Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep956: Neither Liberal nor Conservative–Systemic Racism, White Privilege, and the Church: Dr. Carl Ellis

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Carl is a brother from another mother and I want him to adopt me as his kid. I love the way he thinks through tough issues and refuses to be stuffed into some ideological box. In this conversation, we talk about all the hard stuff in the race conversation: critical theory, systemic racism, pros and cons in multiethnic churches, the “Cold Civil War” between achievers and non-achievers in the African American community, the 400 years of collective trauma that black people experience, white privilege, whiteness, and many other things. No matter where you land on these controversial issues, I think you’ll consider Carl to be a humble, thoughtful, and seasoned voice.  Dr. Carl Ellis, Jr. is Provost’s Professor of Theology and Culture, Assistant to the Chancellor, and Senior Fellow of the African American Leadership Initiative at Reformed Theological Seminary. From 1979 to 1989, Carl served as the Assistant Pastor of Forest Park Community Church in Baltimore, MD, served on faculty at Chesapeake Theological Seminary, and served as a seminar instructor for Prison Fellowship where he developed and taught “in-prison” and “in-community” seminars for inmates and community volunteers. Between 1986 and 2009, Carl served as an adjunct faculty member at the Center for Urban Theological Studies (C.U.T.S.), and as Dean of Intercultural Studies at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA. Carl was recently the Associate Pastor for Cultural Apologetics at New City Fellowship. Dr. Ellis studied under Francis Schaeffer at LÁbri in Hermoz sur Olon’, Switzerland, completed his MAR (Theology) at Westminster Theological Seminary, and holds a D.Phil. from Oxford Graduate School. –––––– EVENTS 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. –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– 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.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. The Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon conference is just a few days away. We have a few spots left to attend live here in Boise. You can go to TheologyintheRaw.com and register there, or you can stream it virtually. That's unlimited, so there's no cap on that. And a lot of people have asked, if I can't attend live, can I still sign up for the virtual event and get access to it the next day or the next few days? And the answer is yes, you will have seven days to watch the conference if you sign up for the virtual option. We have also added, in case you haven't heard, Francis Chan to the lineup. And I'm super excited about that.

He's going to be speaking the first evening on Thursday night. So if you're a Francis Chan fan and want to get an update on what's going on in his life, then that's, I guess, more motivation to check out the conference. Also, yeah, I just mentioned TheologyInTheRaw.com. We have a new website. We've been working on this for a few months, actually. And we launched it a few weeks ago. There is an official Theology in the Raw website with tons of

curated resources, blogs, podcast episodes that have been organized under various topics. So it just makes it a little more user-friendly if you want to go and see all the things that we have done on various topics. So theologyintheraw.com, check it out. All right, my guest today is Dr. Carl Ellis, who is pretty much, I mean, a legend in many ways. He's going to not like the fact that I call him a legend, but this dude's been around the block in so many different ways. He has a master's degree from Westminster Theological Seminary, a DPhil, a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. He's the author of the book Free at Last. He has also studied under Francis Schaeffer

at LaBrie. I mean, this guy just has an amazing track record. And I've never talked with Dr. Ellis before. So I just knew him from a distance. Oh, my word. I want him to adopt me. Like he... Yeah, I was not surprised, but just like, I don't know why I was getting myself into this guy's a legend from a distance, but I had the most enjoyable conversation with him. I love his perspective. He's so wise, so nuanced. So yeah, as he said, people accuse me of being too conservative and being too liberal, being Marxist, being this, that. And he's like, man, I'm just, I'm a Jesus follower trying to think through complex issues. And that's what he helps us do in this podcast. So please welcome to the show. Hopefully, hopefully not the last time. Hopefully this

is the beginning of many other episodes to come. So please welcome to the show, the one and only Dr. Carl Ellis. All right. Hey, friends, I'm here with Dr. Carl Ellis. It's a great honor to talk to you. Gosh, I mean, your reputation and credentials precede you, a doctorate from Oxford University. You know, one of the things that stuck out in your bio was that you were part of a ministry started by Tom Skinner. Is that correct? Yes. I don't know if people listening will know that name.

They should. I didn't until 15 years ago. A colleague of mine had this really popular sermon that he gave. This must have been back in the 70s or something. He had an old DVD or something. And that, I mean, I listened to this, yeah, 15 years ago and it just, it blew my mind. As a white dude, just hearing Tom Skinner talk about what it is, how it is being black in the American evangelical church and just, just, it was, it was, it was revolutionary to me, even though it's probably basic to a lot of people. But anyway, so I was, I was,

I've been a fan ever since. So anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm talking too much, Carl. You, you have written a book, Free at Last. The first edition was in 1983, and it's gone through a few revisions. Can you just give us, maybe let's just use that as a launching point. Tell us what that book is all about, and I'm sure that will give us a lot of talking points. The whole premise of the book is that God works through history and culture. Okay, the Bible tells me that. So what I did, I took that premise, that biblical premise, and I applied it to giving a theological analysis of the African-American experience. A case study on how God works in history and culture. That's about the best way I can put it.

Okay. So if you read the book, you get some ideas, you get some concepts that even you can go and apply it to a whole other cultural historical situation and come up with some very interesting things. Okay. Yeah. I just recently listened to an interview you had. Oh, who was it with? No, it wasn't Anthony Bradley. It was one where they called you Anthony Bradley, mistakenly. Oh, it was with Walter Strickland, I think.

Yeah, we all look alike. Your comeback on that, that was so hilarious. Took a few minutes to recover. You used a phrase. Yeah, Walter Strickland. Yeah, yeah, which I've been trying to have Walter on. So if he's listening, Walter, such a few emails, man, I want to have you on the show. You used the phrase 400 years of collective trauma. And that's something that many, not all, but many white American evangelical Christians, I think, don't – haven't really thought about maybe as much as they should.

Can you unpack that concept and why that's important to understand? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the case with any group of people who are in a subdominant status in their society. Okay? This is not unique to African Americans. Anybody, you know, you've got any society has a dominant group and a subdominant group. Okay?

