[00:00:00] This is Adontless Media Collective Podcast. Visit don'tless.fm for more content.
[00:00:07] We have enemies within our country. I think it's a combination of demonology and
[00:00:22] psi. The citizens are going to rise up and become deputized. I have always heard
[00:00:27] President Trump. I like the way he talked. He reminds me of most men. Joe Biden
[00:00:32] last night in the debate, he's like he's not even a human being. Donald
[00:00:36] Shope in the Migra Republicans represented extremism. Can you imagine repatriating
[00:00:41] all the black Americans that had to spoke about to Africa? Now this is the
[00:00:45] evidence. You want me to make an act of faith risking myself. My wife, my woman
[00:00:51] and my children on some idealism, which you are surely just to America, which I have
[00:00:57] never seen. This is Profane Faith. A podcast that engages faith on the margins. Faith
[00:01:04] that has been labeled profane, non-conformist or even out there will be
[00:01:09] exploring the intersections of the sacred secular and profane defined God. And
[00:01:14] look, we won't be trying to answer difficult questions. Rather, we'll be
[00:01:18] engaging them and asking better ones regarding faith, race, gender and religion.
[00:01:23] I'll be your host, Daniel Whitehodge.
[00:01:30] Hey folks here we are. Here we are. Here we are. Another week another time.
[00:01:36] Profane Faith still in a fact fan. Still in a fax season seven going strong
[00:01:42] fan going strong. Well, I want to get right to my guess this week. I like to
[00:01:48] switch things up a little bit. It's the last week I've been talking with
[00:01:53] colleagues and friends just in regards to certain things that pop up. I mean if
[00:02:00] you were listening to this in real time tomorrow, what is it? April 8th? I
[00:02:06] believe yeah tomorrow April 8th 2024. There is supposed to be an eclipse. And I
[00:02:13] think what's funny is really genuinely funny like I have laughed at the amount of
[00:02:19] people out there who think this is like the end of the world. And historically
[00:02:23] what's funny is that so much of our medieval and really bronze era, you know
[00:02:31] world views and ideology still linger even in 2024. You've got AI and you've
[00:02:36] got people who still consider, you know, eclipses as an as an omen a bad omen.
[00:02:44] And that's where it was right people just didn't understand it. People didn't
[00:02:48] understand why you know because you can freak you out right? It's like oh my
[00:02:52] god remember when I was living in Texas as a kid and there was a partial eclipse
[00:02:57] and so our side it got like a little dark at like 11 o'clock in the morning
[00:03:04] right? It was like a clear sunny day and it got a little dark. And I can imagine if
[00:03:09] you have no understanding, no nothing, all of a sudden the day gets a little dark
[00:03:13] I can imagine right that people would freak out but it's genuinely really funny
[00:03:20] to me that people still believe that it's still believe that the rapture is
[00:03:23] happening tomorrow. The amount of videos that are out there of people talking
[00:03:27] about get ready and get right. And you know, then that small magnitude earthquake
[00:03:31] that happened in New York. You know, it's like people just like to add things up.
[00:03:37] Um, you know, it's interesting. There's some, you know, this definitely some good
[00:03:42] research out there that looks at chaos theory and the side of chaos theory that
[00:03:48] really looks into human emotion, human, uh, the ability for humans particularly to
[00:03:54] have agency and control over their environment. And what they found is is that oftentimes
[00:04:02] when we don't have control or agency when we don't necessarily have an answer to something
[00:04:08] the default right is supernatural. It must be something else beyond my control right?
[00:04:15] And of course, psychologists will, you know, we'll go on to talk and say that this is,
[00:04:19] you know, just our mind trying to comprehend, you know, what is going on trying to make sense of it
[00:04:25] and to have some kind of agreement if you will within ourselves. And I'm fine with all those
[00:04:32] processes. I'm fine with what the research says. What happens is that people then implicate
[00:04:36] that and try to put that back on to society as a normality in a way that we should all be
[00:04:44] operating in. And this is just one of the many reasons why evangelical Christianity and really
[00:04:51] face and religion that don't challenge their believers, their congregants, their followers
[00:05:00] to think more critically. And I can hear the Marxist in the audience saying, you know,
[00:05:04] religion was never designed to have people think critically, religion was designed to keep,
[00:05:10] you know, the people doped up and, you know, looking on prophetic, you know, prophetic and supernatural
[00:05:19] implications for things that happen that are out of our control. It's interesting. And I'm surprised
[00:05:26] that we've even survived into the modern era with science because for so long, people were killed,
[00:05:32] burned at the stake, heads cut off because they went against the king, the queen.
[00:05:40] Watching that series, I'm sure a lot of you are watching the three body problem. Fascinating
[00:05:46] little series on Netflix. Not to give any spoilers away. You haven't seen it. I highly recommend
[00:05:51] if you have you subscribe to Netflix, you should give it a check out. They play with some interesting
[00:05:56] themes in their religion, of course, with the usage of the word Lord and the Lord's army.
[00:06:02] You know, the Lord is protecting us. There's a lot of divinity language being used in their
[00:06:10] divinity rhetoric, if you will, for you, come majors out there. That's being implemented in that
[00:06:16] that that series. And I like that, you know, there's this use of the wow signal from 1977,
[00:06:24] Fermi's paradox. I mean, there's some really good science that's being implicated in there in
[00:06:29] Tanglement, quantum entanglement. That's something that I really, and when I first started getting
[00:06:34] into the sciences and particularly astrophysics and astronomy, quantum entanglement really
[00:06:40] is really wowed me because there's a sense that you can be anywhere in the universe, anywhere
[00:06:46] really. And if you're entangled, you can have instantaneous communication, regardless of the
[00:06:52] distances. Some theorists have put out that, you know, our doppelganger, right? Our person that
[00:06:58] is in another, it's those who believe in strength theory, right? That there's multi, multi-universes,
[00:07:02] multi-dimensions that whoever we are on the on the other side, we're already entangled. And the
[00:07:07] closer that person is or you know, to or that person is in the universe that closely matches hours,
[00:07:15] right? Because the notion is is that all the universes aren't the same, right? It would at a
[00:07:20] universe would evolve around its own basic properties and maybe gravity works different there. Or maybe,
[00:07:25] you know what I'm saying? I mean, maybe people have different, you know, insight into how things
[00:07:29] work. So, you know, that idea and notion like, what would your other self be, right? Imagine Hitler,
[00:07:36] if you will, okay? In another dimension and another earth, same time, same period. But just a different
[00:07:45] dimension, different universe, imagine Hitler being an educator, imagine him being one of the greatest
[00:07:51] minds of the 20th century and helping people instead of killing them, right? And I like when
[00:07:57] shows play with this. I like that's what I liked about sliders, at least the first three seasons
[00:08:03] of that, four and five seasons, fifth season got a little crazy. And of course, fringe was that way
[00:08:10] as well. And like I talked about in the previous episode, you know, I talked about kind of,
[00:08:17] you know, interstellar about how, you know, there are no gods. It's just us technologically advanced
[00:08:23] us. I like us kind of holding some of those things in tension, meanwhile keeping some scientific
[00:08:29] principles in the front of us and stuff. So anyways, those are just some of the things that I've been
[00:08:33] laughing about this past week. And I've been joking around with my class because there's
[00:08:38] genuinely some people who believe in all the conspiracy theories that tomorrow is the end of the world.
[00:08:43] So I'm releasing this episode on the end, on the eve of the end of the world here in 2024.
[00:08:49] You may be listening to this in the future and you may be like, I don't even remember that because
[00:08:54] it was bullshit. It really truly was and is, um, I don't know. And you know what's going to crack me up
[00:09:02] is someone who predicts like, quote unquote, the end of the world of societal collapse. And then
[00:09:07] it actually happens, right? You're like, you say it so many times by just the laws of probability.
[00:09:11] Right? Uh, eventually that will, uh, will, uh, what will happen. So it'll be interesting to see
[00:09:19] how folks react to that. But for tomorrow, it's the solar eclipse solar eclipse. That's it.
