Theology in the Raw - 829: A Conversation about Race and Evangelicalism: BJ Thompson

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

BJ and I sat down to have a conversation with no agenda in mind. We start by talking about his work as a life-coach and leader at #BuildaBetterUs, we quickly move into talking about church, church structure, and money. Then, we move into talking about the topic of race in Evangelicalism and we pretty much camped out there for the rest of the time.

Okay, hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today for the third time my friend BJ Thompson. Now I say my friend, our friendship has been from a distance. We've been admirers of each other's work, at least I've admired the voice of BJ Thompson for quite some time now. I think I hope you would say the same about me. Maybe not. But I BJ actually came out to Boise to be part of a film project called Christian Sexuality Conversations about Jesus, Sex and Gender. This is a comprehensive youth resource. youth resource. Well, I guess you can call it a curriculum for youth in terms of giving them a comprehensive, compelling, beautiful vision of what it means to flourish as a sexual human living according to the creator's design. It's a 12-week video-based curriculum. You can check out more at centerforfaith.com. And I had BJ come out. He's one of, I mean, a couple dozen different people who are part of this project. He is a life coach.

He deals specifically with helping people have better marriages and more maturity as individuals. And so BJ and I, we just, it was during the filming We went into another room and I said, hey, let's do a podcast So actually video recorded a conversation that I had with BJ We had no agenda, we didn't have any agenda of where to go I just said, I'm just going to hit record and let's just start talking So we start talking about church and that led to a conversation about Why a good number of black millennials seem to be exiting the reformed, mostly white evangelical church.

We talk about that. Then we talk about race relations in the church in America. It gets super raw. I just I'm not going to lie. This is what I love about BJ. He doesn't do anything but raw. So for, and so you put two of us in a room together and disaster is going to happen. And that's what happens in this podcast. It's actually a great conversation. You're going to love it. If you want to check out the YouTube version of this, you can go to my YouTube channel and you can watch the video of us hanging out and chatting. But without further ado, for good or for ill, here's BJ and I talking mainly about race relations in America.

Oh, before we jump in, I need to let you know that this podcast was recorded a couple months ago. OK, so this I hope things haven't changed. Oh, my gosh, this is so weird. Yeah. So if we reference if it sounds like we're tone deaf to some catastrophe that has happened between the recording and the release of this episode then that's that's what's going on we're not tone deaf we're just yeah we recorded a couple months ago all right let's jump into our conversation All right, hey friends, I'm Preston Sprinkle, and this is Theology in the Raw, the YouTube version.

I'm here with my friend, BJ Thompson. Dude, you're here live, man. This is the first time we've hung out in person. That's crazy. Now, you're a third-time guest. This is your third time. We did two. This is the first time we hung out in person. That's crazy. Now, you're a third time guest. This is your third time. We did two. This is your third time. That was like your biggest episode. Was it? It was one of them.

I don't even know what we said. What were we talking about? I don't know. Back then? What did we do? Probably. It was something controversial. I don't even know what we did talk about. It was good, though. It was like two years ago. Yeah, it was good. You're the first person to do three podcasts. That's crazy. Or this is now YouTube. That's crazy. Maybe we'll turn it was good. You're the first person to do three podcasts. That's crazy.

Or this is now YouTube. That's crazy. Maybe we'll turn it into a podcast. Hey, make sure y'all tell him to send my check. Go ahead. That's right. Tell us about what you do. Tell us about what you do.

So my name is BJ Thompson. I'm a Dallas native, not a cowboy fan or hater. I serve as the executive director of an organization called Build a Better Us, which is all about growth and development. We create products, services, and experiences that help grow people through coaching and transformation. What kind of people are you coaching? I mean, all kinds of different people? Couples, people.

I mean, any aspect of coaching. So we do relationships. We work through health. We have products for people who want to just do life coaching. Yeah, so we just have the gamut. So anything around coaching and development, yeah, that's what we do. So if someone wants coaching, they contact? BuildABetterUs.com.

Click the Get Involved button. Click Life Coach. Find a coach that fits for you and your needs. The initial consultation is free. That's our opening commercial. All right. We don't need to do any ads on this show. No, we do.

I'll send you some more. Go ahead. I got some more plugs. Go ahead. You also are a pastor. Yeah. Sort of. Yeah, something like that.

