. So as they're doing all of these layoffs through the years, you know, the staff is going down or whatever, but the person that was sitting in a particular position was able to say to him, you don't want to go just yet. You don't want to go just yet. And so they were doing this buyout. And so right at the same time that they did the,

were doing the buyout, he was able to get this job at this higher university. I'm sorry, a higher university. And so anyway, what happened, he left the job with the buyout package on a Friday and started the new job on a Monday. Now, we had no idea at that point, and this was for a whole year, this was for an entire year that he was pulling both of these salaries. We had no idea of what was coming. It was basically about anywhere between five or six months after he, drew the last check from the corporation that they let him go. So I said that to say, the Lord can provide even before you know you need it. And that's what he did. We had no idea that he was going to end up not having any income beyond that four months from the university.

So the Lord provided, he can provide and walk you through as you're going through something, but he can also provide even before you ever know that you needed. And one of the things is I was definitely surprised when he told me that he had been let go because he had always been, even at the company that he had previously worked for corporate America, always been a stellar employee and the fact that it was not a performance thing. It took us a long time, a number of years when he went into the next job before we were able to ever really figure out what that was about. And that job eventually ended up coming and we ended up moving to Texas.

But God was faithful through all of that. Never missed a beat. I mean, we had like, you know, other people, we had a mortgage and it ended up, we had two car payments. That was not the plan, but we ended up having two car payments at that time. And God never missed a beat. He was so faithful to us. Was it a difficult thing to walk through? Yes, it was because after he had told me, and I'm just, you know, kind of wondering like, okay, why did this happen? What was going on? Because we really never got anything concrete. But of course, you're in this, and we were thinking it was going to be a short time. We had no idea it was going to be as long as it was. But in the process, the Lord gave me the scripture, fear not. for I am with thee.

Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen thee. Yay, I will help thee. I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. And he has done that and continues to do that because I continue to go back to that scripture so many times knowing that he's faithful. One of the things is that a church that we have previously gone to,

the pastor had mentioned about you, set you up waymarks. And so the way marks are where you, you look back to see God's faithfulness helps you when you're going through something. And God has been so good, so faithful. And I'm just so grateful for it. Absolutely. You know, one of the things I lament about our current environment is it seems we've lost the ability almost completely in the public square, amongst friends in some places we still.

But in the public square, it's almost impossible to have civil discourse. I agree. And I think it's because of the ideology that has become so mainstream. You know, I was in academics before CRT and DEI were labeled in those ways. Critical thinking was a part of biblical studies for the last 40 or 50 years in a very large way. And really the forerunners of DEI started, I think, in theological training, liberal theological training. because I was at one of the most prestigious graduate schools studying theology, and the first document they gave me was on inclusivity.

And it explained that I would be required to refer to God. I couldn't refer to God with a male pronoun because that was exclusive. So I couldn't refer to God as Father, for instance. And that if I did, I would be failed. And I said to them, well, what if my worldview, and my understanding of Scripture suggests that I want to call God my Heavenly Father. And they said, well, you can't do that.

So their inclusive language document was not really inclusive. It was dictating a worldview. And at the time I wasn't, I thought some of their notions were so silly that they would never make it into the mainstream because that was 30 years ago. And I find now that that dominates

so much of the conversation. that while they, now I have a little warning lights when people start to talk to me about diversity or inclusion. I know that they're about to be very exclusive and really not interested in diversity of opinion at all. They have an ideology. They want to drive really into the heart of the discussion. Does that seem right? It's a shock to me because I thought it was a fringe issue a few years ago. And now it really, and we've lost the ability just to say, you know, we have different opinions.

