Find this episode and subscribe on:
In this episode of The Justice Table powered by Be the Bridge, the conversation centers around immigration from a theological standpoint. Dr. Will Gravely, Jefferson Jones, Darryl Ford, and Latasha Morrison talk about the importance of viewing all individuals through the lens of Jesus’ love and compassion, regardless of their immigration status. They discuss the dehumanizing practices of ICE and the need for Christians to advocate for justice. They talk about the need to be involved in the community, know your neighbors, and be informed politically in order to vote for the good of your neighbor. Listen and share!
*note – this conversation was recorded at the end of 2025, prior to the escalation of dehumanizing and violent actions by federal law enforcement in 2026
Join in the conversation on our social media pages on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn to let us know your thoughts on this episode!
Executive Producer – Latasha Morrison
Producer and Editor – Sarah Connatser
Music – “Bridge” by Ellie Holcomb, used by permission
Links:
Become a Donor of Be the Bridge
Connect with Be the Bridge:
Our Website
Facebook
Instagram
BTB YouTube
Join the online community BTB Connect
Connect with the speakers on Instagram:
Not all views expressed in this interview reflect the values and beliefs of Latasha Morrison or the Be the Bridge organization.
*This transcript was made from Spotify and has not been checked for accuracy.
0:07
We want to welcome you all to this installment, the next episode of The Justice Table, where biblical justice is served.
This, of course, is powered by Be the Bridge, and we have some incredible folks on the episode today, beginning with our very own founder and sensational leader, Latasha Morrison.
0:27
And So what we want to do first is to introduce the group to you all and then we’ll jump into today’s subject.
And so with that, I’ll turn it over to Latasha.
I’m Latasha and it’s excited to be here at that, to have a seat at the justice table.
0:45
You know, I’m grateful to be here.
I’m the, you know, the CEO and founder of Be the Bridge, and it’s an honor to be amongst friends and just friends who like lift up the voices of others and specifically women.
1:02
And I appreciate that about each of you.
So I’m glad to be here.
Let’s go next.
We have an amazing attorney, clergy person, social commentator, so I want to go to our dear brother next.
Good morning everybody I’m Darryl Ford it’s good to be be with everybody I’ve had the the the incredible pleasure to be a part of training and be the bridge and these are these are issues and topics that everybody on this call is passionate about so I’m excited for us to dig in and and share as we walk through this passion let’s.
1:34
Go and then we have none other than a pastor, non profit leader, social commentator as well.
When I gave an opportunity for our dear brother to introduce himself.
Yo, what’s up everybody?
Jefferson Jones here, man, what an honor to be at this table with you all deeply connected to be the bridge as a serve before as youth and university program manager, still connected to them.
2:00
Then, you know, doing youth work at youth director, pastor at change Church and discontinue to do other, you know, racial reconciliation work.
Y’all, I’m ready for this combo.
Let’s get into it.
Let’s go y’all.
So I’m Doctor Will Gravely, I’m the honor of serving on the board of Viva Bridge.
2:19
And we also have a community space called The Hug and just outside the city of Atlanta.
And so let’s jump into today’s episode of the Justice Table, y’all, because this is where biblical justice is served.
And so we officially present to you on Thawing the Ice, immigration and the Imago Day.
2:40
In a cold world.
I’m thawing the ice.
First, let’s just open up about this important and honestly holy topic of immigration.
And perhaps just what have been your thoughts, feelings, comments, concerns in this era where ice is very much so a central issue in the culture?
3:05
You’ll be a polite Just jump on in.
Jump on in.
No, go ahead, Jake.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Go.
No, no, no.
You got it.
No, it’s just I just think, you know, my, my first thought foundationally is just even in the title, the Imago day and just thinking about the heart of Jesus and how he views all people.
3:30
Yeah.
And you can, you can throw on their documented, undocumented, legal, illegal.
I don’t care what word, what adjective you choose to throw on front.
That’s right.
He cares about the person.
He cares about the human.
And I think we are in a time where people from from different walks of life, people on both political sides of the table or they have lost view of the heart of Jesus and the ability to see through the eyes of Jesus.
4:03
That’s all I wanted to say for now.
That’s.
Yeah, Yeah, it’s a whole sermon.
It is I I think that really what Jefferson just eloquently put, you know, yes, we understand that that ice has been there for a while, ice has operated for a while.
4:20
But but the ethics of ICE enforcement should be measured against the amago de.
So separating families, detaining children, militarizing border zones, dehumanizing rhetoric, right?
Even calling people illegal invaders, poisoning our blood.
4:38
I mean, those practices contradict the God who loves the foreigner.
I mean, there’s no question that a nation has a right to control its borders, but no nation has a right to erase human dignity.
So I it’s, it’s hard because as we talk through these kind of debating points and talking points, I don’t even know that we’re even debating immigration.
4:59
We’re we’re debating whether we still recognize the image of God when the face is brown, desperate and crossing the border.
Let’s go my.
Goodness.
So we have this notion of what do we hold is more sacred, the noun or the adjective, the human being or the adjective that describes them.
5:18
Does that define them?
And then this notion of countries have the right to observe borders, but they don’t have the right to dehumanize people.
This is profound.
So like Speaking of this notion of borders, Tasha, you spent some time recently at the southern border of the United States, right?
5:34
Like what?
What did you see?
What did you experience actually having boots on the ground?
Yeah, I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity to go to the border twice, through World Relief 1, going through Mexico City to Oaxaca, but recently in Tijuana.
5:52
And right now there’s nothing happening at the border on that side.
You know, a lot of that came to a halt in February.
And, and so just, you know, just even learning just like how world relief does it, like they take us to scripture.
6:08
And it’s interesting because we kind of cherry pick where some people want to use the Bible and to to address morality in America for certain circumstances and situations.
But then when it comes to immigration, they want to throw the Bible out.
