Theology in the Raw - 802: #702 - Race, Repent, and Repair: With Tyler Burns

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Tyler Burns is the vice-president of The Witness, which is a black Christian collective that engages issues of religion, race, justice, and culture from a biblical perspective. Tyler is also the co-host of "Pass the Mic" podcast. In this extra raw conversation, Tyler helps us understand current race conversations from a black perspective and educates white evangelicals on our own blind spots and how we can embody Christ in our culture moment. Two things from this convo that really stand out. First, that white people typically respond cerebrally to situations (what are the facts? Show me the evidence?) while black people typically respond with emotion. Neither is "right or wrong," but it's incredibly helpful to understand both social environments. Second, Tyler said that the progressive woke white crowd is just as unproductive as the far right, white supremacist crowed. Black people aren't concern with Aunt Jemima and white, woke, political correctness. Rather, black people want to see actual justice and change. Learn more about The Witness: https://thewitnessbcc.com Watch the Conversation on YouTube Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

All right, friends, you are in for an incredibly engaging conversation with the one and only Tyler Burns. Let me tell you about Tyler. Tyler is the vice president of The Witness, which is a black Christian collective that engages issues of religion, race, justice, and culture from a biblical perspective. Tyler is also co-host of Pass the Mic podcast along with Jamar Tisby. I know some of you have read Jamar's bestselling book, The Color of Compromise, and I would highly recommend that book. And so does Tyler. Tyler, I'm just still spinning after having this conversation.

I just had this conversation with Tyler. I'm recording this intro after the fact, and my head is spinning. My heart is spinning. I was trying to think of another word. Couldn't think of anything. Tyler, I mean, he helped me to understand some of the racial tensions going on today in culture, in the church. He helped me understand blind spots that many white evangelicals have in the race conversation. I just, I, you'll hear, I mean, you won't hear a lot of me. I do talk in the podcast, but I'm just sitting there just absorbing the stuff that Tyler talks about. It is so incredibly good and challenging. So I encourage you to go check out Tyler's stuff.

If you go to thewitnessbcc.com, thewitnessbcc.com, check out the materials and resources that they have there. You can also check out his podcast, Pass the Mic. We talk about all kinds of stuff in this episode. And Tyler gets fired up. And I'm so excited about that. There's so much I want to say. But I just want you to listen to this.

Also, we did record this for a YouTube conversation. So if you want to check out the YouTube conversation, you want to see Tyler in all of his glory, you can check out Prestonsprinkle.com, my YouTube channel and see the conversation there. people like me, Christian leaders, white Christian leaders, people in a majority context, to always feel like we need to kind of voice our opinion or declare something to be good and true or right or wrong or beautiful. And we just haven't been very good listeners and learners. And so I want us all to be a listener and learner in this conversation. It is so incredibly helpful. So without further ado, I'm going to shut up and I want to welcome to the show for the first time, hopefully not the last time am here with my friend Tyler Burns.

Tyler is a co-founder of The Witness, a black Christian collective. Tyler is also a pastor, a thinker. And yeah, we've got a lot of mutual friends in common. This is the first time I'm talking to you, Tyler. Can't believe it. Thanks so much. No, it's an honor to be here. Yeah, it's an honor to be here. I just want to correct something just so people don't think I am, but I'm not a co-founder. I'm just the vice president. So I don't want people to get upset if they hear, oh, you're a co-founder and this and that. And then they're like, no, I co-founded it. So i just want to make that clear i just want to make it clear just yeah okay okay okay you're uh vice president or

co-president vice vice president vice president jamar's the head honcho okay jamar's the man the myth the legend so yeah i got in touch with uh tyler through our mutual friend uh jamar tisby um a lot of you guys have probably read his book, The Color of Compromise. Is that the title? That's right. He's becoming kind of an up-and-coming voice. I'm really excited that that's happening. Hey, let's just start, man.

Let's just dive in. We'd love to hear your thoughts on how you have been processing, thinking through, responding to the last four to six weeks with all the talk about race. We've got protests, we have riots, we have change happening. How's it going, man? How are you thinking through all this? Yeah. So I think it's interesting because how we process the last four to six weeks is a mirror into how we've processed the past seven or eight years. And so I think this is a conversation that hasn't just happened over the past month to two months, even going back to February with Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor,

George Floyd, but also going back to Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and Eric Garner and so many other names and hashtags that we can say. But I think this is a moment of reckoning. And I think I've said multiple times on our podcast, Pass the Mic, that I think this is a moment where the church is in danger on the brink of losing moral credibility in society. And not just simply because of this issue, but I think with a particular group of people who look like me and who have a unique experience and who see the inconsistency of the church over the past seven to eight years, and then kind of that gives them a lens to view the inconsistencies of the church on issues and matters of race and society and justice and culture throughout its entirety, which kind of produced the color of compromise and produces a lot of the works that we see now critiquing the church. And so I think we're at this place where the

church has an opportunity to reestablish its moral credibility and to take the hard, necessary steps of repentance and repair that the scriptures outline for us in times like this. But I'm looking at it not just as a member of the broader American church, but as a member of a specific tribe. So as a member of the black church and as a pastor within the black church, I'm looking at it from the context and the perspective of it's a moment of leadership for many of us. And it's a moment and an opportunity for us to speak where our voices have been muted and to shout where our voices have been silenced. And so I want to take advantage of that opportunity. That's good, man. Yeah. The way you're wording things is so clear and concise and just really helpful. The moral credibility of the church, can you unpack

that a little more? How has the church lost its moral credibility in this moment? Yeah, so I, you know, and I think, again, this is not just a moment. I think this is a, this is, it's a systemic historic pattern of, and I think, again, Color of Compromise talks a lot about this, but even before Color of Compromise, its grandfather or godfather, I guess you can say, was divided by faith by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith. leaders and are the founding fathers of the faith in America. And even beyond that, some of the people who facilitated revivals in America and how the church allowed them to hold different, the church allowed them to claim to believe in the gospel, but not live the ethical implications of the gospel and the applications of the gospel. So you think of someone like George Whitefield, who was a phenomenal preacher and leader and revivalist, but yet influenced Georgia to overturn their prohibition of slavery, right? So at the same

time was like, yes, slaves need to be preached to. Yes, they need the gospel, yet I'm going to own them. And so it's like, well, wait a second. So there's a difference between what you say and preach and how you live. And so I think there's the context of, okay, this isn't a long pattern. If you talk about the founding of denominations, if you talk about some of our great leaders and heroes who had abhorrent views on race, not just in slavery, but also in value, right? But then I think secondarily, I think there's also this opportunity where many of us are looking at the intersection and so many people who follow us at The Witness, they're at the intersection of having been embraced and accepted by white evangelicalism or being a part of white evangelical institutions or schools or educational facilities. And what they what they come in contact with is a sense in which people say they love us and people say they value us and people say they want us there. But now we're seeing that that love is limited. That love is part of us, not all of us.

And so if you if you say you love me, then you'll care about when I'm mistreated. If you say you love me, you'll care about the concerns of my community. If you say you love me, you'll care about the concerns of my community. If you say you love me, you'll protect and advocate for me. But we're not seeing that. And we haven't seen that over the past eight to 10 years in particular as the police brutality instances and cases have gone viral. And so now we're looking back and we're saying, well, where is all this love that you're talking about? Love God, you know, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Where's all this love y'all were talking about, right? And so I think it's credibility in

that regard to reckon with history, but then also to reckon with the ways in which people have said that they believed in things and said that they promote things that they haven't lived out. And that's true with all of us. We're all a little inconsistent as propaganda would say, out. And that's true with all of us. We're all a little inconsistent as propaganda would say. But I think whenever you're in a power position, it drastically affects the people who are not in the positions of power and authority and wealth. And it has drastically affected so many of us. And I think that's why you're seeing the tension, especially from black and brown Christians right now. That's super helpful. So, I mean, just we talked offline quite a bit before, but you, you know, are raised in a black church, but then you had a stint where you kind of, I mean, went to Liberty

University, a historic, you know, black. No, man. And you swam in the waters of reformed Christianity for a time and that – and why don't you tell us about that journey, how you're now reflecting on it, and then that might kind of spawn a few other questions we can kind of chase down. Yeah, so there's really kind of three movements of that journey. So I was raised in the black church, but I was educated in a white Christian private school. So in my early years, right after I was born, it was interesting because my family were not wealthy in any regard, but my parents wanted to place such a primacy on education. And so they sent me to the best school. So they actually, I mean, we almost had nothing, but they would scrape up money to sent me to the best school. So they actually, I mean, we almost had nothing,

but they would scrape up money to send me to a private school because they wanted me to have the phonetics and the training at a young age. And back then it was all about the education. It was all about, you know, man, get as much education as you possibly can. It gives you an opportunity to not grow up in abject poverty like we like we did you know that was the whole mentality and so they sent me to what they thought was the best school but at the same time and then also as a christian school as well so that was a plus but at the same time that school did not teach me anything about who i who i actually am not just as a christian man but as a black christian man so it was almost exclusively white like yeah yeah yeah, it was in the early years, you know, you talk about,

you know, early education to elementary, it wasn't as much, you know, it was kind of mixed. But when you get to middle school, high school, it's almost exclusively white. And so I grew up there. And basically, there was there was no, there was no affirmation and no explanation of my cultural heritage and how that intersected with my Christian faith. As a matter of fact, people say you should erase that. That's not important. That's not what we focus on. Of course, you can say that because, you know, I mean, you know, you don't think you have a culture, right?