And so the system of that society, however you want to define that system, the system has different components like the legal system, the medical system, the educational system, the whatever, governmental system, whatever. And all those systems put together I call the system. The system in any society gives its absolute best to the dominant group. And it does not work as well for the subdominant group. As a matter of fact, it might even work against the subdominant group. So in our whole experience in this country, we have been in the subdominant group. We've been, you know, some people call, call up minorities, but actually you can be subdominant and be the majority, you know, like, like for example, South Africa, you know, the majority,

but they were subdominant. So, so in this country, this is, you know, this is all we've known. And sometimes, like I said, sometimes the system either doesn't work as well for you or sometimes it actually works against you. And when you accumulate all that working against you, then that's the 400 years of trauma that I talk about. Not all of it has been trauma. Some of it has just been difficulty. Let's put it that way. So, yeah, but it's the same thing with any subdominant group. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I teach today is that if you follow Jesus seriously, then you are a distinct cultural minority. You are a subdominant group, and you should expect the system not to work for you or even work against you. It is fatal for a Christian in any society in this world today to think of themselves as being a part of the establishment. This is not our, I mean, the Bible has a very simple way of saying that.

It says, consider yourselves sojourners and pilgrims in this land, or being in the world but not of it. So those are the kind of things that we have to think about. So we learn a lot of wisdom. We learn a lot of wisdom from the African-American experience. And we also learn a lot of wisdom from the experience of others in other parts of the world at other times in a dominant position. So Free at Last was a sample of all of that. Yeah, yeah. Man, I've got several questions. When you were saying dominant group and subdominant group, is that at all – because I can hear some people saying, well, I don't know.

That sounds kind of Marxist, the oppressor and the oppressed. And I've never read Karl Marx, so I don't want to claim that that's even what he taught. But is there overlap with that kind of idea or is it different? Yes. Look, the Bible itself talks about the oppressed and all that. So, I mean, the Bible beat Marx by thousands of years. So, you know, if I got who needs Marx, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Marx is like going back to high school or something for me, you know. So, no, no, no. I'm in no way connected with Marx. But the problem with Marx is that the whole, for Marxism to work, there's got to be this conflict, there's got to be this struggle. Whereas in reality, it doesn't have to be a conflict. It can be a way we can be working things out, et cetera. Like what the church did in the early days was remarkable. You had people coming into the church from the dominant group.

You had some coming in from the subdominant group, Jews and Gentiles, for example. And there were difficulties, yes. But they were able to work it out in Christ. The problem is today is that the Christ of American Christianity is not the Christ of the Bible in many cases. The Christ of American Christianity is an idol in too many cases, let me put it that way. So we have to rediscover who Christ is. We have to rediscover what the kingdom of God is. We have to rediscover who Christ is.

We have to rediscover what the kingdom of God is. And we don't operate on a level of the kingdom of God like we should. And so when we don't do that, we trivialize the kingdom. I mean, the way the kingdom is preached in much of American Christianity, to me, is boring. You know, of course, Marx looks a lot more radical to me than that. But when I see what the Bible has to say, the Bible is far more radical than Marx could ever be. Yeah. Wow.

Well, when I reflect on kind of the wedding between the moral majority and the kind of right-wing christianity in the 80s and there was just a lot of um for lack of better terms power moves you know when i dominate culture and and impose and i hope i'm not character caricaturing it but like impose more christian values on society it just it felt like it felt like you're not – like the kingdom of God is designed to be, to use your terms, the subdominant. It's designed to be – it's not designed to be the power of movement to overcome culture. It's designed to be we are the oppressed. We are the minority.

We are the ones who are the underdogs, right? I mean – We are subversive. Yeah. We are sub oppressed. We are the minority. We are the ones who are the underdogs, right? I mean – We are subversive. Yeah. We are subversive. We are the Navy SEALs of coming world order, namely the kingdom of God. So this is not – you know, Jesus said it best. He said, my kingdom is not of this world system.

said it best. He said, my kingdom is not in this world system. And so the establishment is governed by the principalities and powers and wickedness in high places. And so I am not going to be I'm not going to assimilate into the

establishment. Now, I might be placed in the establishment as a witness. I think of a guy like Daniel. I mean, Daniel was well placed in the Babylonian establishment, and he made a lot of changes. He had a great influence not only in Babylon, but in the whole wide world. in the Babylonian situation, but he never assimilated, like those other nobles that came over with him, you know what I'm saying? And so what's happened to American Christianity is that, see, it's one thing to engage culture. God calls us to engage the culture. I mean, that's part of the Great Commission. You make disciples of nations, a part of that is engaging the culture. So engaging the culture means that you affirm it where it's right, because by God's common grace people do do right things, right? You affirm it where it's right and you critique it where it's wrong. So you

can identify with the culture, but you don't have to conform to everything in the culture, because some things in the culture are right, and some things are wrong. But what happens too often is that we fall into cultural captivity, and that's a whole different thing. When you fall into cultural captivity, you participate in everything in the culture, including the cultural sin.

And after a while, you lose the ability to discern cultural sin when you see it. That's about the only way I can explain how much of the church went along with slavery and Jim Crow and the removal of the First Nations and the hostility towards immigrants. And if you look at the Bible, look at the Bible, and especially in the Old Testament, God has a special concern. Although he doesn't play favorites, he has a special concern for what I call the unfortunate quartet. That's the widow, the fatherless, the immigrant, and the poor. So that's kind of what happens. You know, we don't treat those folks right. And what happened in America is that Christianity fell into cultural captivity,

and it slipped into what I call Christian nationalism, where you can't tell the difference between Christian identity and American identity, and that's very dangerous. Now, what has happened in recent years is that some Christians who are in the minority or in the subdom, very, you know, much more radical, they've gone to ideology, like critical theory and things like that, and Marxism. And so they picked that up to try to combat the errors of Christian nationalism. But in so doing, they've created another era, which I call critical Christendom, okay? And so it's a Christendom based on critical theory and all the rest of that. So they were right to oppose Christian nationalism, but they were wrong to choose an anti-theistic ideology to do so. You cannot fight, and one idol cannot succeed in destroying

another idol. The only way to destroy the idol, you got to go to the true and living God. And so we haven't been transcended. That's my critique for today. That's what I see happening in many cases. I mean, everybody has a right. Whenever somebody imposes an idol on you, you have every right to reject it. But it is foolish to create an anti-idol to fight the original idol. That's – oh, man. That's where I've been at. But I'm not – this is not my main – I'm a biblical scholar. So I'm not a cultural critic and I'm definitely not a political scientist.

