Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1031: Racial Reconciliation as Christian Discipleship: Michelle Sanchez

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Michelle T. Sanchez has an MDiv and ThM from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and spiritual direction training at Boston College and field studies on the life and times of Jesus at Jerusalem University College. Michelle serves as executive minister of make and deepen disciples for the Evangelical Covenant Church, a multiethnic denomination of over 900 congregations throughout North America. Michelle is the author of Color-Courageous Discipleship (2022) and the picture book God’s Beloved Community (2022). Michelle has a passion for discipleship and also for racial reconciliation, and in this conversation she shows how the latter is an essential part of the former. Michelle will be speaking at this year’s “Exiles in Babylon” conference in Boise, ID (March 2023). Find out more info at www.theologyintheraw.com Learn more about Michelle: https://michelletsanchez.com/ Thanks to Doug Smith for helping sponsor today's episode. To check out Doug's newest book, [Un]Intentional: How Screens Secretly Shapes Your Desires, and How You Can Break Free: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1625861966/  If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information! 

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forward slash Theology in Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in Raw. The link is in the show notes. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in Raw. My guest today is Michelle Sanchez. Michelle has been a friend for several years now as I have done some work with the Evangelical Covenant Church, and I just have always had massive, massive respect for how she is so passionate about engaging in discipleship in the church. She's kind of a guru in that area. So Michelle has an MDiv and a THM from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and she is the Executive Minister of Make and Deepen Disciples for the Evangelical Covenant Church and the author of her first and recently released book, Color Courageous Discipleship, which is the content of what we talk about in this podcast episode. Really enjoyed this conversation.

Michelle and I, we talk a lot about lots of topics in Christianity. This is the first time I think we had a really in-depth conversation about race and racism in the church. So I really learned a lot, as I always do when I hang out with Michelle. So please welcome to the show for the first... Oh, I forgot to mention, Michelle will be speaking at this year's, this next year's Exiles in Babylon conference. She's going to be speaking during the Future of the Church session, where she's coming from the perspective of a denomination. How do we look at the future of the church from where she's coming from the perspective of a denomination. How do we look at the future of the church from the perspective of somebody who's working within

a denominational structure? So please do sign up sooner than later if you hope to attend the Exiles in Babylon conference and hear a dynamic speech from Michelle Sanchez. Okay, without further ado, please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Michelle T. Sanchez. Okay. Without further ado, please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Michelle T. Sanchez. Michelle Sanchez, recent author of the book Color, Courageous Discipleship, Follow Jesus, Dismantle Racism, and Build Beloved Community with a foreword from Ed Stetzer and an afterword by Jamar Tisby. Those are interesting. That's an interesting combo.

I mean, both obviously well-known names. And I've met Jamar a few times. I've never met Ed Stetzer. So yeah, I'm excited to dive into your book. Oh, yes. And I wanted to say a lot even by who I invited to write that forward and afterward. I intend for this to be a pretty broad conversation with relevance for everybody. Yeah. I was wondering if that was kind of intentional. I mean, Ed has a lot of cred within more of the, I don't know, like Southern Baptist kind of circles. I think from what I know, those are my primary circles. And then, you know, Jamar seems to be upsetting

those circles. I love anybody that can provoke and like speak in ways that, you know, like, wow, did you really say that? That's awesome. Okay, Preston. So listen, I am a discipleship girl. All right. Discipleship is my heart and soul. For me, it's all about Jesus. It starts with Jesus. It ends with Jesus. Everything in the middle is about Jesus. And that is one of the big points of this book, that when it comes to anything regarding race or racial reconciliation, I'd like us to focus not on left or right or any of those categories, but truly on Jesus, who himself tends to upend any of our traditional categories of things. And so, yes, those were, I chose those two very specifically because we can all agree on some things in Christ.

That's what I found in the race conversation. And it's, I feel like it's gotten less polarized. I feel like, well, I don't know if it'll ever be, well, just in the wake of 2020, I feel like it's gotten less polarized. I feel like, well, I don't know if it'll ever be. Well, just in the wake of 2020, I feel like you just could not even talk about it without people assuming so much. It was so annoying. It's like, you know, the Bible talks about this a lot, right? Like, leave aside these political categories and let's just look at Ephesians. Let's look at Romans. But I feel like it's gotten a little bit better now.

at Rome. But I feel like it's gotten a little bit better now. I would love to know. I found out you're writing this book maybe two or three months ago as it was coming out. So I didn't know you were working on this. So can you tell us the backstory? Is this something that's been years in the making? Or is it something that you got heart for more recently? Oh, my goodness. If you would have told me, Preston, that I would be writing a book about race even three to four years ago, I would never have believed you in a million years. Look, I serve a denomination and I lead nationally in the area of discipleship. So I love all those traditional things like helping people read the Bible more deeply, learning how to pray, do their daily quiet time, go on retreats.

I'm a trained spiritual director, that kind of stuff. You know, that's my jam. I love that. And quite literally anything related to race or racial reconciliation is in a different department in the Evangelical Covenant Church. And so I myself am African American. By the way, I'll say that because my last name, Sanchez, confuses people. My husband is Latino. But yeah, I'm African American, but I didn't really see the racial reconciliation

conversation as my calling or my jam. I put it in a separate category, as many people do. I put it in a separate category, as many people do. Now, what happened? Yeah. What happened was 2020 happened. 2020 happened. And during that season of racial reckoning, when everything shut down, all of my travel stopped. I travel extensively. A new question began to emerge for me. One of them was, what is the relevance of all of these lovely discipleship practices to this conversation right now? Like, how are they related?

Furthermore, why do we still have so much racism and racial inequity in places where there are so many so-called Christian disciples? Hmm. What is going on? Right? So those questions began to nag at me and nag at me. And I realized, oh my goodness, there's been a massive hole in the way we've been doing our discipleship. The very fact that we put them in separate categories is problematic. Usually we think about anti-racism or racial reconciliation, and we think about justice, and it is a justice matter. But I think more

fundamentally, it's a discipleship matter. And the fact that we've lost sight of that is really why we have such a problem in places with lots of Christians. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that you put it in the category of discipleship. I smuggled it. I wrote a book on discipleship seven years ago and had a whole chapter on ethnic reconciliation. And I remember the publishers were like, does this fit? I'm like, it doesn't not. But I hadn't seen anybody. I just kind of smuggled it in because I'm like, I don't... And it was one of like, there's several kind of just social areas that when we think about discipleship, it's usually private personal holiness, which obviously is incredibly important. Obviously is tethered to any kind of structural kind of concerns we should have.

