Latest / Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast / PART 1 | Breaking Free: Dr. Chris Smith's Journey from Cult to Universalist

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PART 1 | Breaking Free: Dr. Chris Smith's Journey from Cult to Universalist · Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast

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Morning and welcome to Rise and Thrive with Doctor J Nicole,
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where we are rising in faith and thriving in purpose.
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Today I am joined by a doctor, Christopher N Smith.
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Chris is a queer, non binary and non monogamous scholar whose
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academic works centers by POC and intellectual traditions with
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addressing systemic marginalization and intra group
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discrimination in education, religion, sexuality, gender, and
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society. They've worked extensively with
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public and private organizations to implement and enhance Jedi
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measures and Emergency Management, human capital, risk
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management, contracting, and workforce development.
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This episode is about the real life impact of faith, history,
1:04
and power. We're going to talk about how
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colonization didn't just take land.
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It's used religion to to shape how people thought, lived and
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even saw themselves. And it left behind some very
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deep wounds, what some call religious trauma that many of us
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still feel today. Doctor Smith knows the story up
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close. They grew up in the church,
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became a pastor after divinity school, was a pastor before
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divinity school, and then stepped away from traditional
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religion. They now identify as
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universalist agnostic, which means that they see truth in
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many places that doesn't fit into one box.
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Their journey gives a powerful perspective on what it means to
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hold on to faith, let go of what harms, and wrestle with the big
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questions. Welcome, Chris.
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Hey, hey, how are you? Yes.
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So we have the pleasure of meeting each other during our
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journey, the doctoral journey. And.
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At Howard University and y'all, there might not be a Doctor J
2:16
Nicole here today if it was not for Chris and the white board in
2:21
the apartment in the towers because we were being taught
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statistics by Doctor Ron Manuel. And if you don't know who that
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is, it was like watching A Beautiful Mind in real life and
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the statistics courses. And Chris was the only person
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that seemed to understand Doctor Manuel and can make the
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statistics digestible and easy to understand.
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And so I say that all the time and I joke, but like, no,
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really, thank you. Because that was statistics was
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the hardest part of the doctoral journey for me.
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And so I'm like, I'm great qualitative, but that
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quantitative, it stretched my brain in a different way.
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So you saved a lot of us because it used to be like 5 or 6 of us
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in your apartment or any given week and I was dying.
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That white board is still hilarious to me.
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Like you will that white board out.
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I said this why you got it. You had a white board or Rahm
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Manuel junior over here with this board.
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But. No, and also.
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Glad I could help. Glad I could.
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Assist. Yeah, Thank you.
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For real. So I'm like boy, that I used to
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have anxiety with statistics and then it wasn't until I got to
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the end of my doctoral journey that I was like, oh, you
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actually get this stuff now and you should have just done a
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quantitative study. You would have been out of here
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probably 2 years so. So much easier.
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No, it wasn't then, but it clicked at some point.
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Excuse me, It clicked at some point.
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So now I'm telling people, if you can do it, do it.
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But like, it would have just stopped me from writing.
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It was one of those things until I got it and I was like, okay,
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respect. It did sink in.
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Yeah, okay. But moving on to today's topic,
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right? So we're looking at colonization
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and religion and how that worked together to control people,
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especially in the African diaspora story, right?
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And so let's just let's just dive into it.
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So Chris, you've lived through several faith identities, right?
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From non denominational upbringing, you had dividity
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school pastoring and now identifying as universalist
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agnostic. Can you share with us how these
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shifts have shaped the way that you view faith in religious
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institutions? Thank you and pleasure to be
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here. These shifts were mind altering,
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life altering, relationship altering happenings.
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My parents, we grew up in a cult, and it was legitly A cult.
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Well, they grew up, They got us out of it, but they grew up in a
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church, a church that was registered or recognized by the
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federal government as a cult. Wow, it was.
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Yeah. I did not know this part about
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your story. Yeah, they grew up in that crazy
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enough. The you remember that church
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right across from Howard University Hospital that used to
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be there? It was called Church of God.
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Yes, it's like closer to the corner of Georgia Ave.
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Really. Yes.
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OK, OK. Yeah, so that church was
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actually called. They had locations and multiple
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places, New York, Baltimore, DC, Newport News, Philadelphia.
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And they also had a farm in Virginia that they wanted
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everybody in the church to move to and live there.
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OK, I get it now. Yeah, I would go there for
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summer camps and they would call it like our our just acclamation
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every summer to being at the farm when the founders finally
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would say, hey, let's all get up, move there.
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You can only dating within the church.
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They were very conservative, very like brimstone and Hellfire
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type. Yeah.
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Would then there was also a lot of abuse and incest.
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So it was, yeah, it was interesting.
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So coming from that background, leaving that and my parents kept
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us relatively non denominational Baptist more so, but still held
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onto a lot of those strict measures.
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When I was growing up, I didn't have a problem with it.
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I had such a strong relationship with the idea of religion and
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what it meant to me in my life in the direction that I never
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really questioned it. But it wasn't until I started
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realizing that the world is a lot bigger than how I grew up
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and where I grew up. And I saw how people used
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religion belief systems as a whole as a point to discriminate
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against or just downright enslave others.
