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What the Black Church Can Teach American Christianity | Justin Giboney · Future Christian

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  Martha Tatarnic (00:05) This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and the future of the church. Martha Tatarnic (00:17) Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Loren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with Justin E. Gibbony. Justin is the co-founder and president of the AND Campaign, a Christian civic organization focused on raising civic literacy, promoting civic pluralism, and equipping Christians to engage politics with the love and
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  truth of Jesus Christ. An ordained minister, attorney, and political strategist, Gibbony has been featured in publications such as The New York Times and Christianity Today, and is the co author of the book Compassion and Convention. Fiction. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and three sons. A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Loren, Martha, and Future
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  Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an email at Loren at ResonateMediaPro.com with comments, questions, or ideas for future episodes. Your support and voice mean a lot. Loren Richmond Jr (01:32) This is Loren Richmond Jr., and I'm pleased to be joined today by Justin Giboney Hello, welcome to the show. Justin Giboney (01:38) I'm host, Loren excited to be here. Loren Richmond Jr (01:39) Yeah, yeah, thanks for being here. We're kind of doing this abbreviated version because we're both trying to
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  make school lunch with kids work at the end of the school year. So if you want to share just briefly kind of about yourself Justin Giboney (01:53) I'm Justin Giboney I'm the president of the Anne Campaign, which focuses on the intersection between faith and politics. I'm also an ordained minister, an attorney, and political strategist. Loren Richmond Jr (02:05) yeah thanks for that so word we're here to talk today about justin's book don't let nobody turn you around how the black church is
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  public witness we decided to call to work share if you would what kind of compelled you to write the book or you open to accomplish with the book Justin Giboney (02:21) Well, for one, think we're in a moment where Christians need to remember a lot of the principles that we should have learned from the civil rights movement. And I think many of those principles help us not engage in the culture war in ways that we do now. And so it was really a way of saying, hey, here's proof of concept that
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  when Christians really apply Christian principles, things can change. ⁓ And that is I wanted people to do that versus kind of being captured by the moment and the feeling that this moment was so desperate that all the principles had to go out the window. Loren Richmond Jr (02:53) Yeah. Yeah. So you're right about the importance of public witness without picking sides. Share more about how you see the Black Church as a good example that certainly that's a theme that really undergirds the book
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  of the Black Church being the example for modern day Christians for us to follow. Justin Giboney (03:14) Yeah. And just to be clear, this is the black church during the civil rights movement. So this book is not just an exaltation of the black church, but a challenge based on what they were able to do at that time. It's a challenge for white evangelicals, black Christians and everybody else. ⁓ But I think there are a few things that the main point that I'm trying to make is that the civil
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  rights generation, even during a very tough time, was able to apply things that at the moment might not seem ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (03:28) Yeah. Justin Giboney (03:45) applicable but for faith, right? So how do you not hate your neighbor when your neighbor is bombing your churches and hanging your friends? How do you ⁓ motivate people without enraging them but rather inspiring them? These type of things they were able to do in a real way, in very effective way, and I think some of those things
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  are lost on us today. Loren Richmond Jr (04:11) So I was going to ask about this later in the questions, I feel like it's so important to what you just said there and I'm sensing it. Like you write about moral imagination and I think moral formation being so central. Like I think that's something that's really lacking today. I'm just curious, like how do you think like the black church and the civil rights moment movement really got that right? Like what were some fundamental aspects that they
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  did that we need to do today? Justin Giboney (04:41) Yes, a moral imagination is basically the ability to ⁓ not be again captured or arrested by the moment. It's ability to see not just what has been in the past, what is at the moment or what's likely to be in the future. It's the ability to see what ought to be and what will and can be based on God's character and capacity. So if I'm in a situation where the democracy seems like it's falling apart, moral imagination would tell me if I still
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  act with integrity and that I fight for justice and moral order with integrity. That is the best thing to do as opposed to saying, well, since every everything is chaotic, I need to do as everybody else is doing. And if they break the rules, I have to break the rules too. They didn't do that even in a more desperate moment. And so that's that's really that's moral imagination. It allows you to see not just what seems to be politically expedient at the moment, but to see your principles and why