But I just, I don't like separating the two, these kind of broad concerns about social justice or ethnic reconciliation and then personal holiness, like they should all be wrapped up into one ball, right? So you are getting at the heart of the matter in terms of what has gone wrong. And the answer really is hundreds of years old in terms of how Christianity has developed in our culture and in, you know, other places. It has different expressions. Well, let's just stick with Western Christianity, especially among predominantly white Western Christians. What you see is that there does tend to be a disconnect between an understanding of our individual discipleship as opposed to any more systemic or societal aspects of what our discipleship means or looks like. And as I'm saying, that disconnect between kind of like

personal and communal discipleship goes way back because Preston, let's just stick to America. A lot of Christians in America, a lot of people say, oh, you know, from the beginning, tons of Christians here, but we also have had slavery here from the very beginning. And we have had oppression of indigenous people and others. So immediately from the beginning, you have this clash of what the Bible says about justice and how to treat marginalized people and what the actual people who were here and in power wanted to do in order to further their interests, right? So that creates some major cognitive dissonance. And what you have is a form of discipleship that develops and

is focused more on the individual, personal aspects of holiness and kind of pushes away the larger questions of justice. So is this, I mean, everything you're saying in a non-white church, and I don't want to collapse all non-white churches together as if they have the same background experience, but just generally speaking, is what you're saying pretty well, more well-known among non-white churches as you travel around? I mean, are you writing this to more of the white American evangelical church? Because it sounds like, as I understand it, I mean, are you going to a black church or something?

You wouldn't have to convince them that like these questions are part of discipleship, but. No. Oh, what a great question. So a couple of thoughts. First of all, yes, as it concerns churches that actually have been more at the margins, right? And that is many churches of color,

especially the black church. The things that I am saying don't apply as much here. In the black church, there has not been as much of a disconnect. There is immediately an understanding of a holistic expression of discipleship, which involves heart, mind, body, soul, involves personal and systemic. It's been that way for years, but perhaps it's a little bit more easier for that to be the case

when you're marginalized and don't have a power structure to uphold. But I would say really this dynamic, I don't love to kind of really hone in too much on the black-white divide. That's our reality in the United States. But anywhere, anywhere that you have a group that has more power than another group, you will start to see these divisions happen with regard to discipleship. A little bit more of an emphasis on the personal kind of aspects versus what the gospel or what the Lord demands in terms of justice for all, right? Power does tend to corrupt. That is true regardless of who you are and where you are. Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious, Michelle,

I don't know if, I mean, we've known each other for a few years now, but how were you raised? Were you raised a Christian? Were you raised middle class, upper class, lower middle class? What was your upbringing? And does that contribute to kind of how you're thinking through these questions now? Yes. I'm so glad you asked that question and didn't make assumptions about my background. I really appreciate that. So you asked, let me actually address something else that you asked. I didn't answer yet. You said, who is this for? Like, are you basically talking to white Christians? That's a great question. I, well, I wanted this to be relevant to everyone with an emphasis to white Christians, but also to those who have been very comfortable within white Christianity,

who have been very comfortable within white Christianity, which is me. That is the category that I have been in. And there are reasons for that. I was born in the South Bronx. My parents grew up across the street from each other in the Bronx. But through a low-income home purchase program, they were able to move out to Long Island. And Long Island has, you know, the suburbs, well-resourced school districts. So we went from a very under-resourced situation and predominantly people of color to a well-resourced school district for me and my siblings, predominantly white. And so most of my upbringing has been in predominantly white context. And also a lot of my Christian experiences. Yeah. I could say pretty much all of my Christian experience has been in one or another

predominantly white context. Okay. That provides me, I would actually say with a very unique perspective on this for a few reasons. Yeah. Remember I said, even four or five years ago, I would never have imagined writing a book about race because if I look at my own life, things have been pretty okay for me personally. They've been okay. Like I don't remember experiencing tons of interpersonal racism, you know, bigotry, none of that stuff. I had a, of interpersonal racism, you know, bigotry, none of that stuff. I had a, I had a pretty great, great, uh, upbringing, pretty great career. And I used to be a banker and how I'm in ministry. That's a story for another day, but I've had opportunities, you know, and listen, we're living in a time where you can have a black president of the United States

at the same time as you have Ferguson. That's some crazy stuff right there. States at the same time as you have Ferguson. That's some crazy stuff right there. Like, what is that about? But I, you know, I have definitely been one of those people of color who has had an exceptional experience. And I mean that literally that I've had pretty good opportunities and experiences, but over time, and especially in 2020, it hit me, man, but I still am an exception to the rules. There are still very discouraging and persistent patterns of racial inequity in almost every category that can be measured. And just because I had some opportunities and escaped that doesn't mean we still have some entrenched patterns of racial inequity to deal with.

And so the Lord opened my eyes as someone very comfortable where I was to use my platform to make a difference. I'm curious if your geographical locations would contribute to that. I mean, being raised Long Island, East Coast, I would imagine, I'm a West Coast guy, and now you've been in Chicago for a number of years. I mean, I would imagine that's different than, you know, Southern Mississippi or something. Again, I've never lived in Southern Mississippi. I don't want to make assumptions. But even being raised in California, when I talk to my friends who are raised in the South, I'm like, oh, my word.

