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Racism, but then Reconciliation in Christ Introduction · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Centrally Speaking.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally Speaking is Central Twin Feller Church's podcast and speaks about issues that are of interest to our society.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the Middle Way and an agreement with the historic Christian Church's perspective.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Today we are beginning a two-part series on racism, but then reconciliation in Christ.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: The first part will be a discussion between three pastors about racism.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: My three guests today are Reverend Keith Williams from Nazarene Baptist Church on Germantown Avenue in Nice Town, Philadelphia.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Alphon Duncan from the Schwenfelder Missionary Church that meets on Topahaken Street in Germantown, Philadelphia.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: And Reverend Dr.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: David McKinley from Central Schwangfelder Church.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Let me introduce each one to you.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Keith Williams has been pastor for over 36 years at Nazarene Baptist Church.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Augsburg University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a Master of Divinity degree from Palmer Theological Seminary.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Williams has served at the Mount Olive Baptist Church of Glassboro, New Jersey, and was able to serve as an adjunct chaplain and Bible expositor for the Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia Phillies, and 76ers.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: In 2007, he was elected to be president of all the 42 state convention presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: In 2015 and 16, he was elected and served as president of the National African American Fellowship, once again of the Southern Baptist Convention.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: His involvement in the field of racism and reconciliation is well known.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: He was a contributor to the book Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention, published in 2017 by Broadman and Holman.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: He is married to Constance, and they have three children and two grandchildren.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: His family, along with Keith, as well as his mother and grandmother, were in the Emmy nominated film Unchained, Healing from a Generational Trauma.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Alfred Duncan is also a graduate from Eastern University and Palmer Theological Seminary, where he achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Divinity degree.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: He has led the Schwenfelder Missionary Church since about 2016.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Before this, he was actively involved in the first Schwankfelder Church, now called First Worship Center, that meets on 30th in Cumberland in the Strawberry Mansion section of the city.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: He and his wife Phyllis are involved in regular outreach at the Happy Hollow Recreation Center in Germantown, where they are constantly uh cooking food and uh delivering um clothing uh to those who are in need.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Alfred is also the chair of the Schweinfelder Ministerium.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm joined by my good friend and colleague, Reverend Dr.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: David McKinley, who is senior minister here at Central Schweinfelder Church.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Good to be here.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Purpose of our podcast today is to dialogue with uh each of you about racism.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the topic is so very large uh that I think it would be helpful for uh those listening into our conversation uh if we could just share one instance uh where you saw racism uh expressed.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna ask uh uh Reverend Williams, Reverend Duncan, if you would uh just share of one uh um maybe illustrative um uh story of racism, how you've seen it, just so that uh our listeners can can can think of a specific instance and how it's uh affected you.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'll first say for me, a lot of times um our churches, our schools, our jobs, etc., um they actually do um reflect society, given that this is what happened on one occasion.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: I was asked by uh a fellow clergy member of mine who happened to be from India to prepare and to deliver a sermon to a multiracial group of preachers and social workers.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: And in the process of doing this, I felt that something uh preaching about a social issue or public policy issue, I thought that that would be appropriate.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I preached from the subject stop the violence, uh I then received a note from sorry to say a Caucasian member, minister who wrote in big blaring letters.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: Let me explain how it looked.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was a piece of paper, 12 and a half by 11, and what he wrote just took up the entire paper.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: And he just scrolled across the paper, stop screaming at me.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: What does this have to do with me?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it became clear that what was going on is that he clearly was not concerned about any violence in the black community.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he was not concerned about, as a matter of fact, he was critical of one of the points that I was making.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: He was not concerned about my point or my intention to encourage uh both black ministers and black churches who were thought to be and who were accused of being ineffective by some of the Caucasian theologians.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: And what I was doing was I was seeking to highlight that Noah, a preacher of righteousness, that he preached during a period in which the world was filled with violence.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: But his message did not well the violence, his message did not bring about repentance, but that did not mean that he was not fully qualified as a preacher or that someone else would have been more successful.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: And what was happening was he was suggesting or implying that if someone else would come in and take over what we were trying to do, that they in fact would be uh would be more um successful.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to go into a lot of details about it, but what it would seem like he was really saying if that a Caucasian member minister would come in, or if this was their community, that they would do better with the situation.