1
00:00:00,960 --> 00:00:03,440
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm

2
00:00:03,480 --> 00:00:07,240
Speaker 1: doctor James Spencer and I'm joined today by doctor Christine Jeski.

3
00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:11,319
Speaker 1: She is the Associate professor of anthropology at Wheaton College

4
00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:13,960
Speaker 1: and Wheaton, Illinois, and she's written a book called Racial

5
00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:17,480
Speaker 1: Justice for the Long Haul, How White Christian Advocates Persevere

6
00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:20,360
Speaker 1: and Why, and so we're going to be talking about

7
00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:23,439
Speaker 1: the book and some of her research today on the podcast.

8
00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:25,040
Speaker 1: Welcome Christine, how are you doing?

9
00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:28,880
Speaker 2: Yeah?

10
00:00:28,960 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: Well, I thought, first maybe what would be helpful is

11
00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:36,839
Speaker 1: to understand how anthropological research works and what specifically you

12
00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:40,720
Speaker 1: did as the baseline research for this work. So I

13
00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:42,519
Speaker 1: kind of want to start there, but maybe before we

14
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:44,360
Speaker 1: get there, it'd be good to hear a little bit

15
00:00:44,360 --> 00:00:47,879
Speaker 1: about your history and why this topic even was of

16
00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:48,479
Speaker 1: interest to you.

17
00:00:51,920 --> 00:01:07,360
Speaker 3: Perfect community development work, and during that time I got

18
00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:11,559
Speaker 3: interested in writing. I wrote for a number of different magazines.

19
00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:14,480
Speaker 3: It actually kind of started because I got asked to

20
00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:20,000
Speaker 3: write a tiny little column for a small newspaper in Wisconsin,

21
00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:23,280
Speaker 3: and I was writing like these, like one hundred word

22
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:25,800
Speaker 3: I mean, I just felt ridiculously small little pieces to

23
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:28,679
Speaker 3: this newspaper about life in South Africa, which was super cool,

24
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:30,520
Speaker 3: But I had all these stories that were so much

25
00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:33,400
Speaker 3: bigger than what I could in a newspaper, and I

26
00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:37,240
Speaker 3: got hooked on this process of interviewing people and telling

27
00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:41,080
Speaker 3: their stories. And after I had been in South America,

28
00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:45,119
Speaker 3: basically I was working with a seminary that closed, and

29
00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:46,679
Speaker 3: I went back to the US and I was like,

30
00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:48,559
Speaker 3: now what do I do? Like, what do I actually

31
00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:51,520
Speaker 3: want to be when I grow up? And my husband

32
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:53,440
Speaker 3: had a job in the United States, and I was like, Okay,

33
00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:56,200
Speaker 3: I gotta settle here for some time and do something.

34
00:01:56,200 --> 00:01:59,240
Speaker 3: What's I going to be? And I realized what ran

35
00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:01,640
Speaker 3: through so much of my life was I love teaching,

36
00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:04,520
Speaker 3: and I was like, what can I teach? How do

37
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:06,639
Speaker 3: I teach adults? Well, I could get a PhD in something,

38
00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:10,000
Speaker 3: and what on earth would it be? And discovered that

39
00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:15,440
Speaker 3: anthropology really pulled together international work thinking about culture. But

40
00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:19,240
Speaker 3: then also the research methods for anthropology really depend on

41
00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:23,200
Speaker 3: interviewing people and spending time with ordinary people in their

42
00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:26,000
Speaker 3: ordinary life. So that's kind of what I had been

43
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:28,320
Speaker 3: doing already for some previous books that I wrote, and

44
00:02:28,320 --> 00:02:30,080
Speaker 3: then I realized I could I could do that in

45
00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:34,760
Speaker 3: a more professional and academic way. And I love it.

46
00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:36,320
Speaker 3: It gives me a lot of life.

47
00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:37,120
Speaker 2: Very cool.

48
00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:39,920
Speaker 1: So talk a little bit about because this or this

49
00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:42,280
Speaker 1: book has a lot of interviews with people, you use

50
00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:44,799
Speaker 1: stories from people all over the place, But you did

51
00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:48,200
Speaker 1: have an interesting hierarchy to the way you perform the research.

52
00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:52,080
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, So I had written this previous book in

53
00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:54,960
Speaker 3: South Africa about racism, and I felt like one of

54
00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:58,520
Speaker 3: the unanswered questions in that book was what do white

55
00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:01,840
Speaker 3: people actually do about it? Like a lot of studies

56
00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:07,240
Speaker 3: of race focus on the felt hurt of racism and

57
00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:10,200
Speaker 3: the history behind it, which is really important, but because

58
00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:13,760
Speaker 3: those books have been written, there's this this question that

59
00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:15,560
Speaker 3: is like okay, so what now what do people do

60
00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 3: about it? And so I was like, I want to

61
00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:21,000
Speaker 3: research white people who are doing something about racism? But

62
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,360
Speaker 3: how do you How do you find those people? Like

63
00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:25,440
Speaker 3: do you just ask them like, hey, are you a

64
00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 3: white person who's really good at telling racism? And they

65
00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:30,920
Speaker 3: volunteer right, or you to like have a survey they

66
00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:32,880
Speaker 3: fill out as like you know, a test to check

67
00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:35,400
Speaker 3: about all the right answers. None of those really felt

68
00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:38,200
Speaker 3: like the right answer, and I realized what I needed

69
00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:41,600
Speaker 3: was for people in their life to know them well

70
00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:44,760
Speaker 3: enough to say that they are doing something and they're

71
00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:47,040
Speaker 3: not just doing it for a short term thing. And

72
00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:50,440
Speaker 3: specifically people of color, right, because that's you know, who's

73
00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,400
Speaker 3: who's feeling the effects of racism. So I started with

74
00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:58,160
Speaker 3: interviewing thirty people of color who were faith leaders, typically

75
00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:02,640
Speaker 3: leaders of churches or nonprofit organizations working with racism in

76
00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:06,280
Speaker 3: some way, and talk to them, usually at least an

77
00:04:06,320 --> 00:04:09,200
Speaker 3: hour long interview, talking about like what does racism look like,

78
00:04:09,560 --> 00:04:11,640
Speaker 3: what does it look like to deal with racism, how

79
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:13,840
Speaker 3: do you end it? And what does justice look like?

80
00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:16,840
Speaker 3: And then who do you see who is a white

81
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:20,400
Speaker 3: Christian who's been dealing with that for a long time

82
00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:22,360
Speaker 3: And I usually say a few years or decades or

83
00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:24,520
Speaker 3: more for somebody that you would recommend as kind of

84
00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:28,919
Speaker 3: a mentor to other people. So yeah, it's based on

85
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,520
Speaker 3: those interviews, and then I interviewed forty more white people

86
00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:34,360
Speaker 3: who are recommended for the study, and also spent one

87
00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:37,560
Speaker 3: hundred or more hours in places where they hang out,

88
00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:43,520
Speaker 3: so churches and trainings for dealing with racism and organizations

89
00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:45,440
Speaker 3: like that, to just see how people interact with each other.

90
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,760
Speaker 1: And you've found one of the big sections in your

91
00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:54,320
Speaker 1: book is on hope, and so this different sort of

92
00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:57,680
Speaker 1: hope that can be cultivated when you're hanging around with

93
00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:02,080
Speaker 1: communities that are dealing with offering or inequities and those

94
00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:02,719
Speaker 1: kind of things.

95
00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:04,920
Speaker 2: Can you just describe that difference that.

96
00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:08,000
Speaker 1: You found and kind of help give people a clean

97
00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:09,960
Speaker 1: grid for what that hope looks like.

98
00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:13,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I can go back to a story from

99
00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:16,119
Speaker 3: my own life. This is long before I wrote this book,

100
00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:21,200
Speaker 3: but when I was living in South Africa, this seminary

101
00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:23,839
Speaker 3: like mansion was running out of money and there was

102
00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:27,960
Speaker 3: a strong, strong evidence that it was going to need

103
00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:30,760
Speaker 3: to close. And there's a particular day when the students

104
00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:34,080
Speaker 3: at this seminary called a day of prayer. And I

105
00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:36,760
Speaker 3: was in this room in like a hundred year old

106
00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:40,680
Speaker 3: building in South Africa, packed with people shoulder to shoulder,

107
00:05:40,960 --> 00:05:44,800
Speaker 3: and everybody is praying, and in South Africa, what that

108
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:49,680
Speaker 3: means is like shouting and simultaneously. That's how we prayed together.

