Theology in the Raw - S8 Ep877: Race, CRT, and Evangelicalism: Dr. Ed Uszynski

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Dr. Ed Uszynski currently serves as Senior Content Strategist for Family Life Ministry and as a Oneness and Diversity Consultant for Athletes in Action, with whom he has been training staff and ministering to college and professional athletes since 1992. He has an MA and M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a Ph.D. in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. He and his wife Amy have four children and live in Xenia, OH. Ed is also an expert in CRT and has some super nuanced and wise thoughts about race relations in America. This is a super raw and uncut convo, y’all. Bear with us. We’re all on a journey. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today a very, very good friend of mine, Dr. Ed Uzinski. We go way back, and so we are able to have lots of just super raw, engaging, challenging conversations with each other. Ed's just an amazing thinker, has an amazing heart, and he did a PhD in American Studies from Bowling Green University and basically lived, ate, slept, and breathed critical race theory for three or four years. And so this guy is very well acquainted with the critical theory conversation. I mean, he's been engaged in the race conversation for many decades, really. And so he's always a great dialogue partner. And in this conversation, we get into the race conversation.

I'm very well aware that we're two white guys talking about it. Hopefully, this podcast can be put in the context of many other conversations I've had about race with other people of color, other white people, other people who are interested in the conversation. people of color, other white people, other people who are interested in the conversation. And I think you'll appreciate how both Ed and I come out this conversation acknowledging that we are not of color, that we are white, that we are limited in our perspective on this conversation. And yet I always appreciate everything that comes out of Ed's mouth. So we, we, um, man, we get really raw and vulnerable in this conversation, especially towards the end. I mean, there there's, I, I actually re-listened to this conversation and just to be totally honest with you guys, like I'm not a hundred percent, um, uh, excited about how this conversation ended at the end. We are talking openly and thinking through different things. And I even debated, should I even release this conversation? I'm

like, you know what? This is Theology in a Raw. We're all on a journey. We're all working on our thoughts. And so I'm going to release it, man. So this is us on our journey, thinking through this really important conversation. Dr. Ed Uzinski, you can find him on Twitter. If you can spell his last name, it's all in the show notes. I hardly even know how to spell his last name, even though I've known him for like 15 years, but he's been working for Athletes in Action for a number of years and is actually writing a book on critical race theory, which I can't wait to read because he's such a thoughtful guy. So thanks for joining me on the show. If you'd like to support Theology in the Raw, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw.

And if you can't support the show, that's totally awesome. Please consider leaving a review and or sharing this podcast on your social media platform. So without further ado, let's welcome back to the show for the umpteenth time, the one and only Dr. Ed Gzinski. What's going on, man? Are we still living in 2021 or have we moved on to 2020? Hey, I'm living outside the garden, fully outside the garden. I was just thinking we should spend some time just talking about the nature and persistence of weeds as i've been working in my yard now uh we can talk about weeds in our personal life weeds in society i was gonna say you talking metaphorically or well i'm dealing with literal

right now but metaphorical could make for an interesting podcast hey you're you're uh you're already you got some size on me, but the way your screen is oriented, it looks like I'm your little kid brother. Maybe drop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little tiny bit more. I can't go up. I I'm icing my leg right now. I've got this sciatica nerve thing going on. And so sitting really hurts. I was standing all morning. People keep, people keep criticizing me for getting too close to the screen. That's where that domination comes in. I'm trying to use my physical presence.

You're still up there. Oh, there you go. Oh, you're propping it up. Okay. Yep. How's that? Well, I'm too short. I'm like, for some reason, my chair is not.

Yeah, you are really sunk down let me drop my camera down here people don't want to hear this most people listen anyway they're not watching it oh there we go there we go i got some size on you now i just lost 25 pounds i don't know maybe that podcast material you look good you still benching 250 300 what do you know i don't do any of that i just try to sweat yeah just try to get there and sweat sweat out all my stress i used to lift for strength and now i lift so that it raises my metabolism so that when i cook a rack of ribs, I burn it off before three in the morning, you know? Right on. Oh, yeah. No, I only do it now because I feel miserable from sitting all day, and I need to move. And if I wait too long in the day to go out and do something,

you know, I go to the YMCA, I'll swim or do the rowing machine or do any of the usual junk that's in there just to get a little sweat going. I can't do it after two or three o'clock in the afternoon or I I feel worse yeah yeah me too just go in the morning and I try to get a sweat with all the old dudes that are in there yeah yeah yeah man it's I mean yeah I sometimes because I work in my basement so sometimes my exercise if I if I don't go to the gym or go on a run, which I can't do now, my exercise is walking down from my top floor to my basement, which is about 20 steps. Then I go up for lunch. Yeah, that's not – Go back down.

Don't strain yourself. So for me, going to the gym for an hour and doing some kind of cardio is like – I consider it part of my – if I don't do that, I will die at 58 sitting around. Might as well be smoking six packs a day, I mean sitting around all day. I've seen those articles. It really is interesting, isn't it? the people that will allow themselves, I wonder even for people that are listening to this, that for some people, the idea of working out is something separate. It's a luxury. It's maybe even a vanity quest of some kind. But for other people, and I think this is what we're describing for us, it's part of my workday or else I can't function. I think some of that's tied just identity-wise, I think, to having an athletic background and having taught myself to do that since i was in eighth grade but i think the

bigger part is just my body needs it to stay sane literally i mean i just start you know i feel terrible i get darker in my mind i have to sweat and move. I'm sure there's been a ton written about that. You know what I've been doing recently is that because I have this – my whole right leg would be better gone than still here. My ankle swelled up. I injured it a few years ago. My right calf has this tightness. My lower back, I threw it out, which now has aggravated the sciatica.

My whole right side of my body, it's just in pain. So I've been going to the – I've been doing the elliptical because that's no impact. And then I read a book. Dude, I blow through like a – I'll get like 20 chapters or 20 pages in, and it's been like an hour. I've been on elliptical for like an hour, and I hate the elliptical. It's like the most boring thing ever. You start reading, though, and it takes your mind off,

and now I'm doing two things at one time. It's great. You trick yourself. I've been listening to janet jackson's rhythm nation to trick myself i go back into the late 80s and take myself back into high school what happened to your back how did that i i don't know i'm i i've had on i've i throw it out periodically so i think it's just throwing it out off and on for 10 years i had a really bad snowboarding fall in january and then tweaked it after that and then it just tightened up for a month or two i kept lifting kept working out and then just like a month and a half ago i threw it out doing something then the next day i coughed and it seized up and i was on the ground

no my wife had to drag me to the chiropractor and like they had to almost pick me up by the car and lay me on the is it was bad dude so i don't know and this i don't what is sciatica some nerve to just like why just shoot it with cortisone or something i don't all i ever hear anytime i hear that word there's a story either right before or right after of somebody laying on the ground somewhere, needing to be drugged from that position by a helpmate or a close friend. Yeah, that's terrible, man. I'm sorry to hear that.