Like, that's wow. There's just some left. I don't want to say left or, but stuff in the South that maybe happened 10, 20, even if you say, well, that was 50 years ago. Like, okay, but it still has, that still leaves a pretty long lasting footprint, let alone that there's, it's not just 50 years ago. But yeah, your geographical location, do you think that maybe contributed to maybe you having a decent experience? Definitely. Yeah, I think, yeah, that's a very perceptive question. My family, my ancestors moved up to the north from the south. So they were part of the great migration on one side, my father's side. On the other side, my mom's side, we come from the Caribbean. But there was this sense, certainly

in the deep South of like, okay, um, this is a really tough area. We need to get out of here. Okay. So thousands, tens of thousands of black people moved up to the Northern cities. And, you know, interestingly, a lot of them, uh, came up with an attitude of, we want to forget all that stuff that we left behind. We just want to let it go. I was not raised with any kind of, oh, you know, black pride, or let's talk about race all the time. It was like, thank God we're out of that situation. Like now we can like, you know, whatever, take advantage of some opportunities and have a nice life. Right. And so there was a whole lot of people that that's what they were about. But, you know, interestingly, that's created some divides, even within the Black community,

because, you know, it's like, no, we still have problems here. So if there are some folks who are escaping, you know, the worst aspects of systemic racism, hopefully you don't forget where you came from. Yeah, it's interesting. I remember reading both Ibram Kendi and Thomas Sowell, who were coming from two black intellectuals coming from very different ends of the political spectrum, but both of them talking about the tension to that situation. People coming north and moving in, then you already have people established in the north who have maybe gained some wealth and like, well, don't come here causing problems. And like tension within the black community, even like tension largely across kind of socioeconomic lines or people that had assimilated and were happy with their assimilation, whatever.

And others that weren't wanting to assimilate and causing problems. And it was fascinating for me to read as an outsider looking in. I'm like, wow, that's there's nothing simple about this trajectory. Wow. I have so many questions about your book. So I do have it. Your publisher sent me a copy. I've not dove in yet.

So I wish I could read every book before I talk about it on the podcast. But give us the elevator pitch. What is your book? How does it go about dismantling racism as an act of courageous discipleship? Yes. Oh, gosh. Well, there's a couple aspects that I really want people to understand. So as I said, my motivation in writing this was that I realized that the way we've been doing discipleship has actually been detrimental when it comes to race relations. If you think about any Discipleship 101 textbook, the classic discipleship works. Typically, there wasn't anything or much at all related to race and ethnicity. It was just considered a separate kind of thing or optional

to what it means to be a Christian. And there are historic reasons for that, as we discussed. But the reality is that I wanted disciples, first of all, to understand, okay, this race, anti-racism, racial reconciliation, whatever language you want to use, right? This is about following Jesus. And he has some things to say to us. The scriptures have plenty to say to us about what disciples should be about and also how we can be well-formed in our spiritual practices in order to engage well in the world for our future to look different than it has in the past. So first of all, the connection between dismantling racism and following Jesus,

that is kind of the heart and soul of what the book is about. The phrase color courageous, let me say something about this as well. So I like to explain people that when we look at the history of race and discipleship in this country, we can see three broad phases. So I call them the ABCs. So the first one, color averse, color averse. So we literally for many years have had forms of discipleship in different parts of the country in which an antagonism toward other races, especially the black race, has been part of the discipleship. So slave owners, you know, had a very elaborate way of exegeting the Bible to justify, you know, their actions. All black people are descendants of Ham, and therefore, they are to be slaves forever, right? And other things, like black people are not fully in the image of God, right? This is theology that forms discipleship, right? So there was also segregation-based discipleship. So all kinds of ways of exegeting the Bible that teachers and preachers would say, we're

supposed to be separate. And this is where we can find that in the Bible. All right. So you got for a long time, color averse discipleship. You're getting discipled. They're using the Bible. But man, you know, essentially the result is division, polarization and antagonism. What came next?

Now, this is after especially after the civil rights movement, colorblind, colorblind approach to discipleship. And that's really my and your generation here at Preston. Generally, the idea has been, look, we need to treat everybody the same way. We need to see everyone as equal. We need to not see color so that we can try to treat people equally and better. And I believe that many, if not most, disciples today would have some version of that hope in their mind. They're not embracing racism. They're wanting to. I mean, some are, okay,

some are, but like, I like to assume the best about most people are not consciously trying to do that, but want to treat everyone equally and see, and a lot of folks will say, I don't see color. But one of the things I talk about in the book is that new research is revealing that actually though, colorblindness tends to produce racial inequity. It tends to produce the opposite of what we expect that it does. Philip Mazzocco has an extraordinary book called The Psychology of Racial Colorblindness. And he summarizes the copious research in many fields about the impact of colorblindness. And he says, in some, it seems that colorblindness, despite its intentions, is harmful, almost exclusively harmful, both on an individual and a communal level. So why is that? Well, you have to read the books to get that. But in short, in short, if you can't see race, you can't see racism, basically.

If you are not paying attention to racial difference in general, you will often not notice whenity because you're not looking at it or for it, but rather dismissing race as a category of importance. So colorblindness for a wide variety of reasons has good intentions, but has been ineffective. And we're discovering that now. We have a society where basically nobody's racist consciously, but we still have tons of racial inequity. Why? What's going on? Right? This is where I challenge readers. What we need to become is color courageous. And this is where we, like the Lord, I would say, we still see diversity and greatly appreciate it, understand it to be a gift of the kingdom of God, and we celebrate it. But we also notice racial disparity and seek to address it. Yeah. That's super helpful, by the way,

because I think the whole idea of colorblindness, at least in the circles that I now run in, has become so taboo that it's almost shocking when I hear people say, I don't see color. I'm like, Oh, you didn't say that. Right. That's so like, Oh yeah. Um, but, but yeah, I was definitely nurtured in, um, in that I'd never heard that phrase. Well, maybe I did. Um, but it was just kind of, yeah. In, in the air, like, yeah, very few blatant rate. Like if, I mean, it may be a childhood, definitely there was blatant racism, but more like, you know, teens, know teens 20s 30s like it was it was pretty like most circles i ran in like you wouldn't if you said something racist explicitly like whoa dude you know you're you know um but there but there's that there's that that that

yeah i i see everything you're you're saying how do you distinguish i have so many questions on this and these are all i mean i i'm such an amateur when it comes to this conversation and just trying to, it's so dear to me. And yet I always feel like what is my role is as a perpetual learner. And yet I just such a huge heart for, because I have a heart like you, I have such a heart for the Bible and theology. And I just see it everywhere in scripture at key turning points in the gospel that for let's just, let's just, okay. CRT this and in 2020 that, okay. Let's, let's just do what the Bible says. First of all, let's, let's get our act together before you start freaking out over CRT or whatever. Um, anyway, I don't want to, how do you distinguish between like socioeconomic disparity and racial disparity? That's always been a big... As I read people across the spectrum of how to address the race