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It started to build some issues with me because there's no way
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I'm reading this right here and it's saying love everybody and
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doing all this things. But the people who identify with
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it and more so the religious structures or the organizational
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structures that have been built because of it are separatists
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that they don't accept everybody, that they don't love
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everybody. So while I was pastoring, I was
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a pastor at a church out and associate pastor at a church out
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in Phoenix, AZ that was non denominational that ordained in
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2000. And oh, this was years ago.
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2000, 2009, 2010. Yeah, worked in ministry.
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It was a lot. We worked a lot with people that
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had drug addictions, victims of abuse or survivors of abuse from
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before, lower socioeconomic and people of color.
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And I saw that that church was being used just more so as a
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financial front and that the leaders of the church were
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siphoning money off. Wow, that's there's a lot of
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layers in that. Yeah.
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OK. Yeah, didn't sit with me, right.
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And also the theology behind it didn't sit with me right at all.
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There was a lot of hypocrisy, and to be hypocritical is to be
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human, but it's more so for me. Religion or belief has such
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power. I wanted to make sure that in
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what I was saying, I was not being inadvertently ignorant and
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hypocritical. So I went to divinity school and
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there was this great professor, Professor Nawaku, who taught the
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world religions class, and he really started to open me up to
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the idea that you're Jesus isn't the only Jesus that exists.
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OK. This man would literally say
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when you walk into his class, hey welcome, leave your Jesus at
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the door. That's intense in a divinity
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program. In a divinity program, because
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you know, there's a difference, there's a difference like Bible
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colleges and the like, they're usually more for people who want
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to go into ministry professionally.
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Divinity schools, they have the confessional route and then they
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have the academic route and you have to take courses on both.
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I went, you know me, I went the academic route.
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I'm like, I want to know the things so I can make sure I'm
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saying these things correctly and I'm on point with it.
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Come to find out I wasn't historically incorrect on a lot
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of things as well as just opened up my idea to the fact that for
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me or if God does exist, God is a lot more expensive than we
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make God out to be and that that's where like the Unitarian
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and agnostic came through. Like with Unitarianism, I
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embrace all religious traditions of having a sense of value and
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diversity, inclusion. There's truth and justice in all
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of them. Bending with the agnostic is not
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saying that God doesn't exist like an atheist.
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It's like I have no verifiable proof that God does or does not
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exist. So I'm not going to go either
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way. I'm not going to sit here and
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say God does or God does not. But what I do know, what I do
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believe is that if God does exist and God is truly
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omnipotent or powerful and all these things, God can show God
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self however God wants to. Absolutely.
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Yeah, that's the truth. Of it.
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That's the truth of it. So when it came to religious
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institutions, I found that a lot of people were so caught up on
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draconian and very strict ways of understanding God that, in my
10:40
view, would actually be extremely disrespectful to God
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because you're limiting God based on your own knowledge.
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OK. So if God again, if God can be
10:50
whatever, God could be a sheep, God could be a goat, God could
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be A8 armed blue person, God could be wind, God could be a
10:58
burning Bush, God could be a intergalactic sky whale, We
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don't know. But the one thing we do know is
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that God can be whatever God wants to be.
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I feel like you went a little far, but I get the point that
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you're making. And then my mind is also that
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like God, like from the because I'm Christian, right?
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And from the Bible, you know, we've seen God intervene, make
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things appear, Holy Spirit, you know, moving through people and
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things like that. So like, I get, I get where
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you're going with it, but I wouldn't sit and be like, praise
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the Lord to a goat. But that's that's just me.
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That's just me, right? But then some people I might
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look crazy because I'm talking to something that God, you know,
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that can't be seen, right? So I got you, I got you.
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So wow, Chris, this is really interesting because it sounds
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like you saw a lot of, for lack of a better word, like the
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underbelly or the dark side of religion and how humans can
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really distort it and just pervert it.
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Really, in your experiences were experiencing a version of that
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like appear as a Angel. But it's it's not at all that
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right. And I can see how that could
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leave you with lots of questioning, resentment,
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mistrust. Scrap it all.
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Yes, I mean. Or or start over or whatever,
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you know, like I could see any combination and then some other
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things, yeah. Yeah, I mean the the resentment
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isn't towards the idea of God, it's towards the people that
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claim to know God and act. Correct.
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And the way that they mislead people.
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Exactly. Exactly, you know, if you're a
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representation of something and again, we're human and I, and I
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want to say that very loudly and clearly, we're human.
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We're going to to to be human is to air.
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We're going to air. Well, there's a difference
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between the errors that I was seeing just in the errors that
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are the accidental ones. And of course, you have to add
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in mental health and trauma, history of trauma, history of
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colonization, mental health, living in a social economic
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society that presses you to survive in a certain manner, the
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lack of availability of options and community and support.
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In a lot of ways, it's a very intersectional endeavour.
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Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, you kind of got into
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this a little bit more, but is there anything else you would
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want to say about how your theological training intersected
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with your personal experience of wrestling with BAE?