But as I look on kind of from a distance, I'm like, you know, especially in the wake of like Trump America, right? When either you were full on for Trump or if you weren't for Trump, you were completely against Trump. And part of me was like, I don't know. Trump-ism is obviously idolatry. And that's kind of, I don't know, it's low-hanging fruit for me. It's like easy to critique Christians who see him as kind of some messianic figure or whatever. I'm like, oh, that's so problematic. the Messiah? Or like you're just kind of playing the same thing from the other side. You're defining your existence by playing these culture wars. And I'm like, let's just remove ourselves from this way of thinking. I don't know.

That is not, you know, those things are not worthy of a follower of Christ. Somebody, sometimes, you know, I get all kinds of critique. I get all kinds of criticism in cyberspace. Some people accuse me of being a radical Marxist, okay? And other people accuse me of being an Uncle Tom. I mean, what the heck? So I get them in both senses. And I say, well, first of all,

and then some people think that I'm conservative and other people think I'm liberal. And I just make it very clear. I am not a conservative by any stretch, although I'm not a liberal either by the same token. Because conservatism or liberalism is not a worthy enough title to pin on me who is a follower of Christ. So yes, yes, I have agreements with conservatives in a lot of places, but not enough to call myself one. And yes, I do have agreements with liberals in many cases, but not enough to call myself

one. The conservative versus the liberal is not the thing that really troubles me. What troubles me is the far left and the far right. So from my point of view, when I look at what's happening in society, it's not an issue of left versus right. It's an issue of means versus extremes. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you take Trump. I mean, you know,

no, I was no great fan of Trump, but I sure prayed for him when he was in office. And also, I didn't make the same mistake that a lot of my African-American friends made, who said that anybody who voted for Trump was a racist. Well, that's just ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous. I mean, how do I explain that if that's the case? And how do I explain that 20% to 30% of people who voted for Trump in 2016 voted for Obama twice? How do you explain that?

Really? That's 20% to 30%. That's not a small number. And the thing is, okay, Trump against Hillary. So if Trump's not the answer, then what's the alternative? Is it Hillary? She's just a female version of Trump. What we had a choice between was a bully on one hand and a shapeshifter on the other. Well, I can say this. If I had to deal with both of them, I'd much rather deal with the bully because I know where he's coming from. But a shapeshifter, you don't know what the heck you got.

So I know a number of people who voted for Trump. It wasn't about racism. You know, and Trump, look, Trump is an opportunist. He saw something going on. He saw an opportunity and he pounced on it. There was some dynamics going on. There was this, well, I'll just put it this way. Remember Jesse Ventura, governor of Minnesota a number of years ago? Pro wrestler, yeah. The day after the election, Trump flew out to talk to him. He said, how did you do this? Really?

Jesse explained it to him. So I got to give it to Trump. He was shrewd. But then on the other hand, you know, every time I pull up to the pump to fill up with gas, I must admit, I kind of lament. I remember the days when we had Trump, when I was paying $1.29 for our gas. I got a fuel-efficient car. I got an Acura, right? It's an 04 Acura TSX.

The other day, just a couple days ago, I filled up my tank. My tank holds 15 gallons. I only got 12.5 gallons, and it cost me 50 i couldn't believe it wow now i know people on the west coast i mean that's nothing compared to what people on the west coast do but anyway yeah that's i gave a buddy or my buddy of mine gave me a ride to lex from it was from the valley so it's a pretty long way and i said hey i'll to this is just a few days ago and i said hey i'll you, I'll fill your tank up. Well, he gets there on E.

I fill his tank up. It was $97. And he had a midsize car. It wasn't even that. I'm like, wow. All right. Well, there we go. Yeah.

That's crazy. So I want to go back to the race conversation. And I would love to get your perspective. And I have a genuine curiosity. love to get your perspective. And this is like, I'm genuine. I have a genuine curiosity. This is not loaded at all. I really, I get different answers to this question. And each one, I'm kind of like trying to figure things out. Since the civil rights movement, have things gotten better or worse for the African American community? And the two perspectives I often hear is like, look, they've gotten so much better to the

point to where we have a democratically elected black president. Like, goodness, from segregation laws, Jim Crow, to a black president, democratically elected. That's one perspective. Another perspective on the other extreme might be like like it's actually gotten worse because what was more explicit back then is now just buried into the system to where now it's we have systemic racism issues that are hard to even identify yet are very much in existence. Where where would you navigate that that perspective? would you navigate that perspective? Back in the old days of Jim Crow,

we also, we had deliberate racism, and we also had systemic racism at the same time. Today, we've gotten rid of most of the deliberate racism, but there are still some vestiges of systemic racism left.

It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. Like, you know, my dad was an original Tuskegee Airman, okay? And when he came back from the war, he wanted to be an airline pilot. Do you think he had any chance of doing that? No. Today, he would have been welcomed in the airline industry. No. Today, he would have been welcomed in the airline industry. So what's happened is that it goes back to critical theory.

In order for critical theory to work, you've got to have this conflict. You can't have peace or anything, okay? So in order to make it work, this is my theory, what has happened is that people have gotten folks to demand perfection from the society. And if you demand perfection from anything in this world, you're going to be disappointed. So it's worse in the sense that people are very much they make a whole lot of noise about not a whole lot.

Okay. Look, I know what racism is. I'm old enough to remember how it used to be. And, and there's no reason that, look, okay.

