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In this conversation, Latasha Morrison and Esau McCaulley talk about Esau’s latest children’s book, Andy Johnson and the March for Justice and the significance of children’s literature in addressing social justice issues. Esau shares insights on the need for healthy churches that reflect the values of their congregants. The discussion also highlights the importance of cultural identity and faith in children’s books, aiming to provide resources that affirm both.
They discuss the historical role of the church in advocating for justice and the importance of cultural expressions of faith. They explore the theme of empathy and the complexities of faith within the African-American Christian experience. The conversation emphasizes God’s vision for a diverse kingdom and the hope found in community and shared faith.
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Executive Producer – Latasha Morrison
Producer – Sarah Connatser
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Not all views expressed in this interview reflect the values and beliefs of Latasha Morrison or the Be the Bridge organization.
*this was transcribed by Spotify and has not been checked for errors
0:01
Oh man.
So Mccully, Right, Mccully.
But it’s all but people always go Mcculley.
But it depends where you from.
I told people black people only got like something.
Black people got 2 vowels.
0:17
It’s a short and a long vowel, right?
And we just, we just insert whatever short Bible we feel in the mood to say.
I’m going to call you.
Could be a short A or E or you.
I was just glad I was in the same family, like a little bit.
I just got it a little bit wrong.
0:36
To the Be the Bridge Podcast, 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.
0:55
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.
1:17
Be the Bridge family I tell you.
We are so excited to have back on the podcast Mr. Esau McCauley.
He is the Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College.
1:34
And this is something new, so we want to talk about this.
Because you.
Sent me an e-mail about this and I want to hear a little bit more about what you’re doing at Wheaton.
He is the author of numerous books including How Far to the Promised Land, Our Black family story of hope and survival in the American South.
1:51
One of my favorites reading while Black and the children’s book, Josie Johnsons Hair and the Holy Spirit and Andy Johnson in the March for Justice.
He is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.
His writings have also appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post and Christianity Today.
2:12
And I am so glad to have you here.
One, one of the things that I I like about you because you are intellectual, you know, you are a theologian, but you have such a big vibrant personality like you’re you’re fun to.
2:28
Talk to.
Fun to laugh with.
You are relatable and I, I, I enjoy talking with you, you know, Thank.
You, I mean, you know, I think it’s part of it, Natasha, if you grow up broke, like I grew up broke, you either got a joke or you get cooked at school.
2:47
And so I have to learn how to defend myself out of these streets, you know, when you don’t.
So you know how like I was, I was a mark, right?
You know, so I was, I was in the neighborhood.
And so I had to, I had to let him know.
Listen, you come with these jokes.
I got these jokes for you.
And so I think I’ve never really lost that kind of, we don’t have a lot, but we can have fun.
3:05
And so that’s part of my personality.
Thank you for noticing that.
Because I don’t, I don’t, I don’t consider myself a a stuffy academic.
And, and I mean, and one of the other things that this new when we were talking, we saw each other this summer and you’re telling me about something big that’s happening with you as starting a, a church.
3:24
Can you give us a little update about about that?
What’s going on?
I’m still upset that you’re not starting one here.
In the Atlanta area.
So listen, maybe we’re maybe we’re starting the Atlanta branch.
We make you the pastor.
So she’s like, no, I’m not going to do that.
3:43
OK, we’ll get you.
We’ll get you the leader.
Be the bridge class.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I’ll help out.
I’ll help out.
I’ll I’ll be a leader, but not the pastor.
It’s a little bit it’s a little bit related to what you talked about.
So I wrote reading about Black about five years ago, I think came out 2020.
4:01
And personally, I was never someone who was like super concerned with having a big platform who wanted to kind of travel.
That was never actually my call.
I always felt like I love teaching and I love the local church.
But if y’all remember 2020, it was a an interesting time.
4:19
But also reading my Black was written between 2016 and 2020.
So you know, you have 2016 election, you have black people trying to figure out what it means to be black and Christian.
And so I just wrote this book to help and it seemed to resonate with the people who read it.
4:35
And people started asking me to come and speak and come on the podcast.
And I I just said yes.
And it was more like I was responding to a need.
And it’s great is that work was I got a chance to meet people.
I got a chance to meet you.
I got a chance to do all of these other things.
I really felt like God was calling me to say, you know, you could do a, you could do kind of a big to a bunch of different crowds, or you can do a particular good to particular group of people.
5:02
And that was what I felt like my call was.
The other thing that was happening was I saw, I know a lot of people who love Jesus who were trying to find a healthy church.
That’s one of the things that you hear whenever you go somewhere.
Help me find a healthy church.
5:19
Now, I don’t think that I’m the Messiah.
I’m not the best pastor.
There’s tons of preachers better than me.
I could list 100 of them.
But I said, you know, I would do the best that I can to preach the gospel faithfully, to care people well and in a particular place.
And so I felt like in a time where what we need in this present moment, in this present moment are healthy churches where people can live out their values.
5:41
And so I said I will step off of some of the public stuff and do a lot more of that.
So for example, it’s now March and I currently have no speaking engagements booked for the rest of 2025.
And so normally I was traveling once or twice a month right now, unless somebody can convince me to leave my house right now, it’s if it’s not in Chicago land, you’re not going to see me there.
6:05
Right, right.
And you know what, we have such similar stories with that because, you know, I’m a local church girl.
When I started be the bridge, I was working in a local church, you know, and you know, serving, you know, and and family ministry there leading and then from there I was a operations pastor at a church.
6:28
And so like I, I get it.
Oh, so you do operations?
I’m definitely getting your CV together.
I’m ready to hire you now.
Keep talking.
No, No, no, no, no, no.
I’m far removed from that now.
Like I tell you those details.
Yeah, I did that, you know, and I really enjoyed it.
6:45
And it was a church that had multiple locations, so we were.
We only got 1.