[00:09:24] It's all it is. Uh, don't look directly at it. All right. So oh my gosh, uh, religion and I think
[00:09:33] our own kind of mean world syndrome and biases tend to get the best of us. And I'm included in
[00:09:39] that. I think, you know, we all have to do. It's easy to kind of look up and be like, oh, I'm
[00:09:42] better than that. But it's easy, right? It's easy. I know as a researcher myself, it's like what
[00:09:47] I want to see, I'll find. Uh, and it, it is so simple to be like, oh, this equals that and this
[00:09:56] equals that. Um, without really putting it to the test and really asking, you know, just this
[00:10:02] is this really actually correlate. This has actually even come together. Um, and that's part of what,
[00:10:09] a large part of what evangelical Christianity does not want its people to do is to actually put
[00:10:15] some of those things together. Uh, so I earned for a faith where we can actually question beyond
[00:10:20] what we see in front of us and beyond the sacred scriptures that were shitterly put together
[00:10:25] in the councils of an ic. Oh my gosh, well, hey, if this is your first time listening to a
[00:10:30] profan faith welcome and you know, you probably in for a little joke. Uh, maybe I don't know,
[00:10:36] this next guest I have is great. Um, I got said, I like to switch things up every now and then
[00:10:41] and cat I met a few years back by the TC more reached out and was like, Hey man, I just got a new
[00:10:47] book. Love to come on the show. I was like, man, let's hook this up, you know, because I like to
[00:10:51] have different variations, different voices on here. It's not always all gloom and doom. Uh,
[00:10:56] and I think it's important to look at the folks who are doing the pragmatic work in spaces and
[00:11:03] churches and in denominations where quite honestly, I know I wouldn't want to go. I, people who
[00:11:08] can do this just got a different gear. Um, and you know, thank God for that. Uh, you know, thank
[00:11:15] God for people who are in the mix and who are in flux was having these conversations like people
[00:11:20] who work in like service industries. I'm like, Oh my gosh, like be a car salesman to be, uh,
[00:11:26] somebody who goes and fixes homes and so I'm just like, Oh man, I, whoo, that's crazy. So brother,
[00:11:32] TC Moore came out me and I was like, man, I got to get you on the show. And uh, so yeah, yeah,
[00:11:37] yeah, yeah. So again, if this is your first time always as always, go back and like us, uh, follow
[00:11:42] a subscribe. Um, check out previous episodes as a whole bunch of them at some point, I know we
[00:11:46] hit 200 episodes. So we're over 200 now, uh, which is kind of amazing, which is kind of amazing.
[00:11:52] I should probably have an episode just reflecting on the last six years of profane faith, but we'll
[00:11:58] get to that. We'll get to that. Uh, brother TC Moore, he's a pastor graffiti artist writer and
[00:12:04] technology nerd. Oh, no, no, no, he's theology nerd. He's tech nerd, but he's very much a
[00:12:09] theology nerd. Yeah, he serves as lead pastor of roots, a mer avian community in Saint Paul,
[00:12:14] Minnesota, and works with court involved youth and young adults applying restorative justice
[00:12:20] practices. And uh, he talks a lot about Jesus and liberation theology. Uh, and he's just a round
[00:12:27] about guide that I just appreciated over the over the years. And now he's got a book. He's a graduate
[00:12:32] of Gordon Cromwell Theological Seminary Center for Urban Ministerial Education out in Boston.
[00:12:37] And he's the author of the new book forged following Jesus into a new kind of family. He's
[00:12:43] going to talk about that. So I won't spill the beans now. He lives in Saint Paul with his spouse,
[00:12:48] Oshada and their three children. You can find more of TC online at TCmore.net as always. I'll put
[00:12:54] those links in the show notes as always at whitehouchpodcast.com. Um, I hope you enjoyed this conversation
[00:13:00] and go check out his book, uh, forged it's out now. Uh, it's a great read. It's an easy read
[00:13:06] and it gets at some some some good principles about when you're in the mix, especially for those
[00:13:11] you who are doing direct church ministries direct applied, um, professional church work. Uh,
[00:13:18] I think this, this could really be helpful in just in trying to encourage and trying to keep us
[00:13:23] on the mark. So without any further ado, here is TC and I have an conversation. I, I see you
[00:13:31] after the rapture. Peace. Let's, let's hit it. Oh, well, welcome back to pro fame faith,
[00:13:40] fam. Uh, we are here with brother TC more. It's got a new book out. We're going to get to that in
[00:13:46] a hot second. But TC welcome to welcome to the show, brother. Man, it's honor to be here. Oh,
[00:13:52] man, brother, we'll listen, man, I'm gonna start off. I'm gonna ask you something the same thing I
[00:13:56] ask everybody, man, what's been happening from birth to now, brother? Come on. Break it down for us
[00:14:01] from birth to now. Yes, come on. Well, I would say that, um, I would say that I grew up in Illinois.
[00:14:12] Okay. But I was born in SoCal. Okay. I was actually born in LaHoya, which sounds hoyditoid
[00:14:18] but I don't have any recollection of it. Okay. My mom, my mom was sort of a Midwest, um,
[00:14:25] refugee. You know, she like fled the Midwest. She was like prom queen and, you know, blue eye
[00:14:32] blonde hair. She said, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it to the beach. Okay. So she went to
[00:14:37] SoCal and um, soared her wild oats in the, I want to say the late 70s. Okay. So, um,
[00:14:48] so then she, you know, she raised me back in the Midwest. So I grew up in, I know you're familiar with
[00:14:53] Champaign or Banna, the home of the fighting a lion eye University of Illinois. So I grew up in this
[00:14:59] little, you know, I call it like a progressive oasis in the middle of Trump, Landia. You know,
[00:15:05] if you look at a election map from 2016, it's like all red from Chicago down because one county
[00:15:12] that's Champaign County. Okay. That's of the university, you know, so camp is town upbringing and
[00:15:21] single mom when I was, when I was about eight years old, she was, she had a nervous breakdown
[00:15:30] and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Okay. So I opened the book with that story. That's actually
[00:15:36] the first chapter. Okay. How, what happens when family breaks down? What happened when
[00:15:43] family doesn't exist? Yeah. When you don't have much of a family. That was my story. You know,
[00:15:50] when, when she had her nervous breakdown, I was placed in foster care. I was awarded the state
[00:15:56] and no siblings, no extended family to really take care of me. So bounced around from foster
[00:16:03] family to foster family for a little while. And then when she regained custody of me,
[00:16:08] I must have been 10. And back then, I mean, you know, we're all very aware of mental
[00:16:16] mental health these days, right? We all love therapy and, you know, we've destigmatized,
[00:16:22] you know, anti-depressants and all that. But this is back in the, you know, early 90s. So
[00:16:29] yeah. She came home to, you know, to me on Howl Doll and Lithium. And was in my, in my, you know,
[00:16:38] and I say this in the book, I have a little disclaimer in the book. Look, look, look,
[00:16:42] I, whatever you need to do for your mental health, you know, I appreciate it. And it's valuable
[00:16:47] and it's important from my perspective as a 10-year-old, my mom was like a different person.
[00:16:52] You know, like her personality had completely changed. Yeah. And that's when years of abuse
[00:16:57] and neglect began. Okay. So really, the book starts with a question. Why do we have this
[00:17:06] ideal of the nuclear family in our brains? Where did that come from? Yeah. You know,
[00:17:11] and really as Christians from a Christian perspective, what does that have to do with Jesus?
[00:17:17] What does the nuclear family have to do with Jesus? Right? Yeah. So one of the first passages that I,
[00:17:23] you know, exegy or I don't really do a lot of exegesis in the book. This is for, you know,
[00:17:29] a general audience. But one of the first passages that I relate to in the book is when Jesus and his
[00:17:36] mother and brothers are coming to take charge of him. They think he's lost his mind. And somebody
[00:17:42] tells Jesus, you know, your mother and your brother here is he said, who is my mother? And who are
[00:17:47] my brothers? Right? Yeah. Then that do the will of the Lord. So I begin with this idea of
[00:17:54] actually Jesus is not invested in the modern American notion of a nuclear family. Okay, talk about it.