Yeah. Describe for us your pastoral ministry. Yeah, so I would say specific to my pastoral ministry, I am more of a faith leader who is a catalyzer for faith communities. Right. So that's more of my role is like, hey, we can create a community of people and develop it. But a lot of what I do is I share leadership. So I share teams and structure and just the whole nine. I just ensure that a lot of times, overall, we're going in the right direction.

So, yeah. Now, you're the church. The house church. The house church, yeah. So tell us. So when a lot of people hear house church, they've got images in their mind of, I know in some cases, it's kind of like, ooh, that's a bunch of weird people or what's going on there. If I'm there, it's not weird. It's got to be a cool church.

Are you anti-institutional church? That's a bad way to put it. Oh, wow. Okay, Preston. Okay, why would you plant specifically a house church? Maybe tell us about your ecclesiological drive and passion. Got it. So I grew up in a missionary Baptist church. Maybe tell us about your ecclesiological drive and passion. Got it. So I grew up in a missionary Baptist church. I've always had value and appreciated that expression of faith. Got to college, was involved, I was more so involved in a

non-denominational slash reformed kind of culture. And I think just being in that and then moving into a church planning network kind of culture and then this missional community culture, I've seen a lot of expressions of how institutional church works. And at a certain point, you're supposed to grow up. You're supposed to be able to help leave and pour into others. You're supposed to be able to care and develop. And that's what I did. I grew up. Right. feel spiritually nourished and instead of putting the burden back on people who i know pastors as leaders or institution why don't i just live out all of the missional missionary

things that i've been taught and listen to god and then respond by doing what he put in front of me which was a house church so yeah that's how That's how it developed. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. A couple years ago. Now, one of the things I've been thinking about, we've talked about this offline, and let me kind of ease into this question maybe. I just, I'm concerned at some of the problems that the financial structure in a so-called traditional Western evangelical church. I'm concerned at how some of the financial structures can, not does, not will, but can hinder discipleship and mission.

When I think of the church, I think there's mission, there's discipleship. Those are kind of the two broad umbrella categories. I guess worship would be, but I think worship is probably the overarching category. Discipleship, mission. And sometimes in a traditional model of church, when you've got budgets to meet, you've got the rent to pay, the AC bill, you've got salaries, all this stuff. bill, you've got salaries, all this stuff. And if you preach a sermon that upsets 10-20% of people, especially if it's the

ones that are giving a lot of money, that's problematic. So that's why I'm concerned that that kind of financial structure can play a role in hindering discipleship and mission when

growing the church and keeping that growth is essential for the very existence of the church machine. Maybe that's a negative word, the church structure. Can you speak, I mean, because your model is very different from that. Was that intentional that you would strip away the financial piece? Yeah, so I think one of the things is that we have to be careful to not villainize or demonize people institutionally. Right.

And, you know, as I've grown older, I've recognized, you know what? I don't particularly land there, but I'm not anti that. And I just say that because oftentimes people can swing the pendulum and they can go and do something new. And you know what they're against, not what they're for. Yeah, that's good. Right. So I think knowing that is like, man, this is what I'm for.

I'm not rallying against what I'm against. man if there's a convicting word or something that needs to happen or structural shift that needs to occur because of time because of shepherding because of discipleship a lot of times it's very challenging to do that because of positions and titles and money and you know one thing that you know was very convicting for me was I still need my soul nourished. I still need the missional disciple aspects of church and worship and teaching and all that. But I don't know how to reconcile this. And so when I discovered some more of what the church has always been doing, right? You talk about house church.

It's not a weird thing because most of the New Testament was written to a house church. And which makes it make more sense when it says if a person can't leave their own house. Right. Right. That would make sense, right? And so the weirdness left when I realized that it was much more biblical than what I understood. I think for me personally, it was so important to remove money and title. Not that we don't exercise generosity because we do.

So that when people do things, it's coming from a genuine place. So if I talk about something, if I'm living in something, you know, without a shadow of a doubt, there's nothing that I have on the line for me to say this. The only thing on the line is a conviction. Right. structure that has that business-like model, it is important for us to guard against that because you do not want to stifle or choke out the word of God because of those other strengths. Yeah, yeah. And just to be, yeah, I love what you said at the beginning, just that, you know, there's no like one model that's perfect.

Even ones that might have internal, you know, problems or hindrances, they're also doing things really well in discipling people. I know loads of pastors who are in a very traditional church model, and they're doing amazing things with mission and discipleship. But some of them would even say, man, the very intrinsic nature of the finances and the church model. For sure. Yeah. I almost wish I could snap my fingers and make it go away. But what else do I do?