It's all right. Well, dude, let's, so for those in the intro, I'm sure I would have said something about your credentials. But more than anybody I know, I feel like you have the most well-thought-out, balanced, level-headed analysis of just kind of cultural movement. Probably top five people that I know. I just had Gabe Lyons on. I think he's really good. He's got a good – he never says unthoughtful. Everything he says, whether you agree or not, he has really thought through it.

He's read tons of stuff. He would be up there, but you're definitely there. I mean, given your educational background, you just – I don't know. You have an ability to see things from different sides and always push – you have the personality to want to push back, even if you might agree on a point. I might share some of those sensibilities. Yeah, man. So, man, last time we talked, I think it was September of 2020. And 2020 is still here, it seems like. How have you thought through the last, let's just go the last nine months. What's been on your mind? It's still lingering.

My goodness, what's been on my mind? Well, what you and I talked about last time was the whole racial climate in this culture. And that gave me about nine months worth of work to do because lots of folks reached out to want to continue the conversation. And I don't think that's died down. I don't think it's going to die down. I mean, it's been, we even talked about this, it's been around for centuries in this country. And so there's some new language being used and there's a new cultural moment that it's finding itself in. And there's this focus, really a profound focus on what's happening with police and authority. But it's

still the same conversation, both in the church and just in culture in general. It's the same kind of conversation that's been going on for centuries, and I don't see that dying down anytime soon. You and I have been talking on the side just a little bit about media, and I think about that all the time too, and how messaging affects the way we view the world, how it affects the positions that we wind up finding ourselves taking, both, again, as Christians and non-Christians. And I think that's fascinating. I'd be curious even to pick your brain a little bit just on what you've been thinking, because I know you've been doing some intense work with Neil Postman. I don't know if you've been bringing that up in

other podcasts, but that's a good name to expose your audience to, because he's maybe even more relevant now than he was in the 80s when he wrote the stuff that he became famous for in Christian circles. Yeah, so I'd be curious to hear kind of what you've been doing in your own reflections on the cultural moment that we find ourselves in. I feel like my primary, almost exclusive thinking on any of these topics has been within the church up until I would say the last two years where I've kind of like paid more attention to the broader culture. And so I, that alone should tell anybody out there, don't, you know, give my thoughts, you know,

two or three cents worth when it comes to kind of looking at broader cultural political movements. For one, because of my political stance, which is I'm an exile in Babylon. I mean, Babylon, it's entertaining kind of how they try to rule the world. It's sometimes depressing and comical. But I've been primarily focused on how we live as exiles in the midst of Babylon without really even weighing in on Babylonian debates on how Babylon should best fight off Persia and how should they institute Babylonian laws? Because it's all a charade. It's all a shadow. It's all one power grab after another. And sometimes Babylon does things that do affect the well-being of other Babylonians and exiles

should care about that. And sometimes it affects exiles, you know? So I don't want to, and I think I may have done this to a fault in the past where I made such a harsh distinction between, and I hope people get the metaphor, maybe 10% aren't getting it, but yeah, I don't know. And that's where it's tricky, right? Like, okay, but you live in an exile in the middle of Babylon where Christians live in America. America's Babylon. We're in exile. Does that mean we care nothing about how America, our current Babylon, does things? Or is that... Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. So I literally was thinking this as you were asking me what I've been thinking about. My sentence would be, what does Christian responsibility look like in light of the cultural moment that we find ourselves in?

And I feel like you just gave language to that question. And I would throw this out, Preston, even before we talk about the options of how to engage, one of the things that's frustrated me and that I'm a little bit dismayed about it, I've been even trying earlier to think about what the right word is to describe what I'm experiencing in light of this reality. Frustrated, dismayed, a little bit shocked, but then saying, why would I be shocked? And that is this, that Christian people, I think, in general, are doing a poor job of recognizing that there are different conversations that are going on in Babylon, as you're referring to the larger secular culture, versus what are going on in the church. They may be the same topics that are needing to get discussed, but the line of thinking, what we appeal to, our ability to separate ourselves out from political positions, or not, to not do that, it ends up muddying the conversation. So for example, when it comes to race, I feel like there is a conversation that is happening about race in the greater culture

that's heading in a particular direction, that's being fueled by particular language and systems of thinking. And we've talked about this before, the critical theory and critical race theory and Marxism and all these other things, identity politics. That's all part of this battle that's happening. Systemic racism, police brutality, all this language. And I'm not saying whether that's good or bad. It's just over there being talked about in secular culture. Inside the church, I think we should have some different language. We should have a theological understanding of the concept of justice, for example. We should be immersed in care and concern for vulnerable populations, regardless of color, regardless of gender, regardless of background.

We should be robustly able to think about what it means to care for the least of these, to watch out for people who are being taken advantage of in some way. That's a biblical idea that we should be deeply immersed in theologically and biblically. But I don't think that's happening for most Christian people are engaging those issues, if they're doing it at all, with the secular stuff and don't recognize that we need to separate ourselves a little bit from that and think in two different lanes. All right, that was a little monologue. Go ahead and respond to some of that. No, gosh, you took the words out of my mouth, man. I want to get into some maybe points of disagreement at some point, but we might be on the same exact... I don't think you and I really... Let's agree for a while, man. Let's agree for a while. I don't know if you and I would disagree or be too strong. We might emphasize different sides

of the same coin with the same real goal in mind, but everything you're saying here really is... And I'm going to look into this camera over here. So from the YouTube, if I look over at you, it looks like I'm looking away from you. So yeah um, uh, yeah, I mean, we, we, we have, we, I mean, some Christians have approached some of these broader cultural issues and it's also, you know, they come out of the woodwork start critiquing CRT and they never even addressed the race conversation on the theological level. Like we have, we have done a horrible job, generally speaking, in embodying and believing and obeying the rich scriptural theme of what the kingdom of God is designed to look like and how it's designed to function in terms of its multi-ethnic backbone, really. I mean, you got in Galatians, and there's so many passages we can

go to, Galatians 2, where Peter, out of ethnic concerns, removes themselves from eating with the Gentiles, right? I mean, this was an ethnic aversion. He did eat the Gentiles, but then all of a sudden he got pressured from some Jews, and you had this rich Jew-Gentile thing going on, and Paul says, you are not walking in step with the truth of the gospel. He calls him on the carpet for not obeying the gospel because he was making for, you know, just on a 30,000 foot level, like really bad ethnic, ethnically oriented decisions. We've been doing that for years and we have not, for years. And we have not, as a white dominated evangelical church, we have not recognized how we have fallen short of embodying this beautiful kingdom, multi-ethnic community. Okay. So that we can work on that. But then when we don't address that, we bypass that and then

come out and say, critical race theory is Marxism and they're going to destroy their country and our nation and it's all this kind of nationalistic kind of like language we're surrounded with it's like of course people of color especially black people are going to roll their eyes and say no no sorry you're going to stay silent for all these years and then you're you're going to decide to speak out then you can go back in your white woodwork and then not and you and you know you know and i think my audience yeah i got lots of concerns about critical race theory and all this stuff like i i think there's problems there but my main question this is something john tyson raised he's like you know he said i'm not even as interested in critical race theory as a thing. I'm more interested in what has given the need for something like critical race theory to be a thing that has been addressed. And I'm even more concerned with just what I said, you know,