[00:18:01] And that hasn't, that hasn't been my experience. Yeah. And as I read, as I read Jesus' teachings,
[00:18:08] I see him explicating a kingdom of God that is more akin to a kingdom of God. Okay. You know,
[00:18:20] shout out to sister, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, so that's really where I start the book.
[00:18:33] Is why do we have this notion of, um, the nuclear family comes from the 50s and 60s popular culture
[00:18:40] imagination. I call it lever to leave it to beaver, uh, you know, marketing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:47] And then, and then what does that have to do with the teachings of Jesus? Nothing. Actually,
[00:18:52] Jesus is never invested in that instead. What Jesus is invested in is an expansive, inclusive
[00:19:01] view of God's household. That is, that is ever expanding. That is, uh, inclusive. Um, that is
[00:19:11] modeling and alternative to the ways in which the kingdoms of this world are organized,
[00:19:16] which is by power and violence, exclusion, domination. Okay.
[00:19:23] Okay.
[00:19:25] Well, man, this is, uh, this is interesting as you're bringing up, uh, family. I teach a course
[00:19:32] called social media friends and family. Um, it's actually good to be going on this spring here.
[00:19:36] Uh, and, you know, one of the things that we talk a lot about is, you know, how,
[00:19:40] how has family changed? What are the social constructs of family? How has,
[00:19:46] how, hey, you know, what is this? What are the, you know, as, as social scientists call it,
[00:19:50] right? What is the, what is the social, what is the North American standard, you know,
[00:19:55] definition of family, right? You know, when you think about, you know, a nuclear family,
[00:19:59] your mother and her father, what, um, what are some of those notions and how, how,
[00:20:05] how is that some sort of gotten wrapped up, particularly with where we find ourselves now,
[00:20:11] right? It's like, um, you know, laws being passed against, you know, LGBTQI folks, you know,
[00:20:17] and our family and there, uh, you got people, you know, passing all kind of trans laws,
[00:20:22] you know, they can't access this. I mean, there's all kinds of things, you know, people
[00:20:26] keep saying in the last focus on the family. We want, you know, we got family values.
[00:20:31] How is that notion different from what you're like talking about? You know, you're trying to get
[00:20:35] out here, man, in your text. That's exactly right. Yeah. So this idea of family values has been
[00:20:45] very much rooted in an investment in the nuclear family. The, the mom dad 2.5 kids, you know,
[00:20:53] Cocker Spaniel and a, and a minivan and a white picket fence, right? Yeah. But the family values that
[00:21:00] Jesus models in his ministry and in his teachings are a outreach and an inclusiveness to the marginalized.
[00:21:11] Okay. A new, a new conception of kinship. What is kinship? What does it mean to be kins? And Jesus
[00:21:22] reimagines kinship in a way that says the zealot, Simon the zealot is now brother to leave
[00:21:32] hide the tax collector. These are now brothers in a new kind of family or let's, let's fast forward to
[00:21:42] the, you know, the, the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus who has a revelation of the risen Christ on the road
[00:21:51] to Damascus and what is the first word spoken to him by a follower of Jesus post that revelation?
[00:21:59] Brother Saul. So his entire, his entire theology begins with who are you Lord? I am Jesus
[00:22:10] whom you are persecuting. Well, who was he persecuting? Was he persecuting Jesus? No, Jesus was
[00:22:14] already ascended. So he was persecuting the followers of the way, right? And Jesus appears to him
[00:22:21] and says actually you're, you're persecuting me my body, my people. And then brother Saul is the
[00:22:28] first word spoken to him. So this whole concept of following the way of Jesus is also wrapped up
[00:22:36] in a new reimagining of God's household, of kinship, of what it means to be family.
[00:22:45] And this has been my journey. So you asked, you know, from birth to now, my journey has taken me
[00:22:50] all over the United States. When I was 19, I moved to New Orleans. I lived in New Orleans until Katrina.
[00:22:55] Katrina, Katrina uprooted us very abruptly against our wills. And we were committed to New Orleans.
[00:23:05] We were ready to serve there for the rest of our lives. But suddenly we found ourselves effectively
[00:23:10] homeless because we're watching the news and they're saying we may not let people back into the city
[00:23:15] for weeks, possibly months. And we were like, what do you mean weeks, possibly months?
[00:23:18] Right. So suddenly we were, we found ourselves needing a new place to live.
[00:23:24] We found ourselves migrating to the east coast and we lived the next 10 years in Boston,
[00:23:30] in Cambridge in particular. And so then there we forged a lot of family.
[00:23:36] Forged a lot of family in New Orleans too. A lot of kin, like a lot of non-biological kin
[00:23:43] in New Orleans, Boston. And then in 2016 moved to LA. This is where we ran into each other one time.
[00:23:51] Do you remember Tommisha and Delante?
[00:23:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I think we saw each other at a party once but
[00:24:01] I'd already read your book and I was already a big fan so it was fun.
[00:24:06] Yeah, Tommisha makes me choose she's family man. That's the story.
[00:24:09] Forged family right? Right, right.
[00:24:12] Well, absolutely. So you know, lived in LA for about three years
[00:24:16] and then took a call to a church up here in St. Paul, I'm in the twin cities now.
[00:24:22] Okay.
[00:24:23] In the twin cities for six years. So really got the four corners covered. You know, been deep south,
[00:24:28] east coast, west coast, now I'm in the bold north. So my journey has taken me all over the United
[00:24:34] States and what I have observed as a follower of Jesus is that in each place I've lived,
[00:24:40] I have since this calling to delve deeper into relationships beyond, you know,
[00:24:46] casual acquaintanceships, church attendees and acquaintances. And instead forged real bonds of
[00:24:53] kinship in Christ. And that's what the book is about. It's about my journey and how that process
[00:24:59] has unfolded in my life and how I think it and I think it unfolds for others.
[00:25:04] Tell me a little bit about, you know, and how you you navigate, you know, your family can be,
[00:25:10] I mean, we just got done with the holiday season here. You know, at the time of this recording,
[00:25:14] right? The end of 2023 and 2024, you know, family can be, you know, a tough area, right,
[00:25:23] for a lot of people to navigate, right? Whether it be abuse, whether it be hurt, whether it be
[00:25:29] folks that are, you know, just having spoken in a long time. You know, maybe somebody got,
[00:25:35] you know, as a man, sorry, man, this is this happens all the time. I got to look cat.
[00:25:41] And she's always messing with shit back here and I got two of them. Yeah, yeah,
[00:25:47] this is macha in there. She's always messy. Is she a bomb? Is she a bombay? She is, yes. Yeah,
[00:25:53] I got two bombay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. We got three and she's the, she's the mischievous one, man.
[00:26:01] Anyway, that's the, there she goes back on. So anyways, I apologize for that. My listeners are
[00:26:06] are accustomed to stuff crashing in the back and being like, hold up. But anyways, man, you know,
[00:26:13] how do you engage with this, this kind of concept of family man, especially when there's so
[00:26:20] many deep pains, hurts, rifts and stuff. Man, I mean, I get about the extended family. I get
[00:26:27] about, you know, creating that but talk to me a little bit about that man. What's been your
[00:26:32] experience with that? And you know, particularly for those who say, nah, man, I'm good by myself.
[00:26:38] I kind of the American US way of individualism and stuff. If that makes sense, I know that's a lot.
