Theology in the Raw - 844: #844 - Race, CRT, the gospel, social justice, evangelicalism, systemic racism: Thabiti Anyabwile

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

The last couple of years has kicked up a lot of dust regarding race relations in America and in the church, but why did it take so long? Thabiti, or “Pastor T,” helps us understand some of the concerns and frustrations that black people have had about how white people (progressives and conservatives) have gone about the race conversation. Pastor T helps us understand what Critical Race Theory is, the real meaning of systemic racism, why issues of justice are not subsidiary to the gospel, and how the church can have better conversations about race. 

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today Thabiti Anyabule, who is a pastor and author and has become kind of a prophetic voice in American evangelicalism. And he's currently a pastor at Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C. Church in Washington, D.C. He has also served as a pastor in North Carolina, in D.C., and also the Cayman Islands. He's the author of several books, many books. If you go on Amazon and type in his name, tons of books will come up. The Life of God in the Soul of the Church, The Gospel for Muslims, What is a Healthy Church Member, The Decline of African American theology and faithful preacher among others. He blogs regularly at the Front Porch and Pure Church. Yeah, Thabiti, we've never actually spoken in person before. We've corresponded on social media and I reached out to him recently and just said, man, I would love,

love to have you on the podcast. He's got such an interesting story. He might be more associated, for some of you, you might know him as kind of a member and maybe a leader in the Gospel Coalition. He's been a part of Together for the Gospel, but has more recently, and we get into this in the conversation, kind of focused more on his own local church context, which is in an urban area in DC. And Thabiti, dude, this dude is loaded with wisdom. I mean, this guy's been around. He's a sharp thinker. He's got loads of experience. He's got a gentle, kind heart. And he's got a lot of stuff to say about the race conversation in American evangelicals. And that's what we focus on.

We do talk about critical race theory, which I know is super debated in the church today. I think most people who talk about it don't know, don't understand it, quite honestly. And we talk about that to some extent. We talk about race relations in the church. We talk about racism. We talk about all kinds of things that a lot of people have been talking about and a lot more people need to talk about in the American evangelical church. So I'm so excited for this conversation.

He's going to say stuff you're not going to agree with. Some of you, other things he's going to say are going to make you want to jump out of your seat and scream for joy. Other things, some of you might be like, no, I can't believe he thinks that's true. And that's why I love, love, loved this conversation. I love having raw conversations about raw issues with very interesting, thoughtful, gracious, Christ-loving people. And that is Pastor T, as he's more commonly known. If you would like to support this show, Theology in Raw, if this show has provoked you to be a better Christian, to be a better thinker, if it has ministered to you in some way, then I invite you to join the growing number of Theology in the Raw supporters.

that I invite you to join the growing number of Theology in the Raw supporters. This is a listener-supported show. And it's not just supporting the show doesn't just mean you support the show. It means you become part of the Theology in the Raw community where we have lots of interesting discussions. There's premium content like once-a-month-only blogs and podcasts that I release for my Patreon supporters. So patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw, or you can look in the show notes to see where you can go

to support the show for as little as five bucks a month. Really, really appreciate your support. Thank you to all of you who are supporting Theology in the Raw through Patreon. All right, without further ado, I want to welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Pastor T. All right. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am here with Pastor T. Pastor T, thank you, Tabithi. Thank you so much for being on Theology in the Raw. We were bantering offline a little bit, and I just said, man, I've been aware of you and following you to some extent for the last 10, 15 years, and so I can't believe you're on my podcast here, man. Thanks for being on Theology in the Rock. Oh, brother, it's a joy. And as I mentioned to you, you're one of the most sighted folks among our elders in the church as we're thinking about things and wanting to hear good

perspectives, man. So thank you for what you do and for how you've been helping us to disciple Christians here in Southeast DC. Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you how much of an honor that is. I, I, um, I love my, I've, uh, I'm not a pastor, never been a full-time vocational pastor. I've been an elder, been on preaching teams and stuff, but my heart has always been in the church. And to, to know that this podcast is helping Christian pastors in, in the trenches of ministry, especially in a place like DC, which I know you guys got a lot going on. Dude, we can close in prayer now, man. That's an honor that this has been helpful. For people that maybe don't know you or even people that do, why don't you just give us a snapshot of who you are, where you come from? I know you got an interesting testimony, man. So this could take the whole podcast if we wanted it to, but yeah,

just tell us, give us a little snapshot of who you are. When you say this could take the whole podcast, that's a very polite way of calling me old. I appreciate that. Wise, wise. So country boy, born and raised, North Carolina, small town, North Carolina, and grew up in an anomaly Christian home. Went off to college back in 88. And my freshman year bumped into some Muslims on campus who were on campus engaging students, attending lectures and things of that sort. And I was like a moth to flame. And so my sophomore

year converted to Islam, was a practicing Muslim, something of the campus Saul really, for the rest of my undergraduate days until one year doing Ramadan up early for the fast, reading the Quran. And a number of contradictions just flooded into mind, just things that the Quran was admitting on the one hand, but denying on the other. And that sort of led me into a bit of a theological crisis. I spent about a year bouncing between agnosticism and atheism. And at the end of that year, through the preaching of the gospel in a church just a few miles from where I now live and serve, preaching the gospel from Exodus 32. God saved my wife and I that Sunday morning and brought us to faith in Him. And so I've been walking with the Lord about 25 years or so now,

been in ministry for about 20 years and served at Church Plant in North Carolina, down to the Cayman Islands for eight years, served at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in D.C. for a number of years, and for the last almost six years now had the privilege of pastoring Anacostia River Church in southeast D.C., a church the Lord allowed us to plant about six years ago. And right now working to try and help start and revitalize churches in neighborhoods like ours across the country through something called the Creek Collective. And so trying to give the, it's the fourth quarter for me, headed toward glory, trying to give the rest of life and energy to seeing gospel work revitalized and started in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods that are neglected and vulnerable. Wow. Yeah, there's a lot there. So when you said you converted to Islam, was that the nation of Islam or is that traditional? I was Orthodox Muslim. So part of my introduction,

so the men on the campus were from the nation of Islam. But I had at that point as a freshman in college read enough African-American history, read Malcolm's autobiography, things of that sort, to know that the Nation of Islam was a cultic group and not Orthodox Islam in any sense. And so when my interests were piqued in Islam, it was to Sunni Islam that I turned and converted. Wow. So, yeah, I'm familiar with it largely through Malcolm X's autobiography. Man, that book, golly, I read that back in the mid-2000s. And, you know, I grew up in traditional, just non-denominational white evangelicalism. And that book just, I mean, it shattered my categories.

