[00:00.000 --> 00:07.000] This is a Dauntless Media Collective podcast. Visit Dauntless.fm for more content.
[00:16.000 --> 00:19.000] We have enemies within our country.
[00:19.000 --> 00:23.000] I think it's a combination of demonology and scyop.
[00:23.000 --> 00:26.000] The citizens are going to rise up and become deputized.
[00:26.000 --> 00:32.000] I have always heard President Trump. I like the way he talked. He remind me of most men.
[00:32.000 --> 00:36.000] Joe Biden last night in the debate. It's like he's not even a human being.
[00:36.000 --> 00:39.000] Donald Trump and the migrant Republicans represented extremism.
[00:39.000 --> 00:45.000] Can you imagine repatriating all the black Americans that Pat just spoke about to Africa?
[00:45.000 --> 00:53.000] Now, this is the evidence. You want me to make an act of faith, risking myself, my wife, my woman, my children,
[00:53.000 --> 00:58.000] on some idealism which you assure me just to America, which I have never seen.
[00:58.000 --> 01:04.000] This is Profane Faith, a podcast that engages faith on the margins.
[01:04.000 --> 01:08.000] Faith that has been labeled profane, non-conformist, nor even out there.
[01:08.000 --> 01:14.000] We'll be exploring the intersections of the sacred, secular, and profane define God.
[01:14.000 --> 01:17.000] And look, we won't be trying to answer difficult questions.
[01:17.000 --> 01:22.000] Rather, we'll be engaging them and asking better ones regarding faith, race, gender,
[01:22.000 --> 01:27.000] and religion. I'll be your host, Daniel Whitehodge.
[01:34.000 --> 01:39.000] Hey, hey, folks. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How we doing? How we doing out there?
[01:39.000 --> 01:43.000] Podcast land, it is. Oh, my goodness.
[01:43.000 --> 01:48.000] Well, here we are, Black History Month 2024.
[01:48.000 --> 01:59.000] Hopefully, you are learning about Black inventors and Black heroes in your own space and time and educational pursuits.
[01:59.000 --> 02:05.000] Yeah, it's hard to believe. Sometimes, Black History Month kind of sneaks up on me.
[02:05.000 --> 02:10.000] But, yeah, it was interesting just to, you know, take it in this year.
[02:10.000 --> 02:17.000] I've been trying to post a few things. One of the things that I think has really been on my mind over the last few years
[02:17.000 --> 02:22.000] is just how much Black folks have invented in this country that has been stolen
[02:22.000 --> 02:26.000] or that we don't get, you know, the credit for in doing.
[02:26.000 --> 02:33.000] And oftentimes, you know, science books, math books, the history books are told in such a way that, you know, white,
[02:33.000 --> 02:36.000] particularly white males, you know, rule, and they are the smartest.
[02:36.000 --> 02:43.000] They're the best. Even in some of the, you know, the, like, ancient discoveries or what they say, you know,
[02:43.000 --> 02:47.000] I've talked about this before, but, you know, where they say, you know, like Egypt, you know,
[02:47.000 --> 02:51.000] there had to be aliens who did that, you know, but then you go to like Greece and France
[02:51.000 --> 02:55.000] and you see some of those ancient ruins and people are like, oh, no, that's, that's just ingenuity.
[02:55.000 --> 03:00.000] That's just, you know, people that, you know, they just knew what they were doing.
[03:00.000 --> 03:04.000] It's only been recently too that, you know, some of that narrative has started to change
[03:04.000 --> 03:09.000] and, you know, some of those ufology circles that I find myself in,
[03:09.000 --> 03:12.000] where there aren't a lot of people of color, by the way.
[03:12.000 --> 03:19.000] But, yeah, so it is, it is a good time to just kind of learn a little bit more about, you know,
[03:19.000 --> 03:24.000] the impact that black people have had and just the struggle that black people have had
[03:24.000 --> 03:31.000] in the United States, especially as it pertains to building wealth and building just infrastructure.
[03:31.000 --> 03:34.000] So, yeah, take this time to do that.
[03:34.000 --> 03:39.000] At this week, I am excited to have, I got a guest on, and, you know,
[03:39.000 --> 03:46.000] one of the things I wanted to do here on the show was to just be able to provide different perspectives
[03:46.000 --> 03:49.000] and different perspectives that aren't always gloom and doom.
[03:49.000 --> 03:58.000] I realize my MO can be very pessimistic, very, yeah, Eeyore, if you will.
[03:58.000 --> 04:02.000] And, yeah, I just don't want it to remain that way.
[04:02.000 --> 04:08.000] I don't want to, I don't want to end up always having, you know, I read an article this week
[04:08.000 --> 04:12.000] in The Atlantic by David Brooks, who's an interesting writer in and of himself.
[04:12.000 --> 04:19.000] He tends to lean more center-right and whatnot, but that's beside the point that he was talking about
[04:19.000 --> 04:26.000] just how sometimes on the left it can be the sign, the badge of an insider, right, if you're really cynical.
[04:26.000 --> 04:28.000] And I think there's a lot to be cynical about, don't get me wrong.
[04:28.000 --> 04:34.000] I'm not out here trying to tell you that, you know, there's good things to be looking forward to,
[04:34.000 --> 04:40.000] because quite frankly, there's just not, we're in interesting time and, you know, time will tell, you know,
[04:40.000 --> 04:44.000] what happens this year in the election.
[04:44.000 --> 04:50.000] But nevertheless, I wanted to bring some different voices on and just kind of look at things from a different perspective.
[04:50.000 --> 04:59.000] And this brother here has been doing some stuff within the church and looking at just how things come together.
[04:59.000 --> 05:02.000] Brother Trey Ferguson, who I'm about to introduce here.
[05:02.000 --> 05:06.000] And I wanted to start off Black History Month with somebody black.
[05:06.000 --> 05:17.000] He's put a new book out called Deologizing Bigger, Homilies Unliving Freely and Loving Holy.
[05:17.000 --> 05:20.000] And I think, you know, there's something about love.
[05:20.000 --> 05:26.000] There's something about the idea of being in community with people.
[05:26.000 --> 05:32.000] Well, I'm not a fan of organized religion and particularly evangelical church settings.
[05:32.000 --> 05:35.000] I do think there's an importance to coming together.
[05:35.000 --> 05:44.000] I think there's an importance about, you know, what does it mean to have a theology, a sense of faith around a particular subject?
[05:44.000 --> 05:52.000] And I think that's what Brother Ferguson is trying to do here and trying to really break down.
[05:53.000 --> 06:00.000] And so I had a chance through a friend of mine who's also an editor, Brother David.
[06:00.000 --> 06:03.000] Oh man, what is Brother David Morris.
[06:03.000 --> 06:07.000] He actually worked on Scott Komodo's book as well.
[06:07.000 --> 06:15.000] And it's actually the guy, if I'm ever going to do a memoir, which I've been thinking a lot about, it would probably be through him.
[06:15.000 --> 06:18.000] And yeah, he reached out and was like, bro, you got to have this guy on.
[06:18.000 --> 06:21.000] And I was like, let's do it.
[06:22.000 --> 06:23.000] So yeah, I wanted to kick it off.
[06:23.000 --> 06:28.000] And there's going to be a couple other more podcasts, you know, kind of dealing with, I don't want to say the lighter side of things.
[06:28.000 --> 06:31.000] And I don't want to say, oh, it's just, it's a different perspective.
[06:31.000 --> 06:36.000] It's a different way of looking at how the world around us is being engaged.
[06:36.000 --> 06:49.000] And particularly with those who still have the capacity and bandwidth to be, to want to be involved with organized religion and particularly in denominational settings.
[06:49.000 --> 06:52.000] That's always, that's always a trip to me.
[06:52.000 --> 06:56.000] Cause I'm just like, oh, oh, get out of here with that.
[06:56.000 --> 06:57.000] But people are doing it.
[06:57.000 --> 06:59.000] And that's what Brother Trey is doing, man.
[06:59.000 --> 07:01.000] So let me go ahead and introduce his brother.
[07:01.000 --> 07:02.000] We're going to get right to the point.
[07:02.000 --> 07:03.000] We had a great conversation.
[07:03.000 --> 07:05.000] Trey likes playing with words.
[07:05.000 --> 07:14.000] So that's what he does, whether it be with tweets, videos, essays, sermonic presentations, Bible studies, podcasts or speaking engagements of other sorts.
[07:14.000 --> 07:20.000] He's always trying to figure out how to provoke an image in a seeker with some combination of words.
[07:20.000 --> 07:23.000] Um, he is a pastor.
[07:23.000 --> 07:24.000] He's a thinker.
[07:24.000 --> 07:27.000] He's a writer, speaker, teacher, creator.
[07:27.000 --> 07:32.000] Um, he, uh, after graduating from the University of Miami, the Bachelor of Science.
[07:32.000 --> 07:33.000] Okay.
[07:33.000 --> 07:35.000] And electronic media and theater arts.
[07:35.000 --> 07:43.000] Trey also earned his Master of Divinity from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology and Virginia Union University.
[07:43.000 --> 07:47.000] He lives a homestead in Homestead, Florida in Florida and the heat of it, right?
[07:47.000 --> 07:48.000] And not just the weather.
[07:48.000 --> 07:58.000] I'm talking about the politics where he serves as the executive pastor at the refuse church, but is available to travel for speaking engagements throughout the U.S. and abroad.
[07:58.000 --> 08:03.000] Um, I enjoyed my time talking with him and particularly about his book and how he's engaging life.
[08:03.000 --> 08:05.000] So I wanted to pass that on here.
[08:05.000 --> 08:07.000] So happy Black History Month.
[08:07.000 --> 08:10.000] Uh, enjoy this conversation, fam.
[08:14.000 --> 08:16.000] Well, brother Trey, welcome to the podcast, man.
[08:16.000 --> 08:18.000] It's great to have you on.
[08:18.000 --> 08:20.000] Yes, great to be here, man.
[08:20.000 --> 08:21.000] I appreciate you.
[08:21.000 --> 08:22.000] Yes, sir.
[08:22.000 --> 08:23.000] Yes, sir.
[08:23.000 --> 08:24.000] Um, well, let's start off.
[08:24.000 --> 08:26.000] It's a question I ask everybody.
[08:26.000 --> 08:29.000] Uh, what's, what's gotten you into to your line of work, man?
[08:29.000 --> 08:32.000] What has been happening from birth to now?
[08:32.000 --> 08:34.000] I kind of stumbled into it.
[08:35.000 --> 08:36.000] No, honestly.
[08:36.000 --> 08:37.000] I just want it.
[08:37.000 --> 08:38.000] Okay.
[08:38.000 --> 08:42.000] And no, that's dope because I feel like when you stumble into something, that's when you end up walking on purpose.
[08:42.000 --> 08:43.000] Yeah.
[08:43.000 --> 08:44.000] Somebody's going to disagree with that, but I don't care.
[08:44.000 --> 08:50.000] Uh, at the end of the day, uh, I joked at one point, not, not joke.
[08:50.000 --> 09:00.000] This is a true to life story that when I was little, I said I wanted to be a preacher and then, uh, my pastor at the time told me like, Hey, okay, first that read the Bible and I was like, no, I'm, I'm gonna just be a fireman.
[09:01.000 --> 09:05.000] You know, I think the whole, the whole church thing, because this is where my mom took me.
[09:05.000 --> 09:09.000] And in the moment it became a question about whether or not I was going to church.
[09:09.000 --> 09:10.000] Um, I stopped going to church.
[09:10.000 --> 09:14.000] I was class clown and all sorts of stuff working through whatever issues.
[09:14.000 --> 09:16.000] Cause my father died when I was pretty young.
