Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep911: Empire and Race in the Book of Acts: Dr. Willie James Jennings

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

Dr. Jennings is Associatet Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University and has written several books including The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race��(Yale 2010), which won the American Academy of Religion Award of Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Constructive-Reflective category the year after it appeared and, in 2015 and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the largest prize for a theological work in North America. His commentary on the Book of Acts, titled Acts: A Commentary, The Revolution of the Intimate (for the Belief Series, Westminster/John Knox) received the Reference Book of the Year Award from The Academy of Parish Clergy in 2018. In this episode, Dr. Jenning helps us understand how the book of Acts critiques empire and imperial values, and also how the early Christians in the book of Acts were wrestling with ethnic reconciliation and inclusion. Toward the end of the episode, we talk about the concept of “Whiteness”--what it means, what it doesn’t mean, and how it can be a useful tool for people to use to think through the history and politics of race. Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will 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 your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Faith, Sexuality, and Gender Conference - Live in Boise or Stream Online In the all-day conference, Dr. Preston Sprinkle dives deep into the theological, relational, and ministry-related questions that come up in the LGBTQ conversation. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today the one and only Dr. Willie James Jennings. Dr. Jennings is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University. He's the author of the highly acclaimed book, The Christian Imagination, The Theology and Origins of Race. Another book, After Whiteness, which we discussed briefly, An Education in Belonging. And the main book we talk about is his commentary on the Book of Acts. It's called Acts, a Commentary, the Revolution of the Intimate. It is a very stimulating commentary. I mean, he's so poetic and such a beautiful writer, and it comes out in

his commentary. Such a thoughtful guy. I wanted him to just help us think through the theology of Acts in this podcast, and that's exactly what he does. We start with Acts, we linger there for a long time, and then we make some cultural contemporary applications. And then we got into a discussion about race and whiteness and imperialism and so on and so forth toward the end of the podcast, which I thought was very provocative and clarifying in many ways with some of these really debated and volatile concepts. So please, welcome to the show for the first time. I'm here with Dr. Willie James Jennings, professor at Yale University., I reached out to Dr. Jennings.

I must've been a month and a half ago or so. Um, and I, I described it as kind of a Hail Mary. I'm like, you know, I, every now and then I'll throw a Hail Mary to some, you know, Ivy league professor. And usually I get maybe crickets or maybe a polite, no, you know, every now and then I'll land one. And so I was really excited when you responded back so kindly right away and said, yeah, I'd love to. I'm like, really? So thanks so much for being on the podcast. My pleasure.

My pleasure. So I'm holding in my hands one of your books, The Book of Acts. It was a commentary on The Book of Acts. Wait, what's the – the subtitle is killer. Oh, where did it go? I can't even see the subtitle. You know it. the revolution of the intimate the revolution of the intimate and the first line of the commentary says the book of acts speaks of revolution um can you unpack that a bit because the concept of revolution can probably mean different things to different people. And yeah, and in what way is the Book of Acts a revolution?

And maybe that'll get us going, and I'm sure we can maybe look at some passages and unpack that a bit. Absolutely, Preston. I mean, the Book of Acts is the beginning of the revolution because it is the overturning of the ways in which boundaries and borders have been designed by us to tell us not only who we are, but where we should go. And the book of Acts is God's way of overcoming not only the boundaries and borders, but reconstituting for us what it means to be a people striving for a future, redirecting that future toward a new reality of joining. And so it is revolution in the deepest sense of the word. You know, for so many—I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, no, you go ahead. You finish your thought. So for so many people, the way in which they imagine their futures is tied so inextricably to the hopes and dreams of their people, of their nation. And so what the book of Acts shows us is that there is a subverting of that hope and that dream toward God's life and life with God and a life together with God that is at the heart of this overturning this revolution. So that's why it's called. What are some of the hopes and dreams in the first century that the Book of Acts is trying to maybe reorient or confront or correct? As I said in the book, there's two kind of realities of dreaming that the Book of Acts is situated right between. There is the dreaming of the empire, the Roman Empire, for its continuing flourishing.

And within that dreaming, there are the dreams of those who would be citizens, those who are at the margins but hoping to become citizens, and those who are citizens who are hoping and dreaming for the ongoing welfare of the empire. In fact, anyone who becomes a citizen of the empire, of course, hopes for its eternality. They hope that it will never end, it will go on. So there is that dreaming going on of life in the empire and the empire prospering. But then there's also the hope of the diaspora. And what is that hope of Jewish diaspora? Number one, for their ongoing survival.

And tied to that ongoing survival is it rooted in faithfulness. That is faithfulness to the God of Israel. So the dream that it will continue in all its desperate places, all its dispersed places, to be a faithful, a faithful remnant, a faithful reality of Israel's God, following Torah and doing the will of God, enjoying God's favor. But also the dreaming of the day of the the uprising if you will the day in which Israel will no longer have Rome on its neck no longer seen as it a backwater reality of Rome that it have will stand as its own people the restored kingdom of David and that kingdom means independence, self-determination.

We rise, we stand, and we are not subject to any other power because we stand under the power of the one true God. And so these two kinds of dreaming are going on in the book of Acts. But then there is the third dream, if you will, and that is the dream that comes from and through this Jesus of Nazareth. What he dreams, what will be now realized on the other side of death with his resurrection, a dream that will come true with the coming of the Spirit, and that is for the gathering to begin.

