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In this engaging conversation, Latasha Morrison interviews Reverend Dr. Drew Hart, a prominent voice in Christian ethics and Black theology. They discuss Hart’s journey as an author and activist and his new book Making it Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism and the Black Church. They discuss the roots of white supremacy within Christianity, the evolution of Christian doctrine, and the marginalization of Jesus’ teachings. The conversation highlights the resurfacing of white Christian nationalism and the importance of education in combating spiritual blindness. This is a whole church history lesson for you!
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Executive Producer – Latasha Morrison
Producer – Sarah Connatser
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*this was transcribed by Spotify and has not been checked for errors
0:00
If I had a choice between sitting under Martin Luther or Sojourner Truth, right?
Martin Luther doctorate, right?
Highly educated, knew different language stuff or so the truth, who is illiterate, right?
Exactly who am I going to sit under Sojourner Truth?
Exactly.
0:15
Right.
And she knew.
She knew the gospel right here.
Yes.
So, so she might not have had the education that other people had, but she knew the stories and she knew the implications of it, and it oriented her life in meaningful ways.
Welcome to the Be the Bridge podcast.
0:35
Be the Bridge exists to empower people and culture toward racial healing, equity, and reconciliation.
Latasha Morrison founded Be the Bridge in 2016 to foster needed dialogue and brave spaces and to give people the tools to pursue racial justice.
0:52
We provide resources and community to do just that, and this podcast is one of those resources.
You’ll hear interviews hosted by Latasha and our team, conversations about current events, and encouragement for your racial literacy journey.
Thank you for listening, subscribing and engaging in this important work.
1:13
OK, Be the Bridge community.
I am so excited to be back on the Be the Bridge podcast.
And you know how you have sometimes you have people from afar that you think you know, but you don’t really know.
I came across this gentleman in the Twitter world when it was called Twitter back in the day years ago and purchased this book, The Trouble I’ve seen and followed him since then.
1:38
So he’s one of those interviews that I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but now you’re going to know Reverend Doctor Drew Hart.
He is the author and speaker.
A professor of theology at the Messiah University, where he has directed the Thriving Together Congregation for Racial Justice program since 20/21.
1:59
With a decade of pastoral experience, he is the leading voice in Christian ethics, Black theology, and Anabaptism.
He is the author of The Trouble I’ve Seen and Who will Be a Witness, and the Co editor and contributor of the Reparations and Theological Disciplines.
2:18
Hart has received several community awards for his activism and scholarship, and he lives with his family in Harrisburg, PA.
And I know I probably have a friend that’s listening.
And she’s like, wait a minute, That’s where I live.
So I am grateful for you, grateful for your voice.
2:34
And you have a new book that’s actually called Making It Plain.
That’s right.
You’ve been writing a lot of books.
I’ve been busy.
You’ve been busy.
I’m reading this and I’m like, I know that I and I know what it takes because I’m in the midst of that too.
And I’m like, my goodness.
2:51
And so it says, you know, in this, I want you to give a little backdrop on your other books leading up to this book, but I know this book is an answer to white Christian supremacy that is centuries in the make it.
And I’m telling you, I am taking a Christian doctrine’s class and as and you know, talking about the Reformation and all of those things.
3:13
And I’m like, and that’s my thing is like, OK, where did this this, this went wrong?
Like it was wrong so far ago.
But if we’re able to pinpoint it, you know, we’re able to bring some resolve to it.
But it is, you know, theological issues that we have.
3:33
And so I would love to hear a little bit more about you, you know, some of the books you’ve written in the past and why this book now?
First of all, that’s a crazy question to say.
Why this book now?
But it’s, it’s also the right question though, right?
Right, right, right.
3:49
So let’s let’s go back to my first book, Trouble I’ve seen subtitle is changing the way the church Views racism.
I wrote that since you’re a student in the theological doing theological education.
I was a misbehaving PhD student when I wrote that book.
4:06
Okay.
So I was at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philly.
I was doing contemporary theology and ethics and a minor in historical theology and a Ferguson blew up.
And up to that point, like I actually was a pastor and I was doing practitioner.
4:23
I was doing anti racism stuff mostly in Pennsylvania.
Like most people didn’t know me nationally at that point a little bit because I was like blogging and Twitter and stuff like that a little bit.
So, but I had been doing this work and and I was really discouraged by what I was seeing in the church.
4:39
I know that’s been your work as well, just responding to that and inviting people into more.
And so instead of working on my dissertation, I wrote trouble I’ve seen.
OK.
And it really was my way.
I had just had left not too long ago, this multiracial congregation that was doing its best, but also failed to really wrestle with how white supremacy and power dynamics in particular and institutional systemic injustice shaped our world.
5:11
And so they just wanted to have like, you know, black and white folk talk to each other, but they didn’t want to also put that in conversation with these other forces at work.
And so my book was really like, how can I invite people into an approach to anti racism that really centers the life and teachings of Jesus at the center of it?
5:30
All, right?
And so I often talk about like a Jesus shaped faith, right, in terms of how what we live and practice.
So yeah, that first book really is that book that’s trying to name white supremacy, power dynamics, systemic injustices and help people and even intersectionality and help people think about what it means to be followers of Jesus as we go about this work.
