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Racism, but then Reconciliation in Christ Conclusion · Centrally Speaking

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the Central Schwenkfelder Church's podcast.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian Church.
0:24
SPEAKER_05: I'm Dr.
0:25
SPEAKER_05: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology at the Church.
0:28
SPEAKER_05: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
0:33
SPEAKER_05: My three guests today are Reverend Keith Williams from Nazarene Baptist Church on Germantown Avenue in Nicetown, Philadelphia.
0:40
SPEAKER_05: Reverend Alphon Duncan from the Schwenfelder Missionary Church that meets on Tolpaha Street in Germantown, Philadelphia.
0:47
SPEAKER_05: And Reverend Dr.
0:48
SPEAKER_05: David McKinley from Central Schwenfelder Church.
0:51
SPEAKER_05: Let me introduce each one to you.
0:53
SPEAKER_05: Reverend Keith Williams has been pastor for over 36 years at Nazarene Baptist Church.
0:58
SPEAKER_05: He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Augsburg University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a Master of Divinity degree from Palmer Theological Seminary.
1:07
SPEAKER_05: Reverend Williams has served at the Mount Olive Baptist Church of Glassboro, New Jersey, and was able to serve as an adjunct chaplain and Bible expositor for the Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia Phillies, and 76ers.
1:21
SPEAKER_05: In 2007, he was elected to be president of all the 42 state convention presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention.
1:29
SPEAKER_05: In 2015 and 16, he was elected and served as president of the National African American Fellowship, once again of the Southern Baptist Convention.
1:38
SPEAKER_05: His involvement in the field of racism and reconciliation is well known.
1:42
SPEAKER_05: He was a contributor to the book Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention, published in 2017 by Broadman and Holdman.
1:50
SPEAKER_05: He is married to Constance, and they have three children and two grandchildren.
1:54
SPEAKER_05: His family, along with Keith, as well as his mother and grandmother, were in the Emmy nominated film Unchained, Healing from a Generational Trauma.
2:04
SPEAKER_05: Reverend Alfred Duncan is also a graduate from Eastern University and Palmer Theological Seminary, where he achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Divinity degree.
2:16
SPEAKER_05: He has led the Schwankfelder Missionary Church since about 2016.
2:20
SPEAKER_05: Before this, he was actively involved in the first Schwankfelder Church, now called First Worship Center, that meets on 30th in Cumberland in the Strawberry Mansion section of the city.
2:30
SPEAKER_05: He and his wife Phyllis are involved in regular outreach at the Happy Hollow Recreation Center in Germantown, where they're constantly uh cooking food and uh delivering um clothing uh to those who are in need.
2:42
SPEAKER_05: Alfred is also the chair of the Schweinfelder Ministerium.
2:45
SPEAKER_05: And I'm joined by uh my good friend and colleague, Reverend Dr.
2:48
SPEAKER_05: David McKinley, who is senior minister here at Central Schweinfelder Church.
2:52
SPEAKER_05: Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
2:55
SPEAKER_05: Good to be here.
2:56
SPEAKER_05: I wonder if you could uh uh uh expand on this about uh how racism has become embedded in our culture.
3:03
SPEAKER_05: Uh a word that's been thrown around uh phrase that's been thrown around uh these last few weeks has been systemic racism.
3:10
SPEAKER_05: Um I wonder if you could comment on that uh that phrase and then uh maybe illustrate it as to uh how you see it or or or uh how you would express it in in our culture today.
3:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I um I I think, you know, to give you an example, um, educational inequalities.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: Uh I was blessed to grow up on the main line outside of Philadelphia.
3:31
SPEAKER_03: Um maybe about 15-20 years ago.
3:35
SPEAKER_03: Um my high school built uh an$8.4 million football field.
3:40
SPEAKER_03: I pastor church in North Philadelphia where the kids don't even have books.
3:46
SPEAKER_03: Um the educational inequalities uh because uh monies for education are you know, you get state, you get federal funding, and then a lot of it's based on the tax base.
4:00
SPEAKER_03: And um the property values around my church in North Philadelphia are vastly different than the properties values of where my high school was in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
4:13
SPEAKER_03: And so um the opportunities uh and inequities are not there, and and the prison prognosticators go to the first grade classrooms and and inner city schools all over the land.