Does racism exist in America? Yes. Does, does, does classism exist in America? Yes. Does classism exist in England? Yes. Does the caste system exist in India? Yes. Does tribalism exist in Africa? Well, yes. these things, again, the subdominant group doesn't make out as well as the dominant group. However, in this case, let's say if I was, let's say I wanted to, I had a goal in life and I pursue it. If I was white, let's say I can get to 100%. If I'm African-American, because of some vestiges of racism, stuff like that, I might make it to about 97%, 95%. So, yes, there's still racism. But then on the other end, I mean, okay, it's not totally preventing me from achieving great things. And it's never going to be perfect anyway. I mean, even among white folks you got issues, you know?

One of the things that I've noticed in the news about Ukraine of late is a whole lot of African Americans who just can't get their heads around this. They can't understand white folks oppressing other white folks, because they think it just has to do with color, you know what I mean? It doesn't fit their narrative. But the reason that what's happening over in Ukraine and the reason why we had racism in America, the reason why you have tribalism in Africa and all the rest of that is because human beings are sinful. They're sinful. We're fallen. We need salvation.

That's why Christ came. You know, so those are the things. Yes, it's a lot better than it used to be. No, it's not perfect. I mean, look, who put Barack Obama over the top? It wasn't black folks. It was those white folks in the Iowa caucuses that put him on the map. He won the Iowa caucuses.

Everybody said, woo, look at this, you know? Why was that? Because he, he, he appealed to people.

I mean, people liked Obama a lot more than they liked his policies, but they did like him. Yeah. Yeah. People like Trump's policies more than they like Trump's. So if only we could have had an Obama with Trump's policies, that would have been incredible.

Oh, that's hilarious. Wow. I've got to process that one. You mentioned there are vestiges of systemic racism, and I've talked to people who say, well, no, it's not just vestiges. This is like a dominant, thick thread in society. I would love – well, can you unpack what do you mean by systemic racism? If I was a judge in a court of law and you said systemic racism is an issue, I would say, okay, prove like where, how do you identify it? What is it? How do we address it?

Let me give you an example of systemic racism. This is an actual example. The FHA. Okay, we all know about the FHA, Federal Housing Authority. Okay, they got into the home, you know, they got into guarantee to, uh, guaranteeing the home loans and stuff to encourage home ownership in America. Right. Okay. So far so good. But among their rules was we will not, um, back loans,

home loans in communities that are unstable. Now, on the face of it, that's totally understandable. Why do you want to, you know, back a loan in a community where the house could be burned down at any time or whatever, you know what I'm saying, where there's high crime and all that. Okay. So they did not back loans in communities that were unstable. Okay. So far, so good. Here's where the racism comes in. How do they define an unstable neighborhood? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. they defined an unstable neighborhood as one where one non-white family lives the presence of one non-white family in the neighborhood would judge it as unstable and therefore they will not make home loans in that in that they will not back any loans so what happens is that when african-amer-Americans would wanna go and buy a home, they would have to buy, this happened, I grew up in the Chicago area, in Gary, Indiana to be exact. And so people would, in neighborhoods that were changing,

because when African-Americans were leaving the ghetto and going out and doing these things, they would have to buy these homes on contract and the way these contracts were set up was that you as long as you were paying every month for the for the for you you were okay but the house was totally you were totally responsible for all the repairs and everything else like that if you missed one if you were late for one payment no matter how far along you were if you're late for one payment, no matter how far along you were, if you were late for one payment for any reason, you lost everything. And so what happened is that a lot of African-Americans, you know, there were some things, you know, somebody has an accident or something.

You know, no matter what it was, they lose everything. they lose everything. So that put a great, and also these contracts have much higher interest rates than FHA loans. So what's happening is that the wealth of African-Americans is being drained at a faster pace. That's an example of systemic racism. It is racism that's built into the warp and woof of the system. One does not need to be prejudiced to participate in racism. I mean, look, I have this iPhone here. This makes me a participant. It might make me a participant in slavery over in China. Okay.

You know, these sweatshops and things like that. So there is that. Now, let me say this, that while systemic racism still exists, it can only account for, say, a small percentage of the hindrances that I have in society. Okay? Now, what has happened in recent days, now when I say recent days, let's say in the last 30, 40 years, is that in any society, in any group of people, there are two groups of people within that group of people.

You have what I call the achievers and you have the non-achievers. Now, what's the difference? It's not a matter of character now, not a matter of character at all. So one group is not morally superior to the other. to the other. But achievers are those who live by value system, live by a value system that if you follow it, generally speaking, you will succeed in that society. Succeeding in whatever that society defines as success. So in this case, we're talking about a nice home, two cars in the garage, a picket fence, and a Weber grill. Okay. Okay.

So if you live by the achiever value system, generally you will succeed. Yes, there are exceptions to that. If I invested all my money in Enron or something like that, that's different. The non-achievers live by a value system that, if you follow it, will not allow you to succeed in society, will lead to non-success in society. You'll end up in poverty. You'll end up on welfare. You'll end up in – okay. You'll end up in poverty.

You'll end up on welfare. You'll end up in, okay. Now, what has happened is that the difference is, see, among African Americans, okay, African Americans are about, let's say, let me be conservative about this, 85 to 90% achievers and 10 to 50% non-achievers. So if you look at who lives in the ghetto, who lives in the hood, it's only about 10% of us. So most African Americans are generally successful. I'm not saying that they're overly wealthy, but they generally succeed. But what's happened is that over the last few years, it's the non-achievers who have become, the small minority of non-achievers have become the dominant influence

in the African-American context. And so everybody thinks that all African-Americans are non-achievers. That's ridiculous. So it's them. They are the ones who are crying out loud. And they are saying that their non-success is due to racism when, in fact, their non-success is due to the bad value system that they are following. Okay.

And so, I mean, Black Lives Matter, all that. I mean, you know, they – and again, which is interesting, and this is nothing new, any system of slavery, for it to succeed, you need overseers of the same group you're enslaving. So the overseers, the more they keep the slaves in line, the better off they are. And so this is the oldest trick in the book. I mean, you know, you have groups out here who are running around screaming and yelling about all this poverty, which is true. It's there. Yeah. But they're screaming and yelling about all this.