We would oversee the downtown location, but you know, and I enjoyed that and and and and be the bridge was birth out of my love for the local church.
7:04
And so that’s why it’s so hard.
You know, a lot of people have told me like, you know, this work is so hard.
It’s harder in the church because of, you know, you know, people’s theological and doctrinal, you know, ideologies and but this is where the place that God has called us to in this season.
7:23
And so I’m with you.
I’m so proud of you.
But yeah, we need to, you know, like I, I discovered, you know, I love the churchical churches and but I but the music part kind of like you.
Know hold on now I was telling people we don’t don’t don’t get it twisted.
7:40
I was saying like we we I said it’s OK to preach and pray and believe like you like you mean it.
We were, we were, I was joking a friend of mine because we had a Black History Month where we did lift every voice and sing and we did some other stuff.
7:57
And like there, there are, there are some historically black Anglican churches.
And so I said, you know, there’s not a lot of us, but some of us who outside doing we know like and our church is not sorry, you don’t want to hear me talk about liturgy and I’ll talk about church for a second, then we can talk about what you want to.
Talk about go.
Ahead, we can do whatever we want.
Liturgy.
The liturgy is what I call the skeleton, right?
8:15
It’s the skeleton of the service.
The the music is the is is is the in flesh and in the inculteration.
So no, we’re going to have some Kirk, we’re going to have some Todd Delaney.
We’re going to have some CC.
We also have some CCM too.
8:30
And we also have some hymns.
We’re mixed, but like there are, I’m trying, I’m trying to get, I’m trying to convince them to do ride on King Jesus.
But we don’t have a choir.
And so it’s stuff that you can’t do without a choir.
And so, you know, black gospel music, you got to have a choir.
8:45
And so we don’t have that, but we’re doing, we’re doing what we can’t.
I mean, because like I’m, my hands will go up when I’m singing.
Like I gotta, I can’t stay still now.
I’m not.
I was telling, I was telling my mom the other day because the church is down in Huntsville.
9:01
We grew up like I, I grew up in the hooping tradition, but I actually don’t hoop.
And so like the like the, I grew up in the old school, like that was the black Baptist Church that I grew up in, but I didn’t do that as a kid.
And when I was, I started preaching, I was 18.
And so when I did, when I was preaching like how these young people are doing it now, like this teaching style, people thought I was crazy.
9:21
And so now I was talking to my mom that most of the new church that are being planted in my city have that more a different kind, like the, I don’t know what you would call it, the newer style of preaching that’s coming along.
So nobody’s listening to me.
So I can’t say I was an innovator, but I probably should have stuck with it and they would have came back around to me in about 20 years.
9:40
I just left and then came back once everybody got accustomed of what I want to do.
But no, it’s been, it’s been great.
And I think that people don’t understand, I’ll say this about your podcast.
People don’t understand the sacrifice that people make when they have to travel a lot.
And I know that you travel a lot too.
And it gets weary and it’s sometimes hard to keep local relationships.
9:57
And so I was just trying to in my life to balance things out, y’all to see me outside some, but not too much.
Yeah, I get it.
I’ve had to make those adjustments with being back in school.
And weren’t you?
Back at school.
Did I miss this?
I think you told me this.
Yeah, I told you this summer.
You told me this summer.
10:12
I’m at I’m at Denver Seminary.
Oh yeah, that surely is true.
What are you getting?
I am getting a masters in Biblical and Theological studies.
OK, then.
So after you’ve done with that, after you’ve done with that, I take PhD students, I take PhD students.
10:30
Yes, you can come get a PhD, but I know you’re not going to do that one because that requires you to relocate.
But we do a demon and you come here, you do a demon with me.
I supervise your project, and I don’t supervise any demon projects.
So you’ll be the first one.
So Doctor Ministry, if you pull up, I will supervise it.
10:48
So be the bridge community.
You heard it.
You heard it like we got it.
We got it recorded, we got it recorded.
We got, we got a record of it.
We got a record of it.
Look, I don’t I’m, I’m just going to be honest.
Me in school, it’s hard.
It’s hard.
It’s hard leading the ministry and all the things.
11:05
But but you know, we could talk about this at another time.
I just have so much insight.
I feel like just with school and what’s going on in the world, you know, every every week I said, OK, I’m not going to complain.
But I’m like, what does Terabian style have to do it deal with, you know, scholarly writing have to do it?
11:23
What’s happening right now?
So, so, so one of the things, one of the things, and this is true, I give you some advice because that’s what happened with people who, who know me, not a lot of people do, but the people who know me kind of know from like reading my black forward.
11:39
And what they don’t understand is I wrote a book before that book that was my dissertation that was published probably because it cost $100.00 an academic dissertation.
And and so one of the things that I realized in the process of writing that book, it is some of the stuff that, well, most of the stuff that’s in that book, people were never going to read.
11:58
It was never going to touch the actual communities that I was part of until reading while black and how far to the Promised land and the kids books were all a part of a pivot that I said at the exact same question, folks outside suffering who actually cares about the scholarship.
Then what?
I would say though, though, this is the thing that I this might be an encouragement to you.
12:16
Your professors may not know what to do with all of this information, but you know what to do with it.
And so sometimes there’s a lot of stuff that you have to take in that you have to learn.
And then it’s up to us to learn how to remix it and repackage it because there’s tons of stuff that I do in reading my black that is technical, like it’s a philosophy of biblical studies.
12:37
And I remixed and I taught, I dipped it in chocolate and then I gave it to the people.
And so I think that one, one of the things that you have to do as African American or even a woman or a person called in The Academy Is that you got to say, okay, this is how this the, The Academy Is designed to communicate to a certain community.
12:56
Because a lot of people come from a certain place and when they think about what scholarship looks like, they, they think about producing scholarship for that place.
Very few professors can actually tell you how to speak intuitively to a community that they don’t know, but you know, that community.
13:12
So you got to be the one.
I’m sorry, here it goes.
Watch this.