Just as you're talking, so many passages were kind of coming into my mind. Let me start with the second hope, the one of kind of, if I can put it, you know, Jewish nationalism or maintaining the purity of the hope in the one true God. Is that why there was such consternation over Gentiles coming into this Jesus movement and why there's such a lengthy portion of the book of Acts? I mean, really, I mean, it's kind of everywhere, but especially chapters 10 to 15, you know, did the Jews see this infiltration, I'm using quotes here, of Gentiles as kind of a watering down of that Jewish hope? Yes, yeah. And this is why we

don't do the book of Acts, in our reading of the book of Acts, the proper honor and service it deserves, if we run too quickly past what you're just describing, that is the angst of loss, the angst of loss, the angst of assimilation, you know, it's terrible to too quickly paint the Jewish, not only Jewish believers, but paint the Jews of Diaspora in a negative light in the book of Acts, as simply, you know, violent evildoers. That is not the case. Because remember, let's come back to Acts 1.

Preston, come back to Acts 1. Acts 1, the disciples are looking at the resurrected Jesus. They're looking at one who has overcome death. And what we often forget, it's not just that they're looking at one who's overcome death, they're looking at one who's overcome the violence of the empire, the empire's number one weapon to create order, violence. And they're looking at one who's overcome that weapon. In fact, one who has now seized the power of that weapon, the weapon of death and the threat of death.

And so they ask the right question, though it's a tragic question. They asked the question of Jesus, okay, you have risen with power. Now, when will we take over? When will you restore? When are we going to get these Romans off our neck and in fact, put our boot on their neck? When will we have power? And so Jesus answers them and says, okay, you will have power. Go to Jerusalem and wait. You're going to get power. Like, all right, here we go. Here we go. They did get power. But it's not power over people. It's power for people. The speaking of tongues brings them into the deepest realities of peoples and of connection and of intimacy of space of life together they are speaking the mother tongues of people

not just kind of the formal language but the language we speak at home when we are in our safe and comfortable and normal place they're speaking that language and so the the the all these jews from all over the world who are from part of different peoples are asking the question, where did they learn not just our language, but my language, my language, the way I speak. And so here what we're seeing already Already is the transgressing of God and the turning of the desire of these of Israel toward a new reality of life together. Now, so when we come to the faithfulness, it's a threat to the consistency and identity of what it means to be the people of God, or what it means to be a part of the Jewish diaspora. And a fear that what they had long suspected,

what they had feared was about to become a reality. What is that? That here they are in a sea of Gentiles, and here is one or a number of a few who are about to open the spigots, open the doors, and let us be flooded with Gentiles into our most sacred spaces, into our most intimate spaces. Gentiles who are already outnumber us. And if we open the doors in the way they're talking,

they will simply wipe us out. We will be utterly assimilated and lost. And so what is at stake is our very life, our very identity. So what should we do? These men are threats. These believers, men and women, are threats to us. And so what does that mean? It means early in the book of Acts, there are people who take a vow. They take a vow that they will not eat. They will not rest until they eradicate this threat. Saul says, I will eradicate this threat.

I will stand here and make sure these people die, because it's an issue of either they die or we die, and I will not allow us to die. So that dynamic is rolling through the book of Acts. It's rolling through the book of Acts. And what God is doing, God is doing a new thing, but we often don't understand the deep political, social, and existential density of saying that God is doing a new thing. This is everything, man. This is everything on the table. Can you, again, like every time you talk, man, all this stuff pops in my mind. I can't capture everything.

I just, you wrote in your commentary on Acts chapter two, which I love the title of your section there is called The Sound of Intimacy with the speaking in tongues. And you say to learn a language requires submission to a people. And you have just a great section just on the power of language and how it's fundamental to identity and culture and just humanness. And I don't know, you unpack that passage in ways that I haven't considered before. Part of me, I kind of get where the Jews are coming from here. The

ones who were concerned because you have this deep history of all the way from assimilation back in the Maccabean era and people who, you know, when they did kind of, um, you know, get Hellenized, it wasn't just like an ethnic assimilation. It very much, you know, all their kind of moral scruples kind of went with them or whatever. So is that right to say that the Jewish kind of concern with Gentiles coming in was, I mean, well, I don't know. I'm kind of thinking out loud here. I mean, it was one kind of an ethnic takeover, and I'm sure that alone would have riled people up. But they also had legitimate concerns about God's law being kind of watered down or not taken seriously,

which is probably why there's so much almost emphasis on the law. Like later on, you have this kind of Apostle Paul that sounds very different than Romans and Galatians almost, you know. You know, you're naming the dynamic that becomes so challenging, right? Because Paul, at the same time, Paul and all the disciples, at the same time, they're saying we are fully faithful to the God of Israel. We're fully faithful to Torah. At the same time, they are being led by the Spirit into the new that is inexplicable immediately. So Acts 10 and 11, Peter can't explain what God is doing.

Remember, in Acts 11, he doesn't go with a full-throated theological explanation of what God's doing. Here's what Peter says in Acts 11. I didn't want to go. God made me. God gave them the Spirit like God gave us. That's the explanation of Acts 11. The explanation of Acts 11 of Acts 10 is, I didn't want to go. God made me. God gave them a spirit like us in their story. And then the passage says there was silence. And that's an incredible passage, text in that passage. There was silence.