[09:16.000 --> 09:20.000] I was a freshman in high school, you know, acting out nothing too, too crazy.
[09:20.000 --> 09:22.000] I stayed out of jail.
[09:22.000 --> 09:24.000] Um, but just, just getting into things.
[09:24.000 --> 09:27.000] But there was always just undercurrent of the fact.
[09:27.000 --> 09:36.000] And when I talked to people listening and, um, at a certain juncture after going to college, beating a girl there, eventually became my wife.
[09:36.000 --> 09:42.000] And unlike me, she didn't grow up in church, but she did, um, have curiosity about religion.
[09:42.000 --> 09:43.000] She asked me to go to church.
[09:43.000 --> 09:48.000] So I was in this place, this situation, um, while I was attending the church pretty regularly.
[09:48.000 --> 09:53.000] I like to go to Bible study because the pastor would allow us to ask questions afterwards and stuff like that.
[09:54.000 --> 09:58.000] And the guy who was there, um, in charge of the youth, he had moved away.
[09:58.000 --> 10:01.000] And I was like, oh, somebody needs to hang out with these teenagers or whatever.
[10:01.000 --> 10:02.000] Somebody's do that stuff.
[10:02.000 --> 10:05.000] And, um, so I kind of stepped in the serving and youth ministry.
[10:05.000 --> 10:09.000] And the more time I spent around the Bible and feeding curiosities.
[10:09.000 --> 10:10.000] I had the more interested.
[10:10.000 --> 10:11.000] I became.
[10:11.000 --> 10:16.000] And that eventually turned to me leading Bible studies in front of adults sometimes and then need preaching.
[10:16.000 --> 10:20.000] And before you know it, man, I was like, yo, I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
[10:20.000 --> 10:21.000] Yeah.
[10:21.000 --> 10:22.000] Yeah.
[10:22.000 --> 10:23.000] Yeah.
[10:23.000 --> 10:24.000] No, man, that's what's up, man.
[10:24.000 --> 10:25.000] That's what's up.
[10:25.000 --> 10:31.000] Um, and so when you, I mean, when you start thinking about just church and where we're at right now,
[10:31.000 --> 10:37.000] I asked this from, from a lot of people, man, where, where do you, I'm going to assume you
[10:37.000 --> 10:42.000] are in a black environment in black church type style or multi ethnic or what, what's, what's
[10:42.000 --> 10:44.000] like the context you in right now?
[10:44.000 --> 10:47.000] We're black and multicultural, um, multicultural.
[10:47.000 --> 10:52.000] Not mean it like, like it's not like the Joe Osteen church where you got like all the white
[10:52.000 --> 10:54.000] people in the black people got a session, you know what I'm saying?
[10:54.000 --> 10:55.000] Yeah.
[10:55.000 --> 10:58.000] When I say multicultural, I mean that like we're not all black Americans.
[10:58.000 --> 11:04.000] So yeah, because I'm located in Miami, there are Haitian Americans who are behaving Americans,
[11:04.000 --> 11:06.000] but mostly black.
[11:06.000 --> 11:11.000] There's a couple of like my wife is about racial and her mother actually comes to church with
[11:11.000 --> 11:12.000] us and everything.
[11:12.000 --> 11:16.000] So that's, that's why I'm talking white ladies, my mother alone.
[11:17.000 --> 11:18.000] Yeah.
[11:18.000 --> 11:20.000] I'm, I'm, I'm, I stay in black people business.
[11:20.000 --> 11:21.000] Yeah.
[11:21.000 --> 11:22.000] No, no, no, man.
[11:22.000 --> 11:24.000] That's, that's, that's what's up, man.
[11:24.000 --> 11:28.000] And, and so how in Miami, I didn't put all that together, man.
[11:28.000 --> 11:34.800] How is it, especially being in a state like Florida, uh, being black, trying to assert some sense
[11:34.800 --> 11:41.160] of just your own identity, man, in a place like Florida, um, and I mean, what is, what's
[11:41.160 --> 11:42.160] that like?
[11:42.160 --> 11:44.880] And then how does that, you know, still continue on, I mean, I guess what I'm really asking
[11:44.880 --> 11:50.200] is how do you continue to develop church, gross church, whatever, however you want to
[11:50.200 --> 11:54.600] do it, leadership, discipleship, um, in an era where people are like, man, I don't know
[11:54.600 --> 11:55.600] about church, man.
[11:55.600 --> 11:59.240] I don't, you know what I'm saying?
[11:59.240 --> 12:00.240] That's a great question.
[12:00.240 --> 12:07.080] And I think for me, but I'm in this awkward position where I work in the church, right?
[12:07.080 --> 12:14.320] Like what most people will recognize as institutional church at the same time when I, um, I want the
[12:14.320 --> 12:18.640] church to be accountable for a whole lot of things, not just like, in the, of course,
[12:18.640 --> 12:22.600] like we need to be more accountable for sexual abuse scandals and things of that nature, but
[12:22.600 --> 12:28.440] also the role that the church at large has played in shaping the society that we now recognize,
[12:28.440 --> 12:32.760] including the parts of society that, that, that stain truth be told, you know, and so like
[12:32.760 --> 12:35.360] when people are like, oh, the church needs to do, we need to get rid of the church.
[12:35.360 --> 12:36.440] I'll be like, yeah, I hear you.
[12:36.440 --> 12:37.440] I really do.
[12:37.440 --> 12:41.800] Um, and so a large part of that when you talk about church growth and everything is wrestling
[12:41.880 --> 12:46.960] with and consistently reexamining what the church ought to be as opposed to what it has
[12:46.960 --> 12:47.960] been.
[12:47.960 --> 12:53.360] So we talk about the client and church numbers and everything, but when we look at the heyday,
[12:53.360 --> 12:55.120] the peak of church attendance, right?
[12:55.120 --> 13:01.440] When you're talking about the early to mid 20th century, like after a few great awakenings
[13:01.440 --> 13:06.000] and everybody's identifying everything like that, these are the institutions that shape
[13:06.000 --> 13:08.000] the country that we have today.
[13:08.000 --> 13:09.000] Mm hmm.
[13:09.000 --> 13:12.480] That's the institution that is primarily responsible for the decline in numbers because
[13:12.480 --> 13:15.560] there was a failure in discipleship somewhere, you understand?
[13:15.560 --> 13:20.960] And so for me, when we talk about church growth, I don't view numeric growth as an automatic
[13:20.960 --> 13:24.240] bonus because the question becomes, what are we discipling people into?
[13:24.240 --> 13:26.840] What are we converting people into and is that worth celebrating?
[13:26.840 --> 13:30.200] And so for me, it has to be missional growth.
[13:30.200 --> 13:34.480] Are we helping people to look more like Jesus?
[13:34.480 --> 13:36.480] Are we helping people to embody the love of God?
[13:36.480 --> 13:37.480] And that's harder to quantify.
[13:37.480 --> 13:42.200] You know, if I talk about church growth in that way, it's like, well, how do you measure
[13:42.200 --> 13:43.200] that?
[13:43.200 --> 13:44.200] The answer is like, you really don't.
[13:44.200 --> 13:49.400] You got to look at fruit after a little bit, like are we as a people and as a society trending
[13:49.400 --> 13:50.400] in the right direction?
[13:50.400 --> 13:51.400] Am I making sense?
[13:51.400 --> 13:52.400] Yeah.
[13:52.400 --> 13:53.400] Yeah.
[13:53.400 --> 13:54.400] No, no, no.
[13:54.400 --> 13:55.400] I'm following you.
[13:55.400 --> 13:56.400] I'm following you.
[13:56.400 --> 13:57.400] Yeah.
[13:57.400 --> 13:58.400] No.
[13:58.400 --> 13:59.400] It's in a minute.
[13:59.400 --> 14:01.040] It's a question I ask, particularly of folks who are, excuse me, who are indirect, you know,
[14:01.040 --> 14:03.880] line of work, you know, their work in profession is your face.
[14:03.880 --> 14:10.960] I mean, you know, you a pastor, Reverend, you know, the clergy and it's in the curiosity
[14:10.960 --> 14:11.960] always just gets me.
[14:11.960 --> 14:12.960] And you're right.
[14:12.960 --> 14:17.720] I mean, I don't think quantifiable growth, I mean, I, you know, that whole system and model,
[14:17.720 --> 14:18.720] right?
[14:18.720 --> 14:25.040] You know, looked at after, you know, the growth of CEO, unfortunate 500 companies and whatnot.
[14:25.040 --> 14:27.160] But let me ask you this, man.
[14:27.160 --> 14:31.080] And, you know, in your own sense, man, how do you walk the line?
[14:31.080 --> 14:34.040] And I definitely, you know, like I said, we going to get into the book here, but I,
[14:34.040 --> 14:38.440] but how do you walk the line being black, a Christian, especially when you have brothers
[14:38.440 --> 14:39.440] and cats?
[14:39.440 --> 14:44.080] I mean, I'm sure you've had these conversations with just, you know, folks from around, like
[14:44.080 --> 14:47.960] man, you know, Christianity is the white man's religion, man, like how, how are you, how
[14:47.960 --> 14:51.200] are you, you know, and I like asking this, particularly of black pastors and stuff.
[14:51.200 --> 14:54.520] So I feel like I can ask you this is like, how do you deal with that environment?
[14:54.520 --> 14:58.720] Because I mean, that's something I've heard for easily the last 40 years of my life, right?
[14:58.720 --> 15:02.320] It's like, you know, you know, not, you know, like, oh, man, you know, religion is this Christianity
[15:02.320 --> 15:06.600] is, is, you know, is not wasn't it wasn't designed and meant for black people.
[15:06.600 --> 15:08.800] There's an account that I follow on Instagram.
[15:08.800 --> 15:11.440] The name is Elijah Farrakhan, but I don't, I don't think it's him.
[15:11.440 --> 15:13.400] I think they put a whole bunch of videos together.
[15:13.400 --> 15:19.920] I actually think it's probably somebody from Fox News who actually together, but they've
[15:19.920 --> 15:26.200] put together some sermons from, from what's a brother man, a loose Farrakhan.
[15:26.200 --> 15:32.760] And so, yeah, I'd be curious, just, you know, on, on that note and what not and what, what
[15:32.760 --> 15:33.760] you've encountered.
[15:33.760 --> 15:34.760] Maybe you haven't.
[15:34.760 --> 15:35.760] I don't know if that makes sense.
[15:35.760 --> 15:36.760] That's a long-winded question.
[15:36.760 --> 15:37.760] No, it's cool.
[15:37.760 --> 15:40.960] The second section of my book, like it's broken out into four parts.
[15:40.960 --> 15:44.760] The second part of the book is actually called the white man's religion.
[15:44.760 --> 15:45.760] Yeah.
[15:45.760 --> 15:46.760] Yeah.
[15:46.760 --> 15:47.760] Well, that's right.
[15:47.760 --> 15:48.760] And that's why I was like, okay, well, let me ask this brother.
[15:48.760 --> 15:53.200] Yeah, because at the end of the day, when people say Christianity is the right man, the
[15:53.200 --> 16:00.520] white man's religion, yes, and no, because I maintain that there is no Christianity.
[16:00.520 --> 16:02.280] There are Christianity teas, right?
[16:02.280 --> 16:06.880] Like at no point in the history of the whole wide world of Christianity has there been
[16:06.880 --> 16:09.280] unanimous uniformity in this thing.
[16:09.280 --> 16:15.120] Like literally we start seeing things break apart even within the New Testament, right?
[16:15.120 --> 16:18.720] Like there's a Paul faction and Paul talks about, oh, something y'all say, I'll say
[16:18.720 --> 16:21.800] I follow Paul, I'll follow, there's never been uniformity here.