That's what that's what they were thinking. Oh, well, there's the culture is for people on the margins, like culture is their thing. But it's not as important as your faith. It's not as important as how you walk with God as though those two are separated. Right. Which was the margins. Culture is their thing, but it's not as important as your faith. It's not as important as how you walk with God as though those two are separated, which was the issue. And so I kind of had this movement of, I don't even know who I am. So then I transfer after two years of college to Liberty University and my first semester at Liberty is the 2008 Obama election. So I'm in this culturally white setting, but I joined a black fraternity, and then I'm also navigating the Obama election. And what was another breaking point for me is

kind of a second movement was the night of the Obama election. And again, back then, you know, I was very conservative and man, you know, you're supposed to do this and believe this, and it's all about abortion and, you know, whatever it may be. And when Obama won and they announced it, it was in the Vine Center, which is a big, you know, you know, the auditorium there. Thirteen thousand people can be seated there. And when when they announced it on the big screens, the Fox News announcement, of course, all the black students ran down to the bottom and were celebrating. And there was just jubilance and joy and my frat brothers and my sorority sisters. And I mean, just, I mean, it was probably like five, 600 black students celebrating. And then all the white students were around in the stands with their arms folded like

this. Wow. And I looked around and I wasn't part of that group. And I just looked and I said, wait, something's not right about this. And then some of the comments that were made by the people around me in frustration and anguish and, you know, some of the snide cultural comments made me say, something's not right about this. And I don't even necessarily agree politically, but I'm like, something's off. And so it kind of led me to ask some questions and to do some things that I hadn't done before. Because, again, you're trained in an educational mindset that says, OK, white is right. Republican is right. All these things. Evangelical. This is what you're supposed to be.

And then the final movement was after I left Liberty and came back home to serve in my local church, you know, 2012 to a lesser extent, and then 2014 for sure with Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, it really showed and revealed. I simply, I remember the night I found out it was the night that Mike Brown was killed. I remember I looked at the story and something came up on Twitter or something. And I was sitting across from my dad. It was a Saturday night and we're getting ready for church. And I said, this is about to be a big story. And he was like, what are you talking about? So I told him just the brief of the stories as much as we knew at that point. I said, it's about to be a big story. And he was like, oh, okay. And then I put up on Facebook something real innocuous. I was like, man,

I hate to see the loss of life, unarmed black man. Hate to see that. And people just attacked me. I mean, it was just as simple as that. I was just like, hate to see it. And people just, I mean, went off. I mean, all my white friends and white pastors and you're indicting cops and, you know, you're anti-cop and you're. And I was like, no, I said I'm I'm just lamenting the loss of someone who looks like me and could have probably been me or could have been someone I knew. And the vitriol and the condescension and the paternalism and the anger and the denial. Ibram Kendi says that the heartbeat of racism is denial. Ibram Kendi says that the heartbeat of racism is denial. And if the heartbeat of racism is denial, then I like to flip that and say the drumbeat of racism is control. So it's not, and then also control, which is controlling our thoughts, controlling our tone, controlling the way we speak, how we speak, if we speak. And people started to exercise wild control, attempt to exercise wild control over me, even though I wasn't part of their denomination. I didn't answer to them. I didn't. But they thought they had rights to control my voice. And that led to the great awakening in my mind of, no, this is not this is something different than just a disagreement. This is your attempt to control me. This is your attempt to exercise your authority over me as though you think you have rights to. So those kind of were three movements of, you know, realizing that something's off. And at each

point I realized it, but then at the last point, there was kind of a breaking point. What do you think it, I mean, from your vantage point, what do you think it i mean from your vantage point what do you think that is like what's drive is it is it just blatant racism is it ignorance is it um a level of power and control that people may not even realize that they're doing or what would that just a response when you said you know mourning the death of a of a black how old was he 18 i mean he's a teenager yeah 18 yeah just graduated from high school um and as a christian even even if he was armed and you know there and there's the you know um you know there's some it's not like he – yeah, I don't know. Did he actually try to get the cop's gun or there was like he was –

We don't know. We don't know. Okay. There's a Justice Department ruling and there's conflicting stories and people have thoughts about what really happened and how it happened. Yeah, there's a lot back and forth with that. And I don't want to – all that matters, but not to your statement. This kid got killed. That's a tragedy.

I mourn that. Like even if he was killed, like that's still a tragedy. Can I talk about that? People saying, you know, George Floyd is a criminal. He did all this stuff. And, you know, he strung out on meth. And it's like, okay, maybe. It's still an absolute tragedy and there's a symbolic power of that death, that murder,

that has deep, deep, complicated historical and cultural roots. So I don't know. So I don't want to answer. historical, and cultural roots. So I don't know. So I don't want to answer. What do you think was driving that backlash that you faced when you posted that? Well, I think it's a number of different things. But one of the things that you mentioned that I think is very important to understand about the differences here is, and sorry, you might hear my kids. They're crying in the background. I got a two-year-old and a one-year-old. Great sound, man. It's a great sound.

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. But, you know, one of the things that you might hear and might see is that there's a difference in how white Christians and black Christians approach a situation like this. And this is one thing people do not talk about. They don't emphasize is that there's a cultural approach to everything. It's not just ethnic, it's not just race, but it's also the cultural approach to everything, which is a little bit different. So, you know, white evangelical Christians tend to approach things from a cognitive perspective, right? It's why their services are the way that they are. It's about intellectual, rational, cognitive thought, right? So you have maybe a little bit of emotion

here and there, but the emotion is heavily secondary to the cognitive. The word must be preached. And then they take that same reality into culture, right? So you have the whole very famous, like Ben Shapiro, facts don't care about your feelings, right? It's about the cognitive. That is what is approached. So what do they do when they see a particular case like George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery?

They definitely did with Ahmaud Arbery. It was obnoxious. But what they do, what are the facts? What are the facts? What are the facts? What are the facts? So they think first. Now in our culture, we feel first. So it's emotive. So it's the cognitive versus the emotive. So people don't talk about this. And so we're trying to rationalize with people. We're trying to reason with people who only think cognitively and who suppress the emotive. And we come in the first thing. The first thing white evangelical Christians do is they look for the facts. They're saying we do is we feel the pain. So so we feel the pain. And so that's the thing we feel first. And that's we engage with first. And they're like, no, interrupt our pain engagement with facts. They're trying to they're trying to do they're trying to be investigators. Right.

And so, again, it's the cognitive versus the emotive. So they elevate that above. And there's there's theological roots to this, too, because there's a level to which there's a theological emphasis upon the mind and not the emotions. Right. So the emotions might even be bad in some circles, right? Well, it doesn't, you know, I've, I've heard people say in, in these different streams, evangelical streams, you know, we don't need to get all, it doesn't matter. Like all that stuff, you don't need to get excited. You don't need to just preach the word as it's given. And, and, you know, people know you don't need emotionalism. It's this and that. And we come from a culture where it is it is in our blood to emotively respond to the word.

