Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep907: How Should Christians Respond to Racism?

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Rasool and Samuel are both Chrisian, black, and well-versed in the race conversation. While they agree on several things, they disagree on several others, including the definition of racism, whether racism is systemic, and the role of Scripture in addressing racism. In this dialogue, Rasool and Samuel dialogue through these questions and more.

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Okay, we got a bit of backstory on this current podcast episode. A few months ago, as some of you remember, I had Samuel say on the podcast, and Samuel takes a more, I guess, for lack of better terms, a more conservative approach to the race conversation. And we had a great conversation on the podcast, and I got a lot of interesting responses after that podcast. Some loved it, some hated it. Some, you know, were really provoked into thinking. And one of the more common responses I got was, man, I would love to hear somebody who doesn't agree with Samuel on some or a lot of what he says to be able to respond in real time on the podcast. And so

that is where this podcast came in. I reached out to some friends of mine and a lot of people recommended that I get Rasul Berry on the podcast to dialogue with Samuel Say. So that's where we are. This podcast did go very long. And as you will see, there's, it could have been three times the length too. Like we actually, you can hear me at the end, you know, I had to kind of cut it short because I had another podcast person waiting. And so I had to, I had to end the conversation, but I, you know, I, I, it was, it was, it's really helpful, I think, to get two people in conversation with each other to see where do they agree, where do they disagree, why do they disagree, how are they defining their terms, where are they maybe misunderstanding where each other is coming from. So I really enjoyed this conversation. I think you will too.

Rasul serves as a teaching pastor at the Bridge Church in Brooklyn. And as a team member with his Embark, a nonprofit focused on millennials. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in African Studies and Sociology. Samuel Say, as you may recall from our previous podcast together, he was born in Ghana, moved to Canada when he was young, so he's a Canadian citizen. And he speaks and writes a lot on racial, cultural, and political issues with a biblical theology in an attempt to be quick to listen and slow to speak. So please welcome back to the show, Samuel Say, and for the first time, the one and only Rasul Ferry. all right hey friends i'm here with uh uh samuel say and rasul berry thanks guys for joining me

on the show on the podcast i explained a little little bit in the intro how this podcast came about. And I'll just say it again. I'm really excited to have specifically both of you guys here to talk about, well, how should Christians respond to racism, especially when we disagree? And that is, as we all know, as most people listening, and as you two know, that is not a simple question. How should we respond to, how should Christians respond to racism, even when we disagree? Kind of begs the question, like, what is the thing called racism that we're even trying to figure out how to respond to? But that, yeah, this raises all kinds of other sub-issues. What is racism? How pervasive is it? What about when different Christian communities see things differently, you know, on the nature of racism?

How do we respond to that? So thanks so much for being on the show, being willing to dive into this topic. Why don't we start with you, Rasul? Yeah, give us just your kind of overall thoughts on that question. How should Christians respond to racism, and especially when we disagree on maybe the nature of what racism even is? Yeah, I think first it's important, and thanks, Preston, for having us on. I'm looking forward to the dialogue. I think we, you know, always have to start with definitions. I think, especially in our complex world that we live in, we oftentimes talk past each other because we haven't really accurately or defined or at least aren't on the same page about what we mean. And

that's a harder task than it would seem on the surface, right? We're used to just Googling a definition and just going, okay, what is racism? Boom. But with something like this, I would suggest that it's a bit more complicated than that because of the challenge of language to describe something that has been, I would say, a fundamental aspect of Western civilization for over 500 years. And so in doing that process, right, and just even in trying to explore, okay, how do I define this?

It's not easy because of the various complexities involved with trying to describe culture, right? It's like saying, if someone were to say, well, define trying to describe culture, right? It's like saying, if someone were to say, well, define for me American culture, or even what's culture, it's a hard, it's like on the one end, you know, like the old Supreme Court definition of pornography, I know it when I see it. But on the other end, it's hard to actually describe, in a sense. So here, I'm gonna try to give some broad brushstrokes to kind of help us conceptualize what we mean. And the first thing that's helpful in this aspect is an imagination.

William Jennings, a professor at Yale, wrote a book called The Christian Imagination. And he starts this concept of talking about race and even, I would say, racism or white supremacy as a diseased Christian imaginary. at looking at cosmology, at looking at what Genesis 1 reveals as the Imago Dei, and a broken way at looking at our world. And that imaginary, that way of understanding reality has permeated into the way that we see each other and the way that we see even ourselves. So specifically, one of the key components of that is why did I start, you know, 500, 600 years ago? Well, it's because that's when we first start seeing people begin to explain or try to justify a global project of slavery. Now, the interesting thing is something like

slavery has existed throughout human history. Ethnic tensions and prejudice or, you know, what James referred to as favoritism or bias. These things have existed throughout human history. But there was something unique about the particular project of what we call race that that that did something different, both in its excuse me, both in its scale and its substance and the claims that it was making. And part of the reason why it's so unique is because it was actually fused with Christian theology from the beginning, right? And so Mark Charles, the Native American Christian scholar, does a good job of talking about this when he talks about the doctrine of discovery in his book, Unsettling Truths. And what he says is the doctrine of discovery is a set of legal principles that govern the European colonizing. It was an

official decree by a pope in the 15th century that basically gave the church's stamp of approval to invade, search out, capture, subdue, and enslave all those not considered in Christendom. And it was like giving a theological cosign. At the same time, that same year in 1452, that that papal edict is let out. There's also a discussion we see from the first, you know, with Ibram Kendi and his book Stamped from the Beginning, refers to as one of the first real instances that we have of a racist argument. And that is a writer who is trying to justify the Portuguese slave trade, which was the first to explicitly focus on Africans. His name is Gomez Zahara. He writes something called The Chronicle, The Discovery of the Conquest of Guinea. Africans are are beastly, bestial and are that is actually a Christian duty and a blessing to to enslave them for their own good. And so what you have there is the beginnings of something what we would call white supremacy, which, you know, my friend David Bailey refers to white supremacy as a spiritual heresy that is empowered financially, legislated politically, and affects us all socially.

And basically, it's what Bryan Stevenson refers to as the narrative of racial difference. White supremacy is a story that has been told and retold about human dignity that undermines Genesis 126 and 127. But the beautiful thing is that there's a better story that we see in the gospel. But the last thing I'll say on this, just to try to land the plane, is that trying to wrap our head around this in a simple way is difficult. But one of the key things that I would argue is that when we talk about racism, we have to understand the particular, even word racism first appears in the English language in 1902 by a gentleman named General Pratt, who was saying that, describing it as a bad thing, but this also evokes the complexity of it.

The same general who said that also said that he opened up these Native American boarding schools to strip Native Americans of their culture to, in his words, kill the Indian and save the man. Again, laced with a Christian ideology or a diseased Christian imaginary, to use Jennings' words. And so racism can be defined this way as the marginalization and or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy or caste system that privileges white people. And I think it's important to specify that when we talk about the unique context of race as a global project that's different than ethnocentrism, is different than even favoritism in aspects that we see in the Bible in terms of Jewish views of Samaritans because of its scope and its scale. So that's

how I would define racism, you know, simply. It's privilege plus, it's power plus bigotry. It's not just bigotry itself. Wow, that's super helpful, Russell. I've got a bunch of questions and stuff, but you've made it so clear. I'd rather just toss it over to Samuel and would love to hear your thoughts on that, specifically anything Russell said or give your own take on what racism is. Yeah, again, thank you for having me. I'm very grateful. You guys are very wise men, and for me to be part of this, I'm very grateful for that. I really am.

is very different than what it's been for the large part of Western society, or just a large part of the talk about racism. What I mean by that is this. Throughout slavery and segregation, the question wasn't, does racism exist or not? Or is it prevalent or not? The question was, is it good or not? Right. In that the slave owners or people who are supporting slavery or people who support segregation, they were saying either slavery was good or bad. That is not the conversation today. That is not the debate today. The debate is not whether it's good or bad. The debate is, does it exist as in systemically or not? Or is it prevalent or not? That's a very different kind of argument or debate. And I think we need to admit that because it's very, very crucial and helpful. I say that because there are guys like me who would say, of course, racism is bad. I don't know a single Christian today, a genuine Christian, who would say that racism is good.

I don't know anyone who would say that. I don't know anyone who would say that. Now, of course, because racism is a sin, which is a very important thing that I think we need to also emphasize, but because it's a sin, you will have Christians and, of course, might be guilty of the sin of racism, that racism is good, that it's okay. The question is, what is racism? Is it prevalent? Is it systemic? On top of that, since I've said sin, racism is sin, the Bible then is sufficient in addressing it, right? Because if it's sin, the Bible is very clear that everything the man of God needs to know to be equipped and competent in doing every good work, which includes every good work against racism, they will, they have that through the scriptures. So since racism is a sin, we know the Bible is sufficient in addressing that sin, in addressing racism. Also, if a, you know, the, the general understanding of racism, you know, um, um,

Rizal Berry mentioned that it's prejudice plus power. I would say that is, that is outside of what the scriptures would say, right? That power does not have anything to do with it whatsoever. If so, we create a major theological problem, which we'll get to, um, you know, maybe later. But what I will say is this, it is indeed prejudice, or to use a biblical word, it is partiality. Racism is not necessarily new. It is a particular version of an old kind of sin, a universal sin, which is partiality or bias or prejudice. or prejudice. You know, Razul Berry also mentioned Ibram Kendi, and he has a very different kind of, sorry, of definition than outside the Bible has, which is, here's what he says about what racism is. Ibram Kendi says, racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities.