5:52
My second book, Who Will Be a Witness was just a natural outflow of that one because as I was speaking all over the country for trouble I’ve seen, I began getting questions like, so it sounds like you want us to do some justice work, but what does that really mean?
Like, and they’re wondering, is this about how we vote or like what, what exactly?
6:13
And I realized many people didn’t have any kind of social change imagination at the grassroots level.
They only had the formal channels of voting and things like that in their minds.
And so because I was also involved in grass community organizing, interfaith community organizing work in my city, like I had some experience.
6:33
I also taught that area, had read a lot of scholarship.
And so I thought I could bring my lived experience some scholarship, some insights, and particularly the power of, you know, grassroots organizing, nonviolent resistance, things like that.
In a way that I think maybe disrupts some of the stereotypes of how change actually happens and the actual agency that we can actually have as people on the ground.
6:57
Because a lot of people feel like they don’t have any power or any say, and they don’t realize the people power, that there’s different concept.
There’s not only domination power, there’s also people power from the bottom up.
And so wants to invite people to practice that in the way of Jesus.
Though in particular, I’ll just say a quick note on the reparations piece.
7:13
It is a little more of an academic thing than what I normally do, but we wanted to stir up some trouble in the Academy and get them talking more about reparations.
And so that project, it’s a really great resource.
If there’s pastors and leaders who want to think biblically and theologically about reparations and even just religious history, and we even incorporate some practitioner stories in there for folks, it’s a really great resource.
7:38
And that all leads up to my most recent book, Making It Plain.
It is a book that is often say it’s like decades in the making.
So on one hand, like it’s been in me, in fact, a lot of people been waiting for me to write this book for a very long time.
7:55
And I could have written this kind of book in a lot of different ways.
It could have been focused a lot of different things.
But I think especially as you know, everything I’ve spent unfolding this book just needed to be written in this particular way for right now.
8:13
But it is really deeply rooted in my own lived experience.
So it’s I’m a child of the black church first and foremost, and then it got exposed to this thing called Anabaptism in college.
And then from that moment forward, I’ve really had a foot in both of those communities moving forward and have continued to be shaped by both and especially what I often say because both, I mean, look, the black church is complicated.
8:39
It’s messy as a whole and a baptism.
It’s a broad spectrum and it’s messy as a whole.
And so often talk about specifically the prophetic stream of the black church and the radical discipleship stream of Anabaptism and that those two streams together, that they’re really powerful in terms of inviting us into an anti Christendom, decolonial, anti racist, liberative peacemaking, Jesus shaped witness in the world.
9:08
And so, yeah, so that’s kind of the heart of the book is trying to invite people to both see how we got to where we are and how these two traditions when they meet, which is a strange thing in and of itself, but how they can actually invite us into something more beautiful, more Jesus shaped in the presence.
9:26
I I think it’s a perfect example of like how we are connected to one another and how we are needed.
And just like there’s not like 1 nation or tribe that could represent the totality of who God is.
And I feel that’s the same way as it comes to doctrine and denomination.
9:45
And so when you talk about the marrying of the black church and, and a Baptist and what, what that has produced in you.
Yeah, it’s like this more holistic view of the Gospel and you see that because I look at, you can look at like any kind of tradition doctrine, like you’re like some dismissive, like, you know, some dismissive like something.
10:07
And then what happens is, OK, then there’s another denomination, this form and then like, but then that doesn’t express like, all of what needs to be expressed when we start talking about Christendom.
And so I think, you know, this is something, these are conversations we need to have.
10:23
And this is that interconnectedness where I think where the unity of the body of Christ is needed.
Yeah, you know, where we have these different expressions, but these different expressions can make up a whole where there’s some things that we can learn from each other.
10:39
And so that’s one of the things when I I think about the Anabaptist tradition as I when, you know, when we started talking about the Reformation and like, I think it started.
If you could give a little background of what Anna Baptists are like as far as like it started with argument over baptism, child baptism, right?
10:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And so if you kind of explain it, but then how the focus now think about this, the focus of this tradition is on the sermon on the Mount, you know, and, and, and that’s a a beautiful thing.
11:14
And it, and really that focus, because it takes some of the center of self, you know, that we can see like kind of like where supremacy can kind of prop up.
And we’re, we’re going to get into that a little bit, but I would, I would love for you, just for those who are listening, who maybe seen it but don’t understand it or don’t know, just to give a little background.
11:35
Yeah, yeah.
So we’ll try to give a little Cliff Notes version for now and and I inevitably we’ll skip important things because there’s just so much history during that time.
But but think so 16th century is a huge moment in the life of the church in the West, right.
11:50
In the West, it’s a enormous moment and change, I mean, is happening.
And so first, yeah, there’s the Reformation.
And more specifically, I’ll, we’ll say the magisterial Reformation.
That is the Martin Luther, Martin Luther and John Calvins and Zwingli and all these big names that are challenging the inherited tradition of the Catholic Church and reinterpreting and helping to create what we now think of as the Protestant tradition.
12:20
Right, Right.
Really significant moment that’s happening simultaneously that’s happening.
There’s also a lot of economic unrest that’s happening in the West at that time as well.