You got to be the bridge.
Oh, look what I did.
Look what I did.
Look what I did.
That’s right.
That’s good.
And that’s some good encouragement because you know it it you want to Stewart the giftings and the the space that God has given you.
13:30
Well, so that’s why you know I’m in seminary.
So it’s good to have people like you to encourage me through it.
It it’ll come.
So so for example, there are elements like if people look at my scholarship and the stuff that I do and they look at my where I did my PhD at the University of Saint Andrews, I studied an NT right?
13:51
And people will say like NT right is never talking about black people.
I mean, you know, that’s not his thing.
Yeah, yeah.
But here’s the thing, the stuff that he said about the Kingdom of God, yes.
The stuff that he says about like what God says about justice, A lot of the stuff that what he was doing, because even though he’s not from my context, he has a sensitivity, but for whatever reason gets a gift of God to like what God has to say about the suffering peoples of the world.
14:16
I was able to take a lot of that stuff and remix it.
And there’s a significant influence of his thought in my writing to be actually read NT write and you read what I do.
You can say, Oh, I see, I see it’s in there.
It just gets connected.
And so I do see in some sense what they, they, they talk about in the Academy, like doctor father, that’s the person who, who, who trained you and you study under them.
14:39
I consider myself in my own way, carrying on in my own scholarship, in my own context, some of the things he taught me.
And so when you come to do your D men, you will be like the granddaughter.
And so we’re going to have you take it on.
I love it.
I love it.
Now listen, we’re going to jump into to what we’re talking about, but I think this is good because I’m telling you these are our Nuggets for so many of us that are out here that are in in school and you know, our leading organizations leadership.
15:10
And one of the things we wanted to talk about is your your children’s book.
And you know, like if everyone says for such a time as this when I look at your children’s book called Andy Johnson’s March for Justice.
Andy Johnson and the March for Justice.
15:26
Yeah.
And and I wonder, you know, did you kind of model this after your, your, your family or what, what brought about this and why did you write it?
Well, back in 2020 when there’s a lot of protests going on in the community and it was actually during COVID.
15:44
And so we went, me and I went to Chicago because there was a March in Chicago and I and we were talking about whether or not we want to take our kid, my, my, my second oldest to our kids to Chicago to do the protest.
We ended up not doing it for a variety of reasons.
15:59
And they ended up being a March that was done locally in the Wheaton area, and we took our kids to that one.
And so that was the kind of impetus of this idea of one of the things that happened during 2020-2021, 2022, or just actually the experience of children, broadly speaking, is how do you talk to your kids about complicated issues?
16:20
How do you not?
Because you don’t want you don’t want to turn kids into adults.
Right.
So how do you introduce an idea to kids in a way that is appropriate to the level of development?
And I And so one of the things that I was trying to say, OK, you have reading my blog, you have these kind of high level books.
16:42
What about this early formation?
Because as a kid, I don’t remember anything that my Sunday school teacher told me in particular, but I know the collective wisdom of the kind of kid I was because of all of the things that they taught me.
16:58
And so if you add up all of that stuff together, it created a kid with, with some empathy.
And so I really want to say, how do I help families talk about justice in a way that is palatable?
The other thing is I, and maybe This is why I, I don’t, I don’t, I stay a little bit broke or not as rich as I would like to be.
17:19
I this, this is one of the things I was noticing.
And this is, this is some sense defines my, my, a lot of my writing.
I feel like there are strong cultural affirmation books, like, yeah, it’s black and proud.
Like I’m a, I’m a, you know, like that stuff.
And this is great.
Like I, I have my kids buy cultural identity books to understand their history and their context.
17:40
And then there’s like religious books.
Here’s why you should love Jesus and love your neighbor and here’s Bible stories.
But I was having trouble finding books that affirm both my kids culture and, and their faith at the same time.
And they wove those two things together.
17:56
So I don’t know if there’s a huge market for it, but that’s what I’m trying to do.
I’m trying to say, OK, so this is the second kids book that’s in, in that like Josie Johnson and the Holy Spirit deals with like black girls and their identity and like how they struggled sometimes their hair and how they, you know, people sometimes treat them differently, you know, don’t touch my head kind of stuff.
18:16
But like, how does that relate to like who they are as Christians?
That’s book one.
Book 2.
It’s like, well, how do you think about helping kids understand that the church has often been an agent for good in the world, in particular the black church.
We deal with the issues of like, and it’s intentionally vague, right?
18:33
We don’t say this is the incident that happens that leads to these marches, but it’s like, there’s something bad that happened.
And how do Christians, how do Christians respond?
And historically, in the black right and in the African American church civil rights tradition, African Americans have responded to injustice by public protest to let people know that the things that people are doing to them is not what God would want.
18:56
And so trying to get that idea across, but also, and this is the important part, it’s not a, it’s not I, I at least hope that it’s written in a way that’s entertaining.
So you can kind of like, you know, my kids love their vitamins because their vitamins are like I think the vitamins is candy.
19:16
But apparently the vitamin story telling me they can, but they’re gummy bears.
I think me and you might be around the same age, even those thick.
It was like you were chewing on a brick, That Flintstone.
I.
Felt like I was getting healthy from sucking down that chalk sticks my mom was giving me.
19:35
And so I wanted it to be more like those the, the, the gummy bears were like the kids.
They’re getting the nutrients, but in the way that’s entertaining, not that chalk stick.
And so that’s one of the hard things, right?
The how do you make something that is fun but at the same time also entertaining?
19:53
And so that’s what I was attempting to do.
Whether or not they succeeded or not, If people say maybe a chopstick, we’ll see, but that’s what I was attempting to do.
Well, at least you’re we were a level up from our parents having to take collar oil, collar oil and Castor oil.
My Mama, My Mama used to make me take.
20:09
Let me tell you something we had We had two medicines when I was growing up, Pepto Bismol and Robitussin and big vapor rub.
Oh yes.