Racial inequities is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing. And a racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. Delgado, Richard Delgado and his wife, Stefancic, define racism as the ordinary, not aberrational, normal science, the way usual society does business, the common everyday experience of most people in this country. Generally, what they're saying is racism is prevalent and systemic.

It is the norm in Western society, including Canada and America. I'm Canadian, which is why I mentioned that point. But the key thing here, I think, is, as Ibram Kendi says, As Ibram Kendi says, racism is generally evidenced by racial disparities or racial inequities, which, as I'll mention later on, also creates major problems theologically or just logically, period. All right, cool. Thank you for that um i man um i want to do the least amount of talking here but i do want to get some some clarification so um samuel are you saying that how you define racism is racism is always only something that an individual does toward another person like there's no racism should not be defined as something other than what the sin of an individual. Like, would you ever describe a policy or even something like,

you know, Paul talks about, you know, the principalities and the authorities and in my reading of scripture, at least in i would say new testament scholars that they would see sin as both kind of a you know um something obviously something individuals do but then there's there is also this thing called structural you know um structural systems that are also empowered by satanic forces or whatever that are also can be oppressive um would you yeah i don't want to get too far off but yeah let me just go back to the original question like it's do you do you see racism as only as something that an individual does towards someone else no because there isn't a single sin that's individual only only individual, right? Every sin can be committed by individuals and groups.

So for example, you can have more than one person committing the same murder, right? So, you know, sometimes two people can murder. And you see that even as you deal with racism, right? You have history of people being lynched, right? You have a history of black people being lynched. Well, that was oftentimes a group of people murdering an individual, right? So more than one person can be guilty of murder in the same way, more than one person can be guilty of racism. So it includes the government, right? The government or politicians can create a bill or a law or can commit an action that would be racist so it's not always individual however it is always intentional right which is a key thing i just think of like the women and children looking on because they saw in the newspaper 19 whatever 10 there's going to be a lynching

tomorrow so all the you know talents people show up and their moral conscience is so been warped that they see this lynching and it, they're not complicit. They're just showing up. They're not, well, they're watching on, you know, but like, is there something, and this is kind of something back to Rasul, like, is there something that in the history, in the air, in the psyche that has been built up to, that would allow a woman and her children to watch a public lynching and not even feel that kind of like some kind of, like their moral conscience is just so jaded. They're not doing anything to that person per se.

But what is it that would allow that family to show up and watch this lynching without any kind of, I don't know. I'm doing, Rasul, I don't know. I'm doing Rasul. I want to pass it back to you because I think I'm, am I bridging, am I trying to like toss it back to you? And again, this is why I started so broad as I did in talking about imagination in a diseased Christian imaginary, as Jennings says, because it's complex. Just like to try to talk about culture and actually

kind of nail it down is not as simple a direct line. And that's because there's a particular development ideologically and practically as it worked out in society that you have to have both a sense of the what's happening in people's minds, like you were just saying, that makes it okay to bring your little children to go see Black people set on fire and hung from a tree. How do you even get there? That is so diabolical. How do you even understand that? And I think diabolical is intentional because I agree with Samuel that the Bible is the foundation for understanding our reality in our world. I think that, however, we probably disagree on all of what the Bible has to say about the topic, but I agree with him that that is the foundation of my framework. And what I mean by that is I think power, the Bible has a lot to say about power. In particular, when it looks, when I started,

that's why I started in Genesis chapter one, because when it says that, you know, that God made humanity in his image, male and female, he made them. And he said, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, that cultural mandate expresses itself in our dominion, in our rule over the world, which immediately has, that's when you start talking about creating structures and systems, right? And you see this through line from the Tower of Babel, where there's this organized process and project to the Egyptian slavery, God wasn't primarily saying, hey, all Egyptians, change your hearts. I mean, that was a bonus, but he said, let my people go. There's a systemic, structural problem that God chose to confront in Exodus chapter 3, and that, interestingly enough,

resulted itself in a legal system in the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy that says this is how you ought to live and interact with each other for the process of human flourishing. And so even when we get to the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom is one in which Jesus is revealed, not just as a personal Savior and Lord, although he is that, but also as a king and priest and prophet that has social dynamics and that has a vision when he reveals himself in Luke chapter 4, and he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind. There's a whole reversal of the social order that is supposed to redeem that which humanity has got so terribly wrong, and that even at the end of the story in the book of Revelation, we once again see Babylon portrayed as a whore, but not just in a sexual

sense, but also as one that has huge economic implications, right? The nations are drunk on her wine, and they trade in human beings as an expression of the wickedness that they are participating in. And so when I go back to this aspect of racism, you know, I say, yes, it is helpful to look at the sin of partiality as a as a as a as a seed of this thought that that talks about the nature of human bias. But but in the same way that I wouldn't say a doctor to a doctor, someone if if I went to a doctor and I said, hey, are you qualified? And they go, well, the Bible is sufficient for everything that I need. So therefore, I don't know. I didn't never went to medical school because I can just treat you. I will wait a minute. I need you some more. If there's a bridge that somebody built and says, well, the Bible is.

bridge that somebody built and says, well, the Bible is, I think that in human interaction, and this is where social sciences are helpful to help us understand and make sense of our world, to flush out the biblical implications in the same way that, like, what's hacking? What does the Bible have to say about, you know, hacking? I mean, you can mine in that and get some principles, but it gets a little complicated, right? About whistleblowing. Like there's things that God has given us as humans the ability to understand and not just reduce everything down to a sense in which there's no taking into account social development and the realities of how do we make sense of our world in light of what we've seen around us. And one last thing I'm going to say, because particularly when it comes to racism, this is a project. And the reason why I said power as well as bias is because it was literally defined through the way that people organize each other, whether it was through slavery, whether it was through segregation, whether it was through these things. That was the primary emphasis always, was how do we manage and limit what one group of people can do? And so that's when we say socially constructed,

that means a society was constructed around this idea, and that in order to dismantle it, you also have to challenge the very things in that society and structure that was built on it. Hello, friends. I want to invite you to come join us for our first ever Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon Conference, March 31st to April 2nd. At this conference, we are going to be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation, care, American politics, and what it means to love, love, love your Democratic and Republican neighbor as yourself.

Different views will be presented. Everyone will be challenged to think critically, compassionately, and Christianly through all kinds of different topics. We've got loads of awesome speakers that are going to be there. Thabiti Anubuale, Chris Date, Derwin Gray, Ellie Bonilla, Jackie Hill Perry, Evan Wickham, John Tyson, Tony Scarcello, Sandy Richter, Kimmy Katiti, Heather Skriba, Street Hems, and many others will be joining us for the first ever Theology in the Raw Conference. All the information is in the show notes, or you can just go to PressAndSprinkle.com to register. And I would recommend registering sooner than later.

Space is limited. You can come and join us in person in Boise, or you can stream it online. Again, PressAndSprinkle.com for all the info. And that's society and structure that was built on it. Russell, real quick, I'm going to pass it back to Samuel. Can you, for somebody that's very new to this conversation, not this one, but just the race conversation, can you maybe summarize as concise as you can where you so far agree with Samuel

and where you see yourself disagreeing? Just so people can get, yeah. I agree that the Bible has to be our foundational framework for understanding human interaction and and what a human is and what a human is supposed to do and supposed to be i agree that racism is a sin um i think that those things are true i disagree with him that when he says that uh if we look in the debate of the past, the question was as simple as what people would assume that racism existed. That's just not historically true. Many of the most racist people claimed to not be racist while they were doing it. They gave other explanations, including,

I'm just following the Bible. If you look at the arguments towards segregation, if you look at the arguments towards slavery, they weren't making racial in their minds, racist claims. So that the question of is this racist and not like it was always an open question has always been not just now. Some people will say racism is good. You know, you ask a neo-Nazi or somebody, you know, or a Klan member, they're like, yes, it is good for us to, now they might not say racist, they might not call it racism what they do, but they will basically express a racist ideology or imagination. And so in that sense, I would say the Bible is helpful for helping us understand the human heart and whatnot. But because a lot of these systems were developed, like I said, 600 years ago, when we come to trying to understand the complexities of how segregation worked or how, you know, you know, the system of white supremacy work,

we always need to draw upon, you know, other insights and perspectives that just like we would in a medical profession or in the engineering profession. So I think that that's where we maybe disagree on there, but I also would say that it is a major theological problem. All right. Samuel, what do you think? Yeah, I think, you know, I'll be honest, I think speaking of major theological problems, I think, you know, I was very, I intentionally, I think I was very precise in saying that racism is a sin. Therefore, the Bible is sufficient in addressing it. The reason why I mentioned that is because Mr. Berry mentioned that, well, if we say that the Bible is, you know, all we need to address racism, well, then what about the medical,

all we need to address racism. Well, then what about the medical medical? What about doctors? What about engineers? Well, the difference there is a doctor or engineer is not committing an act of sin or righteousness. Right. The difference also, he mentioned he mentioned something on on on culture. He was saying it's hard to define culture. Well, that's true, but it's not hard to define sin because the Bible does, right? It's very clear. So I'll go back to, you know, what I'm referencing, which is 2 Timothy 3, 16, verse 17, which is, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Racist is a good work. The Bible says, God himself is saying that the Christian can be complete in working against that.

