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[00:00:07] We have enemies within our country.
[00:00:19] I think it's a combination of demonology and scyop.
[00:00:23] The citizens are going to rise up and become deputized.
[00:00:26] I have always heard President Trump. regarding faith, race, gender, and religion. I just to be watched, like you would go watch a Marvel movie, right? There was, there were a lot of points, a lot of layers, a lot of different levels as well. But a lot would argue, especially, just the way it was just the cinematography alone, the colors, the lighting, the use of space,
[00:03:03] the use of Dutch angles, which connotes,
[00:03:06] oftentimes, hostility, all of those things, The problems they incurred and one of the points they brought up in that film do the right thing is Gentrification there was a scene there where bug eye played by the none and only Giancarlo esposito you probably know him as Gus from Los Pollos a ramanos in Breaking Bad
[00:04:21] And so yeah, that was I think I believe that was his first role
[00:05:26] is trying to bring home to you in regards to, you know, the world is changing and so much of right art and fiction turns into nonfiction, right?
[00:05:32] And in Spike, it really kind of wove an entire, really a snapshot of where the country was
[00:05:41] and still is at police brutality, police beatings, white-owned property. but yeah it's uh... but well one of the points i was trying to make was that you know there are the whole issue with religion uh... spike specifically didn't tackle a few things in that one he didn't tackle like drugs and drug addiction uh... specifically that was you know left out uh... the issue of gang street gangs that was another thing that was that was left out as well specifically uh... he wanted he knew what he was the story that he was trying to tell
[00:07:01] but uh... one of the notes interesting notes is that uh... during this time
[00:07:06] uh... when they showed up to the come in contact, you know, with colonized white evangelical theology and then rejected Spike. But the community and the religious community that did step up was of course the nation of Islam. They helped people get off crack in that community.
[00:08:21] He ended up working on the set.
[00:08:23] In fact, one of the characters, Smiley,
[00:08:26] you'll see him throughout the film.
[00:08:27] He wasn't originally back and watch film. You notice the angle that Spike took with that, Smiley is standing in front of a black Baptist church, doors or clothes, lights are off, everything is that.
[00:09:40] Again, this is kind of just a little clap back, right,
[00:09:43] to the black church in that community that wouldn't work with them. so much from it that it's just become second nature to talk about it. And really the depth of how Black directors and writers, especially, this was produced by Universal Studios at a time when Black directors and writers, they didn't get those opportunities where you were the one who was calling, in fact, again, going to be a little
[00:11:02] film history here.
[00:11:04] It was filmed on location in Bed-Stuy in New York. And I was thanking for it. I mean, that, you know, that the set made the film. The set was a character in and of itself. And all the things that come down again, white owned property, you're dealing with that at the time, strong dissonance between Korean American,
[00:12:22] Korean Americans and African Americans, right?
[00:12:24] That was particularly going on on both coasts,
[00:12:25] both New York and in Los Angeles. Ozzy Davis and Ruby Dee, who both, the rest of Souls were in that movie as well. They kind of played opposites throughout the film because the mayor played by Ozzy Davis is a drunk. But he's got so much more of a richer and thicker story.
[00:13:40] There's generational divide that he's talking about.
[00:13:42] At that point, we're talking about Black Gen X, young kids,
[00:13:45] talking back to the builders and the boomers,
[00:13:48] the civil rights generation. If you cheap and you got a lot of money, I understand. I believe you can go to YouTube. And if you just do a little research, you can actually find the whole movie in parts, but you can see the whole thing for free, whatnot. Or you can rent it for like two, three bucks. I know it's real cheap. So what I usually tell my students. And can you believe I was actually going to take that film out of rotation after Obama was elected?
[00:15:02] Can you believe that mess?
[00:15:03] I was like, well, you know, hopefully lift us up a little bit. I'll get to him here in a minute. But yeah, I just kinda wanted to go in a little bit on that film. There's so much to the background of that particular film and so much to say. It is a 3D representation of the things that we have in this world that are still present
[00:16:21] and that we're still fighting and pushing up against.
[00:16:24] And so I recommend it.