And so there’s a lot of frustration among poor peasants and everyday folks as they’re being squeezed and exploited and often in cahoots with those with the churches, supporting, ideologically boostering and bolstering all of that stuff as well.
12:47
So in the midst of that, and there’s this emphasis on going back to Scripture, reading Scripture for yourselves.
And so you got this group under Zwingli who are like, alright, you’re telling us to do some Bible study.
Let’s do some Bible study then, right?
So you’re getting in.
And they’re reading for themselves.
And what they’re finding is that the Jesus that they find in Scripture is even more radical than what the reformers are talking about.
13:08
And so they don’t think that the Reformers are taking everything to their logical conclusion.
And so they just want to practice genuine faith as they understand it biblically, as they’re reading it for themselves, finally having access, right?
Because printing press, all of that in their own vernacular, all of that is new, right, Right.
13:28
And so this is a game changing moment.
And so it leads to this commitment to this discipleship, but really being important.
So what it means to be a Christian is not just accepting Jesus or not just being baptized, right?
Really following Jesus, the life and teachings of Jesus is really significant for the Anabaptist.
13:49
And then as you mentioned, like the question of baptism is raised and what we don’t understand now, cuz we like, all right, what was the big deal?
Cuz we’re just so used to these differences.
People are dying, right?
But what we don’t understand it, it’s not just a doctrinal difference at that point, it’s a civil difference because you’re actually baptized into society.
14:09
It’s a civic mandate.
So if you choose not to baptize your infants, you’re breaking with the whole civic order.
So this is, and this is deeply problematic for this.
So they’re making some really radical decisions based on just their understanding and reading of Scripture that gets them into a lot of trouble.
14:30
They also because they see Jesus talking about loving enemies and things.
So they refuse to participate in military.
That’s also deeply troubling for the civic order, right?
Because this is how it defends itself.
And so they’re making these decisions and so they get deemed basically when they are.
14:47
The word Anabaptists was used as a slur at first, right?
Like to call someone Anabaptist was not a positive thing in the 16th century.
It’s basically saying you’re a heretic.
And it’s drawing on the language going all the way back to the Donatists.
15:03
It’s basically saying you can be persecuted and killed as a heretic for this.
And so thousands and thousands and thousands of Anabaptists are killed in the 16th century under everyone, Catholics, Reformed, Lutheran, like everybody’s going after them.
15:21
And so they begin to emerge as it grows in different regions and there’s different variations of expressions.
But as this thing is emerging, it’s a Christianity inside Europe from below that is experiencing persecution at the hands of other European Christians and somehow are salvaging Christianity to actually look more like Jesus even in the midst of that.
15:44
Right.
And one of the things I mentioned in the book, because I think I think many contemporary white Anabaptist in North America today don’t emphasize some really important things that are happening in that moment.
Yeah, I mean, they’re pretty much a proto liberationist move.
15:59
The economic portion is really huge.
So they’re talking about mutual aid.
You have some of the communities, like the Hutterites literally have no private property rights.
So everyone is being taken care of economically.
They’re critiquing of the wealth and the exploitation and the usury and all that stuff that’s going on in the broader side.
16:16
So it’s an economic movement.
It’s a communal movement.
It’s not.
It rejects the hyper individualism of Western Christianity.
It has a social ethic rights, which leads to which leads to all kinds of trouble for them.
16:32
But here’s something that they see the life of Jesus.
They’re reading the the life and teachings and especially the sermon on the mounts.
They’re like, let’s take it seriously.
What what happens when we take this seriously in our lives?
And that’s the result.
And so it’s a really powerful tradition.
16:48
And the other thing that I want to emphasize, the last thing is that it is an anti Christendom tradition.
That is they are the initial ecclesial movement that rejects the marriage of church and states.
And Even so, like the baptism stuff and all that.
17:04
All of that is they’re anti Christendom movements that are rejecting the marriage of church and state and that Christianity can be imposed from the top down coercively onto others, right, which is really important right now for our moment.
This is important.
Now it’s really important.
These are arguments that we’ve had in the 16th century and it has never worked.
17:25
And so because of people’s ignorance and not knowing even like we don’t know in history, but then more, more or less church history, and it’s like these things have been fought and died for.
Died for thousands, burned and tortured.
17:41
So I’ve read some of the stuff I was like when Michael Sattler, I mean, they, they tortured him horrifically, right?
One of the earliest Anabaptists.
It’s just terrible.
What?
Happened.
It has never worked.
Like the Church being married to Empire?
Yep, has never worked.
17:57
That’s right.
It has it has always felt, but then, like you said, there’s always what you would call radical Christians the Jesus way that are, you know, trying to communicate this, this way of Christ, you know, sounding the alarms.
18:16
And that’s what we have now.
So I think This is why this book is so important here and you weaving together this narrative because a lot of I love tools.
It’s going to help people understand the historical context.
Because what I have seen is when people, and This is why there’s just such just rush to erase history, to change museums to to kind of dictate the narrative.
18:43
Because when that happens, people are ignorant to truth.
And we know that truth makes us free.
And This is why the work that you’re doing, the work that we’re doing and be the bread to so many other people.
It’s so imperative right now, all these books that you know, you didn’t know when you wrote the trouble I’ve seen, you know, just like when I wrote Be the Bridge, like, you know, doing Ferguson, when all of these things are happening, you’re not thinking about all this to come, but all of those things like God knows God do and all of those things are like compounding.