That's where call and response comes in with the black church. The call and response. It's it's a shared experience so that when and this is another thing that's kind of off to the side. But it's another reason why people are scared of black church expression. They're afraid of it. And so they feel like it's – they're like, oh, it's – is this emotionalism? Is this you just – you're losing control and all these other things. things, not understanding that it's in our genes, it's in our blood, even going back to not even just enslaved Africans, but also going back to the continent itself. It's in our blood to engage with things in a full body, the physicality, the emotion, the shout, the hoop, the scream,

all those things are native to us. And so people don't understand that. So they come in and they're like, facts, facts, facts, facts, facts. And we're like, wait a second. We're engaging with this emotionally, not pushing away the facts, but we engage, we approach a situation to feel, not to look for something to prove one side or the other. We have a felt, we have an embodied theology. We feel it in our bodies. We feel it in our bodies. So I think people don't understand that. And that's why a lot of this is tension. And then people come in and exercise control. And then to a secondary extent, I think there is an assumption that white evangelical Christians, because this is taught in American culture, everything is about them. Every argument ultimately ends with them. We have to answer to them. And it is a, while it is not in the same as, okay, we think of racism as like, oh, someone wearing a KKK hood or saying the N word, but white supremacy is also white normativity, which is the centering of whiteness as the true and right expression over everything else. And so our way is the right way. Our way is the good way. Our way is the biblically faithful way. Our way is the theologically accurate way. And so that's above all other ways. Yeah, yeah,

the black church, yeah, I mean, they produce good music but you know they got a doctrine problem right why because we don't process doctrine the way you process doctrine and so something must be wrong with us not i need to learn from them something's wrong you need a revival you need that you need a reformation you need this you need that you see what i'm saying so it's like they center themselves and place themselves as controllers. And that is what is taught culturally. It is taught culturally that, you know, when you only hear the heroes of your particular cultural history, you're trained to think that everybody else's heroes are secondary. That's how you're trained. And so it's the truth in education, the truth in theology as well. So I think those are two things that are really kind of the things behind the things. I'm trying not to give you the stock answers of like,

oh, it's this and it's that. And I know some people are like, man, just, you know, whatever. But if you really want to get to what's going on and what's happening. That's what's happening. I'm going to speak on behalf of my white audience. This is so incredibly informative and helpful. My mind's kind of spinning right now. Okay, so I want to go back. So I want to, I guess, not to confess like it's a sin, but acknowledge that the way you describe the kind of cognitive facts, that's me, man. Like, so, and maybe, I think part of it is, is I just, I'm processing part of it's a personality. Part of it is the culture I was raised in, right? Would you agree with that? Like there's certain personalities.

Absolutely. Yeah. That's me too. I'm definitely cognitive, intellectual, rational, love theology, love that. And I'm not hearing you say one's right or wrong. It's just understanding the differences is huge, right? Just simply understanding the way different cultures respond to something without saying one's right and the other or which i mean so is it wrong for me as i acknowledge that i am barry when i hear anything i'm like what what are the facts like that's only my mo should i is that okay um should i not do that or should i at least acknowledge

that that is one culturally shaped response but but not the only way? I kind of hear you going there. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great question. People's personalities are shaped by everyone's created with the image of God. And so our personalities, even the way in which we approach things, God has a hand in that. And so I don't look at anyone's personality and be like, that's, you know, that's a wrong, you know, that's a wrong personality or that's a wrong bent. But here's what I would say is that whenever you enter into a situation that's culturally different from yours, don't assume you know everything, you know, and, and here's, and here's the reality is, um, people become, and I was actually talking about this this morning – people become armchair experts very quickly about cultures they've never engaged with. They've never engaged, but they just assume.

And a part of that is our acculturation. cite certain, you know, theologies and theologians and denominations that assume certain things about a particular community, what you have is it, you know, reflexively, and it's basically a tool of mass discipleship for how people within that denomination view a certain personality, a certain group, a certain ethnic expression. And so what we assume here is that we assume that we have all the knowledge necessary to be able to make a strong declaration about what something is or isn't. And let's take it to the gospel. The Son of Man came not... No, but here's what Jesus says in the broader context of that verse. He says, the Gentiles, they lord their authority over you. They lord authority, but it shouldn't be so with you. Why? Because the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. So when I enter into a space, I come to relinquish the power

and the authority that culture has decided I should have. And this is the case for me when it comes to my Black sisters. So when it comes to black women, culture has said I'm more important than them. So as I engage with their perspective, my perspective is I'm right. Oh, no, we're not like this. No, that's not us. That's not who we are. No, no, no. I mean, you know me. But again, was that that's lording my perspective over them as though it is the right way of approaching it when I haven't lived a day in their shoes. I don't live in their experience. I don't know what they face. I may know it cognitively, but I don't know experientially. And so I come into the scenario not to be served as the authority, but to serve in mutuality. authority, but to serve in mutuality. And so whenever we get in a cultural discussion,

never approach a culture, it doesn't matter what your personality is, assuming that you have everything ready, even if you've read, this is the thing. So people get, people, they're like, oh, I've read that book. I've read this book I've read. And it's the mindset is still wrong, which is, oh no, I still have the authority. I still have the right reason. I still know what I'm talking about. And that again is an exercise in white normativity, which is the cousin of white supremacy. It is overruling. It is ruling over a group of people saying, I can understand your culture. And here's the unfortunate reality. Most white evangelical Christians have not had to hear black history. They've not had to learn from black theologians. They've not had to sit under black pastors. They've not had to engage with black culture. But yet whenever a situation happens, they come in and tell us what it is and what it isn't.

And I'm like, you don't even know us. And then they're like, man, my black friends or Candace Owens says this. So it must be true. And I'm like, you don't even know us. You don't know us experientially. You don't know us in any sort of way. You just know what has been mass produced to you. And then you assume based upon that. And so we never enter a scenario assuming that we know, especially within power dynamics and culture, we come in ready to serve and ready to learn and be teachable. So good. That's so many questions, man. Fire away. Let's do it. That's why we're here.

The tail end when you're talking, it made me think like part of the problem is that we lack multi-ethnic church communities. And I'm kind of, I don't know, like I think, yeah, I'm just thinking through all that. I've been passionate about that for a while. But one thing I do, one thing I really don't like is when there's not true integration but it's just assimilation and i know i i honest i don't i don't think i know a blatantly racist white person but i know a lot of white people with a lot of underlying unchecked just ignorance bias presuppositions that's just it's lingering beneath the surface you know so even when it comes like multi-church expressions like i I don't know any personally,

any white people would have any problem with like a black pastor. But I think they would have a problem with the black pastor bringing black culture into their church. I think they would have a problem with that. When does the service end? It ends when I get done preaching, man. I mean, like, mean like no no like i i've got plans i've got like there's there's so much you know clock time it's about me i'm at the center there's so much cultural assumptions we have that are that are shaped by i love your phrase

white normative experience even if it's not quite white supremacy per se but it's very much white normative and we're fine with people of color coming into that context and assimilating um and that's i think it's a huge huge problem so i think the lack of genuine integration and celebration of different cultures in a church context might be part of part of the problem why white people are kind of being bathed in a more white ideology without even realizing it. And correct me if I'm, or augment, correct, whatever, agree with whatever. I just, that was something I was thinking about when you were talking at the end there. Yeah. Like I think, you know, it's interesting, right? Because I grew up in a

context where I was part of a black church. So I was majority black, but there was a big push and movement, even in my father's vision of the church to craft a multi-ethnic church experience as best as possible. Like, and this was before multi-ethnic was a thing, you know, back then it was multicultural. And so there was this push to, you know, craft a multiethnic church experience. And, you know, from I think he said from segregation, integration, integration to reconciliation, reconciliation to celebration, you know, all these types of things that, you know, language that we had long before was in books. And I think there's something good about that. I think there's something good about the level to which we're desirous of a beloved community, as King would say. But I also think that there is a problem because multi-ethnic church spaces tend to revert back to white normative expression. And so they tend to revert back to white cultural normativity. And so even, like, let's take, for example, something that you said earlier that, you know, hey, I don't I don't really think I know any racist white folks. And, you know, I don't think anybody would have a problem with a black pastor, but they have underlying unchecked.