Yes, that sure is everything.
They put a. 6 on it.
Listen, they, they, these, these young people today, they all know.
20:27
They don’t they.
Don’t know nothing about the green alcohol.
You know something, This is crazy.
This is crazy.
I was walk.
I was at the grocery store the other day.
You don’t think that I’m to soak it up?
I don’t know.
That’s why I can’t call it Natasha.
I mean, Latasha, because you bring out the the true version of me.
20:43
I was at the grocery store.
Yeah, I was at the grocery store the other day.
I was with my son walking through the grocery store and I realized I don’t think my kid has ever had baloney in his life.
And I was like, I used to live on baloney.
And I think about what I buy this my son would be like, what is it?
21:02
I said look at look, did you try it?
Did you try it to cut it so you could?
I said my son, when you know what to do with like I said, look, I said look at God, do the Jelly section.
Look at God.
I saw the baloney.
I said look at God.
Look what he had to eat.
Kid don’t even know what a baloney sandwich.
21:23
He’s like dad, what I I would love you know what I might do this.
I might.
Get some baloney.
Meat.
I might get some potted meat, some Vienna sausages, some Spam and Bologna and say I want you to make a meal out of this.
What would you do with this pot of meat if I just hand it to you?
21:40
People on the pockets that we’re talking about.
But if you know, you know.
Exactly if you got that, you put it down, but you said so much there and, and, and talking about, you know, this marrying of culture and, and, and your faith in which people don’t understand that, especially being from a collective society, like a lot of times, especially in individualistic context, people feel like you supposed to compartmentalize that and you don’t see you don’t see that in scripture at all.
22:10
Like, you know, like when you talk about, you know, if you talk about Israel, you know, their faith was married to their culture.
I mean, a new culture was birthed out of their faith.
One of the thing, one of the things that that I try to explain to people is the moment that that you see that the Gospels intended to go to the nations of the world.
22:34
You know that the gospel had to then be inculturated, right?
And you could have an inculturated gospel.
That’s the same gospel.
What was going on in Peter’s churches?
The Jewish, he was the Jewish, he was the Jewish apostle, apostle to the Jews.
In Paul’s context, we used the apostle, the Gentiles.
22:52
But listen, this is what he said, though they had different missional contexts, but they had a meeting and it says it’s the same gospel that goes to these different places.
And so you just can’t imagine.
There’s nowhere in the Bible that says that you have to clap on the one and the three or the two and the four.
23:09
It doesn’t say that.
It doesn’t say that.
The Bible doesn’t say here are the five instruments that they convey holiness right here is the preaching style.
And so I was the way I was, I was playing this to somebody the other day we were reading, I was reading this commentary on the book of Galatians because the Galatians Paul is in his feelings, he’s pretty emotional.
23:28
And it was a British scholar and he was like, wow, we’re often uncomfortable by by by Paul’s in flame of emotion.
I was like, who is uncomfortable?
Not black people or even like Italians.
So certain cultures are more reserved.
You say the British coach are more reserved and other cultures are more exuberant.
And so I’m actually not threatened by large displays of emotion.
23:47
And so it is not, for example, it’s not more intellectual preaching if you’re calm versus if you’re excited.
Those are cultural manifestations of the same truth.
And so when you say the Gospel was effective in a particular culture, that’s fine.
24:03
But then when you say for me to to hear about Jesus, I have to hear through those cultural forms, that’s when I think there’s a problem.
And so when you say what I’m trying to do is to say to my kid is that the cultural forms that the gospel takes root in will be distinct while it’s the same gospel.
24:20
And I’m trying to get people to feel comfortable in those cultural forms, which is why when you say, oh, I’m thinking of Anglican churches, that must mean that the music has, you know, this certain kind of vow to it.
Well, no, we can actually bring in liturgy in the cultural form of black music and, you know, preaching tradition.
24:41
And so those things can always be brought together.
And I, and maybe I’m just stubborn because I’d be trying to bring together things.
People say it can’t be brought together, but I think it’s actually doable.
And I think it’s actually, I think it’s vital to do it because people, we don’t want to create false dilemmas for people.
And this is one of the things that I see that a lot of young people have to deal with is you should never have to choose every, every culture, right?
25:03
It’s perfect, right?
So every culture needs to be reformed by the by the, by the gospel.
So I’m not saying the black culture is like perfect, but like you don’t have to give up the core parts of who you are as you talk about it, self-expression, it has to be reformed and made and then like formed according to the likeness of God.
25:20
And there is a manifestation of that that is good and holy.
And just sometimes people like they have to give that up in order to be Christian.
And I want to say you don’t have to do that.
Yeah, yeah, it’s so good.
It’s so much here, man.
I could talk forever.
Like just, you know, even like one of the, I’m looking at one of the pictures in your, in your arc, it says God’s people deserve justice.
25:39
And you know, Sarah and I were talking and Sarah said, she said, I love this image because it goes against what so many, especially white Christians who don’t see marches as worship or protest as lament as as worship.
25:55
And I and I, and I think that’s something we have to understand, especially now when, you know, this is a it’s also a part of our constitutional right.
But when we try to see that demonized for certain groups of people, like certain groups of people can March and protest, but you know, other people, you can’t March and protest or is is demonized.
26:15
So I think that’s something good that you put in here so we can see that.
And I think that was the beauty of 2020 is what I when I look back at pictures from the 60s, you know, you see people that look like us and maybe a few people here and there, you know, that were protesting.
26:32
But when at 2020, man, this was a global unreckoning kind of that was happening, but it was a a multi ethnic, multicultural group of people that were out there, you know, crying out and and and beginning to understand.
26:49
And I think that is the the, the backlash that we’re living through now because that that unity was threatening.
Well, I would say this, anyone who knows anything about American history understands that after the Civil War, you had reconstruction and then you had like the end of reconstruction and you had the rise, you know, like there was the backlash and then you had the civil rights movement, you had the backlashes of rights movement.