And then on the other side of silence, they praised God. So, okay, well, amen. Amen. But we understand that silence is pregnant. That silence is dense. Because the silence is like, what? What? What the? What?

God did what? Like us? Wait a minute. I thought that was for us. What's God doing? So what we find in Acts is what we also find in the rest of the New Testament. That is, it's not perfectly laid out, theologically speaking, how Israel is now new without being assimilated, how Gentiles

are now a part of Israel while not being assimilated. While both are actually in a different kind of assimilation, that is, they are entering into each other's stories. They are eating each other's food. I mean, that's the power of Acts 10. And as I said in the commentary, here where we sit, we don't read Acts 10 like so many indigenous peoples around the world read Acts 10. And what is that, Preston? So for so many peoples, prior to the reality of colonialism and so forth, for so many people, if you ate their animal, you were saying that you want to be a part of it. Because they associated who they were with that animal They were the people of the salmon the people of the Buffalo the people of the deer the people of the caribou

So to eat the animal is not just you know, kind of culinary Exploration into a different food like we would think about it today It's saying I want you to be a part of me, or I want to be a part of you. That's why I'm eating your animal, and learning how to eat your animal in the way that you eat it, right? So that reality of joining a people is densely laid out in Acts 10, but we really don't have the eyes for most of us in the West to read it that way, recognizing that what's coming down on that sheet is not just a wide variety of foods. What's coming on that sheet are people. And here's the other thing that we often bypass. Some commentaries have picked this up, that Peter is at the very edge of what he could possibly conceive

as the will of God. Why? Because as a faithful, pious Jewish man, he has been shaped both in terms of his theological vision, but also his aesthetic, his culinary taste to shun what's on that sheet. So what do we get? We get, ugh. I mean, not just, oh no, I don't want to eat this, but ugh, no, thank you. No, thank you. And it's that combination that we don't often hear when he says, by no means, Lord. And as you know in Greek, that's much stronger. No, I'm not going to do this. And the passage of passage says, it's a struggle. It's a struggle. God is struggling with him. And here's the other thing about that passage, so powerful. God drops the sheet at the height of Peter's hunger.

At the height of Peter's hunger. God drops his sheep when he's waiting to eat. So God wants to redirect his appetite toward that which he would not in any way, shape, or form want. Now the depth of that, the density of that runs right by us. We don't see all of that happening in preparation for what? In preparation for you and I to be brought into the story of the Gospel. That's us on that sheet, right? Those of us who are Gentile, that's us. And it's not a question of just accepting, right? You know, kind of like, you know, accepting a new nation at the UN. It's much denser than that.

It's coming to love, coming to appreciate. The word I use is join, coming to join. That's what's being put on the table. So when Peter arrives to the home of Cornelius, even though Cornelius is a God-fearer, as the old language was, and was one who obviously already understood in many ways the Jewish story, Peter's opening words capture the whole thing. You all know that I am not supposed to be here. And so he doesn't begin after that statement with, don't let me tell you something. He'd be, for that statement, he said, he asked the question of them, why am I here?

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Why am I here? Wow. We have to get our minds around. I'm still tripping over the food the the what you said about indigenous people and the food i mean it may there's i forget exactly i was trying to look it up but and i think it's in acts 10 where it's all about food like lord i've never eaten any unclean food but then in the next chapter all of a sudden now we're talking about unclean people it's almost like the food people the correlation is super explicit Like it's just right there on the text. It's not primarily about

food. It's primarily about people, but you can't even separate the two. Do you think, I mean, is that why we had the dietary laws in the Old Testament to begin with? It wasn't about not eating this rabbit or that rabbit, or I don't even know the details, but it was more that these foods were associated with a pagan people. And in that time, Israel was told to separate from it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's good work on that, but absolutely. It's the connection of food to people, connection of food to ritual,

connection of food to communion, right? That add all those three, then it becomes the possibility of redirected, or in the case of Israel, misdirected loves, right? And so this is why all the words around eating. In the book of Acts, you notice that the eating in the book of Acts is very interesting, right? So it ends that he's staying there eating with the Gentiles. He's there eating with them. Even when they came to get him, there's already some transgressions. He's in the home of Simon the Tanner.

Right? So there's already something going on in this account that is transgressive. So absolutely. Wow. We have to get our minds around what that means for the world

that the Spirit is trying to create right in the midst of a world of strife and division. Yeah. Even in other cultures today, I mean, to varying degrees, yeah, food means a lot more than it typically does in America. I remember I've got a relative who was a missionary in France, so we're not talking like a majority world country.

But he was with a really conservative organization. This was back in the late 70s. And they had a no drinking policy. Well, you try to get invited over to a French person's home who was going to offer you probably their best wine because you're their guest, probably from a local vineyard, from a friend who's spent their life investing into this vineyard and say, oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm not going to drink your wine.