the church not doing its theological thing and bypassing this, the theology for the kind of partisanship debates that now they decide to enter into. Is that, am I off on that? I mean, you're... No, no, again, I think you're giving language to some of what I'm dismayed about. And I want to call us as Christians to separate ourselves from Babylon, which I don't say that, I'm not saying that in a cliche, superficial way. That takes some hard work. That doesn't mean, real quick, that doesn't mean separate yourself from issues of justice. That's something I really need to clarify,

because when people hear that, some people are like, well, it must be great with all your privilege to not care about, well, no, I care about justice. I just don't think Babylonian methods and concerns are the means by which, the channels by which are really going to be effective. Babylon is after one big power grab. Both parties are working for the same corporation. And that's where I'm not going to give my allegiance to kind of one side or the other, because I don't think they rule the world very well. I think that's a fictitious, failed attempt at establishing the kingdom on earth. And so yes, I'm concerned about justice, but I'm going to do it completely

different than the way you guys are even going about it. Whether that's in 1850 or 1900 or 1950 or 2020, I should be representing something completely counter-cultural to whatever it is that's going on in that cultural moment. Whatever the secular response is, as it diverts away from a kingdom of God way of thinking about the world, to that extent, I should be seen as being an alien and a stranger. What I'm representing should be wildly different than what is just kind of commonly getting peddled. And to your point, you already said this. So when all of our energy, and again, we're just touching on kind of that race subject again, when all of our energy goes to trying to dismantle what we perceive to be secular solutions to the racial problem, and we continue to persist in not having, as my friend Rasul Berry said, we don't have a critical enough theory of race. We should be thinking more critically as Christians

about how human beings interact with one another around this globe and the way that Satan has used ethnicity and distortions of ethnicity to create separation and division. It's not critical race theory that is creating division. Division has already been fully absorbed into our ethos in the way we do life as humans. We separate. We find reasons, like Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches. We will find reasons to separate ourselves from you. The Christian ethic is saying there's a unity that's to be experienced that transcends our differences. And I just don't hear enough talk about that. That's all I'm trying to say is in the midst of all this, there should be a heck of a lot more Christian communication about that idea and those ideas and way less quoting of Neil Shenvey and James Lindsay, who's not even

Christian, and Peterson and all these guys who I love a lot of what they're doing, but they're trying to fight a secular battle. They're not helping us think better inside the church about what we should be doing. What is our Christian responsibility in how we should be thinking about this particular topic of race? And again, there's a whole bunch of other ones flying around right now. So I've read Shen V.

I don't know the time. I'm just reading as someone who doesn't know the conversation. It was okay. I'm a lot more impressed with James Lindsay, but to your, I would love to hear your thoughts on, because just from an intellectual standpoint, is he rightly representing the thing that he's critiquing is my main question.

But I want to give this quick caveat. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Because it sounds like really, wow, he seems to really know the material well and represented it well, but I don't, I don't, I don't know the material. So I really don't know. It just feels that way. Um, but to your point, you're exactly, we can draw from, of course, draw from secular voices. I read more secular people than Christians these days, but we're not, we're not fighting the battle they're fighting. We are still, we are still – have a completely different mission.

And that's when – if you can get – if you let your heart get drawn into the kind of thing they're trying to do, then you've lost it. You lost it. This is why while I listen to kind of some more political podcasts sometimes, I try to be very self-aware. I am not fighting their – I am not on their team. I may resonate with 98% of what they say, but what fires them up every morning should not be what fires me up every morning. Their enemy is not my enemy.

You're all my enemy, and I'm supposed to love you all. You know, like your tribal allegiance, I don't want to get sucked into some kind of tribal allegiance just because I find myself agreeing with this person or that person because they are not, they're on a completely different mission. Preston, again, I don't listen to every single one of your podcasts, so I don't know how often that comes up with your different guests. But I just, I think that's such an important thing that you and I tend to bring out of each other and with each other is to say that the need to find this transcendent middle, I feel like we say that in some way, shape or form every time we talk, that we live in a world now that is forcing us to pose, it's forcing us to only having these binary options, both of which are steeped in an anti-Jesus secularism, right?

An anti-Christian secularism at their core for all the different reasons. And I need to do the work because I do. It takes some work, you said, to be self-aware enough to recognize that my default is going to be naturally to be pulled to one side or the other, okay, when I'm given these two options, and that I need to be conscientious. I need to do the work of separating myself from that, not because I can't align myself at all with what I'm hearing from these sides, but I have to start with this kingdom vision, this kingdom view that's informed by the scriptures. It's informed by church history.

It's informed by what God has seemed to have been doing in and among human beings from the beginning of time. And that takes a different kind of work to start there. It's actually kind of lazy, almost too easy. Maybe this is sound offensive, but it's easy and it's lazy to just kind of take whatever I'm getting, again, from the CNNs or the Fox News or my favorite Twitter folks and align myself with that and just dig my heels in on that side. It's against my calling as a Christian, my identity as a Christian. Again, I think, I think I have a responsibility and a stewardship to do the work of separating myself from that so that I can represent something different to my sphere of influence. the original statement, I'm disoriented, dismayed, frustrated at our lack of doing that. And again,

our, that's such a general word. It's not like it's not happening anywhere. It just seems like I don't feel the weight of that in my Christian circles, that there's enough people that are struggling to do that, Preston. And so then what do we have then for the world, man? What do we have to offer that reflects that there's a new kingdom that is actually already in our midst and that is fully going to come and drop like a bomb on the universe? Are we representing that in what we study and in the language that we're using and what we're calling people to, what we choose to get upset about? So I say all that to say, I'm glad you said that again. And you gave me a chance to say it, because audience, let's get better at that. Let's get better at that. Let's be part of a group of

Christians that are alive in 2021 in America, around the world, but in America as we're primarily talking to an American audience that says, not on my watch, man. With whatever time I have left, I'm committing myself to trying to become conscientious of not just falling in line with the polls that are being offered me politically. I'm going to look for a transcendent middle. And people hear that and they think, oh, you're being wishy-washy. You're afraid to draw lines. No, I got all kinds of lines drawn, but they are shaped and formed by the scriptures. Well, transcendent is the key word there,

transcendent middle. You're not just like, you're not on the fence, you're in a completely different yard. No, that's a good way to say it. It's kind of hovering over it. And again, not in some kind of self-righteous, I'm positive that I have the truth kind of a way, but in a way that says actually just the opposite. I'm humble enough to recognize that I don't know the best way, but I'm sure that the truth is not fully to be found in either one of these two options. And for me, it's not even – even if I was in 95 percent agreement with one side or the other, and I'm using these terms generically on purpose, whether it's Republican, Democrat, left, right, progressive, conservative, like whatever category. I hope people kind of know where I'm at. Like, even if I was in 95% of agreement with the values of one side over the other, you will not have my allegiance. And in this day and age, in this day and age, they don't just want your ear.

They don't just want your ear. They don't just want your vote. They want your allegiance. The second you give your allegiance to one tribe or the other, then the other tribe, the opposite tribe, is now your enemy. And now you're participating in the wrong battle. You have now lost your sense of mission. Because that person on the other aisle is not my enemy. This other tribe is not my identity.