19:16
So I am so excited to have you here and thank you for that.
Just that breakdown and explaining that when you think about like, okay, you, you weren’t raised in this.
So you would like give me a little bit just understanding just how did your black church tradition, you know, you know, you got lead you into this and I I see how you’re marrying the two now, but what would you what words would you have for the black church now?
19:46
And and I do feel like it’s more of the more I understand about the black church and the history.
I’m just reading about Richard Allen and you know, Absalon and like just all of them.
I feel like it’s a a true expression of the heart of Christ.
20:04
You know, and there’s there’s just so much there that that the church has weathered.
It was birthed out of suffering and marginalization.
What would you say now, you know, to the black church and the role and in unity?
20:19
Like what would you say?
What is your journey and what would you say the black church should be saying now?
Yeah.
So, yeah, it’s, it’s many things.
I mean, so as I mentioned, like I’m, I’m not just a child of the black church.
Like I got like a line of preachers and pastors and such, right.
20:36
So in Philly, like I when I went off to school, I was glad to leave Philly because my last name, I just didn’t want people to know who I was.
I just want to be me.
My dad was a pastor.
My grandfather started like 10 different churches in the East coasts.
20:52
My great grandfather was a great preacher.
And so like I got this legacy of preaching and stuff.
So it’s, it’s a part of who I am so deeply.
And it is the thing that kept me in the midst of like when I went off to college.
So I went off to this Christian college.
21:08
The actual institution was great because there’s a lot of crazy Christian colleges out there right now.
But but the one I went to like great education and it challenged me.
I found out that many of my peers were really racist, white evangelical peers.
I was shocked and horrified, right?
21:26
But it was some very basic foundational stuff that I was taught growing up to keep Jesus at the center, right.
And so, like, when I encountered, even though it wasn’t as wild and as it is now, like, the Christian nationalism was still there.
21:43
Yeah.
And I thought there was something strange always about it to me, right?
It just didn’t make sense to me.
Because it’s not centered in love at all.
Right.
Like what does this have to do with Christianity?
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It just didn’t make.
So I, I was grounded in some things and I love and appreciation for the Scriptures.
22:02
And also, if I’m honest, like my particular church, like probably was overly influenced at times by some even mainstream evangelical ideas and things and stuff and some doctrines that we just took for granted that we never processed through, right.
And so one of the things I would love for the, for the black church today is 1 to remember who we are.
22:24
I mean, we’ve got such a rich history, but we do, I mean, how many folks don’t know who Richard Allen is, right?
Don’t know about Mother Bethel, right?
Don’t know these stories that have been passed on.
And so we got to remember who we are and that it was birthed literally in the Crucible of slavery, right?
22:41
The invisible institution.
How do we get back to that fugitivity faith that that, that Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass?
And you know, like there’s, there’s gifts that we need to hold on to.
We need to treasure and hold them as sacred within our tradition.
22:57
And we also got to realize our traditions because they’re inevitably hybrids of the different traditions we found ourselves a part of.
Baptist, Methodism, Pentecost, whatever.
It’s just a mix of stuff.
And we’ve got to also continue to do decolonizing work, right, in our own churches.
23:17
Sometimes, you know, we can be anti racist in one way and then also at the another way, perpetuating white supremacy, right?
And so so there’s work that I think that we need to do.
So this and this, I’ll say like one of the things I do in this book that might surprise people based on the title, like some of them might hear the title be like, oh, why we need Anabaptism in the black church?
23:36
And it’s just going to be a pat on the back.
But it’s also a challenge to both traditions.
A challenge the white Anabaptist, but also challenge the black church as well that there’s things that we got to lean into that we got to remember that we got to embrace.
And so the prophetic tradition I think is really important for the black church.
23:53
And I think all different streams, whether you’re black Baptist, black Methodist, black Pentecostal, like they all need to lean into that a little bit more, I think.
And I think cuz we need folks that can speak to the challenges that we’re facing today in.
24:09
Unity in unity, like not any of this, you know, I think some ways that we can embrace like this, this internalized kind of like supremacy in the sense of when we think it’s about us and, you know, and in our activism.
And so I think the strength of the early Black church was the unity among the church and looking out for one another and, you know, not concerned about platforms.
24:38
Individual, this is getting really hyper individualistic now, right?
Like everyone, it’s for me and for mine and versus the communal liberation, right that we this, we don’t, we don’t liberate, we’re not liberated unless we’re all liberated together.
24:54
Exactly.
Exactly.
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25:19
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25:37
We are connected.
And I think getting back to, to that, and I, I do see that within our community, when there is strife or marginalization or challenges, we tend to come together, you know, and you can see some of the fragmentation of that, like after the civil rights, like desegregation and all of those things because it separated us.
26:02
And then also this, you know, when the church, we start looking down on our, our lived experiences and saying, you know, like, I hear this all the time where there’s certain evangelical, like certain of, you know, where you can have this high value of Scripture.
26:20
You hear that I just heard a pastor say this.
It is like, you know, you know, like high value of Scripture or this, you know, versus this high value of tradition.