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  your principles always matter. And really that's faith, because sometimes being principled does not seem like it's beneficial in the short term. But that's the whole point of being principled and being even willing to lose to say, there's a certain way to do things and we're gonna do it the right way. And they were able to do that and not lose to inspire people by saying, hey, there is a better way to go about that. Loren Richmond Jr (05:49) No. Yeah. Justin Giboney (06:06) And I think that's
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  exactly what we need now. We don't need more people ⁓ finding different ways to break the rules and kind of tear apart our democracy. We need people who are principled to say, no, regardless of what happened, we're going to do it the Loren Richmond Jr (06:18) So I want to lean into that if I may because right now like we're looking at gerrymandering all across the country and like in my state I live in Colorado like there's discussion about whether Colorado should gerrymander and I'm just like
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  my thought is like hard no I grew up two wrongs do not make a right and I I'm struck by that that thing you're saying like being willing to lose for the right thing like that seems like completely foreign to the modern-day mindset. Justin Giboney (06:49) Yeah, that's just a principle. should mention I'm from Colorado myself, actually. And I believe there has already been some gerrymandering going down there, but it doesn't make sense to me. So on one side, we say we're patriotic, right? On the
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  right, we say we're patriotic. On the left, we say we care about civil rights and we stand on that. But then we're both willing to dilute the power of different communities just for political power. Those things do not go together. Loren Richmond Jr (07:06) Mm-hmm. Justin Giboney (07:17) If I truly believe in civil rights, then black communities being diluted of their power is no different than rural communities in Virginia being diluted. It's not right. It's not patriotic. It's not a way of
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  upholding civil rights and equal representation. And until we're able to stand on those kind of principles, the next time we cry about something, whether it's on the right or the left, a lot of people aren't listening because there's just a lack of credibility. We do what's best in the moment. Loren Richmond Jr (07:30) Yeah. Justin Giboney (07:46) and not necessarily sticking to our principles. Loren Richmond Jr (07:50) Yeah, that brings up something you wrote about, about pursuing good
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  causes never guarantee ethical means and righteous conclusions. I think that's something like, again, I tend to be most associate in left circles. So I feel like I see this the most of like, like we're pursuing a good cause. So that means everything we're doing to pursue that cause like is right is good. Justin Giboney (08:17) Yeah, there's the idea today and this is what I really want to make clear to Christians. There is a secular ethic in how to engage and there is a Christian ethic in how
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  to engage. The Christian ethic does not just look at the cause. Yes, part of it is that you need to have a good cause. But what the civil rights movement knew that we missed today is that the spirit of the cause and the modes of operation are just as important as the end goal. Loren Richmond Jr (08:23) Mm-hmm. Justin Giboney (08:47) And what ⁓ they knew at that time was that you can become evil while fighting evil. You can have a good cause. You can be fighting against somebody who is bad and
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  you can become bad and corrupt too. And they always kept that in mind where we just say, hey, as long as I get rid of this group of people or I win this time, then I've done the right thing. Far from the truth. There's so many instances in history where people have had good causes. including Stalin, we see it happen in the French Revolution and on and on where good causes go awry and they become bad. Loren Richmond Jr (09:21) Yeah, I'm thinking a spiritual director once told to me like this,
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  when like, like the means become the ends or can become the ends, right? Justin Giboney (09:33) Yeah, absolutely. They certainly create ends that you might not intend, right? And so if your means are corrupted, you may get what you want. You're going to get more than that too. And usually that isn't the type of outcomes that you want. If you're trying to have a society that has integrity. Loren Richmond Jr (09:41) Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You talk about the danger of making opponents symbols
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  of evil because good grief like this is like standard fare today. Justin Giboney (10:02) Yeah, so it's very easy when we see someone on the other side doing something wrong. And I'm not saying this isn't moral relativism. There are people that you may be right are doing things that are wrong. When we make this simply good versus evil, again, we enter into an ethic that is no longer Christian. We enter into an ethic that is much more secular. Within Christianity, we can call out bad things. We
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  can call out people who are doing bad things. Loren Richmond Jr (10:11) Mm-hmm. Right. Justin Giboney (10:30) we cannot make people seem like they are irredeemable. And we also cannot exalt ourselves as if our causes are always good. So it may be very clear. The one side is doing much better than the other side when it comes to ethics or morals. That may be clear. Even the one that's doing better isn't good, so to speak. They still have to go through self-examination and make sure that
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  they're treating people up to a certain standard. We just lose that. Once we see something wrong or once somebody Loren Richmond Jr (10:46) Yes. Justin Giboney (10:58) does something against my issue, the issue I care so much about, they're evil and defeating them is all that matters. It's supposed to be really about redemption and we can seek others redemption while fighting tenaciously on a given issue. Loren Richmond Jr (11:12) This is where your example and lifting up with the black