27:18
You’re on drugs and all of those other things and mass incarceration.
And now you have, you know, like a certain pre the racial progress, you have to change demographics in society in this fear.
One of the things is like, really?
So on one level, the backlash was should have been expected, right?
27:36
But it’s still surprising.
You disappointed.
Yeah.
We can have this evolutionary account of human development where we think that society’s always going to get better and better and better.
But in actuality, historically, it’s a hopefully it’s five steps forward and then three steps back and made a little bit of progress.
27:55
Sometimes it’s four steps forward and then five steps back.
And so, you know, those, those things kind of wax and wane.
But the, the thing about the truth is it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it doesn’t care about its context.
The truth is the truth, even when it’s, it’s out of style.
And it’s true that like, you know, multiculturalism, which is a biblical idea, unity across different united under the lordship of Jesus is a is a biblical idea.
28:20
You have this context now where people are a little bit kind of hostile to that idea, but that is a change its value.
And to be a person of integrity when it’s out of style is actually when you figure out what you want to believe.
Because we look back on the civil rights we went and we and we perceive, but it’s popular.
28:36
But when MLK died, he had one of the lowest approval ratings of any public figure in America.
And so we, we idealized the past as if, oh, everybody said like nobody was sitting around and said nobody.
Okay, in 1955, people say, you know what the majority of people were saying?
28:52
You know what, it’s pretty bad that most of us are racist and segregation exists.
We should all stop.
I wish somebody would leave the we would help us to understand that.
Oh, thank you, doctor King.
Please March around the teachers to us.
No, he was called a rabbarize.
He was criticized all of these things communist, communist and so like it’s it’s the same playbook.
29:12
And so I think, I think that one of the, the hard things to understand is we find out what we believe and what I really what our values are when the contest is difficult.
This is one of the things really interesting.
I know we don’t want to, we can take too much time on our pocket, on your pocket.
29:28
It’s your show.
But one of the things I found really interesting over the last two to three years, which or actually last year or so has been the companies, because those companies, they were chasing diversity when it was popping, like culturally, when it seemed the cultural thing to do, they valued it.
29:49
And now when it seems to be culturally out of fashion, the fact that they’re running from it shows you something that we ought to know from the beginning.
These companies don’t love us.
These companies are fundamentally about the bottom line and they will follow the money wherever they think it is.
30:05
And so that show, I didn’t think that stuff was real anyway.
Like don’t tell me on some commercial that you care about me, because I will tell you something else that is true.
These companies are rarely ahead of the culture.
They always follow the culture.
And so these people.
30:21
And so and so one of the so the question, is the church going to be that way?
Is the church going to be like simply a thermometer is going to measure the temperature and follow what the temperature says because the temperature of the culture is currently against diversity?
Or are we going to continue to be the people who God called us to be, to faithfully pursue the things that we know to be true?
30:40
Yeah.
And you know, there’s so much in what you said and I want to go back to what some of the things we’re seeing in the culture of the church, because it’s like the culture of the world has infiltrated the culture of the church or either really, when we think about it, I think some of the the bad cultures of the church has infiltrated the world.
31:03
And in a sense, because, you know, some of those French movements of pushback started within certain denominations within the church.
And so one of the things, and this is something this boiling that I see now.
You mentioned the word word when you were talking about your son and how you know, seeing this how like a part of pursuing justice and a part of some of the out point of when we when we say grace and mercy is that of us seeing and doing and connecting and living is we’re developing empathy, right?
31:39
And so now people are there’s been 3 or 4 books written by Christians and some in scholarship that says empathy is toxic.
Yeah, let’s talk about it.
Let’s talk.
About it so, so let me, let me, let me say a couple of things.
31:56
First of all, I’m not read any of those books, so I’m not going to talk about those books, but I’m going to talk about what’s going on.
I’m going to put into historical context once again.
And This is why one of the research my, my current research area, it’s a civil rights, not civil rights movement.
32:11
I’m, I’m back in the, the, the abolitionist movement and it’s really interesting.
There’s a direct link between the stuff that happens there and here.
And this is what I mean, one of the main arguments that they were, they were using it during the slavery debates was the scripture around loving God and loving your neighbor.
32:32
And they were saying, well, how could you love your neighbor and you and then enslave your neighbor?
And as a part of that, they started writing these testimonies that were explaining to people what it was like to be enslaved.
And the point of those testimonies is to say you wouldn’t want to experience this, therefore you should let me go to the point of some of those slave narratives where, you know, they’re telling these difficult stories to say we’re not happy slaves, we’re suffering.
33:00
Therefore show empathy for us and then let us go.
This leads to a wave of counter writings that we’re trying to give people not to have empathy for the people who are enslaved, right?
They’re saying no, no, no, you don’t need to have any of these people.
33:15
They deserve it or God created them to be enslaved, or it ain’t that bad.
And so there was a counter argument to say, no, don’t let your empathy lead you to help these people.
You should close your heart and so and So what I’m saying to you is what they were arguing and this I’m telling you should go and read it.
33:38
Sure, if you look at somebody and you see that they’re in change, you would naturally feel like you should.
That’s what they form.
Here’s why you shouldn’t do it.
And so now you have people who are saying, here are the things that I have experienced here are the things that are going out of my context and people going, oh man, I didn’t really understand this.
33:55
Now that I understand this, I need to think about how I could be a, you know, a more just person.
And So what I would say is what we’re seeing now then is, is a, is a repeat of them.
Now, I’ll, I’ll make 2 caveats to that.
Now here, here, here.
34:11
Here’s this thing.
Of course, of course, empathy can be mystery, can be, can be, can’t be manipulated.
Like my kids look at me all sad when it’s bedtime or they’re begging for, you know, my, I have one of my kids.
34:26
I can’t say which one it is, but every every year on their birthday, they said, take me, we’ll go out to the movies.