[00:16:25] Go see that and then maybe go see school days. theological seminary uh... he's renowned for his work is a DJ he's a father he's a husband he's a good friend uh... this brother brother whole say and he has a great sense of humor you ever get a chance to hang out with them i highly recommend it uh... he's got some he's got some good and he's very witty uh... with with that uh... so yes he was uh... it's he came to that they look like
[00:17:44] he came to cts And you know, maybe you're this is your Christmas day, because I'm, you know, I'm recording this near Christmas of the year of our lower 2023. This is your Christmas podcast. So happy holidays, right? If that's what you celebrate, if not, hopefully you're not too depressed because these times can be real depressing. All right, fam, enjoy this conversation.
[00:19:00] Check it. to Venezuela. So actually my first memories are in Caracas, Venezuela. And so we moved there and made a pit stop in Puerto Rico before my dad was called to pastor in Lorraine, Ohio, which many people may not know Lorraine, but it's about about a half hour west of Cleveland. And it used to be the
[00:20:23] largest Puerto Rican diaspora between Chicago and New York.
[00:21:23] And we had stopped in Chicago for two weeks. But something happened to the house,
[00:21:27] we were gonna rent or whatever.
[00:21:28] And so my dad had to kind of pause on our move
[00:21:32] and we stayed in Chicago for well, 21 years.
[00:21:35] Wow.
[00:21:36] So, you know, if you're into divine providence,
[00:21:40] you can call it that.
[00:21:41] I'm not gonna go there, but it became,
[00:21:45] it meant that I wasn't a Californian.
[00:21:48] I became a home in a denomination that I think appreciates who I am and what I bring. So I'm with the disciples of Christ calls to be the regional minister of the central Rocky mountain region Which is I hope you're sitting down here Colorado Wyoming Utah Northern New Mexico and Southeast Idaho now if there's any Difference between me and any part of the country it might be that
[00:24:24] right since when I was a local pastor, when I was a community organizer, when I was a regional minister, I was always known as the teacher, right? People say, oh no, they would even call me professor, which, you know, I take that title very seriously. So I didn't call myself that, but people say the professor's in. So clearly there was in the Christian, yeah, it was really a big name in the religion and science stuff. Okay. And so he really got me involved into the religions and science stuff. A big piece that I forgot to mention, maybe I didn't forget to mention, I just want to kind of leave it kind of floating over the top. All along those travels, probably since Chicago, I started DJing.
[00:27:02] Yeah, come on down.
[00:27:04] I'm from Chicago, so I'm a house head.
[00:27:06] I'm Chicago house cat.
[00:28:06] I am. And obviously, I don't keep it completely separate from everything else I do. And so,
[00:28:16] so in some ways, my thinking is shaped by DJing, my preaching is shaped by DJing in some way. So yeah, there's that. And I think we you had the pastoral thing going. Why the academy? Why something like this? And then ultimately, I also be curious, what's been your experience like, you know, being now a professor, teaching classes, all those things, man, especially in this, you know, this air that we find ourselves in, man.
[00:29:41] I know you mentioned in one of the texts, People who design people in the arts Etc, I do think that we can fulfill our calling and vocation and many officers
[00:31:05] And in many ways I was fulfilling that vocation as a regional minister where I need to be. And I am really grateful for that because you and I both know folks who, PhD probably smarter than you and me, at least smarter than me who haven't landed anything. Right, right.
[00:32:20] Faculty is a shrinking everywhere
[00:32:21] and these are smart folks who are brilliant teachers.
[00:32:25] I mean, I know, expects all of us to kind of not just embody intellectual rigor and the best of critical inquiry, but also to embody a compassionate heart, hands ready to do the work of justice.
[00:33:41] So again, I'm sure there's places man, you know, religion is at the root of so many conflicts, man. It's killed folks.
[00:35:01] I mean, you think about, you know, just how tapping in Palestine and Israel right now,
[00:35:04] right? Yeah. Yeah. How do you, how do you you have to go through some critical rigor to say, you know, this Santa Claus faith isn't working. Yeah. And it has to be broken down so that then something better, i.e. the generosity of your parents can come through, right?
[00:36:21] So I tell people I am 51% theist.
[00:36:26] Like, yeah.