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Or if there was um an African-American minister, we used to use the expression, you've probably heard it, black on the outside, but white on the inside, and they would do better with this.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I saw this as being uh it was a very sad thing that happened to a clergy member, but I saw it as being a reflection of society that sometimes we are in place we're very well qualified doing things, but the assumption is because of who we are that someone else would step in and get better or different results.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my mine's a bit personal.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um first experience when I was five years old, um, I had a white friend went to Devin Elementary School.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: He invited me to his club to go swimming.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um I got to the door and they wouldn't let me in.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I remember it like it's yesterday, and I ran home crying and I went to my mom.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: My mom just said, Keith, there's some places that we're not accepted because of the color of our skin.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember in high school, uh, most of the running backs were African American, the skilled positions in my high school on the main line, and the coach was um gonna sit one of our brothers down, and we felt it was unjust.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so we staged a boycott.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: We knew that that, you know, if you all don't, if coach you discipline our brother who we felt is is not right, then we're not gonna play.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we won.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then the present day, you know, m George Floyd is got racism all written over it.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's all over the the globe.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Personally, uh I preached at a racial reconciliation conference in outside of uh Alabama.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I got home, I uh my kids, my daughter was on Facebook with a noose tied around her neck.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I reported it to the FBI and I didn't say anything to my family for about three months.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And all I talked about was you know what the Bible says about how we're supposed to treat each other.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes uh people expect us to be Toby to answer to our name.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Kumta with Jesus.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh the FBI followed my kids around for and my wife for six months to protect them and uh kind of identified a little bit what what President Obama went through with death threats every day.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Bush shared some very uh um moving uh uh stories from from your life, and uh um I'm wondering as uh preachers whether you've encountered this uh more because of your uh profession.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also wondering uh whether you might uh each speak about those in your congregation, how uh have they experienced these type of threats uh or predicaments uh uh from an early age as well?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And how common is that um among those that you minister?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would say uh across the board everybody got the same testimony.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm 64 years old and I live in the suburbs now, and when I first moved out there, police would follow me, and I pull over and I'd I went to the police station and I let them know who I was and I told the captain what I was experiencing, and uh it seemed to change him when he found out that I was pastor of a uh major church in North Philadelphia.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: We live with it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I see, even today, when I see I'm driving on the road and I see a police officer behind me, I tense up and I start to pray.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've trained my son what to do.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Keep your hands on the wheel.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir, no, sir.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: No back talk.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Many of my brethren of the lightest hue don't have to do that with their kids.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I had to teach him how to respond.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it goes back to my mother's training of uh, my mother trained us to respect authority, the God ordained authority in our life, being it the parents, the pastor, your the police officers, uh, the governmental authorities that started at the home, home training.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Without discipline and respect for authority, we're done.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: White, black, red, or green.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have an adult that's invested in you to train you, as the scripture says, to bring you up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, uh, you're in trouble.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: But most of my members, a lot of them come from down south.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: They got horrible stories.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I remember my grandmom used to tell me of stories of lynchings.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: She passed at 98.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Would you agree with with that?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I agree when I agree 100%.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: My experience with that type of racing mouse, it goes way back.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: I was very young.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: As a matter of fact, I was a student at Temple University at this particular time.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, some of my close friends were members of a fraternity, and they had a house on Gerard Avenue, and they had asked me to just stop by, sit down, and chat with them so often, so on.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: Where the fraternity was, it was maybe about a 10 or 15 minute walk away from my house.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I I just I decided to walk there.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: And as I'm walking down Gerard Avenue, I gotten close to maybe 15th Street or something like that.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: All of a sudden I hear the tires screech, and of course it caught my attention and I looked to see what's going on.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: The police officers jumped out of jumped out of the car.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: I d I didn't have a problem with that at first because I mean I hadn't done it, I hadn't done anything.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: I will never forget how I was thrown into the car.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: I can actually relive it right now.