[16:21.800 --> 16:26.000] And so people have different opinions about how this story of Jesus are to guide our
[16:26.000 --> 16:27.640] communities, right?
[16:27.640 --> 16:32.320] And a large part of what we recognize or think of or imagine when we hear the word Christian,
[16:32.320 --> 16:37.720] particularly here in the West, in the United States, is white people stuff, right?
[16:37.720 --> 16:38.720] Yeah.
[16:38.720 --> 16:42.720] Because we got to understand that when we talk about religion, we're not always talking
[16:42.720 --> 16:44.720] about creeds or belief.
[16:45.160 --> 16:50.880] From a sociological standpoint, what you believe is almost entirely irrelevant to religion, right?
[16:50.880 --> 16:53.480] The beliefs are secondary to what religion is.
[16:53.480 --> 16:58.720] Religion is about how a society oriented itself, what stories and signs and symbols it describes
[16:58.720 --> 17:00.160] importance to.
[17:00.160 --> 17:04.360] And so Christianity, as much as we want to believe is just about creeds and belief and
[17:04.360 --> 17:07.720] faith is also about cultural orientations.
[17:07.720 --> 17:12.760] And a large part of that in our particular context is centered around what white people
[17:12.760 --> 17:17.800] are told us about the story of Jesus, almost becomes secondary, right?
[17:17.800 --> 17:22.480] To the point where a lot of times in colonial law, Christian is used as a synonym for white.
[17:22.480 --> 17:26.160] And so when people say Christianity is the white man's religion, they're not just making
[17:26.160 --> 17:27.160] it up.
[17:27.160 --> 17:30.760] They're not just being haters, they're describing a reality that they've noticed.
[17:30.760 --> 17:34.200] Now, the question is does Christianity have to be a white man's religion?
[17:34.200 --> 17:38.280] No, but is a large part of what we've been exposed to white man religion?
[17:38.280 --> 17:39.280] Yeah, absolutely.
[17:39.840 --> 17:43.640] We got to be honest about the fact that there are churches passed about black people with
[17:43.640 --> 17:48.040] majority or entirely black congregations that are practicing the faith that is entirely
[17:48.040 --> 17:52.560] indistinguishable from that white man's religion and all of its offsets, whether that be mainline
[17:52.560 --> 17:57.040] Protestant, whether that be conservative evangelical or what have you, sometimes theology
[17:57.040 --> 17:58.040] is indistinguishable.
[17:58.040 --> 18:03.800] But then you have somebody like Howard Thurman or Bishop, you know, Turner or Martin King.
[18:03.800 --> 18:05.720] And that is not white man's religion.
[18:06.080 --> 18:10.880] They're using the same stories and they're casting a completely different vision.
[18:10.880 --> 18:15.560] And we got to, we have to deal with the fact that all Christians ain't talking about the
[18:15.560 --> 18:16.560] same thing.
[18:16.560 --> 18:18.040] We're not all serving the same guy.
[18:18.040 --> 18:19.840] We're not all practicing the same religion.
[18:19.840 --> 18:20.840] Yeah.
[18:20.840 --> 18:24.960] And it's okay to name that, like, yo, some of this stuff is white man's religion and it
[18:24.960 --> 18:26.320] doesn't have to be, right?
[18:26.320 --> 18:27.320] Right.
[18:27.320 --> 18:28.320] Right, right, right.
[18:28.320 --> 18:29.320] No, that's a good, that's a good response.
[18:29.320 --> 18:30.800] I appreciate that, man.
[18:30.800 --> 18:35.320] I think, you know, the complexity of the era that we're in, right, puts us in, you know,
[18:35.320 --> 18:38.920] the information age where it's like everybody has access to everything, right?
[18:38.920 --> 18:39.920] Yeah.
[18:39.920 --> 18:45.480] And, you know, of course, a lot of that is not necessarily fact-based or truth-based is just
[18:45.480 --> 18:50.360] somebody who might have made it up in the corner of somebody's basement.
[18:50.360 --> 18:56.120] So given that, man, and, you know, we're heading into a contentious election year, man, how
[18:56.120 --> 19:02.440] do y'all navigate some of those issues where I'll be at political, be the police killed
[19:02.440 --> 19:03.440] another black person?
[19:03.440 --> 19:04.440] I mean, right?
[19:04.440 --> 19:10.160] There's always something on my timeline about a black person, either get beat shot, something
[19:10.160 --> 19:11.160] by the police.
[19:11.160 --> 19:13.280] And that's, you know, that's kind of been an ongoing theme.
[19:13.280 --> 19:19.240] But I'd be curious how y'all in your church engage with that and in particular, you know,
[19:19.240 --> 19:23.360] right now the big, you know, big talk as everybody's talking about, you know, Gaza and Israel
[19:23.360 --> 19:25.080] and Palestinians and whatnot, man.
[19:25.080 --> 19:26.880] How do y'all navigate some of those conversations?
[19:26.880 --> 19:31.600] Again, I'm not looking for right or wrong, just again, how y'all navigate that as a congregation,
[19:31.600 --> 19:33.600] as a church, as a people?
[19:33.600 --> 19:39.640] Yeah, through it all, we try to take the stories of Jesus seriously and see how the stories
[19:39.640 --> 19:46.480] of Jesus and the gospel of Jesus inform a lot of these situations.
[19:46.480 --> 19:53.000] So when you talk about things like police brutality, we have to, like, if you look at
[19:53.000 --> 19:57.520] the reality of crucifixion, it's a very strong parallel there, all right?
[19:57.520 --> 20:03.560] So Dr. James Cohen puts it very clearly and draws a very clear parallel in his book,
[20:03.560 --> 20:06.280] The Cross and the Lenshing Tree.
[20:06.280 --> 20:12.320] By very nature of the incarnation, Jesus was incarnated into an underclass, into an oppressed
[20:12.320 --> 20:16.200] people, somebody who was under the threat or under the reality, not just the threat,
[20:16.200 --> 20:20.640] the reality of colonization and of brutalization and died the most brutal death imaginable
[20:20.640 --> 20:26.280] for the time reserved for insurrectionists and it happened in public along a busy street
[20:26.280 --> 20:29.680] way, so that it would be an example to other people.
[20:29.680 --> 20:35.280] That sounds sort of like, like, you know, it's not a one-to-one analog, but the Roman soldiers
[20:35.280 --> 20:41.120] were in effect a police force of sorts who were used by the power of the state to keep
[20:41.120 --> 20:43.720] people in line and we see what happened with Jesus.
[20:43.720 --> 20:51.880] So I think it says something about the love of God, that when we think about incarnation, God
[20:51.880 --> 20:58.920] deliberately chooses to show up as somebody on the underclass of empire, on the underside
[20:58.920 --> 21:03.080] of that and experiencing the full brunt of that because there where we understand the
[21:03.080 --> 21:09.240] full depravity of what we have become as a people and that is made manifest in plain
[21:09.240 --> 21:13.000] and the crucifixion, but the good news, like the gospel, is that all things are made
[21:13.000 --> 21:16.680] new in the resurrection, that the love of God cannot be killed.
[21:16.680 --> 21:19.000] You could try to kill God, it won't work, right?
[21:19.000 --> 21:24.800] So when you start talking about things like police brutality, we start talking about elections
[21:24.800 --> 21:31.880] and politics, what does the story of God we have communicate to us about the realities
[21:31.880 --> 21:36.040] that we've inherited and do they have to be that way?
[21:36.040 --> 21:40.760] My faith makes room for the fact that there is a lot of injustice, that there is a lot
[21:40.760 --> 21:46.720] of sin in this world around us, even as it says that in God, all things are made new.
[21:46.720 --> 21:52.480] So for a lot of times, it's looking at the reality that we have, and then through the
[21:52.480 --> 21:57.840] power, the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, reimagining what things can look like and striving to work
[21:57.840 --> 21:58.840] that goal.
[21:58.840 --> 21:59.840] Gotcha.
[21:59.840 --> 22:00.840] No, no, no.
[22:00.840 --> 22:01.840] Yeah.
[22:01.840 --> 22:02.840] No, I'm with you.
[22:02.840 --> 22:03.840] I'm with you.
[22:03.840 --> 22:04.840] I'm with you.
[22:04.840 --> 22:05.840] Absolutely.
[22:05.840 --> 22:10.840] I think faith obviously still plays a role in where we find ourselves.
[22:10.840 --> 22:13.120] I think there's a big part of it.
[22:13.120 --> 22:16.600] I mean, in terms of how we do it, like you said, I think there's a lot of different approaches
[22:16.600 --> 22:19.840] to it and a lot of different opinions on that.
[22:19.840 --> 22:24.760] Well, let me ask you this, man, on your website, you say you're a theologizer, and I know
[22:24.760 --> 22:28.400] that's part of the book title as well.
[22:28.400 --> 22:29.400] What does that mean, man?
[22:29.400 --> 22:34.400] Theologizing, theologizer, how do you break that down for yourself and all that?
[22:34.400 --> 22:37.400] Theologizing is thinking thoughts about God, man.
[22:37.400 --> 22:38.560] That's what it is for me.
[22:38.560 --> 22:44.320] It's really wrestling with the assumptions that we have about the supernatural, the divine
[22:44.320 --> 22:49.080] and everything, and then charting the course for what that looks like because at the end
[22:49.080 --> 22:54.040] of the day, what we have to wrestle with is the fact that what we think and believe about
[22:54.040 --> 22:58.640] God is largely constrained by our imagination, right?
[22:58.640 --> 23:00.960] We can't see God physically.
[23:00.960 --> 23:05.640] We can't find tangible, hardcore evidence of God and so the things that we believe about
[23:05.640 --> 23:11.080] God mostly happen in our heads and then sharing those thoughts within community.
[23:11.080 --> 23:16.280] I call that process of constructing this idea of God taking these inputs, whether that
[23:16.280 --> 23:21.320] be theology, tradition, experience, whatever, taking all those inputs and what God looks
[23:21.320 --> 23:22.320] like in your head.
[23:22.320 --> 23:25.800] I call that process theologizing, right?
[23:25.800 --> 23:28.120] And so, yeah, I'm a theologizer.
[23:28.120 --> 23:31.600] I literally, I'm fortunate enough that I just get to do that.
[23:31.600 --> 23:35.840] I get to think thoughts about God and crystallize them and wrestle with scripture and tradition,
[23:35.840 --> 23:41.480] and the doctrine on these things, and communicate that to people, vocationally, that's my job.
[23:41.480 --> 23:43.800] But I think that everybody that's been a theologizer.
[23:43.800 --> 23:44.800] Yeah.
[23:44.800 --> 23:45.800] Yeah.
[23:45.800 --> 23:47.920] Well, when you talk about that, I think here in the introduction of your book, he says his
[23:47.920 --> 23:49.760] book is about a third option.
[23:49.760 --> 23:53.120] You don't have to ignore your nagging doubts and honest questions.
[23:53.120 --> 23:56.080] You don't have to check any part of yourself at the door.
[23:56.080 --> 23:58.680] You don't have to stop theorizing or theologizing.
[23:58.680 --> 24:00.360] You can theologize bigger.
[24:00.360 --> 24:03.920] What are some of those nagging doubts and honest questions, man?
[24:03.920 --> 24:07.000] I know we were talking before the show, you were saying there were some things, the way
[24:07.000 --> 24:08.000] you say it.
[24:08.000 --> 24:09.000] You know what I'm saying?
[24:09.000 --> 24:14.040] And some people may not necessarily be on board with it, but I'd be curious, what are
[24:14.040 --> 24:18.480] some of the things, man, that keep you driven?