It's not a we-them. The we is Christians. The them is everybody else. And this is, you know, the plural pronoun in the New Testament is never used to describe one's political national allegiance. Show me one time. What do you mean by that? Huh? What do you mean by that? Like Paul never says like, well, we and they and whatever to refer to his like Roman citizenship. He was a Roman citizen. But we is always a Christian identity. How many times do you hear Christians talk about we

as in we Republicans or even we Americans? It's a minor point, and I don't want to read too much in the linguistics of it. But this whole idea of like, oh, we went over to fight Afghanistan or man, we won the vote. That would make... I think Paul would look and say, oh, I thought you were a Christian.

Like, what do you mean? Like, oh, so you're – it just wouldn't make sense. Like, our fundamental primary all-controlling allegiance-giving identity is to Jesus, who was a political figure. Yeah, good. It's a subtle deception that we usually don't even realize that we've fallen for. And again, that's why I think it's worth every time we talk or do something like this, I think it's worth us sounding the alarm for ourselves and for anybody that's listening to this to just say, check yourself, check yourself. How much have you been seduced into, how much have I been seduced into

thinking that my salvation is found in one of these poles? And again, that sounds like a crass way to say it. And most people would never want to align themselves with that language. They wouldn't say it, but they say things that, and do things that seem to suggest that. That's exactly what I'm trying to say. So I need to become aware of when it is that I've either aligned myself because I actually really believe what's on this side. And I've got friends that are like that. Or, and I think you and I have talked about this too. I'm on this side only because I'm only being given two options.

And I'm sure that I hate everything that I see on that other side. So my existence and the way I move through the world has almost more to do with what I despise on the other side even than what it has to do with what I fully embrace on this side. I just know, like you said, you're my enemy over on that other side, so I'm going to hang out with these guys over here who also think you're the enemy. That makes for a really ugly society. That's the reason why things are the way they are today. I talked to pastors.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Almost every pastor I talk to says, my church is completely divided. I've got loads of people who said, let's just say they're Republican, and they're like, oh, I can never go to a church where there's a Democrat or something like that. Or vice versa. I've heard people say, I could never go to a church that had somebody who voted for Trump. Well, no. I'm like, your allegiance to Jesus isn't enough to create unity around. You need political allegiance?

Not political allegiance, but partisan allegiance. Are you seeing that too? I mean, I see pastors, this is the number one problem pastors are facing is the division within the church over Babylonian power grabs or Babylonian, you know, Babylonian parties. Let me make sure I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that within the same congregation, there's a division? Or you're saying. Are you saying that within the same congregation there's a division? Or you're saying their congregation has already aligned themselves at one of the two poles, either – again, they're either on the leftist side or the rightist side, the Democrat or Republican, whatever, and they don't have a mix inside the same building? In a sense, both, but the primary problem I'm seeing is churches that have it within their own congregation. Okay.

Because five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, you could have that. Like everybody kind of knew like, I'm sure not every single person in here is a Democrat or Republican. But it was kind of like, I agree to disagree. But now it's like the other side's not just wrong. Now the other side's morally reprehensible. That's right. So if you frame it in that cat, and that's how, why do we think that? Because of the way the media portrays it on both sides, the way the politicians portray it, like they have set the tone. This is Neil Postman.

The medium has affected how we even view the other side so that now they're not just wrong, like, oh, you know, you voted for Clinton. I voted for Bush or whatever, you know, back then it was kind of like, well, you kind of smile and yeah, we, I guess we have different views on healthcare and different economic perspectives, but now the other side is not just wrong, but morally reprehensible. So of course, if you have that perspective, which has been given to us by Babylon, of course, of course you would say like, how am I going to go to church with somebody who's morally reprehensible? I don't know if you say you're a Christian, but you're

obviously miles apart. Why? Because they voted for somebody else? But even that, Preston, is kind of interesting, isn't it? How could I go to church with someone who's morally reprehensible? It's in my mind right away, and I know you'll go here too. That's what this building is full of. I know you'll go here too. That's what this building is full of. That's why we were supposed to be coming here in the first place, is a recognition of our moral reprehensibility. And isn't that interesting that we start to separate ourselves from that pretty quick. Somebody said once, and I've never forgotten this, that we come to Christ because we realize we're a sinner, and then we spend the next 40 years trying to prove to everybody that we're not. Yeah. And trying to act like we're not anymore. Like you just said that we're somehow we've acquired some kind of

new righteousness and you're really the sinner. Oh, man. And it's like, oh, no, man, I should pretty quickly be again, be brought down to a broken place and a humble place. I wonder if we've lost our identity and our mission and our sense of calling. I mean, that's been getting talked about forever, for decades anyways, in the church and what's actually going on in congregations. I heard a sermon just a few weeks ago that was basically reminding us, it was a guy at the church that I attend here, who said, I don't care which side you're on, and I know that we've got people who would align themselves on both sides,

your calling is to love one another. And I just had, I was sitting up in the balcony, and I had to chuckle to myself at the simplicity of that reminder. But it's such a vacation Bible school level reminder. And yet it is just this desperate need as people basically hate each other now and draw, I like how you said it, find one another morally reprehensible. And so we can't be in the same space as each other. And I need this reminder that, dude, your main reason right now for God allowing to continue blood to course through your veins and for your lungs to work and everything is for you to be the hands and feet of Jesus, which looks like love towards people, not to fix them, not to judge them for whatever their moral

reprehensibility is. It's to love them the way Jesus loved morally reprehensible people. Don't you just kind of need to get back into that and be reminded of all the just evil that he moved towards and didn't try to call them out specific all the time. Sometimes he did. But he wasn't so much calling them out as much about their evil as much as he was calling them to a different life. calling them out as much about their evil as much as he was calling them to a different life. He was calling them to be cleansed and made new. And where's that at? Where is that today? I hope people are finding that somewhere in their churches. Again, folks that are listening, I hope that's still a message that is getting preached more often than not, this obligation to love one another in spite of ourselves.

So basic. Are you seeing what I'm seeing, that pastors are dealing with churches that are divided like this? I mean, more than ever, really? Well, I've been in conversations, and I really mean this. For the last nine months, my conversations with pastors have almost entirely been about the race issue. Fox News-shaped folks, the majority of folks in those churches are having a very negative reaction to any conversation about race. They can't even begin to access the theological underpinnings of that idea because they've already rejected it. Rejected what? Like critical race theory in particular or how maybe the left was about it? critical race theory in particular or how maybe the left was about it or any language any language how do you even talk about race today without the language that you use triggering people into one direction or another you know i was actually comforting myself with that comforting

slash again challenging myself with well the critical race theory movement and trend will fade, just like every movement and whatever's trending fades. this need to be able to think theologically about ethnicity and race and to come to grips with how race functions in our culture, which, again, we don't do that. That's been part of the problem. We don't think critically enough about what other people's experience is in this great country that we live in. We don't think critically about it. We don't think theologically about it. We're not connected. You're going back to Postman. I was in Robert Putman's Balling Alone.