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, thrown into the side of another car so hard that it it hurt my entire body, particularly I don't know why it hurt me in my in my uh my my groin groin area.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: But I was able to turn around and then face the officers.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: I turned around, I mean he was just absolutely, I mean, up in my face, maybe two or three inches between me, and just profusely shouting out and saying to me that he had seen me get out of a car that was stolen.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I had been walking for 15 minutes.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I was not in this car that was stolen at at all.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, sometime in your situation like that, I mean your instinct, your experience tells you what's going on, and he being so close to me, it really was like he was like that, but almost trying to intimidate me into saying something or doing something wrong at that particular time.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: I just said, No, I didn't.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't see me get out, get out, get out of any car.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: I realized that I had made a mistake by saying anything.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: And to this day I believe that the reason it did not get any further is because I believe in the providence of God as this was going on.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: The guys from the fraternity had looked and they had saw what was going on.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: The uh the African-American brothers began to holler out, no, he didn't get out that car, you didn't see him get out of that car.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: We saw him walking, and it was to no veil into no veil, and it was starting to escalate right then.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: And where I saw racism and is while this police officer who had, I mean, hurt me, I was hurt pretty bad, by the way, would not listen to their cries or their pleas or their suggesting um um what what they were saying to him.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: But when one of the Caucasian members came out and he said something to them, and he actually threatened them, he named the name of his father, some important political person or whether he literally threatened them.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't get off of him, or if you do anything else to them, then I'm going to report what was going on.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: At that particular time, I guess out of the fear of what may happen or what might be said, um he he she just he just stopped and he um he let me go.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: But it was just one of those instances where he was just using, I don't know, whatever opportunity to I don't know what he wanted to do, but just lie and say that he saw something and literally try to provoke me into something that he was talking about.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: And those times are very, very, very crucial.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: It is very important what you say and what you do and what and what you don't do.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I think God I had enough sense to recognize enough of his body language to not say anything else and let others, you know, try to intervene on my behalf.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: Again, pretty, pretty dramatic for me.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: And it's something you something you never forget.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: And as you say, there's something that you do begin to prepare your children and the young people in the community and your churches or whatever on how to how to handle those, handle those uh situations because they can they can happen at any at any particular time.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'll say when it happened here, um nothing came of it, but that type of fear, concern is there.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I I never spoke to anyone here about it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: We would get together and we would have some hour lunches.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: We we would go to a place called the train stop and have our meals.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I don't I don't know anything about that area, but um somebody pulled me over leading leaving the train stop one time.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yes.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: For no reason, I'm doing nothing.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think you all know me.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just I'm just ride just riding home and basically pulled me over.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, really looking and kind of wondering, you know, what are you doing out here and where you're going and and all these type of things, but clearly no reason to stop me whatsoever.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, not to do the wrong thing.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: You've seen me do this many times because of a surgery that I had.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of times I can't eat all of my food.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: I eat it very slowly.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: You've never seen me eat a complete hookie.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: I just take my time or whatever.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: And even though I was driving, I pulled it over.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I had that hookie in my hand.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: I was literally scared in the midst of that conversation, all right, to sit it down.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: I was frozen.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, mister, and I'm not saying it's gonna do anything, but I'm saying, you know, just don't do anything.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: You hear holding this or whatever.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: Because I was afraid if I leaned over to put this over here, in spite of what I was saying, I was thinking that the movement might suggest something that would be provocate provocative.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: And um I just took off, went home.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't talk about an isolated incident, but still not a pleasant incident because it didn't because of fear.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: See, you can hear that we don't have to go back to the middle passage to talk about post-traumatic stress syndrome.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up with it.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the the the documentary that we did in 2017 with Life Focus Communications outside of Chicago was to talk about healing from generational trauma from a biblical perspective and a practical perspective.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um and it's it's critical.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: You don't even realize how your upbringing and surroundings and broken families uh that that uh if I just go back one generation and talk to my mom about what it was like when she grew up and hear her brokenness, and then to talk to my grandmom and hear her brokenness.