6:25
And it’s really clear when we start talking about the foreigner and the words that are used in the Old Testament, like over 140 times, that the Bible is very clear in how we should treat the foreigner.
You know when I was.
6:42
Very clear.
Welcome me like that like that is very clear, but we want to kind of throw that away and say, well, no, let’s separate churches state now when we the blurred the lines.
That’s right, so many other things.
That’s right.
I think that’s important to remember, but it comes down to how we weaponized ICE and the dehumanization and how it’s reminiscent for those of us who know history and we understand like slave patrols, what ICE has become is like the 2025 slave patrols and how even the dehumanization, you know, busted no care for children, being in the cars, busting people’s windows, damaging people’s house, killing people’s pets, you know, like this right here.
7:32
And, and for us to think, I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, you know, humanization, dehumanization has should have no side, you know, and, and, and, and right now, those of us who are advocates in the biblical justice space, this is the time where you have to take a side, you know, like we like as, as our brother Jamar Tisby says, justice state size, like, you know, because we have to be clear what scripture says, like dehumanizing people and being able to have this cosign brown people.
8:11
Basically, we can stop you because you’re brown.
Like we’re going back, you know, legally.
And Darrell, you can speak to this more like legally to things that we’ve already fought when it comes to racial profiling.
And now as you look a certain way or because you’re talking a foreign language, that is a very, very slippery slope that we’re all, and I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on.
8:35
If you are a Christian, you have to be on the side of and that is not going to line up with your politics and have your politics.
You know, what we have now is our politics are forming, you know, our our theology versus our theology forming our politics.
8:52
And that is seeing that that’s the only way you can cosign, cosign all of this.
Nobody wants open borders.
Like no one is advocating for that.
But we are being gaslighted into thinking that’s what people are are advocating for.
9:09
But people have the right to to claim asylum legally.
That is a legal way.
And you know, and so it’s just, I mean, we can go into all the steps of it, but it’s, it’s infuriating because what if we really believe Scripture?
Yeah.
9:25
These are our brothers and sisters.
These are people not just at the southern border, but these are people that were, you know, even our allies in Afghanistan stand.
These are people that are fleeing political persecution and religious persecution.
9:42
If we if we’re, if we claim we love Jesus.
But there are people who are fleeing their countries because it they are not free to worship or to have the faith that they want.
We are sending those people back into death traps.
And that is reminiscent of what we did to, you know, the Jewish community, you know, you know, during the the Second World War.
10:05
So I’m just, I’m just saying like we are making, when you don’t know history, you make the same mistakes.
And so we just, we just, we need to kind of slow down and rethink and we need to be on the side of Jesus and Jesus is not on the side of how they’re treating people.
10:23
That’s right.
That’s right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, here we are.
Here we are, right.
So here, here’s the challenge that I heard.
Is it going to be politics over people or people over politics?
Do you solely see this as a bipartisan issue or do you see it as a BIPOC issue?
10:42
Right.
And then what is the mandate of our faith to respond to these people groups?
So let me lift up something that you brought up, Tasha, a minute ago, and then we’ll shift more to the civic and civil legal side of this.
So the word stranger is leveraged not only in the Old Testament, like you said like 140 something times, but also in the new, right?
11:07
And there’s this notion you alluded to in Matthew 25 where there is the parable of the sheep and the goats, right?
And so Christ is presenting this notion of these people who thought they were righteous and these people who actually were.
And what was interesting is he didn’t highlight things like how often they went to the temple or how much they gave in sacrifice, or what seat of honor they sat in that feast.
11:31
But he solely talked about how they treated those around them.
That’s right.
Right.
So he he talked about I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
I was hungry and you gave me food to eat.
I was in prison and you visited me and I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
11:50
Can we take a few minutes to talk about the theological implications?
Everybody waves the flag of loving your neighbor.
But what happens when your neighbor is of another nation?
That’s right.
Right.
So can we open up a bit about that sort of theological tension, how we treat others and then even this notion that most believers in the West tout of loving your neighbor and so that neighbors potentially from another nation.
12:17
Wants to jump first.
I already went just now, so you guys go ahead and then I’ll.
Take it Daryl, take it so.
Polite.
I love y’all.
Well, I mean, I just think a lot of, obviously I don’t want to say what everybody else has already said, because I think so much has been said on this.
I think that I, I would Matthew 25 is something that it should be a lightning rod.
12:36
I think it’s one of Scripture’s most unsettling passages, not because it’s unclear, but because it’s so painfully clear, Right.
Jesus gathers the nations and then divides them not by like doctrinal precision, right?
He’s he’s not even basing it on political alignment or even moral respectability, right?
12:55
He’s he’s he’s breaking them down by 1 startling criterion how they treated him when he appeared among them in the disguise of need.
And so when he’s like, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I mean, it’s striking that Jesus doesn’t say I was your friend or I was a part of your group or I belong to your nation.
13:15
He says, as doctor will put it, I was a stranger, a person outside of our boundaries, a person outside of our categories, a person outside of our comfort.
So I, I think that, you know, you hear a lot of preachers, some preachers have always pointed out how the gospel creates kind of what they call a third way, one that kind of like in in some ways refuses the reductionism of culture and politics that, that, that, that Christian ethics can’t be squeezed into, I don’t know, this narrow bandwidth of partisan frameworks because because the Kingdom is far too expansive.
13:51
It’s far too demanding, it’s far too loving.
So I say all that to say, Matthew 25 really embodies that that demand, right?
I mean, Jesus identifies himself with the hungry, the thirsty, the imprison, and then the stranger.
And so in my opinion, by doing that, he, he collapses the distance between divine holiness and human vulnerability.
14:11
He, he, he makes compassion like this matter of spiritual vision.
So according to Jesus, the righteous are not the people who performed heroic acts, but the people who just simply recognized him and, and, and, and those who society failed to see.
14:28
So I, I, I think all of that to me means the immigration debate is, is not, I’m big on policy, but it’s not just a policy discussion.