[24:18.480 --> 24:25.440] So one of the things about me, I love the Bible, and I hear that and lots of people think
[24:25.440 --> 24:27.880] and feel different things when they hear me say that sentence.
[24:27.880 --> 24:33.960] People think that that means that I view the Bible as this textbook that is completely
[24:33.960 --> 24:38.240] accurate historically and scientifically in all of these things, and I don't believe that
[24:38.240 --> 24:40.240] to be the case.
[24:40.240 --> 24:41.240] Right?
[24:41.240 --> 24:44.680] And I don't think there's any reason to view that other than the fact that at some point
[24:44.680 --> 24:48.000] in history, somebody decided that was going to be the case and that becomes doctrine and
[24:48.000 --> 24:49.000] orthodoxy for some people.
[24:49.000 --> 24:50.000] Yeah.
[24:50.000 --> 24:52.560] And if all the people were like, no, it doesn't really make a ton of sense.
[24:52.560 --> 24:56.240] So I'm not saying that there's no truth in the Bible or that even there's no such thing
[24:56.240 --> 24:58.520] as historical fact to be found in the Bible.
[24:58.520 --> 25:02.360] What I'm saying is that's not how this thing is designed to work.
[25:02.360 --> 25:07.080] And so when it comes to like, we can't theologize bigger, we can acknowledge that Bible itself
[25:07.080 --> 25:08.080] means book.
[25:08.080 --> 25:11.880] It's just talking about a library, it's a collection of different things.
[25:11.880 --> 25:14.440] There are different theological claims being made in the Bible.
[25:14.440 --> 25:18.320] There's different theological agendas going on in the Bible.
[25:18.320 --> 25:23.680] And to take a verse from a letter that is in the Bible that says that all scripture is
[25:23.680 --> 25:26.720] God breathed and is used for training and righteousness and everything.
[25:26.720 --> 25:31.320] And act as though that is referring to this entire canyon when that's not even how this
[25:31.320 --> 25:32.320] thing is composed and everything.
[25:32.320 --> 25:34.840] I think that's kind of irresponsible.
[25:34.840 --> 25:37.400] I think it's constrained the way that we view a lot of these things.
[25:37.400 --> 25:41.440] And so even then, if we view the Bible as the foundation for our faith, what we believe
[25:41.440 --> 25:46.720] about the Bible will determine how we engage that faith a lot of times.
[25:46.720 --> 25:52.320] And I don't think that we are setting people up to think about this seriously when we force
[25:52.320 --> 25:57.640] this collection of texts to perform things that it is not supposed to perform for us.
[25:57.640 --> 25:58.640] Right.
[25:58.640 --> 26:07.080] And so acknowledging what things are, I believe, is key and central to helping us build beautiful
[26:07.080 --> 26:09.680] things on the truths that we get from them.
[26:09.680 --> 26:10.680] Yeah.
[26:10.680 --> 26:16.040] So that's just like one example in the book and in like just in general how I think about
[26:16.040 --> 26:20.440] things telling the truth about what things are will help us to build on those truths.
[26:20.440 --> 26:26.360] And sometimes the stories that we spend about certain things and the facts that we accept,
[26:26.360 --> 26:30.960] the facts that we create and then accept about them are limiting.
[26:30.960 --> 26:31.960] Yeah.
[26:31.960 --> 26:33.560] Well, I like what you said here.
[26:33.560 --> 26:38.480] I think it's even at the beginning of the book, he says, I did not feel welcome where I
[26:38.480 --> 26:39.840] could not bring my questions.
[26:39.840 --> 26:41.160] My questions are part of me.
[26:41.160 --> 26:45.320] I think I got it from my father who never met a convention or expectation he wasn't willing
[26:45.320 --> 26:46.480] to question.
[26:46.480 --> 26:50.640] He was known for carrying an old book full of graphing paper around where he tried to figure
[26:50.640 --> 26:55.320] out some things or where he tried to try to figure some things out and architect new things
[26:55.320 --> 26:58.800] where the current things didn't make sense to him.
[26:58.800 --> 27:05.400] How important are questions and with that, what are the challenging things that people shy
[27:05.400 --> 27:10.240] away from when it comes to questions, especially the difficult ones?
[27:10.240 --> 27:11.440] Yeah.
[27:11.520 --> 27:17.800] So, those are very important because questions are one of, if not the main tool in accountability.
[27:17.800 --> 27:18.800] Right.
[27:18.800 --> 27:25.360] And accountability is what holds communities together, even when you're in community with
[27:25.360 --> 27:26.360] God.
[27:26.360 --> 27:31.520] There's this idea that we can't question God and I don't know exactly where that comes from.
[27:31.520 --> 27:35.840] So, the point to Job and everything, I'm like, well, even though Job questioned God, God
[27:35.840 --> 27:41.120] doesn't curse him for that, he explains the Job, yo, some of the stuff he's not going
[27:41.120 --> 27:44.320] to get, because you don't see things the way I do, but then Job gets blessed for that,
[27:44.320 --> 27:45.320] right?
[27:45.320 --> 27:48.440] And wrestling with God, Jacob gets a new name, Israel.
[27:48.440 --> 27:54.440] And so, when we sit there and act like questions are indicative of a lack of faith or that
[27:54.440 --> 27:59.760] questions are something that take us apart from being strong and God, then what we're
[27:59.760 --> 28:07.680] doing is the man in that people cut off a part of themselves that God put there, right?
[28:08.160 --> 28:12.640] They're denying themselves in a way that is not biblical, right?
[28:12.640 --> 28:15.280] People point to the fact that, oh, we have to deny ourselves daily.
[28:15.280 --> 28:17.120] We're talking about fleshly desires.
[28:17.120 --> 28:20.040] We're talking about the things that we've been trained by the world, like greed and stuff.
[28:20.040 --> 28:21.200] We did not have that.
[28:21.200 --> 28:27.040] The questions that those are God given, there's nothing wrong about that, right?
[28:27.040 --> 28:34.480] And so, when we have cultures that do not celebrate the questioners among us, what we
[28:34.480 --> 28:37.720] are creating is drones.
[28:37.720 --> 28:43.840] We are dehumanizing people in a way and making them buy for Kate themselves.
[28:43.840 --> 28:48.600] And so, for me, a lot of times, re-engaging that self, the curiosity that we've been given,
[28:48.600 --> 28:49.600] right?
[28:49.600 --> 28:53.040] That's when Jesus says that the kingdom belongs to such as these and talking about children.
[28:53.040 --> 28:57.440] When Jesus says you must be born again, the thing that children have in common is that
[28:57.440 --> 28:59.000] they'll ask questions all day.
[28:59.000 --> 29:00.000] Why?
[29:00.000 --> 29:01.000] Why?
[29:01.000 --> 29:02.000] Why?
[29:02.000 --> 29:03.000] Why?
[29:03.000 --> 29:04.000] Faze at four years old.
[29:04.000 --> 29:05.800] And it was very, very annoying.
[29:05.800 --> 29:10.000] And at some point, we try to shame kids out of that, like, oh, stop, just do it.
[29:10.000 --> 29:11.560] But no, that's a good thing.
[29:11.560 --> 29:16.960] It's in those questions that we not only hold people accountable and learn more about them,
[29:16.960 --> 29:21.200] but we ask people questions when we want to learn more about them.
[29:21.200 --> 29:26.640] We ask people questions when you begin dating somebody or a love interest, you ask questions
[29:26.640 --> 29:28.640] to find out who you're dealing with.
[29:28.640 --> 29:29.640] Yeah.
[29:29.720 --> 29:34.040] Every time we try to divorce the questions, you got that, what are we doing to community
[29:34.040 --> 29:35.040] when that happens?
[29:35.040 --> 29:36.560] Is this actually good?
[29:36.560 --> 29:37.560] Yeah.
[29:37.560 --> 29:38.760] No, I love it.
[29:38.760 --> 29:45.560] I mean, I've built most of my career around questions and doubt and, you know, and you
[29:45.560 --> 29:46.560] know, interrogation.
[29:46.560 --> 29:47.800] I mean, as a researcher, right?
[29:47.800 --> 29:50.120] It's like, I think we have to interrogate certain things.
[29:50.120 --> 29:56.320] And chapter four of your book, man, you talk about there as an arc in Kentucky, you know,
[29:56.320 --> 29:59.600] I'm saying, talk a little bit about that.
[29:59.600 --> 30:03.200] Man, like what was the, you know, you start off with wait for the facts in quotations,
[30:03.200 --> 30:04.200] man.
[30:04.200 --> 30:06.400] What was what was going on for you for this chapter, man?
[30:06.400 --> 30:09.000] Hey, man, I just thought it was funny.
[30:09.000 --> 30:10.000] No, it is.
[30:10.000 --> 30:11.000] Yeah.
[30:11.000 --> 30:12.000] Yeah.
[30:12.000 --> 30:18.800] So when we talk about waiting for the facts, I had to chuckle about the fact that anytime
[30:18.800 --> 30:24.120] you mentioned early about police brutality and we see somebody getting shot up by the police
[30:24.120 --> 30:28.840] and something and there's a chorus of people online who'd be like, we need to wait for
[30:28.840 --> 30:30.240] the facts before we react.
[30:30.240 --> 30:32.480] I'm like, okay, yeah.
[30:32.480 --> 30:34.560] And the chorus, yeah, but we can run this now.
[30:34.560 --> 30:36.440] We can be, we can be upset about this now.
[30:36.440 --> 30:41.360] Like it's not even if the absolute worst thing happened and whatever, no, we can be upset
[30:41.360 --> 30:47.880] about the fact that that force was was used, even if you think it was necessary, like that's
[30:47.880 --> 30:48.880] still lamentable.
[30:48.880 --> 30:53.520] Like we can, we can mourn people dying if we can do that.
[30:53.520 --> 30:54.520] Right.
[30:54.520 --> 30:55.520] Yeah.
[30:55.520 --> 30:58.480] But the idea there was, oh, wait for the facts, wait for the facts.
[30:58.480 --> 30:59.480] What do you mean by that?
[30:59.480 --> 31:00.480] Right.
[31:00.480 --> 31:07.320] And then I had to chuckle about the fact that many of these same people are really, really
[31:07.320 --> 31:11.440] into the most literal interpretations of the Bible.
[31:11.440 --> 31:17.560] I'm like, okay, so right away your idea of a fact and what it is capable of and then
[31:17.560 --> 31:21.840] the importance of certain facts is then called a question for the simple fact.
[31:21.840 --> 31:28.440] And again, I got to be careful when I'm saying this because everything in the Bible
[31:28.440 --> 31:35.400] cannot possibly be factual at the same time, for the sum of those facts standing conflict
[31:35.400 --> 31:36.400] with each other.
[31:36.400 --> 31:37.400] Yeah.
[31:37.400 --> 31:39.240] There's nothing controversial about this.
[31:39.240 --> 31:43.120] Some people have done a lot of work to try to reconcile them, but it's not really that compelling.
[31:43.120 --> 31:44.120] But I say correct.
[31:44.120 --> 31:45.120] Right.
[31:45.120 --> 31:46.120] Yeah.
[31:46.120 --> 31:47.120] It doesn't make most sense.
[31:47.120 --> 31:48.440] So somebody's going to hear that and they're going to disagree.
[31:48.440 --> 31:49.440] That's fine.
[31:49.440 --> 31:50.440] You're allowed to disagree with me.
[31:50.440 --> 31:51.440] It's cool.
[31:51.440 --> 31:56.760] But when I talk about the Ark in Kentucky, captivated by the fact, not only that this
[31:56.760 --> 32:03.000] Ark exists, but that if you go to a website of answers and genesis, which is the company
[32:03.000 --> 32:09.240] behind this Ark, that they say that they are an apologetics organization to help people
[32:09.240 --> 32:15.120] defend the Christian faith, like that Ark there is to help people defend the Christian
[32:15.120 --> 32:16.120] faith.