And so a lot of times within the black church structure, you know, Martin Luther King was, was critiqued for this, for being too liberal at first, you know, but you have to realize, OK, he wasn’t, he went to certain seminaries because he wasn’t allowed as a black man, as a black clergy go to certain script to, to seminars.
26:51
So we have to be very mindful when we use this high value of scripture because what high value of Scripture like when we start talking about white supremacy and racism, this like intertwined within a lot of those seminary teachings and reform.
27:10
Because who’s defining what this high value is, right, Because a lot of times people don’t even realize they’re just taking it for granted, but they’ve assimilated into the very ways of interpret interpreting scripture that actually were death daily to us, that justified slavery, that justified Jim Crow, right?
And so we got AI mean.
27:26
Look, I love scripture.
I believe we got to immerse ourselves in the.
Scriptures.
And it’s fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
But I but I also know that it can be weaponized and it’s dangerous.
And it’s not just so self-explanatory.
It has to be interpreted with responsibility and carefully and spiritually and in ways that actually lead to loving God and loving neighbor.
27:49
Right.
And so I think that too often.
Yeah, we can.
We can drink the Kool-aid and and just get assimilated into white perspectives on how to engage and read the Bible.
Here’s one thing I often say to people is look, if I have a choice between I, I said this when I was in my PhD program, I’m a troublemaker.
28:08
So I would say because I’m, I was at a Lutheran school, I love the Lutheran community.
So this is not a knock.
I was just being provocative, but I said if I had a choice between sitting under Martin Luther or Sojourner Truth, right?
Martin Luther doctorate, right?
Highly educated, new different language stuff or so the truth, who is illiterate, right?
28:28
Who am I going to sit under Sojourner Truth?
Exactly.
Right.
And she knew.
She knew the gospel right here.
Yes.
So, so she, she might not have had the education that other people had, but she knew the stories and she knew the implications of it and it oriented her life in meaningful ways.
28:47
And so.
And it was leading you towards Jesus.
It was leaning to.
Not away from Scripture, that’s right.
Not away from others.
Like, you know, there’s things to look for in those, those guard those, those guardrails.
Yeah, yeah.
So that is that is such a great example when you think about that history within the black church.
29:09
But I’m so hopeful because I feel like I’m always looking at when I think about it breaks my heart to see what’s happening in our country now.
But I also, I know how God works and you know, I see the opportunity here.
29:26
And so there’s some encouragement with that because I know how our community responds, you know, and, and, and I know that we are faithful people.
We are very spiritual people.
And so there there is going to be good that comes from this evil.
29:45
I’m going to, you know, there’s going to be good that comes from this evil.
But I wanted to talk.
I was just doing some research in that.
And I know you you probably cover this in your new book, but just really trying to see where this individualistic type, I would say culture, when we start thinking about the Reformation, some of where some of those things can be taken out of context and we get some of the hyper individualistic thinking that turns very nationalist and it turns very supremacy, you know?
30:21
Yeah, because we see some things brewing like you’re in Harrisburg, PA, There’s some things that was in the news, some people there, Doug Wilson, this there and this like this.
His church is growing, you know, his schools are growing, hopefully with exposure that people, you know, maybe not knowing exactly what is behind all of that.
30:43
But I would love for you to speak into that a little bit and how, you know, getting to the root of this white supremacy because you don’t look at the life and teachings of Jesus and get what we’re seeing now.
But people do not understand that.
30:59
Like you cannot have a faith that doesn’t care about, you know, the poor, the immigrant, you know, the orphan and, and say that that’s a faith like, I mean, it’s like spiritual, I’ve never understood spiritual blindness, like I understand it now.
31:15
So I would love for you to speak into that.
Yeah, so, so one of the things I do in the book, aside from I always tell people like there’s almost like 2 movements going simultaneously in the book 1 is introducing people to these two traditions that I think are a gift to the world and what happens when they meet, right?
31:34
But the other thing that’s happening in the book is that I’m also, it is like a mini church history lesson, right?
As I introduced.
So I literally walked them through the development of the rise of Christendom in the West.
So going way, way back, we see how church and state begins to get entangled.
31:52
Then Constantine comes, gives favors and privileges the church.
Yeah, we like that.
And they we’re not dying.
We’re not dying.
Right.
They’re not dying.
Yeah, but then you have, and it’s a range like how people respond to it.
But you have folks as far as like Eusebius, he’s a Bishop who’s pretty much talking about Constantine.
32:09
Like he’s like the the son of God, you know?
I mean, it’s just problematic, right?
And this is immediately afterwards, and then by Theodosius, like not even 100 years later, the Christianity’s made the official religion of the land.
So in a very short amount of time, you have a community that is being persecuted, that’s marginalized, that has no power, that is identified with the most vulnerable and outcast and socially stigmatized people in society.
32:37
All of a sudden now they go from the margins to the center, they get political power to be get state backing and then they begin to persecute others, right.
So you already have these really significant changes going on and then we can go.
On persecute it becomes the persecute.
32:54
Tutors right That’s right OK that’s right so you have so you have these yeah it’s pretty significant shifts going on in the life of the church Jesus is beginning to get marginalized more and more and more as and here’s the thing I’m not anti the creed he turned.
33:09
White too.
He turned.