of my that book just i mean it shattered my categories i i became just fascinated with malcolm x as a just as a person like he he's i don't know i wasn't planning on going here but his he was one of the most brilliant um just a thinker maybe leaders of our of our day i think i mean i don't think people know that especially in christian circles we he just gets pegged as kind of like a a worse version of mlk is kind of what i grew up that's all i knew about him and people would mock him and stuff but this dude was when he was in prison he like read through the dictionary like twice just to expand his vocabulary and he had he was so articulate and man and then to see him like come, yeah, come to grips with his involvement with the Nation of Islam. And man, that's anyway, you know, Malcolm is Malcolm is a poignant picture of the kind of human capital that is threatened and destroyed in the sort of racist system and history of this country. And at the same time, a picture of the tremendous resilience and overcoming that can

happen in persons lives. And that is so much of the African American story to sort of face this maafa, to face this holocaust of slavery, Jim Crow, all that good stuff, and to have so much human capacity destroyed, stunted, suppressed, and so on. And yet, through God's providence and so many other ways in which the Lord has worked in the history of the country and of African Americans to overcome, right, and to persevere, and to be resilient in the face of that. And so Malcolm, as Ossie Davis put it,

is our black shining prince of manhood. And he is a fierce intellect. And if you were introduced to Malcolm as a demagogue, then you really don't know Malcolm. Oh, yeah. And all you know are his Nation of Islam years,

and you don't see his evolution even as a Muslim, right? And the sort of universalizing term that he takes. Then you really don't know Malcolm. And I think, you know, in American letters, in American writing, the autobiography of Malcolm ought to be included. And everyone who considers himself well-read should have read the autobiography of Malcolm X. Well, I saw it was rated one of the most important books of the 20th century. This

is right when I finished my PhD. I did nothing but reading theology for like 85 years. You know, that's all I did. That was one of the first non-theological books I read. And yet it probably shaped my theology in ways that I didn't predict at all. So after reading that, I went in and started reading a lot of MLK and kind of seeing the contrast between them, which wasn't as stark as some people make it out to be. Where I was fascinated is, you know, Martin Luther King, it's well known, you know, his individual moral character was imperfect. You know, he probably drank too much, probably had several girlfriends on the side. And this is stuff that he admits. And Malcolm X, his character was impeccable.

There's a line in the movie. What's it called? Just X, I think, where the feds are trying to find something on X. And they make a passing comment. And I think it might even be in the book. They said, man, compared to King, this guy's a saint. Like they couldn't find – he was so morally virtuous that they couldn't find anything on him. But King, they could find stuff on him.

They could talk to some girl or whatever, this, that. And please, I'm not like downplaying obviously the trim is where King did, but Acts, I don't know. And, you know, people peg him as like this more militant guy. He believed in self-defense. Name me one evangelical Christian who wouldn't have the same perspective. You know, he was not militant. I think for me as a white evangelical, the biggest takeaway for the book is probably how well-intended, truly well-intended white people in X's life were still very problematic in the way of thinking. His school teacher who loved X, but when X was a little kid and he's like, I want to be president. The teacher is just really like, wow, that's really sweet.

You'd probably make a great president, but it'll never happen. You know, like you're black, and so find something else to pursue. But it was a well-intended white people that exposed for me how even that can be problematic. But anyway, I don't want to keep – No, that's good. I think that's right. So here's the thing. No, that's good. I think that's right. So here's the thing. I often chuckle when I'm watching white evangelicals talk about liberalism versus conservatism. And oftentimes, if African Americans somehow are brought up in that conversation, there's this great lament that African Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic, for example, which in the sort of white evangelical landscape means liberal. And I'm just like, okay, that's just evidence you don't know black people,

right? Because those categories, liberal and conservative, don't really map neatly onto us. And we are not, as a people generally, we're not enamored with white progressives and white liberals as if they get it. Right. So, so we run into the same kinds of problems, different, different shapes sometimes and things of that sort, you know, across the spectrum. Right. Because, because our defining sort of reality historically has not been political philosophy, liberal or progressive. It's been blackness, right? And it's contact with whiteness. And so, you know, Malcolm is, gosh, he's just so in so many ways that our biography is just so typical of African-American experience when we're bumping into white progressives or white conservatives or things of that sort. So for Malcolm, there's not much difference in terms of the impact on his life between

the sort of anti-Garveyites who burned down his house and killed his dad, right? And these sort of progressive and liberals who pat him on the head and say, oh, it's nice, you probably would be a good president, but black folk know, you know, black folk can't be that. Right. Um, this sort of constraining, suppressing, soul destroying, potential destroying experience of that is sort of across the board. It could be more or less virulent, but it's across the board. Right. And so that's been so much of, um, African-American history and experience. And again, this is why when you why when you read Malcolm's story, there's a large part of you that goes, this is my story. And whether or not you share

his convictions in terms of religion or political stridency or what have you, whether or not you fall down in the same place, you go, oh no, that's a hero? I don't agree with everything he says, but that's a hero. Here's a guy who figures out how to be unashamedly black, you know, all the time. And to sort of reject, yeah, the sort of racism that comes in both conservative and liberal forms for a pretty sort of mainstream ethic of self-help and independence, you know, in Black Key. And almost everyone who reads that goes, that's a hero. Don't agree with every point, but that's a hero. And so much of that has been my life. And that's why it's just this magnetic character figure, even decades after his death.

The last thing I'll say in terms of he and King is, you know, you point to Malcolm's sort of uprightness. Malcolm is a believer, right? Malcolm is a true believer in initially the nation of Islam and, you know, the leadership there. And even after he learns out the secrets of the nation and he has this theological crisis, he's a believer in Islam, right? And so he's a genuine convert to Islam. And he does live with this sort of legalistic, you know, uprightness, right? And has this impeccability that too is compelling. And again, when I converted to Islam, that's part of what drew me to it was to see that same kind of discipline in the character of persons like that. Of course, he's not a brother in the Lord, doesn't believe in Jesus. I don't think he's gone to meet God as a savior.