And they said, let me pick the, the I’ll talk about one birthday, let me pick the restaurants who picked the restaurant?
They went and got some food.
They didn’t got a chocolate, a chocolate milkshake and that.
Then they said we go to the movies.
34:43
They went to the movies.
They wanted like one of those blue frosty things and I said, OK, you could have it, but you going to get sick?
They asked.
With Eminems and popcorn.
That stuff hit their belly at the same time and I can literally carry tearing them into the house.
They was done for.
34:58
And what I’m saying is, but so it was.
It was wrong to me as a parent to feel sorry for them and give them more and more because it actually made them sick.
So sometimes it is it.
It is wise to use discernment and say, hey, even though I might like lament your situation, just me feeling sorry for you.
35:17
Is it going to be the best thing to do?
Now here’s the real question, though.
As you look across the church and you look at the main problem that is actually affecting people, it’s the real part of that.
Too many people are empathetic.
In other words, I’m not saying that there’s never toxic empathy or not toxic empathy, a poor use of discernment arising from emotion without, you know, reason that happens.
35:42
But what?
But the but the real, the real problem is people’s hearts are closed to naked cruelty.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so if you want to say like, is it 8020, 80% of the time the issues, the lack of compassion, 20% of the time it’s a lack of discernment.
Well then if that’s the case, then why are there 50 books?
36:01
You know, So it’d be different.
It’d be different what I’m saying to you, it’d be different if we were in these multicultural justice loving churches that were doing all of this stuff and empathy was running wild and all of this stuff is happening.
But you got monocultural churches that actually aren’t outside helping the suffering people as the default setting.
36:21
And if you get if you if you give them a resource to say, I was already in a context where I was I was skeptical of this stuff.
I was that’s the default context.
So what’s your with with with that with those kinds of arguments do now is that it justifies that skepticism.
36:37
Yeah.
Right, And so one of the things that I always say be prophetic to your community, not prophetic to your community outside that you’re not a part of.
So for me, there’s a lot of people in our contact who really care about justice.
So I will stand 10 toes down on Jesus.
You see what I mean?
36:52
Because in that context, saying like Jesus and justice is important.
And so, but if you’re in the context of everybody’s pro Jesus, but afraid strangely of justice and you write, you produce the contact that’s saying don’t be like overly concerned with those issues.
37:08
That’s not prophetic.
That’s telling people they want to hear.
Yeah, yeah, and there’s a lot of that.
Yeah, that’s so good.
I mean, I think I was looking at a video and someone was just saying this with their full chest and I was like, okay, where, where in scripture did Jesus not empathize with those that were vulnerable or marginalized?
37:29
You know, I mean, even some of the people that we feel like are not deserving of, of empathy, empathy, that doesn’t give you excuse to mistreat them.
I, I even think about just even the last act of, you know, Jesus on the cross and you know, you got this thief and there was empathy, you know, toward the thief.
37:48
And so I think that’s just, there’s just a lot of Jesus brains.
Jesus, Jesus did a lot of things that were that at least might be relevant in this one.
Is he was he he he always seemed to be concerned with the suffering people that he saw.
38:06
So if he saw someone going through something he he was moving for compassion to help.
Even when people were like there’s one blind dude who he he or the dude went snitched on him.
Right.
Right.
He says like, and so like he, he and he killed someone.
Yeah.
He knew that she was like, listen, stop snitching or something else.
38:22
What’s going to happen to you?
And so he saw someone who had a problem.
He helped that person with that problem.
Even that person didn’t appreciate his help and then used that to go and get him into trouble.
Now, one of the other things that I, I want to say is that he, you can show empathy to someone while still giving them moral agency.
38:44
So the woman is called in adultery that, you know, they, they didn’t bring the dude, they’re, they’re tripping, you know, they bring only her.
And he, he shows some sympathy for her situation.
And so he intervenes on her behalf.
He, he kind of steps in and advocates for her, But what he also does is that he gives her the dignity of moral agency when he sits there and go and sin no more.
39:06
And so poor people, and this, the reason I think this is important is poor people are moral agents.
We, you know, when you don’t have resources, you need resources.
But but, but Jesus didn’t actually see them only as objects of philanthropy when he gave the dignity to say that even in your poverty, you can reflect my character in the world.
39:26
Some of the holiest people I know were people without a lot of resources.
And So what I think people are trying to say when they’re trying to say no empathy is they’re saying that I need to close off compassion because compassion is going to lead me to help in a way that is going to be helpful.
But you can have compassion on someone.
39:44
You can help someone in a bad situation while still maintaining the dignity of more agency.
You.
Know there’s nothing, there’s nothing.
Listen, I’ve had people who are like this who were addicted to drugs.
We have whatever issue and they get clean and they have a job and they go to work and they get a check.
40:02
The pride that comes from having that check.
And listen, I’m back, I’m doing this.
And so I think that there is no, there is no conflict between seeing someone who’s suffering intervening and caring about them while also giving them the dignity to to have a different kind of life.
40:21
And I’m not going to protect my heart like Jesus.
One of the things that Jesus did.
Is he allowed the world to break his heart, He didn’t protect himself from it.
He had all kinds of people who then left him right He he watched Judas’s feet.
40:37
Exactly.
Even though Judas went and sold him out.
So if you sit here trying to protect your heart from being disappointed by people who you help, then that’s it.
Seems to me to be not the example of Jesus.
Yeah, one of the things you said on your podcast that I wanted to talk about, you said African American Christians have learned how to be deeply disappointed with other Christians.
41:01
And I think this, I mean, but this is something we’re we’re even what we’re talking about.
Because I do feel like when you’ve had, when you’ve endured suffering, when that is a part of your theology, when justice is a part of your theology, although you’ve been wounded and disappointed, I, you know, our, our, our disappointment has not been turned to, to vengeance ever.
41:31
You know, it’s only been love.
And and then also the, the, the, I’m going to hold you.