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  church during the civil rights movement, what I was especially helpful, because again, if I'm remembering correctly, when leaders and folks felt the cause was worth pursuing or reacting against, they went through a time of, I can't remember the words, of more purification. Yeah, purification. And I feel like that's the exact Justin Giboney (11:37) self-purification. Loren Richmond Jr (11:42) opposite of thing of the kind of thing we see today where no one's doing any sort of self-purification
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  if anything it's like if you're if you're even questioning or or doing some sort of ⁓ introspections like who why are you waiting it seems problematic right Justin Giboney (12:00) Yeah, it's the tribalism. ⁓ We already know the conclusion. We already know who was right and wrong. So before you even go through any process, if you don't react automatically, either you are inauthentic or you're naive, right? Like there's something wrong with you if you actually take the time to reflect and to make
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  sure. So what they were doing with self-purification is they had a four step process before they engaged in civic action. The self-purification was one of prayer. It was one of self-examination. to make sure that they were responding in a way that was constructive and that glorified God. When we respond even to something evil in a way that does not glorify God, we have not done anything good. ⁓ But again, it takes a certain amount of discipline. It takes a certain amount of self-command to be
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  able to do that. And our tribes are always fighting against that. They want knee-jerk reactions. They want us to immediately respond to whatever kind of stimulus they give us. And a Christian just can't move forward faithfully in that way. Loren Richmond Jr (13:04) I'm thinking about Ryan Burge in his latest book, The Vanishing Church, has talked about how it's really these extremes, 5 % on either side, really, through algorithms on social media, are really driving the expectations. What do
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  you think about historically in the Black church during that time enabled them to not be drawn by those, I'm sure there were sort of hot takers right back in the day? Justin Giboney (13:36) Because I think first and foremost, had an, and they weren't perfect in this regard, but in a real way, I think they were effective. They knew that they first had an obligation to God and that it wasn't just their words or their works that were going to get something done. It was their public witness. It was
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  how they went about things, the spirit in which they engaged and maintaining faithfulness. I think there was an understanding that you could change legislation. You could change systems and all that was good. But if your spirit Loren Richmond Jr (13:40) Sure. Yeah. Justin Giboney (14:04) was corrupted, then you lost. We don't seem to see that. We're a lot more materialistic and we say, hey, either we won in the legislative arena, either we won somewhere else or we lost and that's it. And I'm
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  not just promoting a kind of moral victory, but I am saying again, within the Christian ethic, how we go about it matters, how we treat other people as we go about it matters, if our end goal is glorifying God. And I think what we're seeing Loren Richmond Jr (14:23) Yeah. Justin Giboney (14:33) even among a lot of Christians is that's not really the end goal. The end goal is this short term win, which honestly, when you do it in this way, a lot of those are overturned immediately and you end
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  up back where you were. Yeah, and so it's not as effective as people think that it is. ⁓ But again, we've got to, think one of the main things I'm trying to do is I'm trying to be very clear. This is what the Christian ethic allows us to do. Loren Richmond Jr (14:46) Immediately, immediately. Justin Giboney (15:01) If it's something outside of that, it's not, it's not what Christians are called to do or are allowed to Loren Richmond Jr (15:08) Well, this comes to mind too, you use the word
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  materialistic. Certainly, I think in my understanding of the Black church during that time, there was a deep and abiding faith and trust in God. And I'm not sure like that exists to be frank in many sectors and many swaths of the Christian church today in America. And we sort of presume that God is just the best of our efforts or best intentions. So there's of course this thing that like, depending on our political preferences of what we want outcomes to be or assume God's intentions to be,
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  because we sort of assume like my intentions are really just God's intentions or whatnot. Justin Giboney (15:54) Yeah, it's interesting that you say that. think a lot of people ⁓ just need time to kind of read some of the history. I think we feel like it's ineffective if you do things in a way that's not abrasive. But again, I would point people back to the civil rights movement, show me something more effective. And it didn't have to be a survey. It didn't have to be a reciprocation of the
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  hate that they were receiving. So I know a lot of people will try to say, this is Pollyanna's, you can get nothing done. Tell me, you're telling me. Loren Richmond Jr (16:14) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Justin Giboney (16:30) Dr. King and all these other people didn't get anything done. They got amazing things done. But I think sometimes we would rather vent and kind of purge how we feel rather than actually again, having the self control to respond in a responsible and faithful way. ⁓ And that's