He saw it as such a barrier to the gospel. People were so offended. Like, why are you rejecting me? He's like, well, no, I just don't drink your wine. It's like, well, you're rejecting me. So he ended up telling the organization like like either i gotta come home or i gotta start drinking wine because this isn't gonna work so um in other cultures i've been you know like i'm sure like you travel the world and

nepal same way and other countries where food is such a intrinsic part of the the culture the language the people it's all kind of wrapped up in the one. I'm just thinking of modern day kind of parallels, how we can kind of maybe in our attempts at peace and reconciliation, you know, prioritize food more. And maybe we can get some more modern day application, but I kind of want to switch over to your first point about Roman citizenship. Is this – I'm curious about how Paul uses his own citizenship. Because I – so let me just formulate my question. He doesn't seem to make a big deal out of it until it until he can kind of throw it back in their faces. I'm thinking like Acts 16, like why didn't he just tell them right away he was a Roman citizen?

Is he downplaying his citizenship? Or how should we understand Luke's portrayal of how Paul in particular views citizenship? Or are there other specific passages that can kind of flesh out your earlier point about the significance of Roman citizenship? It can kind of flesh out your earlier point about the significance of Roman citizenship. Well, think about what Paul is in the midst of from throughout the entire, where he begins to show up with Stephen. Paul is in the midst of a radical rethinking of who he is and a radical rethinking of how one announces identity and how one announces alliance and allegiance. And so all of that is at stake.

But I think we run too quickly past what must have been an incredibly challenging and painful reality of Paul, that being to go places among your own people and to be seen as a threat, Preston. Can you imagine? You who have been, you know, as you said later on, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, you know, one who was deeply committed to the way of life in Israel, and then to be seen as threat. I mean, the jarring reality of that. And so citizenship becomes a really interesting thing. As I say, in the commentary, all of a sudden now, we have to have a hyphen with the word citizen. We have to say disciple citizen. And so to say disciple citizen or citizen disciple means that we've already created a kind of fracture, a fissure in what citizenship can ever mean. So Paul's playfulness has to be understood in that wider reality of him trying to make sense now of being a disciple at the site of

a faithfulness that others are questioning, where he is simply seen the proper modulation of that faithfulness into more deeply, more intensely the God of Israel. So he's not in that way, I think, trying to play with his Roman citizenship. with his Roman citizenship. He's trying to figure out what any of it means, what connection any of it means. And in point of fact, at the very end of the book of Acts, I think this is one of the,

to me, it's one of the most under-reflected on points in the whole book. So here he is, house arrest in Rome, right? Here he is. And the Jewish community in Rome who had not really heard about him, they come to his house. And they said, you know, we haven't heard, you know, tell us what this stuff is going on. We haven't heard much about it. And so he starts to tell them about Jesus and he started to tell them about the resurrection and, you know, all the reality of him being Messiah and the hope and the promise of Israel.

And the passage there, I think we don't recognize the richness of it, because we don't remember the context. So these are Jewish people in the heart of empire. They're in Rome, man, where Caesar is worshipped. And this dude is here talking about the reality of God may manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, and the whole world will bow to him. And they're like, dude, do you know where you are? Are you kidding, right? You're not going to actually ask us to be saying this and believing this in Rome. I mean, we might as well all go get on a cross right now because we will all perish quickly if this gets out. And so, you know, as the passage says, they give us, okay, thank you, Paul.

We'll see you later. Maybe we'll come back. And, you know, this is where Paul is frustrated. They're frustrated. And Paul says that thing, you know, well, if you're not going to listen, I'm just going to talk to the Gentiles. And I think people misread that and say, okay, well, he's turning away from Israel. No, this is a moment of frustration. It's a moment of frustration that he's hoping that his people can see what he's saying. And they're frustrated because they're like, you don't seem to understand where you are. You're in Rome trying to talk about the Savior of the world. What are

you talking about? You're in Rome, man. So it's that dynamic that I don't think we understand that Paul is trying to articulate, trying to work it out. It's not all clear. It's not all clear. And this is what I appreciate about the book of Acts. The book of Acts is not giving us a completely worked out theology in anybody's mouth. How could it be? It's giving us a theological vision forming inside the new that God is doing. So when we get to Acts 28, that frustration is what we're seeing. But what we're also seeing, back to your question, what we're seeing is that to be a disciple is now forever, permanently altering what we might ever mean by citizen. Oh, wow. And again, I'm holding back the floodgates of modern day application, because I want to keep lingering in Acts for a bit.

But yeah, so I guess we can state it generically. So you're saying the book of Acts would suggest or proclaim that when somebody becomes a disciple of Jesus, that can only interrupt how they view their national citizenship. Like if their national citizenship, if their view of that remains untouched, then there's something missing in their discipleship process. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's no way if we follow the line of the book of Acts, and we don't have to, you know, we don't have to make Acts the kind of permanent, unchanging paradigm, but we see the trajectory that is inescapable. That to be a disciple of Jesus, now no matter what you do, the hyphen is there.

Citizen, disciple. Now what does that mean concretely? Concretely, it means that God is pressing you to join others who are not necessarily citizens or a part of that nation. God is pressing you to be led by the Spirit to others, right? And so that citizenship now has to be forever qualified, if you will, by another citizenship. The discipleship leads to a different citizenship, as we all know. My citizenship is in heaven. And this is obviously what will be said later by Paul and other New Testament writers, that we have a citizenship in heaven. But what creates that, the fundamental theological antecedent to that is the disciple. I'm a disciple of this Jesus.