It’s a discipleship question.
It’s a, it’s a spiritual formation issue.
It’s, it’s about what kind of people are we becoming like?
Are our imaginations being shaped by the fear, scarcity or by the abundance of God?
14:47
Right.
So I, I, I just think that the way Jesus just makes it clear, the way we treat the stranger reveals whether grace has truly taken root in our hearts.
So if you can’t love the stranger, how amazing is Grace really to you it?
Reveals our relationship with Christ.
15:04
That’s right.
It reveals relationship with Christ and whether this is about a relationship or religion, you know, and I think that points back.
It’ll go back to when you think about before Israel would were taken into exile.
Like, you know, just when you think about the prophet Isaiah, what all said and you it goes back to Isaiah 1 where you’re doing all these things.
15:26
Yep, but you’re not doing the most important.
Most important.
Yeah, the most important.
Thing and we can see that it doesn’t it doesn’t line up.
There’s like, it bears no good fruit, you know, and that’s the litmus test.
But it’s like there’s spiritual blindness when it comes to this because of how people have been formed and they and what they believe about God and who God is and what feeling is that people don’t really know God.
15:57
And the sad part is they think they do.
That part.
That’s the sad part.
Yeah, listen, none of it.
Is bearing fruit and they’re making justifications and we and you can see clearly.
16:12
So that’s the part that gives me like this, this empathetic pause.
Yeah, a weeping because you have brothers and sisters that are blind and this relationship they have with God is like, I don’t know who who the relationship you got, but it’s not with the King of Kings.
16:37
That’s right.
That’s right.
The things that you’re allowing and saying and doing, all of this performative religion.
Yeah, yeah, cultural religion, that’s what it is, you know, but it’s not connected to a relationship in Christ.
16:55
And I think that’s the thing this this burdensome with this that we would think it’s OK and making excuses for, you know, beating people and and mansandling people and just all the things that we do it that we see being other countries that is being done here.
17:14
That’s right, you know, in our streets and and to be honest, people are not mad enough.
No, people are not small enough, and that’s disappointing that we are.
We are being desensitized so much that we think that this is acceptable.
17:31
Yeah, that’s good.
If you’re silent, you’re complicit.
Yeah, yeah.
That’s good.
I was going to Tasha.
You said something.
You said people aren’t mad enough.
A few things you said that I want I was already thinking about.
And I would say for the Christian community or the Christian community that people aren’t transformed enough or people aren’t regenerated enough.
17:56
There are a lot of people who know Bible, who know ethics, but don’t know Jesus.
So in order for us to really be on the side of justice, the side of Jesus, there has to be transformation.
18:11
And what we see a lot of people bearing the name but haven’t been transformed, right?
And so it’s transformation.
God, Jesus is after people being like him, being Christ, like, not knowledgeable of what the Bible says, right?
18:29
And until we come to a place where we truly where individuals deny themselves, truly take up their cross because the cross meant one thing.
It was death.
That’s right.
You had to give up your way to take on, as Daryl alluded to, the third way.
18:46
It’s not your way, right?
It’s it’s, it’s his way.
And so in all of what we’re going through and experiencing and seeing and even dealing with the body of Christ and those who are perpetrating and performative that they, they don’t, they haven’t, they haven’t subscribed to the way of Jesus Christ, the way, and they haven’t allowed there to be a true writing on the table of their hearts, what the Spirit says, what the Spirit of Christ says.
19:20
And man, we’re just, we’re missing it in the body.
So much work to be done.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Can I?
Yeah, yeah, go.
Ahead.
No, no, I’m sorry.
I just since we’re since we’re getting into it now, I want to this isn’t even like a pushback.
19:39
I I feel like I want to be maybe a little less gracious than even JJ was here because because, well, let me just say this because you’re right that nothing you said is I disagree with.
I think that there’s people, there are people who purport to knowing the Bible, right, because I love what you said.
19:54
You’re like, they know the Bible.
But I would challenge, do they right because because ultimately, right.
These are people who consider all of us, you know, and we call ourselves Christians, and we have these different rhythms that convince us that we must be Christians.
But but, but for me it’s hard because I do believe that there are people who, who, who, who have a said theology, but whether or not it’s a functional lived out theology.
20:19
So, so I do think that there are people who believe in Jesus and believe in a gospel, but I believe it’s a very truncated gospel.
So it’s, it’s not this holistic gospel, right?
So they do know scripture, but to the exclusion of other scriptures, right?
20:35
They, they, they, they take, if we were to use the Canon of scripture, there are people who have a Canon within a Canon.
There are people who have their circle of, you know, scriptures that help justify in which I mean, really, really, this is no different, I, I think than the parable that Jesus, I think Matthew 25 goes hand in hand with the Good Samaritan because you’ve got, you already know, like you’ve got a lawyer who’s posing a question to Jesus and says, who is my neighbor?
21:02
And he’s not doing this out of honest inquiry.
He’s basically saying, who do I have to not love?
So can you just give me a clear boundary for who I have to love so I can justifiably not love certain groups then then?
Jesus.
Yeah, come on.
21:18
And Jesus is like, well, then let me pick somebody who theologically is on a different side.
Let me pick the Samaritan.
They don’t even agree on which temple, which mountaintop the temple was on.
They don’t agree in the same worship styles.
They got different hymns.
They have some different theology.
And that’s the person that’s the protagonist in the story.
21:35
Mixed it mixed.
Come on.
Right, right, right.
As Harry Potter would say, a mudblood, you know what I’m saying?
My God.
So, so let’s go with all of that.
To me, when I hear that, I always want to push them a little harder when they’re like, yeah, you know, we always know Scripture.
We all believe in the gospel.
21:51
And it’s like, yeah.
But if I think it was the one theologian put it years ago said, you know, if if it’s true that God has created us in his image, we have most certainly recreated him in our own.