[32:16.120 --> 32:22.840] And what I find so fascinating is that the Christian faith is told in the person and story
[32:22.840 --> 32:27.720] of Jesus, who does not have a lot to say about the Ark.
[32:27.720 --> 32:31.920] That is a part of the story of the people of Israel, and we get to read those and everything.
[32:31.920 --> 32:34.800] But my faith is not in the Ark.
[32:34.800 --> 32:42.040] My faith is in the finished work of a man who loved the world enough to fight to the point
[32:42.040 --> 32:43.320] we was killed by the police, right?
[32:43.320 --> 32:45.280] Like that's where my faith exists.
[32:45.280 --> 32:53.240] And so the idea that me going to a replica of the Ark in the middle of Kentucky, or it's
[32:53.240 --> 32:54.680] not the middle, it's the edge of Kentucky.
[32:54.680 --> 32:57.160] It's close to like Ohio or something, I think.
[32:57.160 --> 33:02.600] But the idea that is going to strengthen my faith based on the facts that we discovered
[33:02.600 --> 33:03.600] there.
[33:03.600 --> 33:07.600] Like it's interesting to me that sometimes we are swayed by what our fact is.
[33:07.600 --> 33:10.640] And other times, no, we need to wait for more of those, right?
[33:10.640 --> 33:15.280] I found that in interesting juxtaposition and that's how that chapter came out.
[33:15.280 --> 33:16.280] No, I like that.
[33:16.280 --> 33:18.160] No, that's that's what's up, man.
[33:18.160 --> 33:22.040] I mean, I think I mean, I always encourage people like, you know, whether you agree or
[33:22.040 --> 33:27.520] disagree, man, you got to go down and take a look at just the monstrosity of that whole
[33:27.520 --> 33:29.000] area down there, man.
[33:29.000 --> 33:33.640] I mean, the Jesus camps, the lions, the Ark, I mean, I think there's something to be said.
[33:33.640 --> 33:38.840] I mean, just kind of this interesting mixture of capitalism, religion, and piety.
[33:39.840 --> 33:42.920] Well, let me ask this, man, because I think I think you're on to something.
[33:42.920 --> 33:46.920] I mean, and as you get into the book, some of the questions that David, and I'd be curious
[33:46.920 --> 33:52.920] to know how you you got in contact with Brother David, David Morris is mutual friend.
[33:52.920 --> 33:57.560] He's the editor, right of your book, the publisher, he's a publisher.
[33:57.560 --> 33:58.560] Yeah.
[33:58.560 --> 33:59.560] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[33:59.560 --> 34:02.200] You also did something I'm going to add in the four, but yeah, he's the publisher over
[34:02.200 --> 34:03.200] in late drive books.
[34:03.200 --> 34:04.200] Yes, sir.
[34:04.200 --> 34:05.200] Yes, yes, yes.
[34:05.200 --> 34:08.680] Um, so, you know, some of the questions he brought out, I thought we're really interesting
[34:08.680 --> 34:10.200] and I'd be curious to get your take.
[34:10.200 --> 34:15.200] The first one was like, why, or how can we unlearn the ways that race has shaped our
[34:15.200 --> 34:16.200] faith?
[34:16.200 --> 34:20.440] I'd be curious how that one, um, plays out for you there.
[34:20.440 --> 34:21.440] Yeah.
[34:21.440 --> 34:26.440] For me, a lot of times it comes to, again, wrestling with what the Bible is.
[34:26.440 --> 34:33.360] I had a professor in seminary who once described the Bible as an account of losers.
[34:33.360 --> 34:34.360] Okay.
[34:34.360 --> 34:35.360] Yeah.
[34:36.360 --> 34:41.560] When we wrestled with the fact that every single book was compiled or composed by somebody
[34:41.560 --> 34:47.360] who was either under the direct threat of exile, under the reality of exile or experiencing
[34:47.360 --> 34:52.120] colonization in the moment, every single book, like the books of Moses were compiled by people
[34:52.120 --> 34:57.600] dealing with or had an insult or out of the Babylonian exile, right, like that is the
[34:57.600 --> 35:03.040] context behind the compilation of this, well, the right to self definition under the, the
[35:03.040 --> 35:08.040] power of empire, whether that empire be the Babylonians or the Assyrians or the Persians
[35:08.040 --> 35:13.960] or the Medes or the Greeks or the Romans, like that is what is coloring the compilation
[35:13.960 --> 35:16.320] of these books that we recognize as the Bible.
[35:16.320 --> 35:23.880] People are wrestling with how is God going to show up in our situation?
[35:23.880 --> 35:26.480] And do we have the right to worship God as we see fit?
[35:26.480 --> 35:30.640] Do we have the right to define ourselves as people, all right?
[35:30.640 --> 35:34.560] At some point in time, I point to the point is I'm going to say it was the Constantinian
[35:34.560 --> 35:35.560] shift or whatever, right?
[35:35.560 --> 35:36.560] Yeah.
[35:36.560 --> 35:38.080] It becomes the state religion or wrong.
[35:38.080 --> 35:41.720] It turns into something different where now it is the expression, the cultural expression
[35:41.720 --> 35:42.720] of the people in charge.
[35:42.720 --> 35:45.400] It is the cultural expression of empire.
[35:45.400 --> 35:51.520] And when we wrestle with the fact that everybody included all of the first believers that
[35:51.520 --> 35:56.960] we're looking at in the New Testament were experiencing colonization from the underside.
[35:57.040 --> 36:02.600] Somehow that gets flipped as it gets adopted in a religion, a new religion that's almost
[36:02.600 --> 36:07.960] foreign to the ones within the pages of that book, the social location of how we're interpreting
[36:07.960 --> 36:09.920] and applying these stories changes.
[36:09.920 --> 36:17.720] And so the question that we have to consistently ask ourselves is what have we lost in institutionalizing
[36:17.720 --> 36:24.000] Christianity the way that we have, like what interpretive lenses have we lost?
[36:24.400 --> 36:29.760] The more we are able to wrestle with that question, I think the more we can realize the
[36:29.760 --> 36:33.560] way that things like race have shaped our understanding of these stories.
[36:33.560 --> 36:39.160] Because when the interpretation that has been handed down to us from people who have never
[36:39.160 --> 36:46.240] known what exile or empire or colonization was like the underside of that, when their interpretations
[36:46.240 --> 36:50.480] become the dominant ones, we have to recognize there are some things that we just won't see,
[36:51.040 --> 36:56.600] like if I would have taken you down the road of liberation theology and tell you how this
[36:56.600 --> 37:00.560] strikes me as a black person reading all of this stuff, and you've never experienced life
[37:00.560 --> 37:03.200] as a black person, a lot of that stuff is going to sound new to you.
[37:03.200 --> 37:09.200] So the inverse has to be true that if you have never experienced the underside of it, there
[37:09.200 --> 37:12.320] are certain things about our interpretations, we're just going to miss.
[37:12.320 --> 37:17.520] And when we become aware of that fact, I think we could do a lot towards what a lot of times
[37:17.520 --> 37:24.840] they call the decolonizing theology, we undergo that process when we become aware of the shift
[37:24.840 --> 37:29.320] that no, these stories belong to a people who operated, or I'm sorry, who exist in a
[37:29.320 --> 37:33.080] very different social location than we do.
[37:33.080 --> 37:33.920] I like that, man.
[37:33.920 --> 37:34.720] I like that.
[37:34.720 --> 37:36.880] And so how, OK, so let me ask this question.
[37:36.880 --> 37:39.680] This just kind of came up as you were as you were responding to that.
[37:40.480 --> 37:44.760] So how do you deal with the folks who say, including some black folks who say, you know,
[37:44.760 --> 37:47.040] all you just to woke, you know, his woke is a man.
[37:47.040 --> 37:52.600] We just pushing back against all his wokeness, which is a, you know, it's a complete misuse
[37:52.600 --> 37:54.240] of the terminology in the context.
[37:54.240 --> 37:58.520] But I'd be curious, like, you know, again, engagement, because I'm sure you got to come
[37:58.520 --> 38:03.520] across in some in some circles, you know, man, that's that woke stuff again, man, all those
[38:03.520 --> 38:04.520] liberals.
[38:04.520 --> 38:05.520] Yeah.
[38:05.520 --> 38:08.120] Oh, you say how do I respond to them?
[38:08.120 --> 38:09.360] That's the question.
[38:09.360 --> 38:10.160] How do you respond?
[38:10.160 --> 38:13.320] How do you, again, just the same question I was asked before, like, how do you navigate,
[38:13.320 --> 38:17.200] you know, some of those spaces when somebody is, you know, when it comes out that way,
[38:17.200 --> 38:19.160] whether it be in person or online, you know what I'm saying?
[38:19.160 --> 38:22.000] I know online can get real contentious real quick.
[38:22.000 --> 38:23.000] Yeah.
[38:23.000 --> 38:24.000] I don't respond.
[38:24.000 --> 38:25.360] That's that's the answer to the question.
[38:25.360 --> 38:26.360] I don't.
[38:26.360 --> 38:29.200] Oh, and I like sometimes I'll ignore it.
[38:29.200 --> 38:31.880] There's times while I laugh, like literally I'll see a comment like that.
[38:31.880 --> 38:38.120] And I just simply reply LOL and hit saying, because one of the things I believe in it,
[38:38.120 --> 38:39.120] what would Jesus do?
[38:39.120 --> 38:43.600] Sometimes when Jesus receives accusations or insults and will not respond, he won't
[38:43.600 --> 38:44.600] address them.
[38:44.600 --> 38:45.600] Yeah.
[38:45.600 --> 38:46.600] And a couple of things happens when I do that, right?
[38:46.600 --> 38:48.440] A couple of things happen.
[38:48.440 --> 38:51.520] There are people who are frustrated like, oh, so you're not going to engage the content
[38:51.520 --> 38:52.520] of my argument?
[38:52.520 --> 38:53.520] No, why would I do that?
[38:53.520 --> 38:58.440] I don't view it as a valid enough point, like you think what you think and I think differently.
[38:58.440 --> 38:59.440] We disagree here.
[38:59.440 --> 39:00.440] We can agree to do that.
[39:00.440 --> 39:03.560] There's no, what is the purpose of us having the same arguments that everybody's already
[39:03.560 --> 39:07.880] hearing all the time, like, and at the end of the day, what we're going to have to find
[39:07.880 --> 39:10.480] out is whose witness is more compelling here?
[39:10.480 --> 39:13.640] I happen to believe that a lot of times I'm better at explaining these things than people
[39:13.640 --> 39:18.840] who are just like, okay, interestingly enough, you want me to engage with your, but you haven't
[39:18.840 --> 39:22.800] actually engaged with anything I've said when you just dismiss it as well.
[39:22.800 --> 39:27.360] And if you dismiss me as well, I don't have any problem dismissing that critique, you know?
[39:27.360 --> 39:30.560] So I don't feel as though that actually says anything about me.
[39:30.560 --> 39:34.160] People say that, cool, you get to feel how you want.
[39:34.160 --> 39:37.760] But at the end of the day, my job is not to convince everybody in the world to believe
[39:37.760 --> 39:44.240] the same things that I do, my job is to help give curious people tools and entry ways
[39:44.240 --> 39:49.680] to grow a little bit closer to wholeness and freedom and wisdom, right?
[39:49.680 --> 39:54.640] And so most of the time, people coming me like that, I laugh since I like cracked jokes
[39:54.640 --> 39:56.760] because, you know, I ain't been past my whole life.