They're accumulating tremendous wealth for themselves. And then they skip off and buy houses and all the rest of that and the people who are suffering get left with nothing so it's the if you talk to

most African Americans if you got them to admit they would admit yeah it's not perfect but we're doing okay but the problem is African-Americans, if you got them to admit, they would admit and say, hey, yeah, yeah, it's not perfect, but we're doing okay. But the problem is because of gangster rap and other things, corporate greed, the small minority of non-achievers have become, they have intimidated the achievers into thinking that they are a small minority. We're 85, 90%, but thinking that they are a small minority.

You know, we're 85, 90 percent, but we think we're a small minority. And in order to, okay, case in point, case in point. When Barack Obama was running for president, I believe it was Al Sharpton said that Obama is not really black. Okay. Now, most people assume that he said that because Obama was biracial. That's ridiculous. We've had biracial people in the black community from the very beginning. It's never been an issue for us.

He said Barack Obama wasn't black because he didn't have a bunch of baby mamas around. He was married to one wife, had kids, you know what I'm saying, that kind of thing. And even our president said, oh, I'm surprised that here's a clean-cut guy and all the rest of that, as as if you know barack obama was the exception to the rule and he was he was more black folks or more like that than this other thing so so what's happening is that everybody buys into this narrative and there's a lot of people in today's world who are seeking redemption in the culture because they don't want to be considered irredeemable uh and so the whole rhetoric uh this this that the other it's uh it's racism racism systemic racism but yes it does exist but it's blown way out of proportion and um

and uh and so it's it's you know it's it because it's a matter of the people who do this are the ones who accumulate the most power. It's the oldest trick in the book. Is this the – I've heard you use the phrase that – you said something like there's a cold civil war in the African-American community. A cold civil war. Yes, yes. So that's the achiever. And what was the other opposite of achiever? The non-achiever.

Okay, achiever, non-achiever and what was the other opposite of Achiever? Achiever. The non-Achiever. Okay, Achiever, non-Achiever. Every now and then, every now and then, that cold Civil War heats up. One of the best examples I can tell you is what happened in Washington, D.C. back in the 90s. D.C. was, what, like 80% black. And D.C. had a mayor named Marion Barry. And Marion Barry, you know, he comes from a non-achiever background. I mean, he grew up as a, you know, his background was sharecropping and a whole lot of other things. And the sharecropping system was devastating

to kids growing up, especially if their families were fractured. Okay, so you have him. He's a civil rights activist and everything. So he becomes the mayor of D.C. And he's going around to all the schools telling these kids not to take drugs. And he gets caught on camera sniffing cocaine or whatever it was. And so he leaves office in disgrace. Okay.

Then Sharon Pratt Kelly then becomes a mayor, African-American woman. So the D.C. is mostly African-American now. The African-Americans have the vote in D.C. Okay. Marion Barry, after going to prison, comes back and runs for city council. He wins that seat. And then he challenges Sheriff Pat Kelly for the mayor. Well, it happens that in those years, most of the achievers in D.C. moved out to Prince George's County. So what you had in D.C. was a majority or a slight majority, maybe 55 percent, 60 percent of people who would be non-achievers. They saw Marion Barry as one of them.

They did not see Sharon Pratt Kelly as one of them. As a matter of fact, when Barry was caught on camera sniffing cocaine, you know, from my point of view, it was outrageous, you know. But from the point of view of the non-achievers, they weren't so mad at that. They were mad at the fact that there was a woman who participated in the sting. And they called her that bee that set him up. See?

So what happened is that when the election came, Marion Barry trounced Sharon Pratt Kelly. Because at that point, it was the non-achievers. They rose up and said, these achievers don't represent us. They are not like us. Marion Perry is one of us. And there it is. It broke out into the open, into civil war, into a political, a political hot war.

And, but there's that, there's that thing going on all the time. It's, it's, you don't hear about it a lot because it's kind of, it's kind of kept hush hush, but it's, it's right there. And it was the time. You don't hear about it a lot because it's kind of kept hush-hush, but it's right there. As a matter of fact, it was a very similar phenomenon that happened among whites back in the early part of the 20th century, because what happened was that there was a culture of dysfunctionality going on in the South. A lot of people call it redneck culture. And when white rednecks would move to the North, the Northerners they were appalled. As a matter of fact, that's why

for so many decades, that if you had a Southern accent, you were assumed to be stupid. Lyndon Johnson could not have become president in his own right because he was a Southerner. Everybody thought thought southerners were stupid. Of course, they don't think that way now, but I'm just saying that those are some of the factors that go in there that contribute to this. So it's a little more complicated than people would say. And I say, hey, let's recognize what's going on and act accordingly.

All of our problems, yes, racism is real, yes, and all that. There are some people who say there's no such thing as systemic racism. That's ridiculous. All sin is deliberate and systemic. You know what I'm saying? All sin has that. I'm saying Austin has that. But if we would recognize the fact that all these are symptoms of fallen humanity, it goes all the way back to the garden.

And as Christians, we have the most thorough, radical understanding of all of this, and we're not saying anything. We're not doing the kind of theology that puts that message out there. And so people think that Christianity is trivial. Well, the way we act, we act in a trivial way. So let's go in that direction to the church, because so far we're kind of painting a a broad brush picture on race and society. And I think that's super important as Christians living in this society to have that understanding. But you made a comment early on about getting overly wrapped up in the kind of ideological warfare. And that's something obviously we don't want to do.