[00:37:26] the greater your doubt. That doubt needs to grow with faith in some way. And so I abide by that principle, that if I am too sure of this faith I proclaim, that it's not really
[00:37:32] a faith worth proclaiming. So for me, that's where that comes.
[00:37:37] Yeah.
[00:37:38] So I think that also then applies to, you know, AI and the situation in which we're
[00:37:44] living in. In nature of religious belief
[00:39:02] is a dangerous enterprise from the start. And the truth is they do become weapons for. We don't have to go as far as there's real Palestine. I remember here in Cornell West many years ago, he was making some commentary
[00:40:23] and about 9-11, and he was saying that a lot of people, I think, is the exact phrase. And so that in terms of AI, I think we're still early into the affections. Sure, yeah. And I wanna hope that if there's any good that comes out of it, I don't know if you remember when Microsoft Word and other word processing documents
[00:41:42] started correcting our misspell words.
[00:41:44] Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:45] Or putting the wiggly line.
[00:41:47] Some people thought that that at least help them write better. Again, I might be naive and I'm okay with being naive at the moment. I also think that theology is always self-evolving. And what I mean by that is, whenever you say something about God, you're saying something about yourself. You can't avoid it. And I always go to the parable or the story
[00:43:02] where Jesus asks the disciples,
[00:43:04] who do you say that I am?
[00:43:07] It's important that it's part of the enterprise. And I think that's also a way to keep it honest, right? And a way to not keep it dangerous.
[00:44:21] Because then you don't put it out here.
[00:44:23] So faith that's out beyond you.
[00:44:25] It's a faith that includes you. and I've said this on the show before. So those listening, you'll hear me say it a lot, but I remember an old cat telling me like, oh man, these change takes time, change takes time. And I remember buying into that and thinking, okay, yeah, give it 30 years and we'll be in a different spot and 30 years have passed. And here we are in a worse spot.
[00:45:44] And it almost seems like police brutality, and they didn't even kill Rodney King.
[00:45:45] They just beat his ass.
[00:45:47] You know what I'm saying? I think we have to drop the belief that progress is automatic. That it just takes time, right? Time heals all wounds. No, it doesn't. Time and reflection and therapy heals all wounds. There's an agency that's required. You can't just sit back and wait time to do it.
[00:47:02] And so I think we're all products of Hegel and maybe Marx in some way that we just who wasn't perfect, but he was better than the guy who followed him, you know, in the largest scheme of things. So we need to let go of the fact that progress, that no matter what happens, we always progress for the better. No, we progress on the better when we actually fight for it.
[00:48:21] So I think having an active faith in kind of organizing piece, it really does start in your backyard.
[00:49:42] That sort of local politics. impacting the South side of Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. And so, unless so impacting downstate Illinois, right? Downstate Illinois has own politics and their own concerns, right? I mean, we both have to eat. So, I'm, you know, in many ways I appreciate downstate because Chicago might fund all
[00:51:01] the programs with our taxes, but they feed us, right?
[00:51:05] Yeah. long before a policy get passed, they might die of hunger or in Chicago of cold, right? And so our work should look more so on the soil on yeah and I assigned that in class yeah and boy it pisses off students and I'm glad but the idea is that you know that we use hope in a kind of like an
[00:53:41] opium to quote Marx here yeah oh we just got to hope hope you got it and it doesn't do anything so I'm glad you brought up. Uh, Miguel that I thought I love him as well, man. He's got some good stuff in that particular book. Uh, is something that kind of, you know, refrained how I looked at, you know, theologically how I looked at hope, how I looked at progress. And I appreciated what he said. I remember I forget where I heard him give this lecture about, you know, just the.
[00:55:01] You know, you talked about throwing monkey wrenches into the system.
[00:55:04] And you know, like you said, that's disruption and everything.
[00:55:06] And so that, that is reson it clone me. Yes Clone me Already I tell you man. So yeah, no, but I appreciate what you're saying and I appreciate just that that perspective That's good, man. I appreciate that. Um, well, let me ask you about your book man. What what you got on the table for us and what you got?
[00:56:24] You know that that you put not that I know it was nominated for
[00:57:22] But this one, this one's been a joy to write.