[39:56.760 --> 40:01.040] So I grew up running a cafeteria table, you can't, if you can't play the dozens, you might
[40:01.040 --> 40:04.080] want to leave me alone, you know?
[40:04.080 --> 40:08.600] That's how that one goes, because at the end of the day, that even the work, like you
[40:08.600 --> 40:11.200] said, it's not what the term originally meant.
[40:11.200 --> 40:15.040] And there have been people who have openly said like, this is our goal to just label
[40:15.040 --> 40:19.360] all of this stuff as well, as critical race theory or whatever has it, right?
[40:19.360 --> 40:23.320] You've already showed me your hand, like your, your goal here is to never hear anything
[40:23.320 --> 40:27.640] I'm saying, to never give an actual legitimate audience or hearing today.
[40:27.640 --> 40:28.800] And I'm not going to beg you to do that.
[40:28.800 --> 40:33.040] I'm not going to beg you to hear me, especially, especially, especially if you don't have
[40:33.040 --> 40:34.880] the power to do nothing about it, right?
[40:34.880 --> 40:36.120] Like who argue?
[40:36.120 --> 40:38.400] Why do I care about convincing you?
[40:38.400 --> 40:42.520] And when it comes to the things of race in particular, I tell people all this, I'm like,
[40:42.520 --> 40:45.280] oh, how, how white people feel about me ain't none of my business.
[40:45.280 --> 40:49.040] When it becomes my business, when you have the power to do something about it, if all
[40:49.040 --> 40:52.880] you're going to do is hop and comment sections and rah, rah, rah, cool, you can do that.
[40:52.880 --> 40:53.880] I don't care.
[40:53.880 --> 40:55.400] I'm over here living a life, you know?
[40:55.400 --> 40:56.880] So how do I respond?
[40:56.880 --> 40:57.880] I don't.
[40:57.880 --> 40:58.880] Yeah.
[40:58.880 --> 40:59.880] I like that.
[40:59.880 --> 41:00.880] I like that.
[41:00.880 --> 41:02.680] I like that as well, man.
[41:02.680 --> 41:06.760] I've pulled back for most of my social media stuff, but every now and then when there is
[41:06.760 --> 41:11.200] a crazy enough comment, like you said, I just, you know, I almost do the exact same thing,
[41:11.200 --> 41:18.200] but an LOL, put some like crazy gift on there that I'm like, yeah, man, um, all right.
[41:18.200 --> 41:21.720] Well, hopping more into this book, man, I appreciate chapter seven, man.
[41:21.720 --> 41:26.640] We got to have a talk about deconstruction and that, you know, you open it up with, right,
[41:26.640 --> 41:27.960] we got to have a talk about deconstruction.
[41:27.960 --> 41:32.640] A lot of y'all think you've left talks of Christianity behind, but you haven't.
[41:32.640 --> 41:38.280] You may have left the creeds behind, but this harmful way of being in which you assume
[41:38.280 --> 41:41.400] to have the world figure out, you took that with you.
[41:41.400 --> 41:45.000] So break this down a little bit, man, because we hear a lot about deconstruction, especially
[41:45.000 --> 41:47.600] in like the white progressive spaces, right?
[41:47.600 --> 41:51.600] It's like, oh, you got to deconstrate, you got to deconstruct.
[41:51.600 --> 41:56.720] Walk us through some of that stuff, man, right.
[41:56.720 --> 42:01.920] What we have to recognize is that in deconstruction, there are times when people are moved to
[42:01.920 --> 42:06.400] reevaluate their faith because of the things they are being taught to believe.
[42:06.400 --> 42:07.400] Yeah.
[42:07.400 --> 42:11.440] But there are also times when people are taught to reevaluate their face because of the behavior
[42:11.440 --> 42:14.080] of people who taught them to believe these things, right?
[42:14.080 --> 42:16.640] Like, whoa, that doesn't seem good.
[42:16.640 --> 42:19.760] If that's not good, then what about these teachings, right?
[42:19.760 --> 42:25.920] And it's primarily that second group of people who like are just now waking up to the racism
[42:25.920 --> 42:30.960] in their traditions or just not waking up to the homophobia or the repression or whatever
[42:30.960 --> 42:35.760] spiritual bondage that comes, like they're just not waking up to that and then reevaluating
[42:35.760 --> 42:37.680] things.
[42:37.680 --> 42:46.560] There is a degree to which they're hesitant or they struggle to navigate this world without
[42:46.560 --> 42:50.400] the need for certainty on things, right?
[42:50.400 --> 42:56.680] Becoming less certain about things they were once sold as certain is discombobulating.
[42:56.680 --> 42:58.920] So they leave faith behind.
[42:58.920 --> 43:03.560] And then a lot of times what ends up happening is they'll take that same need requirement
[43:03.560 --> 43:07.440] for certainty into the new spaces they occupy.
[43:07.440 --> 43:11.880] So people who are most involved in campus ministry and most involved in the witness and
[43:11.880 --> 43:17.200] the people will then go after their deconstruction journey, if they deconvert or whatever and start
[43:17.200 --> 43:22.440] a podcast because they still have to become harder people all the time, right?
[43:22.440 --> 43:24.480] And I'm like, okay, so let me ask you a question.
[43:24.480 --> 43:26.640] What have we really changed about ourselves?
[43:26.640 --> 43:27.640] Like, yeah.
[43:27.640 --> 43:30.760] And again, that's not to say that, oh, you need to completely reinvent yourself.
[43:30.760 --> 43:31.960] That's not what I'm saying.
[43:31.960 --> 43:36.440] I'm saying that it's fair to ask ourselves, okay, our beliefs have changed, but has our
[43:36.440 --> 43:40.360] behavior, has our ethic changed, has that.
[43:40.360 --> 43:46.120] And so for me, the way this manifests itself like the most hilariously to me is people
[43:46.120 --> 43:52.960] who then become vocal anti-theists, not just agnostic, not just atheist, but no, all religion
[43:52.960 --> 43:57.440] is bad and anybody who believes in religion is stupid and my job is to prevent every person
[43:57.440 --> 44:00.120] who believes in anything to stop believing in that.
[44:00.120 --> 44:01.760] That's an extreme case, right?
[44:01.760 --> 44:06.280] But I'm like, you actually took all of that with you out of the church because you spent
[44:06.280 --> 44:11.080] your whole life being groomed to believe that your job is to convert everybody to this way
[44:11.080 --> 44:15.280] of thinking and now that you're out, you want to do the same thing in the other direction.
[44:15.280 --> 44:19.880] And what we have to reckon with there is that it's not enough to deconstruct the beliefs.
[44:19.880 --> 44:24.240] We have to deconstruct the ethics that those beliefs have engendered inside of us.
[44:24.240 --> 44:28.520] The ways that relates to the people around us, like that, that's just as important as
[44:28.520 --> 44:29.520] the creed.
[44:29.520 --> 44:32.840] Because at the end of the day, even James says it in the Bible, right?
[44:32.840 --> 44:34.160] Like Facebook's out works and dead.
[44:34.160 --> 44:37.520] What you believe ain't really much of nobody else's business, what people are really going
[44:37.520 --> 44:40.040] to learn about you is how you behave.
[44:40.040 --> 44:42.040] Your beliefs have changed, your behavior hasn't.
[44:42.040 --> 44:46.480] You're still the same person, you just adopted different creeds, right?
[44:46.480 --> 44:52.040] So I say that not as an attack, but as an invitation to growth and freedom and wholeness because
[44:52.040 --> 44:53.240] I want you free from that.
[44:53.320 --> 44:57.120] Yeah, I love that, man.
[44:57.120 --> 45:02.360] And I specifically like this particular chapter because I say it much less eloquently than
[45:02.360 --> 45:03.360] what you're saying here.
[45:03.360 --> 45:06.440] But I say, look, look, I don't want to be a fundamentalist on either side.
[45:06.440 --> 45:10.240] I don't want to be a conservative fundamentalist Bible thumping, but I also don't want to
[45:10.240 --> 45:15.360] be a woke up a fundamentalist, you know, on the other side trying to get like you said,
[45:15.360 --> 45:19.880] you know, bring bring people to my side or all you didn't say this the right way.
[45:20.280 --> 45:24.000] On page 75, you have a quote, he says, I don't hate higher education.
[45:24.000 --> 45:29.240] I hate young people being exploited to sustain a complex that has not kept pace with the
[45:29.240 --> 45:30.240] society.
[45:30.240 --> 45:36.680] It purports to prepare them for I'm frustrated that in a land where you cannot buy a drink
[45:36.680 --> 45:41.160] or smoke a cigarette until you are 21 years of age, you can enlist in the armed forces
[45:41.160 --> 45:46.560] at 18 and sign a master promissory note for five figure student loans at 17.
[45:46.560 --> 45:51.920] I do not like that promises dangled with a price tag far too high for the adolescent
[45:51.920 --> 45:53.160] brains to comprehend.
[45:54.160 --> 45:56.120] Um, talk a little bit about that.
[45:56.120 --> 45:57.480] Cause that I mean, that's a, that's a big thing.
[45:57.480 --> 46:04.360] In fact, as we, as you and I speak, I am having many frustrated conversations with, uh,
[46:04.360 --> 46:08.480] higher or my, my student loans that I've still been paying on.
[46:08.480 --> 46:13.000] And one, one is telling me in terms of, you know, public loan forgiveness is telling me all
[46:13.000 --> 46:14.920] you got to go to the federal branch.
[46:14.920 --> 46:18.680] You call them up to all, you got to go to Mohila and talk with them and they're both,
[46:18.680 --> 46:19.680] you know, sending me back.
[46:19.680 --> 46:23.440] I mean, the frustration, I'm like, look, I've done what you've told me to do.
[46:23.440 --> 46:24.440] Like I've paid.
[46:24.440 --> 46:26.680] I've been at this place for over 10 years.
[46:26.680 --> 46:32.920] So that in and of itself, right, just the amount of debt that people walk away with, uh,
[46:32.920 --> 46:36.640] not to mention, you know, some of the ideologies, break, break that down a little bit more,
[46:36.640 --> 46:37.640] man.
[46:37.640 --> 46:39.400] Cause there's, I think there's, there's a lot in this, man.
[46:39.400 --> 46:42.280] If that makes sense to where I'm, what I'm trying to ask is that makes.
[46:42.280 --> 46:43.280] Yeah.
[46:43.280 --> 46:44.280] Yeah.
[46:44.280 --> 46:45.280] I'm trying to tell you to do one thing.
[46:45.280 --> 46:48.280] When we hop off this call, you call Mohila back up all the people and you tell them that
[46:48.280 --> 46:55.000] Jesus paid it off and I get another dime out of you and tell them, tell them, tell them.
[46:55.000 --> 47:03.640] But also, um, yeah, I get frustrated by the fact that the society that we have is inherently
[47:03.640 --> 47:04.640] exploitative.
[47:04.640 --> 47:05.640] Right.
[47:05.640 --> 47:11.000] And you work in higher education, like that's, that's what you do and you understand a little
[47:11.000 --> 47:15.080] bit about like how this thing is almost inescapable at a certain point, the moment
[47:15.080 --> 47:19.320] you get sucked in because college is supposed to be a good thing.
[47:19.320 --> 47:20.320] Right.
[47:20.320 --> 47:24.280] The liberal arts is supposed to be a good, you're supposed to be able to expose yourself
[47:24.280 --> 47:27.520] to, to things in the world and how certain parts of your brain foster and be able to
[47:27.520 --> 47:35.680] contribute to society in a good way, um, but somewhere along the line that turned into
[47:35.680 --> 47:42.800] an endeavor in which the students were no longer like the primary customer, like the
[47:42.800 --> 47:45.360] students is no longer who we're trying to take care of here.