And so my citizenship means that in a sense, I mean, we can even say this strongly, that there is already in me the reality of a traitor. a traitor, a traitor to that nation, a traitor to my people to the extent that they wish to be the ultimate determiner of my destiny and of the orientation of my life. That can't be anymore. I can smile politely, but I know in my heart, I'm sorry. I'm a disciple of Jesus. At the end of the day, I'm a disciple of Jesus. It's been a while since I read Kevin Rowe's book, World Upside Down. So I hope I'm summarizing it correctly. As I recall, and I'm bringing this up because it comes out so much in your commentary, that it seems that one of the points of Luke here, who's writing Acts,

is to show that while this early Christian movement was subverting the very values of Rome in so many places, I mean, just to say Jesus is Lord means Caesar is not. And to sit in Rome and say there's another savior, the world is crucified and risen Jew. I mean, these are outlandish claims, politically speaking. So as much as they subverted the values of Rome, both in what they said, how they counter contradicted authority claims and how they live their lives and how they, you know, on and on it goes, they still never like violated like a Roman law. Like they kept getting accused of breaking a law, but they couldn't find anything on them. Like they were actual like good citizens, sort of like, you know, is that, do you, is that a fair summary? And do you see that in the book of Acts to where

you have this, yeah, that they're not out violently revolting or even just revolting in a sense of breaking kind of just arbitrary laws. There's nothing to arrest them on, but they are very much subverting the values of the empire. Does that seem accurate? But keep in mind that so often it is the perception of threat that is equal to the breaking of a law, right? If you are perceived as a threat to the well-being empire, then for all intents and purposes, you are already a lawbreaker. Because the very way your life is structured, and as we know, as things will continue forward in the history of Christianity, it's that very direction of life that the wise ones, the smart ones of the empire looking at them saying, well, if this continues, we're going to have a huge set of problems. Now, right now, they're not doing nothing, but just imagine this continuing.

And it's that what's already present. That's what's already present in the book of Acts. Now, it's interesting because, as you know, when we come to those latter chapters and Paul starts to, as they say, go to court, go to court, it's pretty clear that at one level there are some who want to say this is just an internecine squabble among these folks at the margins of the empire, these Jewish people, so I don't want to get involved with this. But at another level, they're aware that if this rises to the attention of the people in Rome, a lot of heads could turn, because this could be seen as fomenting precisely the kinds of ways of thinking that undermine the deepest

theology, the deepest ideology of Rome. And that's where we have to always understand particular laws are not often what is the problem here. It's a way of life that could undermine everything. So think about the civil rights movement. I mean, in one way, you could say that they were law-abiding folks who were marching peacefully. But in another way, what you see is that they do want to challenge some laws, but it's the very direction that they're wanting to take society that so many people saw as a threat. They want to end segregation. They want to end, you know, separate but equal.

They want to end a particular configuration of hierarchy that existed well. So that becomes even more devastating than breaking a law or two. That's the whole ball of wax. Is that where the statement in Acts 17, my favorite statement, world upside down, you know, here come these, you know, rabble-rousers and they're turning the world upside down, saying that there is another Lord, another Caesar Jesus. I forget if it's Lord or Caesar there.

I think, oh, another king. Yeah, anyway. Is that a pregnant statement? Do you think Luke is – there's just so much embedded in that statement. I guess it's kind of a rhetorical question because I think there is, but I would love to hear from you. I do think, as I read that, and I think this was so interesting, it's turning upside down a particular arrangement, right?

An arrangement that has allowed Israel to exist in empire without being seen as threat. It's overturning a particular direction of progress and of uplift and advancement, all that's being overturned, right? Because, you know, how to go from being at the margins to being a Roman citizen, to being someone in power, to being someone appreciated by Caesar, all of that is being overturned. What's also being overturned is the other thing we've been talking about, the clear demarcation between Jew and Gentile and the separate worlds for the sake of sustaining Israel's identity. All of that is being overturned. And so, yeah, I see that as really the whole matter. And in point of fact, what else was there?

The fear. Yeah. The fear. Yeah. I mean, to say that my world, or our world, excuse me, is being overturned. Wow.

Yeah. You're speaking some pretty thick fear, aren't you? 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 theologyintheraw. You can support the show for as little as

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some pretty thick fear, aren't you? Wow. Well, this is a great segue to go to some modern day applications. So a Christian sits down, reads the book of Acts, cover to cover, with an awareness of a lot of things you've been talking about. And then they close their Bible and they go out and say, all right, I want to do that. I want to live this way.

What does that look like? And I guess I have a broad point of application and a more narrow one. The broad one is how should Christians in light of the book of Acts view their relationship to, let's just keep it to America, but it should be applicable to any kind of national citizenship. Like how should we think through our national identity and more, more specifically, more narrow one is how, how, how should we use the book of Acts or apply the book of Acts to current conversations about race? Because there are so many, you know, ethnic things happening in the book of Acts.

What can we learn from the book of Acts and how can we apply that to current conversations happening today? Yeah, these are great questions. I think the first thing that we have to do is invite Christians to actually read the memo that most of them never got. And what is that memo? That we were brought into the story of another people. That the book of Acts was not a question to us

about whether we should accept Jesus Christ. The book of Acts is first a question to Israel if they will accept the new that God is doing, and that new is us, so that we are not the point of the story. And the only way we can see that ourselves as the point of the story is to first see that we were not the point of the story. I know that sounds contradictory, but you have to think about it this way. We are being brought into the story of another people so that to, to enter into the lives of others with humility, with joy in the grace of God's allowing us to enter in order to create

the new should be a fundamental reality in the life of a Christian. But for all of us, because of the way in which this thing was turned distorted, most of us imagine the book of Acts showing us that we are the host and others are coming into our world. I mean, it's the quick way of reading the book of Acts as though the book of Acts is about Gentiles and so we have the first thing we have to be be presented with in the book of Acts and see in the book of Acts is this beautiful way of entering in that should be should mark our lives now this brings us right to the current moment.