Here's what a lot of us are making the distinction of right now. We don't distinguish between the two because here's what we see. it too. Because here's what we see. You don't have to be a red-blooded, angry, racist, calling me the N-word to oppress me, to limit opportunities, to try to control me, to try to center yourself, even in our friendship and relationship. You don't have to be. You can actually propagate the same. relationship. You don't have to be. Like you can actually propagate the same. You can love me. You can be in relationship with me. You can be my friend. You can be my pastor. You can be in my wedding and still propagate the same mentality of inferiority in our power, in the power dynamics of our friendship and our relationship. And so whenever people are like, man, I don't really know. And I'm like, that's great. I'm glad. But I bet you know some people who need to be challenged on their ethnocentrism, who need to be challenged on their normative expression to be challenged on what they expect of certain groups of people. I think you know

way more people than what you think, right? And so that's one of the things that we kind of say, because in a multi-ethnic church expression, people are so excited about us getting in the door together. We're going to worship together. But the problem is the worship is still centered around one cultural expression. It's still monocultural. It's multi-ethnic monocultural. What songs are we singing?

Right. Okay, so we're only singing your songs? Yeah. Only singing songs written from your social location? Yeah. How is this multi-ethnic? Like, what are you talking about? Well, that's the assimilation, right?

I mean, you can have tons of black people, people of color in our church, as long as they sing white songs. Like, you're assimilating into a white normative culture. It's the cultural cues. It's the sermon illustrations. It's the things that are addressed from the pulpit. And so the bigger issue is, man, it's great if we have multi-ethnic church spaces. And I think that's a great goal to have. But the problem is, who is erased and who has to become less of themselves in this multi-ethnic church space. And what has typically happened is Black women take a backseat. Black women are erased. They're invisible. They're ignored. That's why I'm so glad you had Lisa on.

I mean, even that act, I'm so glad you had Lisa on because in this conversation, Black women are typically ignored and suppressed. And it's like, okay, well, the only expression we really need to get to is two men. Two men really need to talk about this, right? Which again, it's another cultural expression that's erased. And so, you know, I was talking to somebody we respect and admire years ago, Andy Crouch on the podcast on Pass the Mic. And he was talking about how, and this is his words, not mine. He said, I'm less concerned about how many multi-ethnic churches there are, I'm more concerned about

the white church addressing white supremacy within its church. And that, hey, it would be great if we got together, but if we address the long legacy of white normativity and the ways in which our theology has been held culturally captive and have used as a tool to oppress and suppress people when it's liberative and when it's gospel loving and when it's freedom, it's, you know, the promotion of freedom and love and grace and truth. We'll be better off even if we don't all come together under the same roof, right? Address that. And then even if we all don't come together and we don't have that kumbaya moment, we'll get in the presence of Jesus. But address what exists within your church.

And if you address what exists within your church, we'll all be blessed by that. We'll all be better off because there are people who have been trained and discipled to love as Christ calls us to love. That's so good. Do you know Eugene Cho? Absolutely, yeah, yeah. When I talked to him about how they went about cultivating a multi-ethnic church, I felt like that was one of the best. And I'll say it. He would probably say attempts because he would say we never arrived.

It was super hard even to this day. Twenty years later, he's no longer there. Would you agree? of this day 20 years later it was i'm you know he's no longer there but um would you agree is that would that be a a an approach um where there's genuine not assimilation but a genuine attempt to celebrate and integrate different ethnic expressions well yeah and i don't know all of their the things that they've done but i you know i know eugene cho is a is a great voice and uh you know another guy that i two guys that I would really love to highlight who have done I think a really great job of this is Rich Valotis at New Life Christian Fellowship in New York City. And then also Albert Tate as well. They've done a really great job out in California. I think that's Fellowship Monrovia. I think that's the name of their church.

I think that's Fellowship Monrovia. I think that's the name of their church. Those are two churches that I think have really modeled what it looks like. And I tend to lean towards multi-ethnic church expressions that are led by people of color, you know, men and women of color. I tend to appreciate that and honor and value that in a certain way because it, again, does not reinforce the dynamics of, you know, white normativity and control. And it's not like it has to be for it to be a healthy church. That's not what I'm saying. But I think there's just a way in which it's done in certain sectors. But you have to understand, like, when you talk about multi-ethnic church, it varies based upon the population. It varies based upon, you know, the, you know, the ethnic diversity of a city. You know, it's going to be different in Idaho. It's going to

be different in, you know, all these places. You see, it's like totally different, right? But what do you do in that? Well, you know, and people get stuck. I want to encourage people with this. This kind of leads me into something that I think is really important. Don't give yourself excuses to not change, excuses to not address what lies within you. Because see, here's what tends to happen is white pastors be like, well, I tried, you know, what do we do? We just, do we bring in a gospel choir? Do we do this? And it's like, it's not about performative expressions. It's not about performative acts. It's about solidarity. It's about advocacy. It's about loving your neighbor well, and, and that love leading you to justice as Cornel West

would say, justice is what love looks like in public. Right. So that leads you, that love leading you to justice as cornell west would say justice is what love looks like in public right um so that leads you that love leads you to act justly in public to do justice and love mercy but don't give yourself an excuse like so for the pastors who are like man i you know we tried this and we hired this guy we did this and and they're like okay well we did on one thing and then it's like what must i do to be safe? I kept the law. I mean, I kept all the law from birth. Like, I'm good. Okay, well, sell all you have and give it to the poor. Goes away sad. Oh, no, it's too much. It's too hard. And I think sometimes the standards of the gospel and the standards that God is trying to push for us, because there has been such divide and such oppression and such violence done

to people of color in our bodies. And now what it takes to reconcile, what it takes to bring justice is so heavy and it's so intense and it's so weighty that sometimes we say, well, I'd just rather not do anything. And no, that's where God has called you to press in. That's actually where God has called you to not give yourself the excuse, the out. Well, it doesn't really affect me because I live in X city, Y city. Nobody in my church is talking about this. Nobody in my community cares about this. The kingdom of God, you're still a part of it.

And there's still people who need your voice and who need you to address it in your church in the way God calls you to. I want to go back to something you said about the illustration of somebody can be in your wedding, they can be your friend, they can whatever, be on leadership team with you, but there still can be suppression and control. Can you give me an example or two of what that looks like? As you're talking, I'm constantly thinking, gosh, am I doing that? Even now, by leading the questions, am I exercising control? I'm a little skittish just in the last few weeks, just trying to rethink, am I doing things that I'm blind to, even though I want to not do that? So

give us an example of what that could look like. Well, let me just emphasize, you know, John 1, 14, you know, Jesus comes in grace and in truth, right? So it's like he comes full of grace and truth. So I just want to be very, like, emphasize that even as we give truth, we fall into grace. Like, and this is the point. We don't fall into condemnation. We fall into grace in everything. So we don't trip ourselves into, you know, kind of this masochistic self-flagellation of like white guilt. It's like, oh, I'm just so bad. I'm just so, you know, and I think a lot of people assume that's what we

desire. That helps us none. And it doesn't help anybody who's watching any either, but we fall into grace. And so grace gives us the freedom, the free grace of God, the rich, lavish grace gives us the freedom to be honest about our failures and to confront our mistakes and our weaknesses, knowing that Jesus will not love us less because we confess our racism, but he can handle it and then desires to redeem and restore. And so it happens in a lot of different ways, a lot of different ways. So here's here's one of the ways that I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen in interactions with friends who love me and care about me, but who talk over me in a place where they should be listening, right? Who center themselves, even in the context of our, of our,

of our conversation, they center themselves. So here's one of the ways that it happens. You have friends who love me, care about me. And they're like, Hey man, what you think about this? Hey man, help me with this. Hey man, what would you say to this? Hey, man, what would you do? And so we entered into the conversation with you pulling from me, not asking me, how am I processing this? Is this a good time for me to do this? Is this is this helpful? Is this you? There's basic care and consideration, but I'm their black friend. Right. So when you're their black friend, what do you do? You get pulled on to be the expert. Yeah. Get pulled on to explain. You get pulled on to give. You get pulled on. But nobody checks up on your your heart. Nobody checks up. Hey, man, are you OK? Like I know you've you've gone through a lot of corporate trauma right now.