109
00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:55,280
Speaker 3: And I knew things were dire, like we had done

110
00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:57,680
Speaker 3: everything we could to raise money. And these are people

111
00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:00,360
Speaker 3: from all over the African continent, many of whom had

112
00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:03,200
Speaker 3: like planned for years or decades to try to get

113
00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:05,159
Speaker 3: this kind of training and set aside two years of

114
00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:07,479
Speaker 3: their life. They had scholarships to be there. They had

115
00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:09,880
Speaker 3: just been told that their scholarships were just continued, so

116
00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:12,240
Speaker 3: if they could afford any college at all, they didn't

117
00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:15,640
Speaker 3: know if it would continue, right, And we're praying, and

118
00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:18,560
Speaker 3: I am like doing the thing I'm supposed to do

119
00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:22,320
Speaker 3: of like you know, saying God, you are just you know, majestic,

120
00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:25,040
Speaker 3: you're powerful, You're wonderful, like God save us, kind of

121
00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:28,919
Speaker 3: like words. And I hit this point where I was

122
00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:33,320
Speaker 3: just like I'm out of words, and I just went silent,

123
00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:38,240
Speaker 3: and and it was like I could I could feel

124
00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:40,680
Speaker 3: what it's like to run out of hope, Like I

125
00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:44,720
Speaker 3: just didn't expect God to do anything anymore in that situation.

126
00:06:45,640 --> 00:06:48,600
Speaker 3: And I could sort of see, like this is so big.

127
00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:51,160
Speaker 3: It's not just that our seminary is running out of

128
00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:54,520
Speaker 3: money for scholarships. It's like I knew part of why

129
00:06:55,440 --> 00:06:58,120
Speaker 3: the seminary was ending was that they had hired their

130
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:00,240
Speaker 3: first lack president, and some of the donors so that

131
00:07:00,279 --> 00:07:02,800
Speaker 3: seminary had decided they no longer wanted to support the

132
00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:05,279
Speaker 3: seminary now they had a black president instead of this

133
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:08,400
Speaker 3: white president. Before that I knew that there was a

134
00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:10,560
Speaker 3: global financial crisis. This is two thousand and eight, and

135
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,360
Speaker 3: so like our donors didn't have money, and it's like

136
00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:14,760
Speaker 3: this is deep. This is like the whole history of

137
00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:20,160
Speaker 3: colonialism and global capitalism and racism and just like everyday life,

138
00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,520
Speaker 3: all of it here, and so I go silent, and

139
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:27,040
Speaker 3: in that moment, I just listen, and I am hearing

140
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:29,920
Speaker 3: this woman on my left who's like come out of

141
00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 3: the genocide in Rwanda, and she's there and you know,

142
00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:36,880
Speaker 3: she's lost relatives who have died in a genocide. And

143
00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:39,440
Speaker 3: then on my right there's like a man from Zambia

144
00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:43,080
Speaker 3: who has survived a heart attack where there's no health care,

145
00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:45,920
Speaker 3: and there's you know, people who have come out of

146
00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:47,720
Speaker 3: the war and deer Congo, and they're all around me

147
00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:50,720
Speaker 3: and they're praying and they just keep going. And I realized, like,

148
00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:53,760
Speaker 3: this is hope that I have not grown up with,

149
00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:57,680
Speaker 3: and I want to know how to hope let that.

150
00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:02,400
Speaker 3: And what also struck me is the irony or sort

151
00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:07,960
Speaker 3: of the naive ignorance of so many Christian organizations from

152
00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:10,800
Speaker 3: North America that come to places like South Africa. There

153
00:08:10,840 --> 00:08:13,840
Speaker 3: was literally one that had come down the street to

154
00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:16,440
Speaker 3: another organization very near where we were that was called

155
00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:20,480
Speaker 3: something like New Hope, Bringing Hope, you know, Global Hope.

156
00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:23,080
Speaker 3: We have the hope, right, Americans, we got it for you.

157
00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:25,560
Speaker 3: We're going to teach you how to hope. And I'm like,

158
00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:29,720
Speaker 3: what are we doing? How ignorant? And and so I

159
00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:32,120
Speaker 3: you know, that was in my background of thinking about

160
00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:33,520
Speaker 3: hope and what does it mean to hope. I did

161
00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:35,920
Speaker 3: not go into this project again I'm going to research hope.

162
00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:39,360
Speaker 3: But very early on, as I started asking people questions

163
00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:42,440
Speaker 3: about like how has your life changed in addressing racism

164
00:08:42,640 --> 00:08:45,800
Speaker 3: or decades or more, people would be like, I don't hope.

165
00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:49,320
Speaker 3: How I used to hope? And I'd be like, what

166
00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:51,760
Speaker 3: does that mean? And often the first response was like,

167
00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:55,120
Speaker 3: no one's asked me that before, and so purt it

168
00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:56,839
Speaker 3: ended up being like trying to figure out how do

169
00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:00,680
Speaker 3: you describe hope? You know? Often I think when we

170
00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:02,760
Speaker 3: think hope, we just talk about like get more of it.

171
00:09:02,920 --> 00:09:05,560
Speaker 3: You just like it's like a scale from less to more,

172
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:07,480
Speaker 3: and everybody just like try to get more of it,

173
00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:09,120
Speaker 3: because if you have lots of it, you'll be great.

174
00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:11,640
Speaker 3: But what I realized is like it's not just more

175
00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,679
Speaker 3: it's a different kind of hope. So specifically, I talk

176
00:09:15,679 --> 00:09:18,200
Speaker 3: about like a delusional hope that I think a lot

177
00:09:18,240 --> 00:09:21,040
Speaker 3: of people at privilege are trained into through their lifetimes,

178
00:09:21,080 --> 00:09:23,640
Speaker 3: which is based on an idea of like, well, life

179
00:09:23,640 --> 00:09:26,320
Speaker 3: has always gone pretty well for me, and as long

180
00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:28,400
Speaker 3: as it keeps going pretty well, I can hope that

181
00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:31,360
Speaker 3: the future will go pretty well. But that's really fragile.

182
00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:34,960
Speaker 3: Like what happens when life doesn't go pretty well for

183
00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:38,160
Speaker 3: you or you meet somebody who's never had that storyline

184
00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:41,480
Speaker 3: to their life? Do you give up? And I've seen

185
00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:45,840
Speaker 3: so many people who start dealing with injustice with that

186
00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:48,960
Speaker 3: kind of hope and it ends right you give up

187
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,520
Speaker 3: and there's not a perseverance in it. So so part

188
00:09:52,520 --> 00:09:54,360
Speaker 3: of what I'm tracing in this book is how people

189
00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:57,480
Speaker 3: learn to have a resilient hope and what that looks

190
00:09:57,480 --> 00:09:58,920
Speaker 3: like in practice.

191
00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:01,160
Speaker 1: Would you say when you say people sort of just

192
00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:04,800
Speaker 1: give up? In other words, there's because there isn't this

193
00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:08,199
Speaker 1: persistent hope, a hope that is forged and suffering. I

194
00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:09,840
Speaker 1: think you talk about in the book as like sort

195
00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:14,120
Speaker 1: of a cruciform hope at some level is that the

196
00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:16,680
Speaker 1: hope is so overly and this is a word to

197
00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:21,440
Speaker 1: use optimistic that when that optimism isn't realized in the

198
00:10:21,559 --> 00:10:25,679
Speaker 1: short term, people are just saying, well, this is now,

199
00:10:25,679 --> 00:10:28,400
Speaker 1: this is a feudal situation. Nothing's going to be fixed,

200
00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:32,880
Speaker 1: and I don't know, maybe push it off to the esketon, right,

201
00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:35,880
Speaker 1: and so you just kind of say, well, I can't

202
00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:37,840
Speaker 1: fix this, I'm going to go live my life elsewhere.

203
00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:40,160
Speaker 1: Is that sort of what happens when they give up?

204
00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:43,480
Speaker 1: Or is that just you know, one one too narrow

205
00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:44,839
Speaker 1: instance of how they give up.

206
00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:47,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a lot of pieces to how

207
00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:49,840
Speaker 3: people give up, but I think that's one thread that

208
00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:53,720
Speaker 3: runs through so much of it. When I talk about optimism,

209
00:10:53,760 --> 00:10:56,520
Speaker 3: the definition that I've been using for it is it's

210
00:10:56,559 --> 00:11:01,080
Speaker 3: psychologically distancing oneself from the bad. So it's saying, I'm

211
00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:04,160
Speaker 3: going to look to the future, to this the future

212
00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:07,000
Speaker 3: that I cannot understand and I cannot predict, and I'm

213
00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:09,840
Speaker 3: going to choose to do that by denying what could

214
00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:13,080
Speaker 3: go wrong, for ignoring what has gone wrong in the past.