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Yeah, well, again, I learned that I knew nothing.
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I always was taught that, particularly when you look at
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Abrahamic religions and the like.
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Well, I found out that Christianity wasn't the oldest
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religion. I.
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Mean that makes sense when you think about when Christ came
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people were already worshipping and stuff.
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So yeah. They were for centuries,
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millennia evil. But when it comes to
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Christianity in particular, it pre existed and this is I think
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this is very powerful for African Americans to understand
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that Christianity or the idea of Christianity was within Africa
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way before the slave trade. It was in the African diaspora,
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it was with the Coptic Christians, it was the Ethiopian
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Orthodoxy. And by the way, Orthodox
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Christians have way more books in their Bible as well.
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And African Christianity shaped what we now call Catholicism and
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Protestantism. So there's such a history behind
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every bit of it. And also learning that the way
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that this King James Bible was written, it's one those
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individuals names who are on those books did not write those.
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And historically that's a fact. They were fishermen.
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They didn't know how to write like they.
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They do, we know that. But I get what you're saying.
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They were laborers. Yeah, they were laborers.
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We absolutely know that. We can go back to
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anthropological and historical record and look at during those
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times in that particular area, who had the ability of written
15:09
language or not. And if you weren't a Pharisee or
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a Sadducee or somebody who was educated religiously at that
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time, you were not literate in that way.
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I get that cause of what Paul who was saw he did have he he I
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believe that he would have like met that criteria you just met
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Matthew being a tax collector. I would agree with that.
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Now you now the other Simon. Yeah, OK, I get what you're
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saying. I get OK.
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OK, but then also you can we can go back and date when those
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books were actually written like the gospel Mark was bit written
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around 65 CE. The Paul epistles and
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Corinthians were addressing Gentile communities instead of
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as we do know that Mark was written.
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The 65 CE Matthew and Luke appeared around 80 and 90 CE.
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The three epistles of the John Gospels, 3 epistles, Revelations
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90 to 110 CE. So it wasn't like these cats
16:10
were going around preaching and writing.
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A lot of them were long dead. Then these books appeared
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because what we have to understand is the Bible was
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supposed to be a collection of these oral traditions and
16:21
stories told, written to be representative of them.
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They're like ghost writers for these individuals.
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But each one of these ghost writers, as all ghost writers
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do, some of them had their own concepts that they wanted to put
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to the forefront, and others had other ideas they wanted to put
16:38
to the forefront. So we're looking scientifically
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and academically at it. Historically, there is no way to
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verify that these are the words of these exact people.
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We know they're not. We know they're not.
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And from what I understand, King James did a Commission and
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brought people together. I forget how many scholars it
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was to do the writing of it. And there was an agreement about
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certain things that they wanted to preserve, like certain words
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or things like that. And that they basically built in
17:10
a check and balance so that like, if you're so say, you and
17:14
I were in the group and we decided we're taking the book of
17:16
Matthew, right? We both have to go individually
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write it on our own or interpret it, whatever on our own and then
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come back together. And where there's this
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agreement, like we had to like talk about it and figure out
17:31
what we were going to put forth to King James.
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Exactly. Yeah.
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But then also you have to look at the text that they were
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translating were texts that had been translated from multiple
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languages way before. Before correct.
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So you have again, human error. So we're not learning that.
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Error and everything too. Exactly so that human error
17:56
again love the idea of God and however God wants to appear in
18:00
God's godness, but for me to then at that point after
18:04
learning everything saying oh this is the absolute word of
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God. That's where I got the issue
18:10
with the religious tradition of it.
18:13
The words of it in the message who the tradition that this is
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what God said can't prove it agreed to.
18:22
Because there's tradition. Yes, tradition is what turns
18:27
people off. They've made all of these rules.
18:30
This is how we do things. And it's like, where Where is
18:32
that? Where are you getting that from?
18:34
Yeah. Exactly.
18:37
I got you. And there's been so many
18:39
theologians even, you know, prior to the Commission creation
18:42
of Catholicism in the Commission of the King James Bible that
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were there. The whole Council of Nicaea took
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went with Place 325, where basically the Roman emperor
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brought all of the people together and said that we need
18:58
to create a solidified religious structure that meets these
19:03
criteria. And they argued and they about
19:07
it for days. There was violence concerning it
19:10
if you didn't agree. That's how they used to get down
19:12
back. Then that's how they get down
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used to they still do it now, but.
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OK. So if you didn't get down, there
19:20
were people who were that were seen as leaders within from
19:24
different sections of the Christian faith, which is a
19:27
offset of Judaism, that were killed if they didn't agree.
19:31
So there's just a lot. I implore everybody again,
19:34
believe what you want to believe, but know the history of
19:37
what you're believing so that when questions start to come
19:41
about, you don't get stuck. And I also think it's important
19:45
to not get locked into the legalism right.
19:48
And I think that's that's what can happen because you have a
19:52
legalistic people taking a legalistic lens or approach to
19:58
something and it's more about the essence of it, like the
20:02
spirit of God. Like I think there are clear
20:04
things about what we should and shouldn't do, but people get
20:08
caught in that rigidity and that need for control, weaponizing
20:11
religion and just like making it serve man made things similar to
20:15
the things you experience with your family with the cold and
20:19
then the other things that you saw with that church.