I’m going to be a moral compass that you’re not going to treat us this way.
And I’m going to verbalize it.
What what would you say when when Christians are navigating this, you know, can we talk about this disappointment that you did you see?
41:54
I think, I think that there’s a certain narrative that exists in kind of mainstream Christianity where I thought we were the heroes.
I thought we were the good guys.
And then 20, whatever happens, you begin to see the brokenness of the church.
You got to go, oh, the people I thought were the good guys were actually morally compromised in a lot of ways.
42:13
And so now I got to figure out how do I be a Christian when some of my heroes find out they had clay feet.
And what I want to say is one of the advantages of the advantage, the blessing, the realities of growing up in the African American Christian tradition is that we didn’t have that, that we never, we never believed the propaganda because we often treat slavery like a moral issue.
42:35
But it was a legal issue.
It was in law and in custom and in religion.
And so we had to figure out how do I be a Christian when other people who thought who are themselves Christians are the ones who are participating in my oppression?
And so if you go back and you actually read how African Americans have talked about Christians in majority culture from the 1800s all the way till now, we’ve said this, this, this expression of Christianity is a place is deeply compromised because it doesn’t actually embody God’s own care for the concern for the disinherited.
43:10
And so we just learned how to like navigate that kind of like way of being a Christian.
We also know what it’s like to be a Christian without any power.
We couldn’t vote.
We didn’t have a lot of economic say outside of our own context.
And so we’ve just learned to have to actually depend upon the power of God.
43:27
And so when you’re used to having cultural power and you used to think of yourself as the good guy, how do you deal with the fact that the people who you thought were heroes were morally complicated?
The prime example of this, the prime example of this is that we’ve always in America talked about the 1950s and 1960s as the good old days, the post World War 2 Boo.
43:49
And this is not just in like with Trump, this has been the case forever.
We’ve always talked about let’s go back to the good old days when Americans were Americans and everybody was in church.
It’s like y’all realize that was Jim Crow, right, right, right.
And So what you think of as the golden age, we were getting with water hoses and hit with water hoses.
44:10
And so we just understand there’s always been two different stories that were told about what’s happening in America.
And we’ve just learned how to find joy and not to allow the failures of other Christians to distract me from Christ.
Because when I, when I read the Bible and I said, I’m going to say it until they turn off the mic, I encounter a God who’s afraid they’re not an enemy.
44:34
I don’t see a God who hates me.
I see a God who loves me and I see a God who loves me enough to call me out of myself, to make me the version he created me to be.
He loved me enough to save me and to transform me.
And that’s the reason why I think and that and that and that testimony of transformation has been something that has been true of African American Christians and other Christians across the world when we talk about us across time.
45:01
Yeah, I think that that’s so true that we, you know, we’ve always had to deal with this dual reality because when I hear people talk about, you know, the good old days, I’m.
I’m thinking about, I can look at history and the facts of history and know that it meant something different for my community.
45:17
Even as it relates to FDR, you know, you know that those are benefits that, you know, our people that look like us didn’t get, you know, didn’t receive or, you know, Reaganomics, you know, I, I mean you.
Know one one of the Lyndon.
B Johnson like we could go on this like this dual reality, you know, for people.
45:37
One of the things I ask as a as a thought exercise, and maybe the people on the podcast can do it.
Maybe you do this already or wanted to be in what year in the United States was it unfashionable everywhere in the country to be racist?
So where when was it where you couldn’t be racist anywhere in the like when the racism and as a publicly holdable opinion?
45:59
Because I don’t think people say in the 60s and the 70s that you couldn’t be publicly racist in significant parts of the country.
Most people say definitely not the 60s, right.
Do you say the 70s?
Well, in the South, do you really want to say, OK, the 80s?
So what I’m saying about that, think about campaigns.
46:17
Think about like Senate campaigns, House campaigns, presidential campaigns, in what year could could nobody campaign on a racialized agenda?
And most people are going to say something like the 80s.
Most people are going to actually land in the 80s.
46:33
It sounds like a radical thing, but you’re going to, you’re going to land in the 80s.
And then you might say even in the 80s, you have, like, coded stuff.
Yeah.
And so when was it like that, that it was like, OK, we all agree everywhere publicly that being a racist is bad.
46:51
And I think you might be shocked because I mean, and So what that means is to harken back to a good old day and not reckon with how that might have landed, especially as an African American in the South.
To harken back to the 50s and 60s as the good old days of the 40s requires me to ignore the big experience of my ancestors.
47:14
Right.
Yeah, so good.
I’m going to end with this statement that you said and we’re, and I just want you to kind of just talk about that as, as we add, you said, I’m just glad that no executive order can cancel God’s plan to gather culturally and ethnically diverse people to himself.
47:34
An idea that runs straight through the central highway of Scripture from the call of Abraham to the vision of the people of God in the in the Book of Revelation.
The cultural diversity of the United States gives us the chance in particular churches to embody God’s vision of a beloved multiethnic Kingdom united under one rule of his son.
47:56
May that diversity continue to increase.
Yeah.
We need a pastoral word about God’s diverse Kingdom because we need people to speak into this and I think I I have no expectations a lot from when it comes to partisan and, and and and people and leadership, but when it comes to the body of Christ.
48:22
Yeah.
When we have the word, the living word of God, yeah.
And we, we can, the living Word of God should cause you to deflect what is happening, you know, and reject what is happening in in culture.
48:40
I would I would say this first of all, I want to drop drop some news.
I got a kids Bible coming out called God’s God’s colorful Kingdom.
First of.
All how you?
Listen, I’m a kids film coming out and it talks.
48:57
It talks about God’s.
It traces for kids the story of God’s desire to create a multicultural Kingdom.
Please be the bridge like get these things for your children like because sometimes I find Andy.
Johnson so I can keep writing books.
Yeah, the the only like a part of our hope is educating, truly educating.
49:19
You know this next generation that they would be convicted.