And I think those in the majority have recreated Jesus into the image of themselves.
22:07
And now they can feel justified and not loving people who they don’t think even look like Jesus.
I’ll say one thing last little thing is is come down to this question for me that I’m continuing to use in my presentation my my representation of the gospel and how I teach and how I minister is are you looking Are you using the hermeneutic of Jesus?
22:30
That’s it, period.
That’s it, period.
That’s it.
All right, that’s all.
Go ahead.
Sir.
Yeah, that’s right.
It is like the foundation.
That’s right.
How many look of Jesus is love?
That’s right.
Yeah, Let’s let’s talk about.
I want to push that, y’all, because we’re in some controversial territory now, so we might as well jump all the way in.
22:50
Come on.
Right.
Like all the way.
Let’s go.
If we look at not the Gospel of John, but the epistles of John, John is extremely black and white about this issue of love.
And John pushes so far to say, if you struggle to love your sister or your brother, you’ve never known the love of God, right?
23:08
And this other notion about like authentic believers, I think it’s worth wrestling with the question because I think memorizing Scripture has taken the place of understanding the meaning of Scripture.
And so we think that because I can recall a phrase that it is somehow showing up in my life or that I’ve done even the research to understand what God meant.
23:29
And it’s interesting because a lot of Bible thumping people land on potentially the wrong side of scripture on this issue because they want to declare what the Bible says without knowing what the Bible means.
Preach.
Right.
So like, let’s let’s talk about that for a second.
23:44
Like you brought up the Samaritan, right, and the Good Samaritan.
And I don’t think a lot of people understand how controversial even that subtitle is.
Like there was no such thing as a Good Samaritan.
No, no, right.
There’s another text that comes to mind where there are these 10 lepers that get healed right and only one out of the 10 returns to worship and give thanks to Christ.
24:08
And oddly enough, the one that returned is a Samaritan.
Yeah.
So there’s a little theme we’re we’re starting to see you here, right, that the people who you culturally denigrate I from a Kingdom standpoint elevate.
24:24
Come on.
So let’s wrestle with the notion of who typically from a cultural standpoint, we have denigrated as a society and who the Kingdom calls us to elevate in the image of God.
Why is there a tension there at all?
24:39
We can we can go all the way back.
Y’all like there?
There’s one group that never came over here by choice until recent history.
They they were not stowaways on ships because of poverty.
They were considered cargo on ships, right.
And the the Goal Cup post seems to move every 50 to 100 years as far as who belongs here.
25:02
So.
So can we raise up that theme real quick?
Just about culturally, we’re kind of taught to look down on certain groups as though they are not us, whoever us is.
But then theologically, Christ seems to always point out those people and lift them up.
25:18
So what do we do?
With that, and as we lead into that, Doctor Wood, I just wanted to say with the Good Samaritan, I preached the sermon and I called the Samaritan in my message, the despised Samaritan who did a good.
Thing that’s right.
25:34
That’s good.
So who had we despised?
Yeah, and we y’all go for.
What grounds?
Yeah, yeah.
And that goes back because I mean, you think about some of the very people that are creating this policy now, like majority of them are like only like have been here.
25:52
Their grandparents are great grandparents were immigrants, you know, and this is, and this is like immigration has always had a racial foundation.
That’s right.
We think about the 1790 naturalization.
Act you know, sounds going to go.
26:09
That limited citizenship to white people, white men like that limited, you know, so this is 1790.
And I think we see the creation of of what, what we would call the white category because there would be no blackness if there were, right?
26:28
That’s right, only exist because of the system of whiteness.
And so we start seeing that around 1760 because it was like all these people coming to America, but then it’s like, oh, you’re bringing in and enslaved people, different people.
26:44
And so there was a way for the ruling class, the elite had to kind of be over everyone else.
And so that’s why when Irish people came over here and they weren’t considered white at first, Italian were not white at. 1st about to say it, yeah.
You know, all different things.
26:59
So at some point, you know, those people had to assimilate, drop names, change names, you know, and they became white.
And so?
But who cannot become white?
That melanin get in the way.
The one drop rule, you know what I’m saying?
27:18
Like, like we could not become white, you know, even when it came to indigenous, indigenous people, you know, you know, they, they were like, you know what, destroy the culture, you know, save the man.
27:34
Like they, they could assimilate a little bit easier than, you know, a person of African descent.
And then, you know, and so Chinese people, we had the Chinese exclusion that all of those things it that’s what I’m saying Like you can, it is all about race.
27:51
It is.
Everything in America has always been about race.
That is the foundation and people who don’t understand context and historical context, they confused about that.
But that’s some of the things why we like to give this this brief American history all on that to understand that, you know, the racial quotas, what changed the racial quotas.
28:13
You know, when we start talking about there was an immigration act in 1924.
And so this said, and this is what they’re trying to take us back to.
And so so I want people to understand like the national origins quota favoring so the quotas favored Northern and Western Europe.
28:32
So that’s why you see coming over, you know, people who came over, if that was considered the right way, coming over through Ellis Island that we all that wasn’t exist anymore like.
You know.
Like, so that was the, you know, the right way because you know, at at that point that was the right way.
28:50
But nobody’s coming over through Ellis Island that.
But that was based on quotas.
Only certain country could come in that way.
And you know, but then scroll.
So from 1924 there was no change and who could come, there was no change in that and that wasn’t changed into the 1965.
29:12
And that’s the most robust change that we’ve had in recent history was the the the Hertz Seller Act.
I may have said if I said that wrong, correct me, but I think it was the Heart Seller Act.
But that, but that was the main one that really changed the quotas where people can come from, you know, from Korea and you know, African countries and all of that.
29:39
That wasn’t changed until 1965.
And that right there begins besides the people who were cargo here, you know, that begins to shift and change the the look of America and what we’re fighting out.
29:57
And this is the, the, the, the basis that we have to like say the truth, right?