Are you are you in a position to have this conversation? Is this something that you would even want to do right now? And if it's not, that's OK. But calling, texting, hey man, help me work through this with my church. Okay, so here's where it works out. You didn't do the work, but now I come in and I'm your shield. I'm your shield now. Okay, so you haven't been doing any of this study over the past eight years. We've been recommending books how many times? Divided by faith should give me 1% of their proceeds for how much I have recommended that book. I'm telling you, Jamar should give me 2% of his proceeds because he's my brother. So I say 2% for him. I've recommended Color Compromised everywhere. We're going to recommend Divided by Faith everywhere for years. And y'all aren't

reading? Y'all aren't doing the work? And then now you're like, oh, well, come help me. Who am I to you? Like, what do you mean? Like, okay, so now in this moment, you want to trot me out. So here's the thing. Whenever blackness is selectively celebrated. it. So it's inconvenient when there's not a crisis. It's inconvenient when I can't be a translator for your black members. It's inconvenient when I can be a translator for your black audience, when I can't help the white people understand something. It's inconvenient whenever it doesn't benefit you. So see, that's just an unhealthy friendship and relationship in general, right? It doesn't have to be about race. That's just an unhealthy friendship and relationship. If I only called my graphic designer friends when I needed something, they'd be looking at me like, yo, what type of relationship is this? Oh, so you just see with inequity, what tends to happen is that gets assumed in white and black circles in Christianity. And black people, we feel like we have to, because those are our brothers. Those are our sisters. Oh, no, I have to do this. And if I'm not doing this, I'm being a bad friend.

Because historically, it's been beat into our minds that we serve them. That's historic. That's historic for us. Oh, we should be honored that we're asked to do this. Now, in the meantime, we're privately crushed. They have this moment where they absolve themselves of, oh, well, I'm not racist. I had Tyler come over. I had Tyler preach at my church. Come on, I'm not racist. You ain't heard him? You ain't heard him? Well, all the while not addressing the issues and pains of black members within their church, not addressing the issues and pains of people who they've silenced, who they've called all kinds of names behind closed doors, who they've said, yeah,

they're irritant, but he's one of the good black ones. That's essentially what they're saying without saying it, right? Oh, help translate it, translate it for us. I'm getting real, real, because I think you really want to know. So I'm getting, I'm being very, you see what I'm saying? So it's like, if it's like a scenario where, oh, I only serve you when it's selectively helpful. People hit me up who haven't hit me up in years. Hey man, you got any book recommendations? You got any of this? I'm like, do you follow me? Like, are we, are we friends? Like, of course, look at what I said, like two years ago. But again, it's the assumption and I don't mind it.

You reach out to me and I say, yes, I would like to be here. Yeah. Like that's not a oh, you got to be here. You didn't beg me. You're like, come on, man, I really need you to know you're having these conversations. And I actually want to have this conversation with you. So this is not like lording over me by being. But at the same time, people have to understand that, man, that feels extremely dehumanizing and tokenizing for us. So that's one way. And then just natural marginalization. When you talk over black people, when you assume you know their experience, when you get too familiar with them and you just start making off-color jokes because you feel the freedom to make those jokes in front of them because they know you. And so you use your friendship as kind of a safe space for you to vent racism because, you know, oh, no, you know what I mean, right?

Oh, man, you know what I mean? It happens way too often. And people are like, oh, I would never do that. Yeah, you would. Yeah, you would. Don't say you wouldn't. Yes, you would. don't say you wouldn't yes you would yeah like no it happens all the time from pastors and spiritual leaders and theologians and seminarians and all these people who are trained just because

you have that knowledge doesn't mean you can't violate a friendship and a relationship so those are just some things to think about first i thank you for being honest man seriously i it's the all general man i just don't have time yeah gotta be real man gotta be raw man it's the only way we're gonna move forward in these conversations as you're talking I'm curious is it a little like annoying

maybe that it took all the events in the last four weeks for people to kind of say ooh I need to start reading books. I need to start thinking through this. I need to start having my black friend on my podcast. Like, is it people that haven't had a history of doing that?

And then now are kind of like, is that a little annoying or is it kind of like, well, better late than never? Right. Well, it's a mix of both. Right.

Because I think, again, we, we trip into grace. We don't, we don't trip into condemnation. And so, man, wherever people have awakenings and desire to truly change, we rejoice. We say, man, that's wonderful. That's phenomenal. Here's where it becomes annoying, though.

It doesn't become annoying when people talk about it or have the conversation. It becomes annoying in twofold when, number one, they only talk about it. And number two, when they center themselves as authorities on it, that's when it becomes annoying. So when you only talk about it, you're not willing to address the problem and also not willing to take reparative steps, right? So reparative steps means all the people that you lashed out on at Facebook should get a Facebook message of you repenting to them. You don't just get to jump from that to, OK, I attacked them in 2016. I attacked them in 2017, 2018, 2019. I was just quiet on the issue.

So I just said, OK, well, Facebook, it's just a cesspool of everyone thinks they know what they know. And I'm just not going to talk about this anymore. And then in 2020, now you're saying, oh no, this is wrong. And this is this, and this is that. Well, we were trying to tell you that years ago, but you called us community organizers. You called us Marxists. You said that black people were psychologically predisposed to crime. No, these are things people have said to me. I'm not just saying it like, oh, this is a, no, let's, let's show you, really? Let's show you DMs and inboxes. Let's show you our emails. OK, so now you care about this and now you want to lead your church in it because now you realize you can't ignore it. So it's, again, advantageous for you. It's wrong for you now to talk about something, not to talk about something everyone's talking about.

Looks bad. That's bad press. Can't have that. about. Looks bad. That's bad press. You can't have that. But then what you didn't do is you didn't come back around and say, hey, I realize that many of our conversations, I was completely out of line. Or even asking, hey, do you feel like I was out of line when I pushed back on you? And people would be honest, like, yeah, you were. And giving them the freedom to repent and repair and then say, hey, is there any way I can make you whole in this situation? Because it's obviously probably an issue that I'm centering myself in this conversation. And so that's, I mean, that's one thing, you know, you know, when they just talk about, but then another thing is, um, when they censor themselves in the conversation. So now they,

they're the experts, like they're the people who just, and it's like, there are people who give their lives to this work and who have been threatened for this work. Like, I'm so glad Jamar is winning now. I'm so glad people like Latasha Morrison are winning, um, on the New York times bestseller list. And it's not about those accolades to those people. It's not, it's just an acknowledgement that their work has been valuable and they've been faithful and they've been faithful in little things. Now God has given them much. They've been faithful in private and now God is rewarding in public. And so there are but there are dozens of people in your local area. I think of the black pastors who have been advocating in places when you go to vigils for black men who were shot and killed by police. And there are no other pastors there,

but there are black pastors who are present. I think of the activists who have been consistent in this work, who have been trying to meld faith and justice for years, for decades. And now everyone's on the train and now everyone has something to say about it, but they've been faithful. We need to honor them. We need to honor them. We need to listen to them. I think of the inconvenient voices, the people who are saying the things that everyone's thinking, but no one's willing to say. They've been saying it for years. Honor them. And I think what shows a truly transformed heart is when we're willing to say, hey, I'm not going to. And I say this to pastors all the time. Man, I think it's great that you want to have a conversation with me. I think that's awesome. But if I don't know you, I'm kind of skeptical about having a conversation with you. And I'm also kind of feeling like you want to explain me to your members. that person, this person, that person, and have them preach a Sunday at your church. Doesn't have to be me.

As a matter of fact, I'm pushing myself out of that conversation. I won't do it. So call one of these five people in town who are great preachers and who have been talking about this for years and pay them to preach to your church. That's how I know you're real. That's how I know it's serious. Because then it's like, well, I can't control him. I can control you in a conversation, but I can't control you in the pulpit. What is he going to say? What is he going to do? And I had a pastor sit down with me recently. He was like, man, I had, um, a new

pastor would come in town, black pastor. And he was like, man, I had him preach just on racial reconciliation and the emails I got and the phone calls I got. And I'm like, well, you see, if you would have had a conversation where you would have been able to steer that conversation and control it. But because you had him preach the word. Now people are like, oh, that's political and that's anti-cop and it's this and it's that. You see? And so now you have something you know. You know where your church really is at.

Now you know what you can address. Long answer to a short question. How much time do you got, man? I don't want to take more time than you have. I got like 20 more minutes. I'm good. Okay. You mentioned white guilt and that that's not the right response.

And yeah, I am seeing – it seems like a growing number. Maybe just more public now, but like white people kind of promoting that kind of white guilt. I'm reading a book right now. Oh, well, this is on my, I haven't read this one yet. White Guilt by Shelby Steele.