That's right. I got to get paid. And, you know, there's other people on staff that need to be released from ministry. And clearly it's biblical to release people for ministry. I mean, 1 Corinthians 9 and 1 Timothy talk about that. But I want to go back because you said something. I'm going to go here, man. I didn't think I was going to go here, but I've talked about this.

This is why that podcast was like that, because of this. Because of this thing right here. This is why I was like, whoa, whoa, who is this? Who is this person? Because of this, you're like, I'm going to ask him. I'm going to go here, man. And if you don't want to go here, just let me know. Do it.

So I've talked to several, I will say, older millennial black evangelicals who have had a stint in the largely white Reformed evangelical world and didn't have the best experience. Yeah, myself included. Okay. Reformed evangelical world and didn't have the best experience. Yeah, myself included. Okay. So can you, for somebody who's like, I don't even know what you're talking about or what's going on. But I guess the one name that most people are going to recognize is Lecrae. And I know from my vantage point, as a white person, I can say this, I guess, as a white person looking out from the outside. He was really into this evangelical reform world.

Absolutely. But from my vantage point, I don't know. Tell me if this is offensive. I mean, it's almost like when he started to get too black. Black. Then they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You start talking about social issues. You start tweeting things like a picture of a bunch of slaves on July 4th. That's my family, July 4th, 1976. 1776, yeah. of slaves on July 4th. That's my family, July 4th, 1976.

My ancestors on July 4th, which is a brilliant tweet. That blew up. I didn't see anything wrong with that. So what's going on? I talked to my buddy Tyler Burns, my new buddy, and he had the same kind of experience. So what was your experience like? Yeah, so that's a great question. What was your experience like?

Yeah, so that's a great question. So what is the rub with people of color and Protestant, specifically SBC, evangelical kind of denominations? And I think this is a couple of things. Let me humanize this. And wanting to learn, understand scripture with very nuanced system and structure. There's a beauty in it, right? There's things that you just would not have even asked yourself about. Affections and textual understanding. There's just things. It's so rich to be able to have that, right?

And I think that sometimes people are not thinking critically about the faith so it really does it gives you like certain aspects of being critical about your faith but in the process of it what it can also do is it can gut a lot of the relational the emotional aspects of that which lead to the greater friendship right and because in some ways it's saying just come learn this system and structure and once you do it you're solid you're sound we're going to give you a stamp and as long as you don't deviate from that and how you communicate then now you are acceptable and i think that for then now you are acceptable.

And I think that for black Christians, black American Christians specifically, we have long been in a position to where we've had to say to those in power, the Christianity of the land does not match the Christianity of the Bible. Right? Keep going, man. So the fact that you have these Puritans

and these individuals who know all of these things about Scripture, the Jonathan Edwards, and yet they own another human being is an idol, is an abomination, is hypocrisy. Right?

And I think that in a lot of ways, the black Christian, black American Christian diaspora has had to become the conscience of the global Christianity, especially in the white church, to say this is off, right? And so I think part of the experience is because whiteness, white supremacy says, I know already, I understand there can't be anything different. When others, non-Western, Eastern, non-European people try to contribute things to God in ways that are authoritative, it won't be accepted because it doesn't fit neatly into that system. Would you say that's a race-specific issue,

or is it more just the... White. It's white, and I'll tell you why I say white. Because it's built into a structure that's impenetrable, and it's supported in a society that says, no matter where you go in the world, whiteness is going to always go to the top. Right?

So it's not, and I don't mean white as in German. I don't mean white as in Irish. I don't mean white as in Scandinavian. Those are ethnic groups. Okay. Right? Yeah. White as in the structure of recognizing people on a certain pigment and

then giving them a certain measure of social authority right and so what i'm saying is when you mix that with religion now you're saying that the people who are closest to god are the people who have this system and structure. And anybody that wants to get close to God in a meaningful, more mature way, all they need to be is in this system. And so this is why you have a lot of black and people of color saying, oh, well, let me just be a part of this. Look, right. Let me just be a part of this. You have the best system, the best schools. There's a lot of money here and i i put best in quotation marks right but then when you try to bring your full humanity

to that equation you realize you don't accept the full dignity of my humanity you don't accept my story there's no merit here there and as a matter of fact when i bring you the issues of like what you see in acts like yo y'all neglecting this instead of acknowledging yo we are neglecting this let's restructure this system there is a business as usual kind of tone that happens and And I think that's what drives out people. I wonder if it's still more a specific

brand of a white even joke. I know. I know even when you talk about church, or even just acknowledging the power and privilege that could come with being white in certain contexts. I'm going to push back on that a little bit.