We’re the immigration, ICE, everything that we are fighting against now they are fighting against now is on this thing to keep America white.
30:14
That’s a George.
Yeah, that’s right.
Goes back to the the great replacement theory.
That’s right.
You know, you know, white people wanting to main the majority so that there’s power and control.
And so the the reason saying, you know, we only want people from Norway or these countries and stuff people are escaping from, you know, terror in their own countries for regions.
30:42
And sometimes if you trace that dotted line, we can find our faces there.
Majority of the time we can find America has something to do with it in Iran, facts, Afghanistan, Iraq, Latin America, you know what I’m saying?
And so people not trying to come here from Norway.
31:01
Yeah, they’re not running for anything.
They’re not running from anything.
They were just voted like the happiest.
Yeah.
No, you know, I don’t know if you know this.
Norway multiple years gets voted is like the citizens who are the happiest in the world.
Must be nice.
Must be nice.
Because they’re white.
It’s basically, can’t we get more white people, you know?
31:21
And so that’s why there’s this whole makeup of, you know, oppression in South Africa with the, you know, with the white, you know, with the white, you know, Africans like saying that they’re oppressed.
No, they’re just undoing what was done.
31:39
Right.
And equality and equity feels like oppression to those who are used to power.
And so I’m going to say to I’m just saying like we can go down through that history of immigration and know that there has always been, it has always been about race.
31:56
It’s always been about race.
And they’re trying to stop it now before white people are not the majority.
That’s the that is the bottom.
Yeah. 2050, yeah.
That’s.
It Yeah, but toss, you said something that was profound and that the tracing the dotted line and it made me think about, you know, how in a family, you know, you, whether you have a single parent or you have both parents or whoever, are the adults in the home that each adult carries good and bad traits.
32:31
And no matter what you do, your habits are seen, felt and even heard by the children in the home.
And the child doesn’t really have a choice of what they’re exposed to.
So there’s a phrase called learned behavior where kids pick up what their parents put down.
32:51
And you you mentioned America and, and I believe there are a lot of countries and immigrants who have come to this land who have developed this learned behavior of some very bad traits.
And that’s big, being able to move into a seat where they get to determine who they get to put at the bottom.
33:11
Yeah, that’s it.
And even as this happens, that even as America has this history of who they put at the bottom, that it seems like throughout Scripture that the ones that are constantly put at the bottom, God just seems to make them a top priority.
33:32
Yeah, yeah, and even enters into our existence as one of those at the bottom.
You know, I mean, he doesn’t he doesn’t just he absolutely is like yo, I rock with him also, I’m going to manifest within that community.
It has 1 and I think, I think it’s but I think everything that you guys just said just really it crystallizes this point that that’s.
33:52
Fine, but you didn’t repeat that.
Oh, I.
Don’t remember what I just said, but but no, I mean, it’s, it is, I mean, it’s interesting that, that you’re right.
I mean, as we’re talking, that’s exactly how Jesus decides.
God decides to enmesh himself in humanity at the bottom.
34:12
He doesn’t just tell me a.
Starter from the top.
And not yet.
At the bottom.
So in the marginalized group, he comes in as a Nazari like.
Come on.
34:30
Come on, let’s talk yo.
But if nothing, I think that’s the point.
Y’all is like, first of all, it’s throughout his narrative, right?
Like Mary and Joseph are even finding a place to deliver him.
That’s right.
Like the guy that’s going to deliver us they can’t even find a place to deliver him.
You talk about lowly, he’s in a stable amongst animals, that’s right, then flees in early infancy or late infancy, early toddlerism, whatever that faces right to to flee persecution.
34:58
And this notion of even while he was put to death, right, they wanted to topple oppression, topple the hierarchy.
And what’s interesting is he leveraged his entire ministry to topple every hierarchy except Roman oppression.
That’s right.
35:13
And I I wonder if that’s a lesson for us on what role the political mechanism can play in true deliverance.
I want to talk about that.
Oh my gosh.
Let’s go.
Talk about it.
Because this now we’re getting some heavy some heavy duty, some controversy for folks right, because because doctor will what you what you just said, it’s beyond profile.
35:33
Also even that can be weaponized depending on because people will say they’ll take that that that that principle and I think go so far and be like Jesus never like you just said, right, there was nothing he did to try to topple.
Now, I would, I would argue that Jesus operated within whatever those structures allow.
35:52
Remember, Remember, none of the believers during that time had any say on how their neighbor was governed.
We do.
So our role in the political process is far greater than any New Testament Christian.
Let’s go.
So I would say as an extension of our discipleship, we need to do a good job of stewarding the privilege of having the luxury of having a say in how our neighbor is governed.
36:18
They didn’t have that.
So, and the only reason why I say that is because I do think there’s a history within the church where people would kind of proverbial, kind of put their head in the proverbial sand and be like, Jesus is soon to come.
So we’re just going to focus on Jesus.
36:34
You know, we’re not going to worry about those things.
God got it.
You know, everything is dealt with at the cross, the blood, everything.
OK Amen.
That’s awesome.
But but I would say that for the Christian in America, the call to love your neighbor is inextricably woven to the way that you engage politically that that was not the case in the New Testament, right?
36:58
So that’s probably why Jesus is not going to try to get people to overthrow in a way where there’s no system to do so.
So, you know, the Roman government, there was nothing that could have been done.
They didn’t vote.
They didn’t have, you know, most of them folks, if they weren’t Roman citizens, had no say anyway.
But now we do.
37:13
So I just always try to push some Christians, especially within evangelicalism, you know, the, the, the, the non, if you want to call it kind of non evangelical history of the black church.
Those black traditions always knew that we engaged in the political process.
But my big critique is many Christians, even within the black community, many Christians don’t see that as a part of our discipleship.
37:34
Yeah, let’s talk about that because in raising the Roman occupation, I wanted to push this notion of like, Jesus didn’t align politically with the oppressor.