215
00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:17,360
Speaker 3: And and you know that again, it's a fragile thing,

216
00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:20,360
Speaker 3: right when you when you encounter what is bad, it

217
00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:23,760
Speaker 3: breaks that kind of a hope. It also like the

218
00:11:23,800 --> 00:11:26,400
Speaker 3: practices that come out of that I think are often

219
00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:30,760
Speaker 3: physically distancing yourself from the bad. I had a person

220
00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 3: tell me a story about how their family had moved.

221
00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:37,320
Speaker 3: This is a white family that had moved into an

222
00:11:37,400 --> 00:11:43,679
Speaker 3: under resource, predominantly black neighborhood, and their son was coming

223
00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:45,600
Speaker 3: back from a family gathering where they've been in sort

224
00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:49,640
Speaker 3: of a wealthier suburb or family gathering. They came back

225
00:11:49,640 --> 00:11:53,720
Speaker 3: to their neighborhood and they came back and the son

226
00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:56,160
Speaker 3: looks around the neighborhood and goes to mom, is there

227
00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,760
Speaker 3: are there robbers here? And this kid is like looking

228
00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:02,679
Speaker 3: aroun sort of noticing the physical space that I am

229
00:12:02,800 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 3: in is somehow different from this other physical space and

230
00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:11,160
Speaker 3: maybe there's danger here. And you know, these parents are like,

231
00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:14,560
Speaker 3: where did our son get that idea? But it was

232
00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:18,120
Speaker 3: like this moment of noticing. We are so seeped in

233
00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:20,520
Speaker 3: these narratives about what is safe and what is good

234
00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:25,160
Speaker 3: and what is right, and when we encounter things that

235
00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:26,960
Speaker 3: we think of as like bad, whether it's a bad

236
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,080
Speaker 3: space or a bad story, we need to figure out, like,

237
00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:32,640
Speaker 3: what is our hope going to do in that moment?

238
00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:35,520
Speaker 3: Is it going to say this is exactly the moment,

239
00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:39,679
Speaker 3: the place, the time where God shows up, because God

240
00:12:39,800 --> 00:12:43,480
Speaker 3: is a God who interrupts and shows up in the bad.

241
00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:46,360
Speaker 3: Or are we going to rely on this narrative that's like,

242
00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:49,280
Speaker 3: well it's bad, and so I should get out of

243
00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:52,200
Speaker 3: here and get somewhere is good again, right, like find

244
00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:55,360
Speaker 3: God in the safe good places. And obviously we know

245
00:12:55,400 --> 00:12:57,559
Speaker 3: as Christians like God is a God who interrupts, who

246
00:12:57,559 --> 00:13:00,959
Speaker 3: shows up within the bad, who doesn't psychologically distance get

247
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:02,520
Speaker 3: self from the bad.

248
00:13:04,160 --> 00:13:05,680
Speaker 2: The other aspect of hope.

249
00:13:06,120 --> 00:13:09,080
Speaker 1: So that's really helpful with optimism, I think you know

250
00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:13,040
Speaker 1: you can be it's almost like a mental escapism. You

251
00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:15,079
Speaker 1: don't want to think about the bad things that could happen.

252
00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:16,959
Speaker 1: You only think about the good things, and then when

253
00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:19,440
Speaker 1: the bad things come, you're almost not prepared for them.

254
00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:21,960
Speaker 1: You just don't ever think they're going to happen, and

255
00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:25,079
Speaker 1: maybe you distance yourself, like you said, physically from them

256
00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:28,680
Speaker 1: and just avoid them altogether. But I think the other aspect,

257
00:13:28,679 --> 00:13:31,280
Speaker 1: and this was one that I when I read through it,

258
00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:33,000
Speaker 1: I was kind of struggling with it a little bit,

259
00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:39,839
Speaker 1: the incrementalism, and so the way I understood the incrementalism

260
00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:42,640
Speaker 1: and you can correct me if I'm wrong. There's almost

261
00:13:42,679 --> 00:13:46,760
Speaker 1: like a combined incrementalism that says these incremental steps are

262
00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:51,280
Speaker 1: the best we can do, or there's an optimism around

263
00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:52,280
Speaker 1: the incrementalism.

264
00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:54,920
Speaker 2: Right. These two almost form like a two headed monster,

265
00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:57,400
Speaker 2: right versus.

266
00:13:58,679 --> 00:14:03,360
Speaker 1: We've made progress that is necessary but insufficient, and so

267
00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:08,680
Speaker 1: we still feel the frictions and the tensions and recognize

268
00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:12,200
Speaker 1: the suffering. We're not viewing these as something that is

269
00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:14,640
Speaker 1: completely finished. I almost think of it as like when

270
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:18,560
Speaker 1: you know, Ezra and Nehmiah come back from the exile

271
00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:21,680
Speaker 1: and they rebuild some of the temple walls and some

272
00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:24,640
Speaker 1: people there's actually a line in Ezra says and the

273
00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:27,720
Speaker 1: people some people were crying, weeping, some people were cheering,

274
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:30,400
Speaker 1: and when you stood back, you couldn't distinguish who was

275
00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:33,560
Speaker 1: crying and who was cheering. Right, It's this like deep

276
00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:38,520
Speaker 1: tension of this is great, this is horrible, all mixed

277
00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:41,400
Speaker 1: up in one bag. So there is an incrementalism, but

278
00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:45,600
Speaker 1: it's not an optimistic incrementalism. It's a very realistic, like

279
00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:48,360
Speaker 1: we've done something good here, but that good is nowhere

280
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:49,360
Speaker 1: near what we need to be.

281
00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:51,880
Speaker 2: Is that a fair way of understanding it.

282
00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:54,800
Speaker 3: I love that. Yeah, I had never thought about that

283
00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:58,160
Speaker 3: passage of the idea of like weeping and crying being

284
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:01,920
Speaker 3: totally intertwined. Yeah, it reminds me. Actually, I want to

285
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:05,240
Speaker 3: just reaview a quote from a woman in this book

286
00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:11,920
Speaker 3: and she said, you mind it. This is a pastor.

287
00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:14,440
Speaker 3: I was talking to a woman of color, and she said,

288
00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:18,440
Speaker 3: I'm leaning into joy I think it's an act of

289
00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:22,960
Speaker 3: resistance to play, to practice joyful things in the midst

290
00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:25,960
Speaker 3: of it, in the midst of like working for racial justice.

291
00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:28,280
Speaker 3: That's exactly what we need to do, in the midst

292
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:32,320
Speaker 3: of all the horrible things. Joyfully gather and not in denial,

293
00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:35,400
Speaker 3: but as an act of resistance. We play, we eat,

294
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,040
Speaker 3: we celebrate, we do all these things. But it's only

295
00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:41,360
Speaker 3: hopeful to me to actually be honest about what is

296
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:48,360
Speaker 3: also really happening both and so yeah, thinking about that incrementalism.

297
00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:52,120
Speaker 3: I hadn't really thought about how like, so early in

298
00:15:52,120 --> 00:15:54,320
Speaker 3: the book, I have a chapter that I called Delusional

299
00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:56,520
Speaker 3: Health Hope that's like on what goes wrong. And then

300
00:15:56,600 --> 00:15:59,120
Speaker 3: later in the book, after we sort of walk through

301
00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:00,960
Speaker 3: how do white Chris just get to the point of

302
00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:03,760
Speaker 3: having this kind of hope, Like what does the resilient

303
00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:06,360
Speaker 3: hope look like. And there is this common throad that

304
00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 3: I think both of them have an idea of looking

305
00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:14,280
Speaker 3: at what is small. So I was struck by how

306
00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:17,000
Speaker 3: many people what I'd ask, like, what is your hope? Like, now,

307
00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:18,880
Speaker 3: how do you hope? People will be like, it's tiny,

308
00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:22,200
Speaker 3: you can hardly see it. It's small. It focuses on

309
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:26,040
Speaker 3: the little things. But at the same time, then people

310
00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:29,160
Speaker 3: would also talk about like, but while I'm focused on

311
00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:31,520
Speaker 3: the small, I also have this vision of like the

312
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:35,280
Speaker 3: big and part of something that's big that needs to change.

313
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:37,880
Speaker 3: And I think maybe that's part of what's missing in

314
00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:40,400
Speaker 3: the sort of delusional ways that we go about trying

315
00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:44,480
Speaker 3: to approach justice, is it is forgetting that there is

316
00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:48,160
Speaker 3: a big thing that needs to change too. So I

317
00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 3: talk about like conventional hope, and by that I mean

318
00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:54,560
Speaker 3: like trying to hold on to just keeping things as

319
00:16:54,600 --> 00:16:58,800
Speaker 3: they have been. And like, if you think about the

320
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:03,680
Speaker 3: history of say, you know, Black Americans, to take just

321
00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:06,359
Speaker 3: one group that we could talk about, right, like what

322
00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:08,640
Speaker 3: does it mean to say keep things as they are?