conversation, I don't know if I've seen a good job sorting that out. Some people on both extremes kind of collapse everything into one or the other. I don't know if it's the way I'm wired. I'm like, there's probably something in the middle that's more accurate. I don't know. Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm framing my question right. So Heather McKee wrote an incredible book. I think it was last year. It's called The Sum of Us, S-U-M. And it's all about the negative impact that racism has, not just for people of color, but actually for everybody all together. And it's making a case for why dismantling racism actually helps everybody, including it helps almost every other issue that we have. So she makes the case, a very, very cogent case and shows the data, et cetera. If you were, it's not, it's not, um, that we want to pit issues against each other,

race and poverty, let's say our bedfellows, they, they constantly go together. They're related, you know? Um, but if you were to parse out the research on like which one is the stronger indicator of success in life or of opportunities or of whatever the case may be, race is like the consistent factor, even like looking at poverty, right? Where do we have the most poverty or the most troubles or the school to prison pipeline, just choose your category. Um, it is always stratified by race. Everything else is always worse. The darker you are like everything, including poverty. So, so what that means is that if we were to deal with, let's say a socioeconomic stratification only through that lens, what we probably would get is an

unequal, we would get unequal outcomes by race. If race is not taken into account at all, that is what tends to happen. The people who are darker will get the worst outcome of that program. Hmm. My goodness, Preston, why is that? I could not say, I could not tell you. But it probably, it just probably has to do with the pernicious and long history of racial division in our country and in our world. No matter what the category, doesn't matter what it is, you'll find that stratification by race. Yeah. Interesting. Wow. It's so complicated. And that's, you know, when I think about like societal, all the societal stuff, political stuff gets overwhelming because it's like, how am I supposed to figure this out? You got economists and political scientists who can't really, I don't know, they both kind of say different things. And I'm like, I don't know. But no, that makes sense. When it comes to the church, I'm curious, I don't want to separate political societal issues from church issues because I think these are church issues. And yet I could see a problem with the church focusing so much on out there where it's not cultivating healthy rhythms within

the church of dismantling racism, building a beloved community. How do we go about that? If somebody brought you into a church and said, Michelle, you got six weeks, help us do what you're wanting to accomplish here. What would that look like in a local church? So this is a fantastic question. And, you know, Martin Luther King talked about in order to see transformation in the world, we have to start with transformation in ourselves. Yes. It begins with internal transformation. For me, that is the heart of it.

So if I have six weeks in a church, first of all, I want to start by pointing people back to our Savior, Jesus. This is not about the donkey. It's not about the elephant, right? It is about the Lamb of God. So we're going to first start with that, you know, make clear that I have no agenda other than focusing in on the kingdom of God. And what that means is sometimes people with more progressive leanings may be upset. Other times people with more conservative leanings may be upset. Jesus upset everybody. Okay. So first of all, let's hone in on Jesus and ground ourselves in the word of God. Then I would want to focus in as well on what is the end goal. So Martin Luther King has another great quote,

and it's all about what really is the purpose of where we're going? Because I would say in the world and in the church, we probably have different end games. Okay. Now, Martin Luther King had a very biblical end goal called beloved community, beloved community. Okay. Here's that quote from him. I do not think of political power as an end. Neither do I think of economic power as an end. They are ingredients in the objective we seek in life, the creation of a truly brotherly society, the Beloved Community. Yeah, that's good. We follow Jesus and the greatest command, according to him, was learning to love God and love others well, sacrificially grounded in the love of Christ.

This was King's vision too, but he, unfortunately, his life was cut short before he had the chance to really expand upon it. But centering the end game, not just in civil rights, economic power, political equality. Yes, yes, yes. But ultimately, the dream is beloved community. And ultimately, we know that that will be fulfilled only in Jesus. So we want to keep pointing people back to it. Okay, so what happens in between? We start with Jesus. We're going to the beloved community. In between, there's a few things that need to happen. One, I like to point to the fact that in the scriptures, disciples are constantly called to wake up, to awaken to darkness that is around us that we might miss. It is very easy to live our Christian life and to be pretty comfortable not seeing and understanding the depths of darkness that may be at work around us. So these days, I think there

are many believers who really have no idea. This includes me, by the way, because I've had a pretty comfortable life. No idea of some of the injustices and inequities that continue to rage around us. And, you know, 2020, I think a lot of people were like, whoa, you know, starting to understand what that looked like, which is great. But we have a biblical basis for this as well, to awaken, to awaken. So disciples need to wake up and actually see. And so, you know, go over that. Another aspect that I like to talk about is just how sin has impacted everything, even our ability to think properly. So there's something called the noetic effect of sin, okay, which is even our thought processes have been impacted by sin. impacted by sin. How does that relate to the race conversation? Well, in things like unconscious bias, we may have the best of intentions in our actions, but yet still end up treating people differently. That is a result of unconscious bias, which research shows pretty much everybody

manifests in one way or another, right? My goal is to just help people, right, make these connections between the truths of the Word of God, like sin, for example, and then help us to see how that works out and relates when it comes to race and the racial challenges that we face. So that's a really, really short answer to a big question. No, that's super. I mean, I we face. So that's a really, really short answer to a big question. No, that's super. I mean, I love that. So that's where you got to, in the subtitle of your book, build beloved community as the goal is taken from King. I love that because I do think, and maybe this was largely in the wake of 2020, Christians who are concerned about race, and I think asking some really great questions. I think it's almost like they were leaping past the church to kind of stuff

going on in society, which I would very much resonate. I'm like, yes, yes. That this is an issue. Christians should be agents for good. But when our churches are not kind of modeling the very thing we're trying to produce in society, I'm like, let's, can we do it? Can we get our act together? Maybe first, not, not to organize it in chronological terms necessarily, but like, I want our churches to be manifest in the very policy, political entity that we're wanting from society. And if we want to have the biggest impact, you know, the church has the resources

for the internal transformation that we need to have the greatest lasting impact. Okay. So that is one of the things I would say that, yes, like we can just go out there and pursue justice in the abstract. And that is fine. That is good. That is fine. We can partner with our brothers and sisters, I mean, with others in the common good, right? No matter where they are, where they come from. At the same time in Christ, we have these incredible resources, you know, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can manifest a supernatural love and ability to forgive as God has forgiven us. We can, we can lavish grace upon people, even as, you know, we're experiencing frustration on the, on the way. So, you know, for example, you know, people have pointed out that in a lot of the recent progress that's been made

on a secular basis for justice, there still has been kind of a shadow side to it, like the whole idea of cancel culture or the kind of death of forgiveness. I mean, these are things that as believers, we have resources for. And I do believe like in the civil rights movement that was led by the black church, we saw that. We saw this beautiful love-fueled movement that transformed the world. Yeah.