[00:26:44] Absolutely. So right away, I recognized that my book could come across to some folks as very
[00:26:53] polyanish. You know, I have a, I have a positive view of family and the way in which it has unfolded
[00:27:02] in my life through, you know, forging deep friendships, right? And I was teaching a series at my church
[00:27:09] called The Church as Forged Family. And one of my dear sisters in the church, she said, you know,
[00:27:16] TCU, when you think of family, you think of all your forged family and you have a very positive
[00:27:21] view. She said, but when I think of family, I think of exclusion. And I was like, wow, that's
[00:27:27] a really good point, you know, I need to address this right away in the book. And so the very first
[00:27:34] chapter is why do we, why do we think of the nuclear family when we think of the family when
[00:27:41] Jesus reimagines kinship. But the second chapter is all about the ways in which family can be toxic
[00:27:49] and the ways in which family can be a manipulative concept. You know, nowadays you work at target
[00:27:57] and they say, oh, you know, we're not a company. We're a family. No, you're a company. You'll
[00:28:02] fire me exactly. So family can be really manipulative and the way that I start that chapter is with my
[00:28:13] experience in gang life because when I was when I was 13, I was initiated into a gang. And that
[00:28:20] was the closest thing that I had experienced up until that point to family. That was my closest
[00:28:25] thing to family. And it was very highly manipulative. You know, the relationships were all based on
[00:28:34] quid pro quo. What could you do for me? And there was no sense of like unconditional love. There
[00:28:40] was no sense of like, you know, we're committed to one another long term. It was more so we're on a
[00:28:47] mission together and that and that mission is completely dependent on how profitable you are to me
[00:28:52] or how, you know, how much you benefit me or how much you protect me or whatever.
[00:28:59] So I talk about the positive sides of gang life and I talk about the negative sides of gang life.
[00:29:06] And then I move from there into some of the concepts that have helped me understand toxic dynamics
[00:29:14] in family structures. Here's a great example. A lot of people saw in Kanto. What year was that? 2021?
[00:29:22] Yeah, I think yeah. Yeah. A lot of people saw in Kanto. And in Kanto is a beautiful movie with
[00:29:27] beautiful music. Yeah. Yeah. And but maybe some people haven't really
[00:29:33] appreciated how it delves into toxic family dynamics. Yeah. Yeah. Come on.
[00:29:39] Yeah. So one of the things that I've drawn out in the book is that, you know, Mirabelle who's
[00:29:43] the main character in a Kanto, she's wrestling with a toxic family dynamic. One that has oppressed
[00:29:51] Bruno. We all know the song. We don't talk about Bruno. Well, why don't we talk about Bruno? Because
[00:29:55] Bruno has been oppressed. But Bruno is in the basement or in the attic or wherever he is. He's
[00:30:02] out of sight out of mind. But then they've also created this secretism, this hiddenness of
[00:30:09] the way in which we don't talk about a lot of things. We don't talk about what happened to start
[00:30:14] this family. We don't talk about the trauma that's at the core of this family. We don't talk about
[00:30:18] that. And so there's a lot of hiding. There's a lot of deception. And I talk about these concepts
[00:30:26] in the context of family systems theory. One of the one of the concepts has helped me a lot is
[00:30:34] differentiation versus enmeshment. Yeah, come on. Come on. Family system. We need to be
[00:30:41] differentiated. You need to have an individual sense of self. You are an individual. However, you
[00:30:47] are related to the family in healthy ways. If that relationship to the family becomes too
[00:30:55] enmeshed, that becomes unhealthy. You don't have a positive sense of self. You don't have a
[00:31:00] positive differentiation. So there's a really, really fine dynamic between understanding yourself
[00:31:05] as an individual and understanding yourself as related to your family, right? Right.
[00:31:10] So that's an important concept. Then I also draw from Scott McNight's book, A Church Called Tove.
[00:31:16] Because Scott McNight talks about how churches can become toxic structures, toxic cultures.
[00:31:25] In particular, the book is about Willow Creek, which Scott McNight was sort of like the
[00:31:31] ologian in residence there for a while. And he witnessed the whole downfall of what's his name?
[00:31:39] Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole downfall of Bill Hybel. So
[00:31:46] actually, ironically, just this past week, Scott McNight resigned from northern seminary for
[00:31:53] similar reasons. Okay. Yeah. In his resignation letter, which I think he gave to religion news or
[00:32:01] some other outlet online, it said that one of the reasons why he had resigned was because of a
[00:32:08] toxic culture at Northern. Okay. Okay. Interestingly, you know, kind of relevant and timely in this
[00:32:14] moment. But yeah, I draw from that book as well to talk about why do we even have institutional
[00:32:25] churches that are more invested in protecting their brand than protecting people?
[00:32:33] Absolutely. Yeah. Particularly women and children, right? Yeah.
[00:32:37] We have these churches that circle the wagons and blame the accuser. They ostracized people
[00:32:49] who are trying to call attention to toxic dynamics within the church. And that whole phenomenon
[00:32:59] that's just reoccurring in our culture over and over again. So I draw attention to that.
[00:33:02] Okay. The whole point of this is that we have to address the dangers of the family as a concept.
[00:33:12] We have to address the ways in which it can be misused, abused, manipulated and before
[00:33:21] we can find a healthy way to forge family in the way of Jesus.
[00:33:26] All right. That probably brings up a lot of questions. No, I mean,
[00:33:30] I mean, I like the approach with family systems. Again, going back to teaching,
[00:33:35] I teach my interpersonal class from a family systems approach. And so we talk about just some
[00:33:42] of the nuances that happens in a family, especially when you add in siblings and you add
[00:33:48] another issue such as passive aggressivism. You start adding in people's expectations
[00:34:00] of each other, gender roles, racialized roles, you know, young man in this family. We don't,
[00:34:07] that those type of things. How does one then inside of, because you're absolutely right.
[00:34:18] I mean, in terms of organizations, that was the culture, particularly of the 90s and 2000s,
[00:34:23] right. It was like, oh, we're a family here. We really like, you know, we're, I think that was in
[00:34:30] fact in the office. I think that was Michael Scott's, you know, one of his first lines. Like,
[00:34:35] we're a family here and he would go on to say some other crazy things. Like, you know, the dad
[00:34:43] doesn't take a bath with the kids anymore. And so, you know, just some crazy stuff. But I'd be
[00:34:50] curious, man. Like in those situations, how do you begin? What are some red flags that you can
[00:34:55] begin to notice, particularly for folks working in organizations where they be church, you know,
[00:35:00] face-based non-face base. But what are some red flags when people start saying those things?
[00:35:04] Like, oh, we're family. But then abusing the hell out of you on the side, right? Does that make
[00:35:09] sense? Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. I talk about some of my experiences in institutional churches,
[00:35:18] where I have experienced personally verbal, emotional, spiritual abuse. You know, I was on staff
[00:35:25] at a church in which the pastor was, you know, displayed narcissistic tendencies and authoritarian
[00:35:34] tendencies. I would say one of the big red flags is, is your pastor accountable? What are the
[00:35:43] accountability structures in place? Because in the 90s and 2000s, there was a big push for
[00:35:53] church planting. You know, my wife and I call it the church planting industrial complex.
[00:35:57] Oh, absolutely. I mean, there was conferences. I went to a few conferences in Orlando,
[00:36:03] thousands of church planters gathered together in Orlando, right? For the exponential conference.
[00:36:11] And a lot of times those church plants, they become little fiefdoms where the planter is
[00:36:19] unapproachable, unaccountable. And so the church that I was a part of was structured in such a way
[00:36:26] that the lead pastor had unchecked power, appointed and could remove board members unilaterally with no
[00:36:36] processes, no due process. So when conflict comes up in a system like that,
[00:36:44] there's no accountability. There's no way to check pastors. And so that's why I'll never
[00:36:51] work for a non-denominational church ever again because I need that denominational accountability.
[00:36:57] I need it as a pastor and I expect it from other pastors. Okay. So I would say number one red flag
[00:37:05] is what are the accountability structures? Are there accountability structures or no?