No, no, no. It does. Okay, okay. It does. It does. But in most contexts, not every context. 99%. Bro, think about this.

People look to, would not question, who's in authority? We look for a white man. In some context. Only in Atlanta. I'm in Atlanta. So it's not in my context. But I'm saying it's global. We're not talking about an area.

So if I go to China. I was in Belize. Yeah, they bleached their skin. Okay. Southeast Asia. They have a commercial with this black man. And he walks over to a washer. I saw this.

Right? That was weird, man. Yeah, okay. This is what I'm saying. Okay, but let me give you a scenario in my own life. Go ahead. Because I'm in certain evangelical spaces that are so eager to not have, like, white people in power and everything. So, for instance, I go speak.

I'm not going to name denominations. It was a campus ministry. Good. They value diversity. I mean not going to name the nominations. It was a campus ministry. Good. They value diversity. I mean, it's the top priority. They had me come in and speak on issues of sexuality and gender. They spent the, I kid you not, and it was a pretty diverse, I would say it was, it represented, it was a very diverse room. Both the leaders weren't white.

One guy was Asian, the other guy was black. They spent five minutes apologizing that they brought in a white male speaker. Good. Good. What? And they said, but in terms of this issue, he's the only guy that we trust. He has the best stuff, but we're so sorry. It's almost like I'm like, I'm sorry for being.

I disagreed with this, man. so sorry that it's almost like i'm like i'm like i'm sorry for being i didn't i disagreed to this man but like so i i just i don't feel like in that context and that's in that and maybe that's the one percent you're talking about that's what i mean that's the rare context okay so so i don't know i feel like i i do experience that a little more but i'm not in the i'm not in the head of and that's what i'm about to say. Because you live with the marginalized. So your normal is this. Your normal is working with people who suffer greatly. And they're marginalized in society.

That's why. You're like, I don't know. I guess what I'm saying, your original question was, why is it that black folks are leaving these things. And I'm saying because you realize at a certain point that the dignity and the humanity of who you are has to be something you have to fight for. And I just think, you know, I say this to my white friends. I'm like, I'm not going to fight for my humanity and my dignity. So you can think whatever you're going to think. What I'll say to you is you have a warped view of the Christian faith.

And that same thing happened with George Whitefield, right? Who was this great hero. Talk about how great he was. He adopted all these kids. While an orphan, he prayed. But he was a slave. Deeper than that. The orphanage was losing money.

Georgia was losing money. the orphanage was losing money. Georgia was losing money. George Whitefield writes a letter to the King of England and somebody else to reinstitute a charter for slavery in Georgia. Are you serious? I'm absolutely serious. So you take the whitest, most Southern Baptist person,

they're going to say, they're going to condemn that. They don't. Because the schools are still named George Whitfield. Right? They still like, they still teach you this history in the educational institution. You're saying they just

wash over that part of it? Here's what I'm saying. Here's what's at the heart of it. The heart of it is your soul belongs to God, but your body belongs to us. I was going to say something else. Yeah, I almost said something else, right? So it doesn't matter.

As long as we can help you be spiritually renewed, you can make a decision, you can get baptized, all that. That's the ultimate thing. The fact that you are oppressed, living in unjust society, living in inequality, that doesn't mean anything. And I think this is the rub that black people, they're just like, what is this? How is this a part of following Yeshua? When do you see this happening in the church? And it's because you don't see it happening in the church. You only see the church doing that when the church is unhealthy.

If you're going to go, let's go scripture. Let's look at what happened when the Lord was bringing manna. He said, look, I'm going to have you go out to bring manna, to go gather manna. And then when you show up, no matter how much you got, too little, too much, that's going to have you go out to bring manna, to go gather manna. And then when you show up, no matter how much you got, too little, too much, that's going to be enough. Why? There are people who were lame.

There were children. There were marginalized people who could not get. The Lord was like, I'm going to ensure that you have. Same with the New Testament church. When they recognized, man, we could be living with an unseen bias. They said the Greek, the widows were like, hey, I don't understand why you guys are neglecting us. They didn't know, right? It's the same.