So if the sign of the Spirit in our world, the sign of the Spirit in our lives, the sign of the Spirit in the church, is that the Spirit is leading us to join others across border and boundary. Wow! All right, we're at the very beginning of what it means to talk about a citizen-disciple, which means that the way we understand boundary, the way we understand border can't be tied to the logics of statecraft. We protect our borders. We maintain our boundaries. No, we follow the Spirit, and the Spirit always draws us to those who are different from us, who are beyond our borders and boundaries, especially those in need. And this is a fundamental part of what it means to be a citizen, disciple, that while we are in a place, and we, as you said earlier, we respect the place and the laws of the place, but we recognize that as disciples we are always reaching beyond

to join, to hold. This is the beginning of then understanding what it means to be a global citizen, right? As a disciple of Jesus. What does that mean for us? It's, to use a big theological term, it's a pneumatological reality. It's a reality of the Spirit. That is to say, it's a reality of yielding to the Spirit,

of listening to what the Spirit is saying. As I like to say, Preston, for Christians, what we have to recognize is that we should never go around saying that we're trying to figure out what the will of God is. That's never been the problem for Christians. The problem of Christians is yielding to the Spirit of God to do the will of God. That's always our problem. Our problem is yielding to the Spirit. We resist the Spirit. This is what makes the Christian struggle what it is. It's the struggle to stop resisting the Spirit. What does the Spirit want?

We see it in the book of Acts. To join you to people you would prefer not to be. So here's the reality of the book of Acts. In almost every chapter, here's what we know. That there's somebody being asked to do what they don't want to do. They're being asked to do what they don't want to do. And what does the guy want them to do? To go places and be with people they would prefer asked to do what they don't want to do and and what and what is it that god wants them to do to go places and be with people they would prefer not to from philip and the open unit

peter so over and over again paul having to go places people telling paul you can't go there because you know paul said i have to go there so it's the spirit leading and guiding. Now, that for me does bring us then to the problems we face with race and the problem we face with what's known as whiteness. And it's like to say whiteness is not biology. Whiteness is not culture. Whiteness is not, you know, something that has descended from the heavens, not a part of creation. Whiteness is a way of being in the world and a way of perceiving the world at the same time. And whiteness is having the power to realize that way of being in the world. Whiteness is in point of fact an aspiration toward a particular control of one's life. aspiration toward a particular control of one's life. It came out of a particular moment. It came out of a particular reality of identity reconstruction from the 15th century forward,

and it was shaped inside one. It came to life due to one crucial, I mean, there were other things, but the one crucial enzyme that brought it to life was what we've been talking about. And that is Christians who pushed Israel out the way, in the way they read the Scripture, and imagined that they were the people of God, having replaced Israel as the people of God. And so that God was doing what God was doing in the world only through exclusively through them. And that idea made its way into what we would now call every nation of what we would now call Europe, so that

they imagine themselves in mind, soul, and body, especially body, as the very center of God's story, the very center of God's plan. And it is out of that reality that whiteness forms. But the story of the book of Acts gives us something different. But the story of the book of Acts gives us something different. It gives us a different way to understand what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be a disciple. We are those who join others and in a fundamental way enter into their lives, as Acts 2 gives us, learning their language. A kind of reverse assimilation, if you will, Preston, where we enter the lives of others

as a way, not as a missionary ploy, but we enter the lives of others as a way to join, to become, so that inside the love of other people, we perform, we announce our love of Jesus. You heard what I just said. Inside the love of another people, we witness our love of Jesus. It's those two loves that constitutes what it means to be a Christian. And it's those two loves that we need in order to challenge the deep structures of racial existence in the Christian world. Ah, man. You got another three hours? Just kidding.

I don't know how much your, an hour of teaching from you is worth, but I'm getting my money's worth here. This is great. You mentioned whiteness, and I know that can be a volatile, if not misunderstood term. I love your After Whiteness, I think your latest book, right? 2020, After Whiteness and Education and Belonging. It sounds like, I haven't read that one yet. It sounds like what you're touching on there is probably what is unpacked there quite a bit and just how we've gone about education in the West.

Do you want to give a little summary of that book and what you are saying in there? I'll do it really quickly because I know we're focused on the book of Acts here, but I'll do it really quickly. So in my little book, After Whiteness, which is written to everyone, not only people involved in theological education, but people interested in Western education and leadership in both church, academy, and the communities. The argument of that book is that all of Western education has been, the goal of formation that has been the heart of Western education has been geared toward forming all of us into one particular image, one image of the educated state. of a white self-sufficient man who exercises beautifully three what I call dismal virtues, control, possession, and mastery. Control, possession, and mastery. And that image has driven so much of the curricular and pedagogical and learning energy of Western education, and it has created such a problem. And what I argue in After Whiteness is that for those of us engaged in education at any level, and those of us who are interested in the formation of people

in any way, shape, or form, in any vocation, and as moral citizens, we need a different image. any vocation and as moral citizens, we need a different image. And the image I propose, excuse me, is Jesus and the crowd. Jesus and the crowd, Preston. Because that's an image that shows the possibility of gathering together. People who normally don't want to be together. gathering together, people who normally don't want to be together. But they are there together because of this one. And so I ask the question, what would it mean to have as our ultimate goal of education, whether we're talking in terms of the education or Western education, what would it mean to have as the ultimate goal of our education? To cultivate people who can cultivate belonging.