And so it grieves me to say that I think he's lost in his sin. is lost in his sin. And so there are remarkable differences between he and a Dr. King, not just in terms of their sort of moral lives, but also in terms of their eternal lives. And as Christian folk, even as we celebrate Malcolm as a kind of hero, we also need to keep eternal things in view. That's good. That's a good word, man. I just want you to keep going. But why don't we, I want to, yeah, let's keep going. And we didn't plan like with the topic, the direction, but I would love for you to, I would love to hear your thoughts on, and this is gonna be a really general question on purpose. You could take it however you want to go with it. Help us understand the race conversation specifically as it's happening or not happening in American evangelicalism, say in the last

couple of years maybe, but obviously a lot of stuff's been kicked up last year. Help just pastor our audience, me and our audience through what has become a real tense and volatile conversation. I talk to pastors all the time. They're like, my church is just divided over this stuff. Where two years ago, it wasn't divided at all. Yeah. No, thank you for that question, brother.

I mean, I agree. I don't think there's a conversation. There's lots of accusation and recrimination. But I don't think there's a whole lot of let's sit down and talk about this kind of conversation. There's lots of accusation and recrimination, but I don't think there's a whole lot of let's sit down and talk about this kind of conversation. And the reason for that, I think, is about five years ago, there's a significant turn in the culture of the country as a whole, but in predominantly white evangelical culture particularly. Up until about five years ago, I think there were a lot of folks trying to sing Kumbaya and hold hands and, you know,

have reconciliation conversations that were sort of key to the gospel abstractly, theologically, not really practically. I mean, there's some stellar, you know, exceptions to that. I think of LaTosha Morrison and her work with Be the Bridge and things of that sort. So there's some people who've been on the ground trying to do this work for a long time. But about five years ago, I think there's this marriage that happens between a kind of largely white male resentment, the kind of populist energy that sort of you know, in the church, in the predominantly white church in particular, at large, large levels. So you get the marriage of that resentment, contemporary and historical. You get the rise of sort of conspiracy theories, which rob the church

of the ability to think well about hard things and to think patiently about hard things. And you get the rise of this sort of populist, often racist rhetoric and leadership from Donald Trump and President Trump. And those things land very hard on the heels of a long string of police shootings, citizen shootings, other things where we're seeing on video African-American men and women, boys and girls being killed in very dramatic and jarring, traumatic fashion, right? Now, what happens, I think, that prevents the conversation is from the evangelical to white evangelical perspective in these conversations, that you have pretty much fundamentalists inside of evangelicalism, the John MacArthur's and the like, who grab the reins of an anti-justice kind of perspective and drive that perspective into the church as a wedge.

Not to say, hey, listen, we think there are some things that are wrong. Can we talk about it in a constructive way and use our convening power to pull together people from different perspectives and to really model how to have this conversation and push toward the truth as we see it? really model how to have this conversation and push toward the truth as we see it. But they drive it as a wedge issue on the level of, if you not agree with us, then you're anathema, a pox on your house. And of course, beneath their perspective is the wholesale rejection of things like systematic racism, the wholesale rejection of the notion that there's any appreciable racism in our day, the rejection of the notion that there's unfair treatment of police officers to black and brown communities. So this was, I would say, their way, veiled in theological language, of simply taking

a retrograde position on racial relationships and to do it in such a way as to literally divide churches and to divide Christians into these camps. So that's why we're not able to have the conversation, is because from the start, it's broken with this sort of divisive, tribal, broken with this sort of divisive, tribal, us against them kind of frame. And along with that, it is shaped by just this horribly inadequate, to be generous, understanding of the issues, race, racism, the history, law, society, how these things are impacted, and the demonizing of efforts, usually secular efforts to address that history, the demonizing of those efforts, and then the assigning of those demonized positions to faithful brothers and sisters who in the body of Christ are trying

to have the conversation constructively. So that, you know, it's a poison pill and folks are slandered and libeled and it's impossible to have a good conversation, at least at the level of kind of national figures interacting. And I'm really saddened, Preston, because there's hardly a week that goes by where I don't hear from faithful pastors and faithful Christians in local churches from the West Coast to the East Coast, from North to South, whose churches right now are divided, are divided, who are being split, where leaders are under assault, where members are alleging certain things that just aren't true, all because they've been infected by basically this conspiracy theory inside the evangelical church, which is this kind of anti-critical race theory, anti-intersectionality, is the biggest

threat to the gospel ever kind of perspective. And that's all it is. It's a conspiracy theory built on the back of a straw man standing on top of sand. It's ridiculous. And it has a distinct smell of sulfur, brother. I think the enemy has had his hands in this in a very destructive way. Gosh, there's so much there, man. Can you unpack the, and this is something, because I really am approaching this from a student, a learner. I'm watching the discussion. It's not my full-time gig. It would take me years, years, years to even get my arms around something like critical race theory or critical theory. I've got a buddy, Ed Uzinski, who did a PhD basically in, well, it was in American studies at Bowling Green University.

And basically it was a PhD in critical theory. And so he's helped me kind of work through it. And what I love about him is, is he's so nuanced and so careful and so thoughtful and so well read that even talking about critical theory or critical race theory as one thing just shows that you don't know what you're talking about. But can you, yeah, for our audience and for me too, I mean, can you maybe unpack the concerns that the anti-critical theory form of evangelicalism is raising? Like, why would they say this is the greatest threat to the gospel? Yeah, because I'm sure you've had to get inside of that, kind of the other side.

And I would love for you to unpack that, and then how would you respond to that, maybe? And I would love for you to unpack that and how would you respond to that maybe? Yeah, let me maybe suggest that there are two or three concerns that seem to me to be animating different actors in this discussion. and their opposition to CRT because they are concerned for people that they know and by extension, people that they may not know who seem to have left the faith, being drawn away by what they would call CRT, CRT kinds of concerns, right? So they see sort of deconstruction and other things happening in the lives of people. They see folks leave the faith and they go, okay, CRT did that. And so therefore I need to oppose CRT. So that's one motivation.