4:28
SPEAKER_03: And um, this was a quote by a guy named John Path.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: He was a Fordham Law School professor.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: He said, uh, in every 10 days there's a prison built in America.
4:41
SPEAKER_03: It's the most uh 4% of the world's population, 25% of the world's prisons are in America.
4:50
SPEAKER_03: And most of the people incarcerated are black and brown.
4:54
SPEAKER_03: And Michelle Alexander, she wrote a book, it'd be a good book to read, called uh The Pipeline from Prison.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: The Pipeline from School to Prison.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say the prison prognosticators go to the first-grade classrooms and see how many black and brown boys can't read.
5:11
SPEAKER_03: And they forecast how many more jails they're gonna use.
5:14
SPEAKER_03: Because if you're uneducated, you're unemployable.
5:19
SPEAKER_03: But you still want things so the seeds of revolution grow up, and the crime rate, if there's no hope, and I'm uneducated and I'm unemployable, the crime rate goes up.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: Thusly, the prison population, and when they privatize prisons, uh all of that is economically based.
5:38
SPEAKER_03: Michelle Alexander and her book is called the new Jim Crow.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: Instead of picking cotton, we making 30% of Boeing airline parts for 84 cents to$3.25 a day.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: And so uh education determines occupation.
5:56
SPEAKER_03: I served as as director of community outreach at Dermantown Academy, the oldest private non-sectarian school in the nation.
6:04
SPEAKER_03: And I said to the head one day, and we were dialoguing, I said, I was try I was bringing kids from North Philadelphia to this private prep school, thirty, thirty-five thousand dollars a year.
6:15
SPEAKER_03: And I said, Um my kids go here, but the kids in my church go to school that don't have books.
6:22
SPEAKER_03: And I need to get more of our kids here.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: And the the kids were bringing them to the door, but they were two years behind.
6:29
SPEAKER_03: Smart kids, but they were two big years behind because they didn't have access.
6:33
SPEAKER_03: They had computers that were 1980.
6:36
SPEAKER_03: You know, they didn't have access.
6:37
SPEAKER_03: So what we did is uh, and I'm deeply indebted to the board, they decided to help us plan a school.
6:45
SPEAKER_03: Same curriculum, culturally sensitive, in North Philadelphia.
6:49
SPEAKER_03: Today, last year, we completed a$13 million school, 300 kids in there now.
6:55
SPEAKER_03: Every year, um raising$1.6 million with less than a thousand donors.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: It's a miracle.
7:02
SPEAKER_03: Kids are student-to-teacher ratio one to six.
7:05
SPEAKER_03: GA is one to eight, public schools one to thirty-five.
7:09
SPEAKER_03: And you you fear you don't have a safe place to educate kids.
7:13
SPEAKER_03: You got drug dealers outside, or and you don't have an opportunity to expand their minds.
7:19
SPEAKER_03: You know, my kids were going to Spain and Portugal and Netherlands on school trips.
7:24
SPEAKER_03: The kids in my church were going the one trip a year to the Philadelphia Zoo.
7:28
SPEAKER_03: So educational inequalities, that's one word way, and and dealing with pipeline to prison.
7:33
SPEAKER_03: So if we do away with the tax base and and and invest some of that money, and and then show you, and even in Philadelphia, about 10 years ago, 15 years ago, they they made five football fields, five million dollars a piece in city in the city.
7:48
SPEAKER_03: And um, but our kids don't have books.
7:52
SPEAKER_03: We want to showcase the inner city athlete, but he can't read.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: I just wrote a s for me a small definition of systemic racism.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: Systemic racist racism, I wrote, has more to do with group and organizational matters than with individual practices.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: Beyond that, this other part that you mentioned, we are encountering something that has 400 years of history to it.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: It has 400 years of history to it, but it's continuously being perpetuated.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: Let's keep it going.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Let's continue with certain things that are clearly racist.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: Let's find ways of saying that we value them.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with them.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: They're part of the culture, so forth and so on, and we see need to maintain them.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is something that is probably very, very hot, and not in this setting, but in some other settings.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm quite sure I would get in trouble.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: We were talking this week.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: A group of people just ended up on my porch, my wife and I.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, we were sitting outside and we were talking.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: And of all things that come up, the Star Spangled Banner came up.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: And it's not news to a lot of people, but it became news to some of them that we that that we that we were talking about 400 years of race and the history of it.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: One reason I would say that keeps going on because you take certain things and you hold to them, you value them, and you just want to keep it.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: And so we were discussing the fact that um we all agree that the third verse of the Star Spangled Banner is extremely racist.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: It is.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: We all agreed also too that America would not stop using the Star Spangled Banner.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: We all agree that from a theological point of view or some theological circles.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, I was taught this in seminary that sometimes you can take a psalm or a song or statement, and just by stating part of it, it carries forth the message of the entire thing.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, why art thou forsaken me?