To be complete means you have to understand what racism is. The Bible gives you all you need. So it's not just foundational. Mr. Berry has used that word a lot. It's not just foundational. It's sufficient. So that's not saying that we can't use other, I'm sorry, that's not saying that we can't use other, you know, we can't borrow certain thinking. I love reading, and of course, right, in God's

common grace, he's giving unbelievers insight onto certain things, and that's fine. Nevertheless, the key thing is that when it comes to racism, the Bible is enough in addressing its sinfulness and how we can righteously address it. On top of that, you know, if, give me one second, sorry. Yeah, if racism is a sin, which it is, as the Bible has said, we can trust that we can be complete in addressing. Right. Meaning then that, you know, when you say something like prejudice plus power. Well, biblically, you know, we don't the Bible does not tie power to prejudice as a foreign idea. not tie power to prejudice. That's a foreign idea. That's a foreign idea that we're bringing in into defining what the Bible has already defined, which creates problems because if that's the case, if we believe that the power is almost inherently a sin, right, that if power is almost oppressive on its own, then you have to believe that the Israelites were sinful for having power over the Gentiles through God.

That the tribe of Judah in Israel were sinful for having power or, you know, or it's almost a hegemony over over Israel or that Aaron and his descendants had power over the other Israelites by being made priests, right? The power in of itself is not sinful, right? If it's power, but tied then to, or anything, right? If it's anything with sin is always evil. Nevertheless, when it comes to racism, it's either partiality, it's either sinful on its own, or it's not. Okay, can I jump in? Yeah, yeah, go for it, yeah. All right, first, let me go back to the Word. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable

for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God I see the word profitable, though, not sufficient. You're adding a word that's not there. It's not saying that it's that, and by sufficient, what we mean is that it is all that one could possibly benefit from, or all that one could possibly need or gain value from comes from the scripture in order to experience those things. As you said, God has given us common grace, and that means that it is also profitable to read a commentary. It is also profitable for reproof to hear a sermon. It is also profitable for reproof to read an encyclopedia or to journal. So I think there's a conflation that's happening with this idea of profitable versus sufficient, because the text that I'm reading says profitable,

versus sufficient, because the text that I'm reading says profitable, not that somehow appealing to any other source that is on God's green earth is somehow undermining that. That's my first point. Secondly, what I would say is that not only is racism a sin, but it's also a structure. So I gave the example of engineering and medical field. And it's interesting because I saw on your site that you're very pro-life. So I think that the question of ethics is very much involved with the doctor. And there are moral questions that you would agree to. But at the same time, what I'm saying is that in the same way that if we are understandings of rape are very much informed by borrowing insights, you know, from those who've studied the human condition and understand why these things happen. If we're trying to get to why this is happening and what do we do about it, then I think there is – the Bible doesn't disagree that we ought to have the sense of opportunity to speak into other things. And then the last part on that is when I say power and privilege, that is completely compatible with the scriptural take on race supposed to have dominion. You mentioned, so what I'm not saying, you talked about this aspect that if power is bad, that means the Israelites are bad. I never

said power was bad. Power is like a knife, right? It depends on how you use it. But what I am saying is that there is a particular type of domination, a particular type of exertion of a human autonomy that is involved when you have power that takes it to a different place. And I give you the example of the book of Kings, go first Kings, second Kings. And why is it that it's spending so much time on the kings of the monarchs of Israel. And guess what? When they were wicked, like Manasseh, then you saw that impact the entire nation. When they were godly, like Asa, it impacted the entire nation. And so there is very much an awareness of the fact that to whom much is given, much is required. And in Deuteronomy 22, for example, there's this aspect of a sin of omission that stealing is not just a matter of taking my neighbor's ox, taking my neighbor's land, but it's also not helping. If I see his ox struggling or in a ditch and I do nothing about it and I have the power to do something about it, then I am also in sin.

And so if we go, and lastly, I'll just look at the Jubilee. There's this aspect that that's a structural acknowledgement of the fact that humans have a tendency to exploit other humans. And so God put in his law, a vision and a framework by which people were supposed to, that was supposed to get adjusted and get corrected. And so I think that there's very much an aspect of saying, yeah, racism is sin, but it's also just historically speaking, a social phenomena. How can you deny the fact that it was a racially structured system that also had to be confronted by legal remedies and not just a change of heart from a sermon? I want to, real quick, so I see us understanding different when it comes to

the authority, nature, quote, sufficiency of scripture. We're kind of seeing it slightly differently here. I feel like if we could spend the rest of the time just going back and forth on that, I don't, unless you guys disagree, I think that that might be getting lost in the weeds a little bit. And I also hear Rasul,, you saying that like you don't even – I mean your understanding of racism, you actually see in Scripture and you've given evidences for it. So even if we do define sufficiency in the way that Samuel does, your case doesn't seem to be any different because you're going to Scripture to look at some of these things. I just went, so I'll let Samuel. Go ahead. scripture to look at some of these things. I just went, so I'll let Sam go ahead. Yeah, I definitely do not want to deviate from the point, but I think since the whole, you know,

we want to address what is the Christian response to racism. Well, then that means what is the biblical response to racism therefore we need to have a good theology on how we can address racism as christian which is why i'm addressing the text now you know and i will not i don't think i need to spend too much time on this point but what i will say is this um i find it interesting that mr barry was focusing on the word profitable that's not what i was emphasizing at all actually i was emphasizing i was focusing on the word profitable. That's not what I was emphasizing at all, actually. I was saying that profitable was there, not sufficient. Sure, but I never said profitable was the reason. So my word for, if I can finish. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. The reason why I am mentioning the word sufficient is because, as I was saying, of the word complete, right? That the scriptures,

right? The Bible is saying that all scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. That the man may be complete. The complete part is what I'm addressing here. that we have a completion of knowledge and understanding in being equipped for every good work, including against racism. So like I said, I'm not saying we cannot learn from non-Christians. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if we are going to be addressing the issue of racism, it is important, it is crucial that we agree that if I am simply working with what the scriptures have given me, if I'm just working with what the Bible has given me, I have a sufficiency, I have a completion. I can have a completion in understanding this issue

without having to learn from critical race theorists like Ibram Kendi or anyone else. Would we agree with that? No. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, I was asking the question if we think the Bible gives us a completion of what we need to know on racism, and you were saying no? Well, can I just want to point out as a Bible guy, like we we i mean samuel or all of us wouldn't have been able to even read that verse were it not for people studying archaeology doing text criticism the printing press invention um studying other cognate languages i mean um looking at greek literature

like that to even have the ability to read that verse requires a lot more complexity of other knowledge bases, disciplines going into it. But having been nurtured in John MacArthur's school and the sufficiency of Scripture and understanding kind of that, I do understand. I feel like if we just, I feel like we're going to keep missing each other if we keep kind of drilling down into that. And again, Rasul, I hear you saying like, I am going to scripture. I'm going to scripture. I can feel us getting bogged down too. And sometimes it's better to move on.