20:23
As a front to siphon money, right?
20:24
Like, so you're seeing the humanistic impact of religion,
20:29
like, and that it really jades people.
20:32
It turns people off. And some people, they're like, I
20:35
don't want to believe in a God that's going to allow these
20:38
types of things to happen. But like, we have free will and
20:41
God's going to take care of those people.
20:43
You don't get to play with God. I know that.
20:47
You do not get to play with God. Yeah.
20:50
So when you talk, when we talk about colonization, right, it's
20:54
also looked at like it's land and resources, but like religion
20:58
was obviously weaponized. We know that like through
21:00
slavery here in the US and, you know, all over.
21:03
But from your lands, how do you see religion being used historic
21:07
historically to justify colonization?
21:11
Well, let's go into the I love intersectionality.
21:14
I love Kimberly Crenshaw. I love intersectionality.
21:17
The concept of it religion was used as a yes, it was definitely
21:21
used as a tool for to justify beliefs and create an entire
21:25
belief system for these countries to economically,
21:29
physically, naturally and culturally destroy other places
21:34
at the behest of God. They would pick and choose out
21:37
certain verses, which again, were translated wrongly because
21:42
they were translated wrongly. That's a whole nother
21:44
conversation. I could pick apart books anyway,
21:47
but translated wrong to justify the enslavement of different
21:53
individuals. And they set up their entire
21:55
preaching apparatus. And basically if you're a good
21:58
Christian, you are going to want to help these savage
22:01
individuals. So the rhetoric of salvation of
22:05
these lesser than people was there very clear.
22:09
These are people that we have the right answer and we need to
22:12
go help them. So this is under the guise of
22:16
charity. This is under the guise of
22:19
charity. This is the under the guise of
22:22
we're spreading the word of God to save these heathens.
22:26
This is under the guise of we're trying to save souls.
22:31
This is under the guise of they have no other aspect or
22:33
understanding of of this thing even though it existed there
22:38
before it ever hit particularly Western Europe.
22:43
And also learn the history of Western Europe because Western
22:46
Europe wasn't always like Western Europe is.
22:48
Thank the Romans for that because they got their butt
22:50
kicked by the Muslims and then they had to roll over and the
22:53
Holy Roman Empire. I love history, but I love
22:58
history, but there's so many aspects to it.
23:00
So it was used and interpreted in a way to support what was
23:04
going on continuously. And you really see that
23:07
reverberate, particularly within the African American, even some
23:11
Latino American context about our own self of sense and self
23:15
esteem and our reliance on it to that portion, because we were,
23:22
because we were stripped economically, physically, and
23:25
everything else we couldn't read.
23:28
They weren't some of us weren't allowed to read.
23:30
Most of us weren't allowed to read, weren't allowed to write.
23:33
We, we were there to do a job and do a job only.
23:37
And they stripped us of our history prior to coming over to
23:41
America. And what they gave us as a
23:44
belief system was this Bible. But not even the Bible.
23:49
But even in that, it didn't matter if people couldn't read.
23:54
Exactly. They gave us their version of
23:58
this religious tradition that even predated them.
24:02
So it's it was used as an insidious tool.
24:05
That is the phrase I like saying the most.
24:07
It was used as an insidious. Again, religion is not itself an
24:12
insidious tool, but how it is used really dictates its impact.
24:20
Yeah. Yeah.
24:23
So where do you see evidence of colonization's impact on
24:28
theology, identity and power within the African diaspora in
24:33
our communities today? So I did my my parents going to
24:37
hate me for this one. They're not going to like me.
24:40
But prosperity gospel is one of those where it's always saying
24:44
like, you know, if you just believe in God, it's going to
24:48
get you through. If you're poor, it's going to
24:50
get you through. No, it's not because they're
24:52
over here setting up systemic barriers that if God's going to
24:56
break down, why aren't they broken down?
24:59
Because God didn't create those, these people did.
25:01
So it's this continuous idea that you have to be respectable
25:06
in some type of way and you have to fit the nation's in the in
25:10
the in these people's ideas of who you're supposed to be
25:13
succeed when ultimately we know you can do any everything they
25:18
want you to do and they'll still shoot you at a hotel and then
25:23
build a monument for you and give you a day.
25:26
So it's a lot more than just this.
25:28
If you do this will and all of that, you're going to be
25:31
successful. No.
25:33
So that's one of those lies that we continually or one of those
25:37
manipulations more so. That we continue.
25:40
To hold on to. And I'm, I'm going backwards
25:44
because you have the word manipulation triggered the
25:45
thought that I had while I was listening to you earlier.
25:48
Like it's, it's when you call it insidious, it's like, it's the,
25:54
it's like emotional manipulation, it's gaslighting.
25:58
It's all of those things. And you still even see it today
26:02
when you play out and you hear like the language that's being
26:05
used to. And it's not all sides.