9:54
SPEAKER_01: That's the first verse, but it kind of connects you with the the entire psalm.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: If I say amazing grace, how sweet the sound, the the other verses come to mind.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: And so for people who are familiar with who are asked to sing or listen to the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner, connected with that, we cannot get away from the history and the origin of this of what this song was written for.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, some slaves had joined with the British Army, and the man who wrote it had a big problem because they were losing in that they had lost their war, and subsequently he he he writes this song.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: Again, I say this in a very very sensitive, sensitive way.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: But when we sing that, those who know what it's about know the history of it, we're always reconnecting back to a very racist period of time, and something that was written to uphold you up to hold it.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you all know you you know the third verse to the Star's Bangle Banner.
10:50
SPEAKER_04: I've read it before.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, and so and so something like so.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Anyway so if you have to have the idea of it, I think we're encountering things, but things like that keep keep keep racism and things going.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: Now somebody be ready to knock my head off.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: Certain people if I said, let's stop singing the Star Spangled Banner.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: Why?
11:06
SPEAKER_01: Because of what it represented, what it was written for.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: What what what what what is what what is this what it says to African Americans?
11:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, we have an opportunity to fight for freedom of what we believe in.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna hunt us down and kill us like, you know, like dogs and and call those who are supporting what we were trying to do.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm not supporting the revolution.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: They they were just trying to, you know, get free, you know, and say out you their blood is polluting the land or your blood is polluting the land, all these, all these kinds of things.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: It's terrible.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: Do I think stuff like that is gonna stop?
11:38
SPEAKER_01: No.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: I think it's gonna raise the eye of a lot of people.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: And more and more, I do I seriously believe this.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: More and more the African American community is going to raise up and speak out about things that that are confronted with right up in our face all the time.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: They say we don't value you.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, we re we really don't.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: And we say, well, get rid of it, you know.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: You want us to get rid of ours.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Why not get rid of other symbols?
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Why not get rid of all of it?
12:06
SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know where this country is headed or what things are going to happen, but uh yeah, 400 years of history, 400 years is too long.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And it's too great of a price to pay to hang on to things that perpetuate this consideration, whatever form they come in.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: System systemically, politically, religiously, the form of it doesn't matter, but the fact of it is what matters.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: That's what we are.
12:32
SPEAKER_04: I think one of the things that contributes to racism, I'll just speak from my perspective.
12:37
SPEAKER_04: I grew up in a uh small, uh pretty homogeneous community in Southwest Missouri.
12:42
SPEAKER_04: Um there was one African American uh in the town growing up, and I think fear um is is the product of uh unfamiliarity.
12:54
SPEAKER_04: That when you are not around people that are different than you, when you do when you're not given the opportunity to get to know, to be friend, to dialogue, to talk, then the position of of um the default position is apprehension or fear.
13:16
SPEAKER_04: And uh, you know, this Derek Chauvin.
13:19
SPEAKER_04: Uh I was listening to the news last night and they interviewed uh a man uh that knew both uh George Floyd and Derek Chauvin, and they asked him uh what was Chauvin's attitude toward blacks, and uh the person said he was afraid.
13:39
SPEAKER_04: And and and so I I think that fear produces racism, I think that um unfamiliarity produces racism.
13:49
SPEAKER_04: So the best thing for I'll say the best thing for me and and my attitude toward the African American community is to get to know them, uh to get to know this brother over here, to be able to serve with him, the late Ed Winslow.
14:08
SPEAKER_04: I've known Keith for 30 minutes and uh I think he's great.
14:13
SPEAKER_04: So um there is a way that you know uh the Lord uses that uh to help.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: And I agree 100%, by the way.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm not just just saying that.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Can I say something also when when I say that I agree 100%?