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  part of the message that I'm trying to get out. I'm trying to kind of recalibrate how we view these situations. Loren Richmond Jr (16:57) Yeah, and I suppose that's where it gets back to your rootedness in the Christian faith because being willing to suffer for someone else, mean, that's a big ask to use a word right. But also, like, clearly, I think a Christian ethic and a gospel ethic, which you highlight. Justin Giboney (17:18) Yeah, and that's the interesting thing about all of this. You
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  will have Christians that say, this is not workable, this is not realistic. And if that's the case, then the gospel isn't realistic. I mean, this is really just a very simple application of this isn't just them that came up with some, you know, crazy formulas or whatever. This is a ⁓ simple application of the gospel. Now, it being simple doesn't mean it's easy. Loren Richmond Jr (17:42) Right, right, right. Justin Giboney (17:43) But if we truly take those fundamental principles, I'm not
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  even talking about these deep theological principles that may be harder to understand. I'm talking about some of the most basic things that those of us who were raised in the church learned very early on. If we truly believed it and applied those things, we'd have to react differently than we are now. We couldn't act like, you you lose one court case or you lose one legislative battle and everything's over, pull out your hair and make sure that you just destroy the rest of democracy. I mean, I
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  often give the story of Frederick Douglass, who as we know was a former slave, when other abolitionists wanted to completely do away with the Constitution and the Union, he said no. He publicly came to them and said, that is not the answer. Tearing everything apart is not the answer because in this Constitution, there is the mechanism to fix it. the insight, the self-control and the thoughtfulness to be able to do that at that time as a former slave. he wasn't saying that the issue wasn't
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  important. He knew exactly how important the issue was, but there was a right way to go about it. And there was a wrong way to go about it. And too often today, Christians settle for the wrong way because we're too caught up in the moment. And we have so many examples when people did not do that and how we benefit from that decision that Frederick Douglass makes at that moment. Loren Richmond Jr (19:14) Let me lead into that because I think certainly the last 10 years from the left progressive
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  side has been deconstruction, tear it all down, burn it all down. And even now I think they're less explicit about it. But certainly the right is just like norms, whatever. this mode of operation like we don't need any sort of institutions or or yeah what s what do you Justin Giboney (19:50) So there's two things here. I think one thing is I do think we have to deal with the fact that many of our institutions were corrupted and people are reacting to institutions that let them down. People
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  who would never believe that the ⁓ government would let them sign a mortgage that the bank could just take away and triple the prices. People just didn't believe that could happen. Loren Richmond Jr (20:00) Yeah. Right. Justin Giboney (20:17) So when the institutions fail you like that, you're going to have a reaction. However, we had people take advantage of that reaction and just say, destroy all the institutions and just, you know, just have this free for all and chaos. Look, we have a God
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  of order and that's why the end campaign talks about justice and moral order. And we have a moment right now where it seems like the extremes on both sides do not understand the value of order and doing things right. They want to destroy it. and then wonder why things fall apart. We need institutions, we need structure, but we need the people who run those institutions and structures to have integrity. And because in the past there was a lack of integrity, now we see this pushback. So I don't
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  wanna, I think we have to talk about that context even as we say that the reaction was wrong, right? Loren Richmond Jr (20:51) Yeah. Right, right. Absolutely. Absolutely. How do you think we go about promoting integrity? I think that's what's so disheartening today is like i don't know how how do we get back to like corruption blatant corruption people caring Justin Giboney (21:32) I think it takes again, and this is tough. I think it takes leaders who are willing to sacrifice and even
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  sometimes lose honorably for the principal. And once you're, you've done that. And once people really know you're willing to do that, now you can inspire them to do the same. But as long as everybody's worried about the scoreboard, as long as if I'm a conservative, I'm worried about us being up on the scoreboard against progressives and vice versa. Loren Richmond Jr (21:43) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Justin Giboney (22:02) There's no room for me to take that. There's no room for me
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  to stand on principle. ⁓ if anything, think this moment needs people who are willing to do that with honor. Loren Richmond Jr (22:17) Yeah. And this is where I think gerrymandering again, it comes back into play and I'm curious your thoughts here. Cause I think what, what frustrates me is like, feel like the redistricting, especially in Southern States is like, is not okay. But also I feel like the Democrats have lost their moral high ground by saying like, let's redistrict in Virginia and
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  California and Colorado. Justin Giboney (22:40) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think especially what what the Republicans did in Texas when they are redistricting, it is not even a census year, right? Redistricting is also about proportionality and making sure that the districts reflect the all that stuff. When you do it and it's not even the census hasn't changed, it's not a census year, then it's purely partisan. So it starts there. That's so I'm very clear about the Republicans started this episode.