So what is the Christian response to the racial tensions that are existing in society? Like, what does it look like for the church to move forward in this conversation? And you could, if you want, you can say, you know, the more white-dominated church should kind of think, consider this, this, this, and maybe the more black-dominated church or whatever. First of all, there is a black church in this country, but black people never intended to have a black church. It wasn't our idea. It did not originate with us. It was not something we wanted to do, okay? It came about because the church in America was caught in a cultural captivity and therefore participated in a cultural set of racism, okay? I mean, if I can put it that way. I can show you the whole, the charts and all the history and

all that. Okay? So that's the first thing. So now we got a black church and a white church. The thing that we need to do is, is to first of all, racism and the vestiges of racism should not exist within the body of Christ. Now, okay, will it exist? Of course it will, because we're still sinners and we're a mess. The thing is, we've got to recognize we are a mess. But the church should live a life of what I would call protest against the sin and corruption that we're surrounded by. I mean, that's right out of the Bible. And so we should not participate in that

kind of stuff. It may be like that out there in the world, but it should not be like that in the body of Christ. And if we have a problem with that, I can tell you right now, the real problem with racism within the body of Christ goes back to the whole idea that black folks are subhuman in some kind of a way. And if black folks are subhuman, then of course you have to have segregation, you know what I'm saying? But black folks aren't subhuman. So the church should then, should be on the leading edge of protest against it in the way we live. That's the first thing. We can't do much – a whole lot about society out there. But we can do – it may be that, but it must not be that way among us.

Can you really quick give us maybe some concrete examples of what that looks like in a local church context? Because I've got a lot of friends that are in kind of like multi-ethnic, or they're trying to lead a multi-ethnic community. Is that the answer? Is it multi-ethnic leadership in churches? Is it recognizing churches that reflect, for lack of better terms, a white culture that sometimes they're even unaware of? Or what does it look like on the ground in a church to model this? Yeah, well, you know, all that you mentioned is part of it. But, yeah, the problem that white folks in this country have, okay, when I say white folks, it's not because they're white. It's because they're dominant.

Okay, you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Okay. If we're in Kenya, I talk about the Kikuyus. You know, they're the dominant tribe. You know what I'm saying so okay the problem with any dominant culture has one of the main problems is that it doesn't realize that it has a culture they say oh all this is normal but you don't you know you know we clap on one and three that's

normal but somebody in comes in starts clapping on two and four. Oh, that's culture. You got to keep that out. That's worldly. Tom Skinner has the best take on that about how white people sing the hymns and how black people sing the hymns and the white people think, oh, you're singing it differently.

No, you're not doing it right. Right, right, right. Exactly. The dominant culture has a tendency to not realize that it has a culture. Okay. That's the first thing. The second thing is that all of us, all of us who follow Jesus, black, white, grizzly, or gray, whatever, all of us are a part of a distinct cultural minority. We cannot think of ourselves as the establishment. We are a minority together.

Okay. And if we begin to model that, if we begin to see ourselves in that way, you know, here's the thing. Let's talk about conservatives, for example. I mean, you know, conservatives, I understand, you know, that we got traditional values and non-traditional values and all the rest of that. Conservatives have a way of wanting to preserve the status quo. I don't want to preserve the status quo. I'm not satisfied with it. I want to overthrow the status quo. Hang on. You're fine. Okay, I want to overthrow the status quo

because I'm not just to overthrow it now. If I'm just going to overthrow it and that's it, then that's wrong too. I want the kingdom of God. You know what I'm saying? I want to see the kingdom of God come. The Lord is the Lord of all things. The Lord is Christ.

Okay. And he shall reign forever and ever. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the day when the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. That's what I'm going for. I'm not trying to preserve the status quo. I will use the status quo, whatever advantages I have, for the sake of the kingdom. So there are times when I played the race card, but I played it for the sake of the kingdom, not just for my own – does that make sense?

What do you mean play the race card? Like tease that out a little bit. Like tease that out a little bit. Sometimes. Yeah, there are times when I can indict somebody for racism. I can indict somebody for racism. But really, I'm indicting them for being unfaithful to God. You know what I'm saying? But I use the racial issue to get at that. Does that make sense?

Yeah. It's not race for racism. Because God has given me my race as a gift. It's something to be used for the glory of God, whether positively or negatively. I mean, you know, I oftentimes, you know, if I go to Africa, you know, there's a kind of a head start I have with everybody, because I am African American. You know, that's a good thing. But then on the other hand, if I try to exploit Africans based on that, that's a whole other thing altogether. So whatever God gives us, there are people in the dominant culture. There's nothing wrong with being in the dominant culture.

It's what you do with it. culture. It's what you do with it. So you use your status in the dominant culture or as a member of the dominant culture for the sake of the kingdom. So that's, you know, God gives us various things and situations, so we are to use these things for the kingdom of God. If we learn how to do that, then we'll be miles ahead of everybody else. And now, these multi-ethnic churches and everything, yeah, that's a nice idea. But in too many cases, in most cases that I know of, multi-ethnic churches, white folks come as they are, but everybody else has got to assimilate into the dominant culture. It's not integration, it's assimilation, right? It's still... Exactly right.

To me, that's not worth the effort. I mean, what the heck? Why should I, you know, why should I go to a church where I got to run with a governor, but I can go to a black church and just be free? I mean, what's that all about? Now, there are times when I will give up my freedom for the sake of something higher. You know what I'm saying?

Yes. But I don't think it's an imbalance. It doesn't quite work right. But if we think as a minority together, we begin to do that, then I think we might be able to see some things clear. You know, I did a blog recently and I said about one of the things we

do when we try to attack these things with ideology and whatnot, it's like playing whack-a-mole. You know, I knock this one down another one comes up, knock it down, and I can play whack-a-mole forever and never solve the problem. The way you solve the Matt Wackable problem is you unplug the machine and stop those things from coming up in the first place.

So... Is the best way to not... to create a church that's truly integrating different cultures, ethnicities, races, rather than assimilating, is the best way to do that having multi-ethnic leadership? Can that even happen unless you have multi-ethnic leadership? Is that too simplified to say that? Or is that actually the necessary starting point to create a genuinely multi-ethnic church it helps it helps but you but but see ethnicity is not enough to go by you also got to go by the mentality of the people leading it um what's the use of having an african-american in leadership if he thinks white. Does that make sense? It does.