It's like, damn, I don't know. What did they do? They restructured. They allotted new funds. they allotted new funds they created something so that now that bias that maybe they did not see at first could be remedied because their faith was now needing to speak in it and i just think the biggest challenge that i see with evangelicals is they will not let go of those funds they will not restructure and when they do they will do so void of the power. And I just think people like myself are just tired of fighting.

Just like, have fun. So it's not, I mean, so it's you, it's a few others we've named. I mean, do you see it's a fair, there's a lot more out there that have had this kind of experience? All, leaving. And they're all leaving. Leaving to where? They don't know.

They don't know. They don't know. I want to go back to, so Whitefield and Edwards are enslaved to you, right? Of course, absolutely. So, okay, so I'm going to play the devil's advocate. Don't, definitely no more advocates. Not even devil's advocate, that was a genuine question. I mean, these are people that are product of their times. Wait, wait, wait.

I disagree with this, though. No, no, wait. I disagree with this though, Preston. Okay. Everybody's going to say that that was a horrendous evil. I mean, I don't know a single white person, well, in my context at least, that they wouldn't be like, yeah, I don't know how somebody could ever think,

given the product, whatever. But that's just such a horrendous evil. It's a blind spot. We probably have, in 200 years, what are they going to look back on but even someone so you think like mlk um what we can see the dude was a blatant misogynist i would have no problem um having a statue of mlk had a school named after MLK, doesn't mean I'm celebrating misogyny. That was a blind spot that he had. I'm celebrating loads of other things about his life. This major, maybe even a product of his time,

as many men of that era were, still are. So what about that? Can we not celebrate all the good things that Jonathan Edwards did while acknowledging, and Whitfield, this major blind spot, which had to do somewhat with the problem. Doesn't excuse it. white people on is we don't do a good enough job uprooting white supremacy in our theology and so because we're spending all this time we're saying oh what we'd all agree that that's wrong how much time are you realistically taking to understand the social spiritual theological dynamics that existed that allowed this to persist and then uprooting the whiteness from it. So because we don't spend any time,

now we're just saying, blanketly, this is wrong. That's Jim Martizki's book, right? That's exactly right. It's The Color of Compromise. Make sure you go pick it up. Because we don't know, because what it does is it promotes guilt and shame. And I'm saying, the cross

is big enough where you're guilt and shame. i'm saying the cross is big enough for your guilt and shame yeah right and so for me i think it's it's challenging because we're talking about sex trafficking we're not talking about a consensual relationship with another adult? And the horrendous evil, we don't even barely know. Like, many of us haven't even, because our history books are not teaching us anything about these subjects, we don't really even know

what happened. Right? We're just saying, oh, well, I'll just, you know, there's some good things about it. And so I just think, back to the original question, what makes this such

a problematic relationship is because people of color are coming into context saying we value some of these things but there's a lack of love and there's a lack of justice here and the fact that there is no movement in a way that would restructure it is what puts people of color away. Like, I don't know how to, how is this even biblical, right? Go ahead. No, no, I'm going to agree with you here.

Not that my opinion matters, but I mean, you know, when I learned church history, we learned about Jonathan Edwards, we learned about George Whitefield, never once mentioned. No, of course. Or Rich Allen. Or Rich Allen. No, of course. These dark areas.

Or Rich Allen. Okay. I mean, add them up. Or Richard Allen. Yeah. They left the Anglican church because of racism. They tried to stay Anglican. Then when they tried to stay Anglican,

they brought archbishops over and they still experienced white supremacy and racism. They wanted to integrate. And they ended up having to start the AME church. That's what I'm... I didn't learn about that in seminary either. But that's intentional, because we're

not willing to deal with the sins of our forefathers. I would, from my vantage point, I think it's not like they intentionally said, gosh, we know our professors got together and said, like, Jonathan Edwards owns slaves, but we'll just make sure we don't talk about it. I think it's just the blissful ignorance of having a white experience and not even having, not even like, oh, yeah, I didn't, oh, I just,

oh, yeah, I guess, yeah, he owns slaves too, but let's talk about his theology. Like, we have the ability to be able to not even care about that. Whereas what I hear you saying is we need to go out of our way to talk about and condemn so that we don't repeat these kind of patterns. This is a great point. So you're married, right? What kind of stuff did your wife get on to you about? Oh man. What kind of stuff did she get on to you about?