323
00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:12,400
Speaker 3: And there's so much writing in sort of Black liberation

324
00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:16,240
Speaker 3: and Christian black writing about the idea of like hope

325
00:17:16,320 --> 00:17:19,679
Speaker 3: being not just keep things as they are. We have

326
00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:22,680
Speaker 3: to hold onto a vision or a radical and a

327
00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:28,359
Speaker 3: pathetic different society. And and if you're the person who's

328
00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:31,800
Speaker 3: like had had privileged over your history, and I don't

329
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:33,199
Speaker 3: know if there's a word I need to unpack for

330
00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:37,240
Speaker 3: your listeners too, but like your your incentive is just

331
00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:39,440
Speaker 3: to say, like, let's keep things mostly the same, let's

332
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,120
Speaker 3: just change them a little bit. You know, we'll keep

333
00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:43,600
Speaker 3: doing the thing that we're doing, but we'll do a

334
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:48,400
Speaker 3: little bit more of it, versus like, let's reconsider what

335
00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:51,160
Speaker 3: maybe needs to be entirely strapped in what we're doing

336
00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:51,640
Speaker 3: right now.

337
00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:55,520
Speaker 1: It's interesting, I mean I would be. I'm interested in

338
00:17:55,560 --> 00:17:58,479
Speaker 1: hearing you sort of talk through privilege. But one comment

339
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:01,800
Speaker 1: I'll make is one of the I've done a lot

340
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:06,080
Speaker 1: of research on Christian nationalism and early American origins at

341
00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:08,200
Speaker 1: this point, like Christians and politics and all that kind

342
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:10,480
Speaker 1: of fun stuff. And one of my theses that I

343
00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,760
Speaker 1: haven't really run down much yet is that much of

344
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:16,639
Speaker 1: the early American theology that we see that sort of

345
00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:19,439
Speaker 1: feeds a Christian nationalism or feeds the idea that America

346
00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:21,680
Speaker 1: was found out as a Christian nation is actually has

347
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:26,840
Speaker 1: a lot of commonalities with liberation theology. They're coming out

348
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:30,280
Speaker 1: of the Great Britain, you know, they're trying to sort

349
00:18:30,280 --> 00:18:33,800
Speaker 1: of free themselves from this tyrant. They're leveraging the Exodus

350
00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:35,879
Speaker 1: in a very similar way as you see in almost

351
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:39,280
Speaker 1: every other liberation theology and a lot of the same

352
00:18:39,400 --> 00:18:42,800
Speaker 1: texts and images and thought process around. We are the

353
00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:47,040
Speaker 1: new whatever, the new Israel, the new people. We've got

354
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:49,720
Speaker 1: this new freedom. And where I see a lot of

355
00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:52,160
Speaker 1: that falling down is that it's a it's a freedom,

356
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:55,679
Speaker 1: but not a freedom to serve the lord. It's a

357
00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:58,680
Speaker 1: freedom to do as we please. And so I think

358
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:01,920
Speaker 1: there's some unwinding them from a theological perspective. It needs

359
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:04,840
Speaker 1: to happen as we look at sort of the psyche

360
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:08,359
Speaker 1: and mythos of America, because I think a lot of

361
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:10,919
Speaker 1: this has been baked in now and what we're running

362
00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:13,840
Speaker 1: into is we're running into sort of these quasi theological

363
00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:19,560
Speaker 1: hopes for the nation that condition us to maintain a

364
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:25,040
Speaker 1: status quo. Yeah, and so privilege, yes, I think I'm

365
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:26,840
Speaker 1: interested here you talk about that, But just to add

366
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:29,400
Speaker 1: in that sort of theological flavor, I think that there's

367
00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:32,440
Speaker 1: a sense in which many people feel like they've achieved something,

368
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:34,960
Speaker 1: that something has been given to them that they shouldn't

369
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:39,119
Speaker 1: give up. It's an odd mix of things, but anyway,

370
00:19:39,280 --> 00:19:41,320
Speaker 1: just that's my yeah aside.

371
00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:46,240
Speaker 3: Too, it struck me how often people referred when I

372
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:48,520
Speaker 3: was interviewing them, but then also like you start to

373
00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:50,560
Speaker 3: hear it all over the place, how people use the

374
00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:53,640
Speaker 3: phrase in Christianity and maybe all over from Martin Luther

375
00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:57,960
Speaker 3: King Junior of the moral arc at the universe is long,

376
00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:01,400
Speaker 3: but itens for justice, and he actually voting that from

377
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:05,399
Speaker 3: someone else for him. But how that gets used is

378
00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,840
Speaker 3: really revealing, right, Like is that being used to say

379
00:20:09,320 --> 00:20:11,320
Speaker 3: the moral arc of the universe is long, and it

380
00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:14,639
Speaker 3: bends toward justice, and therefore we can let it just

381
00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:16,959
Speaker 3: bend and we can sort of let it do its

382
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:20,639
Speaker 3: own work and it'll get there on its own versus

383
00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:23,680
Speaker 3: like if you read kings writing, he was very clear

384
00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:26,600
Speaker 3: over and over again. Part of again why this seam

385
00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,080
Speaker 3: of hope came up for me was I was reading

386
00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:33,399
Speaker 3: a book of his essays with students and was just

387
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:36,000
Speaker 3: struck by how much he writes about hope and how

388
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:40,160
Speaker 3: resonant that was with my students. I think people desperately

389
00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:42,800
Speaker 3: want to know how to hope with an active hope.

390
00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:44,840
Speaker 3: And he was so clear over and over again, that

391
00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:46,840
Speaker 3: does not mean you get to sit by and let

392
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:49,440
Speaker 3: it roll in like you are actively involved in that.

393
00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:51,600
Speaker 3: Like if you read the letter from the Birmingham Jail,

394
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:54,240
Speaker 3: it is all about his response to a bunch of

395
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:57,720
Speaker 3: white pastors who were saying, you should just calm down,

396
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:00,800
Speaker 3: stop doing this whole protesting, just let it roll and

397
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 3: it's going to be fine. And he's like that hope

398
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:07,200
Speaker 3: is not okay, Like we have to do an active hope.

399
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:10,000
Speaker 3: I mean, like we have to act. You have to

400
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:12,400
Speaker 3: make society bend toward justice in the way that God

401
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:16,560
Speaker 3: is bending it also say that, do you find so.

402
00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:19,120
Speaker 2: I want to come back to privilege. So no longer

403
00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:19,560
Speaker 2: forget that.

404
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:21,720
Speaker 1: But this seems like a good time to get into

405
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 1: at the topic that I mentioned before that we started

406
00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:25,600
Speaker 1: recording The Habitist.

407
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:29,359
Speaker 2: So it seems to me like that habitist.

408
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,120
Speaker 1: That Pierre Bordia talks about and the way I sort

409
00:21:32,119 --> 00:21:34,960
Speaker 1: of I think you used dancing if I remember right,

410
00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:39,360
Speaker 1: sort of illustrate habitists, and I think that's a really

411
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:40,160
Speaker 1: great analogy.

412
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:42,680
Speaker 2: The way I try to usually give it to people.

413
00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:45,920
Speaker 1: Is like, imagine the difference between a ballerine and a

414
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 1: football aligneman right. They both have to be coordinated, they

415
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,440
Speaker 1: both have to be relatively athletic, they both have to

416
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 1: have a level of muscular endurance and coordination and all

417
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,120
Speaker 1: these different things. But you're not going to catch usually

418
00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 1: alignment being a ballerina and a ballot in it being alignment, right,

419
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: because the space that they occupy, the way that the economics,

420
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:11,160
Speaker 1: let's call it, of that situation actually work, would never

421
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:14,679
Speaker 1: really support a three hundred and fifty pound ballerina nor

422
00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:16,240
Speaker 1: a one hundred pound alignment.

423
00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 2: It just won't work.

424
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:19,800
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how athletic you are, that's not going

425
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:24,199
Speaker 1: to work. And so as we think about that, habitists, do.

426
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:25,879
Speaker 2: You think that there's a.