He created a subvergent movement that stood on its own.
And that was to challenge those that believe political alignment is Kingdom alignment, right.
37:56
A lot of the argument across the aisle, and I’ll push it even this far on both sides, is to feel like God is with me.
And if that was the case, there would have been this explicit alignment with authority to leverage politics as a means of bringing about piety.
38:14
And we don’t see that like he established a new standard, like you said, the third way.
And so that’s me kind of pushing on some of our evangelical friends who believe that if I vote this way, I am representing God’s heart while breaking every other command.
Like.
38:30
If you don’t love your neighbors yourself, the Lord pushes it so far to say love your enemy.
That’s right.
So we’re really without excuse, right?
But to think that God endorses the mistreatment of his children as asinine.
That’s it right there.
Right there, but he also says my Kingdom is not of this world.
38:47
When he’s talking to to piety, he’s explaining that but but now my Kingdom is from but no, my Kingdom is from another place.
That’s right that right there saying like I ain’t about this also to the Pharisees in the Sadducees, like I ain’t about that either.
39:04
That third place saying that my Kingdom is not of this world.
And I think when we look at this like he was basically, you know, saying that I’m not operating within this this Roman political power and structure that’s happening in Rome.
39:20
But you know, because that happens through violence, you know, just coercion.
Like it’s like it’s you know what you know you when you talking about like that Jesus going to the cross was out, Rome punished, you know, like.
39:36
Capital punishment.
Like capital punishment and so.
So I think when we think about any of those things, it’s saying Scripture shows us a different way.
We’re trying, we’re trying to even like, and we have always, I mean, Israel had to fight against this.
39:54
We, we have always had to fight against this, trying to be amongst the culture when it’s like Jesus was always countercultural and Yahweh has always called Israel to be there.
40:09
They weren’t born into a vacuum.
They were born into a culture of Mesopotamia like so they were born in that culture.
So they weren’t in a vacuum.
But I want you to be different within that culture, right?
Because you’re.
Points to something different like that who the unknown God, you know, like your your difference points to something.
40:30
And I think that’s like that was the call, you know, in that time that Jesus is making.
And I think even right now, like when we start thinking about, I mean, just some of the basic things that we’re fighting against, we’re we’re fighting against diversity.
40:47
Y’all like, yeah, yeah.
Like, and and that’s beyond anyone’s control.
Like, you know, you can’t control, you know how, what ethnicity you come into this world as you know, we’re fighting against equitable treatment.
41:04
We’re fighting against belonging.
In the name of Jesus.
In the name of Jesus where?
Is any of that in Scripture?
You can’t find it.
You can’t inherit.
You can’t.
Yeah, I.
Think not in the heart of Jesus.
No, you know, Tasha, you know what you’re as you’re speaking.
41:22
It made me think about, I know we’re talking about, you know, the political components of this, but I think about what Jesus did and how he came into this world, what he came to do, his mission, his visions, his assignment, his mandate that is so surpassed the mindset and the, the thinking of man that he disrupted religious, he disrupted political and he also disrupted social norms and, and systems.
41:54
He, he disrupted everything.
He, he literally flipped the world.
He put this thing upside down.
And you know, I even think about his inner circle.
I think about the 12 and how they even pushed against what he did.
42:10
They saw the miracles, they saw the deliverance, they saw the casting out, they saw all these things that he did.
They they walked with they lived with him and they still push back, right?
I mean, he went to the woman at the well and the woman at the well was probably looking at him like, yo, what you doing bro?
42:29
Like.
Here.
You ain’t supposed to be here.
You ain’t supposed to be here.
The disciples were like Jesus.
You can’t, we can’t do that.
Why are we going through there?
He said I must go through, so I must go through.
He said I must do the inconvenient thing right?
42:44
But we live in a society that wants convenience.
That’s right.
Now we are.
We are, we are inconvenience averse.
We are discomfort averse.
We want everything to be comfortable.
But Jesus didn’t die to have disciples who are in covenant with comfort.
43:03
That’s right.
Yeah.
Let’s talk.
And so even even as we follow Jesus, I mean, each of us on here, that the, the closer we align with his ways, we’re going to have people close to us.
We’re going to look at us sideways from time to time.
You know, man, Jeff, Jeff said something, man, something you just said a lot of what you just said, man, it’s, it’s it’s red.
43:25
All of it resonates, but it’s hitting because when you talk about all the things that the disciples saw right you, you bring up the fact that they were with Jesus.
They, they, they, they walked with him.
They watched him touch leopards.
They watch him eat with sinners.
43:41
They watch him heal Gentiles.
We, we just talked about how he praised Samaritans and welcome outsiders.
But what’s interesting is they still struggle to love the stranger even after that they, they saw they, I mean, how do you see Jesus die?
You see him rise up.
You see him breathe the Holy Spirit and still the old boundaries of US versus them was still clung too tightly in their own hearts.
44:03
I mean, you would think that resurrection would end all tribalism there and our and our kind of regular rhythm of belief over and over again of believing that resurrection should end tribalism.
I mean I’m I’m looking at at you think about Peter what is in Acts 10.
44:20
Peter gets this vision from God rebuking that cultural prejudice, right.
What did you say Don’t call unclean what I’ve called clean.
That should have settled the issue forever.
But later in Galatians, 2 years later, Peter still refuses to sit with Gentile believers because of pressure from his own ethnic group.
44:36
So he still sees them as strangers.
He still policies the table.
He still struggles to embody the very gospel that he preaches.
And I think it’s important that we see ourselves and, and that folks in majority culture see themselves in Peter there because we know what the gospel is.
44:54
We also know what the gospel should be doing.
And I think that there’s a regular we, I do believe that people have to look at that and go, all right, I believe that, but help my unbelief because I’m still not believing resurrection.
Trump’s tribalism.
Yeah.
I want to raise up something you said there.