So I'll just say this since I said no, what I meant by no. What I meant by no is I think we have a difference of agreement of what that phrase that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work means. So I would say that, first of all, when it says that the man of God, right, this is we start getting into the Greek. So that all that the man of God needs is the is the scripture to be mature, mature, or is saying all you need is a Bible in yourself, because the rest of the scriptures clearly show the importance of preaching, teaching, community, the importance of education, like you said, in other aspects. I don't I don't think that, you know, but ironically, even as I say that, I still make the case, as you said, if someone properly understood the Bible story, they would also still understand that racism is about structure, structural inequality and about sin, individual sin, individual sin, corporate sin, as well as structural inequalities that exist in systems. I think that all of that is there in the text anyway, but I'm just also making the point that I don't think that that is saying that the use or leaning for insights into this topic is off limits from other sources. And I think that's important because historically that has been, I wrote an article called Uncritical Race Theory, where I kind of tracked the thought

patterns of, I was curious about how Christians have responded to disagreements about the issue of race throughout American history. And I looked at the Civil Wars, a theological crisis by Mark Noll. And what I found was that Christian abolitionists were being accused of following the culture and not following the Bible. They were being accused of not making sense of the just common sense text of the word and depending on social theories. If you go forward to the civil rights era, it was even more explicit where you had people like Bob Jones and Dr. G.T. Gillespie, two prominent evangelical Christian leaders, accusing people like Dr. King and other Christian civil rights leaders of being more beholden to Karl Marx and communism than they were to the scriptures. And that even Billy Graham, when he came back from Africa to articulate that, had kind of fallen away in their minds and ideas. So I think it's important, and when we talk about how we address this, I have found historically the tendency of those

who don't agree that these social issues are as big as other Christians say or as prominent have tended to undermine or challenge or to somehow imply that we have abandoned or have lessened our commitment to the text and have instead borrowed upon secular, worldly, godless ideologies in order to make the case that we're making. And I just think that that's an important idea to say, hey, we can disagree on how we understand the text, but, but we have to make sure that we are not just diminishing or somehow suggesting that, um, someone is less committed to the Bible because we have a different vision or understanding of how the Bible speaks to this issue. The, the, the problem though, and I, and I, the reason why I, we can move on, but I think

it's important that I say this. The reason why I mention that is that is a crucial, crucial, crucial text in informing our theology. And if we disagree on that text, but especially the sufficiency of the Scriptures in addressing these issues, no matter how you might see, if we just agree on that, that creates problems going forward. And I wanted to express whether we agreed on that or we just agree on that. We can move on, but I think it's very important that we address that. You mentioned that in the Bible, well, before you mentioned that, you were saying that historically, I guess you were saying people like myself have been undermining the work of other Christians in addressing the issue of racism and social issues and things like that. Well, again, we can move on, but this is why I think it's very important. You mentioned Martin Luther King Jr., right? You mentioned his work on the civil rights movement, and you mentioned that

some were suggesting, I think you were saying, that he was less of a Christian because of some of the work that he was doing. They were calling him a Marxist. Well, OK, well, I have my thoughts on that, too. But before we get to that, here's why it's important. Would you agree that Martin Luther King Jr., because he rejected, this is why I'm saying this, he was rejecting certain parts of the scriptures, because he rejected, for example, the divinity and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that he was not a Christian. Would you agree with that? First of all, I don't have any evidence to support that claim, so I've not seen that.

I've seen sermons where he's preached on the resurrection of Christ. Sorry, the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's of Christ. So I need the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, the physical resurrection. I'm just saying, I'm just saying I can't agree with the premise of your question because I've not seen anything that would suggest that King rejected the physical resurrection of Jesus. So I'm just saying I can't. So in some of his letters, he does say that, but fine, even if you're not familiar with that, which is okay. If he did say that, would you agree that he was not a Christian? Well, let me ask you, would you agree that somebody who whipped, tortured, raped,

and kidnapped people, all according to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, would say that that person would not inherit the kingdom? Would you agree that that person is not a Christian, even if they had tight theology on, as we define, you know, tight theology? If he was not, if that person was not in repentance, then they were not a Christian. Now, that deals then with a very specific issue. I don't know their life. I don't know their repentance. But if somebody affirms the scriptures, if somebody affirms the gospel, believes in the gospel, right, we know that people can live in sin. We just can still live in sin.

But it's one thing. We all live in sin. But we still, some of us, by the grace of God, believe in the gospel, right? And Martin Luther King Jr. was someone who was living in sin or was just a sinner and did not believe the gospel. Well, again, I reject that characterization of Dr. King. I feel like we can move on. I think it's important that I explain why this is very important. Well, I don't think a whole lot hinges on the regenerate state of Martin Luther King, does it? I mean, none of your cases kind of rests on that, right?

No, it doesn't. The reason why I mention that is because of our different point of views on, again, whether the Bible is sufficient or not. And I think since he had mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. and how historically Christians have been addressing guys like him, that was important that I explain why it does matter on where we fall into how we understand 2 Timothy 3.16. I don't follow why that matters in the conversation about race, but we can move on. Here's the big question I had ever since, Rasul, you started is, let's just, in my mind, I'm going to, let's just assume everything, your whole backstory, which I don't, I can't, kind of like you and Martin Luther, I'm like, maybe that's true, maybe not, it's outside of my field. Let's assume that racism was so deeply embedded in the systems in America,

wedded with Christianity for the last several hundred years. The biggest question I have is, do you still see that today? Like post the civil rights era, all the way into today, like some people are going to say, know i think um d'angelo even said like it's even worse today than it was then because it's it's subtle it's embedded in the system that's not explicit like it's even it's almost better when it's like written in the code you know jim crow laws or whatever and now it's so deep in the system that it's almost worse today and obviously you have socioeconomic disparities that, according to who you read, are even worse today than they were 50, 60 years ago. How complicit is the church today in these inequities, if we're even going to say there are inequities or whatever?

That's my biggest question is where we stand today. Right. Where are we in relation to where the church was, say, 100 years ago? Is that fair? Again, I don't I want you guys to lead the conversation, but I feel like that's that is kind of a big question that seems to be prejudiced toward other people and be mean to them is that that idea is not a sufficient understanding of what racism is and how it's worked. Because if you understand from the beginning and I'll just try to speed through this quickly for the sake of time, I'll just give an example. Elizabeth Key Greenstead in 1656, she was one of the first black people in the 13 colonies to sue for her freedom from slavery. And she won. She was biracial. You know, her father was white. Her mother was a black enslaved person. She won her freedom and that of her infant son in the colony of Virginia. Her basic premise was based on two things. One, the fact that her father was an Englishman.

Her basic premise was based on two things. One, the fact that her father was an Englishman. And so based on that, according to English law, she was a free person. But then also because she had been baptized in the Church of England as a Christian. And according to English common law, Christians could not be hold hold of slaves. Well, that sounds like a nice story until you understand that the reaction to that was that the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law in 1662 establishing that the social status of children born in the colony would be based on their mothers, not their fathers, which is different from English common law, and that also that a baptism and becoming a Christian would not, would cause someone to be free, which was also against common law. And so when we start to look at the institutions, right, and if you go fast forward to the Naturalization Act of 1790,

this is when Congress first comes into power and they limited who was a naturalized citizen to free white persons of good character, excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, and Black people from the ability to be citizens, to vote, to own land, to due process under the law and the criminal justice system, to start businesses, to be on a jury, and to marry as they please who they please. Why do I bring that up in 1790? Because what we're talking about is the very first law that establishes citizenship that the Congress decides does so in a way that excludes people of color and particularly black people from the idea of citizenship. And so what you have in the years that follow, whether you go Dred Scott case, which, you know, which said black people can't sue Plessy versus Ferguson, which said that separate but equal was allowed. So then when you fast forward all the way to Brown versus Board of Education, you go 1954. OK, now they strike down separate but equal.

But then you go, well, so that's the end of the story, right? No. The Little Rock Nine happens in 1957, where the federal government has to come in and escort little children into school. The Greenboro sit-ins happens in 1960. The civil rights protests in Birmingham. So the question is, if the law was sufficient in 1954, why are we still holding sit-ins and having the federal troops come in to guide people years later? Well, what that suggests is that the law was never enough because there was always going to be a way because it wasn't that soon as all the you know races said oh man brown versus board oh well then that means we just got to give up our racist ways and and just and welcome them into our systems no there

was this chess match that continued to go that uh that wanted to avoid those illegal implications and so now to today right and long And Long Island, I'm in Brooklyn, New York right now. 2019, a study was done by Newsday and they found widespread separate and unequal treatment of potential minority homebuyers in minority communities on Long Island. Half the Black people that were not shown the same houses, weren't given the same opportunities as the white folks that were looking for homes in Long Island. Right. When I look at, you know, busing, I mean, this is, you know, when you start talking about some of these things, 1974, 1976, busing in Boston is still an issue 20 years afterwards. And so, yes, we still have it,

but it's complex and it changes. I'm not saying that in every situation everything is is bad or is good. In some ways, we've seen the unintended consequences of integration was the erosion of the black community because folks, you know, kind of scattered. And so when they had options to live, you don't have the same robust inter, you know, multi class communities that you once did. At the same time, you do have the fact that people can, I went to the University of Pennsylvania, I wouldn't have been able to go there 100 years ago if, you know, under the rules that, or even 50 years ago. And so, yeah, there's those things, but yet we still have the fact that there's more segregation in schools today than there were in many cases 50 years ago. And you look at a lot of the other indicators that show not just outcomes, not just outcomes, but intent and strategic, like in the

context of that Long Island housing study, these weren't just omissions like, oh, we didn't know we were doing it. These were intentional efforts to have Black people not be in these communities. And so I think in some ways, yes, there is more of an insidious nature now than there was because when it was the law, people, it was easier to see and then challenge when it's not as explicit and clear, those biases. Because remember, the folks who were being taught this, you know, years before, they still alive.