Like a slippery, kind of a slippery slope in a sense. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And this is what a Neil Shinby would say is his motivation, right? In large part. And this is what a Neil Shinby would say is his motivation, right, in large part. There's another motivation that feels to me fairly different from that motivation. And I think it's the idea that CRT is a religion that is contrary to the gospel, that its basic worldview and outlook is at several points a threat to the gospel. So the sort of racializing of the world, the suggestion that the world may be divided into oppressor and oppressed groups, and that the oppressor group can never be justified. The oppressed group is justified by their grievances or, you know, variations of comments in that way. And so there are folks who kind of take that sort of worldview approach to CRT and think of it as a

religion contrary to the gospel. Now, I think allied with that group is maybe a third group who, again, you know, uses the language of theology, but what they're really talking about is politics. And this is a group of folks who are just politically concerned that some of the things that fall under the banner of CRT, as they understand it, are just not good for society in the country. Right. And so whether they would put, say, defund the police, you know, in that category, or Black Lives Matter in that category. These are groups in their mind that are associated with CRT, whose positions on, say, policing or certain public policy seem to them to be unwise, unhelpful, destructive, also contrary to the Bible. And so that needs to be rejected. And so I think you get all three of those kind of motivations driving people in this sort of anti-justice, anti-social justice, anti-CRT kind of conversation.

That third one, would they say this is a neo-Marxist kind of movement that's going to lead to, you know, where that has led to with all these other countries, which ends up killing millions of people and so on. How would you, I do see that come up a lot. And I'm one, I just get so allergic to just labels. So when I hear Marxist, whatever, I'm like, what do you like, do you know what Marxism is? Have you read Karl Marx? Like what, what exactly are you saying? Cause I just, and this happens on the, from the left and the right, these slogans that I just – even something like white supremacy on the left or cultural Marxists on the right. And I'm just like, let's just back up and let's – tell me exactly what you're trying to say rather than give me a slogan. So – oh, shoot.

I was going to ask a question, but yeah. Okay. So how about this? ask a question but yeah okay so how about this would you um is there any of those three kind of maybe concerns that you would like resonate with but then point out some inadequacies or is there any is there any part of the of the concern with crt that you're like no that's a good that's a good concern to raise if that's a fair question well i i, I think these can be good concerns to raise quite apart from CRT. Okay. Right. So there's nothing in my view inherent to CRT that sort of produces these concerns in some inordinate way, right? So we ought to be concerned about anybody leaving the faith

for any reason, right? That's an appropriate Christian concern. We ought to be concerned about any sort of rival claim to salvation and eternal life or rival claims to the Bible's basic teaching about life and eternal life, right? So any of these things, just principally, are things that Christians ought to sort of have a concern for. For me, the question is, are these accurate representations of what's really happening? And are they accurate representations of CRT? So for example, take that first group that says, hey, I'm really concerned about people leaving the faith, be called CRT. And my question is, wait a

minute, those people you're talking about, have they actually read any critical race theory? Have they actually been engaged in that? Are they actually self-consciously saying, I am now deconstructing my Christian faith and on the way out of the faith because I read something in CRT, or, or, or, is the trouble really that they have run into racism in your church and in this sort of evangelical sphere, and that has caused a negative reaction to the church and the gospel, right? So CRT might have sort of entered into the conversation in some places, but usually it's entering into the conversation because it's intended to redress racial inequity. Right. And in a context where the church has been historically and overwhelmingly silent about racial inequity or participate participants in it in causing it. OK, there's a huge vacuum there. The problem isn't CRT as such. The problem is these folks have had encounters with

racism inside the church where they rightly thought it should not be, and where they rightly thought there should be some help in addressing it. And they were failed on both counts. And it's that notion, that form of the Christian faith that they have been rejecting. And it's not CRT's fault. And so when these folks sort of joust with CRT and make light of the experience of racism and injustice in predominantly white evangelical circles, they're just compounding the problem, right? They're just sort of proving the problem to that person who maybe wrongly is saying, because I've had this experience, I need to leave this faith. And I don't think they see that. I don't think they see that. And so CRT becomes this whipping post. But really the problem, the prior problem,

is racism in the church, right? It's a longstanding problem. Or take the second group, who wants to say that CRT is a worldview and a religion that needs to be rejected. The first thing I want to say is most of the folks who are writing and saying that are dealing with a complete caricature of CRT, a complete caricature of CRT. And they are and they are replicating the first mistake that we just talked about. the first mistake that we just talked about. They are not putting forth positively, constructively an agenda or proposal for dealing with the real world problems of racism and whatnot. They are eliding that, they're sliding over that simply to take a position about what they're against, right? And so they recreate the same problem the first group had at sort of another theological level. And insofar as they're dealing with a caricature, they're not even dealing with

CRT and what it's for. So critical race theory gets its start, late 70s, 80s, Derrick Bell and others as founders, what they are really dealing with in its origin, and the listener needs to keep in mind that it's not a social theory writ large, right? This is a discipline inside of law. It's a legal discipline. What they are really dealing with inside of law is this question. How is it that we could have civil rights games from the Voting Rights Act and Brown versus Board, et cetera, and two or three decades later, the 70s and 80s, be suffering such significant civil rights losses in the rolling back of those civil rights gains, in the sort of retrenchment of programs into an

anti-civil rights kind of stance and effect, how is it that the Reagan revolution brings about, right, these sort of rollbacks on progress and equality, all right? That's what they're struggling with. That's what they're trying to answer. And what we're saying, and what CRT is saying writ large is, okay, we need a different set of spectacles with which to view the law. And here are some ways in which we have to sort of approach the law in order to understand it properly and to respond to it. Number one, we have to understand that it is the law that has created the construct of race itself, right? So our problem with racism is a legal problem, not just in the explicit old laws of white only this and colored

only that, but also in the operation of race neutral laws that produce racial disparities of various sorts, right? So your law doesn't have to be Jim Crow racist in its language in order to have racist effects in its operation. So that's one premise. The other premise is, listen, that racism is endemic to the country, that in the entire society, every aspect of the society, racial prejudice, racial bigotry, racial favoritism, et cetera, has been baked into the walls of this thing. Right. And so the default posture is not, let's assume everybody's equal and everybody, you know, has a fair shake. If that's true, then the default posture ought to be a critical posture of examining, looking for, interrogating, so on and so forth.