We can still treat one another with respect. that's almost impossible right now. That's right. In my second job where this became clear what happened before, I was in a cohort group, and part of this cohort group was to go through an 18-month regiment of reading books that were written by pretty much social justice warriors. And this is where we're learning about being underserved,

underrepresented as a minority. And I'm sitting in this group, and this is a faith-based organization, And as we're going through these books, and they're subscribing to this dichotomy, this chasm of all humanity being divided into the oppressor class and the oppressed class, I'm coming with the word of God, and I'm expecting that they would receive it. And I tell them, I said, well, what do we say to these things? If God be for us, who could be against us, who he did not withhold his own son, but deliberately? him up for us all, and why we not with him freely give us all things. The one thing that I have a struggle with, when I'm having these conversations that

DEI, CRT, it really, it flies in the face of the sufficiency of God. And when I have conversations with whether it's other Christians or others, it's all about creating a space where people can feel included. It's about feelings. It's about, it's not about having a, conversation about in the biblical sense of what diversity, equity, inclusion. Because I would say that the body of Christ is probably the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive entity in existence. All people, all outcomes. And we all, the level, say the ground is level at the foot of the

cross. Amen. And we all have to stand before a holy, just, righteous of God and give an account of our deeds. And so, and we all, our sinners. We all have a debt that we can never pay, that he paid. And so this levels the playing field. And in Christ, it eradicates all the barriers, all of the walls of human people groups, and unites us gloriously into one body united under the banner of Christ. But when they tell me that, and they continue to come back and say, well, that's okay, but because you're a minority,

your lot in life is to see the other side as having privilege at your expense. They're irredeemable. And just as we have taken on this, and you've talked about this sense of unforgiveness, where you look at this person and say, well, because they have oppressed me and because they have privilege

and they have access that I don't, I become envious, there's covetedness, there's wrath, there's anger, bitterness, all the sins of the heart. At the end of the day, the heart of the matter, the heart of the matter is as a matter of the heart. Sin at his core, racism at his core is a sin.

Amen. And it's hard to have civil discourse around it because we're coming from a biblical worldview. They're coming through it from, and this goes all the way back to the conflict theory of Carl Marx, comes back from the Frankfurt School of Herbert Marqueuse. If you go back to 1970s, you've got Richard Delgado and Derek Bell,

and this goes all the way back. This is not new. This goes the way back to Carl Marges de bourgeoisie and the proletariat, where the sea of humanity is divided into the oppressors and the oppressed. And I've always told them, and even this cohort group, the sea of humanity is divided into the redeemed, alive in Christ, on their way to heaven, and those who are preaching. And those who are abiding under the wrath of God, condemned, and living in sin on their way to hell.

And so those kind of conversations, not being belligerent, but being forthright and bringing to bear what Scripture says about this. And so it is hard to have a civil discourse because the biblical worldview will always clash with the worldly outset of, because it's a satanic ploy to keep us all divided. is to keep us looking at each other with suspicion, to call each other out on these microaggressions that they call. And so it's very, very hard to have civil discourse. What intrigued me when we had a chance to visit when we were traveling was, as you described your journey, I didn't hear in you anger and bitterness. And, you know, I often say to people that we have to tell the truth and recognize that evil exists, but we don't have to be angry or belligerent.

And you aren't. Either of you. No. That takes the spirit of God in us, because when we're treated unjustly, I think our carnal response is some form of resentment or bitterness. And it takes the spirit of God to help us not do that. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

One of the things is that when he was at the university and they let him go, his boss seemed surprised because they let him go or they told him, and they were giving him like two weeks, but told him he could take off the next day. He was surprised that he showed back up to work to next day. And so in light of that, but he was also surprised that he still continued to do his work at the level that he always had done it.

And that seemed to have been a surprise to him, because what did he say to you? Oh, he said that he thought I would have been angry. He thought I would have probably thrown probably a fit. And at the last, on my last day, he said, wow, you're the classiest guy I know. But I told him, even then, I said, my work is unto the Lord, you know, and he's got a plan for me. And so it didn't really matter what they said and what the outcome was because I knew the Lord had had us in his hands. And he certainly did.

He provided. He was faithful. Yeah, definitely. One of the things, too, is that you had kind of mentioned the spiritual atmosphere of working there, that it was oppressive because it was dark. Yeah, there were people on my team in leadership that were just unapologetically publicly atheists. Oh, I'm an atheist, I'm an atheist. And I was like, well, I'm a Christian.

And there were times because they were also very much against, they were. boycotting and divesting and sanctioning Israel. There are a lot of dark things there. And I would come home literally and just almost feel the darkness. I had to pray in the spirit. And so it felt spiritually oppressive more than anything else. It wasn't racially oppressive. It was more spiritually oppressive.