What she didn't know about? Wait, what? That your wife got on to you about in marriage that you were not aware of? Give me some stuff. Lack of showing, like, love and intimacy or just reaffirmation. Just kind of, you know, yeah, I said it on the wedding day. I do. Like, what, do I just keep saying that?

You know? Yeah, actually, you need to keep saying that. I mean, I got a whole laundry list. this no same I got a whole list so my wife gets on me about my tone she's like you said that too forceful too hard to me I can't accept that yeah right Preston I move off the issue because I value her and see her as my equal and now i'm really wrestling through those things right the problem that i see in these mixed churches historically because we're not talking about now we're not talking about the last 15 years i just listed you know rich allen and that happened in the 1700s right is that whites because they have grown in this comfortability

we're not seeing the full dignity and humanity of black Americans because of these idols. Now, even when it's said, it's first off. It's not taken seriously. So I don't think it's just... MLK busted people for that. The letter from a Birmingham jail was all about that. Frederick Douglass busted people for that.

Nat Turner busted people for that. It's not about whether or not you have pondered it. It's that when the people who mention it to you, the least of these say it to you, you're not taking them seriously. You're blowing them off. You're giving this. You're giving that. And I'm just saying a marriage like that won't work

I feel like now and maybe it took the George Floyd riots to wake I feel like now people are I don't agree with that listening

much better than having the past I don't agree with that I don't agree with it I honestly don't agree with it until you see a restructuring they're not listening

well I mean listening I mean it could take a little bit right I mean I honestly don't agree with it. Until you see a restructuring, they're not listening. Well, I mean, listening could take a little bit, right? Until you say restructuring, they're not listening. What does restructuring look like? What do you mean? So one of the greatest challenges that we faced was from the civil rights movement. They started the conversation around integration. Okay? When that conversation moved into equality, removing these things, right?

The conversation stopped. We just took down the signs. We said you can come patronize our businesses. That was it. And then put new rules in. Then we created things like red lines then we started adding new laws to put people in prison and mass incarceration and so there was no restructuring you're talking about society though now you're talking about not the church but the church the church hadn't moved much the church the church was involved in a lot of this you know the the

color compromise the reason why it's so such a profound book just talks about how they were complicit in this they didn't even want it as well and what i'm saying is we have not moved until we actually start loop like you have to loop something yeah and i think that's the greatest challenge is like we're so entitled we don't think that we should have to sacrifice anything significant in terms of power and what i would say is we're not going to see true unity meaningful cross-cultural unity until that happens on a structural level not just man i'm reading this book yeah i feel my heart is this it's like god came to save a people not just a person would you say just a real tangible we gotta get to the airport go ahead yeah um a real tangible, practical, clear first step towards restructuring would be churches having people of color, we'll say specifically black people, in leadership positions.

I mean, is that too simple? Give me a real tangible. I'll just tell you exactly. Because inequality, racism is about lack of power, lack of control. That's what it's all about. It's about power and control. One of the most practical things you can do, because there's a social imbalance, is for you to empower Black charities and businesses financially. See, we love to have minority served.

We love to talk about that all the time we don't love to support minority owned and because we don't want to give agency over your body we don't want to give that back to you and what i'm saying is that is what god does to his people he's no, I'm giving agency over you. Nobody owns you. You can't be owned. And so one of the most practical things you can do is go find organizations again, that you value, that you're not in control of.

So you think about how scary it is. It's an act of faith, right? Find minority owned, not just minority served. Charities and businesses. And then fund them. Write a check. Why?

Not that money is everything, but money is a big part of this because money says, now, if you don't agree with me, let's go back to that church conversation, right? You're not sitting here in fellowship with me because you're afraid that I can let you go and fire you. You're sitting here because you have your own agency and your own control of your own life. Now we share a mutually consented friendship and relationship. And I think this is where we're going to start seeing real healing. So one of the things you can do is go to buildabetterers.com hit the donate button and get behind the work that we're doing.

Go find other black owned, minority owned charities and businesses and then rally the church to spend money with them to invest and to empower them so that now as you bring them into

the conversation, they're coming in with an equity like a wife that that that won't come off as like paternal or like white savior kind of not when they own it okay when it's serving when it's just served that's paternalism. When I own something, that's empowerment. That's a good distinction. We gotta go, man. We just got started, man. Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate your voice, your wisdom,

your challenge, your honesty is so refreshing. The fact that we can sit down and have this conversation. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll see you next time on Theology in Rome. you