[00:37:10] Number two is what happens when something is brought up, some criticism is brought up. What
[00:37:19] happens? Pay attention to how churches or institutions of all kinds, nonprofits, even for profits,
[00:37:27] right? What happens when they're criticized? Is it immediately defensive? Is it immediately
[00:37:35] circle the wagons, protect the brand and that kind of thing? Or do they do a thorough investigation
[00:37:43] and take that criticism to heart and make systemic changes in the structure and the way things are
[00:37:50] done in that organization? I think that would be the number two. And number three is I would say pay
[00:37:56] attention to those who are no longer part of the organization. Why? Because I wasn't the first pastor
[00:38:04] to be abused in this church that I'm talking about. There was pastors before me and there
[00:38:09] was pastors after me. And when I asked questions about the pastors that came before me who left under
[00:38:16] mysterious circumstances, it was sort of hush-hush. It was sort of like, well we don't talk about that.
[00:38:22] We don't talk about Bruno, you know. And pay attention to that because what's being hidden and why?
[00:38:32] I think there should be a transparency in organizations that ostensibly call themselves Christian
[00:38:40] about why people leave for what reasons?
[00:38:43] Man, these are good. I mean, I think these, my partner works. She does HR. She has her own business
[00:38:53] and everything. And so one of the things I'm pretty too is just all the mess that happens in an
[00:38:59] organization. She primarily works with nonprofit organizations of color that are trying to do some
[00:39:06] good things, just in society in general. But you know, obviously don't maybe they don't have an HR
[00:39:12] core or maybe they don't have some of the things in place because like you said, that accountability.
[00:39:20] That's I think there's something to be said about that because I feel like particularly an organized
[00:39:26] religion and professionalized ministry, right? There's a sense that the senior pastor is kind of next
[00:39:33] to God. And so they can, you know, they it's difficult then to criticize, let alone try to bring
[00:39:41] up some kind of issue of abuse or misconduct, right? I mean, what was it? I think we all saw the
[00:39:49] documentary on what was it? Hillsong or something like that. Exactly.
[00:39:56] So yeah, navigating some of those things, man, I think I think those, that's important. So I like
[00:40:00] those red flags. Um, we're here before I ask this next question. Let me back up, man. So why a book
[00:40:07] will got you into this is your third, fourth, fifth, your first book? I like what, what about
[00:40:14] writing in you were like, okay, this is the time. Here we are 2024. I'm going to release a book and
[00:40:20] put this thing out there. I think this book is really the culmination of 20 plus years of ministry
[00:40:29] and experience I've had. Like I said, traveling and being being part of different communities
[00:40:34] all around the country. The timing just aligned serendipitously with kind of the tail end of the
[00:40:43] pandemic as people were sort of re-engaging in in person community, right? We had taken a break from
[00:40:52] in person community. Everybody was online, you know, everything was virtual. And we had started to got
[00:40:59] comfortable with that. Yeah. And it was very difficult to emerge from that and relearn how to be
[00:41:06] part of community. And I think that was sort of my impetus to say, I think this book would be really
[00:41:12] timely right now. But really the spark that started the beginning of this book was our mutual friend
[00:41:21] Michelle Clifton. Oh yeah. Clifton? Yeah. So she was teaching a theology class that I was a part of
[00:41:26] and she was talking about baptism. And she used the phrase, water is thicker than blood.
[00:41:33] And I was like, that's it. That's absolutely the kernel that I needed to encapsulate my experience
[00:41:40] of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. That that that chosen family, that that alternative
[00:41:50] family that has been a part of my life because I'm a follower of Jesus is my story. Yeah. And so
[00:41:56] this book is highly autobiographical, but it's also a way of saying you to have the capacity
[00:42:05] to forge family in your local community. And I want to say that like this has nothing to do with
[00:42:11] the institutional church. I'm not I'm not talking about church planting. I'm not talking about
[00:42:17] I'm not talking about, you know, starting a 501c3 organization. Right, right, right. That's not
[00:42:24] what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you can forge family wherever you are, no matter what
[00:42:30] level, no matter what part of the country, part of the world. I believe this is actually
[00:42:38] core to who we are. We're social creatures and we're designed to be in community with one another
[00:42:44] and to share deeply in those friendships and bonds of kinship beyond just our biological
[00:42:51] kin, right. And so one of the things that I draw out in the book is this tendency to try to
[00:42:58] institutionalize everything. Yeah. Somebody's going to read my book and they're going to say,
[00:43:02] oh, I need to I need to turn this into an institution. Yeah. That's not the point of the book.
[00:43:07] You know, there's a story that people are familiar with, the transfiguration story where Jesus
[00:43:13] takes Peter James and John up on a mountain and his glory is revealed to them. You know, Moses
[00:43:20] is there, Elijah's there. And these are three people in the world, the history of the world who
[00:43:26] have witnessed this moment, right? And instead of soaking it in, Peter's instinct is to say,
[00:43:32] can I build some chapels right here? Three chapels. Can I build a structure and institution around
[00:43:38] this experience? And I use that as an analogy in the book to say we have tried to institutionalize
[00:43:47] the miraculous experience of forged family. And it has failed. The institution is not the point.
[00:43:55] We were missing the point. Having the structures and having the vast bureaucracies that we have,
[00:44:03] the hierarchies that we have, that's not what Jesus intended. What Jesus intended was the
[00:44:09] relationships. That's the part that matters. It's the forging of family. It's the influence on one
[00:44:15] another. It's the encouragement of one another. It's the commitment to one another. All of those
[00:44:21] good things, that's what Jesus had in mind when he talked about his kingdom. It wasn't, hey,
[00:44:27] go build a chapel for me and a big ol' bureaucracy. That I think is, you know, when you start talking
[00:44:36] about that and building a system around it, building a program around it, building measures around it,
[00:44:44] it's almost baked into so much of what we do in quote unquote the church, right? It's like,
[00:44:52] okay, well let's get this program. Let's get this outreach thing. Let's get this thing over here.
[00:44:57] Oh, we got homeless people. Let's go over and do this, right? And so I don't know it's interesting.
[00:45:02] I'm glad you brought that up because I do think there is something to a system but you're right,
[00:45:09] right? The systems then become that and then it becomes, you know, about the red tape. Well,
[00:45:16] did you do this? Did you fill this out? Did you do that? You know, are you a part of the club or
[00:45:20] you not part of the club? Well, just what, you know, can become very insidious very quickly.
[00:45:28] And you know, you start adding in demographics to all of that. So when you think about family,
[00:45:33] then how do we try to, I don't want to say avoid but steer maybe around somebody in folks who are
[00:45:43] just like, all right, because you're right. I'm sure somebody will read this and be like, all right,
[00:45:47] I'm going to go out and we're going to start a forged discipleship program right now.
[00:45:54] You know, and it's going to be six weeks at the end of it. You go and get a certificate and
[00:45:58] XYZ or whatever you know what I'm saying? I mean, you can, I can already see somebody wanting
[00:46:03] to do that somewhere which was always my struggle when I used to be the director of the center for
[00:46:11] use ministry. You know, when I was, you know, doing that thing was people wanted systems. They
[00:46:18] wanted things that we could say that are tangible. And I get that to a point again, I'm not necessarily
[00:46:25] disparaging systems. I'm a part of a system. Right? You're right. You're right. You know what I'm saying?
[00:46:31] It's just like there's a process to get a degree. So I'm, I'm, I, I, I, I helped that process along.
[00:46:38] I try to help individuals go through that process. Um, but how do we, yeah, how do we steer
[00:46:44] through this man as you know when people try to take the real ethos of your book? What are some
[00:46:49] take what are some takeaways, you know, with that? Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. I would say
[00:46:54] in place of institutionalism and bureaucracies and red tape and all that in place of that,
[00:47:01] what I recommend is rhythms. Okay. I think what, what forges family is are the experiences that we
[00:47:10] share in common and that we do continually. It's not a one time thing. You can't forge family
[00:47:16] by going to the beach together. Okay? That's one experience. Yeah. And it's fun. But you didn't
[00:47:22] forge family that one, that one and done experience. Forging family takes consistency and it takes
[00:47:30] experiences that you share in common that you make meaning from. So what I, what I, um,
[00:47:37] I tell this story in the book when I used to work with youth that are on probation. Um,
[00:47:43] this young man was, was opening up in group. He was really turning a new,
[00:47:48] turning over a new leaf. He was saying, you know, I want to stop hanging out with the guys I've
[00:47:52] been hanging out with. They've been nothing but trouble for me. I want to start, you know,
[00:47:56] moving my life in a positive direction and, uh, a mutual acquaintance of mine who was there. He
[00:48:03] said, that's absolutely right. You're doing the right thing. He said, what you need to do is you
[00:48:08] need to surround yourself with people who are moving in the right direction and who are encouraging
[00:48:14] you to move in the right direction. And then you need to gather with those people on a regular basis.