427
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,159
Speaker 1: Is part of what you're saying that there's almost like

428
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 1: a reward system baked in that conditions. One sort of

429
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,680
Speaker 1: habitist to say it's all going to be okay, And

430
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 1: one sort of habit is to say, you know what,

431
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:43,359
Speaker 1: it may not always be okay, but we're going to

432
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:48,160
Speaker 1: work toward something better regardless, Because I'm not sure even

433
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 1: as you say that, you know the arc of the

434
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 1: universe spends towards justice. I'm not sure I actually believe that. Yeah,

435
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:55,600
Speaker 1: I think it's a much more you know, it may

436
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: be a more punctuated. Yes, do I believe God will

437
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 1: bring justice? Absolutely, Like I think there is going to

438
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: be a punctuated justice at the end, I'm not sure

439
00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:05,879
Speaker 1: it bends toward it. And even as we you know,

440
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 1: even as we perform our efforts, I'm not sure that

441
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 1: we affect justice, you know often, and so there has

442
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:16,399
Speaker 1: to be some sort of a like I said, that

443
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,360
Speaker 1: habitist that says no, no, no, we're going to work

444
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: at this and.

445
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter whether we win or not. The actual

446
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 2: process for going through is the wind.

447
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:31,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, there's a one that I interviewed one of

448
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 3: the few people that I do keep her name because

449
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 3: she's a prominent researcher in addition to just being a

450
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 3: member of a church that I attend, Gloria Lads and Billions.

451
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 3: And she was telling me about how she teaches students

452
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:48,440
Speaker 3: she teaches in the University of Wisconsin in education, and

453
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 3: she's saying, I use the analogy of Sissibus with my students,

454
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,679
Speaker 3: and how this is a person who is just pushing

455
00:23:55,720 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 3: a boulder up a hill, and he knows that boulder

456
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:03,879
Speaker 3: is going to roll back down because gosh darn it,

457
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 3: and she's gonna roll back down. And she said she's

458
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 3: like white people focused on the bowlder and the top

459
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 3: of the hill. And she said, black people, we learn

460
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 3: to focus on Sissyphis and the muscles on Sissifus, Like

461
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:22,439
Speaker 3: you look at him and you see, like, look at

462
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 3: who he is becoming through that process. And I found

463
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 3: that really challenging just to even think about discipleship in

464
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 3: that way, right, Like it doesn't mean stop pushing the boulder,

465
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 3: but it means, like my relationship with God is is

466
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 3: about what is that process of who I'm becoming as

467
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 3: I push in the right direction with whatever is in

468
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 3: front of me that you know that needs to be

469
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 3: pushed for God's kingdom, for Shaloam to come. And and

470
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 3: I love, Yeah, that ballerina versus football player analogy, I

471
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 3: think is really great. And I like how you put

472
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:00,119
Speaker 3: it as like the economy around them or like the

473
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 3: forces around them shape them, because it's not just about

474
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:06,879
Speaker 3: like we can all make ourselves into the kind of

475
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 3: person we want to be, which is often the narrative

476
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 3: we hear, right, it's just like as a Christian, like

477
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 3: just you know, do the right thing and pray every

478
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 3: morning and you become what you want to be. But

479
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 3: we we discount and this is like what anthropologists say.

480
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 3: I feel like every single day is like forget like

481
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 3: don't forget culture, don't forget social structures. Like society is big,

482
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 3: big forces pushing on you that shapes who you are.

483
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 3: Doesn't mean you have no agency, doesn't mean you can't

484
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 3: also like push the boulder and become something in that setting.

485
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 3: But but those forces are big. And you know, back

486
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 3: to your question too of like what causes people to

487
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 3: give up? I think a big part of it is

488
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 3: this what does it mean to be formed in an

489
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 3: embodied way? I talk about how well, So I've kind

490
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 3: of written most of the whole book and I had

491
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 3: a whole outline for it, and then I looked at

492
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 3: it one day and I was like, oh, like, actually

493
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 3: the sections of this book kind of walk through how

494
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 3: to love the Lord your God with your heart and

495
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 3: mind and soul and strength, not the order exactly that

496
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 3: Jesus says it in, right, but that is like the

497
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 3: core of like the thing Jesus says we should do

498
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 3: is love the Lord your God that way, and then

499
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 3: he says the command to love your neighbor is like that.

500
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 3: So we can think about how do we love our

501
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 3: neighbor with heart and soul and mind and strength and

502
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 3: with that strength part, like it's an embodied thing. And

503
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 3: I run into this when I try to teach students

504
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 3: about racism is in a classroom, we often focus so

505
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 3: much energy on the mind part of it, right, like

506
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 3: just get a bunch of information in the students, like

507
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 3: plug them with history and like here's what redlining is,

508
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:45,159
Speaker 3: and here's the history of colonialism, and then then you're fine, Right,

509
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 3: But it doesn't work that way because it's also a

510
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 3: matter of heart of like we are emotional beings. We

511
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:56,679
Speaker 3: have like feelings about this process and loves that are

512
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 3: attached to it. There's a soul portion of it, like

513
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 3: what do we do with the harm, how do we

514
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 3: deal with the guilts, how do we deal with the

515
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 3: healing at a soul level? How do we respond to

516
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,199
Speaker 3: God about this whole issue? And then there's this strength

517
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 3: and body part that like you know, you can read

518
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 3: every book about racism that you can find on the

519
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 3: shelf and I had there was a Latino man who

520
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 3: was talking about this man that he was like, you know,

521
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 3: in this phase of like who do you recommend for

522
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 3: the study, He's like, well, you could talk to the

523
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 3: certain man. But he's like, well, but just just know that,

524
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 3: Like I forget how he said it exactly, but it

525
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 3: was sort of like, but he'll make some mistakes, like

526
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 3: he'll be a little awkward. And just as a sort

527
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 3: of overall thing about the white people who are recommended

528
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 3: for this study, I realized there's this pattern of often

529
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 3: when they got recommended, it wasn't because they did things

530
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 3: really totally right. It was more so how they recovered

531
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 3: from what they didn't do right. And so like back

532
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 3: to that analogy of like how you learn a hobby toost,

533
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 3: you just got to get in there and you got

534
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 3: to start doing things, like you learn to dance, like

535
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 3: getting on the dance floor. You read all the books

536
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 3: about it first, so you've got to try it and

537
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 3: you're going to look foolish. And it's not just like

538
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 3: there's stakes involved to it too. Like I was talking

539
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 3: to somebody the other day and I was like, maybe

540
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 3: I should have written in that section like there's also

541
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 3: like knives in your hands sometimes, like when you're dancing,

542
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 3: you can hurt the people around you, which is important

543
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 3: to know, right, But it doesn't mean don't learn. You

544
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 3: got to still learn.

545
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,959
Speaker 1: Right, you're going to stub on people's toes, but at

546
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you're still learning to dance.

547
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,959
Speaker 1: And so, just to underscore something you mentioned, I mean

548
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: the embodiment that strength. When you look at the Hebrew

549
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: of this, Dan Blocks done some really good work on

550
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 1: the Shemah, and so the word for that's usually translated

551
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: strength is actually ode. It's the same word that's used

552
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,719
Speaker 1: for very in the phrase very good during the creation narrative.

553
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 2: And so it conveys this idea of muchness.

554
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: And so a lot of Old Testament commentators, including myself,

555
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: would say, this doesn't just refer to how much you

556
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: can bench brass squad or deadlift or something like that.

557
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: It's not your physical strength. It includes all of your

558
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: material strength. Like everything that you have belongs to the Lord,

559
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: and that's what you're to love him with. None of

560
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: these things that he's given you, your herds, your your

561
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: cattle or whatever, right like, this is all dedicated to

562
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: him and so there's an expanded embodiment almost of what

563
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: we see in that love for God and the resources

564
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: we would muster then to also love our neighbor.

565
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. I have not heard that, but

566
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 3: it makes me think about to this idea of perseverance

567
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 3: and like the muchness of moving, like the long obedience

568
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 3: in the long direction for yeah, and thinking about how

569
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 3: One thing I noticed in analyzing what I had heard

570
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 3: from people is that very much writing in sort of

571
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 3: academic spaces around racial justice focuses on the scope of it,

572
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 3: like sort of what is systemic? What is like how

573
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 3: do you don't just focus on the person in front

574
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,479
Speaker 3: of you? Focus on the system. And that's a message

575
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 3: that I think people really needed to hear and still

576
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 3: continue to need to hear. But what I realized is

577
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 3: there's also a longitudinal aspect of it that I think

578
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:20,719
Speaker 3: it's under mentioned in academic spaces. But if you are

579
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 3: trying to address the entire scope of injustice in the

580
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 3: world like all at once, you're probably going to quickly

581
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 3: discover how limited you are, and it can actually detract

582
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 3: from people having the longitudinal perseverance in that form of muchness.

583
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 3: So because thinking about how muchness is both wide and

584
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 3: it's long.