Yeah, yeah. I know nothing about the book, but I'm reading the other one, White Fragility, which I'm having some serious problems. Yeah, two broad spectrum differences, ideologically. And that's how I work. And one's by a white woman who's on one side and then Shelby's black, I think, right?

Yeah, very black, very conservative. Oh, okay. See, I know somebody mentioned, hey, if you're reading that one, you should read this one. I'm like, all right. So, yeah, I know somebody mentioned, hey, if you're reading that one, it should be this one. I'm like, all right. So, yeah, I don't know. The kind of like, for lack of better terms, hyper progressive, hyper woke, white voices. I don't know. I just I'm having some problems with at least some of how they're going about the whole race conversation.

But so what are the specific problems that you're feeling well i mean i don't even know if i can speak i'm just because i'm i'm a slow thinker man i don't like to i like to think i and i try to listen with i try to listen charitably to like say i want to know where they're coming from what do they say not not begin with i think this is um the one so white fragility by robin d'angelo you know it's like number one on amazon so of course i had to read it yeah um i mean for what just from yeah i don't know i um there's the broad brush generalization you don't yeah you don't have to you don't have to say you don't have to say yeah well that's just i'm

thinking out loud. Like I'm just sweeping generalizations. And maybe it's because I was raised in like a fundamentalist Christian background where we did that all the time. All those amillennials. Even to this day, like the word amillennial has a negative hint to it because it was all amillennials are this. All old earth creation. Yeah. 6,000. 6,000 years. thousand years come on man what's that six thousand years man come on that's that's a young earth man so so i and i

really so that's it's a little bit not triggering but i mean lowercase t triggering for me of like when i see these broad brush generalizations i just like oh, ooh, that's just, I don't resonate with that. But some stuff she's saying is like, man, that's really helpful. Being alert to how your group, your social context inevitably shapes how you think, feel, and everything. Those are, to me, that's sociologically just obvious. Well, not obvious to me. Yeah, I don't know. I'm only three chapters in.

So I'll – Yeah, yeah. Have you read it? Or what do you – Well, I mean – I have not. And for me, typically, if I'm reading books on race, I'm going to read from black speakers, like black writers. And it's not – there's nothing wrong with reading Robin DiAngelo. Like I think think i'm not

part of her target audience i don't believe right so i don't i don't really think of yeah yeah yeah so i'm not i'm not part of her target audiences so because of that i don't typically like read those books and so typically what i would say is you know different people have different disciplines and so you take for example jamar Jamar, Jamar is a historian. So his discipline is going to be a little bit different than someone else's. You know, someone like, I hesitate to use names, but, you know, you take someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates, he's a journalist, right? So he's going to, he's going to speak in that regard. So when he did the case for reparations for the Atlantic, he didn't provide concrete solutions to the problem that he has spent 20,000 words expressing. Why? Because he said, that's not my job. I'm a reporter,

I'm a journalist. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I made a suggestion, but I didn't give you a how-to steps of, okay, here's how reparation should look. Let's pass HR 40 to have the commission to do a study. Right. So different people have different disciplines. Right. So I try to I try to interpret people through the disciplines of kind of where they're at and who they're speaking to. But I will say this. Black Christians and black people in general are skeptical of conservatives and progressives. We're skeptical of Democrats and Republicans. We're skeptical of woke white people and racist white people. We're skeptical of them all. Here's what we recognize. We recognize that just because you are an advocate in one space doesn't mean that you're not doing any of the problems that I've mentioned.

It doesn't mean that. And we don't look at people in that way. We know that advocates can also oppress us. And adversaries can also treat us with inferiority. We know that. We know that happens on both sides. So whenever people are talking about, man, you know, you just, y'all always vote this way and do this and y'all think this way and you're only coming from this perspective. It's like, well, don't mistake our pragmatism at the voting booth for our cosine of a group of people. We see who they are. We just they give us a chance.

Like that's how we think. Oh, they just give us a chance. But they're going to have problems, too. And they do have problems. And we can chronicle their problems. They're going to give us a chance. The other people, they don't even let us in the door. So we don't have anybody advocating on our behalf. They're not even going to listen to us so here's what i think about you know from a white guilt perspective in a white progressive perspective again it doesn't do us any good like one of the things that that we're dealing with now

is you know the nfl is talking about doing the black national anthem for week one and you know and jemima was taking off the syrup bottle and um yeah what do you think we don't care about any of that what do you think about all that stuff bottle. We don't care about any of that. What do you think about all that stuff? We don't care. We do not care. It's not what we asked for. It's not what we asked for.

And one of the functions of – one of the functions Tony Morrison said of racism in a racist society is distraction. It's one of the primary functions of racism is to distract us from what we asked for. We did not ask for that. We want people to arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor. That's what we want. That's what we specifically asked for. That is what we are pushing for. We are pushing for convictions. We're pushing for broad police reform. Some of us in different ways. Some of us defund the police, others of us, police reform. We didn't ask for any of that. So I think what happens a lot of times is our progressives can also be guilty of white normativity as well. They just do it in different

ways and they just do it and say, we know better than what y'all, oh, we know what you're saying, or we assume what you're saying, or yeah, this is what you want. We don't want that. We didn't ask for it. It's good that the Washington football team is probably going to change their their mascot. Right. That's a good thing. Great. Awesome. Again, that's not part of this, though. That's not part of what we said this is. And it's great. I mean, Mississippi took down the state flag, Confederate monuments. Again, that's great. And I'm not saying that's wrong. I completely support it. But at the same time, it's also a question of,

we're not trying to make the world a code-free place for people who might have said politically incorrect things. So now everybody has to say the right thing and be politically correct and do all this. That's not what we're trying to do. We want justice. We want equity. We want justice to roll down. That's what we want, Amos Bob. That's not what we're trying to do. We want justice. We want equity. We want justice to roll down. That's what we want, Amos 5. That's what we want. So I think a lot of times whenever people come to me like, yo, I'm so sorry. I'm this, I'm that. I'm like, bro, I appreciate your sentiment. I appreciate your sympathy, but that's not what I asked you to do. Like take that sorry and turn that into solidarity in your local church. Take that sorry and turn that into solidarity in your local church. Take that sorry and turn that into solidarity by writing your county commissioner and telling him that the stuff he says online is out of bounds. We're dealing with that locally.

and turn it into solidarity and write your congressman and tell him that he's ignored us for far too long and that you're not going to let him ignore us in the next election. Turn it into solidarity so that justice can roll down. I don't care about your sorry. Man, it's great. Repent to God. Repent to God and advocate for me, please. Right. That's being very honest. That's what we care about. So sure. All the wokeness and advocate for me, please. Right. That's that being very honest. That's what we care about. So sure. All the, all the wokeness and the progressiveness, we couldn't care less. Like, cool. You guys, you guys are doing this and all right, man, do it. But we want to see, we want to see your actions. We want to see your budget. You know, all these, all these companies now they're putting out these statements and they're like, oh, Black Lives Matter to us and Blackout Tuesday and all this. We're like, great. and Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A.

And much can be said about the words that Louis Giglio used and even Dan Cathy used in the context of that conversation and what should have happened, what did happen. But there was this one moment that was really striking for me was when Dan Cathy said, man, we just need to shine people's shoes. He told this story about an older black man or woman. And anyway, there was this symbol of solidarity years ago where someone came down and they shined their shoes and washed their feet or did something. And he gets up and goes over and, you know, shines Lecrae's sneakers. And Lecrae's kind of looking down like, yeah. And then when dan kathy got up he's like yeah and and i need chick-fil-a stock too what about some chick-fil-a stock you know and

dan kathy just just like good yeah we need shine shoes and all that it's almost like okay these symbolic gestures make you feel better yeah but the reality is they don't change our lives and they don't do what's necessary, right? That's exactly how I felt. And I, but I, I didn't, I, you're the first person that has kind of put it. So you've drawn out kind of how I felt. Cause I don't know if my feeling was correct. I'm like, well, maybe it is good.

I don't know. It just feels like, it feels like it's making that person feel good to, or the company of taking Aunt Jemima off or what all these these things. It's like, that doesn't, I don't, I don't know. And I feel, sometimes I felt almost like bad. Like I'm just not impressed with this stuff. Is that, is that my racism coming out, you know, or is it. Well, and I would say, I would say it's good to always remove symbols of oppression and injustice.