45:10
All of it was significant.
This notion of tribalism, like a lot of debate happens around along the lines of religion versus relationship, right?
And like these religious folks who thump the Bible, but no, don’t know it.
45:26
And then those that really understand love.
I want to introduce 1/3 option because I think it’s generous to say that we we resemble the disciples.
I wonder if there’s like religion in the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes.
There’s relationship in Christ and his followers, but then there’s this notion of rain in the Romans and occupation.
45:45
And I think a lot of what we see in like, Western, I call it Western Churchianity, but like, Western Christianity Today resembles more Rome than followers of Christ.
Yeah.
And, and, you know, there was a particular shift that happened in the 4th century.
And a lot of people highlight Constantine, but also like Theodosian or Theodosius, like, made it a state religion.
46:06
Like ever since then, there’s been this alignment of nationalism with this notion of theological intimacy.
So like as we take a turn from perspective to the practical side of things like practices and practical application, what, what words of wisdom would you all offer to to those who are not only just internally wrestling with this issue, but how can they show up to actually love neighbor?
46:31
How can they serve in a rain of ice and all of the discomfort and uprooting and oppression and victimization?
How can the church actually show up in a time like this?
One simple thing that I would say, and this is the the question like kind of like where when I’m testifying to truth, like in this, this moment prophetically would be like, how does your ideology or how does your, your your theology line up and it’s in eternity with Jesus?
47:05
Like how does it line up?
You know, is it centered in love?
Is it giving life or is it taking life?
You know, so when we think about the things, when we start talking about nationalism that centers this, like when you start nationalistic, so a nationalistic Christian where it centers America.
47:27
Yeah.
How does that line up in eternity and how does that the litmus test when we say Christianity is global?
It didn’t even start in America.
That’s.
Right.
That’s right.
How does that ideology which is not a thing of life?
How does that ideology even align?
47:43
It doesn’t.
Yeah.
Well, and so when we and then, you know, and then when you start talking about white nationalism, like, you know, like, you know, where that’s like even not just about America, that’s exclusive, exclusive to white people.
Like the white people need to be in power because we’re the best, we’re the smartest.
48:03
So we need to have all the control, you know, and that’s like kind of like the guys of how our government is being formed now, like white men, you know, we can forget about women.
And then you start thinking about, OK, project Esther and like all of these things having what it does.
48:20
Like how does how does that line up when we think, do you really think in eternity?
Like if, whether you believe like in, in, you know, the new earth or what, but like, how does that, how does that legitimately line up with scripture?
48:42
Can’t you have to what you have to like kind of distort the truth.
You have to distort the Bible in order for that to line up because like, if we are the apple of God’s eye, what does that say about, you know, Brazil?
48:57
And like, is that work and all of those like God is?
At Somalia.
Yeah, it’s exactly like God is at work there.
Like I mean and granted, like he was there first, like.
You know we’re late 1400 years late to the.
49:13
Party, let’s take it back to to Africa for real.
Like, you know, you didn’t bring you didn’t bring God, you know, God is already there.
It wasn’t maybe called something different.
You know when we start talking about that.
But yeah, I just, I, it just, it just, it makes no sense.
49:29
And if you just, if you really, that’s when I say people like at the end of the day, like ’cause it’s very Antichrist and it shows you the lack of knowledge that people know and understand about God.
Like it’s like they have this whole ideology, they’ve created this new religion, but this is nothing new.
49:50
People have always done that.
If you search history, this has always been done.
And the undoing of this has always been to testify to the truth.
Sweet.
Telling the truth, you know, And that’s, that’s what I would say about it.
50:08
Thank you.
Thank you.
Testifies to the truth, you know.
What about you, brothers?
What would you say?
How can a church show up in a time like this?
I think I just thought about something very practical and it’s just, I’ve just drawn back to community and proximity.
50:25
And I think there are a lot of leaders, there’s still a lot of pastors who aren’t connected to the people that don’t look like them.
And so of that is finding churches that are bilingual, finding churches that are Spanish speaking, finding churches that speak other languages as a first language and making that connection.
50:47
And I’m not talking about a connection just to checklist.
Oh, we did that, But no, but to learn and to see what’s happening to the families and the people in their congregations.
They’re they’re Christians that that are immigrants who are living in fear.
51:03
Yeah, right.
And it’s a real thing.
That have been.
Detained.
You know, that’s right.
Yeah.
Wow.
To get to know folks that don’t look like you or live like you.
Yeah.
Daryl, what would you say?
51:19
It’s the, I know it’s not like a broken record.
I feel like everything that’s been said #1 is true.
I think all of the individual things that people can do as individuals, connecting to people, building relationship as as, as Jefferson just put it, getting to a place where we’re able to on.
51:35
I always say, you know, empathy is the ability to relive some of your pain in order to help relieve some of your your pain.
So I think that there is a huge role that every believer on an individual lover should do.
But I still want to beat on this drum as hard as I can that everything we’re talking about right now, all of these things, these issues that are hurting our neighbors, right?
51:57
Our fellow image bearers are all things that are made possible by policy.
They, they just are.
And, and I always make this, I always use this metaphor all the time.
I think that in many ways these problems can be so big that people are just like this seems too big for me to solve.
52:13
So I can do my little chunk my, my thing over here, which is true.
So if it means what can I do in certain communities, throw a Turkey over the wall for Thanksgiving, pack a backpack, do these things that are really, really important.
And man, I’m learning more about these people.
That’s really important.
I just don’t want it to stop there because the largest amount of damage is done through the lever of policy.
52:36
So the largest amount of good that can be done, I would argue still happens through the lever of policy with Kingdom minded people engaged.
So if you don’t like the fact that your neighbor is being removed from their home, be more aware when it’s time for midterm elections to make sure that the person that you vote for will then champion the dignity of those people.
52:58
Because I do think that sometimes believers get caught in doing the individual stuff and they’re not engaging on the bigger things.