585
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 2: Also, Yeah, I think that's helpful. Yeah, I like that

586
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 2: a lot.

587
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: Well, let's dip in a little bit to privilege. This

588
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: is a term that I hear an awful lot, and

589
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: I know what I want to do with it, but

590
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: I have a hard time explaining it. And so I'd

591
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: be interested in hearing your explanation and then we can

592
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 1: have a conversation about it and maybe I can get

593
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: some clarity on it.

594
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 3: Yeah. I know I got myself into this. I offer

595
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 3: to give you an explanation. You did.

596
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're fault.

597
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 3: Here's what I probably say to students that every one

598
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 3: of us has everything that we have. Life itself is

599
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 3: a gift. Uh. That's the starting point. We are, at

600
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 3: our most basic, we are recipients from God. There's nothing

601
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 3: that starts from us. It all starts from God, right,

602
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 3: And then what we do is live with those gifts,

603
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 3: and we're all given gifts that we don't deserve us

604
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 3: the baseline, we are given gifts, different kinds of gifts.

605
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 3: But some of what we also do during our lifetime

606
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 3: is kind of take what we don't what we shouldn't have,

607
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 3: And so the things that we've received from our lifetime

608
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 3: include both gifts that are given in love and gifts

609
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 3: given out of goodness and gifts that are given out

610
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 3: of like a history of hurts and harm, and often

611
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 3: those are so intertwined that it's not like we can

612
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 3: just like parse them out. Let me just give an example.

613
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 3: I love music. My undergrad major was piano and English,

614
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 3: and I own a banjo. Okay, if you trace back

615
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 3: through my history of my family, if you go back

616
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 3: about three generations, I had a great grandfather who played

617
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 3: banjo in a minstrel show, which is an extremely offensive

618
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 3: way of appropriating and disrespecting African American music and the

619
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 3: time period of people wearing like black face. What do

620
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 3: I do with that? Right, Like, there's a gift that

621
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 3: I have from my family which is a love of music,

622
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 3: and there's also a stolenness to it, like a harm

623
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 3: and an insult that's part of that history. So like

624
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 3: a big part of what I often am thinking about

625
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 3: is like what do you do with those legacies that

626
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 3: we are all walking around with? These histories of having

627
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 3: received through harm and having received through stolenness and also

628
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 3: through loving gifts. So what is privilege? Maybe in one sense,

629
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 3: you can just think of it as having a certain

630
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 3: abundance of gifts that other people around you don't have.

631
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 3: And that doesn't necessarily mean that there's always sin involved

632
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 3: in how you got those privileges, but it just means

633
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 3: that you have you have gifts, right, And when we

634
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 3: look at that as social scientists, often we're trying to

635
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 3: look like, what are patterns to how people end up

636
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 3: with an abundance of abilities, of stuff, of material goods,

637
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 3: of wealth and power, all the things that we end

638
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 3: up with. And there's patterns right across history because we

639
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 3: humans make those patterns. We make patterns of like colonialism,

640
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 3: who had war capacities to conquer other nations, who enslaved whom,

641
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 3: who wrote laws to say that whom was powerful? Or

642
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 3: who we get a vote who wouldn't write So those

643
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 3: those patterns are what we inherit, and then what do

644
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 3: we do with them as Christians is a huge question.

645
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:12,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's because it feels like what I don't hear

646
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: you're saying is that there won't always be asymmetries. So

647
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 1: the giftedness is the different giftedness.

648
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 2: Is always going to be there.

649
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 3: Yeah?

650
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 2: Is that correct?

651
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 3: Am I?

652
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 2: Hearing that, I don't know like the like I approach this.

653
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,279
Speaker 1: So if I'm thinking about the differentiation within the body

654
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: of Christ and Paul's call like be unified, but recognize difference,

655
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 1: an apostle is never going to be an evangelist. These

656
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 1: are two different gifts that God has given in so

657
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: there's difference there. There's asymmetry, is the way I'm phrasing it, right,

658
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:48,479
Speaker 1: And so it just feels to me like one body

659
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 1: of many members there's going to be in asymmetry. A

660
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 1: right hand is never going to be a left foot,

661
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: that kind of idea, and so there's a valuing of that.

662
00:34:57,760 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 2: But am I hearing you right?

663
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: Are we trying to get rid of those asymmetries, get

664
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: rid of those differences like level or are we trying

665
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:10,959
Speaker 1: to navigate those differences in a way that is loving

666
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: and respectful to the entire to every member of the community.

667
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 3: That's a great question. Yeah, difference is good, Like I

668
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 3: think that's a starting point for us. Right, even if

669
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 3: you start from the creation narrative, it's like God separated differences.

670
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 3: Every single c of it is like there's light, there's dark,

671
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 3: there's sky, there's sea, there's differences. There's like bird and

672
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 3: fish and are different. There's man woman different, right, and

673
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 3: it's good. It's always like, here's a difference and it's good.

674
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 3: And so difference is not going away. We definitely don't

675
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 3: want that, right, that's part of God's creativity and joyful,

676
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 3: delightful existence of the world. Right, asymmetry I think of

677
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 3: as a slightly different word and right. You know, it

678
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 3: depends on what's asymmetrical, I guess, but usually when we

679
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 3: talk about that, we think about like a symmetric power

680
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 3: of who has the right or the privilege or even

681
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 3: like the dignity in a situation. And that's where I

682
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 3: think we take difference and we make it into our

683
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 3: own sinful, flawed version of it. I explain to students,

684
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 3: like there's a difference between race and other kinds of

685
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 3: differences between human groups. When we use the word race

686
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 3: in social sciences, we're talking about specific way of differentiating

687
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 3: human beings, and that is a hierarchical way and a

688
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 3: way that like basically one group of people in our

689
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 3: Western racial system that was historically European white people from

690
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 3: Protestant like a specific area of Europe that said, we

691
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 3: think we are better than the rest of the world.

692
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 3: And they also at that time in history, had the

693
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 3: power to start to enact systems that would last, so

694
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 3: to conquer nations, to write laws, you know, to enslave

695
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:03,720
Speaker 3: human beings, to make that system of hierarchy lasting and enduring.

696
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 3: And it was that group who was saying like, I

697
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 3: will tell all the rest of you what your groups are,

698
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 3: Like you will be red, you will be black, you

699
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 3: will be yellow, right, like putting terms on other groups

700
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 3: of people, you know, taking all of the African continent

701
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:19,759
Speaker 3: and saying like, oh, now you are black people, and

702
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 3: they're like, we don't speak the same language, we don't

703
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 3: know each other. We are people, right. Yeah, So there's

704
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 3: I think where that kind of like sin enters into

705
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 3: what we do with difference of that house it does.

706
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really helpful.

707
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: And so then my other question on privilege, to sort

708
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,320
Speaker 1: of piggyback on some of this, is you do have

709
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: different layers of privilege. So it seems to me at

710
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: least and this you can you can interact with this.

711
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: So I'm not trying to assert this, I guess I'm

712
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: trying to state a thesis. Right, So when I look

713
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:58,800
Speaker 1: at Bordia for instance, right, semi autonomous fields of interaction.

714
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 1: So think about again, maybe the lineman in the ballerina. Right,

715
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: if if you're born and you're in a you're born,

716
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: let's say in a Texas town where football is just

717
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 1: you know everything, right, and you grew up playing football, right,

718
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 1: and you're just playing football all the time. But there's

719
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: no ballerina studio, ballet studio, it's not a balerius, no

720
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 1: ballet's studio. Right, you have a certain degree. There's a

721
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 1: differentiation of that privilege there, right, just through access, right,

722
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: And so that's what I guess I'm saying there. It

723
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: seems to me like there are different layers of privilege

724
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: that go way deep. And so I'm wondering a lot

725
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: of times when I have discussions about privilege, it stays

726
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: sort of up here, right, like everybody of a certain

727
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:51,239
Speaker 1: color has this privilege.

728
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 2: And I don't know. I mean, I grew up in

729
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:55,280
Speaker 2: rural Illinois.

730
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 1: There are a lot of white guys who just didn't

731
00:38:57,800 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 1: have any privilege at all, you know what I mean.

732
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: And so it seems to me like there's something And

733
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 1: I know people are a little skittish about intersectionality, right.

734
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: But it seems to me that there are all these

735
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: different characteristics that we have to take into account, and

736
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: so a descriptive model appear may not necessarily hit the

737
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 1: ground in the same way with every single person along

738
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: the way. Not trying to give an excuse, but just

739
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: trying to say, where does the theory meet the concept

740
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: meet the concrete.

741
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, great questions. Yeah, so I you know, you said,

742
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 3: like the white man in.