Like they still, you know, there's people who were beating John Lewis's head in at the Edmund Pettus Bridge are still alive. They didn't just teach their kids, well, you know, actually we should allow Black people to vote because, you know, that's the right thing to do because they passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But they probably still taught racist ideas and those structures are still supported in our society and so um some of them that we've seen progress of course we had um but yet there's still a long way to go so can i just as tightly as i can summarize yet and you're not drinking a raw egg are you is that are you getting all rocky on that's a lemon i was like dude this guy's good

so so i hear you saying that well just what you just ended with, like, yes, of course, there's been progress. We don't have public lynchings. We don't have it written, you know, Jim Crow laws, whatever. But it is it's a how about this? We haven't had as much progress as if I could put words in your mouth, as say, white people or Christians, conservatives think we have made. Would that be fair? I would say not only that, there's always a backlash to the progress that you see. OK.

And so there is a revulsion. And this is where the imagination going back again. We have to understand the diseased imaginary and understand that we're not just talking about behaviors, but we're talking about an ideology of white supremacy that has been entrenched in the culture through media, you know what I mean, through the stories that are told about Africa. You know, my brother Samuel, you know, I heard you earlier, you know, in your podcast talk about the horrible things you experienced in your school. And I've seen that. And I've seen the internalized racism of Black people who were taught, you know, that, you know, Africa was not, you know, was a developed place and people had tails. And I saw when I was in middle school, you know, my African colleagues mistreated, you know, because of that by Black people. And so, and that's because anybody can

internalize racism. It's air that we breathe, you know what I mean, in a certain way. And so, so yeah, I think that still those narratives still exist and need to be challenged. All right, Samuel, your thoughts on all that? Hey friends, hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. And if you are enjoying this conversation and others like it, would you consider supporting the Theology in the Raw ministry by going to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to lots of different kinds of premium content like monthly Patreon only podcasts and blogs and Q&A sessions. Again, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology

in theal or all the info is in the show notes. All right, Samuel, your thoughts on all that? There's a lot. There's a lot there. And if you want to single out maybe one or two, just so we have maybe clarity or something or yeah, however you want to respond. From what I understand, with all due respect, I don't think he answered the question, at least from what I understood that you were asking. Or particularly, you know, he mentioned his look. Historically, we know we know that, unfortunately, America and in my context, Canada has been historically racist against black people or nonwhite people. We know that. But, you know, I'm trying to take,

there's a lot I want to say, but I'm trying to take. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And take your time. Yeah. Yeah. But what, what I'm still not hearing is, okay, since the topic today is about what is our response to racism now that, that therefore means, okay, how do we think about racism historically, but also how do we understand racism today? What is our response to racism today? Therefore, what is the racism today, right? And especially, it seems like what Mr. Berry has been saying, he's also addressing particularly the idea of systemic racism. Well, OK, where is that today? And when he was sorry, I gave an example.

I mentioned the Long Island housing situation. I was just one. Yeah. So in that one, you were mentioning disparities. You were using a disparity as an example of you did not give. So you mentioned, for example, he did say the intention. Like you said, it wasn't just you said it. I mean, I said in passing that you're not just talking about disparities and outcome, but there was actually intention in the people that were shown certain houses and not other houses. Is that where would be where would be the what would be the evidence that it was intentionally because they were black? Well, they have the video footage that they did. It was a news team called Newsday. You can go projects that Newsday dot com forward slash Long Island.

Just Google it. Long Island housing discrimination. And they have the video evidence of because they were secretly taping the encounters with the real estate agents and now i don't get too bothered down but in this in this occasion this incident what was what was happening that revealed that it was the way they were being prejudiced against them when they would send a black family or an asian or latin family to go to connect with real estate agents. They would not show them certain homes in certain communities. They would give excuses as to why the house is sold or I need to have a preapproval or something.

But then when they had a white family come in and look at the house, none of those expectations or things. And they were shown more houses and the houses, and they were much more eager and enthusiastic about getting them into those houses. And in a way that was very strikingly, obviously discriminatory. Okay. So the reason why I ask that is because I'm not familiar with that story, but it would not surprise me if that was the case, right? As I said, racism does exist. But the key thing, the reason why I wanted to push back on that a little bit is I want to understand what was the basis for why you were saying or why, you know, people in New York were saying it was racist. Right. So if it wasn't that they were being intentionally racist, that's not I've I've just this year I've received several cases of racism against me. So it does not surprise me that that would still be the case. The question though is also, okay, that how prevalent is it, right? Because that's what he was really asking, that we know that historically that racism has been there. We know that it's

still there today, but how prevalent is it today? Now, when you were broadly mentioning that, I didn't hear anything that would give me an understanding of how prevalent you think it is. And when it came to that, it seemed that generally what you were suggesting was disparities. You were mentioning the general idea of disparities across America racially as evidence of racism. Would that be the case? No. I was saying racism was evidence of racism. Okay.

But how is it prevalent? Like moving from that one example to like is that one example characteristic of many, many, many other cases? Is that what you're asking, Samuel? If I can say this, what I mean is this. Slavery was wide across America and Canada. Segregation was not, of course, across all of America, but it was prevalent across all the South, right? So what evidence do we have today to say that racism is systemically still true or prevalent? Sure. And when I say systemic, it's probably another word we need to define.

And again, it goes back to an aspect of, when say system. Right. It is not just a matter of prejudice. Right. Someone walks across the street when they see you and they clutch their purse. Right. Like that's a you know, that's something that may be. And I know I remember in your story, you kind of talked about how that may or may not be because of race. But let's just say you just know, like the person said out loud, oh, it's a black person. And so I'm going to walk across the street, right? Like, that's one thing. But when I talk about racism in terms of power and privilege and how it's been like historically manifest in the United States of America, in the West in general, there are laws. We can look at, you know, even the immigration laws. You know, you mentioned, you know, being a child of immigrants. Right. And and, you know, looking in Canada, you know, like that until they change their racist laws. You know what I mean? They were deliberately up until 1971 when they changed the law.

They were deliberately preventing people from other ethnic groups that they did not want to become, you know, there. And oftentimes they would use non-explicitly racist terms to do it. So, for example, they decided you can't, you have to go from a direct shipping port to get into Canada. You can't stop off someplace else. Well, a lot of the Japanese and Chinese migrant workers were coming in from Hawaii. So that was a way of them thinking through, how do we avoid having this group of people that we deem unfit to live here without us saying explicitly, OK, we don't want Chinese or Japanese. But to bring it to today, because you asked about today. don't want Chinese or Japanese. But to bring it to today, because you asked about today, I think, you know, the aspect you can look at. So in terms of the particular, they coordinated more than 12,000 fair housing tests. So this was not just like a handful of people. 12,000 is a

lot of tests to get to as a test control in one of the most populous, you know, the most populous area in the country and also one that's in the north and, you know, kind of likes to style itself as progressive. So that's happening there. You can only imagine what's happening in a place like Mississippi or Alabama. You can look at, for instance, another Harvard Business School did a test on, you know, resumes. And they looked at black people who had decided to kind of unracialize their resume. So their name was something like Rasul. They maybe changed it to Russell. Right. Are you S.S.E.L. to throw people off the trail that this was indeed a black person, scrubbed any memories or any references to HBCUs. And what they found is that they were more likely to be hired. Same resume as somebody, you know, with the, you know, Russell Berry and Russell Berry, but different outcomes. So we can look at this in a medical profession. There's been study after

study done to show that black people are not given the same type of pain treatment because there's beliefs that from all the way back from slavery that we can tolerate more pain. There's medical outcomes that show that disparity, but not just the disparity, but also the fact that there are interventions that are not happening in one case that are happening in the other case. And so just about in every aspect that we can look at, you can see that these disparities as a result of the processes exist. But I will say it is I will admit the fact that it is challenging to sometimes point to those things because they are people have become really adept at hiding it okay so um what you mentioned earlier but i'm grateful that you mentioned canada's history of racist immigration laws um but as as you would know um that we we know it was racist not just

because of the policy but they said you said that they didn't they didn't say that they were being racist but they actually said they did not want Japanese Americans and Asian Americans coming to Canada. They did say that. This is a historical iteration. If I could please finish. This is in the historical record. They did say that. So what they did after the fact was just in line with what they had said they wanted to do already. So we know there were being racists there.

But, you know, afterward, you yourself mentioned disparities. That seems to be the main evidence that keeps coming up when it comes to evidence of supposed systemic racism. But here's what I would say. Just an example of why that's a big problem. In America, I'll use only American numbers here, 93% of the people in jail are men. 78% of homicide victims are men. Men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women. The average man will die five years younger than an average woman. Men are two times more likely to die from COVID than women. Last year, police officers killed a thousand people or only a hundred, only about a hundred of them were unarmed only relatively. But but 36 people, 36 people out of the thousand were female.