14:30
SPEAKER_01: This is the first thing I wrote down before I started answering questions because I just agreed with something that you that that you said.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: But the first thing I wrote down, and I said I wanted to look at it as I was answering this question, are our responses based on biblical and moral principles?
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Or are they concessions to pressure and the prevailing views of those who have economic, racial, social, or political consequences that they can impose upon us?
14:56
SPEAKER_01: And I only say that because I just agree with you, and I really agree with you.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: But in having these discussions, depending on who you are, you know, sometimes you are really not speaking biblical truth or moral principles.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: You're you're responding out of a pressure because of the consequence of how you speak.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes there is there's a pressure again to be very careful about what you say or what you do or what you don't do, even even how even even how we worship, because of the consequences that can that can come.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: I remember Swank Folder Missionary Church in South Philadelphia, watching our worship experiences for year in and year out.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: And then I would watch the times when we have visitors coming, and sometimes the the Swank folder churches would would would come there and it always bugged me that why typically when we're doing a program, we have services, the freedom and the spontaneity of worship.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to stick to the program.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Somebody out of the nowhere, something like that, would sing w uh would just jump up and and sing a song and things like this.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: And that never happened when we had when we had the fellowship services.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: And it bothered me so much because studying black sacred music and social change, the freedom and spontaneity of that is one of the things that was one of the components of that.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: And yet somehow or another, we unconsciously or whatever pulled away from the very thing that was so helpful to the people that we were trying trying to serve.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: And so, in answering these questions, I didn't want to bring the same thing, same thing into it.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: So I go back again when I say, I agree with you 100%.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: A lot of this is because we fear one another, we don't uh we don't know one another.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: But and this is what I and this is what I'm talking about when you talk about it.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: But what I'm finding out is we can spend 20 years with one another, and I find out you still don't know.
16:45
SPEAKER_03: Two points just quickly on what you were saying with in my experience with the worship experience.
16:50
SPEAKER_03: Uh my culture is not respected.
16:52
SPEAKER_03: Many times, in order to to to feel like you're accepted, you have to give up your culture.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
16:59
SPEAKER_03: That's what I'm talking about.
17:00
SPEAKER_03: I determined I'm not gonna do that.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: I went to a place and preached one time, and I was just if I invite you to preach for me, I don't I want you to be you.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
17:08
SPEAKER_03: I'm inviting you.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
17:10
SPEAKER_03: Uh in in whatever way you articulate the agenda of the Almighty.
17:14
SPEAKER_03: Um and I had a situation where, you know, the guy said, Can you tone it down?
17:18
SPEAKER_03: Because and and what it was, he was afraid of his donors might be offended and and the heat he might catch from it.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, but then don't invite me.
17:27
SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't invite you and insult you and say to you, you gotta act like me.
17:32
SPEAKER_03: No, I'm inviting you because I want you.
17:35
SPEAKER_03: And and the way you uh uh express uh the word of God, and many times we feel like our worship has to become white.
17:42
SPEAKER_03: And so when I appreciate Sun Baptist Convention, I'm gonna be me.
17:46
SPEAKER_03: And and I'm just like I'm at Nazarene.
17:49
SPEAKER_03: Now I can be Charles Stanley.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: You know, give a you know, you know, in modeling manner and just exegete and just not with no expression, but that's not me.
17:58
SPEAKER_03: That's not my culture.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: And so the other piece is uh every every black, white, red, or green, we gotta settle the bread issue.
18:05
SPEAKER_03: Matthew 4, 4.
18:07
SPEAKER_03: Man can't live by bread alone.
18:09
SPEAKER_03: And and I didn't, you know, early on in my ministry, uh, I said, I'm not gonna be a puppet or a pimp, I'm gonna be a prophet.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
18:18
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna be a prophet.
18:19
SPEAKER_03: If if and I'm and and I'm gonna I'm gonna settle the bread issue.
18:22
SPEAKER_03: That means it's an African-American colloquialism for sustenance or mulah or who's gonna take care of me.
18:29
SPEAKER_03: You know, and when I came to our church, and you know, it was God that put me there.
18:33
SPEAKER_03: I didn't implement the church.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: God put me there, if God put me there, and I said this when we went down to um meet with a Christian uh congressman in uh D City.