And it’s to me, it’s akin to throwing a rock and hiding your hand.
I think that we’ve got to marry the two.
It doesn’t have to be an either or.
53:14
And I do think within the church, people have been too quick to be like, I mean, you know, policy is good and good and good, but you know, what do we do over here?
And I’m like, it’s a both hands.
We need to do the individual.
I can only do so much individually.
I can go get to know my neighbors and I need to.
53:29
But I also don’t want to let people off the hook who may not have the circles we’re in to go meet a bunch of people that don’t look like them.
Somebody in, in Des Moines, IA may not ever have a, a whole lot of interactions with people who are Haitian, who are dealing with being removed from, from, from, from American Society as well.
53:48
They may not, but if they’re aware of the issues and when it comes time to vote for that congressman or congresswoman who is going to go vote on set policies, they need to be aware there.
So I, I think that if, if you’re going to love your neighbor, I keep saying it, make it a point to care about how your neighbor is governed.
54:07
Make it a point.
Don’t make it an option.
Don’t make it a suggestion.
I think it’s, it’s, it’s mandatory.
That’s what I say.
And that is that is what you’re saying as the social aspect and and just for people to remember when some people who have a issue with the social conditions of people, they don’t the people where for the people in the back that there’s this listening, you know, like God cares about my salvation, but also about my social conditions.
54:35
So because in that case he could have left Israel in Egypt.
That’s right.
That’s right, that’s right.
And and just just the time of something that you guys opened up with.
I mean, I think that’s why us having some some gospel and Kingdom fluency around the issue of nationalism and white nationalism, right?
54:59
I think it’s so important that we continue to champion the idea that Jesus is not the chaplain of American identity, right?
Jesus is not the defender of borders.
He’s not the symbol of cultural dominance.
He’s the king of all nations.
He’s the Lord who breaks down dividing laws.
55:15
He’s the savior who calls every tribe in tongue his own.
So theological nationalism tries to shrink him, but he doesn’t fit.
Yeah, he doesn’t fit.
Yeah.
And then I let me just read something that I read that goes along with what you were saying.
I read this this morning.
The promise of the Messiah is not sentimental.
55:36
It is a declaration that injustice of oppression and fear do not get the final word.
Christ is God’s commitment to a restored world, not a restored America, restored world.
55:51
So when we even when we talk about the flourishing, it’s not just the flourishing of America or the flourishing of Christmas, like the flourishing of all people, you know, and that goes back Isaiah 9 and 2.
The people who walk in darkness have seen great light.
56:07
And that’s just a avid oceano.
You know that God breaks into the deepest, darkest places with the promise of the Messiah to bring to bring about a restored world.
That’s that’s.
56:25
Good.
And that made me think of this, that policy now in the hands of the right heart, yes, leads.
To restoration.
That’s it, That’s it, That’s it.
And, and and honestly, when you think about just a a quick nerdy etymological departure, come on, if if.
56:45
Come on, I’m proud.
I’m proud.
Of it when you when you look at the root word of policy, it’s the word polis or polis and we get that we know that’s the people the cities.
And so how the people in the cities get governed is where policy comes in.
So we don’t have to get into to obviously the political posturing and politics itself creates its own kind of theater.
57:07
But, but caring about policy, you can’t say you love people in cities or people in areas and they care about policy.
You just can’t.
And we, we we all come from, we all know the history of this country has largely been rooted in who within the police gets to be ignored.
57:25
That’s, that’s legitimately what it’s been.
So I, I, I think you know, and I, and I would just say this, I think that our job as believers, pastors, ministry practitioners and just disciples is to encourage people and, and speak out when this happens, but encourage people to love the cross and the truth of the cross more than the flag.
57:48
And when we get people right to get to a place where they can separate, because I think they conflate the two.
It’s specific, you already know.
And it’s like in order to say, hey, this idea of nationalism or white nationalism, it’s baptized in red, white and blue, but it’s not baptized in the red blood of Jesus.
58:06
And I think that is part of where we need to kind of land and keep saying it over and over again.
And with that, the perfect tabby I’m going to, I’m going to close this out with just a couple of lines of scripture on.
This comes from Galatians 3, and I want us to hear this in light of a conversation about ICE and immigration.
58:25
OK?
This is not ICE and Jesus.
I just want us to hear this in light of a conversation around ICE and immigration.
So beginning at verse 23, before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.
58:44
So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.
Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
So in Christ Jesus Yeshua, as we say, you are all children of God through faith.
59:01
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself not with a flag, but with Christ himself.
Here’s one of you.
There is neither now, nor Jew, nor Gentile, slave, nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.
59:22
Either that’s true or it’s not.
And so we need to get to a place where we don’t just claim alignment with Christ and walk out allegiance to something else.
And remember the words of Matthew 25 that we opened up with.
59:40
Perhaps one of the scariest judgments in all the Scriptures is that the Lord is counting our righteousness against how we showed up in relationship.
He is counting our righteousness with by how we showed up in relationship.
All right y’all.
So this is another episode of the Justice Table powered by be the bridge coming to a close.
59:59
This has been unfollowing the ice immigration and the Imago Dei in a cold world.
Thank you for tuning in.
Please continue to subscribe, follow, download, etcetera and share.
We love y’all, and until next time, peace.
Thank you for tuning in to the Be the Bridge Podcast.
1:00:18
Be the Bridge Podcast is brought to you from the nonprofit organization Be the Bridge, which exists to empower people and culture toward racial healing, equity, and reconciliation.
To partner with us to create more resources like this in order to increase racial literacy and pursue racial justice, head to Be the bridge.com/give.
1:00:40
Latasha Morrison is the executive producer.
Sarah Connatser is the producer and editor, and the theme music is from Ellie Holcomb Song Bridge.
Until next time, keep pressing on in Grace and Truth Bridge builders.
Leave A Comment