I'm going to have you unpack that in a second, but yeah, keep going. Yeah, if the way he thinks is no different from the white folks who are in the dominant group, you know what I'm saying, which is supposed to be causing the problem in the first place, then what does dark complexion contribute to that if that's all it is? That's nothing. It's not a matter of, you know, your skin color or anything. It's the way you think. And if I think, like I said, if I think as a minority,

if I think of myself as the majority or the dominant group, then I'm no different from anybody else. You know, see, that's that's the thing. OK, I know of a church in the last few years that really wanted to bring, you know, they were trying to be multi-ethnic and all that. And they wanted to bring some black leadership into the church. Okay. God bless them. But when they went to get some black leadership, they didn't consult with the black people in the congregation in terms of what kind of leader they

went with that chose someone after the order of how they thought. So this person was chosen on the basis of dominant cultural standards, you know, rather than, you know, and so it was, it caused a problem in the church.

See, you never consulted us, you know, because again, what was happening? The dominant culture was acting out of their dominance and they weren't taking that into consideration. Look, look, look, look. Book of Acts chapter 6, they were taking care of widows. The Hebrew widows were doing okay. The Greek widows were being left out in the day of

distribution of food. So the apostles then, they said, look, we don't have the know-how to do this, so why don't we choose some helper, some deacons to take care of this whole thing? And it's interesting that they chose all Greek deacons, because the Greeks understood where the problem was. But he said, you choose from among you, you folks who are being shortchanged, you choose. And they chose seven, and they straightened it out. But if the apostles had said, well, saying that you're being left out of the distribution of food, that's divisive.

If they had said something like that or whatever, then it would not have gone very well. And the interesting thing is, once the Greek deacons got the bugs out, you never hear from the Hebrew widows saying that we're shortchanged. They never complained about reverse discrimination, because the Spirit of God was there. So it takes a lot for us to become radically biblical. If we pursue the kingdom of God according to Scripture, then a lot of this stuff will not, a lot of this stuff will kind of fall away. I mean, you know, it won't be perfect. Like I said, I mean, even the early church had Ananias and Sapphira, you know what I'm saying? Even they had issues.

And we're going to still have issues because we're sinners and we're fallen, but we're being saved by grace. And I think the church should be on the leading edge of that as opposed to letting the society do it. We're trying to do it through legislation. So, yeah, you know, do I favor, you know, am I in favor of legislation? That's good.

Yes, yes, yes, of course. I like the fact that we had the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. But now the way they're applying it, they're applying it to categories of people that are not biblically legitimate, if you know what I'm saying. Before – and we're coming close to an hour here. But you – so to revisit the Molde ethnic church that has a black person in leadership and you said he thinks white. I would love to get your take on the words or concepts whiteness, white supremacy, white privilege. I've heard you talk about this and I think your perspective is really helpful because I know there's – when people use these phrases, some white people say, well, wait a minute. Isn't that just reverse racism or you're broad brushing a whole group of people?

I don't know. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding how these phrases are used. And even me, I'm on a journey trying to figure out when people use this phrase, what exactly do they mean? So help us understand that idea when people talk about whiteness, white supremacy, white privilege. In the society, the dominant group always has more privilege than the subdominant group, plain and simple. Because the system works better for the dominant group than it does for the subdominant group. So in a society that's defined by race, isn't something as white privilege? Yes, there is white privilege. However, it doesn't mean that you can explain everything by that.

In some cases, like, okay, for example, I speak the language of the dominant group in America. So, you know, I have dominant language privilege. You know what I'm saying? In order to get a job, I don't have to learn a whole other language. If I want to be an airline pilot and fly internationally, I don't have to learn another language because the international trade language is English. You know what I'm saying? So I have a privilege in that sense. I don't have to learn another language. So, yes, there is.

But the way we handle that is not so much. First of all, you say, okay, how do I use my privilege? Do I use it for the kingdom of God? Okay. To empower people who may not be, who may not have the same privileges as I do. Or, you know, or how do I, I mean, look, I was born with this. I mean, I can't, you know, I can't take it back. I mean, look, I was born with this.

I mean, I can't, you know, I can't take it back. But the thing is, within the body of Christ, then, I lay this at the master's feet and let him do what he wants. So, yeah, there is such a thing as white privilege. It's historic. you know if I was white and wanted to get a car loan I'd get a cheaper rate than I would if I was black that may not be true today

but that certainly has been true in the past and people don't realize the fact that they do have privilege but the problem I have is that people say that because you have privilege, that in and of itself is a sin. No, it's not. That's the problem.

Here's my question. I don't want to call it a pushback because I don't, I don't, it is more of a question. Like when I hear white privilege, it's like, well, does that, it sounds like every single white person has privilege over a non-white person in every single circumstance. I'm like, well, if that's what people mean, that can't be, that can't be true. I mean, if I was applying for a job at a, in the humanities department at a secular university, my white, straight maleness is going to be three strikes against me in some of those environments. Or if I walk through South Central late at night, LA, my whiteness is not going to give me any privilege. This is exactly right. It depends on the context.

Okay. So I'm right to say, wait a minute, it just seems a little more... It's not like my whiteness brings me privilege in every single environment, even in my dominant society. Okay. It does not. It depends on your context. Okay. If you grew up in Appalachia, okay, who's this guy? He wrote this book, Hillbillyology. Yeah, yeah. J.D. Vance, I think. J.D.?

Yeah. Right. I read his book. I can relate to J.D. Vance. I mean, I.D. Vance. Right. I read his book. You know, I can relate to J.D. Vance. I mean, I knew guys like that when I grew up in the hood, you know. They just happened to be black, but they came from the same fractured family and all the rest of that kind of stuff, you know. So, yeah, you know, just because you're white doesn't mean you have white privilege. Okay. It's a whole lot of other things involved. It depends on your value system, your culture, your, you know what I'm saying. It's a whole lot of other things involved. It depends on your value system, your culture, your – you know what I'm saying.

It's a whole lot of things. And so, yeah, in some context, being white is a disadvantage. As a matter of fact, in today's ideology, the irredeemable people fall into four categories. Okay? White, males, heterosexuals, and Christians. Yeah. Or some combination of those. Well, if that's, you and I are both in trouble, you know.