Yeah, the forgiveness piece, that's tough. Oh my God, why is forgiveness not tough? Yeah. No. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, um, I did start to see, it seemed like Christian's almost pitting justice up against forgiveness. Like we're going to pursue justice at the expense of forgiveness, but I think, is there a way to do both? This episode is sponsored by One Million Home, an awesome organization dedicated to winning the battle to get orphaned kids home. Did you know that there are 5.4 million kids in orphanages worldwide? Did you also know that the majority of those kids, given the right support, could actually return to their parents or other family members?

In the face of family separation throughout the world, God is setting the lonely into their families. And One Million Home is doing an amazing job creating pathways to reunify kids with their families throughout the world. You might remember that I had Brandon Stiver on the show from One Million Home a few podcasts ago. It was episode 989. And I was so blown away at the amazing work that he and 1 Million Home are doing. So we are

inviting Theology in Raw listeners, the Theology in Raw community to join the movement of family reunification for Giving Tuesday this year. That's November 29th. It's coming up. It only costs $250 to reunite a kid with their family. So that's what your Giving Tuesday gift will be going to. So if you have a heart for orphans, and if you're a Christian, you kind of should, and you want to contribute to more effective and biblical ways of caring for orphans, then go to 1millionhome.com forward slash T-I-T-R. That's the number one, the million home, no spaces,.com forward slash T-I-T-R. one, then millionhomenospaces.com forward slash T-I-T-R. This episode is sponsored by Biola University's Talbot School of Theology. Okay, so I get asked a lot about which seminaries do I recommend, and my response is always the same. It's, well,

it kind of depends on what you're looking for. But no matter what, Talbot is always one of my top recommended schools, partly because I feel like I know like half the professors there, so I can vouch for who they are and I know their character. I know what you're going to get into. But I've also spoken on campus, which I had an amazing time on the campus there. I've had several of the profs on the podcast. Here's what I love most about Talbot. They do a fantastic job combining rigorous scholarship that's saturated with a deep love for the church.

And it's all integrated with a pervasive emphasis on spiritual formation in the lives and hearts of the students. The professors are super down to earth. They're involved in their churches. Many of them are pastors at their church. And they also write high-powered academic books. So if you're looking to deepen your understanding of scripture or just be more equipped to serve your family, your church, the world around you, Talbot offers many different courses and degree programs. And they also have done a really fantastic job with their online program where you can attend live online or watch pre-recorded courses by some amazing professors. So if you've been thinking about going to seminary, check out biola.edu forward slash Talbot.

That's T-A-L-B-O-T, biola.edu forward slash Talbot. That's T-A-L-B-O-T. Biola.edu forward slash Talbot to get more information. You mentioned the progress that has been made. Have you seen, you're in churches all the time, different churches. I mean, have you seen since, let's just say since 2020, progress made in churches where you're like,

man, you guys have come a long way in a really healthy way. And this is really encouraging. Like, are you hopeful when you go around and look at other churches? So it's complicated. I'm sure that you've heard about, perhaps even talked about on this podcast, the sorting of evangelicalism. So we are seeing a lot of fracturing really going on within the church, right? A lot of polarizations developing in many different areas, whether they be human sexuality, race, or a whole host of other things that are kind of dividing evangelicals in particular, but also beyond that. So when I hear your question, what I think about is, well, it feels like there's been a sorting and there are some, and I'm primarily in the evangelical space, there are some evangelical churches that have seen the light and are on a journey.

They have embraced the journey and are on the journey. And I am very encouraged by this group. But then I think there are also others where there's been a backlash. And it's now harder than it was before to make any progress. Incredibly, I see both. Is that because maybe the people there, like the congregation is now seeing any kind of racial language through political terms. Um, if you talk about racial, even now, like racial reconciliation, five, six, eight, 10 years ago, we're starting to catch on people, conservative churches were starting to, but now it's like, whoa, are we going woke?

Are we, you know, whatever doing this? Like, is that, is that part of the problem that everything's interpreted through a political lens? 100%. 100%. Is that part of the problem that everything's interpreted through a political lens? One hundred percent. One hundred percent. We have and not just that, right, because a political lens isn't necessarily bad. But the problem is that a lot of our politics now is driven by fear.

OK, yeah. It's driven by fear. And anger. It's yeah, it's driven by zero sum situation. So if we help, you know, one group, another group's going to lose. And, you know, that that kind of fear based politics all around, you know, that we see everywhere. That is, I think, then the problem becomes, yeah, if you're looking at race through the lens of fear based politics, then then yeah, the whole conversation becomes unnecessarily polarized. How do we get through this? Because we got another big election in a couple of years. I mean, we just went through the prime, whatever the midterms, but I mean, it's not, politics are not going away. And if we don't get this right, I think it's going to be worse this next time, I think. I mean, and this is right. Every single pastor I talked to said 2020 was the hardest year of ministry.

And it wasn't because we went through a global pandemic per se. It was shepherding people through all of the political responses to this. And then obviously the race conversation was a big deal wrapped up into that. How do we disciple our churches out of this kind of polarized mindset? I think what helps me is to focus on bright spots. Bright spots. What I mean by that is, generally speaking, right now, we're going through some dark times. Again, fear and polarization seem to be what's in the air. It's what's in the culture. And of course, you know, we can pray and work towards something different. But the easier to change your world. Your world, okay? Your particular church community, your particular circle of influence, your particular family, the leadership rules that you hold. What are the things that can be done in those spheres? And as we engage

in our own spheres of influence, I believe we will start to see bright spots. We'll start to see encouraging things happen that we can lean into, right? That is the only way I think to keep going, because if we keep looking at the big picture, we could get discouraged at some of the things that have been happening. We could get discouraged at some of the things that have been happening, but bright spots and change are always possible within our own worlds. Yeah, yeah. How is the ECC doing as a whole, if I can get specific? I mean, this is your context.