[47:45.360 --> 47:51.000] There's an industry of people win money, like that, that's the primary customer, like that
[47:51.000 --> 47:55.320] that's who we're servicing at this point, because it doesn't make sense, right?
[47:55.320 --> 47:59.800] Based on the education that kids are getting in high schools and everything that at 17
[47:59.800 --> 48:04.040] years old, without a cosignor, you can sign on for these student loans.
[48:04.040 --> 48:08.960] And how many 17 year olds do you know who can accurately tell you what they would like
[48:08.960 --> 48:13.760] to do professionally with, even if not the rest of their life for the next 10 years of their
[48:13.760 --> 48:14.760] life?
[48:14.760 --> 48:15.760] How, how many do you know?
[48:15.760 --> 48:18.960] How many people do you know who've gone to college and changed major several times?
[48:18.960 --> 48:24.520] Like we now understand about the brain that your prefrontal cortex isn't even done developing
[48:24.520 --> 48:26.200] so you're in your mid 20s, right?
[48:26.200 --> 48:27.600] Like let's say 26.
[48:27.600 --> 48:31.880] So nine years before that, a decade before that when you are in essence, you got, you
[48:31.880 --> 48:37.640] got a Ferrari body with Ford Pinto brakes, your brain is not caught up with your body
[48:37.640 --> 48:41.600] edge, your legalese, approaching your own adulthood, we're saying that, oh, yeah, you
[48:41.600 --> 48:43.080] can get all these loans.
[48:43.080 --> 48:46.920] Now mind you, I had trouble buying a house at one point because they said, oh, you had
[48:46.920 --> 48:47.920] too many student loans.
[48:47.920 --> 48:52.320] I said, how ironic is it that I went to college to get a degree because it was supposed to
[48:52.320 --> 48:57.440] help me get a job and so that I could buy a house and because real estate is how you pass
[48:57.440 --> 48:58.440] on generational wealth.
[48:58.440 --> 49:01.800] And now you're telling me I can't do that thing because I did this thing and just the
[49:01.800 --> 49:07.120] way that that trap goes in there, it's a great illustration of the idea that same kills
[49:07.120 --> 49:12.640] everything it touches because there's one thing that just like Eve in the Garden of Eden was
[49:12.640 --> 49:14.120] not bad for wanting wisdom.
[49:14.120 --> 49:15.120] That's a good thing.
[49:15.120 --> 49:17.080] It's how she went about getting it that became a problem, right?
[49:17.080 --> 49:19.280] Because she made a lot about God.
[49:19.280 --> 49:21.440] Wanting a higher education is a good thing.
[49:21.440 --> 49:27.440] But then when we go and take advantage of what are in effect children and tell them, oh,
[49:27.440 --> 49:30.360] you could do this and at the end of the day, you saw it in that promissory note, a lot
[49:30.360 --> 49:32.720] of time it looked like free money.
[49:32.720 --> 49:34.680] And later it was like, what did I get myself into?
[49:34.680 --> 49:36.320] I don't even want to do this.
[49:36.320 --> 49:38.840] My partner was like, I want to be a nail tech now.
[49:38.840 --> 49:42.320] I thought I wanted to be a teacher.
[49:42.320 --> 49:46.880] And that's crazy because not only is it a disservice to the children, it's a disservice
[49:46.880 --> 49:52.120] to the country when these children are now adults and cannot financially contribute to
[49:52.120 --> 49:56.080] this free market system that we have because we are so overburdened by debt.
[49:56.080 --> 49:57.080] You understand?
[49:57.800 --> 50:03.120] It's one of those things where the greed of some people has severely hampled the ability
[50:03.120 --> 50:07.280] of society to thrive as many of us believe that it should.
[50:07.280 --> 50:09.560] Ooh, I like that, man.
[50:09.560 --> 50:11.840] And I don't think people caught what you said, man.
[50:11.840 --> 50:17.160] You said we have a Ferrari body with Ford Pinto break is that what you said?
[50:17.160 --> 50:18.160] Yeah.
[50:18.160 --> 50:19.160] Yeah.
[50:19.160 --> 50:21.320] I caught that because I have a teenager.
[50:21.320 --> 50:22.320] Yeah.
[50:22.320 --> 50:26.880] And we're sure because from a distance she looks like an adult.
[50:27.880 --> 50:31.480] But because she's still a teenager, she still thinks like a child.
[50:31.480 --> 50:34.880] And some of the messages that she's getting is that, oh, we could do like these, like,
[50:34.880 --> 50:36.920] we need to grow up and do all these things.
[50:36.920 --> 50:37.920] Yeah.
[50:37.920 --> 50:40.120] And one of the struggles as a parent is how do we navigate this?
[50:40.120 --> 50:44.800] Because they are in the process of becoming adults, but their brain is not like caught up.
[50:44.800 --> 50:48.280] The brain inside their head does not always match the reality that we're seeing on the
[50:48.280 --> 50:49.280] outside.
[50:49.280 --> 50:50.440] Like these stages of development.
[50:50.440 --> 50:55.400] And it's a lot of times at that stage where there is the most vulnerable, the most impressionable
[50:55.400 --> 50:59.200] and that we have these large corporations that are targeting people in that exact demographic
[50:59.200 --> 51:00.200] is crazy.
[51:00.200 --> 51:04.080] Like bodies telling them, are we ready to go?
[51:04.080 --> 51:07.640] And the brains aren't caught up to make the informed decisions, right?
[51:07.640 --> 51:12.480] Like informed consent is a requirement in medical procedures and surveys and research
[51:12.480 --> 51:14.040] and things you guys do.
[51:14.040 --> 51:15.040] We have informed.
[51:15.040 --> 51:20.120] So the idea that somebody is supposed to understand what they're going through is inherently understood,
[51:20.120 --> 51:24.480] particularly in research and education that these loans supposed to be funded.
[51:24.480 --> 51:28.600] How are we getting informed consent from people who literally can't wrap their minds
[51:28.600 --> 51:29.600] around Michigan?
[51:29.600 --> 51:30.600] Right.
[51:30.600 --> 51:31.600] Right.
[51:31.600 --> 51:34.680] Well, and I can tell you, man, having been in the higher education system for well over
[51:34.680 --> 51:41.480] two decades, the age at which people are more cognizant of things, man, is going further
[51:41.480 --> 51:42.480] back even more.
[51:42.480 --> 51:47.720] I mean, so somebody at 1718 coming in and talking about, yes, I absolutely want to do this.
[51:47.720 --> 51:53.000] I mean, when I get students, most students now have been to like three or four universities
[51:53.000 --> 51:55.000] before they've even gotten to me.
[51:55.000 --> 51:58.520] And maybe I'm one of the universities on their path before they end up at another university.
[51:58.520 --> 52:04.800] I mean, the way of even doing colleges is completely changed just since the pandemic.
[52:04.800 --> 52:06.080] So you're absolutely right, man.
[52:06.080 --> 52:11.880] I mean, when I think about the sheer costs of, you know, what college is, man, that's
[52:11.880 --> 52:16.120] a whole different podcast and end of itself, but I appreciate you, you, you pointing that
[52:16.120 --> 52:19.520] out and bringing those, those, those, those points out because that, you know, there is
[52:19.520 --> 52:24.080] something right with that comes with that, especially when we start thinking about, like
[52:24.080 --> 52:30.200] you said, debt, home ownership, property ownership, like you said, just developing wealth, which
[52:30.200 --> 52:33.280] at least as I was told when I was coming to, because I didn't go to, you know, college
[52:33.280 --> 52:37.160] right out of high school, you know, I was working, building houses and stuff, man, and
[52:37.160 --> 52:38.160] went back.
[52:38.160 --> 52:42.080] I always told you go to college so you can get that better job, have a higher income so
[52:42.080 --> 52:43.680] you can afford these things.
[52:43.680 --> 52:49.000] So you don't have to work as hard, but now I see cats graduating, you know, and they're
[52:49.000 --> 52:52.680] working twice as hard as they were prior to them even, you know, going to school and
[52:52.680 --> 52:53.680] stuff, man.
[52:53.680 --> 52:59.360] Well, that kind of ties back to, I like the way you start out chapter nine, and I'll,
[52:59.360 --> 53:03.280] and I will, we can, we can wrap up on this, and I'm going to put all the links for the
[53:03.280 --> 53:06.360] book and everything in the show notes because folks have got to go read this.
[53:06.360 --> 53:12.120] There's a lot of nuanced parts, and I appreciate your writing style that has come through
[53:12.120 --> 53:13.120] in this book.
[53:13.120 --> 53:16.520] But chapter nine says the church got to pick one, the American dream preached by Democrats
[53:16.520 --> 53:22.720] and Republicans alike, and the age to come as preached by Jesus and his disciples are
[53:22.720 --> 53:26.240] two distinct diametrically opposed ways of being.
[53:26.240 --> 53:28.920] You cannot strive for both at the same time.
[53:28.920 --> 53:33.040] The church got to pick one or pick which one we are preaching.
[53:33.040 --> 53:34.040] Talk a little bit about that, man.
[53:34.040 --> 53:41.440] Yeah, at the end of the day, we got to recognize that Christianity, okay, no, I want to say
[53:41.440 --> 53:44.200] that because like I said, there is no Christianity there, Christianity.
[53:44.200 --> 53:47.600] So Christianity is completely incompatible with the American way.
[53:47.600 --> 53:54.080] But the way, as it was originally called, the way, like following Jesus does not at all
[53:54.080 --> 54:00.600] comport with what we value as the American way, it's completely and entirely incompatible.
[54:00.600 --> 54:05.800] So when Jesus says things like, it is harder for, it is easier for a camel to go through
[54:05.800 --> 54:10.440] the oven needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
[54:10.440 --> 54:13.120] One of the things about American dream, even when we talked about this now, or you go to
[54:13.120 --> 54:15.920] college so that you can get the good job that is easier for you to build wealth and
[54:15.920 --> 54:19.800] everything, that's incompatible with what Jesus is saying in that moment.
[54:19.800 --> 54:26.640] And what we value, the things that we ascribe, significance and virtue to in America, like
[54:26.640 --> 54:31.840] as a nation, particularly when we think about the economic system that we support, the idea
[54:31.840 --> 54:38.080] of the free market, the magic handles the market is in and of itself almost a theological concept
[54:38.080 --> 54:41.920] that a market is something that can exist in a vacuum and determine these out, like we're
[54:41.920 --> 54:45.360] ascribing these supernatural powers to a market and everything.
[54:45.360 --> 54:51.040] And no, that's incompatible with what Jesus says about the way of love, because love
[54:51.040 --> 54:59.200] is giving, like love, love gives, love takes, like it absorbs the worst that we have to
[54:59.200 --> 55:02.480] give and it gives commitment to the best people, right?
[55:02.480 --> 55:08.600] So I end the book talking about how love or I define love as the commitment to wholeness.
[55:08.600 --> 55:15.720] And it's hard to do that while being an American the way that we are trained to be Americans,
[55:15.720 --> 55:20.960] like what it means to pursue the American dream, we have to pick between the two.
[55:20.960 --> 55:25.200] And there are times when the church seems to try to straddle this line, right, when you
[55:25.200 --> 55:31.040] go to the church and it has an American flag and pulpit and we want to be good Americans
[55:31.040 --> 55:38.600] and we'll read Romans 13, which despite it being a passage written to a mixed congregation
[55:38.600 --> 55:43.680] of Roman and Roman Gentiles and Jewish people and how they want to govern their community
[55:43.680 --> 55:44.680] for some reason.
[55:44.680 --> 55:47.800] They take that one chapter and I assume it's talking about civil governments, which doesn't
[55:47.800 --> 55:48.800] make any sense.