It's good to do that. Like, it's good to do that. And it's good to place them in their proper context, right? So, you know, we're having this conversation locally about, you know, a Confederate monument that was in the early 1900s was basically put in place. There was an expose that recently came out based upon a coup of white supremacists who basically, you know, literally strong-armed the local government to putting this Confederate monument right in the center of downtown. And then in the 70s, there was a KKK march in broad daylight with hoods in the 70s, right, at this Confederate monument. And so I think it's good to remove and tear down the idols of white supremacy but again it repent and repair

like feel sorry and stand in solidarity yeah like talk about justice and do justice please like we don't if if the symbols are all you stop at you'll miss the fact that we weren't racism isn't us isn't a symbolic evil It's a substantive evil that has shaped our lives and harmed our bodies and robbed money from us and redlined us out of communities and gentrified us out of places where we grew up. No, this is a practical evil and denied us healthcare and denied us proper education and denied us proper education and and killed us in the streets with impunity no correct the system don't just you know tear down a symbol what would you say to um this might be from conservatives mostly white but like you know

they would hear you say all that and say well well, gosh, I mean, like that. Look at all the progress we've made. You know, we're decades after the civil rights era. Redlining is no longer a thing. I mean, it would be illegal, right, to redline now, I think. I don't know. Or we have a black president. Had a black president. Go. Feel free to jump in.

You've heard that narrative, I'm sure. What would you say? Oh, man.'ll just you've heard that narrative i'm sure what would you oh man um how would you respond to that um i would say that malcolm x um has put it well when he said if you stick a knife nine inches in someone's back and remove it three you don't call that progress you pulled it out three inches. Knife still in my back. Here's what I would say, man, is I know it seems like there's progress, but progress is certainly in the eye of the people who haven't been disenfranchised. Progress is in the eye of the people in power, they control the narrative of what progress looks like. Think of Zacchaeus, right? So Zacchaeus has this personal transformation with Jesus. He's like, man, anybody who I've defrauded, I'm going to restore them fourfold.

Like it's the Shalom principle, right? I'm going to restore them to where they should have been. I'm going to restore things to where they should be, right? Not where I think is acceptable to me, not what's safe to me, not what's a symbolic good to me. I'm going to restore them to wholeness. And the question is, is our community whole? Not has there been progress according to your metrics, but what would make our community whole after over the course of over 200 years of slavery, over 100 years of Jim Crow, segregation, like what would make us whole in that regard? And that's the question that Christians should be asking, not just simply the question of progress. But if you're a believer in Jesus, you want to restore people that you've defrauded to wholeness.

And I think that's what justice looks like. And I think that's what is required. So all of this symbolic stuff, I think a lot of times people just think about what they think progress should look like and does look like. And I'm very honest and raw in this conversation and have been for a while that, listen, it doesn't reach the communities you think it reaches. And if you can say there's progress, but then you still, okay, if there's progress, go live in our neighborhoods. Would you live in our neighborhoods? Would you take, would you let your kids go to our schools? Why not? Thought there's been progress. Why not? your kids should be able to grow up right where

we live right progress but it's like oh no well you know i want my kids to go to the best schools yeah okay so what you're saying is there are there's a difference between the standard of education in the suburbs and in the hood So you're telling me there's not progress. Show your work. Prove. Live there. Then tell me there's progress. Live in a food desert. Then tell me, we're great. Everyone's doing so well. You don't have access to fresh fruit and vegetables. You don't have access to a nutritious diet. Live in a food insecure area and then tell me that there's progress. No, it's not progress. You can say it's progress because it doesn't affect you. So, yeah, that's what I would say. I'll stop there but that's what i said listen because here's the thing but here's the thing uh doctor it's it's so important that we have to tell the truth to people we need to tell people the truth and what we've been doing is we've been doing patty cake we've just been playing patty cake with this no this is this is a serious issue that affects real people it affects real bodies

we are in danger and we are being killed. I'm not here to be like, okay, well, you know, just do this and let me make something rhyme. No, repent and repair, because I'm telling you, it's not a game with us. It's not a game in our communities. And when you see it, and when you see people get killed, I've seen people get killed in our communities by police and nothing happened to them. I'm here for a man. What do you think about this week? I'm like, guys. Repent and repair immediately because literal lives hang in the balance for that. What would what would true progress look like to you?

So I think true progress. You know, I'm part of an organization locally. It's called Achieve Escambia. It's a, Escambia County is my county. And it is a credo to career readiness organization. And I'm the equity representative for Achieve Escambia. And it's all about kindergarten readiness, career readiness. Kindergarten readiness, career readiness. And we say in our zip code, you are this much more. We can predict your level of success. We can predict whether you become an opportunity child. We can predict whether or not you go to college. We can predict whether or not you get a postgraduate degree. We can predict all those types of things. We can predict your vocation. We predict your median income. And we can do that in our community. Just knowing that you're a black child, you are far more likely to deal with these issues. Currently, we're ranked 41st out of 67 counties in the state of Florida in child well-being. And that's a problem to us. 16%

of our kids are food insecure, which means at some point in time in the year, they will not know where their next meal comes from. Like, so I think progress looks like when race and economics and where someone is born is no longer reliable predictor of their success. That's where equity exists. Um, now progress in the church. Um, I think it looks like when there looks like when there is a significant step of repentance that says the wealth and access that exists in white churches now can be reasonably expected to exist in black and brown churches as well. wealth and progress and the expansion and the land ownership and the budget of a white church is also going to be present in most, if not all, Black churches. And the reason that's important is I think, I don't think it's just a, it's obviously not just an issue of money, but what we're getting at here is resources that flow through Black churches, they historically they reach black communities because black churches have been hubs of health care, economics, education, food provision. Man, even lawyer services and job training, recidivism, you know, against the recidivism rate, you know, transition homes.

rate, you know, transition homes, all these things flow naturally through black. And I think of 10 black churches off the top of my head that do this work that aren't getting funded, right? So they have to have resources outside. So they have to go to the state for resources or whatever. And what would it look like for progress to say the SBC says, okay, we don't just care about providing 10 scholarships or five scholarships for our students that go to SBC schools and seminaries. And we're like, that's our act. That's reparations. What does it look like to say, we're going to write a check of however much to this particular Black denomination that has churches that are actually reaching Black communities and desire to reach Black communities. And so the money is going to get to them, which reaches real people.

Right. And so I think progress looks like us recalibrating our our our metrics of success and recalibrating our interaction with racial reconciliation not as an act of act of charity but as the capacity for solidarity would it be would it be patronizing for like what as you're going back to the you know black churches and the community work that they're doing, is it patronizing for white wealthy churches to say, hey, we want to help fund this? Is that, is that excusing their actual involvement or would that be, would that be a possible step forward? No, and I think here's, here's the thing that people have to understand is like, it, it, it varies what is needed in different communities. But the thing is we go and we ask them what they need. What do you need from us? Do you need resources that fund this? Do you need hands? Does it look right for us to come in and work alongside you? Is that going to be a trigger for the community going to look at that with inherent skepticism? Do you need expertise? Sometimes it's not that, and this is the thing about, you know, white Christians, white churches, sometimes they think it's like, oh, just write a check. Other times it's not about writing a check.

Set us up with your accountant. Like, do you know anybody who does this? Do you know anybody who does that? Do you know anybody who can do this? Because you have connections to a network that is totally different than ours. And because you have connections to a network that's totally different than ours, can we connect to that same network? And then now we don't need a handout from you. We just need a connection and then we can do the legwork. You know what I'm saying? So a lot of times it's like, man, people are looking for a handout. No, it's you have all

these connections. You have 10 people in your phone who make more than our combined budget. Right. And that's great. That's awesome. Praise God. But at the same time, we would like to practically do some things that reach our community. And some of the people who write the checks over there can help us. And maybe they can connect us with the right people. Maybe we can partner with them. But that may be what somebody needs. But you go to them and you ask them, hey, how can I help? What would be dignifying for you? What would be helpful for you? What do you need? What would make this community whole? And how can we work on that? And we don't have to be at the center of it and it doesn't have to become our big, we did it. First Baptist this, we did it.