I've spoken publicly with great affirmation of the ECC Church, I love how the ECC church, for those who aren't familiar with it, the Evangelical Covenant Church, I mean, you guys are solidly evangelical. You major on the majors. You allow a lot of local church flexibility. I think it's a good balance between local autonomy and denominational affiliation. But you guys from the beginning have been passionate about so-called social issues before it was kind of sexy to be passionate about them, but you're doing it because of the gospel. Like it wasn't like, oh no, we're drifting to liberalism. It was, we're drifting close, deeper into the heart of the gospel, which has all these social implications. And,

and I know it's not perfect. And I, you know, talk to pastors and say, well, it's not perfect, you know, but it's, it's, I love the lane you guys are in. So what's the underbelly of it all? Tell me some know, but it's, it's, I love the lane you guys are in. Um, so what's the underbelly of it all? Tell me some dirt here. Um, but yeah, how is the denomination, how has it weathered the storm in the last couple of years? Okay. Uh, as with everything else, it's sort of a sophisticated answer here, but let me first say that, um, for anyone who is involved with the conversation about race and the church, most people will

recognize the Evangelical Covenant Church as a pioneer in terms of racial righteousness, which is the language we've used for many, many years. We've been really pioneering in this area, and many of current thought leaders in this area are affiliated in one way or another with the Evangelical Covenant Church. A couple of names that come to mind would be like Michael Emerson. He's the author of Divided by Faith. He actually goes to my covenant church, my local covenant church here in Chicago. And I interviewed him for the book and everything else, but he's a covenant person. Or Sung Chan Ra is another person that many people know, recently wrote Prophetic Lament. Dominique Gilliard is our director of

racial righteousness, author of Rethinking Incarceration, Subversive Witness. These are all covenant people. And there's like so many, so many more people I could name who have just been involved for years and years and years in this work and in shaping the kingdom of God. I think there's a couple of interesting things going on with the covenant. So first of all, I think there's a couple of interesting things going on with the covenant. So first of all, this may come as a surprise, but we used to be 100% Swedish. It was the Swedish covenant church. Okay.

That's as wide as you get. I wasn't there. Yeah. I wasn't there at the time. But this added a few unique elements. So the Swedes came over. We're talking like the last hundred years or so here. Like they're recent immigrants to the United States, more so than lot in the Midwest and such, and they experienced ethnic discrimination of various kinds because they were seen as outsiders, as lower than the people who

were here, the existing white people that were here, right? Swedish was the official language of the covenant church until like the 1950s, I want to say. Official language of the Swedish covenant church. Yeah. And they had to vote, you know, in order to make it English and try to reach people who were non-Swedish. This is like recently. Okay. Now, what is interesting about that is I think because they experienced a little bit of ethnic marginalization themselves. I mean, of course, now Swedes are just, you know, considered white for the most part and assimilated. But there's this memory of that ethnicity was important and that they were marginalized. And then there was an evangelistic emphasis in the 50s, 60s to say,

look, we want to reach our neighbors here. And so we need to be welcoming of people besides Swedish people, if we're going to reach the world for Jesus, right? Of course. And so there was a lot of talk around what that means, you know, to move from all Swedish to embracing others. So you see this, this isn't like the water. And it starts early. And then there are several key events throughout history, our covenant history, that led to where we are now. But one other thing I will mention for anyone that's interested, I'd say, hey, if there's like one secret to the covenant and multi-ethnicity, what is it?

It's something we call the six-fold test. Okay, six-fold test. You can Google this. Just Google six-fold test, Evangelical Covenant Church. It'll pop right up. And essentially, this is something that we developed years ago. Forgive me, I don't remember the exact year, maybe 20, 30 years ago, something like that, or longer. And essentially, these are six tests that we use to measure our progress when it comes to race. Okay. So here are the six words, six P's population, participation, power, pace setting, purposeful narrative, and practicing solidarity.

Now I could say a lot about each of these population. This is just straight out diversity, just straight out. Do we have the numbers? Are there people like, you know, are there Brown people here? Right. Just basic. Okay. Michelle, for clarity, the, the, the, are these, are these building off each other? Is that what we're going to hear here? Do they build off each other? I'd say you can do one without the others, but if you do, um, you probably are not going to have much success. Okay. I mean, it sounds like they all build off the first one for sure, but if you do, um, you probably are not going to have much success. Okay. I mean, it sounds like they all build off the first one for sure, but the rest may be okay. Right. So sort of, um, once you get toward the latter end, I think some of them are interchangeable or exchangeable depending on like the order. Ideally you're doing all at once.

Okay. But yes, uh, straight out Population. Do you have people of color in the room? Second, are they participating? You can just be at the room, in the room, but actually not have any kind of voice or really be at the table. Okay. Power is the third one. And this is what we ask. Are the positions and structures of influence influenced by the gifts of diverse populations? So this is saying we want to not look at just who's in the room, but do they have a vote? Really, are they able in our system as it's set up? Are they represented there and able to make a difference? Do they able, in our system as it's set up, are they represented there and able to make a difference? Do they have power? Where does the power lie here? And do we see people of color?

Is the word influence too weak to stand in for power, or would that be a close synonym? I'm asking because the word power as a structure of the church, I'm nervous about that term across the board. Not nervous, not nervous, because maybe certain versions of power where it turns, maybe coercive power is what I'm thinking of, which is just anybody with power, they're going to struggle with wanting to coerce, like use that power for selfish gain or whatever. So I don't, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just kind of thinking. We have seen this on a very practical level. So we will, we'll literally, literally say, okay, within the covenant church, let's look at our, our boards. Let's look at our

committees that are actually designing ministry and ministry initiatives. Let's look at our leadership teams or covenant leadership team. How are we doing there? Because a lot of times what you'll have is an organization that, um, you know, their website will look beautiful with lots of diverse people, you know, maybe their audiences are diverse in different ways or whatever. Right. But then you look at the board, you look at all the leaders, you know, everybody is white. And so that's the kind of thing where people of color end up getting frustrated and potentially leaving or, you know, raising justice concerns because it's like, you know, we want to also have influence. So influence, I think, can be used and we use it to describe what we mean.