36 people out of the 1,000 were female. That means that 96% of the people who were killed by cops are men. 78% of homeless people are men. High school boys are more likely to drop out of high school than women. Is this evidence of systemic sexism against men? Well, of course not. Of course not. So I think when we keep using disparities, disparities could be a sign of racism. It could be a sign of systemic racism.

But that does not prove racism. Let me just say again, in the two examples I gave, the housing example, there's evidence, there's video you can watch. In the resume example from Harvard Business School, there is a actual experiment that was done where folks had two different names and their job outcomes were related in terms of with the same resume. Right. So that's not just a question about outcome. But when you have an entire, you know, study done to show and you de-racialize their resume, that is evidence of not just an outcome difference, but of a process difference, of a systemic difference in these things. And you can go down the list the same way with, you know, segregation in schools and how we even got to the, you know, place that we did where, you know, these things didn't just

happen. We don't just go and look at. And so this is where, like I said, the imaginary, the idea of white supremacy, you have to tie that together with the idea of understanding these things and then just look at the legal trail and just follow, you know, that, you know, and just connect the dots. I mean, even if we're just dealing with, shoot, like we were just talking about immigration reform and laws like so that just changed in the last 30 some years. And it's still in terms of the books. But when I went back to Canada again, and I'm not going to begin to try to lecture you about your home country. But what I will say is that looked at each of the immigration acts, there were some that were explicitly saying we don't want Chinese people. There were some that were explicitly saying we don't want Chinese people. There were others that were more circumspect and nuanced.

And so did you to have to read in between the lines to see who they were trying to exclude. And so that's just what I'm saying is how sometimes these systemic issues. So I'm hearing because I just got done with Kendi's book and he kind of just – disparities in outcome is evidence for bias in the system. I don't hear you, Rasul, saying that. I'm hearing you saying that it's – I think he's too reductionistic at times. You're saying that there's evidence for intention, and you're not excluding the disparities in outcome. That's one piece of evidence that we need to examine. But you're saying there's evidence for actual intention within people in the system.

Well, and I'm saying, and I guess I'll just add this real quick piece and then Sammy, I'll let you go, is I'm saying that when I understand the history of how the rules were framed, do you realize the word black does not appear in the Constitution, right? Like in Plessy versus Ferguson, and most of the laws that were created intentionally to be racist. In most cases, in many, many, many cases, they don't explicitly appeal to racist ideology to justify the decision or even appeal to it all. It's what, you know,

oftentimes is referred to as in the Southern strategy with all. It's what, you know, oftentimes we refer to as in the Southern strategy with Nixon. And so what I'm saying is that, that when I understand, my understanding of the history of this concept and this term and this issue is that there's always been a cat and mouse game of trying to present a certain type of reality preference, certain people without necessarily feeling bad, because this is where the theology comes in and helps me out. The whole reason for even justifying or creating racism was to justify slavery, right? So there's something in the human condition that says, I can't just treat you badly and with no explanation. I have to come up with some reasons to make it okay to do it. And so I'm not just appealing to outcomes like Kendi, but I am saying

that those are helpful insights that we can kind of look at and explore and go, man, this is really tragic. Why is it the case that this is happening? Is there some aspect of bias? And sometimes that bias, and this is the last thing I'll say, because I'm talking about structural inequality and not just individuals, sometimes the system does the work for you. I don't even need to like, you know, once I put in a rule that says, well, you got to come in, you got to come straight from another country that it has to be a British, you know, you know, part of the British empire, then I'm already doing things to circumvent and limit who I'm getting there. And that's what it's designed to do. And so I think we have to be aware of that and realize that we have to have a more sophisticated understanding of, of, of, of how racism works than not just go.

It doesn't just go, Hey, I'm being racist. I don't want black people here. It don't usually work that way. So you're saying the psyche that you described at the very beginning, that hasn't completely gone away. That imagination. That's what you're basically. Okay. Oh, not at all. Samuel, somewhat quick response, because I do want to, we only have a few more minutes. I want you to respond to Rasul, and then I really want to ask the question of the,

bring it back to the church is where I want to go. Like as Christians, even listening on, it's kind of two different perspectives. How can we move forward as one body of Christ when there's differences of opinion on something that's obviously very personal and has a deep history. But first, Samuel, response to what Rasul was saying. Yeah. Again, there's a lot there to unpack and I can't address everything. But, you know, what I was trying to say earlier was,

Rasul mentioned the immigration policies in Canada. Again, I'm grateful he mentioned it. You know, a law is a law. You know, so you're, if you, since you're familiar with this, you know, you mentioned that you don't lecture me, you know, if you know the law, they know the law, simple as that. Nevertheless, the reason why I say we know why they were having those laws is because even though sometimes the laws did not explicitly say they were doing this because of racism, we know what they ran on. We know what they said they wanted to do. We know quotes outside of the law that shows their partiality against Japanese Canadians or Black Canadians. So we know that. So then when we know what you've said, and then you do, you know, what you said, even if you're not explicit,

we know why you did it, right? So that's true with America. We know that, as you said, slavery did not explicitly say that, you know, that we're doing this because we have partiality against Black people. But we know what was happening. We know the reports. We know the world view on this. We know what they were doing in Africa. We know all this. We know their views on how maybe the Black people were less equal than white people. We know all their views on biology and all that. We know scientific racism. We know all these things. So all their laws, we know where they were coming from. The problem today, this is what I was trying to address, that you've mentioned two

studies or reports, one in Brooklyn and one from Harvard. There's still studies. Now, like I said, I do not want to dismiss racism. I don't know these examples, but it would not surprise me if there were examples of racism within that. The problem is, you mentioned that it was a 12th. They were studying 12,000 cases, right? Now, the problem is this. Logically, we know you can have an instance where there's five recorded because you mentioned the videos on this. I'm sure there aren't videos of the 12,000 cases, right? There would be, I'm sure, more than one video on it. And again, in that instance, it could be because of racism.

It probably is. But we cannot from that then say that this means that all the cases were because of that. It could be, but we just don't know that. And I think in humility, we have to say, look, maybe in this case there was racism, but at least widespread racism, but maybe there isn't, which is why I get back to the issue of disparities. Because when you go from addressing an individual or several instances of racism, and then you apply that to a whole report or to Harvard and everything else, that creates problems.

Then the main thing we're still resting on is disparities. interviews where I mentioned my history with racism in my at my local school where I had a teacher who was addressing you know me being African in a very racist way he was he was he was relentless and brutal he was you know mixed for my dark skin he was he was attacking Africa now you mentioned before about internalized racism. You mentioned that, you know, it seemed like you were saying that some Africans believe that when Africa is less developed than other nations, it's internalized racism. I don't think so. Unfortunately, Africa is less developed than other nations.

That's why myself and my relative have moved from Africa to come here, so we would come into a better nation but that's not racism that's just the truth nevertheless of course attacking me and attacking africans based on our skin color is racist so if i were to use that example and i also had friends who also had the same experiences too. If I use, say, two or three experiences, and then to say, you know what, it just happens to be also that in this school, Africans were less likely to graduate, then based on those three or four instances, it means that all Africans were being discriminated against at the school, that would be inaccurate. It could mean that, but we don't know that. And that's where, again, disparities come in where I say, well, that's not a legitimate evidence of racism. It does not even really support it.

It could mean that, but it is not a strong, firm evidence of racism. firm evidence of racism. Can I, Rasul, any quick thoughts or do you want to, I want to bring it back to the, how to move forward. I can, I can jump in that and move forward. Okay. You know, first of all, just to clarify, what I was saying was in my experience, when I, you know, had, you know, particularly a classmate from Nigeria and Ethiopia came to our school at the same time, predominantly black school. And what I was

referring to wasn't just that students were saying, ha ha ha, your country is less developed economically than mine. We weren't saying that in middle school. It was African booty scratcher. It was all you, you probably living in trees and huts. Ignorant statements that way that also reflected when you look back on the way Africa and Africanness has been portrayed throughout American history in media, in art, in scholarship, it reflected the idea of white supremacy, which from the very foundation of race, there were these desire and shape or other observations that they would make to make that case. to my own shame, I would say, but breathe in some of that in terms of our perspective of our own heritage and where we came from, and definitely people who are more connected to that. And that's one of the insidious things about white supremacy, is that it can cause you to

want to disassociate with yourself so that you can be in proximity to it. So I wasn't just referring to that sense of development, but a much more deeply held imagination about what Africa is as a place and people, which I think is a real tragedy. In terms of moving forward in the church and what we need to do, one of the things that I think is important to highlight is this, the disparities. is this the disparities? And I think this might help in terms of the issue, because I know we've been talking, when I say disparity, I know that's been a thing of like, hey, Samuel's hitting, that can't be the only indication. Obviously, in the case of, you know, crime, you know, or statistics about who's in jail and who's not, there are gender disparities that people aren't arguing is a result of some massive conspiracy to oppress men. Right. So and I would agree, which is why I said I depart from Kendi in this point of I think that there's sometimes a overly simplistic way of looking at it.