White and he turns white, although he’s not formally white yet, though he is he, there are images of him that are imperial or powerful or things that are merging, right.
So he’s looking more and more like an empire emperor than than the, you know, the 1st century Palestinian Jew.
33:29
So you have these shifts that are taking place over time and as Christendom grows, church and state merit, it gets huger and larger and more powerful eventually overtime.
And like the medieval period is just a mess.
33:44
I mean, some of the theology, it gets really ugly.
The love of God is really getting distorted.
A lot of emphasis, that’s where the, a lot of emphasis on how we think about hell today comes from the medieval era, not previously before that.
34:01
But we don’t, again, we don’t know our history, so we don’t know how it developed during that time.
But what’s happening is that they’re identifying the West as Christian and the rest of the world as heathen, right?
And so there’s this shift that’s taking place there.
And so it’s no surprise 1000 years in crusades are happening and then 14 hundreds, right?
34:23
You have the doctrine of discover and emerge, right?
So for the first time you have the church justifying in both law and doctrine, because that’s what a papal bull was at that time, basically that they that these Christian, so-called Christian nations have permission to engage in conquest to reduce people to perpetual slavery.
34:45
First being a lot of times when people jump to Columbus, but first is 1441, it’s Portugal enslaving Africans, right?
That’s how it begins.
And then it extends in in, you know, a 1492 with Columbus and all as it extends to the Americas as well.
35:01
So you have this Christianity that has grown in power, has grown to other everyone else in the world, even other Christians, right?
Because Christianity is not indigenous to the West at all, right?
They’re they’re, they’re gentiles, foreigners that except being grabbed in somebody else’s story and they just forgot that, right?
35:20
Yeah, they took it over.
They took it over, right?
I I I have to say that they claim copyright on Christianity, the Bible in Jesus, right?
Yeah.
Which helps.
And that’s where the whitening of Jesus and all of that stuff is going on during that time as well.
And so all of that is happening and there’s a redefinition to go back to your question of like faith, right?
35:40
Like there’s a redefining of what it means to be the church.
And so by this point, it’s not this community that’s supporting each other, living in embodying the reign of God in the world.
Now it’s something like today, it’s like you go there for a little support, but it’s an individual consumer shows up, you get your service, and then you go on your way, right?
36:01
And so I think that we’ve really domesticated it, not only in terms of the practice, but then the very content so that the Jesus story has been marginalized.
So we’re not being invited into the way of Jesus, and we’re not invited into a radical way of being community together, to belong to one another in giving, receiving and sharing love, Right.
36:19
And so it’s a completely different vision that begins to emerge.
So it’s in some ways it’s not surprise.
It’s almost inevitable that white Christian nationalism was going to emerge given this trajectory of what’s been unfolding.
It’s just the next inevitable step of what was going to always happen if there’s never a correction and a repentance and a transformation to to disrupt that.
36:43
Yeah.
And we’ve never fully repented.
And so although it goes on the ground for a while, it just goes on the ground and resurfaces, you know, and we can think about throughout our history how that has happened.
And we’re just in a time now where it’s resurfacing and it’s in the highest places of government.
37:00
And, and I think those, those are the things with that should break our hearts.
You know, it should grieve us because it’s not a reflection of the Christ that we serve.
And so those, those are the things that you you recently said on threads.
And thank you so much for that background, you know, because you know, you, you’re able to spew this like, you know, like this.
37:23
But I know even if you haven’t done personal study or if you’re not in a church, just doing this type of church history said, a lot of people are not exposed to this information and know the context.
But what I do know is when people are supposed, people who are seeking truth, people who hearts are turned towards Jesus, and maybe they just don’t have all the information.
37:46
We’ve in our work, we’ve seen a response.
When people get contacts, they respond, you know, and, and I’m talking about we’re in a lot of spaces where predominantly white people and they respond.
And that’s why there’s this attack on truth in history.
38:02
It’s just like they’re coming for black history now.
Church, listen, they will come from church history.
You know, it doesn’t serve them well when you know it, it doesn’t serve them well.
And so those are things we have to be mindful of.
38:20
And especially even as we’re seeing some of this, the doctrine of the discoveries, pictures, and some of the things that represent those things in our history, we’re seeing those things resurface now.
And this, this is the thing like these things lead to death.
38:35
Yeah.
It’s that feeling.
They lead to death.
And you know, we have to take this seriously.
You said on threads, you said you can’t serve both Jesus and Trump.
They lead to opposite ends.
We can see this is true, but many are still so spiritually blinded to that.
38:51
How do you deal with those who are simply cannot see?
That’s the question, right it?
Grieves me because these this is how I check my heart because these are my brothers and sisters that are being deceived and deceiving others and some people think they’re doing the right thing.
39:10
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
You know, and, and I don’t, I don’t hate them, you know, I love them.
I want them to come into the full knowledge of truth in Jesus Christ.
That’s right.
And but they’re deceived to think that they are in that now.
Right, right.
39:26
Yeah.
I mean, one of the things that I’ve appreciated that I get to do is because I teach undergrad students and it’s the largest percentage of our students are white evangelical students.
Like that’s their background that they’re coming from.
We it’s a pretty ecumenical space, but that’s the definitely the largest group.