[55:48.800 --> 55:52.560] Well, first Peter too does make that same point about civil governments, but this one is not
[55:52.560 --> 55:57.200] but for whatever reason, the church said that, oh, like we have to obey the state because
[55:57.200 --> 56:02.360] God put the authority in place and we want to be good Americans and also good Christians
[56:02.360 --> 56:05.440] and you can do that, but you can't follow Jesus at the same time.
[56:05.440 --> 56:10.480] You're going to have to pick one, you're going to have to pick one.
[56:10.480 --> 56:15.280] And for me that that's a lot of what this comes down to because if discipleship is something
[56:15.280 --> 56:20.440] to be taken seriously, if trying to look more like Jesus is going to be taken seriously,
[56:20.440 --> 56:24.920] then yeah, we got to understand that it's going to put us at odds, right?
[56:24.920 --> 56:29.880] Because people who talk about this concept of being politically homeless, a lot of times
[56:29.880 --> 56:35.320] they say that and they're describing some sort of centrism and centrism, I would argue
[56:35.320 --> 56:39.280] it's something that Jesus is very much not, right, like Jesus talks about spitting out
[56:39.280 --> 56:42.080] the luke one might rather you be hot or cold.
[56:42.080 --> 56:46.800] I think there is a level of political homelessness that comes with following Jesus for the simple
[56:46.800 --> 56:53.760] fact that none of this stuff, like I said in that quote you read, the American dream preached
[56:53.760 --> 56:59.080] about Democrats and Republicans alike, they're kind of talking about the same things, right?
[56:59.080 --> 57:03.280] Or a lot of the assumptions are the same between the two parties about what this place ought
[57:03.280 --> 57:04.280] to look like.
[57:04.280 --> 57:07.680] And if you're going to follow Jesus, some of that stuff you have to look at look at and
[57:07.680 --> 57:12.080] say like, no, this is not the way, this is not what heaven looks like.
[57:12.080 --> 57:14.160] This is not what love looks like.
[57:14.160 --> 57:17.880] This is not what it looks like to show up in the best way for our neighbors.
[57:17.880 --> 57:21.280] This is not what it looks like to love our neighbor or love ourselves.
[57:21.280 --> 57:25.360] And if that's the case, then we can't love God while we're doing this.
[57:25.360 --> 57:31.240] And so yeah, my argument here is that if the church is going to walk in integrity, we're
[57:31.240 --> 57:34.560] going to have to pick one of them so it can't be both.
[57:34.560 --> 57:41.640] Yeah, yeah, no, I think there's, yeah, there's an argument to be made in regards to that.
[57:41.640 --> 57:50.280] I think there's a lot to be said in and around that, especially when we see churches that
[57:50.280 --> 57:53.160] are huge and large and, you know, and I mean, people have been talking about this for a
[57:53.160 --> 57:54.160] long time.
[57:54.160 --> 57:59.320] You know, it's like, how can somebody own a multi million dollar home and you know, you
[57:59.320 --> 58:00.320] know what I'm saying?
[58:00.320 --> 58:05.480] I mean, so there are those components to that and, you know, we can laugh at it.
[58:05.480 --> 58:07.120] We can kind of snicker at it.
[58:07.120 --> 58:11.640] But the reality of it is that somebody is still giving ties to some of these people that are
[58:11.640 --> 58:14.840] on television and somebody's still, you know, putting that money in.
[58:14.840 --> 58:20.360] So clearly, you know, they're, they're still striking a nerve on, on some level and, you
[58:20.360 --> 58:23.560] know, that's, yeah, that's always concerning to me, especially when you start seeing the
[58:23.560 --> 58:30.600] political landscape of what we find ourselves in this country because, my bad, no, no, go
[58:30.600 --> 58:31.600] ahead.
[58:31.600 --> 58:32.600] Yeah.
[58:32.600 --> 58:33.600] What that does, right?
[58:33.600 --> 58:36.760] And I'm not here to like hate on passes who are ritual or anything else, but that's not
[58:36.760 --> 58:37.760] what I'm doing here.
[58:37.760 --> 58:43.400] But when the person who like the people that we keep seeing are the rich ones, and I want
[58:43.400 --> 58:48.280] to be clear and saying that it's not the majority of pastors like, well, I work in ministry
[58:48.280 --> 58:49.280] full time.
[58:49.280 --> 58:51.120] And let me tell you, Jesus is not pay like that.
[58:51.120 --> 58:52.120] I'm out struggling.
[58:52.120 --> 58:54.640] That's why I got this book out here right now, you understand?
[58:54.640 --> 58:55.640] Yeah.
[58:55.640 --> 58:57.760] And I can't count on too much money from that neither.
[58:57.760 --> 59:03.480] But at the same time, when that is looked at and celebrated as what a faithful Christian
[59:03.480 --> 59:07.680] looks like, that is actually impacting what Christians refers to as discipleship, what
[59:07.680 --> 59:09.400] the goal is, right?
[59:09.400 --> 59:13.000] So the question is, do we want to look like the dude with the multimillion dollar house,
[59:13.000 --> 59:14.000] whatever?
[59:14.000 --> 59:15.000] Do we want to look like Jesus?
[59:15.000 --> 59:16.000] Which one is it?
[59:16.000 --> 59:17.000] Yeah.
[59:17.000 --> 59:20.320] You have to pick one because the dude in the multimillion dollar house is a great American.
[59:20.320 --> 59:23.600] Like he's living the American dream, but it's not what Jesus calls to.
[59:23.600 --> 59:27.560] Fox's have dens birds have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
[59:27.560 --> 59:29.560] It's the story of Jesus.
[59:29.560 --> 59:31.360] What do you have to pick one?
[59:31.360 --> 59:32.360] It can't be both.
[59:32.360 --> 59:33.360] Yeah.
[59:33.360 --> 59:34.360] Yeah.
[59:34.360 --> 59:35.360] Yeah.
[59:35.360 --> 59:37.840] Man, folks, I've been talking with Trey Ferguson.
[59:37.840 --> 59:45.520] The book is theologizing bigger homilies on living freely and loving wholly.
[59:45.520 --> 59:46.520] Real quick, man.
[59:46.520 --> 59:49.200] What are some takeaways that you would love people to get from this as they're thinking
[59:49.200 --> 59:50.960] about, you know, hey, here's this book.
[59:50.960 --> 59:52.760] Let me go check it out.
[59:52.760 --> 59:53.760] Yeah.
[59:53.760 --> 59:58.440] I just want to let you know that whatever tradition that you may have inherited directly
[59:58.440 --> 01:00:02.560] or indirectly, whether you was dragged to church every day as a child, whether you
[01:00:02] were culturally Christian and wherever you find yourself, that the God of that tradition
[01:00:10] or the God beyond that tradition, even is capable of leading you to a healthy and holy
[01:00:18] and holistic place.
[01:00:21] Even if that tradition did you well, that the God beyond that tradition can call you like
[01:00:25] even further beyond that.
[01:00:27] So the subtitle living freely and loving wholly is the idea of what constraints have been put
[01:00:32] on our imaginations of God that have not served as well.
[01:00:35] And will we be bold enough to give ourselves permission to travel beyond constraints and
[01:00:41] see where God might lead us, right?
[01:00:42] And so all that to say, my desire, my hope for everyone who engages with this book is
[01:00:47] that you might discover a God who is bigger than the God that you would imagine before
[01:00:54] you met that before you read the book.
[01:00:56] I like that.
[01:00:57] I like that, man.
[01:00:59] I will put the notes or I'll put the links to this book in the show notes whiteout to
[01:01:04] podcast.com.
[01:01:05] Go to Profane Faith and there you will find the links and all that.
[01:01:08] But working folks find you, man, working.
[01:01:10] They bring you out to do some speaking, get you on a frontline and in the whole night, man,
[01:01:16] ABC News morning, all that good stuff, brother.
[01:01:19] Most definitely the best place to do that is at pastortrail5.com.
[01:01:22] That's pastortrail05.com.
[01:01:24] You can find me on all the socials at the same handle, except on Facebook, it's real
[01:01:30] pastortrail05.
[01:01:31] I don't know.
[01:01:32] But the link there is also at pastortrail05.com.
[01:01:35] You can subscribe to the Sunday move newsletter at pastortrail05.com.
[01:01:40] Everything I got can be found over at pastortrail5.com, including pre-order links for
[01:01:44] the allajas and bigger and all that stuff.
[01:01:47] Excellent.
[01:01:48] Excellent.
[01:01:49] And as always, again, I put these all in the show notes and you have a podcast as well.
[01:01:51] Yes.
[01:01:52] I got two of them.
[01:01:53] Whoa.
[01:01:54] Tell me.
[01:01:55] Let's plug them up, man.
[01:01:56] Let's what you got.
[01:01:57] You can find this on our three black men, theology, culture in the world around us.
[01:02:01] I host that with my brother, Sam Gay and Rob Martin.
[01:02:05] And then also the new living trades, ladies, bonafide, barber talk with yours, truly pass
[01:02:10] the trade.
[01:02:11] Break down the scriptures a little bit, a little bite size, chunks, 15 minutes, 18 minutes.
[01:02:15] I think the longest episode of that has been 18 minutes.
[01:02:18] Okay.
[01:02:19] Didn't get out.
[01:02:20] We do that thing.
[01:02:21] That's great, man.
[01:02:22] My introductions are 18 minutes alone.
[01:02:24] So that's this crazy getting in half by then, man.
[01:02:28] That's awesome.
[01:02:29] And I'm assuming they're on all the platforms.
[01:02:30] All of them.
[01:02:31] Wherever you listening to your podcast, you can find us there.
[01:02:33] Excellent.
[01:02:34] Again, I'll put these all in the show notes, get some, some, some publications on it, get
[01:02:38] some follows and likes and everything.
[01:02:39] Man, brother, trade.
[01:02:40] Thank you so much for taking the time and talking to us about your new book, the work that you're
[01:02:46] doing in your part of the world, man.
[01:02:48] I appreciate you.
[01:02:49] Now I appreciate you right back, man.
[01:02:51] God, I'm going to bless your socks off.
[01:02:52] I heard that.
[01:02:53] I'll take them socks off, too.
[01:02:59] Hey, everyone.
[01:03:00] I'm Jessica from the Leaving the Village podcast.
[01:03:03] I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for tuning into this show.
[01:03:07] We're so grateful that you've decided to spend your time with us.
[01:03:10] Seriously, Dan, Gail, Kathleen, Nate, Scott, and the rest of us here at the Dauntless Media
[01:03:16] Collective couldn't produce content like the show you're listening to without your
[01:03:20] support.
[01:03:21] I'd also like to invite you even further into the conversation.
[01:03:25] Right now, there are some great discussions happening over in the Dauntless Media Collective
[01:03:29] Discord server.
[01:03:31] If you're interested in chatting with other folks who are deconstructing and decolonizing
[01:03:35] the oppressive traditions they came from, please feel free to hop onto the server.
[01:03:40] If you don't know what Discord is, it's a place where communities can gather online for
[01:03:44] chatting on a wide variety of topics.
[01:03:46] In our Discord server, we have channels devoted to general deconstruction conversations, some
[01:03:52] meme sharing, therapeutic venting about whatever religious bullshit you're currently dealing
[01:03:57] with, and even a channel specifically devoted to talking about the latest episode of the podcast
[01:04:02] you're listening to right now.
[01:04:04] I hope you'll join us.
[01:04:05] You can log in directly to the Dauntless server by clicking on the link in the show notes
[01:04:10] or heading to Dauntless.fm and clicking on the link in the top banner.
[01:04:15] See you there!
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