However, I also said that because oftentimes these things hide in plain sight and are there other explanations that are used to try to, in sight? And are there other explanations that are used to try to, you know, when you look at gentrification and people, you know, they're just euphemisms that are often used to say, okay, I don't want this type of person here. I don't want that type of situation without actually expressing it. And that's the history, that's the history too, that Samuel appealed to. You can just look at what people say behind closed doors. You know, I'll give you an example. people say behind closed doors. You know, I'll give you an example. John Ehrlichman, who was, you know, part of President Richard Nixon's, you know, you know, administration and cabinet, he mentioned and said the Nixon campaign in 1968 and the Nixon White House after that had two enemies, the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't

make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. So this is a quote, you know, you can go Harper's Magazine, 1994, where they give you the aspect of the playbook about why the emphasis on drugs was used in the Nixon administration to discredit critics. But to fast forward to today, the Barna Group did an excellent study called Beyond Diversity that was just released a few months ago.

And one of the things that I think is important for us as a church is one of the points that it made under the rubric. Historically, the U.S. has been oppressive to minorities. So it asked white, black, Hispanic and Asian people to say strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. In that category, if you were to look at, you know, whites who responded to the survey, only 14 percent said that they strongly agree, you know, with that statement. Historically, the U.S. has been oppressive to minorities. In contrast, if you look at the combined, like, you know,

the black population is 44% that strongly agree, 31% that somewhat agree. So you put that together, you're looking at a disparity of between 75% to about 32%, you know, 2% or 40% about looking at that issue. And time and time again, when we looked at this, when Barna looked at the statistics, what they saw was that white Christians were more likely to blame different outcomes on personal behavior of black people. Black people were more likely to associate, and I'm saying dramatically so, with ongoing discrimination. So I think one of the things that just is a basic question to me is when you look at this study, if I'm coming at this from a person who's not experienced what it's meant to be black in America, I might want to listen to what the majority of African Americans are saying about their experience. That might give me better insight into what's happening

than simply my own point of reference when I am removed from that situation. And so I think that listening to those stories, wrestling with those accounts, and again, look at that Beyond Diversity study and the insights there, it's pretty striking. And even when it comes to solutions in the church, there's differences of perspective about what to do about the scenario. And I think that if we were to listen to those who are primarily impacted by racism, who are saying, hey, we have a problem here, then I think our understanding of it, if we're not coming from that standpoint, can be really shaped by looking at statistically, not everybody, because everybody is different, just

like Samuel and I have different views. But I think that there is a statistical resonance to 80 percent of a group of people saying this is a problem. And another group, 25 percent, saying this is a problem. So let me stand in for the predominantly white, let's just say more conservative evangelical church. So I want you to speak to me as kind of represented, not that I personally do represent all of that. But let's just say, would that be your main plea is, hey, for us to move forward as one body, a diverse body in this very polarized situation we're in, and the race conversation is part of that polarization throw politics in there throw i mean we can even sexuality questions and stuff but would that be your main kind of encouragement is hey please just listen to your black brothers and sisters in their in their lived experience would that be a big part of it? of racism has been the marginalization of one group of people by another group of people and a desire to maintain that caste system. And that that is something that needs to be

confronted and addressed. Now, it so happens that, and again, I'm not trying to, I believe that that is true. And it also bears reference that most people who look like me, who would be the primary experts in saying, hey, this has been a problem, also agree that this issue is more systemic than it is about individual behavior and that it is about, you know, personal life choices that are bad. And so I would say, yeah, I would say that was the first thing, is just change the mindset about how racism works and what it is. But then I definitely would also encourage folks to look at those statistics and look at what the majority of African Americans who live in this country and have the experience have to say about it. And that would be a primary sense of insight. And then the last thing would

be sacrifice and comfort. I think that even in this conversation, you know, it's sometimes difficult to disagree or to say something that someone might be offended by, but I think that we have to deal with it in order to move forward. And I believe that, you know, the Holy Spirit and the Word and our understanding of how do we, of the sanctification process gives us a lot of what we need to that process. Yeah. And Samuel, I'm sure you got a lot to say. I'm just going to be completely honest. Like, I'm really wrestling with all this and, you know, you're trying to read across across the board different things um and so when i when i read for instance thomas soul and i know you know you either love him or hate him i like he makes a lot of really like really compelling cases for why the

disparity is there but then sometimes i'm like you know i hear people say well that's just because you're white that's why you like him i'm, well, at least wrestle with the content of what he's saying. It's kind of like, to me, it almost sounds racist to say there's nothing in the content of what this really bright guy is saying. It's just because I'm white. I'm like, I'm not searching for like, I don't think I'm searching for, oh, I want to like this, want to like that. But like, you know, he gives a very um explanation for why there are disparities um like how is that okay for me to like like you know he says like like the african-americans were better off in 1940 than they are now and that if you control for age geography and family home single dual

parent like the disparities basically go away um yeah and that that, and when I read that and I look at all this stuff he says, I'm like, okay, what's the counter argument? I'll go to Kendi. And he doesn't even address it or even acknowledge it. That's a, another thing to address. And, um, even like the, you know, the, the, the, you know, the, the name study, you know, where you, if you have like an African sounding name, you know, you're, you're not getting as many jobs. I read another thing that said like, well, if somebody an african sounding name you know you're you're not getting as many jobs i read another thing that said like well if somebody has a very asian sounding name the same discrimination was there and yet yeah no the asian community are more well off than even the white community so i don't know i'm just i'm really certain as i try to read both sides of all

this i'm just super disoriented and my main heart is like yeah i want the body to be one i want us to address whatever racism is there. I, you know, so I just need some pastoring here on how, as a white guy, you know, I'm kind of like tiptoeing around this, like, oh man, I just, I want to do the right thing. I truly want to model Jesus in this really volatile conversation. I feel like ignoring it's the worst thing to do. But as I step in, I'm like, in certain contexts, if I don't say this or say that or read this or don't agree with that, then I'm seen as part of the problem. I just feel handcuffed a little bit. Samuel, I don't know.

Yeah, maybe. I don't know if you're asking me. Yeah, let me ask you. I haven't let you talk in a while. Samuel, yeah, you jump in there. And then Rasul, I would love to hear your thoughts on that too. And then I do. I got another person waiting for me for another podcast.

We do got to wrap it up. Yeah. Well, let me say this real quick because I do think my perception – in my world, kind of moderate evangelical, mostly white, but more diverse than the average evangelical circles. Like this is – I think this is what we are wrestling with. Like we want to do the right thing. We see differences of opinion and we're just – yeah we're just kind of feel a little stuck you know um so yeah sam you'll

help me out here yeah as you mentioned um by referencing thomas soul there are a lot of problems with the disparity argument even if we're not making the disparity argument the only argument right although which russell's. The primary argument that is used. The issue with it is there historically, as you said, even as not just 1940s, 1960s. Right. The civil rights movement. You had a you had it's weird to say it this way, but you had more parity between black Americans and white Americans than you do now.

What I mean by that is you have that over the last 50 years, the racial disparities have been getting worse and worse. Right. So based on the argument that I know it's not his only argument, but based on that, that that stat, you'd have to believe then that it means that racism is getting worse, right? When I would say, well, no, it's not. But, you know, going back to what, I hear what you're saying, and I don't want to ignore what you were saying, Mr. Sprinkled, but, you know, Rizul was saying earlier about listening to Black Americans and listening to our Black Christians, and we should, but we should also listen to, and I know he would also agree with this, all black Christians. Also, let's listen to all white Christians as well.

See, in the same way that the majority of black Christians would say that they've been victims of racism or more particularly systemic racism. Well, you'd also have a lot of white Christians or white evangelicals who would say, well, they're victims of slander and false accusation as well. So let's listen to both groups as well. The majority does not have a monopoly on truth, right? A majority of people can be wrong. So for example, right? Historically, a majority of white people in America, including some white Christians,

were in the wrong with their views when it came to racism or slavery. The majority does not prove or dismiss anything. So we should listen to both groups. Listen to black people, listen to white people, listen to everybody. But more than anything should listen to both groups. Black people listen to everybody. But more than anything, listen to the Word of God. I don't want it to be missed here. What does it mean to be racist? What is racism? Racism is partiality. Biblically, that's what it is. Racism is just a race-based form of partiality. Therefore, if we are going to say

that there is systemic racism, then it means that there is systemic partiality. Therefore, if we are going to say that there is systemic racism, then it means that there is systemic partiality against black people or non-white people. So we have to be very, very firm in defining that in that biblical way. So that's what I would say for that right now, and then maybe Razul can reply, and then we can get back to what you were saying. Let me ask real quick, Samuel, because at the risk of giving the mic back, but how would you define race? There is – racism or race? Race. Race. That it is simply people who are made in the image of God, people who are descendants of Adam.