Yeah. Good one. Okay. So, and there's a whole bunch of books like that now that we've just become increasingly isolated. And these last 20 years have, we don't have super substantive relationships, even with people that are like us, let alone people that are going through this world in a very different way and having very, very different experiences because of the color of their skin or their gender or their particular sin struggles. We just don't have a lot of depth when it comes to that. So what will we be left with in 10 years? I feel like, man, maybe we won't be any further along in our ability to engage those populations and to offer a countercultural narrative for how to move towards vulnerable people, for how to see and be trained to see injustice and evil in our midst and be able to identify it regardless of which side it's coming from. I don't know that we'll be much better at it. This is where Postman was so prophetic.

And for those who don't know, we're talking about Neil Postman, who wrote a book in 1985 called Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he discussed the – now I'm terrible at recalling specific points of a book, but one of his main points was that the medium of the television has completely reshaped how we even go about thinking about things going on in society. Like the very medium of television creates a completely different approach to truth, really, that now you need to be more of an entertainer it has to be fast-paced you have to i mean all these things are like i i literally crossed out the word television in his

book and put internet in some paragraphs and it was yeah you could not i wouldn't i wouldn't rewrite the paragraph i don't like it's just it just fits that the medium of how we even get our information on what's going on in society is, it completely shapes how we even think about it. And once you, if you ignore the medium, then you are being just, I would say brainwashed. That might be a little, that might not be too strong into a, you're being indoctrinated. This is 1984. I mean, you are being narrativized because of the very medium. And this is where I don't even fault – well, I do fault some, but I mean, even the people on the other side of the medium, this is just what you have to do in that meat. It's what the medium has become. But it's not simply a new, the medium is not simply a neutral pathway through which one person's perspective comes to you.

Like it shapes the whole thing. And it's, I've got a buddy. He lives in Minneapolis. Okay. And he, he has almost completely unplugged himself. Like he doesn't have,

he doesn't watch the news, doesn't do social media, canceled everything. He says, I want to live in my embodied sphere. So I've got neighbors I talk to. I take my kids to school. I am living in my embodied whatever. So I asked him a couple weeks ago, with all this stuff going in Minneapolis, I'm like, dude, are you doing okay? What's going on?

He's like, why? What's going on? He's like, well, why, what's going on? I'm like, you know, he's like, I invest all my energy in the embodied humans in front of me. And he's like, yeah, there's, there's somebody, there's a single mom down the road that needs, you know, meals. So we're going to help her out. And I, yeah, I had a great conversation with my kid's teacher and, and, uh, yeah, so some friend of mine did got, they got this disease called COVID. And so they need, you know, apparently they're not able, not quite that, I mean, I'm being a little extreme, but like, what would it be like? What would it be like if we actually devoted our entire attention,

including our justice, our whatever, in the embodied sphere that God has put us in? And this is something Postman brings out. He says, we are now through the medium of the television. Let's just translate that to the internet. We are now bombarded with all these things going on in the world that we can't do anything about. And there's like one little soundbite story, and we got all worked up and tweet something. And then another soundbite story, we got all worked up again.

But we're not actually doing anything. Yeah. I don't know. It's fascinating. I don't know what to think of it it's just i'm reading this i'm just like i i really wish christians are all humans are really i don't know pay deeper attention to to that idea that there's yeah well in the very point oh finish your thought well i it's funny before i even read postman i tweeted something probably a month ago I don't remember I said something like

it's all a game people it's all a game it's one big power grab I think I said something like I turn on the news for the same reason that I would turn on Netflix and somebody says oh you must have read Postman I'm like no I haven't actually and they're like oh that's basically his

exact point that's what made me want to read no, I haven't actually. And they're like, oh, that's basically his exact point. That's what made me want to read. I've always heard of the book. But they're like, yeah, his whole thing is about how even our news outlets and journalism has become basically entertainment because of the medium. It's trying to – yeah, I don't want to keep going. No, no, it's good. The game of media is – okay, so you identify a story. You decide, and it's never an unbiased objective for as much as they try to say that.

It can't be. You decide how you're going to frame that story for us and give it to us in a very, very short soundbite piece of time. Even if it's a longer form piece of news journalism, it still is a relatively short exposure to the story. But then the game of news, this hit me a few years ago. How does it get played out? The thing that we need to do now is go find somebody that views this the exact opposite way. That's how you create the next story. It's not even to go and find other examples of this same thing. We need to go find somebody now who disagrees with this or who had a different experience, completely opposite.

And that's how you even create conflicts. When you talk about narratives, you go find people that disagree. You go find people that had a different experience. And so it just keeps going on and on and on. It's sort of like what happens in academia, right? You create a theory or you take a position, and then what does everybody else spend all their time doing? Just taking shots at it, chopping it up. And again, I'm not saying that in a negative way. I'm not judging that. It's just how the game gets played. And so we're not

so much pursuing truth in the media. We're just pursuing the next story. How do we keep this alive and how do we keep bouncing and i i love even what's built into the title of postman's book this i'm using ourselves to death what is literally i'm using without thought without pondering without thinking about what's happening you're just absorbing this ethos in this way of thinking about the world yeah we've already talked about what the danger is of that in contrast to absorbing this new being, transformed by the renewing of your mind, by this entirely other world that's encapsulated in the pages of the Bible. It's pointing to a completely different world.

What I find fascinating too, Preston, let me just say this so I don't forget this. This is sounding a little bit different. When you and I have talked about the news and probably how most people that come from orthodox backgrounds would see the news as being predominantly dominated by a liberal or progressive approach to thinking about life. And I would say yes to that. I can see that. What's interesting is when you're with progressives, or as I was, we've talked about this in my background when I did my PhD work and spent five, six years hanging out with people that were very committed to a progressive worldview, that was very shaped by critical theory, that was very shaped by radicalism and trying to erase the lines. OK. It took me a while to figure out that they view what's coming through the news as very conservative because what it's doing, what the news is primarily about is to shape us

into product producers and product consumers. producers and product consumers it's completely driven by advertising and the shows themselves uh kind of suck the the protest out of us and turn us into people that just sit on a couch and consume you know sitcoms or reality tv or whatever only as props to be run through this consumer system of constantly being told we need to buy something else, constantly being fed the narrative that your identity is attached to the things that you can buy and your value. And again, this kind of goes into Marxist thought, right? And I know as soon as you say Marxism, people lose their mind. But that's actually really insightful.

And that is what's happening. And so they say that's a very conservative view of the world. What's being conserved is this capitalist-driven monster that keeps us in this position of servitude to it where we have to keep making products and keep buying them. Well, that's why I would say that's actually not conservative because of exactly what they said, that people want to make it conservative, but functionally, that transcends right-left categories. It's like the guy who's all for you know fighting against climate change who's driving around in a hummer you know it's like or there was a joke like some liberal professor said like yeah all my faculty are all against climate change all this stuff and you go to the

parking lot the faculty parking lot and you have all these huge suvs and all this stuff that's where it's like it's all it's all a show man it's all a show it's it's like there's yeah i don't know what's interesting though that both sides are calling each other fascist both sides believe that the media or the the medium of tv let's just say where we go and you can sit for hours and watch different shows and news shows and all kinds of advertising okay that that both sides view that as a fascist tool of the other side. The liberal-ish, progressive-ish type people view that as a tool of the conservative-ish type people to keep things the way they are. And to keep people falling in line with the way things are. Let's just let conservative be defined that way.