But you need something stronger than influence. I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's good. So and a lot of times it actually is off people's radar. They don't necessarily think, oh, yeah, we say we value diversity, but really, do we see it at all levels or is it just on the bottom of our organization? That's very common, Preston. I got my head down.

I'm like, I don't know. Okay. But, but, you know, once you see it, you notice it and you begin to say, oh, what can we do about that? And that's what's happened with us. A couple of other things and then we can dive into any one of these more. But pace setting. So pace setting is like, are we just kind of lagging behind others when it comes to race? Or are we like setting the pace?

Are we doing pioneering, you know, interesting, creative things? Or are we just kind of catching up like when somebody complains, right? Which is a big difference. Okay. Purposeful narrative. Do the stories of different kinds of people become incorporated into our overarching story and history at this place, right? Do all of the streams of stories flow together into one story moving forward? You know, whose stories do we get to hear at our events, at our gatherings, in our like nostalgia, you know, our legacy?

Whose stories are we hearing? And finally, practicing solidarity. And so this is how are we sharing in the suffering of others in an individual and communal level? Okay, man. So each one of these, right, is pretty incredible. But I hope, what I hope to communicate here is I think that the covenant has done well because we're coming at it from so many different angles. And it's the combination of all of these that really leads to transformation. This is really, really helpful. I feel like the first three I've heard under different terms. The second three are really interesting to me. I've not considered it like this. The purposeful narrative one. Well, all of them are great. The last three are particularly enlightening.

I'm going to try and represent, like I'm trying to think of like what questions would people have? Because as I talk to people, they, a lot of, I'll just say majority white Christian leaders, when they hear this, they get like, yes,

like they get, I don't hear a lot of verbal aversion. I hear a lot of like, where do I start? I got a sermon to prepare. I'm so encouraged by that. Praise Jesus. Yeah. I mean, you'll see it at the, at the, um, it's, it's funny. The, uh, the, the conference that you're going to be speaking at, like it's the, might be the only setting I've seen where it's way more ethnically diverse on stage than it is in the congregation. Among the congregation, I think there is a hunger for people to want to see these things implemented,

but just either they have lack of power to implement it or they're in spaces where it's just like, I don't, it like, I don't know how to move forward. The population. So if a church like, I always use my own example, Idaho is, or Boise is I think 92% Caucasian and it might be 5, 6% Latino. African American might be 1 to 2%. We do have a fairly decent size, uh, refugee population. So, uh, most people of color you see are wearing like full burka or something, you know? Um, so how would somebody in Boise, like is, and the class, and I've talked to

Derwin about this and others, and it's just, it's kind of like your, your church should generally reflect the demographic of where it's at. You can't really, there's not a whole lot more you can do. Or also you can also partner with other churches in other areas that are maybe just across maybe geographical lines, just in some kind of awareness and partnership and camaraderie, even if in your local community might not have as much diversity as you would hope. Are there other things that I'm missing here? What would you say about the geographical limitations? Yes. So the first thing that I like to point out is that Jesus was mainly engaged in a

mono-ethnic ministry context. Jesus was called to the Jewish people. He called 12 Jewish disciples, right? And he was clear about this, that this is his call. And he's in Israel. Jesus didn't travel outside, you know, to do lots of global missions at the time, right? He was a primarily mono-ethnic minister, but there are so many interesting things that we see in the life of Jesus. He cast a vision for something beyond that. He started with Israel, but he would constantly interact with the ethnic minority, right? The marginalized person. He would raise them up as heroes in his stories. The Good Samaritan as an example, right? He would go to where they were and bring his people with

them. That's, you know, the woman at the well and going into Samaria and engaging there. He would do these things to uphold values for something more and something bigger than what was in the immediate context. Of course, at the end of his ministry, we have the Great Commission. I want you to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations. Now that word nations actually in the Greek is ethne. Ethne. Does it sound like Preston? Ethnicity, right? So an even better translation really than a sociopolitical nation would be all the diverse people groups, all the ethnic groups of the world. I want you to go and make disciples of them, right? In a very similar way, I think that no matter where you are, whatever the composition of your immediate place,

you can be casting a vision for God's heart. You can cast a vision for God's heart. And you never know where people will be going, where God will call people, what kind of opportunities they'll have, right? You don't know that. Your job is to cast the vision. And I like to compare this to how, say, say a little church in Idaho, since that's where you're from. Yes. A little church there in Idaho, predominantly white setting, can be a global missions church. They can have a heart for global missions, even though, guess what? Some people from that little, you know, unreached people group in Indonesia, they don't go to their church, right? But they can learn about this people group. They can understand what it is that they need. They can support. They can visit. They can, you know, have a heart as a church to the extent that they are engaged, right,

in global missions, even though nobody from the field is coming to their church. So, okay, so I think we've confused a little bit having a multi-ethnic church with just being engaged in the work of racial righteousness and racial justice. You could do that no matter what the composition of your church. A global multi-ethnic vision that, if at all possible, is manifested in the church to the extent that it can be, but even if it's not to the extent we would want having a vision, it just saturates everything we do say. And yeah. And I mean, even in Boise, it is, I mean, a lot of predominantly white churches have, you know, refugee churches that use their space. lot of predominantly white churches have, you know, refugee churches

that use their space. You know, some churches have two or three different churches. And I just want to say, first of all, that's amazing. But second of all, is there, could we explore what integration could look like? First of all, it's going to be super messy because you're dealing with, I mean, strong cultural differences here. But like, I don't know. And I've seen churches kind of toy with this a little bit. And you begin to see people kind of in, not just again, I'm just so allergic against the idea of assimilation. Like, oh no, they can come and sing our white songs, you know, but is there a way we can actually integrate different cultural expressions, which will be messy.