If you mean like the human race is all people in Adam. In the context of talking about races, right? Like race, like what race somebody is, white, black, Asian, whatever. How do you define what race is? Yeah. So the reason why I mentioned it is I reject the term, you know, race based on different groups of people. But if you mean ethnicity, then I would say that ethnicity. No, I'm saying there is a thing called race that exists as a concept in the world. Yes. How do you define that concept? But I'm saying I disagree with that concept. Right, right, right. You disagree with the validity of the concept, but you don't disagree

that it exists in the world, right? In what way do you mean? That people have something in mind, that there are books written about what we've been talking about the whole time, like that there's a thing that exists out there that people have in their mind, a mental image of when they say race, like a check a box, like what they mean. I'm asking you, how do you define that? So in the world, people would define race as people with different features, humans with different features. Right. And I'm saying, no, I disagree with that. That is scientific racism. I disagree with that. I do not believe that we should be making distinctions amongst people based on their skin color. Right, right, right. I think maybe that's a helpful point of departure in terms of just understanding where some of our gap is that I am.

So first, fact one, I agree that there is no biological basis of race, that race is a foreign concept to the scriptures, that there's the Imago Dei principle. There's that sense of ethnos, you know, or goyim in the Hebrew, ethnos in the Greek, which talks about nations as people, not geopolitical boundaries, but types of people. Right. Ashanti, you know, Fanti, that kind of thing. Right. To shout out Ghana. So. that's what we mean by ethnicity. What I am saying is that part of what we have to really understand is that the particular story of race in our consciousness is a particular story that came out of a certain imagination, a certain way of looking at groups of people that informed meaning into those categories and that created structures to support the meaning that was infused into those categories. So the very fact of the matter that we agree that it's not a real thing actually supports how pernicious it is that this is, we've been spending so much time talking about it. But so any case, I just wanted to, you know, so I think that that's an important historical

concept. That's why I started with the aspect that this is something very unique in particular. This is not ethnicity. This is not culture. This is something very unique that has emerged over the last 500 plus years. that people have different points of reference and points of view. And I happen to agree that, you know, with Samuel that, you know, we shouldn't just look to listen for confirmation bias, right? And I think that is also accurate to say that just because a majority accepts a position doesn't make it naturally correct. I think that though it's important to talk about a majority of people's lived experiences is different than talking about a majority of people's lived experiences is different than talking about a majority of people's biased perceptions. So when you use the example of, you know, if I go back to 1850 and do a straw poll and say, you know, among white Christians and say, hey, are black people, you know, equal to whites? And I see 90% say, no, they're not. And I go, well,

then therefore I must conform my idea to that. That's a totally different process than asking if I take a straw poll of slaves and say, hey, slaves, people who are in slavery, how many of you would like to be free? And 95 percent say I would like to be free and have my own land. That that should inform the way that I hear the story that was given to me from white slave owners that were saying they're happy in this condition. They like it in this way. Same thing in segregation, where it was the whole mythology of King as being this outside agitator who was stirring up the good Negroes, who liked and appreciated the social segregation that was there. But then when you talk to them individually and did a straw poll, you would see that that was not the case. So what I'm saying, it is important to actually hear. It's one thing to say, I don't agree with a whole group of people who have a viewpoint about society or the world that I disagree with. It's another thing

to say, there's 85% of people saying that they've experienced racism in a structural or systemic way, and I'm rejecting that because I don't agree. Those are two different types of things. And so I think, yeah, it's important to listen. And then the one last thing, particularly to go on soul is I am a social scientist by trade. I might did my degree was a sociology and African-American studies. One of the disappointing things that I find is that because in the Christian space, there's not a high value of social sciences in specialty in these categories. People just lump anybody in who talks about it. And I'm going to be real with it, especially if they have a black face and they tend to agree with them, then they get even more cosigns usually. And what I'm saying is that I respect Thomas Sowell as an intellectual,

the brothers, you know, pedigree, you know, and institutional knowledge is exceptional. And at the same time, I'm going to say as a as an intellectual, as an academic, he's an economic economic. He's an economics focus. That's all the theories about social sociology and race and social construction. theories about sociology and race and social construction, that's not his specialty. So I wouldn't go to an economist to get to bear and frame my understandings of race in the same way that I wouldn't go to a theologian to try to understand economics. I think it's two different things that oftentimes get conflated because we don't have enough of an appreciation of the unique role. And one last thing I'll say, W.E.B. Du Bois changed the game. In 1900, he did a survey called the Philadelphia Negro. Up until that point, the primary theory and explanation that people had for social disparities

among black people and white people were that black people were just, you know, inferior. They had bad character. Their families were in tatters. And and that's because even back in 1900, when Du Bois did that survey, black people were three times as likely to have single parent homes than white people were in 1900. And that disparity had been around since 1880, since they first started taking these tests. Yeah, that those disparities being twice, three times as much as has been true. And yet Du Bois, what he did was he studied and he walked around South Philly and he did his anthropological research and he started to show how there were structural instances of how employment discrimination, housing discrimination, how all of these factors contributed to the erosion of what he saw around him of the society. And that was really the birth of sociology in America. And I think that that's an important tool and aspect that a lot of times

in the Christian world that we just undervalue and underappreciate. It's a lot there, man. I really got to wrap this up. I got somebody waiting on the line, but Samuel, let's just two minutes or less, your encouragement slash challenge for the church in this conversation, then I'll pass it back to you, Rasul, and then we'll close this out. How's that? Yeah. Because we're not going to, there's so much out here, we're just not going to be able to solve it. So more of like, okay, people listening to this saying, gosh, I'm hearing maybe good sides from each one of you. Maybe I'm sure people are siding more with one or the other, but let's just set aside for a second all the facts, data studies. How should the church respond after listening to kind of two representatives here?

Yeah, as always, there's a lot to say there, and I only have a couple minutes to address it all, but I'll just try to summarize of two representatives here. Yeah, as always, there's a lot to say there, and I only have a couple of minutes to address it all, but I'll just try to summarize the key points here. I think it's interesting that Mr. Berry mentioned that, you know, or claimed that since Thomas Sowell is an economist and not a social scientist, then he does not have quite the specialty or expertise to address this issue.

What I find interesting is since racism is a sin, the person that is most, who's an expert or has specialty in this issue is God himself. So I'm mentioning that to say more than economists, more than social scientists, more than anybody, more than Mr. Berry, more than myself, more than you, Mr. Sprinkle, the authority, the authority on racism, the authority on sin and righteousness is God himself. And we need to make sure that if we are going to understand racism, if we're going to define a sin, if we're going to know how to respond to a sin, let's go immediately to the scriptures, right? And quickly, the point about who to listen to, we need to be very careful. We can call it a viewpoint, we can call it lived experiences.

Ultimately, God calls us to show no partiality against the rich or the poor, against the great or the small. A black person's view does not carry more weight than a white person's view on this issue. We all should be showing no partiality to both groups. We only need to go to the word of God and submit to what it says on racism and what it says on partiality. I only have a couple minutes, so I'll end there. Okay. Yeah. Rasul. Yeah. Yeah. I also honor the time. Thank you again for the discussion and Samuel for engaging with me. I think that it is important for us to lean into conversations that we don't typically have. And I think that God is the ultimate authority. I find it interesting that that seems to come up.

It feels like there's a correction that is being made to what I'm sharing in light of bringing that up. I don't know if that's the case, but that's how it feels. It's like, yep, but we got to go appeal ultimately to God. And I think that it's important to convey that as believers, there's a mystery aspect to trying to understand the complexities of society and life and read the scriptures and allow those to help us to come to those conclusions. And that we can, people can be sincerely doing that process and come up with different conclusions. And I think somebody is right, somebody is wrong, but I think that it might be a better, it might be a good approach for us to begin to examine how we come to the theological conclusions, as opposed to just appealing to, you know, the sense of like, well, God said it. It's like,

well, I'm not saying God didn't say it. I'm just saying I agree. I think God's saying something different than you did. And so anyhow, I would just encourage people to lean in to conversations. But also, I think while nobody is one arbiter of truth, I would say that in the same way that if I wanted to try to understand the realities of sexual assault be helpful, whether the person's a boy or girl, a male or female, it listened to what that experience is like, and in a way of forming my understanding of how society should respond, as opposed to just sitting myself somewhere in a Bible and reading it and then saying, okay, close the book, thus says the Lord, because I think the biblical framework is that we ought to be curious and learn from each other and that God has given other people insights, especially from their experiences,

to be able to shape what it is. And I think Solomon did that, you know what I mean, as he reigned and ruled and listened to what his constituents and whatnot as the kind of wisest man ever. So I would just encourage us to lean into that wisdom and continue to have hard conversations, but also to step outside of our comfort zone and tell a lot of those things to shape us. Thank you guys so much. Thanks for being on the show. A lot to think about.

Yeah. Amen and amen. Thank you. Thanks for having us. All right. All right. you