Who can cultivate belonging across all the lines of difference. So that people are together who would normally not be is, but someone who is able to gather. doctor, minister, dentist, plumber, teacher, musician, what they do is that they create not just community, they create communion. They create people who want to be together, who, if it wasn't for them, they'd be at each other's throats. If it wasn't for them, they wouldn't be able to see each other. If it wasn't for them, they wouldn't imagine that they have this connection. You become a place of connection. That's what the argument in the book is.

Oh, that's good. You make me want to read. How do you avoid or clarify? So like, and yeah, the, just the phrase whiteness, how do you, well, do people say, wait a minute, you're indicting every single white person saying everyone's controlling, everyone wants to be a master. How do you, I mean, you kind of already said it that you're not talking about that.

This is the most difficult thing we're facing today across the entire, not only this country, but especially within Christian community. So, so, Preston, for so long, for so long, so many people have never had to think about the racial formation of their life. Yeah. Now, for so many people of color, they have to think about it every day. And what do I mean by that? And what do I mean by that, the racial construction? So many people of color, whether we're talking about people of Asian descent, African descent, you know, Latinx folks, what they all have to do, what we all have to do is to, we have

to make this distinction between who we actually are, right, and the derogatory visions of our peoples, right? So the stereotypes and the derogatory visions. And we realize that what those derogatory visions are is that there are little tiny slivers and pieces of things that are partially true, but wrapped up in all this garbage. It's horrible. And so people have to pull out the little pieces that speak to their history, stories, and so forth, and say, okay, it doesn't belong inside all that garbage. And so all our lives are working to clarify that distinction between who we are and this derogatory racial vision.

And in some ways, we can say, okay, I can continue to call myself Latinx. I can continue to call myself Black or Asian. But I know that, you know, it's not this. And in fact, what I want to think about myself in the specificity of my life, freed from this, because this is a mess, right? So everybody, everybody, all people of color go through that process of doing it. Now, but what would happen, Preston, if this image was always positive? What if it was always positive, always look beautiful? And in fact, what if one's ancestors helped to create that positive image

and then told their children and their children's children, move into it, move fully into it. Don't try to think separately about it. I mean, yeah, you're part Irish, you're part Italian, but who cares about that? Here in America, you're white, and it's great. So if somebody comes along and says, friends, it's not great, and you need to start to pull who you are, who you are from that image, but it's been presented as great and fine and normal, then the minute someone says,

no, it's not great, pull, what's going to happen? People are going to go, ow, no, ouch, ow, no, no, you're attacking me. You're attacking me. You hate me. You think I'm horrible. I'm not horrible. I don't have slaves. My grandparents didn't have slaves. It's saying, why are you attacking me? No, I'm not attacking you. I'm trying to get you to see that there is a difference between who you should be in this world in relationship to all of us who are not white. And this image that so many people, including you, have climbed into that has advantages. And I'm asking you to pull away from that. But why can't I love my whiteness just as much as you love your Blackness or Asianness? I said, no, you kind of missed the point here again. I've been all my life in a process of pulling out those little pieces that are a part of my history, my culture, my reality, without the massive derogatory junk that's there.

You haven't had to do any of that. But now you need to. So what does this mean, Preston? For some people, they see no distinction between that word and who they are. Because they've been so fused together that they can't imagine the possibility of even who they could be apart from that. But here's the tragedy. And here's the irony of it. There was a time in America, believe it or not, when nobody walking down the street would have called themselves white, they would have said, I'm Irish, I'm Italian, I'm German, I'm Flemish.

But they were in the process of becoming white, right? So it's that reality that we're caught in right now. This is why so many Christians are engaged in what I consider absolutely counterproductive work. That is, they're trying to defend something that they have no idea what they're defending. You're defending an identity reconstruction, not an identity. identity reconstruction, not an identity. You're defining an identity reconstruction in which your ancestors, your great-grandparents, your grandparents climbed into when they came from the old world of Europe in order to be accepted and acceptable. And so what has to happen is that you have to see your Christianity in league with my Christianity, in league with many Latinx people's Christianity, with many indigenous people's Christianity, with many Asian people's Christianity, as trying to articulate who we are apart from a big old racial derogatory vision that is not us, but we're trying to make sense of who we are given that reality. So that's what's going on. That's a helpful explanation. I appreciate that.