While the conservative folks look at that and see gay characters on every show now. It seems like every third person is gay now all of a sudden. You know, 40 percent of the country is gay based on what you see on TV. Every commercial, every show, because that's the trending thing now right that you work gay characters into everything well that would seem to indicate that that that's really really normal again we know what this conversation is that that's the way it should be and that maybe you're even yeah missing something if you're not experiencing homosexuality i've been having an ongoing conversation with a guy.

I'm not going to give his name. He might want me to give his name. But we've been talking about it. He's Christian. We would share very similar perspectives. But the conversation, the back and forth debate-ish conversation is whether or not the right or the left has exerted more influence, power, domination over our culture. Okay. It's fascinating because it's just like, well, it depends on how do you even measure that, you know?

And he would even say that like in Christianity, evangelicalism is being taken over by fundamentalism. And I'm like, well, I don't... Now? Now. Seems like that's Now? Now. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't want to argue against him on air because he's not here to give the other side.

But our disagreement is I'm like, I think maybe in the past there was this kind of conservatism from the Leave it to Beaver and all this stuff, and that gave rise to the 60s. But I would say since the 60s, not to do the cliche thing but really since the 60s there has been a massive backlash from the more left so that i mean in all our entertainment industries dominated like can you be an actor and publicly be a supporter of trump i mean oh no it's not i mean there's maybe a few here and there and it's hard for them to stay hired. Even evangelical – well, again, I just said I'm doing the right thing.

I said I wouldn't do it. It's kind of give my side where he can't give his side. But anyway, the question is very interesting, and it really depends on how you measure it, right? What would you say about that? I mean, who's – which side of the aisle is more dominant right now? It's just too big of a question to even answer. It's like, how do you even? It is.

I think it depends on what audience you're looking at and what lane you're trying to walk down. I know where you're going with this. It does seem to me that the overwhelming tide of what we are getting exposed to when it comes to mediums, whether that's on the social media, it's movies, the mass media, let's say that, definitely feels like it's tilting towards progressivism and and liberalism for sure the ideas that are contained in there which again the way i summarize that is we're going to just we're erasing the lines whatever the lines wherever they were drawn or what's considered normal that there's this group of people who get to decide what's normal for everybody, we're going to get rid of that. We're doing away with all of that. That's definitely the tide. I think he would say, yes, in the last few years, the left might be exerting a little more dominance. But up until then, it's because they've been so oppressed by conservatism. So now they're finally coming out. So he's like, wow, I might not agree with how the dominant left is reacting.

I don't necessarily agree with that. I do understand where they're coming from because they've been so oppressed by conservatism for so many years. And part of that's true. I mean, even secular media you had as recent as 70s and 80s where rather than having too many gay characters on you had people make making gay jokes as as early i mean that's right archie bunker and others and stuff and you know up and it's not that long ago so the fact that you might have a higher percentage of

gay characters on a show that might represent the i don don't know, the percentage in society, it's like, well, agree or disagree, but at least have the historical awareness to understand. Because you and I, anybody straight, can be blissfully unaware or even laugh at Archie Bunker or other people who are making gay jokes on TV. We haven't felt the weight of how that has caused a lot of shame and oppression and pain and all this stuff, you know. No, for all the usual categories, when we talk about identity politics, I was thinking about this because I was reading something earlier today, but when it comes to race, when it comes to gender, when it comes to various expressions of sexuality, if ever there was a proper use of the word oppressed, it would be historically around those three ideas that, and there's a long history

of people being oppressed because of the color of their skin, with some ethnic attribute of themselves. There's, all the way back to Genesis, there's been massive problems between the genders, right? Men behaving badly towards women. And certainly with sexuality, there's been very, very tight lines drawn around the idea of what's socially acceptable or what happens to you if you struggle. Let's even just say that

you know and how you get uh this the scarlet letter that gets put on you so so the fact that those people have experienced oppression legitimately throughout history you would expect that there would be different moments in history in different parts of the globe where those people would rise up and fight back. And there would be maybe a coalition of social forces that kind of get behind that pushback that goes on for a while. Is that, I mean, so let's come back to the, right, because I mean, this is actually a good segue. Is that kind of how you process the kind of the race stuff going on all the way from the riots last summer? And whether it's peaceful protests or riots, there is obviously some outrage happening.

Do you look more at the underlying kind of history there? And real quick, I want to ask you, because we're both white, you're white. Do you get critiqued for talking about the race conversation for being white or no? I don't think so. Not to my face. I'll get a few comments that will be like, two white guys talking about race.

I'm like, just change your channel, dude. Or go to the many other conversations I've had with people of color on race. It's not like I just talk to white people. So you don't need to get any caveats? I know it's out there. I guess depending on what group of people I was in, I might put some self-conscious caveat out there about it.

But this is just me. I'm just – because of how I grew up, I just don't, I don't want to play those games for people. And when I say that, I grew up in a very, very mixed environment. And so I just feel like I'm just being myself and talking about whatever I want to talk about when it comes to race, just like we always did, you know, into my twenties in West Cleveland where I grew up. So I don't, I don't fall for that too much personally. But I'm sure there are people out there that get irritated with me having the opinions that I do about it.

What I think has happened with race is that, again, are we talking in the church or outside the church? I was thinking primarily outside the church. All right. So outside the church, I would say primarily outside the church. All right. So outside the church, I would say that there are black intellectuals and black artists. Let's just go back to the Civil War. That just always seems to kind of be my spot in that 1860-ish range. You can find black intellectuals and black artists who have been crying out ever since the end of the Civil War to just be able to be a man and to be treated as an

equal, to not have to deal with the double consciousness that Du Bois talked about of seeing myself as I see myself, but also having to always think about how you see me because you're a white guy and you look at me in a certain way as a black guy and just being free from that that's going on every single decade that problem has never gone away entirely it may have gotten better in a bunch of different ways okay and we've talked about this Preston in the last 50 years it may have gotten better how we interact with one another black and white but it's never really gone away obviously we, it's never gone away. What I think happened, though, and where it got super complicated, and this is a whole nother, and I feel like we're about to jump into some deep water, is that the radicals,

the critical theorists, guys like Marcuse, who said, who recognized that the Marxist revolution in the 60s, you know, throughout the early 1900s and up into the 60s, the Marxist revolution was not going to occur the way they thought it would, where lower class workers would rise up and rebel. And ironically, because they've been sucked into the mass media, they've been anesthetized. What's the word? They've been kind of drugged into not seeing their own exploitation. being oppressed and know it, like people of color, like women, like people that are struggling with different forms of anti-social sexuality, and let's start to get behind them. And let's start to give them language. Let's give them Marxist language. Let's give them a framework for their own rebellion or for their own resistance, their own protest that maybe didn't exist before. There weren't a bunch of white intellectuals and white people in academia and white people in various forms of media that were behind black people in the early 1900s.