And we could go on, you know, five or six such things in that way. I didn't want to cut you off. I wanted to have you unpack. Like when you said even the race, because I've heard this before and I can't get my mind around it. And I'm not a political scientist. I'm not an economist. You know, I don't have, these aren't the disciplines that I, you know, my American history is even not, not very, very thorough. I've been reading too much theology my whole life. But like, yeah. So,

you know, obviously we don't have Jim Crow type laws, but you're saying even these kind of quote race neutral laws have something built into them that is contributing to the problem of keeping specifically black people from flourishing maybe economically or even just... So to make that real concrete, let me give you an illustration. It's a well-worn illustration. Many folks will know it. Think, for example, about the sentencing requirements during the war on drugs or cocaine use, that if you were caught in possession or distribution of crack cocaine and sentenced for that, it was 18 times the length of a sentence for powder cocaine.

Now, those laws don't say anything about black and white people. But guess what? Guess who was using crack cocaine? And guess who was using powder cocaine? Right. So powder cocaine addiction got treated like a medical problem by and large with treatment. Crack cocaine addiction got treated, got criminalized and got treated like a crime problem with prison. That breaks out pretty neatly along racial lines, right? Even though those are race-neutral policies. It's more divided across socioeconomic, right?

So even if it was like 80% people busted would be of color, 20% white, that the common denominator would be socioeconomic, not explicitly race, but you're saying just, if I write there, is that a good way of framing or am I missing something even by? Well, no, I think surely class is an aspect of that, but in terms of sort of preferred use, if you will, I think that breaks out fairly strongly along sort of racial lines. But so let's switch the example. Let's talk about marijuana use

We know that as a proportion of their sort of population of group Black and white folk use marijuana at almost essentially the same rate But when you then look at the stop, search, arrest, prosecution, sentencing rates, vast, vast disproportion between black and white at every place in the criminal justice system, from a police stopping you, searching your car, arresting you to to a DA deciding whether or not to prosecute you or to plea you out and what sentence you get, vastly, vast disparity. Now, again, nothing on the books that's sort of saying, hey, we're going to treat black people this way and white people that way. It is a race-neutral policy, but it does not have race-neutral effects in the system, right? And this is what we talk about when we talk about systemic racism and systemic biases in this way. And this is why for these biases to play out in terms of actual impact, one does not have to be self-consciously racist and personally racist

in personal attitude, right? All one needs to do is what the system does. And systems have a way of creating behavior, of guiding and circumscribing behavior. They become cultures in that sense. And that's what we're living in. And this is what a proponent of CRT would say. OK, this is why racism is endemic to the country. It's baked to the walls. And unless you take a critical posture to it, you simply replay these systemic injustices. You simply replay this racism that's baked into the wall. Even if you as an individual aren't necessarily, in terms of your individual attitudes, actively expressing a racist attitude toward black people or Hispanic. And that's the difference because most white people I know, I would say, including myself, when I hear racist, I think that explicit, that uncle at Thanksgiving that's telling all these black jokes.

And if a black person moved in the neighborhood, he would be like really upset. You know, like he if he talked to somebody at the grocery store, black checkout, you know, he's going to treat them different than a white person that can really really just like explicit, like he actually is explicitly racist. But what you're saying is there's an implicit form of racism that's kind of built into the system that is not being addressed, or maybe is only recently being even considered. Or maybe it's CRT that's kind of trying to get to the roots of some of these things. I think that's right. I think the best framework that I've seen for this is a framework that Duke Kwan, pastor here in D.C., PCA Church in D.C., very thoughtful, wonderful brother,

put together because I think it's helpful because in many of these conversations when racism is brought up as a term, that people are operating with different definitions and speaking of it on different dimensions. So Duke in this framework, if you imagine a four by four kind of grid, across the top, he's got four categories. He talks about the social dimensions of racism. So he talks about an internal dimension, which is attitudes and beliefs. That's where a lot of people's minds go when they think about racism. But then he talks about an interpersonal dimension. So now he moves to behavior, right? Actual behavior that devalues or subordinates or excludes other people. Then he talks about institutional. And this is where we talk about

either formal or informal systems of policies, customs, norms, that again, are sort of assigning advantage or disadvantage based upon race, ethnicity, and culture, and so on. And then fourthly, he talks about internalized, an internalized dimension of this. This is sort of conscious or unconscious acceptance of these attitudes, beliefs, behaviors against your own people, right? So this is internalized racism there. So this is the kind of racism that Black people show toward Black people, Hispanic people show toward Hispanic people, so on and so forth, colorism, all those kinds of things in this internalized self-hatred, right? So those are kind of the social dimensions, right? And when we're talking about this issue, we have to be careful to sort of name which dimension we're discussing, right? Because this is how we pass each other. So if I talk about institutional racism,

and I'm thinking about policies and customs and norms of the sort that we were just talking about from our criminal justice system. And somebody comes along and says, well, I'm not a racist. It's like, okay, that's two different conversations. We can talk about whether or not you are racist, and that could be helpful to you pastorally and spiritually, but actually that's not going to solve the problem with the institutional issue, and spiritually, but actually that's not going to solve the problem of the institutional issue, where we need an institutional level analysis, where we need to think about policies and customs and norms and their impact, not just their intent, but their impact on people groups and whether or not that's happening in a systematic way. And let me say one other word right there as a

former social scientist. When I talk about something being systematic, I'm not just saying it belongs to a system like a legal system or an educational system. I'm talking there in terms of the effect is non-random. The effect is systematic in the sense that it will produce this outcome ordinarily, systematically, in a non-random fashion. So if you were to throw 10 people, 10 black people, 10 white people, 10 Hispanic people into our criminal justice system, if that system was really blind, then what you would see are sort of a set of outcomes that are roughly equal for each of those groups. In that sense, it's non-systemic. It's random. But if you picture this on a curve that the curve for white Americans is pretty flat at level, they call it level one. And then for Hispanic Americans, it sort of goes up over time to level

five. And for black Americans, it goes up, it shoots up to level 10. And that's just happening consistently and predictably in a non-random way. That's what's meant from a social science perspective about something being systemic, right? And that's what we're getting with our systems here. It is systemically producing non-random results of disparity for people of color. And that's what needs to be addressed. Dude, this is like seriously one of the clearest explanations. I've had a lot of these kind of conversations and half the time I'm trying to get my mind around it.