You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, that's the thing. Again, that goes back to that whole critical theory, Marxian kind of thing, the struggle. You got to create the struggle. You've got to have the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat, or the thesis versus the antithesis. You've got to have that in order for the thing

to work. So you get caught up in all that. So yeah, I mean, you know, in the home, in everybody's home, there's privilege. The parents have privileges over the kids. That's just life. I can't change my color or my skin or anything else like that. But what I can change is what I do with it, how I use it.

That's the thing. Or even like people that we're almost not allowed to talk about even physical presentation i mean a a six foot four athletic well-dressed good-looking black man might have that might bring more privilege than a maybe a short bald squatty you know white dude with no personality. I'm not saying – I'm just – you can get in trouble really quick when you talk like this. But I mean there's so many factors that go in. And I guess that's where I just – I don't mind broad brush concepts as long as you recognize the social and integrative complexity of so many factors that play into this. And if that's what we mean, then I think white privilege, absolutely, generally speaking,

my whiteness will bring me more privilege in most, many, most situations in a white-dominated culture. And I think that's absolutely correct. Your whiteness will bring you privilege, all other things being equal. All things being equal, yeah. Yeah. All of them being equal. All things being equal, yeah. But life isn't like that. And that's the problem with critical theory, is that it oversimplifies everything. It oversimplifies everything. It's either this or that, one extreme or the other.

Like in life, you've got the oppressors, right? And then you've got the privileged. And over here, you got the disadvantaged. And then over here, you got the oppressed. Okay. So that's the way it is. So there are people who are advantaged, who are not oppressors. And there are people who are disadvantaged, who are not oppressed. They're like for example if you left and it Disadvantaged you are you try to use a pair of scissors. You know what I'm saying? But then you got okay, so what critical theory does it comes longest is forces everybody either to be the oppressor or the oppressed

Forces every that in, in that dualistic way of looking at it. And it makes us, it's bound to collapse because let's say, for example, that white folks, that's it, you know, whites versus non-whites, okay, critical race theory, whites versus non-whites. Okay, so let's topple the white folks. Let's just knock them off. Let's overthrow them. Okay, now what?

Within that group that overthrew the white folks, somebody's going to rise to the top as the dominant influence. So now you've got to give it to them. Somebody else is going to rise. Then you've got to give it to them. Somebody else is going to rise. Then you got to give it to them. I mean, you take intersectionality, the more

the more points of oppression or disadvantage you can claim, the more powerful you are, the more legitimate you are. Okay. If I'm black, I can stand up and sit you down and say, no, check your white privilege. Okay. And then some black woman says, well, no, no, you check your male privilege. Sit me down.

And then a gay black woman said, no, you check your heterosexual privilege. And you keep on going. And you keep on going. Eventually, you take somebody who is in a coma, they have less privilege. And so therefore, they should be listened to. And of course, ultimately, the ultimate power you have in that scheme is when you're dead. Because you have all the business, man. all the quizzes, man. I've not heard that part of intersectionality. You know, it's fun. I mean, I've learned a lot from aspects of intersectionality that helped me fill in blind spots. And I'm like, man, yeah, there's some helpful things here, but I think there's some problems in it. There was a, I mean, I don't want to call it funny, but there was an interesting case in LA where a trans woman, meaning biological male, who hadn't had any surgeries, went into a – was it a woman's salon and was kind of sprawling out with his junk hanging out. And a woman with her daughter, a black woman woman with her daughter came and berated the people saying there's a man in there you gotta get this you know and like no no he identifies as a woman

i don't care what he had and and they were just caught like wait does a black woman went out here or the white trans woman biological male and it's like a intersectional train wreck you know because it's like well that's what we run into. That's what we run into. The whole intersectional thing is unstable. It's going to fall apart. Or, you know, you take female athletics, okay? Oh, man. You're going to go here, aren't you?

Yeah. So, yeah. See, that's the kind of foolishness that people get into when they do not have biblical wisdom. We got to go to the scripture and we got to speak with biblical wisdom. Because everybody knows there's something wrong here. Everybody knows there's something wrong. So I don't blame people for trying to do something to make it right. The problem is the way they go about doing it, they end up just shading one problem for another. Well, Carl, I've taken you over the time here. Thank you so much

for being on my podcast. I feel like we're just getting warmed up. I can keep going. And I just love just your way of thinking where you said early on that you get accused of being conservative, liberal, and it's like, I don't even work within those categories. And I can't tell you – I'm sure my audience is laughing because you're like, Preston, that's basically your existence. So I very much resonate with that and I love – and I think Jesus in his own way had similar critiques. So I guess that's a good spot to be. He did had similar critiques. I guess that's a good spot to be. He did have similar critiques. Matthew 11.

To what can I compare this generation? Like a bunch of kids playing around. We played the flute. You didn't dance. We sang funeral dirge. You didn't cry. You know? John Baptist came along not eating and drinking. They said he was mad.

I come along eating and drinking. You say I'm a drunkard and an addict. You can't win. You didn't fit into the tribalistic box we wanted you to fit into. Well, thank you, Carl. Many blessings on your life and ministry. And we should do this again sometime. Amen. Let's do it, let's do it.

Let's do it. Hey, by the way, where are you located? I'm in Boise, Idaho. Boise, Idaho. Yeah. If you can think of some kind of a speaking engagement for me there, I'd love to come because I'm trying to fill in all 50 states. I've been to 48 states.

I haven't been to Idaho, North Dakota. I haven't been to South Dakota. So I'm working on that. So I'd been to 48 states. I haven't been to Idaho, North Dakota. I haven't been to South Dakota. I'm working on that. I host a conference. We host a conference here every year. We just have our first one coming up here in a couple days, the All-General Conference.

That's not outside the realm of possibilities, Carl. I'm glad you're working for me. You know. All right. God bless. God bless, Carl. I'm glad I did a workshop for you or something, you know. All right. God bless. God bless, brother.