743
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: Rural Yeah, rural Illinois, Illinois.

744
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there's there's huge like lack of privilege in

745
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 3: living in say like a rural area in the United States.

746
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 3: They want to look at like patterns in life, sectancy, violence,

747
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 3: like rural urban. It's rural is where it's like where

748
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 3: the struggle is, right, So, like that's another aspect of

749
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 3: privilege in the United States. Like you can make these

750
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 3: different categories. I was thinking one way to maybe explain

751
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 3: this is I think sometimes we there's sort of like

752
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 3: popular conversations about privilege that want to simplify things, and

753
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 3: we all want to see I want to sub sometimes, right,

754
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 3: But I think one of the shortcuts we sometimes use

755
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,800
Speaker 3: is thinking it is all about just these categories that

756
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 3: have names to them, right, Like it's about your race,

757
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 3: your ableism, like as if there is like a clear

758
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 3: line between like who is disabled, who is abled able bodied? Sure,

759
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 3: or like you know, it's gender sexuality. Like we have

760
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 3: these terms which I see as like a starting point

761
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 3: for understanding concept, but the concept is so much more

762
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 3: complicated than that. Like there's this kind of you can

763
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 3: think of it as like a watercolor drawing of like

764
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 3: the layers of privilege are not neat little boxes with

765
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 3: black lines around them, but they blur together. So so yeah,

766
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 3: like what privilege I have, Like, yeah, it depends partly

767
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,359
Speaker 3: on like being in a female body, right, but it's

768
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 3: also like I grew up in a family where my

769
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 3: dad was a professor and my mom was a teacher,

770
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 3: and so like I got a great education, so you know,

771
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:22,919
Speaker 3: it's never just like a yes no answer to whether

772
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 3: you have a privileged So where I go with this

773
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 3: in my book and how you deal with this? What

774
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 3: I really saw, like going to American Anthological Association kind

775
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 3: of meetings and hearing people in the academy talk about racism,

776
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 3: is you know, we are very good at talking about

777
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,360
Speaker 3: the problem, but we are afraid to talk about the solutions.

778
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,320
Speaker 3: And I think Christians actually offer a concept that is

779
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 3: excellent for trying to get from the problem of like

780
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 3: the harm that is done in our history and in

781
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 3: our current world around racism to a solution. And that

782
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 3: concept is grace. Like this is the word that we

783
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 3: have how we deal with undeserved gifts. And and I realize,

784
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 3: you know, it's a helpful word because it's undeserved gifts

785
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 3: of all sorts, like God's gifts of grace to us

786
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 3: is goodness, you know, it just like given us life.

787
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 3: But it's also for like the harm aspect of it,

788
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 3: like God gives us grace to deal with our debt

789
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 3: of sin and what we've done wrong. And and when

790
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:36,320
Speaker 3: I started reading like John Barclay's work on grace, he emphasizes,

791
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 3: like so much of writing about Christian grace forgets that

792
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 3: there's a response anticipated to it. And I see that

793
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 3: happen in how Christians deal with racism sometimes like so, uh,

794
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 3: I'll just like name white people when we talk about racism. Historically,

795
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,920
Speaker 3: often white Christians have said, well, the solution to this

796
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 3: is that people of color should forgive right, because that's

797
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:04,879
Speaker 3: what we're called to do as Christians is forgive, get

798
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 3: over it, move on, let's not talk about it. But

799
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 3: there's there's a part of grace also which is responding

800
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:17,240
Speaker 3: to it and healing the wrong and creating actively creating shalone,

801
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 3: creating a community where God's justice is threaded throughout all

802
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 3: of society. So what I realized, you know, and hearing

803
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 3: people talk about how they came to be like long

804
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:32,320
Speaker 3: term advocates or justice as white people, is that was

805
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:34,359
Speaker 3: a shift that also happened. Like it wasn't just learning

806
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:38,720
Speaker 3: about hope, it was grounding hope in a response to grace.

807
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 3: It was like being able to name like I don't

808
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 3: deserve what I have in life, not you know, not

809
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:47,839
Speaker 3: any of it really from God, but also like specifically

810
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 3: the privileges that come through through racial privilege, and so

811
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:56,439
Speaker 3: like you know, I can't pay back slavery, I can't

812
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 3: like pay it back, but I can respond to those

813
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 3: undeserved gifts that I received over my lifetime. So that,

814
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 3: you know, I could talk about that for a very

815
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 3: long time, because it's messy. I think that's one of

816
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 3: the hardest way right things for me to wrap my

817
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 3: head around.

818
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:13,439
Speaker 1: No, I appreciate it though the way you said it here,

819
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: I mean I love the section of the book as well,

820
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:18,920
Speaker 1: because what you're doing is you're basically calling us to

821
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 1: respond differently than we have in the past, and that

822
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: to recognize that what we have has been given and

823
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: therefore we didn't really earn it, right. I mean, I

824
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 1: think we get so caught up in earning things. This

825
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:36,839
Speaker 1: is the whole meritocracy conversation, And whenever I've gotten into

826
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: those conversations, I'm kind of like, I remember how I

827
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: got my first job. I wasn't I could not have

828
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: been the most qualified guy on that list, no chance.

829
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 1: I knew some people at the school that I got

830
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 1: the job at, and so they advocated for me, and

831
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: that was fantastic.

832
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 2: And it's like, do I feel bad about that?

833
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: Not particularly bad, but you do start to recognize that

834
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 1: talent doesn't necessarily equate with success, right, Like there is

835
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 1: a networked effect that we're all dealing with, and there

836
00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: are other factors that are in there. So I mean,

837
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: even just to look at those kind of things in

838
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: the past and go, no, this was a gift. This

839
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: was something that I was given. It doesn't mean that

840
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: I didn't do something to earn that, right, but it

841
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: does mean that I didn't exactly deserve it either, Like,

842
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: if you Iraq and stack me against everybody else, how

843
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 1: do I compare up? I'm betting it wasn't just that

844
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: I was so uber qualified that I got this job.

845
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 1: And I think it's really important for us to recognize that.

846
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: And so how we respond to that then, is I

847
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: appreciate in the chapter in the emphasis on forgiveness, but

848
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:47,399
Speaker 1: I also recognize like there is some sort of way

849
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: of doing this. I kept going back to Ephesians four,

850
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 1: and it's not exactly about grace, but let the thief

851
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:57,439
Speaker 1: no longer steal, let him labor so that he cay

852
00:45:57,880 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: share with those who have need.

853
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:02,239
Speaker 2: In the community. It's a butchering of that passage, but

854
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 2: that's essentially the paraphrase.

855
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,279
Speaker 1: And so you have this orientation to even what you've

856
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: earned through labor, you're now not detracting or taking away

857
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: from the community as a thief. You're actually contributing back

858
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: to the community as a laborer, as someone who is

859
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 1: being productive with the community. And so so I was

860
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 1: reading through that chapter of Grace, that verse kept coming

861
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: to mind, and I was like, this is the dynamic.

862
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: I think maybe at least I connected that dynamic to

863
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: what you were saying about grace, like this should be

864
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: there should be an emphasis of our contribution back to

865
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: the community because we have this gift.

866
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. I'd never thought about that, but

867
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,919
Speaker 3: that makes so much sense. Yeah that like the thief

868
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 3: should labor. Yeah, you know, I think about like Jesus

869
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 3: and the key is too, and like what does the

870
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 3: key iss do? Is like I will pay it back.

871
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 3: That's a starting point for following Christ trying to find

872
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:03,799
Speaker 3: the way to pay it back and like how does

873
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 3: he do that? I don't know, Like what is the

874
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 3: keys do with his money? And you walk around to

875
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 3: like all the people passes from and just like you

876
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 3: get ten dollars, you get four? Like I don't know.

877
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 3: It's messy, right, Like how do you actually live that out?

878
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 3: But it's more like a posture like I talk about.

879
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 3: It's not it's never a checklist of things that you

880
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,800
Speaker 3: do that like repair racism. It's more a lifetime of

881
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:27,240
Speaker 3: posture and practices that you put into place over your lifetime,

882
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,800
Speaker 3: like being on the lookout for like how do I

883
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 3: how do I give back? And something I'll say too

884
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 3: that really clicked for me and hearing people tell these

885
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:41,919
Speaker 3: stories about it is that if your motivation for trying

886
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:44,400
Speaker 3: to deal with racism is a sense of guilt for

887
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 3: like the need that is out there, that's really that's fragile.