But now all of a sudden there are because they're there. I really think, again, this may be getting into too much but i think there are people that want a marxist worldview to come about and still believe in this utopia that's attached to to that kind of a worldview and they're using people of color yeah to that end they're using the women's movement the feminist movement to that end they're using the women's movement the feminist movement to that end they're using the sexuality lgbtq plus yeah world not even because they really care about those folks but because they hate capitalism and they hate the conservative world that seems to exist behind that they hate it yeah and so so it looks like there's this um it looks like all of a sudden the black voice

is louder in this country and i'm not sure i actually really believe that to be honest i think that the academic world is behind them and that that progressive world is now behind them and that's who runs the media that's who makes the tv shows that's who runs the media. That's who makes the TV shows. That's who runs the New York Times. Man, I just said a lot, didn't I? Well, no, that's, I mean, in the various conversations I've had, and I'm trying to think right now,

it's primarily black Christians. Okay, that's a different conversation. Yeah, but we're talking about more social just broader social issues without putting precise words in their mouth i'm just thinking a conversation at the conversation it would seem like they would be just as frustrated with kind of white progressives than with white conservatives and how they approach the race conversation you know like totally um yeah i in fact i can think of a couple i uh my buddy tyler burns and um oh there's one other i'm trying

to think i don't want to i don't want to misrepresent somebody but oh i specifically remember tyler do you know tyler this guy's from the um just i listened to him on your show justin gibboni i listened to on your show yeah yeah these are these are just i mean dear brothers who are so thoughtful they're very nuanced they um yeah i just i love everything they say but i remember tyler i let's talk he was given kind of a talk on race on a panel and somebody asked him about like you know like aunt j aunt Jemima, you know, taking aunt Jemima off the syrup, you know? Yeah. He's like, look, let me tell you guys, we don't care about that. He might stuff, you know, like great, whatever. Like that, what does that do?

That just seems to soothe the conscience of white progressives to try to, you know, change the name of the Redskins and all this stuff. You survey actual people of color. Like, do you care about this? And they're like, I don't care. Like, is that your, again, I'm trying to, I don't want to interactively represent somebody else's perspective, but that seems to be more to soothe the conscience of white progressives than to actually come from like the black community, in my experience. I feel like my black friends in the church have lived in this exasperated state, a hurt state, a lament filled state.

Because throughout their lives, there is a refusal for the most part. Again, it's general, but there seems to be a refusal for white people to care about what they care about a little bit. To be concerned about conditions within urban America and not just to write those off as a series of bad choices that have been made by black people. And you just need to stop making babies and get married. Could we go deeper than that? Could we take seriously the systemic effects of what's going on in this country for hundreds of years? Could you just step into that with me and care about it with me? Could you hurt when black people are killed at the hands of police? I don't need stats.

I don't need comparison to white people. I don't need any of that. I just need you to actually show some hurt because you never do. You never seem to have any hurt inside of you when any of these situations arise. That in the church. Could we sit at the leadership table? in the church? Could we sit at the leadership table? Could we have some representation so that maybe some of the things that a black-skinned person, the way he or she views the world, could be represented well at that table? Could we even have maybe a couple so that there's not

just the one who has to try to represent everybody? But could we have diversity at the table? And the answer has just been no so much for so long. Could we adjust the way we set ourselves up in this meeting, in crew, or in our church setting, the music that we embrace, the type of people and issues that we concern ourselves with that get talked about in the pulpit? Could that just be informed by us a little bit? And Preston, dude, you and I have talked about this. That answer has been no too much. That answer has been no too much. It's not been no all the time, but it's been no too much. And so that hurts. It's still out there for my black friends who say if the progressives can get you to see it, then I'm aligned with the progressives right now if it's critical race theory if that's what you need to be able to is it is it we got to get behind the george floyd derrick chauvin thing whatever whatever it is that

we can grab onto that's going to get your eyes to open up we'll take it even if we would not typically align ourselves with black lives matter example, or any of these other kinds of movements? What is it going to take? Would you say it's similar? My brother doesn't care about it. Go ahead. Well, I had a board member of mine point out that we're wrestling with the race conversation. And he says, what you have done with the LGBT conversation, just do that with the race conversation, your posture, your approach, how you go about it. And that's where you need to be.

If I can just take everything you said and kind of map it on my own journey, rather than racing to Leviticus, which I love Leviticus. I did my PhD in Leviticus. racing to Romans, rather than just front-loading a theological conversation, if we can first sit in people's pain, hear the stories, get to know their journey. They may say things about their journey that are incorrect. They might, whatever. That might be an important conversation to have, but not now. Let's sit in the pain, show we truly truly truly care then we might have the credibility to even bring up a statistic a survey maybe

another and we might have to linger in that story for a while though and this is something again another shout out to tyler i hope tyler's listening, you know, white people love to, you know, whenever the latest killing happens, they want to race to intellect and statistics and data. And I will admit that that's that because that's how I'm naturally wired. I'm not I'm highly on the cognitive side. And I've had to learn through my engagement with the LGBT community to not front load that. So that's like my natural mental reaction is, well, what are the statistics? What actually happened with the facts? And Tyler said, yeah, that's what white people typically want all the information rather than feeling it with the emotion. Black people look at a shooting and they don't immediately race to what you know the the facts

they feel pain they see and yet another black person being killed um is it more than white people is the percentage let's set that aside for a second and let's at least recognize how absolutely painful that event is because that that one event is not some isolated thing. It is stuck within a 400 year narrative that you cannot divorce the emotional weight of that event from that narrative, even if, again, again, I'm not even going to say that there's not important statistics out there, but that's for another, that we need to set that on the shelf for a little bit, sit in our pain, and then you might have the credibility to bring up a statistic am i is that what you're yeah listen so let me ask you this i'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit to

let you talk about this and i think you and i talked about this offline but and i think i told you in the last nine months people have reached out to me because of the podcast that we did and multiple times people who love you okay love the work that you do love the interviews that you have and the in the the way that you approach interacting over these issues they were surprised at how different your your vibe was about the race conversation as compared to the work that you've done among gay folks. And they were asking me even, you know, what do I think about that? Why you have such a different take or why you're not accessing that same vibe? You just described it, Preston.

And I say, yes, yes, we should all, not just you, we should all approach the race situation in the same way that you're trying to exhort us to be more humble to be more compassionate to be less judgmental to be more empathetic to how the story unfolded and how people got to the place they got to and listen and you can still have your lines and your strong feelings about how homosexuality is not in God's best interest for human flourishing or whatever. Absolutely, you can hold on to that. But you'll approach a person much differently if you've started with all those other characteristics towards them. You'll love them differently in the midst of disagreeing

about their choices or whatever. Why do you feel like you don't have an immediate reaction to do the same thing when it comes to race? I think it's important, man, because I think you've got good thoughts on it. Even if you don't have it all worked out, why does that end up in a different category for you than sexuality? Yeah. So I got lots of thoughts on that. It's your show, man. If you don't want me to put you on the spot.