So there was that component that there was actually, you could feel the tension spiritually. There was a warfare component to it. Yeah, that's another part of the alphabet soup. That's a problem too. The BDS movement. The boycott, divest, and sanctions of Israel, which is an enormous talking point in much of academia, particularly, but the corporate culture as well. Things like DEI and CRT, they're a part of the world now.

I mean, we've got a whole departments and universities and the government. Right. I mean, this is not some fringe movement. Now, there's some good news. I think some of those departments have been scaled back. Yeah, Microsoft is left. They're like 150 and other companies are letting them. letting their DAI go.

So it is being recognized as a failed policy, at least in some areas, which is good news. But it's even flourished in a lot of churches. Right. It sounds good. We want people to be treated equally. And everybody needs to be treated with respect. But as you said, the ideological origins of this, which you were citing so appropriately, really come from a group of individuals whose objective was to accumulate power.

And there's enough history now based on that ideology that is. It is crushed, multiplied millions of people. It has not resulted in freedom and liberty. Right, right. Whereas our Christian faith, while there are some dark chapters of a Christian faith, the general trajectory of Christianity is it's brought dignity to women, to children. It has brought an inclusivity to culture that every human being is equal in the side of God. You know, our carnal nature does not do that.

Right, that's true. But the spirit of God in us teaches us to love and respect one another. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, one of the things that you said is that while they were doing that, you know, as far as in the past was to gain power, that's the reason why they're doing it now is to gain power. Because one of the things that we found interesting is where you have the people that have written the books or that's pushing the particular agenda of DEI, if you look into their,

or finances or whatever, they're wealthy. Right. It's working for them. Exactly. It's working for them. Yet they're saying, you know, what, you're oppressed. You're a victim. And that's simply not the case.

But in doing so, they also, he's often said this, it strips away an individual's motivation so that they're thinking, okay, well, they've already said this. And it can get into a person's psyche so that they end up thinking, okay, well, you know, they're against me anyway so I can't achieve anything. And that is just wicked, that you would even say that, particularly to children, that you're making these types of impressions upon their minds so much so that they then end up not achieving if you're saying or if they're saying that this child is oppressed or even making the other child that's of a different race saying that they're the oppressor. So, you know, you have this privilege and all of those different things. And it's just, it's from, it is from the devil. It is from the devil.

I'm impressed that the two of you, you had the courage to raise your hand. That's not an easy thing to do in those settings. The majority of the people I know will just be quiet and go along to get along. And whether they're doing it, whether they understand or not, they're adding momentum to deception. Absolutely. So I'm curious, maybe coach us a little bit because the two of you have lived this out with courage and faith.

And it's not going away. It's something we're going to have to walk through for a while. So maybe help us understand how to respond because we're going to bump into it. Our kids are going to bump into it in schools and in universities. And it's a part of corporate culture in many places. Right. Give us some wisdom. I'll give you some wisdom.

well, God's wisdom. Now, let me be clear that I never will debate on the tenets of the existence of whether systemic racism or institutionalized racism exist. Because to me, sin is harbored in the heart of the individual. And I would be naive to say that racism doesn't exist. Sure. We experience it. We continue to experience it.

It's a real thing. And until Jesus comes. Absolutely. Yeah, because it's a heart thing because the word says, you know, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. He didn't, the word didn't say just weak. He said desperately wicked. So mankind, even though we want to think that we're good, we're not good. But yet we think that we are and we'll operate off our good intentions. And even if that comes down to a point of oppressing someone else, or being disingenuous to someone else, we figure it's fine because it serves our purpose and everything. I think that's the great lie is that governments or ideologies

that suggest humanity is going to, are we going to treat one another well without the transforming power of God? Right. There's just nothing in human history to suggest that. Nothing. We don't treat one another well. Right. And the only hope we have is yielding ourselves to an almighty God who helps our hearts to begin to change.