[00:57:26] In some ways is an outgrowth of my doctoral work, but it had some substantial changes.
[00:57:30] But yeah, I wanted to address the ways in which
[00:57:39] the human being has been flattened
[00:57:42] by the neoliberal capitalist worldview.
[00:58:42] is as I argue the book, wonders not something that we can grasp.
[00:58:44] Like we can't say,
[00:58:47] like you can't say, hey, I'm gonna wonder,
[00:58:49] I'm gonna be in awe now.
[00:58:51] Wonder hits you.
[00:58:52] Yeah.
[00:58:53] And in the events of wonder, you're not the agent.
[00:58:57] They're the object.
[00:58:59] So if a scenery is grasping you at all,
[00:59:04] you're not doing any grasping.
[00:59:06] The scenery is doing all the grasping. And so from there, build a kind of theological anthropology that reverses what 1800s and 1900 German theologians did, which they talked about open to the world, which seems what I'm saying. But for them, it was open to the world means that you're allowed to open the world and
[01:00:21] you're allowed to split it open and check it out and study it.
[01:00:25] And that's still agency, right?
[01:00:26] Yeah. the synthesis of sustainability, solidarity, and vulnerability. And so that's the book. That's a crash course on the book. I would tell folks to buy, but be prepared to put a dent in your wallet, but find it at your local bookstore or at your local library and
[01:01:41] check it out.
[01:01:42] Yeah, no, man. I appreciate that. And so, you know, they don't they don't have what is it? Late fees anymore here at the at our local libraries, which is which is nice. So I try to make sure they get a few copies in there of
[01:03:00] different books and different authors and stuff, man. So I appreciate that, man.
[01:03:04] Um, I know time is nigh. I know you know, I know you're not a full futurologist But I'm gonna I'm gonna put that on right now and start prophesying I know that the profit wants to be profitable That's not working for me. Come on, you know
[01:04:22] You know I am
[01:04:28] In terms of my philosophical contours. I'm a bit of an existentialist and He says, we actually live tragedy to tragedy. And he says, and I say this because even when we choose better from good or we choose good over bad, something dies in that decision. Something dies in that decision.
[01:05:41] So every decision is a tragedy.
[01:05:44] So in many ways, he's confronting Hegel here We have to embrace the tragic in the world and and stand in the tragedy of the world. I am not I don't take lightly the fact that a third of the Psalms are lament songs. A third, 50 of them and the other 100 are split over
[01:07:02] six subjaunglas but a third of lament. My God, my God, why have you forsaken
[01:08:05] taken a real heart hit with women's rights, just a horrible hit. And voting rights are up on the table now.
[01:08:07] I mean, it's just, so I think we're up for a tragedy.
[01:08:11] Uh, and I don't want to celebrate that per se.
[01:08:15] But if there's any hope in the hope lesson is the hope, at
[01:08:21] least for Christians as we see it, that the resurrection came out of a
[01:08:25] tomb and not out of a throne.
[01:09:30] wins. We're still due for tragedies. But I think we step right into the tragedies and we die there or miraculously we have an early Sunday morning situation. And that's the best
[01:09:41] we can do. And in the meantime, I love my daughters of thrones. Yeah. And there's no resurrection in thrones. And so part of that is it might be that Christianity has, Christianity as we know it has to die. So that a true faith of liberation is born anew in our mates.
[01:11:05] And I'm OK with burying that Christianity. of, you know, God theology divine and still in the shit that we've in the mire that we find. Yeah, of course. I know. And let me just say before you hang up, man, I appreciate you and who you are, the scholar that you are, the homie that you are, the dad spouse. I mean, you just are really meeting you many moons ago.
[01:12:23] I want to say Minnesota.
[01:12:24] We met first.
[01:12:25] I think so.
[01:12:26] I think that.
[01:12:27] Yeah. just check out my school, Chicago, The Lajkha Seminary, check out me on social platforms. Um, you'll be able to find me there. Cool. I'll put these in the show notes for anybody watching. Why not podcast.com forward slash pro fade faith. Click on it. Got all the show notes again. Dr. Morales, Torres Jose. Thank you so much for coming on today, brother. Thank you.
[01:13:40] My brother.
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