We partnered with Shekinah Glory Church and it's like, yeah. Right. So again, we don't have to center ourselves in it. We can serve and we don't have to get any of the credit for it. If you choose to acknowledge us, you do. If you don't, that's okay. We're just wanting to serve to make sure that the community is whole and it varies in different settings but when you come to people you ask them what they need they'll tell you okay that's super helpful man i know there's probably people listening that are asking the question what they what can i do that would be helpful do you have time for just one more quick question yeah absolutely okay um would love to get your thoughts on it. And this comes from, I hear it from conservative political commentators. I can't remember which one, if it's just one or several,

whatever, but they, going back to the poverty thing, would love to get your thoughts. Heard one, you heard them all. No, I'm kidding. And I don't want the question itself to be triggering to you, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, man. I'm down. Let's do it. Going back to the poverty and the disproportionate levels of poverty between white and black communities, what would you say to someone who says, look, if you go into like moral agency, individual moral agency, even if you acknowledge some societal oppression and hurdles,

there still is moral agency. So if you graduate graduate high school you don't get your girlfriend pregnant and you get a job those three things you're extremely unlikely to live in poverty no matter your color i don't know if you've heard that or in which you would and it does deal with you know the the thing that you know uh that the family is kind of i think even does deal with you know the the thing that you know uh that the family is kind of i think even obama said right that the family is a a huge piece that needs to be um a huge focus in terms of lifting people out of poverty any thoughts on that yeah yeah so Yeah. So it's it's it is hilarious what people think everyone has access to. I'll give you an example. Right. So one of the things that we've been doing with the organization that I'm a part of educationally is, you know, we want to set up what we call a parent university. So this is a actual way for twice a month, we would actually spend all day

with a group of parents, we bust them in, spend all day with a group of parents, feed them and actually give them job training, life skills in typically under service, under resource communities. So this is everything from how to raise a healthy child to, you know, how to do your taxes to, you know, how to start your own business, how to, but basically training them and equipping them on how to raise healthy children in an under-resourced community. And so one of the things that, you know, I'm in the room as a leadership council, you know, I'm in the room with people who run big organizations locally. You know, the mayor's in the room, you know, chief deputy is in the room, you know, head of the power company, head of the, you know, internet, top internet company, all these things, telecommunications. It's just a lot of money in the room. People are like, yeah,

what we need to do is we need to set them up and make sure that they have access to sign up to all this and so we need to do a media blitz and we need to do this and we need to do that and let's do a social media blitz and run a social media campaign and and and one of the local service workers she raised her hand she says hey this is all great but you're assuming they have access to Wi-Fi. Why did you assume that? You're assuming they have computers. Why did you assume that? They were like, well, what should we do? We have to go door to door. And they were like, what? In 2020? Why do we need to go door to door? See, because in their mind,

because they have access to it, everyone does. In their mind, because they have access to it, everyone does. In their mind, because they have it, everyone has it. Everyone has access to it. It's just, it's internet. I mean, who doesn't have internet? Who doesn't have an iPad? Who doesn't have a smartphone? Who doesn't have a laptop, right? It's just in their mind. That's just what they assume. And for many people, especially white Christians, they assume the communities, they assume the reality of communities they've never stepped foot in. And so here's the thing. Generationally, my parents were cycle breakers. Generationally, my parents were the first people in their family to graduate from college. Generationally, my parents grew up in two different states but grew up in abject poverty my family my parents are that statistic that you know that statistic even not knowing their fathers that statistic right um but i'm not but my life and my opportunities are totally different than their life and their opportunities they had to literally claw themselves out of

poverty. They had to overcome all kinds of systemic things, even growing up in Section 8 housing. They had to overcome so much more than what I have to overcome. And so if you compare, you know, oftentimes the people who say these types of things, especially the Black conservative commentators, the black conservative commentators, what they tend to say, um, they, they don't tend to live in our communities. They tend to live in, in advantage communities. And so they feel like the same thing. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be just a white conservative commentator, black conservative commentators compare white normative expression in the same way. And then on a secondary note, I think a lot of, there has been a consistent stream and there's too much to get into here, but there's been a consistent stream of thoughts since we were enslaved Africans were brought over in 1619, that black people are intrinsically lazy, were brought over in 1619, that black people are intrinsically lazy, that they are promiscuous, that they are not hardworking, that they're unintelligent. And so when I hear that,

I hear all the marks that a plantation slave owner would have said about enslaved Africans. They don't work hard enough. Oh, you know they're going to come after our women. Oh, you know, they don't even know how to read. Look at them. Oh, they just, all they want to do is they just want to sit on their behinds and they're just like, oh, they're, Ron Awake, welfare queens. They're gaming the system. You know what we need?

We need law and order. And so what you hear is the centuries-long education that white people feel led to make broad declarations about our community and tell us who we are and who we aren't. And you'll see it all the time. Flip on any conservative station. When it comes to black people, they're telling us what we're not doing. Look at how many of their kids are in poverty. 70% of their kids grow up fatherless. What are you talking about? Never step foot in our communities, but parroting the racial stereotypes. So when people talk about progress, I'm like, okay, go back and read this. Go back and read that. Go back and read what they used to say about us.

And you tell me what did George George Wiffle said? Their their bodies, black bodies are built for the heat. They're built. No, they're built for this. Come on. Go back and go back and tell me that you don't hear the same exact things that they used to say about us when they enslaved us. And I'll eat my hat. No, it's the same thing. It's just polished language. Oh, well, if you just do this and if you just do that, in other words, if y'all just stop being lazy, if y'all just stop getting all these women pregnant, and if y'all just worked hard enough, y'all don't even want to work. You want a handout, don't you? And it's all the same. And Christians parrot it. And then this is why history is so important. This is why I read books like Color of Compromise, About it by Faith, because what it does is it reveals to you the parroting. It reveals to you the parroting that you have

unconsciously, subconsciously replicated over the course of decades. So yeah, that's a lot. Heavy note to end on, but hey, here we are. Any final words, man, for our audience? I know they're probably head spinning, probably have more questions than they came in with. Any final words, man? You got the floor. I mean, I don't know if I should say anything else, man. The words, many words, sin is present. So, probably. Why did I promote, could I promote your ministry here? So, thewitnessbcc.com, that's the website, thewitnessbcc.com. Your podcast is Pass the Mic, right? That's correct. Yeah. So, thewitnessbcc.com, Pass the Mic. If you want some resources,

I'll just give some off the top of my head. Color of Compromise by Jamar Tisby. Divided by Faith by Christian Smith and Michael Emerson. The Warmth of Other Sons

by Isabel Wilkerson. Phenomenal, phenomenal book. Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison. Those are some, Be the Bridge is definitely a great organization to follow. Man, Ar, arrest the cops that killed Brianna Taylor. You know, however you can, however you can get involved in sending spamming people,

you know, to do that, that's really important. Um, but Hey, I don't want to, I don't want to absolve people of looking in their local communities. That's why I'm always careful to give certain resources and organizations because the money that you give to a national organization like The Witness or Be The Bridge probably should go to your local food shelter and food bank. It probably should go to the people who are doing it on the ground, your local activists who have bills. There's not money in this. Even though we're on the New York Times bestseller list, don't get it twisted. We're not rich. So yeah, it should probably go to the activists. So look in your local community and serve the people who are in your neighborhood,

and you'll find stuff to get involved in. But thank you for having me, doctor. It's an honor on your show. Thank you so much, man. Seriously, I've learned a ton, and I'd love to have you back on whenever you feel like you want to come back on. Just let me know. Yeah, anytime, anytime. If you enjoyed the content of this conversation, I don't want you to give to Theology Navarro. I want you to go to thewitnessbcc.com and support the ministry of Tyler Burns, Jamar Tisby, and others who are part of The Witness. They're doing incredible work. And for this episode, if you feel like, oh my gosh, I want to support Preston. Oh my gosh, this is a great conversation. That was really helpful. I want to support his ministry. Then I want you to stop right there. And I want you to redirect those funds to support Tyler and Jamar

and the other folks at The Witness. Maybe even contact them. As he even said in this conversation, maybe reach out to them and say, hey, would love to support what you guys are doing. What do you need? Rather than assuming that they need money or advice or whatever, please, please, please reach out to them, contact The Witness and see how you can best come alongside their ministry and support them. Until next time on The Theology in Raw, I hope you have a great week. you