It would always help when people ask questions about terms and say, what do you mean by that, rather than flipping out and assuming they know exactly what you mean but would it would that idea apply to any kind of country or culture that has a dominant um people group with a history of mastery and oppression not that every single individual is equally involved but i'm thinking of rwanda with the hutus and tutsis it's not an exact parallel but i mean any kind of country where there has been a dominant group, or is it unique? Like, could you apply the concept of whiteness as you describe it to somewhere else in a different country,

or is it really unique to the American experience? It's not unique to the American experience. What it is is that we have to understand that whiteness forms in a particular moment, and it travels, it travels, it spreads. What does it travel and spread on? It travels and spreads on the transatlantic slave trade. It travels and spreads on transatlantic trade itself and the markets. So it travels wherever the West becomes a place outside the West. That is to say in all the places that were formerly sites of colonial expansion and domination,

all the places where people assimilated. So it travels everywhere. And what am I talking about? What travels? What travels is that journey into racial identity. So here's what we got to remember. What made race so insidiously powerful is that it stole from Christianity

its comprehensive power of identity. What do I mean by that? I'm going to make sure your listeners understand this. So think about this this way. So when Christians traveled around the world, when missionaries went anyplace, they had a designation that could fit everyone. What was that designation? Sinner and saved. Sinner and saint. Sinner and saved. Redeemed, redeemed and unredeemed. Reprobate and elect. They have a language that could fit any people. Now, here's what your listeners

have to understand. Race stole, the racial formation stole that power, took that very power. So that means when the missionaries went to a place with vastly different peoples, I mean, vastly different peoples, did different language, different systems of commerce, everything different. They looked at them and said, black, African. No, no, no, wait, wait, I'm Wolof.

No, no, no, no, black African. No, no, no, I'm Zulu. No, no, black African. No, I'm not, no, it will fit. And at the same moment, when they came, that is when the Europeans came, Irish? No. German? No.

Jews? No. White. And then you could fit everybody in between. Not quite white, almost white. More toward black. So it was a way to fit people into a form of identity that they, in time, were forced to reconcile themselves with. Now, they may still have called themselves, I'm Igbo. They may still call me, I'm a Khan. They may still have called themselves that.

But in terms of the global reality emerging, they were just going to be seen inside that racial vision. And so if they got on a ship and came to the United States, or they came to England, or they came to Australia Australia or they came to Canada at a certain point, I don't care what they were from where they were there. They're black or Indian or Asian. I mean, that's what they are. Yeah. And however you want to define yourself, I've already given you I've already given everybody the hermeneutical key to interpret who you are.

Without you ever opening your mouth. What's that? Without you ever opening your mouth to say a word about it. So there's that oppressive, colonizing kind of movement to what you're saying, whiteness. It's not just a majority and minority context it is very much the the majority imposing artificial socially constructed categories upon somebody else to organize society in a way that is that the minority never even has a contribution to yes yes that's exactly right i'm still trying to think of other parallel like what it would as you're speaking but maybe this wouldn't work, like in Egypt, you know, you have obviously a Muslim-dominated culture,

but you also have a minority Coptic Christian, maybe 10% of the population. Would that be similar? Could we map whiteness onto that context and call it Islamicness or something? Or is that still not quite the same? No, no, no. You want to hold on to the historical specificity and in some ways the uniqueness of it. Now, that's not to say that people didn't have designations for other people,

like the old Greek. Barbarians were anybody, right? Barbarians were anybody. So the naming and labeling is not what's new. That's not what's new. That's not what's new. What's new is the use of Christianity's deepest logics to make it work. That's what's new. Christianity being used to make this happen.

And that's where, for we who are Christian, as I like to say, well, we have to understand that modern racial thinking has a Christian architecture. And modern Christianity, modern Christianity has a racial architecture. And we have to understand that those two things exist for us right now. Yeah. Modern Christianity has a racial architecture, and modern racial reasoning has a Christian architecture. That's why it's so difficult for people to get their minds around it, because unless you see how those two things weave inside of each other you will really struggle trying to get your mind around what's going on and wind up defending what you really shouldn't defend i just recently i had my friend uh rasul barry on the podcast and he was basically

he went a deep dive just in what you're talking about, how Christianity has been so intertwined in this from many, many centuries ago. And Jamar Tisby and others have written on it. But man, this is super helpful. I've taken you over an hour. Can we just a couple more minutes aside from everything we're talking about? What do you like to do for fun when you're not?

I got two minutes, so I'll give Taylor a minute for fun because I gotta go to, unfortunately I have another meeting, but here's what's going on i am what i do for fun is um i'm a i'm a avid jazz fan oh and so i listen to jazz but i also i i'm also a closet tenor tenor saxophone as a soprano saxophone player. Wow. I play at home. Poor wife. You have to pray for my wife. Her name is Joanne. Keep praying because I inflict my terrible playing on her most days.

I'm in the back. It floats up through the house, and she was praying. Stop. Stop. Are you a Coltrane fan? Coltrane? stop soon are you a Coltrane fan Coltrane oh I'm a I'm a fan of every of the the list of who I'm a fan a boy fan of is is Legion okay yeah so um Coltrane but um yeah but yeah I'm a I'm a I'm an avid I'm an avid musician and of course as you mentioned when you first began, I love poetry. So I read a lot of poetry.

In fact, I'm reading now my colleague here at Yale, Louise Gluck's work. And I had not read much of her work before the pandemic, but I started reading it in the pandemic, and it's just been such a blessing to me. Wow. Well, thanks so much for your time, Dr. Jennings. My pleasure. I recommend your stuff

and I'll post some links below for more information. So yeah, you got to rush off to a meeting. You really enjoyed the conversation, brother. All right, my friend. All right.

Take care. Take care. You too. Thank you.