26:08
It's not just being used on us is being used period to get
26:14
people the same way in the beginning how they got people
26:17
and talk them into doing slavery and justifying it and more
26:22
manipulation. But also for some people, if
26:24
we're thinking about this spiritually, this is what's
26:26
already inside of them. This is already what's inside of
26:29
them. That sin, that need for power,
26:31
control, lust of the spirit, lust, excuse me, lust of the
26:36
flash, the eyes as well as the pride of life, right?
26:40
And so those same people who were talking about, they need
26:43
their savages and da da, da, da da, y'all are out here raping
26:47
people. You're committing fornication,
26:49
you're committing adultery, you're doing all these things.
26:51
So you can't tell me that these people were not aware of what
26:55
they were doing. They just cherry picked what
26:58
they wanted to justify so that they can move forward in
27:01
whatever version of their conscience was present.
27:05
And do you know to do this because like, if you knew the
27:08
Bible, and these are people who I'm assuming some of them could
27:12
read, had access to reading because of their their race,
27:16
their ethnicity, right? They had access to and not every
27:20
single person did that, you know, that wasn't of African
27:23
ancestry, but enough of them did have access and to know that
27:27
it's wrong. And it's not the spirit of that
27:29
if this is what you believe, but like that really just gets at
27:33
that distorting and that that's not God, that's Satan, that's
27:39
Satan getting in there twisting everything.
27:42
And so I can see how it's hard to separate all of that, right?
27:48
And why, like there was, I've seen, you know, a lot of people
27:53
are going viral on social media about talking about like, how
27:56
Can you believe in a Bible when it was used for this and that
27:59
and that and this, right? But it's like there has to be a
28:02
separation between the text and what those people did, right?
28:07
Not saying that it's OK. That's not saying any of those
28:12
things. But like, just because that's
28:15
how they used it, it doesn't mean that it renders it.
28:19
Useless. Useless or irrelevant?
28:21
Yeah. Yeah.
28:23
And I, I agree 100% with that. I think in any discussion we
28:27
come to when we talk, when we speak of a belief system, we
28:30
have to be able to separate between the message of the
28:34
belief system and how it's been used.
28:36
But that is very difficult when a lot of these belief systems
28:40
are propagated to us as the absolute truth.
28:43
OK. So it's very difficult to do.
28:46
But but this is supposed to be the absolute truth.
28:49
How, how am I going to? It's a very difficult situation
28:53
to go from just seeing this book or this, this religious
28:58
structure that has literally, for some been pounded into your
29:03
head continuously as the absolute truth to then grow and
29:08
see its multifacetedness. It takes, it's a challenge.
29:13
It's such a challenge. That rigidity, it doesn't leave
29:17
room for exploration, asking questions when God wants to have
29:23
that type of relationship with us where we can, because
29:25
otherwise it's not a relationship.
29:29
It's not a relationship, I think.
29:31
Or at least not a healthy 1. It sounds like, Yeah.
29:37
So that going going back to how theology has or how the way that
29:43
colonization usurped this idea of religion as a whole, Jesus
29:48
was not a complacent figure. Jesus was revolutionary,
29:53
absolutely. But for some reason, in this
29:57
colonized version of Christianity, it's just, wait,
29:59
hold on, God's going to make a way.
30:02
No, flip that table over. Make that noise.
30:05
Vote, change those laws. Resist like you should resist.
30:10
It resist it. This isn't one of those.
30:13
And it was very interesting. I did a project on my family
30:16
about their their activity within the civil rights
30:19
movement, right. OK.
30:22
Because they were attached to this church, none of them
30:25
participated in any civil rights movement activities.
30:29
Why? Like what was the guidance that
30:32
they received? God's going to take it.
30:34
God's going to handle it. We just need to stay to
30:37
ourselves, not wrestle any feathers.
30:41
Oh, they take them on Exodus 1414 like literally like, but
30:49
also some people they OK, so this is what I also believe.
30:54
Like, I don't think we have to seek like vengeance or whatever,
30:57
but we do protect ourselves, right?
31:00
And Exodus 1414 does say, you know, all you have to do is be
31:04
still God will fight for you. And we've seen times it like in
31:08
the Bible where I think that was that with Joshua where he told
31:12
them to just like March around like 7 times or whatever.
31:16
And then there was like an earthquake and like they didn't
31:18
even have to fight. And I think that might be the
31:20
story where that comes from like the context.
31:22
If I'm not if I'm mistaken out, I'll look it up.
31:24
But. One of many.
31:26
Right, one of many where God will do that.
31:29
But sometimes God, he puts stuff in people like we don't have to
31:35
always do with you. Like God puts people on
31:37
assignment, right? And I just wonder if there was
31:40
anybody in that church that your parents were in who God gave an
31:46
assignment to and they dismissed it, listening to man versus what
31:50
was happening in their spirit. A lot of them, a lot of them did
31:55
a lot of them have. There were a couple who left the
31:57
church and joined the Black Panther Party and went that
32:00
route for economic stability and social stability.
32:03
So there were people who were in and out.
32:05
But for my family, Nope. And that is that.