You know, so yeah, I want to say this as briefly as I can and, and I’ll say this the the strong sentence 1st and then I would justify it.
49:35
You cannot read the Bible rightly and not see in the Bible God’s desire to gather multicultural family for himself.
He literally calls Abraham the father of many nations and the idea that runs from the store of Abraham through the story of his sons, through the stories of like Ruth, through the vision in the prophets of the the the servant of the Lord who gathers the nations and the people strained to the mountain of the Lord to learn about this who God is to the Great Commission itself to the actual churches that exist in the book of Acts to Paul’s ministry, which is the bringing together Jews and Gentiles.
50:15
The fact that the the Christianity takes fruit in the Roman Empire that because of the Roman Empire, they had a model they had a diversity of people in these churches.
So they have people from different culture in in the church from the beginning.
You cannot and you can’t actually read the end of the Bible, which has languages and cultures coming into the Kingdom of God.
50:35
You cannot understand the Bible and not see God’s desire to gather up a multitude of people.
And the reason that reason that’s important is the diversity of cultures testifies to the universal saving power of the gospel.
50:50
The God is not just the God of one culture, He’s the God of every culture.
And so if you can’t understand that, then you can’t understand what God is up to in the Scripture.
It’s not the only thing in Scripture.
We’re not saying that saying you miss out on the 16th in Scripture.
Now, if that’s the case, if God values that and your instinctive response to discussions of diversity is skepticism, then you’re literally running against the grain of Scripture.
51:19
And so the church has always been counter cultural at its best.
And so if you’re in a context where the energy of the culture is divisive, then it gives us a chance to be even more of the people of God that we’re supposed to be at the beginning, right?
51:36
So I’ve been, I’ve been in Japan and Japan is not as multicultural as the United States.
Most of the people in Japan are just Japanese.
It’s not negative, right?
So I when I was in also an island in Okinawa.
So it’s mostly Okinawans, right?
And so if you’re in a place where it’s just like all Japanese people, it is not bad to be like our Turkish Japanese.
51:55
But what you have the opportunity to do in the United States, because of the diversity of the cultures here, we could be a picture of the Kingdom of God in a particular way.
And so if that’s the opportunity that God has given you by the properties of putting you in the United States, why would you turn your back on that?
Yeah.
52:11
And why would you join with the people who are saying that diversity is bad?
Yeah, how can a Christian say bringing the nations here so the nations may hear about the, the, the love of God being transformed can never be bad.
52:26
And so I think that in general, the idea that that that as a Christian, the United States gives me a chance to abide in the gospel in a particular way through a multicultural community is a great opportunity, not a great threat.
And you can say that while also acknowledging that immigration is complicated and we got to have effective laws and all the other stuff.
52:46
That’s fine, I get it.
But as at its core, I’m going to think the diversity in the United States is good because it gives me a chance to live out the gospel.
Mandate is unity across difference under the Lordship of Jesus.
Yeah, yeah, so good.
What is giving you hope right now?
53:02
I just finished, I wrote the Ford for it just to Gibney’s book Don’t Let nobody turn you Around.
And so if you if you haven’t gotten that, get that.
So I I just, I just read that book and that was something that was really encouraging.
And to be honest, it’s my local church.
53:17
Yeah.
All Saints, Naperville, you and Naperville pull up.
And so just seeing the people who are committed to this vision and this multicultural is black, white, Asian.
We’ve never been in Latino brothers and sisters and we would like but you know they’re.
Coming now, they’re hearing this and.
53:33
They’re coming hold.
On.
And so it really has been like I’ve never been a part of a church plant.
I’m probably never doing it again.
But it’s a miracle we didn’t have anything like we.
It’s some people to come because they see this vision what, what, what God is up to.
So I would say a book that I read that was encouraged with me with Justin’s book.
53:52
I also read a book by I just did another for for carbon Dimes called becoming God’s family.
Why Sinai matters.
So so I have people who are writing to do good work.
And so that’s that’s that’s encourage me right now.
Yeah, there’s more.
There’s more writing, you know, to, to, to give people truth and give people a pathway than ever before.
54:15
There’s so many great books out.
You know, Jamar just did a book.
This lady named Latasha Morrison just just did a book, you know, You know, brown faces, you know.
Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been trying to can, can you talk to her scheduling people?
54:32
I’ve been trying to get on the podcast for like a year.
Yeah, we got to.
We got to, We got to, we got to, we got, we’re working out.
We’re going to.
Work out I’m just.
Saying like I’m just so it’s incredible to see all the giftedness in the body of Christ and the words that we.
Malcolm Foley Sorry, I should talk about that.
54:48
The anti greed gospel.
Malcolm Foley it’s called the anti greed gospel.
I forgot about that one too.
Yeah, you see.
And and so we’ll we’ll, we’ll put this in the the show notes, but thank you so much.
We can talk forever.
I know this is too long, but we’ll be I’ll be briefing next time.
But no seriously, I’m going to come and visit, you know your church, but thank you so much.
55:09
You are a gift to the body of Christ, and but more so, your gift to your.
Family thank you and my son says hello.
I’ll tell your son I said hello.
It was great meeting him and you know, I am so proud of you and just keep pushing and I and I’m going to take your, you know, your advice.
55:27
As you said, I’m not going to We can’t let everything disturbance daily.
You know, we really have to find that that that space where we can just really and not trying to over spiritualize, but really lean in, you know, to Jesus like never before and draw near and just to keep our sanity.
55:50
So thank you so much for being on the Be the Bench podcast again.
I look forward to coming over there and share some words with your folks.
That sounds great.
I’ll talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening to the Be the Bridge Podcast.
To find out more about Be the Bridge and what we offer, visit bethebridge.com.
56:08
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.
Latasha Morrison is the executive producer, Sarah Connatser is the producer, and transcripts are done by a wonderful team of volunteers.
56:27
Thanks for listening.
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