[00:48:20] And when you gather with those people on a regular basis, you should, you should practice some kind
[00:48:25] of grounding, uh, rituals, some kind of rituals that unite each other. And I'm just laughing
[00:48:32] because the guy who's saying all this is somebody who adamantly rejects religion, right? He's
[00:48:38] a spiritual but not religious person. And I'm over here laughing because I'm like, you're describing
[00:48:44] church. Yeah. Yeah. You're talking about, uh, you're talking about a group of people who gather
[00:48:50] together regularly and perform rituals that unite each other in a new kind of momentum and movement
[00:49:00] in life. And I said, yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what Jesus was teaching. And this is what
[00:49:07] the early church models for us, right? What does Acts 2 say? They gathered together. They, they,
[00:49:12] they read the scriptures together. They broke bread together. They fellowship together. They prayed
[00:49:17] together. These experiences are formative. So I compare this to, you know, the canyon that is
[00:49:25] carved out of a mountain because of the water flowing through it continual. That rhythm of gathering
[00:49:33] together and having shared meaning around shared rituals or shared experiences. Yeah.
[00:49:41] That is what forges family year after year after year after year. And and I would even take it
[00:49:47] a step further and say, if you're going to forge family in the way of Jesus, those practices that
[00:49:54] you participate in together should revolve around the teachings and the life of Jesus. So this,
[00:50:00] this is why I've gravitated in the last 10, 15 years towards a more, um, calendar based worship
[00:50:09] rhythm. I really love the church calendar because for me every year, I'm walked through the life of
[00:50:16] Jesus. I'm walked through the life of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus in a, in a structured way.
[00:50:23] And with my community, I'm making meaning in my life through those teachings. So for example,
[00:50:33] right now we're in the season of epiphany. And my community, my small, you know, proto church,
[00:50:41] non institutional church, we're talking about what does it mean to contemplate the glory of God.
[00:50:51] That's a practice that we're doing communally. So we're using icons, the icons of Kelly Latimore.
[00:50:57] icons like the one that he just recently wrote, which is called Christ in the rubble. Did you see
[00:51:04] that one? Shane Clayborn, Shane Clayborn and Red Letter Christians partnered with Kelly Latimore
[00:51:10] to commission an icon that depicts the Holy Family in the midst of Palestine. And the, you know,
[00:51:18] the, the bombings that are taking place in Palestine. Yeah. And the icon is called Christ in the rubble.
[00:51:24] In the rubble. So, oh, I heard about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:51:29] So our community is contemplating the glory of God, you know, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ
[00:51:35] through these icons. And that's a communal practice that we're doing together to be formed
[00:51:42] in the image of Jesus as a community, right? So this is our kind of example. This is one example
[00:51:49] of how a community practices rhythms together to be formed as family. And think about your own
[00:51:57] family, right? Your family has traditions. What do you do on Thanksgiving? What do you do on Christmas?
[00:52:01] What do you do on Easter, right? Year after year families have rhythms. Oh, we always go to my
[00:52:08] dads house or we always, we always eat these foods or we always open our presence this way. My family
[00:52:13] has a tradition of, we go to the movies on Christmas morning in our PJs. That's our, that's our
[00:52:17] tradition, you know, that's a rhythm that our family has. We're like getting up and, and keeping our
[00:52:23] PJs on and going to the movies in our PJs and watching a movie together. That's our rhythm.
[00:52:29] Yeah, that's one of our traditions. And then you know, this year, so my oldest son is 21. This
[00:52:34] year two of my kids didn't put on their PJs and my oldest son was upset. He said, you don't have
[00:52:40] your PJs on. Get your PJs on, you know, because he's come into that tradition. You know, he's
[00:52:45] like, no, we can't go to the movies and regular clothes on Christmas morning. We've got to go to
[00:52:49] the movies in our PJs. That's a, that's our thing, right? So that's just an example of how I think
[00:52:56] families are forged in these rhythms, you know. Another thing I would say is families are forged
[00:53:02] when they work through conflict. Oh, yeah, you can't force them if you're not working through
[00:53:08] conflict. Okay. And so I have a chapter in the book that's about Matthew 18 because I think Jesus
[00:53:14] really emphasizes that if you're going to be brothers and sisters, if you're going to be siblings,
[00:53:20] in me, in the Messiah, you're going to face adversity. You're going to face conflict.
[00:53:26] And there's going to be, there's going to have to be a way for you to work through that conflict.
[00:53:32] And so Matthew 18 is really a bit of a blueprint for how to approach kind of a structure,
[00:53:39] how to approach working through conflict. And I'm actually also reading a book by Rabbi
[00:53:45] named Dan, Dania. I'm going to mess up her name. Dania Rettemberg called on repentance and repair.
[00:53:54] And you know, she's using the philosophy of momadides from the Middle Ages but it's very similar
[00:54:00] in a lot of ways to the structure that Jesus lays out in Matthew 18. You know, Jesus talks about if
[00:54:08] you're, if you're sibling, if you're sibling in Christ, sins against you go directly to them.
[00:54:13] Well, that's the first step in momadides philosophy too. You got to, you got to, you got to go directly
[00:54:18] to the person who you're in conflict with. Don't go around them. Don't triangulate. Don't bring,
[00:54:25] you know, don't get, don't get, go get back up. Go directly to them. This is, this is step one.
[00:54:31] You know, sometimes that doesn't work. We know sometimes that doesn't work. So in community,
[00:54:37] there's a second step. It is, go get some witnesses, right? You need witnesses. This is not back up.
[00:54:44] This is accountability. The witnesses in the second step are going to provide
[00:54:50] a mirror to what's going on in this conflict. A lot of times we think this is ganging up on somebody,
[00:54:56] but this isn't ganging up on somebody because oftentimes when we go to that second person or
[00:55:01] that third person, they're saying actually TC, do you know that you have a lot to do with this
[00:55:06] conflict? This isn't all on them. And you go, oh, look at that. I didn't see that, right? And so
[00:55:14] you get more perspective from that second layer of the process. And then one of the things that
[00:55:21] I find fascinating about Matthew 18 is that Matthew 18 says, if that doesn't work, take it before
[00:55:28] the church. Well, we know that we know that the gospels were written after the epistles, after
[00:55:34] Paul's letters. So what church is Jesus talking about? There's no church at this point except
[00:55:43] that Jesus has gathered a community of disciples, right? He has gathered around Himself,
[00:55:50] the 12th and the 72th, and he has his inner circle, the three, right? He's gathered around himself,
[00:55:56] this community of disciples. And NT Wright calls this the proto church. I really like that actually.
[00:56:02] I think the proto church is closer to what Jesus had in mind than what we see today in a lot of
[00:56:07] institutional bureaucratic structures that call themselves churches, right? What Jesus had more in
[00:56:16] mind was a committed group of people who are on mission together, who are practicing rhythms together,
[00:56:26] and who are working through conflict together, the proto church, right? So it is easy as take
[00:56:32] it to the church. I think this is a beautiful aspect of forged family. What I found in myself,
[00:56:40] this is my personal kind of bent. I'm very anti-institutional. My hackles go up when you start
[00:56:49] talking about rules and regulations. But what I have found inside myself is that when I am part
[00:56:55] of a forged family, when I have worked through conflict with siblings in Christ, when I have
[00:57:02] years of rhythms that have formed me in relationship to these siblings, I want to be accountable to them.