This is super helpful and I hope it is for the audience too. How would you – let me just try to formulate my question. If I word things off or even offensively, let me know. But like where because on the I guess for lack of better terms, I don't love these categories, but the conservative argument is usually like at best they'll acknowledge some systemic issues. You can't go through hundreds of years of slavery and Jim Crow and lynching and all this stuff and say, oh yeah, that's gone now and has no lasting effect. I don't know anybody with any kind of social scientific awareness who would say that that has no lasting effect. It ended in 1968. But they would say there's a huge issue of personal agency and you know you have south chicago and stuff going on there that has to do with individuals sinning too and children being born to single moms and fatherlessness and all these things how would you the the i guess my question is the relationship between the systemic structural issues and personal agency how would you how would you you address maybe both of those? Would you say it's a both and,

or it's way more a systemic thing that's causing bad decisions on the personal side? Yeah, I think the best treatment I've read of this question is William Julius Wilson's book, More Than Just Race. A short book, easy book. In some ways, it's a summary of much of his decades of sociological research and economic research. of say the outcomes we see in in African American life how much of that is attributable to what what sociologists at the time we're talking about a sort of culture of dysfunction right and how much of that is attributable to these sort of larger macro factors and systems and things of that sort and I think Wilson is right when he says yeah both of these things matter but from a social science perspective, at least, what the research is telling us is what matters most are these larger macro and system kinds of issues, right? And let me tell you why I think that must be the case. doesn't matter. So I want to emphasize that. And in fact, I want to go a step further and say,

we can point to examples where by the use of agency and God's kind providence, many individuals have escaped some very difficult circumstances, right? So there is not only agency, but there's an efficacy, there's an effectiveness to agency in many circumstances, but not all. And I would argue, but not most. And the question is why? Well, one simple response would be to say, because some people aren't trying or haven't tried the right thing. I don't actually think that's true. I live in the poorest neighborhood in Washington, D.C. And what I can tell you is I see folks taking a bus to go to work, working really hard to try to make ends meet. Yeah, maybe they've made some bad decisions here or there, but they're not lacking effort. Right. And they're working two or three jobs.

They're getting jobs as they can, etc. But here's what else I see in my community. I see a lot of young African-American men and women who have now submitted their 400th application for an entry level job. But they've got to check the box or they've got to declare they had some criminal background history. And what the good folks over at Prison Fellowship will tell you is, again, evangelical, white organization, so not biased. What they will tell you is those folks who are leaving our system of incarceration, returning citizens back to the community, there's thousands of barriers, governmental policy barriers to getting back into the workforce, getting back on their feet. And until we sort of address those barriers, then the overwhelming number, right, are going

to have their ability to thrive and flourish curtailed, you know, by that system. It's just another illustration of the systems are bigger than the individual and the systems press in on the individual and the systems in many cases sort of delimit what the individual can do. And oh, by the way, if it's an individual who is not starting from a blank slate, but actually born in certain circumstances of lack and need and poverty and brokenness, they're not starting at zero. They're starting at negative 10, negative 20, negative 100. So they've got to overcome mom and dad's addiction. They got to

overcome mom and dad's housing instability. They got to overcome mom and dad's spotty employment record just to get to zero, to get a start. Right. And so I think many people have this idealized notion that someone is born and they're born without a context and they've got this clean slate and now they've got a chance to do all the great things that people are free to do, you know, in this world, in this society and pursue the American dream, not realizing that actually nobody's life functions that way. Right. Nobody is born that way and enters the world that way. And unless we sort of want to, if we want to have a just society, we've got to attend to those injustices at the starting point and across the lifespan. And we've got to sort of try and work for a system that really is equitable. And we don't have one. We've never had one. We've got one that's better than a lot of other places in a lot of countries, praise God, for its providence. But we're working for a more perfect union. And we need to take that to heart, particularly as Christians who believe in a real fall and believe in a real depravity. Yeah, that's helpful. I do have a question.

You know, when I hear your name, Pastor T, to me, my mind goes, you know, Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, which I think is, was that started by or co-organized by John MacArthur, who also has authored this critique of social justice that seems to really much clash with basically everything you're saying. Yeah. Where are you at in your kind of evangelical identity, maybe the wrong term or whatever? Like, are you still part of those

communities? Or how would the SBC or Gospel Coalition respond to everything you're saying now? Would they be very sympathetic or have you kind of moved into a different kind of subcategory of evangelicalism? Yeah, this is probably the first time I've said this publicly, but I don't regard myself as an evangelical any longer. This is not my tribe. This is not my tribe. It became clear to me after in 2015, 2014, after Mike Brown was killed and the string of killings that happened there, that I was sort of in a space where there were a lot of people that I agreed with in terms of our formal theological commitment, but we were sort of miles apart in terms of our sort of understanding of the social and political world and what should grow out of that theological commitment. It seems really clear to me that there are people who believe in an evangel, but have cut that off from the ethics of the Bible. And I really want to live in a space where

people hold to the good news of the gospel and walk in the good works that God prepared beforehand for us to do. So we need an evangel and an ethic that come from the Bible. And I think I look up and I see that there are people that I agree with on the ethics, but we don't share the same gospel. And I see some people who formerly I hold the same gospel with, but we don't share the same gospel. And I see some people who formerly I hold the same gospel with, but we don't agree ethically. And I'm just sort of looking for that tribe of people with whom I have both. It feels like a different world to me. So if I'm to zoom back 15 years ago, then someone like my dear sister, whom I have just come to love to pieces, though I've never met her. Um, someone like my dear sister, Beth Moore would be vilified in certain circles

that I, that I traveled in. I've been in rooms where her name was used as a byword and I'm ashamed that I didn't, I didn't challenge folks. Um, when that, when that happened, it can't happen again around me. I tell you that. And so she would have been vilified and I would have been in a room with a John MacArthur having fellowship. And John's a lovely guy. You know, on a personal level, I love John. But we are miles apart on what what we think the gospel demands regarding justice. the gospel demands regarding justice. Beth emerges as this lioness of gospel and justice and truth and righteousness because she cares about those things and cares about people, right? Not because she's gotten any more book deals, she's got any more notoriety, and she didn't need those things, right? So I'm watching this woman who could have stayed in Texas doing her thing with women, um, and, and enjoy being Beth Moore