888
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 3: Also like again in the way of like hope being

889
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 3: like you know, if you think it's only going to

890
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,879
Speaker 3: be when things are going well, well, I think often

891
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,439
Speaker 3: people also try to adjust racism out of like, well,

892
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 3: I'm only there when it's forrid like and I feel

893
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 3: so bad and like, oh this story is terrible, right, yeah,

894
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 3: But the people who have it as a long term posture,

895
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 3: it's just like, well, I know every single day of

896
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 3: my life, I have undeserved gifts that I have, and

897
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 3: so this whole lifetime is a bonus, Like, you know,

898
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 3: why would I not give back for me? Like one

899
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 3: story in my life that I go back to along

900
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 3: those lines, when I was six, I had heart surgery

901
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 3: and my heart actually stopped beating, and my my parents

902
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 3: got this message from the doctors that like, we had

903
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 3: some trouble restarting her heart and stopped in the middle

904
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:38,279
Speaker 3: of surgery, and she might have some brain damage and

905
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,800
Speaker 3: we don't know she's gonna be okay. And then I'm okay, right, Like,

906
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 3: I like, you know, I can joke about like I

907
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 3: forget people's names maybe because of that or whatever, but like,

908
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 3: I have this life and I look back at that

909
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 3: now and I just I consistently have to tell myself,

910
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 3: like every single moment of my life is a bonus.

911
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 3: I could have been just swept away to the hereafter

912
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 3: in that moment, but instead I'm alive. And I think

913
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 3: approaching justice out of that mindset of the abundance of

914
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 3: what we've been given, rather than the like the world

915
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 3: is a mess and if I don't do something it's good,

916
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:18,800
Speaker 3: it's gonna a burn. Right, Like that's too much. We

917
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 3: can't bear that. I had a woman who put it

918
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 3: this way, like I'm part of the bruck bucket brigade,

919
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 3: but I'm not the whole thing. Like just get in

920
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:26,760
Speaker 3: the line, carry your bucket.

921
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:32,399
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So, I mean, if you were given any

922
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: advice about this, I have a lot more questions, but

923
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 1: we're kind of running out of time. I don't want

924
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 1: to I want to respect the time, and there's only

925
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:42,320
Speaker 1: so much time we can put a podcast out. So

926
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: for one, I've really appreciated the conversation, but I guess

927
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: if you were giving advice to someone who's you know,

928
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 1: kind of looking out at the state of the world

929
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 1: and saying, I don't it's so immense, I don't even

930
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 1: know how to get involved, right. I want to cultivate

931
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:00,800
Speaker 1: this hope. I want to I want to respond to

932
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 1: the grace that I've been given. What any concrete step

933
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 1: you'd tell them to take, you know, find a collision

934
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: somewhere or something like that, I mean, what do you

935
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: what do you think?

936
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:16,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, this word collision I talk about is like these

937
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 3: moments when reality hits you so hard that you cannot

938
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:23,400
Speaker 3: ignore the difference between reality and the way you imagine

939
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 3: reality to be. And I think that's part of what

940
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 3: I think a lot of us maybe are experiencing right

941
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 3: now as we read the news, and there's always news

942
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 3: stories that are going to make collisions for us or

943
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:35,840
Speaker 3: are like, WHOA, I didn't know that bad thing could happen,

944
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 3: And no, don't go make those happen, right. But I

945
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 3: think one concrete thing that you can do is is

946
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 3: reflect on those moments in your life when you have

947
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 3: had a time that you were hit emotionally, like hit

948
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 3: in your heart with this thing is so wrong and

949
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 3: then ask yourself, what what is that prompt for me?

950
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 3: How has that changed me? Has it actually led to

951
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 3: anything long term? Or did I actually kind of like

952
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 3: shift away and say, like I want to go back

953
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 3: to optimism. I want to like turn away from that

954
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 3: bad thing and focus on the sort of happy present

955
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 3: moment or whatever I can sort of hould on to.

956
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,359
Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean that you can't like hold onto joy.

957
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 3: We need joy in the present too, but I guess

958
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 3: maybe more in a concrete steps you can take kind

959
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 3: of way. I love an analogy that comes from Beverly

960
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 3: Daniels Tatum I believe her name is, and she talks

961
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 3: about like a moving walkway. If you imagine sort of

962
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 3: like being in an airport or wherever you have those

963
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 3: like conveyor belt things, right, you get on it and

964
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 3: you're just swept away in a certain direction. And the

965
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 3: history of racism in our country has created a certain

966
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 3: moving walkway. It's kind of like what you said of

967
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 3: like being in a town where there's lots of football players,

968
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 3: like you're going to you're going to go through like

969
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:06,840
Speaker 3: being trained to be a football player and not a ballerina,

970
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 3: and those kinds of systems surround us all the time

971
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:13,279
Speaker 3: that are going to guide us in a certain way,

972
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 3: and and you can get on it and just not

973
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:19,760
Speaker 3: pay attention. You can get on it actually like actively

974
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 3: walk in the same direction of the conveyor belt. Also,

975
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 3: but if the conveyor belt is going in the wrong direction,

976
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 3: like it is leading to injustice, then what do you do?

977
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 3: And and I tell students, like, there's multiple responses that

978
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 3: you can have when you realize you're on a conveyor

979
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 3: belt that is leading toward injustice. One thing you can

980
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:41,880
Speaker 3: do is just stop walking, like just pause for a

981
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 3: second and be like I need to look around and

982
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 3: maybe like read a book or two or watch a

983
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 3: movie or two and understand how that where is this

984
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 3: conveyor belt going? How what's happening here? Asking why, questions.

985
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:55,440
Speaker 3: So some people just need to do that, just start learning.

986
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 3: Other people have already done that, and they're like, oh,

987
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 3: this this conveyor belt is bad, to do something about it. Well,

988
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 3: then you can stop and actually walk in the opquisite direction,

989
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,719
Speaker 3: and then you start telling other people on the conveyor belt, hey,

990
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:08,839
Speaker 3: like maybe you could also stop and read this book

991
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 3: and question was going. So you're walking in the other direction.

992
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:16,839
Speaker 3: But then there's also like jump off the conveyor belt

993
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 3: all together, and then there's like grab a sledgehammer and

994
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 3: start breaking the thing to pieces and dismantle it, and

995
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 3: so like, depending on where you're at in life. You

996
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:30,839
Speaker 3: don't start dismantling from like far away. You start where

997
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 3: you're at. Like, if I'm teaching out a college, I

998
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 3: can start asking questions like what about students who come

999
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:40,080
Speaker 3: into college and their first generation students are from underrepresentative

1000
00:53:40,160 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 3: populations and college is going to be really hard. Well,

1001
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 3: I can start by learning how to be the best

1002
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 3: bestor I can possibly be so that they're going to

1003
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,480
Speaker 3: succeed the college. And you need to do that whether

1004
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:52,640
Speaker 3: you're in healthcare or law or accounting or whatever you're in. Right,

1005
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 3: is just look at like how do you start understanding

1006
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,000
Speaker 3: why things are the way they are and is there

1007
00:53:58,080 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 3: something that needs to get dismantled and how do you

1008
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:00,360
Speaker 3: do in that?

1009
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:06,080
Speaker 2: That's really helpful. Yeah, I like that answer, really helpful.

1010
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:07,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it.

1011
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,360
Speaker 1: Well, Christine, thanks so much for being here this. I like,

1012
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the book. I think I enjoyed the conversation

1013
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:17,560
Speaker 1: even more so. Really appreciate being on. Is there anywhere

1014
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:19,799
Speaker 1: that I could send people other than obviously to the book.

1015
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 1: IVP gives us a twenty percent discount code if you

1016
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: buy the book off IVP dot com, so I'll have

1017
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:28,600
Speaker 1: that link in the show description. But anywhere else, website,

1018
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 1: anything like that where you'd send people do.

1019
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. You can find the rest of our ready at

1020
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 3: Christine Jeske dot com. And you can also subscribe to

1021
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 3: my newsletter there on substack called Just Learning, and it

1022
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,359
Speaker 3: gives you sort of little snippets every couple of weeks

1023
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 3: of things that you can do to practice justice in

1024
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 3: everyday life. So check out the book and subscribe to

1025
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 3: the newsletter if you want to.

1026
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 2: All right, we will.

1027
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 3: James, it was great talking to you too, that's great.

1028
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, and we'll.

1029
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 1: I'll put Christine Jeske dot com in the show notes

1030
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 1: as well, so check all that out, everybody, if you're interested.

1031
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 2: I really arned you to pick up the book.

1032
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, and I think these conversations are really

1033
00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:05,799
Speaker 1: necessary and just appreciate the work you're doing.

1034
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 2: So thanks very much. All right, everybody, we will catch

1035
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:12,440
Speaker 2: you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care