39:45
And when they first come into my classroom, I know like they’re coming from a very different perspective than any of the courses.
I mean, I have a class on African American theology.
I teach at Anabaptist theology, theology too, on peace, justice, reconciliation.
So like, you know, this is a it’s, it’s very different from everything that they’ve taught.
40:03
But what’s been beautiful is that.
When they get to read, learn about church history, read carefully, think for themselves, the majority of them change their minds.
Yeah, I’m not saying everyone, but the majority of them do.
They just have never.
They always said, I’ve never been taught this before.
40:20
I’ve never.
And in fact, most of them had hardly I don’t know what’s going on in the church, but they hardly read the Bibles.
They really have not read their Bibles.
They think they know what’s in the Bible.
They actually have not actually read it for themselves.
And so when they’re engaging the Jesus story for the first time and they’re seeing who does Jesus associate with right?
40:38
How does he respond?
What’s going on?
And and and yeah, exactly who does he heal?
And so their their hearts open up to the least last lost and little ones.
Just like Jesus is oriented right?
And so for me, we do gotta give people an opportunity that that’s the only thing I can say.
40:54
And there will be some people that will be hard hearted.
And I feel like I just gotta dust, shake the dust off my feet and keep moving, right?
I don’t know what else to do right.
That’s what we.
Do because their story will not be that no one ever told them, right.
Their story would be that someone told me and I refuse to listen.
41:10
And that’s a different type of accountability.
Different kind.
That’s a different situation, yeah.
But I, but I’ve been grateful even teaching at, at in this context, even right now, it’s difficult.
Sometimes I’m frustrated, but it’s also like, I can look back.
In fact, I was just looking, I was cleaning up my office and I was looking at all these notes that I got back from like students who graduated and things like that.
41:32
It’s really beautiful.
You know what I mean?
Students who like this was life changing.
I needed this.
You pushed me hard, but it was really good and I’m really grateful for it.
But, and so I’m just, yeah, people, I think it’d be easy if I didn’t have that experience to just be like, oh, they’re all just hateful people and they just manipulative.
41:50
I think there’s a lot of folks that are actually genuine that are just captive to the communities and the ideologies that they’re presented with.
Yeah, yeah, I, I yesterday our team, we visited a church that has a ministry for the unhoused here in Atlanta.
42:05
They have like this holistic care, like this entry level where they do the basic stuff from like haircuts to foot care.
They have showers and bathrooms set up and, and this is the entry point for people to, you know, like just to see the dignity, the God-given dignity that they have.
42:25
And so, and then they get set up on in their system and then, you know, from as they go through the system, they can get help.
Like if they if they, you know, a lot of times they don’t have a mailbox box, so they can’t receive mail and like government documents, all of that.
They have a mail room set up where they can go check their mail.
42:45
They can get showers, they can get clean clothes, there’s food there, coffee, you know, and then as they climb up this system, you know, they start dealing with some of the systemic issues that they’re dealing with as it relates to counseling.
You know, sometimes they need another copy of their birth certificate, all those things.
43:02
They have social workers.
I mean, it’s entire, it gave me so much hope seeing and this is just one church doing their part in the city of Atlanta.
And I know there’s several other churches that have programs like that.
But when you’re, we’re seeing this war against like it’s like an outright war against poverty and people who are in house where we’re not meeting it with compassion, but with, you know, retribution, like with criminalizing it.
43:29
And to see this church being the hands of Jesus still in the midst of that, it was so encouraging.
And I know there’s so many people out there where you, we are so discouraged.
And a lot of what we’re seeing is designed to take our hope.
43:45
Yeah, you know, to design to, to make us paralyzed and think that we don’t have any power.
That’s right.
But we have power in Jesus.
That’s right.
That’s right.
And I think that’s that’s one of the things that we I want us to remember.
And and I just say like, I love your story because you know, when you especially talking about it in a relationship to hope because like sometimes people ask me like, are you hopeful?
44:07
I’m like, well, I’m not hopeful for like our administration, our country in some broad sense, but where the hope is, it’s, it’s where people have are like when you actually be the hope in your community.
And so I pray, like my prayer is always like that I embody hope for others that I embody what God is doing in the world and that others when they show up and they’re doing that in our community, like that gives me hope as well, right?
44:32
And I see God at work, even at the grassroots level in a real, concrete, tangible way.
So anyway, I just think like that’s a really, it’s the end breaking of God’s work, that kind of hope that’s realized in our physical embodied world that I think is really important.
Yeah, and and that that was the last thing that I was going to ask you about that.
44:52
So you nailed it and I love it and it’s beautiful.
And I think your books bring hope, you know, because they bring understanding.
They express the heart of Jesus.
And I think that those are the things that we need because when we look back now, think about how like all the things that Karl Bart like wrote, you know, that no one paid attention then, but now everybody can’t get enough of.
45:18
And so you’re leaving behind a legacy of just rich words that will help disciple, you know, for generations to come.
How can you encourage our community to seek Shalom in the public square?
45:33
You know, people are listening now.
They feel discouraged.
I think some people are still in shock trying to get their bearings because I think we’ve depended so much on our on these human broken systems.
And when we see them not working, we really don’t know how to depend on Jesus like we thought.
45:56
Yeah, yeah.