for no upside. So, you know what, this is wrong and that's wrong. And I'm going to speak out about how we're treating women and how we're abusing little kids. And I'm going to speak out about, you know, racial matters and justice and acquire this real prophetic stance and best sense of the word and be vilified by these same guys who claim to be gospel guys who seem not to know the gospel as it applies to how you treat women and care for the vulnerable. So I rock with Beth all day long. to rock with Beth all day long. And other cats whom I love, and we disagree theologically or politically, doesn't mean I hate them. I don't, right? But we have a sharp disagreement. I'll let them go their own way, and I'll, by God's grace, chart my own way a different way and direction. Now, one thing I also want to say here, since this is the first time I've talked about this publicly, is when I talk about stepping away from evangelicalism,

I'm not talking about stepping away from men and women who themselves are evangelicals, who are dear to me, who are friends to me. I have a high view of loyalty in friendship, and those folks continue to be dear to me. They don't necessarily line up with John or line up with me for that matter. What's important to me there is the relationship and the friendships, which I maintain and hope to maintain, even as I sort of say, no, actually in terms of this movement called evangelicalism, I'll let other people invest their life there. I'm going to go see if I can serve communities like my own.

That's awesome. You know, the term evangelical is so tricky. When people ask me, are you an evangelical, my first response is, what do you mean by that term? Because I've heard people say, well, if I use the term evangelical myself, it means I believe in the gospel, the authority of scripture, the totality of the scriptures, you know, it's because I'm an evangelical is why I reject Christian nationalism, why I reject many other things that are, you know, right at home in other evangelical circles. But then some people would say, well, that's not, you're not evangelical then, because that is part of evangelicalism. It's embracing Christian nationalism

and republicanism and all these things. And I'm like, well, if that's evangelical, then yeah, I guess I'm not. It depends on your definition. I've also had some charismatic brothers and sisters say, you know, they're charismatic, not evangelical. So even that, they're seeing evangelicals almost like non-Pentecostal or something. I don't know. So the term is just, I don't find it particularly helpful anymore, because if you or I say evangelical, somebody else, like we're just using the term so differently. So I hear you saying, yeah, you're rejecting a certain form of cultural American evangelicalism as it's taken shape. But the heart of what created evangelicalism, the gospel, authority of scripture, I mean, obviously, you're still more passionate about those things than ever.

But you're not disconnecting those with the social implications and demands, not even implications, but the demands. Yeah, no, I think that's spot on. If we're going to use like David Bevington's quadrilateral, then I would say, yeah, I'm an evangelical. I would check those boxes in that theological sense. And in that sense, I would say I'm actually more evangelical than most people who proudly wear the name because that fourth quadrant is activism.

And that's the very quadrant that a lot of evangelicals, particularly those with fundamentalist backgrounds, most betray is that activism quadrant. A bit of sort of historical evangelicalism that I think I've come to rethink or to understand better is the sort of pietistic strain of evangelicalism, which creates this strong inward subjective approach to faith. And that, I think, is a big factor in sort of cutting out the ethical demands of Scripture in people's conception of the Christian life. So if evangelicalism is personal relationship with Jesus and a very subjective, inward kind of approach to the Christian life without a view toward love of neighbor, okay, then that part of evangelicalism I can't rock with. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm with you there. I can't rock with.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm with, I'm with you there. I've often been made to feel almost like not made to feel purposely, but unintentionally like,

because my, um, my personal relationship with Jesus, I don't even like that because it may be personal, but it's not private. And sometimes people use the term personal in terms of my individual private, me and Jesus, but that's just not, that just clashes with the very public, very political in the true sense of the term, necessity of the proclamation that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. That is a public, dangerous, very political statement from which the whole ethics, the countercultural ethics of the kingdom flows.

I've been wanting to ask you this this whole time. I think it was in 1999 or 2000, 2001, when the book Divided by Faith came out. I think for a lot of white evangelicals, it was kind of a whoa. It was kind of an eye-opening book, Divided by Faith and the Road to United by Faith. And I think from my vantage point, since say 2000, in the last 20 years, there's been a growth of racial reconciliation movements and multi-ethnic churches.

And that's in some circles, and the circles I run, that has become almost very sexy, you know, to have a multi-ethnic church, which is great. Um, and I, and I'm all for that as long as it's done the right way where there's true integration, not assimilation, you know, um, uh, have you see as you, as we take this whole conversation and as you look back in the last 20 years in evangelicalism, do you feel like, well, maybe you shouldn't use that term now, look back in the last 20 years in evangelicalism, do you feel like, well, maybe you shouldn't use that term now, the American church, do you see progress neutral, like nothing and nothing really

has actually changed? Or do you see regress in terms of how the church has not just talked about the race conversation, but actually tried to integrate this conversation into its own ecclesiology. And again, I'm kind of going on, man, I know a lot of people now, compared to like 1990s, it wasn't a thing. But now there's a lot of people making efforts to plant multi-ethnic kind of churches. But maybe that's not as exciting as it looks on the outside. I don't know. Yeah. I wonder if we've hit the high watermark for multi-ethnic ministry in churches. I really wonder at it. I don't have an answer for it. But what I think the last five years has shown at least is that, you know, multi-ethnic churches have been efficient at producing assimilation. They haven't been effective at producing deep reconciliation,

right? So that in many of the churches, reconciliation looks like sort of high-level platitudes about, you know, Christ being our identity and, you know, the same gospel and things of that sort. But the division we're seeing in churches right now over these last five years is really revealing how shallow that's been, right? So to the extent that there's been some reconciliation or progress in that, I don't think it's been deep. I think it's maybe been an inch deep and a mile wide. But what we need, even if it's an inch wide, is mile deep reconciliation, some deeper work in this area. So I think I'm not pessimistic. I think I can point to ways in which there's been progress. But I've been chastened in terms of my expectations and my hopefulness.