No. Oh, dude. I love being put on the spot. I think people want to hear. I think people want to hear your thoughts about. Okay. So first of all, that perspective, let me say a couple of things about that perspective or concern. First of all,

it's one podcast. Have they listened to five others that I've done? And the answer is, yeah. Yeah. If you listen to any one podcast, I do, you're going to get,

if that's all you do, then yeah, you're not going to get a full or perspective. I mean, some podcasts I do on the LGBT stuff, people are like, wow, you sound really conservative. Others are like, wow, you sound really liberal. It's like, well, the nature of the conversation was a certain direction. You can't just listen to one. I had a comment on the podcast saying, you know, I'll listen to five minutes of two white guys talking about race and I shut it off. So his perspective is that I don't

talk to black people or whatever, you know, so it's just So it's a warped perspective, number one. Number two, I would say they're coming at it with political. I don't want to critique individuals who you talk to per se, but that perspective, I would even say they're coming at it with binary secular categories. You don't seem as – Meaning like, oh, because he even said like, oh, he sounded more conservative. I'm like, there's a good number of black intellectuals who would raise all kinds of concerns about

critical race theory, saying that it strips black people of agency. I mean, this is Coleman Hughes, Glenn Lowry, Shelby Steele, and many, many others are saying the whole progressive critical race theory, BLM movement, is actually hurting black people. And these are not necessarily conservatives or whatever. When people only listen to either Fox News or CNN, I think they don't recognize that there is actually an array of diverse perspectives on the race conversation. If all you do is listen to mainstream media outlets, you don't recognize that. You need to listen to more long-form conversations. I don't, and I'm not at all an expert, but I do listen to a lot of stuff. And all I know is it's way more complicated than are you for or against BLM? Do you think that there's

a systemic issue of racism among the police force or not? Like there's all kinds of complicated stuff. So people say, wait, I thought you would have been in this box. Sounds like you're in this box. I'm like, you're coming at me with categories that I don't recognize and I think are a bit naive. I got another thought. Okay, get it out. Well, that's it. So, but I would.

Generosity. Oh, one more thing. One more one more thing okay um all right if if people are going to invite me and this would apply to how i approach lgbt stuff um if somebody is going to invite me to be a good listener to feel somebody's pain to do everything i kind of said earlier i am on board if somebody said well why don't you protest against the police force because because there's a systemic issue of race all this stuff then now you've pushed me into a conversation that does require data right i mean if you say because you say, because, as LeBron James says, you know, black people are being gunned down in the streets, I can't even go for a job without being shot by a cop, like that, you're making a more global kind of statement that is going to

require me to not just, and why don't you participate in this? I'm like, well, then I have, I do have some more factual questions about is there something going on? There was that survey done a while back. It asked people on the far right, moderate right, right leaning, moderate left, moderate left, far left. How many unarmed black people do you think were shot by cops in 2019? Did you see this? I feel like you told me about it, but go ahead and say it. Well, it was so – there were people that said – of course, the more conservative you are, the lower the number was. And the more progressive you are, the higher the number was.

There were people that literally said, I'm going to estimate about 10,000. 10,000 unarmed – or even a lot of people said 1,000, but there was a factual number for that because these things are recut. It's 23. And it just showed, and 23 is 23 more than it should be. But it just showed that people do have a certain perspective on what's going on that is largely shaped by the narrative commitments of the news outlets that they are getting information from. Would you? Is that is that fair to say? No, absolutely. Absolutely. So I'll have to say, if somebody was to say, hey, Preston, you need to come march in this thing. You need to support this because we're fighting against – then I do need – if you're going to push me into something that requires data, then I do need to see the data.

So if there's 10,000 unarmed black people being shot by white cops, oh, gosh. That is different than 23. I think 19 or 23. I forget what it was. You and I have been over this before, man. Regardless of what the number is of how many have been shot, unarmed, whatever, whatever, however it was that they framed that. Yeah. for black people in general, and I'm saying this out of my own experience and my communications, and again, growing up and being around black people my whole life, for them in general to have a legitimate concern for law enforcement behavior such that it becomes part of how they instruct their young men, okay, and what they need to be concerned about when they're out in the world. Again, stay out of trouble and you won't have to worry about it. But there's opportunities to come in contact with law

enforcement all the time. And this is how you need to conduct yourself as a black person. For that narrative to have stuck to as many black people as it has that didn't just happen because 19 people got killed or shot okay that again 100 100 agree yeah so this is what i feel like people if anything what they're pushing back on you for and i said now people are not doing this in any kind of a hostile way. I think they're surprised. And you even just sort of said it. It's the how easy it seems for you to be generous in the other conversation and how quickly you get offended by somebody expecting you to react a certain way. And I totally appreciate that.

And immediately run to what you just ran to, which is saying that only a handful of people got killed. And even though that's terrible, that's still where your mind ran to. No, but I need to clarify this and I got to go in a few minutes. My only point with that was a very narrow point that if there is... how do I want to frame it? An expectation for your behavior to change or for you to react? Not even that. I'm talking about somebody, if they make a more narrow claim that there is a widespread problem of white cops shooting unarmed black people, cops shooting unarmed black people, that is a claim that does require some data to go along with it. And so if you ask me for a data-driven, a data-necessitating claim for me to agree or disagree, then I'm going to say, well, what's the data? Right.

Totally. If you're going to ask me to empathize with and appreciate and bleed with how those 23 deaths fit into the overarching narrative of racism in America for 400 years, I am 100% there with you. And again, it sounds like probably maybe it maybe sounds to some people like you just said two different things over the last 10 minutes. You get this great, you know, empathetic thing. Or maybe it's my conservative friends will say, no, you went all liberal at the beginning and now you had some sense. And I'm saying your very evaluation of my perspective is coming at it with two binary artificial categories that. Yeah, I don't know i'm glad i'm just glad you just got to say all that seriously because i know i know that

it's more complicated um i wish we i just wish we all could do a better job of being generous when i don't know we weren't planning on coming out here to talk specifically about race we we always gravitate back to that and i have no problem with it if we were more generous in the way we we stepped into that conversation it would alleviate a whole bunch of the problems that we have and we got we got off on that somehow we were talking about how how people within church, black folks within the church, have been asking for the same thing. And it's not driven by critical race theory. It's not driven by whatever's trending amongst secular academics or people that are making a name for themselves on social media. It's been driven by the same thing. Could I be treated like a man? Okay. And if you're able to do that, that's great. Can I also sit at the table? Could you care about the things I care about? I'm forced to care about the things you care about. Could you intentionally choose to care about some of the things that are important to me as a person of color? I don't even want to just say black person, somebody that's different from you. And to the extent that a person is able

to say, yes, lead me, help me understand, let's go. Let me walk in your shoes and let me breathe the air that you breathe. And not in an uncritical way, but just in a way that says, yes, let's go. That would change. That would do more good than anything we could do. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today. I hate to cut you off, but I've got a meeting now with another, uh, like a whole webinar thing that I'm

shut it down. I think this podcast might shut it down. Hey, this was great. Thoroughly enjoyed it again, man. Yeah, you too. Thanks for your wisdom, bro. Appreciate you. We went to new places. Let's, let's pick it up again let's do it all right take care bye you