32:11
And that was still taught to us and it is my generation after
32:16
we're like, no, like we are not sitting here and just praying
32:21
and hoping that God will fix it. If and then it also then goes
32:25
back to the idea for me that if we are representations of God,
32:30
right, and we're supposed to be living in that, we've got to
32:34
start acting like it. We got authority.
32:37
We have authority, we have power, and we have to understand
32:40
when systems and what we've been taught aren't giving us that
32:43
power. And again, it's not the religion
32:46
itself, it's how people have been using it and the
32:50
limitations they've put on it for their own gain.
32:53
Yeah, and they'll have the answer for all of it.
32:57
I hope so. Yeah, we shall see.
33:00
I got about 40 more years here, so we'll figure out soon.
33:03
What role do you think theology plays in reinforcing these
33:07
structures of power currently? Well, I think we started to
33:11
touch with how it, some of it and how it's preached still.
33:15
It's complacency. Definitely the ideology that not
33:19
really looking at Jesus as a revolutionary figure, but more
33:23
of the complacency or attesting to like liberation theology.
33:27
Liberation theology came about to show that no, we're missing
33:31
this entire idea that Jesus was a change maker.
33:35
And that was the point. Now, some churches discourage
33:40
political engagement, not other churches do they encourage it.
33:44
They'll talk about everything that's going on under the sun,
33:48
kind of like they did back in the day and say, no, this person
33:52
is completely white. We need this white savior.
33:54
We need this. But other churches and their
33:56
complacency and and I don't, I don't like the term non
34:00
violence, but I'll say non activism.
34:03
OK, how do you define that? So a piece of resistance or even
34:10
aggression can be what you see with the way that people stop
34:15
shopping at certain places making an economic impact.
34:18
It can be removing yourself literally from the place, being
34:24
an expat and going and building community somewhere else.
34:27
It can be homeschooling. It can be exposing your
34:33
community and kids to various belief systems and ideologies
34:37
that exist and holding none and supremacy over another.
34:42
Resistance is a multi layered factor, but a lot of times
34:46
because of the system that we're in and how we're continually
34:51
forced to struggle to make a living, we don't have time to do
34:54
that. Yeah, they keep us on that.
34:57
That's what they mean with like the hamster wheel or like
34:59
treadmill. It's hard and so many, there's
35:02
so much fear. People just won't.
35:06
Or they sit and wait. And so that's where you what I
35:10
get what you're saying, like with the complacency, they just
35:12
don't. And they have to ensure that
35:14
there is a workforce who's going to do all these jobs nobody want
35:18
to do. And I just, I just thought about
35:21
this the other day. It just, you know, came through
35:23
my mind with the SNAP benefits being taken away, like all the
35:27
stuff that's happening. I was like, because we've made
35:31
so much progress and gotten so educated, you and I are a part
35:35
of this normalization of black successful people, like in
35:42
America, African American, whichever one people identify
35:45
with, right? And that is normal.
35:49
These kids have grown up with a black president. 2 terms they're
35:54
seeing all this black excellence doctors, lawyers, attorneys like
35:58
all these things where it's a normal women rising up as
36:02
leaders and like really being seen and So what this means is
36:08
that it's a threat to the system as it is they shaking in their.
36:12
Boots, baby, they are shaking. In their boots, they've been
36:15
shaking and this, this is showing it even more how how
36:19
much that they're trying to roll back or set people back so that
36:25
they can maintain power. Like I really I'm trying to
36:29
figure out how to say this politically correct.
36:31
It's like when you really think of, OK, I'll say this, if they
36:35
were a person, the people who move this way, who make these
36:38
decisions, they would be extremely insecure people.
36:44
They have done so many awful things to people who were
36:50
minding their business. So that would make them
36:54
predators. A terrorist.
36:56
OK, OK. Whichever way you were, yeah.
37:00
So they're perpetrating, they're perpetrating all of these
37:04
gruesome acts to people who just want to, who welcome them in.
37:09
And we've seen this repeat over and over and over and over and
37:13
over and over and over. But people, and still we rise,
37:17
right? And still people rise.
37:19
But oh God, you revealing so much.
37:22
My gosh, yeah. Just like, no, I'm just saying
37:26
like in my head, just like what's processing here?
37:28
What's downloading? Yeah.
37:31
That how can you begin to think that you could even be safe with
37:35
the people that you've terrorized, oppressed when there
37:40
is data there, There's some that would get they look back, but
37:43
there are plenty others who are just like, just leave us alone,
37:47
like leave us alone and all will be well.
37:51
And so this is the structure of power.
37:53
But like the fear that they have to live in, like you said, it's
37:56
beyond shaking in a boots, like the foundation like that a house
38:00
all the way down to the ground is is shaking because you when
38:05
you're just because there's a different mindset.
38:09
I believe that's at play here to be able to engage with people
38:14
that way. But I also have a little bit of
38:17
empathy because they were once at some point, innocent children
38:21
who were subjected to these things for it to become part of
38:25
how they are. And at any point they could
38:29
decide to change and do what's right and embody the spirit of
38:34
the word or just like God, because God, God is in US.
38:38
God is a spirit. So even if you don't know the
38:40
Bible, like we're human, he made us, we know what's up.