People will leave, you know, services will go longer if you're generally integrating. But at least start to ask the question is there more integration we can do because i think there is i don't know the population i do feel like there's usually more for lack of better terms population availability than we sometimes have our eyes open to but so we need to engage in relationship yes and and evangelicals especially white evangelical people like to hone in on that one. And we have more work to do. We do have more work to do. If there's people in your community that could be integrated, amen, 100%, go after it. But at the same time, we also have these major

systemic issues that we could make a difference in, right? We could begin to have a heart and a culture even around that as well in our churches. And I think that's where we really need to grow. Yeah. Good, good. I have another question. I'm not sure how to ask this. It could even be offensive, maybe how I'm asking it, but I hope our relationship will cover that. Yeah. Don't you love that preface? And I don't even know what category. This would be maybe, let's say, it would include the first three, but let's just participation and power or even some of the purposeful narrative. Sometimes I feel, and this comes probably more from like white progressives, when they think,

and this comes probably more from like white progressives when they think, no, yes, we need to empower people of color, especially black people in our, in our largely white churches. It seems to have this political kind of like undertone to it. Like, you know, let me, let me try to find a, maybe a more offensive example. Like let's empower, we need somebody of color on, on our leadership team. Okay. Well, let's get, right. Candace Owens is on, you know, is, is part of our chair. Let's have her like, Oh no, not, not a right winger or, you know,

me personally, one of the most, I would say Christian nationalism, blatant sermons, anti-CRT, anti-woke sermons in that language. I don't like that language, but that's the, you know, was from a black guy at a conference. And I'm like, this is like, I'm so offended at how like nationalistic this sermon was. So is it simply integrating race in participation of power? Or is there a, are there better forms of that? I'm not even sure how to even ask it, you know, cause I, I, I don't, I, I, I do think there is a, maybe a majority view among, uh, especially black Christians in America. And then you do have this kind of outlier outliers that are, I want to respect everybody's

individuality, everybody's narrative, but I don't know. I'm nervous about, here's where I'm nervous about. I'm nervous about white, more right-leaning, maybe churches, hand-selecting the kinds of people in power that have maybe more political resonance with them and say, see, all right, we did it. That's right. I don't know. Is that even a valid concern that people ask you this question before? Yes. This is being able to look through complex lenses here because it's not a very simplistic conversation. The reality is, as I mentioned earlier in the conversation, we are at a strange moment in history, right? It used to be that if you were black, um, in the United States,

you can almost guarantee a certain kind of experience. Now it's more, it's more diverse. I'll just stay with the black community, right? I mean, you have some people that can catapult all the way to the top in various parts of society now who are African-American and fully buy in to the idea of meritocracy, which I do. I mean, meritocracy is a great thing. Work hard, get what you deserve, right? I mean, that sounds right. That sounds good. But speaking personally, as an example, I grew up watching The Cosby Show and loved it. And Claire Huxtable was my idol. And I thought, I'm going to be just like, you know, the Cosby family when I get older and I'm just going to work hard, get great jobs, have a nice townhouse. It's going to be awesome, you know? And I just bought into fully meritocracy. That's all we need, right? Here's the reality. It works for some Black people. It works great

for some Black people, right? And so it's easy to say, well, look what I did. I worked hard. You need to work hard, too. Right. Which Cosby is known for that, by the way. So you have tremendous diversity even within the black community. You see the same thing in the Latino community when it comes to the stance toward immigration. Right. So just because you're black doesn't mean, you know, you're going to understand the ongoing realities that still exist. Maybe things have worked out well for you. Maybe, you know, certain ideologies have worked fine for you. It's helped me to step back as I have gotten older, as more information has become available and really look and see, okay, I've had an exceptional experience, but on a larger level, there are still these systemic, bigger picture patterns. That's what we need to get at. You can always find individuals now, praise God, individuals who don't match that, but those systemic inequities still exist. That's what we

need to get at. In addition to all of the local relational stuff that we do. Right, right, right. So in a sense, I'm hearing you saying like, whoever God has brought to you and whatever people are qualified to hold positions of influence, leadership, and power, qualified to hold positions of influence, leadership, and power. Praise God. But just even theologically, let's go almost beyond people's individual racial makeup. We do have this blend of personal responsibility, structural injustice, and complicated things that are affecting people of race. So yeah, that's super helpful, actually. I didn't even think about the complexity. It's just like you. I'm in lots of different kinds of environments. And it's just the whole idea of like all these people think this way or whatever. It's like that just doesn't – there's so much more diversity out there. complicated and messy and you can't make these assumptions about people and hopefully stereotypes are starting to go away but um purposeful narrative i love the purposeful narrative part um i think that's can you give us an example um and then i'm we're coming up on an hour here we're over an hour do you have a quick example do you have a quick example of what that could

look like because i think that is a really like something that I think a lot of people don't even think about, but can be super, super powerful. I think that there are many examples, but one of the things that's been impactful for us over time in the covenant is that we have these racial discipleship pilgrimages. And one of them is called Sankofa. So Sankofa is an African word, which means you look back in order to go forward. And we invite people of different races into this journey where we go and visit civil rights monuments and sites of significance throughout the Deep South. And we tell stories, we listen, we hear stories, um, and we're just constantly sharing, you know, learning, um, what is your story? Where have you been? And, and

especially where have people of color been the African-American community and church, and how can that, um, those stories speak into who we are, who we're becoming, and what could be for us going forward. So yeah, I would call it like a racial discipleship storytelling kind of journey, learning the stories of the past, learning the stories of the present, and then developing new stories for the future. That's one example. You know, it's one thing to take a class and learn about racial inequality. It's another to kind of immerse yourself in an experience where you hear stories and can be transformed that way. It's funny, the only ECC church we have here in town, I know the pastor really well, Josh, and he took his whole church to the local,

there is a local, I think it's a Black History Museum, not museum, something. But they went as a church and they had the director kind of tell stories about the African-American experience in Boise, which is, you know, it's not something you hear about every day. It's like, wait, has there been one,

you know? Um, but yeah, it was really, it was really eyeopening. And he said it was such a great discipleship experience for his church, you know? So,

um, yeah, that's, you got it. Well, that's it. That's a great example. Michelle,

uh, thank you so much for being on theologyology and Rob. The book is Color, Courageous Discipleship, Follow Jesus, Dismantle Racism, and Build Beloved Community. It came out just recently, November 1st. It was released. So excited to dig into this and all the links and stuff will be in the show notes. So please do check it out. Michelle, you're a gift to the church and keep doing what you're doing. You're doing awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

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