So I often, and and this is where I think the black church is actually a great testament.
And I think this is another thing that the black church needs to remember is how we made it through, right?
Because I think right now sometimes people say like the only answer, sometimes even the black churches go vote, right?
46:13
That’s the only answer that we give.
I’m like, all right, I, I want people to, to vote, right?
I, I don’t want people to abdicate that response.
But yeah, let’s remember how we got the vote.
We for 350 years, we didn’t have any political power, right?
And we didn’t just twiddle our thumbs sitting back because we didn’t have the vote.
46:31
People were organizing on the ground.
Churches were invested in in their communities and serving and creating schools and organizations were starting, networks were being formed, you know, from abolitionists and stuff to, you know, civil rights movements.
Like things were happening that actually earned us the vote, right.
46:50
And so the the power isn’t in the vote by itself.
It’s actually us as a community embodied, living out faithfully what it means to do justice in the world.
So I’d invite people to really take seriously their own neighborhoods and what work can be done at the grassroots level.
47:07
And I I’m just, it’s just because I’m wired that way.
But like, I encourage you, like find out what community organizers are doing right?
Your church, your faith community can partner with others for the common good and the thriving and flourishing of all people, especially those that are most vulnerable.
47:23
And so community organizing is a really easy way, I think, for faith communities to embody their own faith.
You don’t have to pretend like you’re not something else.
Like those are spaces where you come truly as you are.
There might be a lot of them are interfaith, so there’s going to be other folks are going to come truly as there.
47:40
But you come and bear witness to who Jesus is and why you do what you do, why you love your neighbors and make a difference that actually benefits.
There’s so many communities that are hurting right now, people that are struggling.
I got in my neighborhood like it’s a largely black and Latino neighborhood and we got a lot of folks that are scared to leave their homes, right?
47:59
And So what does it mean to show up in meaningful ways as the church at the grassroots level and then allow your voting to flow out of that lived work on the ground that you do right?
Because then you got stories, you know, oh, you know, Jamal down the street, you know, he was experiencing this.
48:19
And I’ll, I carry his story with me now.
It’s sacred now.
And that’s going to change how I understand what I need to be fighting for.
And that we also have a prophetic witness that challenges.
We can’t just vote for somebody and then call them out, call them, go speak to them, challenge them, push them to do what’s right, right.
48:38
I think that’s all a part of the responsibility that we have to be good neighbors and to love our neighbors in our world.
So that would be kind of my initial push.
And and that’s many, a lot of what I talk about and who will be a witness.
It’s that orientation of getting at that grassroots level in a way, but do it in a way that actually follows the way of Jesus Christ into the world.
48:57
Yeah, yeah, So good.
Thank you so much for for joining us.
I think just the theology with it, Anabaptist, it speaks to what we’re experiencing now as it relates to waste, racism and white Christian nationalism through, you know, the separation of church and state and understanding what that means that you have historically resisted that, you know, and people need to understand that theology around that and why that’s meaningful now.
49:27
And the cross shaped way of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount.
I think that is something that as Christians we need to spend time in during this season.
These are the words that Jesus said and lived, you know, while he was here.
And then also just having this multi ethnic community, you know, like I, I’m like what we think of eternity, whatever you view as eternity, Like do you think people are just going to look like you and sound like you, you know, like really embrace it, You know, this and, and and of course, peace and non balance.
50:01
I think that is the way that is the Jesus way and and then being a witness to the margins.
Those are just some key pieces that we see in that face.
So I’m I’m so glad to expose even our community to your work, to your name and to this theological framework.
50:18
And I’m so grateful for you, brother, and you keep up the good work.
You’re gonna hear from us.
You know, be the Bridge has an Academy and we love to have brilliant thought leaders be a part of the work that we are doing.
You know, this is that work, you know, in the trenches where we’re trying to help educate people.
50:37
And that is the work right now that’s being attacked, you know, but we have to keep pushing just like we have a long line of those that built these bridges before us that continue to push, you know, you’re here and a product of them not giving up.
50:54
I’m here and a product of them not giving up with so many other people.
Even when we start talking about the other side of that, some people are here because people have refused to give up for the wrong things.
And so but the light always pierces the darkness.
51:09
That’s right.
And we’re going to remember that.
So thank you so much and thank you for joining us.
Keep up the good work.
And it was just a pleasure to speak with you today.
Thank you for the invitation.
Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation as well.
So awesome.
Thanks, Latasha.
Thanks for listening to the Be the Bridge podcast.
51:28
To find out more about Be the Bridge and what we offer, visit bethebridge.com, [email protected]/give Connect with us on social media and remember you are not alone in your pursuit of righteousness and justice.
51:44
Latasha Morrison is the executive producer, Sarah Knatzer is the producer and transcripts are done by a wonderful team of volunteers.
Thanks for listening.
1:06:44
Thanks for listening to the Be the Bridge Podcast.
To find out more about Be the Bridge and what we offer, visit bethebridge.com.
Partner with us in this work at bethebridge.com/give, Connect with us on social media, and remember, you are not alone in your pursuit of righteousness and justice.
1:07:03
Latasha Morrison is the executive producer, Sarah Connatser is the producer, and transcripts are done by a wonderful team of volunteers.
Thanks for listening.
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