And the question has become a little bit more complex for me. And particularly since coming back to the States, coming to a 92, 94 percent African-American neighborhood, coming to a fairly poor and neglected neighborhood in many respects. and neglected neighborhood in many respects. The question of multi-ethnicity has become more complex for me because most of those churches are not located in my neighborhood. At best, they're hood adjacent, which is not really a solution to folks who are actually in the hood, right? And so many folks have remarked over the years, and I've come to appreciate this concern more deeply, is that with a lot of the multi-ethnic work, what we're seeing is a kind of resource and talent drain from black and brown neighborhoods into predominantly white spaces. And we're not seeing the sort of same kind of movement from predominantly white spaces into black and brown neighborhoods under black and brown leadership.

And so there's a kind of talent drain. And folks who find themselves in that space, predominantly white evangelical spaces, often find themselves de-skilled for returning to communities of origin and ministering to communities of origin with sensibilities for that community. And I think that's been a real phenomenon. And I think that that means then that what we're calling multi-ethnic isn't very multi-ethnic in terms of it producing a cross-cultural competence and producing a kind of cross-cultural, cross-class concern for neighborhoods just a mile or two away. And so, you know, I think in many respects, this phenomena has meant progress in some ways, at least in terms of co-locating people for shared worship and relationships. But it hasn't meant deep reconciliation of the sort that weathered the last five years well. And in some respects, it's meant a kind of talent drain, a resource drain on communities that desperately need investment, not divestment. Oh, that's good. Do you think, it sounds like Trumpism has exposed a lot of problems within the greater

evangelical church? Would that be, I mean, you've alluded to kind of the last five years being pretty significant. Yeah, man, it's been weird, dude. It's been weird. You hear people, so I mean, people that I would not expect it from, you expect it from will talk about some things going on. And yeah, I don't – I use the term conspiracy theory. I try not to – again, it's another slogan. I don't want to just slap on people. But man, I'm like you don't really believe that, do you? Right.

It's weird. Weird is the right word. Weird is the right word. And I think exposed is the right word, Right. So Trump didn't cause this stuff. No. This stuff long predates Trump. Right. I think he exploited some things and worsened some things in that exploitation. But in that sense, Trump is not the problem. In that sense, some some other things have been laid bare that are the real problem that need to be addressed

Hey I've taken you over an hour man I could go another but I want to respect your time do you have any last words in particular I'm thinking of Christian leaders let's just say they're a white Christian leader maybe they're younger and they're like man I'm

resonating with a lot of what this guy's saying I want to be I am socially aware I want to be even more Maybe they're younger and they're like, man, I'm resonating with a lot of what this guy is saying. I want to be – I am socially aware. I want to be even more. I want to look at my blind spots. What can I do as a white Christian leader who does want to be – who does want to have a more holistic gospel and view on the gospel and justice issues? Yeah. you know, the gospel and justice issues? Yeah, I'd say, first of all, I praise God for the brothers, the white Christian leaders who are already leaning into these things and endeavoring to be faithful. I know you can feel like you're alone sometimes, but you're not. The Lord has

faithful people out there, and so I just want to say keep going. And those who are thinking about sort of leaning into these issues and trying to minister, I would say a few things. Number one, count the costs, right? You need to be prepared to lose your job and you need to be prepared to lose 25% of your church, right? And so that's actually happening in a lot of places right now. So count those costs. Number two, pay the costs. It's more important that you love your people

than that you keep your job. And love your people looks like teaching them the truth, lovingly and leading them graciously toward the truth. And you want to be committed to a revolutionary patience in doing that. And you want to be committed to paying the costs because we have to stop protecting our people from their Bibles. Right. So a lot of a lot of what the Bible teaches our people aren't getting, right? You know, you've probably got a congregation full of people who spend a lot of time in the Gospels and in the letters, but have never been in the prophets, right? And never had the prophets rightly preached to them in light of

Christ. And so, you know, I think Swanson's book, Rediscipling the White Church, required reading, I would commend that to you, and, and to, to, um, serve your congregation out of much of what he recommends there. Um, but yeah, count the costs, be willing to pay the costs, take the long view, uh, lead with your Bible, you know, teach, teach the word of God, line upon line, precept upon precept, recognize that your people, if they're affected by what we've been talking about here, whether they're on the left or the right, they have a hearing impairment. So anytime they hear you emphasize something that sounds like individual responsibility and agency,

that sounds conservative to them. So they hear conservatism and they fill in conservatism. Or anytime they hear you talk about racism or systemic injustice or those kinds of problems, that sounds liberal to them. And they hear liberalism and they fill in liberalism. So you've got to recognize that as you address these issues, you probably need a new vocabulary. Don't be lazy with the vocabulary. Define your terms, as my brother has done in this podcast so often today. Define your terms.

Define it from the Bible as best you're able, and just put their noses in the book. And if they come up kicking, ask them why they're kicking against the goes. They're not kicking against you. They're kicking against the book, against the Bible. And so give them the whole book, and love them well, and try to lead them to a full expression of the Christian life. That's going to be for their good. It'll be for your joy. That's a good word, man. You are a pastor.

It's my joy. Where can people find your work? You got a website, part of a group. I know you guys do a lot of blogging, write articles and stuff. Yeah, they don't need to find me, man. I would say go to your church's website, listen to your pastor, listen to his sermons, and plug in with him. And I say that in all seriousness, because I think part of what I'm seeing is there are people who are believing

online personalities that they don't know over the pastor that they have known for 20 years, right? And that's part of what's messed up about what's going on right now. And so I would say, hey, listen to your own pastor, click in with your own leaders there, enjoy their ministries, act as if there is no internet, and really be local in that sense. Now, if you really want to find something that I'm passionate about and want to learn more about, then go to thecreekcollective.org, C-R-E-T-E collective.org. Learn about what we're trying to do to plant gospel churches in neglected and vulnerable black and brown neighborhoods. We'd love to have your prayer, love to have your support there. But I'm just more and more, the older I get, the more

convinced I am that the best stuff that's happening is happening in our local churches. And so to plug in there and enjoy Jesus with your covenant people. Thanks so much for being on the show, Pastor T. And we got to do this again, man. Amen. Would love to. Thanks for the privilege, brother. Thank you.