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: We we don't we not even got back to the middle passage yet.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: There was no uh psychological counseling when they got off the boat.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: There was no psychiatrist or anybody to help the uh our people to process that, and we're still living that today.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's in us.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about um uh the origins of uh of some of this.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean you've shared some very personal stories and have uh certainly told us that uh uh those to whom you you minister are also experiencing these these type of uh things.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was wondering if you might uh talk about uh uh sin um and skin, I think is one one uh phrase I heard you use one time, Keith.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that it's that it's the sin problem that's that's the main thing.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: But then I also want to lead us on to uh 400 years of this type of uh sin and how that has affected uh uh the way people feel about race today.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well I think I think you know Psalm 51.5 talks about I was uh born in sin, uh shaped in iniquity and sinned and my mama conceived me.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're naughty by nature.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: We come here broken and fallen.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Romans 5.12 talks about Adam is uh our daddy with that, and um and as a result of that, uh Romans 7.18, in our flesh dwelleth no good thing.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I used to say the issue is not skin, but it's sin.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I rephrased it recently.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: The origin is sin, but how it's manifested plays out in skin.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh especially is it not only black and brown people, red people for that matter.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I when I look at that, and it's critical that um in relating to others, uh Romans 12 9 says, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: You hate the sin, not the person.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm angry uh even as today, but I'm not gonna sin.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Be angry, Roman Ephesians 4.26, but sin not.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anger becomes sin when um retaliation, I want to hurt somebody.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord says, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I owe all of that to 2 Corinthians 5.17.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a new creature.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus, it's all Jesus.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even have the capacity to do right without him.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I I'm really grateful for this um for this question.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: Matter of fact, for this question, probably more than any of the questions that that we're going to um discuss in t in terms of talking about being born a racist on in this connection to um the fallenness of human beings.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, some of this is gonna be a result of study, but I do believe if we're talking about the inbred ability to make decisions, then that's not something that's racist.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: I think that there's something that's inbred and there's nothing wrong with that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: But if we're talking about the propensity to uh have attitudes and actions that are what I said adverse or antagonistic to those who are racially distinct from us, then I think that we are born with an arc toward racism or a bent um toward it.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I think this is what I said I I think racism is a component of the sin nature.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a component of the internal law of sin.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the expression of it, I think is triggered by two, I think it's triggered by learned responses, but I also think it is triggered by the unavoidable deceitfulness of sin.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because even when nobody's talking to you, mother, father, this, that, or whatever, no, sin is working in you.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it can it can be triggered.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Also, and this is something I'm very, very, very concerned about.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's also triggered when the word of God and when the spirit of God senses racism.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm going to start with something that Paul said, you were talking from Romans 7.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to make a point from Romans 7 and apply it to this.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: In Romans 7, Paul was talking about the law of the word of God.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: And he was talking about how he would not have known sin except for the law of the word of God.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: So when the word of God or the law of God said, don't covet, that's the very thing that was stirred up in him.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: And this is why I'm so concerned.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think it's all the stuff that's going on with racism right now, I think the church is going to be talking about it more and more.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that the more that we talk about racism and we talk at it as talk about it as sin, even though we're looking for good things to happen, I think some good things are going to happen.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: But I think because of the nature of sin itself, I think also we're still going to see a continuance in racism and in some cases an increase in it.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: The very thing that the law was telling Paul don't do the sin nature in him wanted to be that.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so as we teach and preach against racism, it's going to be stirred up in some people.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the society that we live in right now, I think it's going to be stirred up in very subtle and roundabout ways.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's becoming more and more difficult for some people to be an outright racist.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: But again, I think some people are going to be kind of kind of um kind of you know tricky or I don't know what else else to say about it.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: But the answer to me is yes, I think it's and it's I don't and I think when I say I think it's in, I think in being a black person, white person, I don't think it does matter just as long as sin um lies within us.