38:43
Don't feel right. The same way you said like when
38:44
you were a kid, right? We know these things.
38:47
You can see what's right, you can see what's wrong.
38:50
But a lot more people care about belonging and being in
38:53
communities, even if they're being abused and hurt by these
38:58
community, then Bible could be used to reinforce that.
39:02
Well, it ain't good to be alone. That's not what God meant.
39:04
God did not create us to be abused and violated.
39:09
But when I'll say this last thing and I'll, I'll go back to
39:14
you. Like people fell for a lack of
39:16
knowledge, People perish for a lack of knowledge.
39:18
And so we're going off of what someone is saying and we're not
39:21
in our book. We're not we're not reading it
39:24
for ourselves. We're not interpreting it for
39:26
ourselves. We're not talking to God and
39:28
have the conversations where he could download it, unlock some
39:31
stuff for you. We're not doing it for
39:32
ourselves. We're following others.
39:36
Yeah, and I would say even with reading understanding that there
39:41
is no way to talk about religion without talking about systemic
39:46
and systematic power. Absolutely, because it's all
39:50
through the Bible too. You see it, The structures are
39:53
there. The structures are there and
39:56
that if they are going to press upon anybody who has a religious
40:00
belief or is seeking to understand it more, seek to
40:04
understand the culture and the context in which these religions
40:08
were solidified and they will give you a lot of understanding
40:13
to why they operate the way they do now.
40:16
Always know the structure. Know the structures from which
40:19
things were built. Know the culture from which they
40:21
came from. It will reveal a lot.
40:25
Yeah, a lot of context, A lot of context, OK.
40:31
And the King James version is a horrible translation.
40:33
There are so many other more proper trans like up to date
40:36
translations please. Yeah, we get.
40:38
Past KBB. I mean, listen and then also
40:42
like in the Bible lab, they got so many in there.
40:44
I'm like, how do we have so many iterations?
40:48
But like the essence of it might be there, but it was I was
40:52
reading one. I can't remember what the verse
40:54
was and how I was like, how do you get, I mean, it's the
40:58
essence of it, but it's it's still the same undertone.
41:02
But they just, they made it almost too relatable.
41:08
And we're almost like, OK, that's what all right, OK, I'm
41:11
not going to be like rigid. And I think that's what can
41:15
happen. But that's where man gets
41:17
involved. And they can, like, pervert it.
41:19
And we don't want to be legalistic because that's how
41:22
you disconnect from people. And then also that's it's
41:26
another way for control for people who are the wolves in
41:29
sheep's clothing. Exactly.
41:32
OK, let's see. So let's talk a little bit about
41:35
religious trauma and deconstruction.
41:38
So many people carry wounds from the religious systems that could
41:43
look like shame, silence, exclusion, and many other awful
41:47
things. Like you shared in the through
41:49
your lived experience where there was incest and like all
41:53
these different things that were happening in that religious
41:55
community that your family was part of.
41:58
So how do you define religious trauma?
42:01
This is heavy for me. Religious trauma is the
42:04
experience. It's almost like PTSD.
42:07
It's the experience of of feeling physically, emotionally,
42:12
spiritually, intellectually, mentally, and all types of ways
42:18
taken advantage of, manipulated or literally hurt justified
42:23
through religious texts and institution.
42:27
What about OK an institution OK? What I was thinking falls under
42:31
institution, OK. Yeah, text and institution.
42:34
When I finally became aware of how much of myself was being
42:42
shamed because of the religious institutions and the they've
42:47
been using the text to do so and how incomplete I felt.
42:51
Additionally, my brothers and my sisters and my cousins and my
42:54
aunts and uncles before, it was very difficult for me to pull
43:00
myself out of the institution because it was everything that I
43:04
knew. In that cycle of dropping out, I
43:09
call it dropping out of of religious institutions.
43:12
I lost family, I lost friends, I lost a circle in a community.
43:17
That was my foundation for such a long time.
43:21
Yeah. I lost a lot and I had to
43:26
rebuild how I interacted with people as a whole.
43:31
It was a reintroduction to life. And then particularly coming
43:35
from being in leadership within that structure and walking away
43:41
in the looks that I got in the comments and all the things is I
43:44
became a more authentic piece and part of myself that I am
43:49
now. I'm still growing now, but it
43:52
was, it was. I cried a lot.
43:55
I cried a lot, of course. Yeah, and I'm sorry you went
43:58
through that. That's awful, Your whole
44:00
foundation. But that deconstruction can be
44:04
healing because now I can look at and recognize when things
44:10
were were used to manipulate me and how to address those things
44:15
for like my son or for other people around me.
44:17
To hopefully give them idea that possibly the depression,
44:21
anxiety, suicidal thoughts and shouts out to all my queer and
44:25
and non traditional individuals that are still within religious
44:28
institutions that literally want to see you disappear from the
44:33
face of the earth. Which that's not God.
44:36
So they need to, they need to remove themselves from that
44:39
community. Exactly.
44:41
But the but that community is rampant and it is gender, gender
44:46
hierarchies, sexuality, purity culture, all of these things
44:50
that are really based off a culture and not a text.