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  Loren Richmond Jr (22:51) Mm-hmm. Right. Justin Giboney (23:09) of the gerrymandering, which I think is eroding our democracy. However, if we go to Illinois, if we go to a lot of Eastern states, they've already, they had already done Northeastern states. had already, mean, you can, it's hard. going to, they may try, but it's hard to gerrymander Illinois any more than it's been gerrymandered. So this is something that's for long has been a practice that both sides have done. And somebody has to
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  stand. I mean, there were a lot of people. including former President Obama, who for a long time said, no, it's wrong. It's wrong. And then this opportunity presents itself for Virginia. And then we change. It's unfortunate. I think if they really want to get things done, if they really want to preserve democracy, they have to come together and just get rid of it. They need to create more districts. There shouldn't be a limit on the district so that we actually know that people represent are
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  representing the people that are in their district. ⁓ Loren Richmond Jr (23:41) Yeah. Justin Giboney (24:07) And that's really, mean, that's what we have to do. It's just hard to see the will to come together because now I'm watching videos of, you know, presidential candidates saying, okay, let's pack the courts and let's bring in, you know, ⁓ Puerto Rico and DC. And that's just not gonna, I understand why that might give a party an advantage. That's not gonna, that's not a solution that's
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  actually gonna make this democracy stronger because what's gonna happen is the next time that the Republicans is gonna be appointed in power, they're gonna do. Loren Richmond Jr (24:27) Right Justin Giboney (24:36) go to the next step and it's this digging a deeper and deeper hole. Loren Richmond Jr (24:41) And I think it goes back to, again, what you said already is that this is where like the gospel of Jesus is somehow like losing, like wins, if I can use that vernacular, like Jesus' death
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  on the cross and what was foolishness, like the apostle Paul wrote, somehow like conquers everything. Justin Giboney (25:05) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's it. And you would think Christians can see that. ⁓ But it's it's it's it's a there's a lot of fog right now. And I think Christian leaders have to clear up that fog and not add to it. You know, people can go to cable news. They can go to their algorithm for a long monologue about how terrible the other side is. They really don't need Christian
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  leaders to do that all the time. Loren Richmond Jr (25:07) and Justin Giboney (25:33) I think it's one of the most irresponsible things that I'm seeing. Let me go viral by telling my congregation what they already think about the other side instead of maybe pointing to ⁓ the redeemability of it and giving people hope in the midst of the issue. Loren Richmond Jr (25:33) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ We're going to wrap up soon for sake of time, but I do want to ask this question like, or two more
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  questions like one, like what could, like if you had to say one thing that you think the white American church could most learn from the black church, the civil rights there, like what would you want them to, to remember? Justin Giboney (26:12) I would want them to remember that we do serve a God ⁓ who cares about justice, who cares about how people are treated and power is not bad, but a power that's used for domination can be very wicked. And I think the civil rights movement can teach
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  people, number one, how you use power, but also why justice Loren Richmond Jr (26:32) Hmm. Justin Giboney (26:40) is not something outside of the gospel. It's part of the gospel. Loren Richmond Jr (26:44) Yeah. If you were to look into the future, I don't know, an American future, 10 years, like what do you hope? What do you hope for the future of Christianity? Justin Giboney (26:54) I hope that we have a church where we have decided to unify, where we have followed God's command to unify
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  and be known for our love for one another, rather than a church who says, you know what, let's separate, build up our walls of hostility and somehow pretend that we can be faithful while not communicating with other Christians or fellowshipping with other Christians. Loren Richmond Jr (27:17) yeah well this has been ⁓ good conversation brief but i think packed with plotted a dense ⁓ good stuff share how people can connect with you the end campaign all that stuff Justin Giboney (27:31) Yeah,
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  thank you. We have the Church Politics podcast, so you can catch us once a week on that podcast talking about ⁓ giving political commentary from a Christian point of view. You can also follow us on Instagram and campaign, A &D campaign, ⁓ X and other ⁓ social media platforms. Loren Richmond Jr (27:51) and again the book don't let nobody turn you around available at whoever books are sold rights yeah article thanks for your time really appreciate the conversation ⁓ we was the folks with a word
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  of peace so may god's peace be with you Justin Giboney (27:57) That's right. Amen. Thanks for having me, Loren Loren Richmond Jr (28:08) Yeah, thanks for your time. God bless. Justin Giboney (28:11) God bless you man and thank you