[00:57:09] I want them to speak into my life and tell me what they see that I don't see in myself. I crave
[00:57:15] that. I desire that. And so this doesn't need to look like the church shaming someone. This can
[00:57:22] look like somebody really bearing, bearing themselves in a positive way before the church and saying,
[00:57:28] am I missing something? Did I step out a line here in a way that I didn't recognize I stepped out
[00:57:33] a line? Right. I think it's actually a very positive approach. And then lastly, this is the most
[00:57:40] controversial part of the process. Jesus says, if all of this fails, treat them like a Gentile
[00:57:47] or a tax collector. And a lot of people have seen in that statement, exclusion, have seen in that
[00:57:55] a sort of what is it called? Anathema or disfellowship. But actually how did Jesus treat Gentiles
[00:58:04] and tax collectors? He loved them. He loved them and he kept inviting them into his family.
[00:58:10] So it wasn't exclusion. I don't think Jesus is preaching exclusion. Jesus is teaching us
[00:58:16] that there is a committed community and outside of that committed community are people that are
[00:58:21] being invited into that community. It's not either or it's not, it's not your insiders and your
[00:58:26] outsiders, either you're committed to this thing that we're calling family the new family,
[00:58:33] the new household or you're or you're being invited into it. Now some people are going to get
[00:58:38] the invitation and say no thanks, right? Even the rich young ruler was invited and he went away sad
[00:58:44] because he couldn't, he couldn't part with his, his wealth. So but those people are continually
[00:58:50] invited. Gentiles and tax collectors aren't excluded. Jesus is constantly calling them into his kingdom.
[00:58:59] So this is good. I'm glad you bring this up. This is good because I think we're where we're at
[00:59:05] right now. I mean, as a society, as a world politically, socially, structurally, right?
[00:59:18] I would love to hear your thoughts on where we go because right now, it's like
[00:59:26] you think about Christianity in general. There's a lot of splits. There's a lot of schism.
[00:59:32] There's us versus them. Liberal versus conservative. Conservative says liberals, they're demonic.
[00:59:41] You know, there's this, you know, it's in and if you associate with him, right? Then you've got
[00:59:47] wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage and we're, you know, we're pushed apart and granted
[00:59:55] you talked a little bit about the toxicity of that and some of the red flags and so
[01:00:00] but then how do we navigate and gauge with or maybe we don't. I mean, I don't know it. I mean,
[01:00:05] I think that's, I think that's one of the challenges because
[01:00:10] that scenario that you've laid out from the gospel of Matthew, I've had that done.
[01:00:19] And it didn't go well.
[01:00:20] And so we're dealing with the issue of human fallibility, right? Is that we're dealing with
[01:00:32] the issue of people who do show up with egos. You can say, oh, you want to. I ain't showing all
[01:00:37] egos like, yeah, man, we fixed to get this motherfucker out here, man. We going down right now. So
[01:00:43] I be curious, man, because you know, the numbers aren't shifting just from a broad perspective
[01:00:52] towards Christianity, right? It's like, so I, you know, let's get into that just a little bit.
[01:01:00] I know our time is not and I don't mean to ask you big ass question here, you know, at the very
[01:01:05] tail end, but I'd be curious. I know your last chapter is dealing a little bit with this and just,
[01:01:12] I mean, name it real quick. I was just going through the community of misfits or chapter 10.
[01:01:19] Yeah, I'd be curious, man, because again, social media news, wherever you get your
[01:01:26] information from, it's showing us. Okay, I mean, even just this Palestinian Jewish debate, right?
[01:01:32] You got absolutely some Christians are just like, hell now. They got to go in there and wipe them out
[01:01:37] and you got other people saying, hold up now. Hold up. There's some atrocities happening here. So
[01:01:43] I know that makes sense. I'd be curious, you know, what, what, what you think about that?
[01:01:49] This is exactly where the latter half of my book goes. Okay. Because I agree with you. This is where
[01:01:57] you get into issues of culture. Immediately when you start talking about, you know, conflict,
[01:02:06] one of the major areas of conflict is we are entrenched in our cultures. Okay. And so the next chapter
[01:02:14] after the conflict chapter is called swimming lessons. Okay. The idea behind that is
[01:02:20] for a person their own culture is like water to a fish. You don't even see it because you're so
[01:02:27] immersed in it, right? So the old joke is, you know, two fish are swimming along and older,
[01:02:34] wiser fish is swimming the other direction and he says to the two fish, how's the water today?
[01:02:40] And they look at him strangely and they swim on and they say, what's water?
[01:02:46] That's the old joke. It's like water to a fish is invisible. So the next phase of forging family
[01:02:53] is recognizing our own cultures and recognizing our relationship to other cultures.
[01:03:00] And one of the big insights that has helped me over the years, are you familiar with Brian
[01:03:04] Bantam? Yeah. So he's worked. Brian Bantam is a genius. And I know he's standing on the
[01:03:10] shoulders of other geniuses. But one of the things that he introduced me to and probably
[01:03:14] Willie James Jennings and that whole dupe crew, the, you know, Jay Cameron Carter, all those guys.
[01:03:20] Yeah. Yeah. One of the things they've introduced me to is cultural hybridity. This is crucial.
[01:03:26] If we're going to forge family, you got to understand that we tend to think of culture as a
[01:03:31] static thing. We tend to think that our culture is, you know, is what it is and always has been
[01:03:39] what it, what it always will be. And that's just not true. Culture is not static. It's dynamic.
[01:03:46] It's constantly evolving, changing, adapting and borrowing and appreciating other cultures.
[01:03:54] So here's, here's a story from the, from the, um, uh, that I tell in the book, which is actually,
[01:04:01] from a famous book called One Church Many Tried. Are you familiar with Richard Twist? Yeah. Yeah.
[01:04:06] Richard Twist tells this story that is absolutely fantastic at illustrating this. He tells the
[01:04:12] story of, you know, when he came to faith as a Lakota su man, he, you know, what he came to faith
[01:04:18] in an evangelical context and he wanted to know, what do I do now? So he went to his, you know,
[01:04:23] closest pastor and happened to be a white dude. And he said, what do I do now? And the guy said,
[01:04:29] Richard, don't worry about being an Indian. Just be like us. Well, this was the worst advice he could
[01:04:36] have possibly received, right? Because for the next eight years, he did his best to adapt and to
[01:04:42] conform to white normative cultural expectations. And it robbed him of so much richness in his culture,
[01:04:52] right? So One Church Many Tried really starts with a premise that that's not what God wants from
[01:04:58] Richard Twist. What God wants from Richard Twist is for him to be his full Lakota su self and
[01:05:05] a follower of Jesus. So what does it mean for the way of Jesus to be incarnate in Richard Twist's
[01:05:12] culture and to express itself through his practices and through his norms and his,
[01:05:18] and his culture, right? So that concept of the white pastor not recognizing that he has his own
[01:05:31] culture and is now expecting Richard Twist to leave his culture behind and conform to the white
[01:05:38] expectations. That is indicative of a lack of understanding of that cultural hybrid that needs to
[01:05:47] take place. What he should have said is Richard, you need to begin a journey of discovering
[01:05:54] what it looks like for you to follow the way of Jesus authentically from who you are as a Lakota
[01:06:01] su person, right? That's that's the journey. And then when you come into community with other people
[01:06:09] and they have their own culture and ways of doing things, customs and practices, how do we share
[01:06:18] together? How do we share with one another those cultures and those practices and customs? And there's
[01:06:25] there's a fine line between appropriation and appreciation. So you got to learn how to be a
[01:06:36] gracious host and to be a gracious recipient of someone else's customs and cultures,
[01:06:42] to be to be to be reverent and to be honor to honor other people's customs and other people's cultures.
[01:06:48] Right? This is crucial. So one of the first swimming lessons that I talk about in the book
[01:06:55] is recognizing your own culture. White people in America have a really tough time doing that because
[01:07:00] you ask them what is white culture? They have no idea. What is white culture? I don't know,
[01:07:04] golf is golf white culture? I don't know. Right? It's like it's hard to put it's hard to pin down.