44:55
But your family is there and your sense of I like culture is
45:00
there because you grew up in the church, you were there, you were
45:02
in the choir, you were this, you were that you're all your
45:04
friends with. It's the attachment to the
45:06
community that keeps people sometimes in abusive
45:11
relationships. Absolutely.
45:14
And so for all those, if you can find a church or somewhere
45:19
institution that's supporting you, that can, because the, the,
45:22
that trauma is I, I have known people to literally commit
45:27
suicide. So it's deconstructing and
45:31
understanding and doing that work itself is pastoral.
45:36
That is what pastor should be doing.
45:40
That is what religious leaders should be doing, using the text
45:43
and using the idea of all knowing, all forgiving.
45:47
You know, if you Old Testament, New Testament, which one you
45:50
won't. I like the New Testament, the
45:52
Old Testament one like to clear things out a little bit too
45:54
much, but. Listen, none of us, all of us
45:57
would have been stoned. All of us would have been
46:00
stoned. I'm just saying they was quick
46:03
to stone people in the Old Testament.
46:05
Thank you Jesus for coming and making it so we don't have to be
46:08
stoned like because. Old God's atomic bomb, God this,
46:14
you know, But even that that wrestling with those things in
46:19
understanding that some could view it as literally a
46:22
personification of who we are as people and our diversity and our
46:26
changes and how we react to situations.
46:29
Making it very personal and seeing your place within it
46:33
without your place being consistently attacked, degraded,
46:37
or straight up demolished. It is needed because religion,
46:41
in my point of view, is supposed to be something that connects
46:44
and builds community, not based off rigid ideologies, but based
46:49
on a shared belief in human decency and necessity, you know?
46:54
Yeah, and as you were saying about people underlying
47:00
themselves, right, because some aspect of their identity does
47:04
not align with their religious practice, spiritual practice,
47:08
faith or whatever. What I found when I was working
47:11
at a behavioral health clinic and we primarily reserved
47:14
adolescence pretty much up till like the age 18 to like 13 to 18
47:18
year olds. I just I wasn't consciously
47:22
aware of it, but I my brain, PhD brain right, was picking up on a
47:27
pattern and I wish I just kind of kept like loose notes.
47:31
I noticed how many of these young, I will call them like new
47:37
homes like that are being slowly furnished.
47:41
These houses being furnished, there are certain things that
47:45
showed up in their homes or experiences or things that
47:47
caught them, caught their eye, their attention that weren't OK,
47:51
like aspects of their identity that did not align with their
47:57
families beliefs or just societal beliefs around things,
48:02
which in part, well, I guess maybe in whole, are rooted in
48:05
religion, right? The bulk of them, I'd say
48:10
probably 80 to 85% of them, they did not believe in anything they
48:17
had. So they're, they're floating,
48:19
right? We don't believe in anything.
48:21
And you're that young, you're susceptible to anything.
48:25
And someone is can put whatever they want into you like.
48:29
And it's in the spiritual realm. That's the perfect house for the
48:34
enemy to go into because then they can fill you with whatever,
48:38
right? Because you don't know or you
48:40
believe that they don't want me or this particular community.
48:44
Maybe they don't, right? Like you don't fit, you don't
48:45
align. But so many of them and they
48:48
were very like, they were in intensive outpatient with us and
48:51
partial hospitalization. So to get to the level of the
48:54
severity, like they're self harming, they've had multiple
48:58
attempts to unalign themselves. They've been hospitalized, like
49:02
all of the awful things you can think of and it's like you've
49:05
not even begun to live really and you've gone through so much
49:10
torment already. But the, those who, that their,
49:16
their identity did or what they, they're questioning, they're
49:19
still forming identity. Their, the identity exploration,
49:24
I guess I'll say, doesn't align with the belief systems of their
49:29
families, the cultures of their families.
49:32
And so they think they're unvaluable.
49:34
They don't think that they are lovable because people are
49:38
teaching, preaching this fire and brimstone.
49:43
And it's like the way that I think about it, and I don't know
49:49
if this is unpopular opinion, but I guess I'll frame it like
49:53
we all have our thorn in our side.
49:59
And when you look in and the New Testament where it talks about
50:02
all the things we're not supposed to do, we all got a
50:06
version or one or more of those. That is our thorn that we have
50:13
to figure out how to deny our flesh, to die to ourselves
50:18
daily, to have self-discipline. It's just people have taken some
50:24
of that language, the fire and brimstone language.
50:27
It's an abomination. Who wants to be an abomination
50:31
or associated with abomination? It's such a strong, strong word.
50:36
And so I see how people get there.
50:38
But then it's like you focus on that and you've lost the
50:42
connection with God. The people are getting in the
50:44
way and bringing division and divide between you and God.
50:51
And I wish more people, and I'm not saying we need to be
50:55
preaching prosperity, but it's like, yes, God, you got
50:58
consequences. Like you said, we don't play
51:02
with God, but then we're we're, we're operating here and not
51:09
here. Right.
51:11
And so it does a lot of harm, yeah.