but I interrupted. I wanted your wisdom. They hear me preach all the time. No. You know, the one thing is the word of God. The word of God is true and let every man be a liar. And the one thing that I would tell anyone who's got kids that may be going off to college or they're coming up is that just as Moses told them in Deuteronomy 6-7 to basically to pass the word onto their children and to tell them. them, teach them of the word when they, when they rise up and when they sit down, when they go to

sleep, inculcate into your children or your young people before they go off to college a deep resolve for the sufficiency in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture. Give them a sense that God will withhold no good thing for them they walk up right before him. Coach him on Psalm 1, Joshua 1 8, if they meditate in his word day and night, and do all according to that as written there, and that he, they will then, have, they'll be prosperous and have good success. Luke 31, with God, nothing shall be impossible. And just keep going on and on. And that by his divine power, he gives you everything that pertains to life and godliness. Their resolve has to be so steely in that regard that they will have

the courage to raise their hand because they'll know they're hearing either propaganda, we'll call it lies from the pit of hell, however you want to state it. But they will intentionally try to dismantle their faith. Right. That's coming. Right. Now, that's on the spiritual side. But just logically, just look around.

There are so many blacks in other minorities that are millionaires, billionaires, CEOs. If racism was that systemic and that pervasive, and I'll even say where I work right now, I work with people who are of a color, they have doctorate degrees, they're on the executive team, and everybody had to work for it. So to me, again, it comes down. You do not place equity over meritocracy. And all you have to do is look around and you'll see people that are, if systemic racism does exist, there's another of us doing in run around it that it really is of non-effect.

And so we just have to, the worst thing you can do, if you want to, as Rosa said, if you want to demotivate a disincentivize a person, just tell them that, you know, the cards are all stacked against you. capitalist, whites, Republicans, whatever it is. And just erode any sense of motivation or the sense of being able to bring personal agency to the, to the equation. So I would certainly, one, get the word of God in them. I mean, the word of God systematically, as we say, and we just read it every day. And also, model. You know, my mom, she actually went through Jim Crow. She actually sat on the back of the bus.

She's 87 years old. She never once breathed a word of victimist mentality to me. By the time I got to kindergarten, she had already had me reading, writing, spelling, counting, reciting the states of the United States. That's what needs to happen. Parents need to get involved. I would encourage, you know, as when I was coming up, demand to performance. Don't tolerate mediocrity. Don't bring anything here less than a B.

know where your kids are, know their assignments, know their grades, practical things just to stay on top of it. Because without having the skills that are marketable that you can bring to bear that people have paid good money for, you're always going to be struggling. So there's some practical things that parents can be doing to position their kids for success as well. You know, I like the civil rights movement of the 60s. The moral authority for that message was derived from Scripture. That we are equal on the side of God. And the outcome of that changed our culture. Right, right.

I mean, it didn't do it overnight. It hasn't been perfect. And as you said, racism exists, and it will exist as long as we have sinful hearts. But I saw meaningful change come from that. And it grieves me now that in so much of the racial discussion, we've stepped away from the authority of Scripture. And we're borrowing from these really destructive ideologies that have a history of bringing great destruction and demotivating people. And it's almost as if it has taken us backwards in some respects. and it concerns me for what we're putting in the hearts of our younger people.

I think your wisdom. I loved what you. It was priceless. And I heard you describe how to put in the hearts of your children a respect and a reverence for the word of God and the place it holds. Because that will be assaulted, whether it's done directly or indirectly. And if they love their parents and you can plant that seed in the hearts of your children. Definitely. That's better than any inheritance we can leave them.

It is. It is. It definitely is. When I was in college, I wasn't comfortable. I had never been comfortable with this. Talked about going to a nightclub. I was afraid Jesus was going to come back. I did not have that problem.

I was in the nightclub. You were secure enough in your salvation. Well, yeah. I really did. So I said that. to say that, you know, where the word says, train up a child in the way he's going when he's old, he won't depart from it. A parent never knows the seed that may be planted or if the child is going to Sunday school because I think about it. My grandmother also lived with us.

And one of the things I tell people is that my grandmother own Psalms 23. She owned that. Okay. And so anytime I think of that, I think of her or different things. things that my mom would say that I didn't even realize was in the scripture where she would say, you have to swear to your own hurt and change not. And so here I am an adult. And I'm like, oh, that's where that came from. So you just, the parent, the things that they can say or that they model before the child is huge. It makes a huge difference because you do end up going back to that. And I would say that that makes a huge difference because then they have a place that they can go. Even if they're out there and they never or haven't accepted the Lord, they've seen their

parent on their knees or they've seen their parent or grandparent reading their Bible and it makes a difference. It makes all the difference. It truly does. Well, you all are an inspiration to me, and I know to many others. I'm sure you take some, or you have taken some criticism. Because I think any time we stand against notions that are as popular as these have as much momentum, not everybody's going to cheer. Right, right. I have. Or we have, I guess.