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why I think we got to be very careful also too that we have to continue to talk about the liberty and the freedom that comes from the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: People who are saying this, black or white or whatever, though I think I know that we're so much on target, target, you know, on target with this.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: Other thing about as far as you know, sin being um, sin being inbred or whether we are born with it and how how we deal with it, because of the nature of sin.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a big proponent of people coming to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: But I also realize also I think it's very important that we deal with it in the way in which we can legally.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: Martin Luther most people know what Martin Luther King said, you know, laws cannot, you can't legislate morality and things like that, but you can make laws that a person may not necessarily love me, but he will not lynch me.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so the churches have to deal with it, it has to deal with, but because of the nature of sin and racism, we have to have something in place that's going to restrain people.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: I by no means believe or think that all of the police officers, if you believe in systemic racism or not, I don't believe that everybody's going to be saved.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if we look to deal with racism on the basis of people being saved alone, I think we're going to have a big problem.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think we have to include other types of restraints that God will give us to help people to, you know, not carry out racist tendencies.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: And again, I believe that among among all people.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: That was a long-drawn-out answer.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, potentially all of us got biases.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Implicit and implicit biases that come with the sin nature.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's manifested, you know, Galatians 5, 19 to 20, and there's another list if if I don't find my my stuff in there in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, 9, and 10.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the root of it is sin, and it's manifested.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and and every human being, no matter what complexion or ethnicity they are, um, has three basic needs.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it stums with unconditional love, significance, and security.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Three basic needs everybody has.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh a lot of uh the issues historically that have been driven is a manifestation of the sin nature.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and greed and uh most of slavery and all that stuff uh started with uh out of um uh it was it was profit.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was about money.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's always been about color, not black or white, green.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you had African kings that captured slaves because the the white men couldn't catch them and sold their enemies into slavery.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was economic, all along economic.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I'm thinking, I'm thinking that um uh all of this is a heart matter.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: When hearts are changed, and that's Jesus.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and then and then it manifests itself in fruits of repentance.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna talk about that a little more.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: What can we do?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: What are we supposed to be doing, what have you.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and um so I'll just leave it.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and can I agree with the scripture?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's probably out of context, but I think it applies to um manifestations of um our fallen nature or inbrious sin.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: This is from Titus 3 and 3.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: He said, at one time you too or you also were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: We lived right here in malice and envying.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: Here it is, being hated and hating one another.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I just think that that's a manifestation of it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: And also when we talk up, talk about racism, I mean being hated and it's you know, it's also racism against yourself when you hate one another.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you hate yourself.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: When you hate yourself, sure.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: And some people say that that's taught, and I think some of it is taught again, but I think some of it is just naturally inbred being hated and hating one another.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: And sorry to say this, you know, sometimes we cannot talk about racism and some of the horrendous things that have happened to African Americans, as you said, and I'm glad you brought it, and still not talk about some of the horrendous things that we have done and that we are still doing, um, still doing, still doing to one another.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: And at the heart of the matter, if we can deal with all the the racism, racist problems with the police and so forth and so on.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: But if we don't deal with our own propensity to hate one another, you know, then you know the problems will still be compounded and still and still be in there.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I think if we continue to manifest that we really don't value one another by how we mistreat one another, I think it's the nature of some people also too that some people when they say you really don't care and value yourself, they try to care and love for you, but a lot of people just won't.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: You don't care for yourself.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know we don't we don't really care for you either.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: You've been listening to Centrally Speaking, a broadcast ministry from the Central Schreckfelder Church in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we encourage you to see our website for service times.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: If you're in the area, we warmly welcome you to join us.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: We've been speaking today with Reverend Keith Williams and Reverend Alfred Duncan about racism.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: We recommend to you the documentary Unchanged Generational Trauma and Healing, as well as the Ministries of these two fine gentlemen.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for joining us today.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having us.