[01:07:12] So recognizing the water that you're swimming in, what is your norms? And then recognizing
[01:07:18] that what makes you uncomfortable because if not your norms could be an area of growth.
[01:07:23] This is why a lot of quote unquote multicultural churches aren't multicultural. They're singularly
[01:07:31] cultural. They're singularly cultural but they have a lot of different skin tones in the
[01:07:39] congregation, right? Multicultural doesn't mean multi skin tone. It means that you're sharing
[01:07:47] and appreciating and honoring one another's cultures and adapting a hybrid culture, right?
[01:07:54] So that cultural hybridity piece is crucial. Shout out to Brian Vantum, right? And then from there
[01:08:01] what I move on to in the book is a few chapters on like you said a community of misfits.
[01:08:08] What we have cultivated here in St. Paul is a culture in our church that says a lot of us
[01:08:19] have experienced church hurt. A lot of us have felt like outsiders. A lot of us have felt like
[01:08:25] we never quite fit in that we were on the outside looking in. We're going to now make space
[01:08:31] for healing and for going deeply into like examining why that took place
[01:08:37] and healing those harms that have taken place. We're going to be a community of misfits. I feel like
[01:08:43] a misfit, you feel like a misfit? Let's work out our misfitness together, right? And so the
[01:08:50] analogy I use in the book is the X-Men versus the Guardians of the Galaxy. My impression of the
[01:08:57] X-Men is the X-Men are a team of individual heroes. Each one of them could potentially be their
[01:09:06] own hero in their own story, right? They're elite. Look at Storm. Storm is elite, right? Storm
[01:09:14] don't need a team. Storm is storm, right? Wolverine don't need a team. Wolverine is Wolverine,
[01:09:20] right? So when the X-Men come together you kind of see like the best of the best, the cremdilla
[01:09:26] but when the Guardians of the Galaxy come together, they're a bunch of misfits. Like on their own
[01:09:31] they are screwed, right? Like on their own they are a hot mess but when they come together
[01:09:39] what happens? They come together and they begin to forge a kind of family that's supporting one
[01:09:46] another and interdependent and healing those harms that have taken place. I don't know if you've
[01:09:51] seen the most recent Guardians of the Galaxy, but Rocket Raccoon really discovers his origin story
[01:09:59] right? And it's so emotional. It's so deeply painful. I was crying in the movie theater like
[01:10:05] Rocket, oh look at baby Rocket, you know the baby Raccoons in the cage, right? Yeah.
[01:10:12] So you begin to forge this family that's now healing those harms that have taken place
[01:10:17] in each other's lives. It's not like the best of the best, these heroes, these elite warriors are all
[01:10:25] coming together. No, they're broken on their own. On their own they don't have a chance but when
[01:10:31] they come together they can heal, they can be part of a healing process for one another. And so that's
[01:10:37] kind of that's kind of the idea behind that chapter and then finally what you brought up
[01:10:41] the last chapter is called Love in Public, which comes from the very famous Cornel West quote,
[01:10:47] justice is what love looks like in public. So love in public is about if we're going to be
[01:10:52] forged family for one another, we can't just you know be about our little community. We have
[01:10:59] to now be a witness to the broader community. Now we have to publicly stand for something. Now
[01:11:06] we have to speak out for the injustices that we see in the broader community. So this chapter revolves
[01:11:12] around the murder of George Floyd. So obviously I'm here in the Twin Cities, we were at the epicenter
[01:11:19] of a global reckoning with racial injustice and police brutality. That like you know like I said
[01:11:26] was global it wasn't just the Twin Cities, it wasn't just United States there was there was protests
[01:11:31] in Paris and Berlin and you know all over the world. And so I got to be kind of a front row
[01:11:38] witness to how people showed up for that, how churches showed up for that, how communities showed
[01:11:43] up for that, how neighborhood showed up for that, and how my church showed up for that. And one
[01:11:48] of the stories I tell is that at that time we had a pastor on staff named Derr and Derr is
[01:11:53] among American. And one of the most powerful things that I witnessed during that time was
[01:11:58] Derr and I went down to the seventh precinct where there was a big protest. And we were down there
[01:12:04] as leaders in the community were leading us in chants, leading us in prayers, leading us in
[01:12:12] you know kneeling. And the whole time Derr was holding a sign that said,
[01:12:19] among Americans for Black Lives. And if you don't know this, if you don't know this,
[01:12:24] in the Twin Cities right after George Floyd was murdered, there was a big conflict between the
[01:12:29] Hmong American community and the Black community because one of the police officers who really
[01:12:35] kind of guarded Derr at Shoveon, who sort of like maintained the perimeter around George Floyd
[01:12:43] as Derr at Shoveon was murdering him was a Hmong American police officer. And so this really exacerbated
[01:12:50] some of the kind of bubbling up from beneath the surface underground tensions that were already
[01:12:56] existing between Hmong Americans and Black Americans in the Twin Cities that were already
[01:13:01] existing. And so for Derr to make that statement, if for Derr to be a witness in that way was powerful,
[01:13:09] that is what it looks like I think when we show up for one another in a public way. And we say,
[01:13:15] I'm seeking justice not just from my little community, my little proto church but for the whole
[01:13:19] the whole of society. Yeah, man, that's that yeah, that's deep, that's deep. I think
[01:13:29] yeah, we find ourselves in an interesting time, right? I mean, I know you know, just in the academy
[01:13:33] right? You think about just the president of Harvard that was just ousted.
[01:13:39] Right. You know, on this constant, you know, on a much smaller scale, I mean, I can feel exactly
[01:13:46] what you say. I mean, when I first got to North Park and just say, I'm publishing left and right.
[01:13:51] And you know, I got accused of it must be plagiarizing, right? You know, it's just what white folks do.
[01:13:57] So we live in this kind of this sense. And so man, I'm glad you wrote a book like this, man.
[01:14:06] I want to stand in the hopefulness of what it can become, right? Given all the atrocities that were
[01:14:15] you know, that we're slowly facing. But listen, man, this has been a great breakdown.
[01:14:21] For those listening, the book is called Forged, Following Jesus into a new kind of family.
[01:14:27] I've been talking with TC more broadly books put this thing out. I mean, it's available. You said
[01:14:33] it's coming out in February, right? February 13th. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. I will put these links
[01:14:41] in the show notes and at whitehouchpodcast.com. You can check those out and get, you know,
[01:14:48] get this book TC working folks find you man. Working. They continue the conversation that
[01:14:54] forge family dot com or TC more dot net. Okay. All right. Beautiful. I will put those as well
[01:15:01] in the show notes, man. Many parting thoughts as you're thinking about the new year,
[01:15:07] cat Williams, you know, the NFL seats. It's all kind of things. 2024, you know, start off with a bang,
[01:15:15] man. Any any parting thoughts here on Famine. Man, I'm kind of bummed. My saints got eliminated
[01:15:22] yesterday with a winning record. Yeah. Yeah. Because of the Packers. But I would say
[01:15:30] part of my parting thought is don't give up hope on your capacity to forge family. I know a lot
[01:15:37] of people are lonely these days. I know a lot of people feel disconnected and it's easy to lose hope.
[01:15:44] I hope that my book really inspires people to keep advocating for themselves,
[01:15:50] to keep to keep hoping and to keep pressing on to forge family in the way of Jesus. I think it's
[01:15:58] possible. That's what's up, man. Well, I like that, man. That's good stuff, man. Well, once again,
[01:16:03] TC, thanks for taking the time out of your schedule, man and coming on ProFame faith, I appreciate it.
[01:16:10] Man, it's been a pleasure. We live in an era of unprecedented access to information, news
[01:16:18] and media. But what happens when all that information leads you to suddenly realize you spent
[01:16:24] the majority of your childhood in a cult. While we can tell you, join me, Jessica Govort,
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[01:16:42] Training Institute. On our podcast called Leaving the Village, we talk candidly about our journey
[01:16:48] out and interview other survivors whose experiences boggle your mind as scandals continue to rock
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