Up close and personal. Uh-huh. I mean, the absurdity of if you don't embrace the mantra of diversity, equity, and inclusion, you'll be excluded. seems to be lost on the people that are preaching that message. Right, exactly. I mean, the irony of is that when I question some of the proposed policies, such as doing away with college exams and doing away with standardized testing and just lowering the bar for minorities,

that doesn't sound like fair and access equitable treatment to me. It just sounds like you're giving that person a handicap. I've always struggled with the ones that really want to have equitable outcomes are the ones that would vote down school choice. And you have to have access to schools that don't have high crime, high drugs, you know, low grades, low graduation rates. And so it almost seems it's the irony of ironies is that some of the policies that I try to, you know, advocate for.

that I feel would really advance and give people, what I would consider to be, the autonomy and the individual independence to really do them and to do for themselves. It runs counter to a lot of what some of these DEI or CRT proponents are standing for. Not all the time, but that's where I might get a lot of, you know, pushback sometimes, some type of things. but I love what I do. I still am involved somewhat. At my job, we do have some DEI training in my current role. And here's the deal. The bottom line from me is I would never discriminate against a minority,

but I would never hire someone just on the basis of their race. Because in that case, I feel that that in itself would be an injustice or racist to hire somebody who's not really fully qualified. And I think you actually read something recently where they said, if you continue to hire for the best qualified candidates, that would be considered racist. Racist. Yeah.

Yeah. So, again, we're talking about equity over meritocracy, and that's where I have a problem. Well, I talked to somebody recently who had worked in the, he was a forced recon Marine, had done security training all over the world. That was, and he was commenting on what he watched when the assassination attempt failed to,

assassination attempt on former President Trump. And he said, the people in that immediate detail that have to shield him with their body need to be as tall as he is. And while the person I was talking to has a remarkable resume, he's only 5'4. And he said, if they'd asked me, I would have had to say I was disqualified for that because I didn't have the physical skills. And he said there were people that were in that contingent that were five feet tall. Right, right. But because of some of this nonsense, they were given the job. And so I think what you're getting to is we want the best people with the best qualifications

to have the best opportunity to do their best work. And we will all be in a better place. Right, right, absolutely. And diversity and equity and inclusion will just happen organically. When I was in Chicago, I worked at the Tribune for 30 years. And in my department, we had people from Russia, Poland, Philippines, India, China, Africa, male, female. 60 years old, 20 years old, alternative lifestyles. It was all there, but it wasn't forced.

It wasn't forced, yeah. What was equitable was doing your job, according to your job description, and to the extent that you would execute these duties would be to the extent that you would be included or be inclusion in our department. So it was very straightforward. Now inclusion has to do about helping people

to feel a sense of safety and belonging. It's more about the feeling of safety and top tolerance and inclusion as opposed to, you know, just objectively making sure everyone has a level criteria for getting in, doing their job, being appraised, and being promoted thereof. It's just, you know, I'm old school. I think you're biblical. I'm of the opinion that we live out the gospel. Yeah.

In a radical way that our lives and the places we go will reflect all of those things. They'll be diverse. They will be equitable. They'll be integrity. If you try to get to those outcomes and exclude the gospel, you have to do it with authoritarianism. Right. And then it simply becomes about who's in power. It's like, you know, all animals are equal, but pigs are more equal.

And we inevitably end back up in that place. That's right. And so I want to thank you. My guest today are Tim and Rosa Harris. I'm honored to say they're friends of mine. We worship together, but your story touched my heart. I want to thank you for your courage. You're welcome.

And your strength and the way that you demonstrate that with a gentleness but a tenacity. We have to have that. You are, to me, a classic example of what it means to overcome evil with good. And you didn't allow it to poison your soul. And I just thank you for that and for sharing your story with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And you're welcome. Hey, thanks for joining me today. before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.