18:43
SPEAKER_03: If God put you in Washington, just like the pulpit, he put me in the pulpit, put me, put you in in public square, only God can take you out.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: Now you've got to use wisdom in what you say and how you say it and what have you.
18:57
SPEAKER_03: But judgment's on me.
18:59
SPEAKER_03: 1 Corinthians 9 16, if I don't tell it like it is, I don't lay it out.
19:03
SPEAKER_03: I have a prophetic, not a pathetic ministry.
19:07
SPEAKER_03: And so you gotta settle the bread issue.
19:09
SPEAKER_03: And and if I figured if God can can supply Elijah uh his needs with room service in the wilderness by a dirty bird, a raven, it's a kid of me.
19:20
SPEAKER_03: Really?
19:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm one heartbeat from standing in front of Jesus.
19:24
SPEAKER_03: I might as well go for broad.
19:25
SPEAKER_03: Paul said Philippians 1 21.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: For me to live is Christ, I am with Christ.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: If I suffer down here, you know, he said the sufferings of this time, and I can't even formulate a thought in my mental muscle to begin to articulate the glory that anywhere I go, I win.
19:41
SPEAKER_03: So I might as well go for broad.
19:43
SPEAKER_03: They installed the new executive director at the Southern Baptist Convention, new president.
19:47
SPEAKER_03: I said to him at his installation, they gave me five minutes to preach.
19:51
SPEAKER_03: I'm not used to preaching five minutes.
19:53
SPEAKER_03: I didn't even put in my throat in five minutes.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: And so I said to him, he said, you can have a little more time.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, no, no.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets.
20:02
SPEAKER_03: If you say five minutes, I'm like Holy Ghost, give me five minutes, I'm preaching.
20:06
SPEAKER_03: They were gambling, but he can't do five minutes.
20:09
SPEAKER_03: I said, No, no, no, no, Holy Ghost help me.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: Because it's gonna be a miracle.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: Four minutes, fifteen minutes, second, give him a minute, let's make a change.
20:17
SPEAKER_03: The spirit of the if you come if I come to your church and you say, please I'm gonna need you to give me five minutes, I'm gonna give you five minutes.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, uh, but but we gotta still bring it to you.
20:29
SPEAKER_03: Like what we're gonna agree, you know, some white brother and the demons don't check them if they say something that they don't like.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: You can call us, you can call me.
20:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna point it in acts twenty twenty holiday goes to do what to the church of God, which was purchased with his blood.
20:48
SPEAKER_03: And many, many, and it goes all the way back to your calling.
20:51
SPEAKER_03: You can I don't have anyone to call from across the hall.
20:54
SPEAKER_03: I'm looking at instead of looking up in the sky and called a couple of GP and said, go preach, no, go clap, I'm not gonna have to I terminologize my calling as an unaltered conviction that I don't have a choice.
21:07
SPEAKER_03: I have a choice, but I don't have a choice.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: And then if either we're gonna trust God or we're not, and we don't have that tension, and that's why we need each other.
21:15
SPEAKER_03: Hang in there, brother.
21:17
SPEAKER_03: Stand strong and let the let the chip fall with it maybe gotta learn the language and on the mission field.
21:22
SPEAKER_03: They trained us.
21:23
SPEAKER_03: You learn the language, you learn the culture.
21:24
SPEAKER_03: Remember, it's not wrong, it's just different.
21:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, we're not we're not trying to Europeanize everybody.
21:30
SPEAKER_03: You cannot, you know, and and so I'm sure you know, on the mission field, there's cultural distinctions, and if you don't know that, you're it renders your gospel ineffective.
21:38
SPEAKER_03: Because you can't speak, and we had to learn some of the language.
21:41
SPEAKER_03: I I I preached for the Filipinos, they had a convention in Philadelphia and they asked me to come preach.
21:46
SPEAKER_03: And I stood up and I started singing the national anthem, Philippine National Anthem.
21:50
SPEAKER_03: They went off.
21:51
SPEAKER_03: Where do you learn that from?
21:53
SPEAKER_03: The connection.
21:54
SPEAKER_03: Learn the language, the culture.
21:57
SPEAKER_03: Same thing with us.
21:58
SPEAKER_03: When I had roommates, six roommates.
22:01
SPEAKER_03: Nobody looked like me.
22:02
SPEAKER_03: We just learned each other.
22:04
SPEAKER_05: This is really important.
22:06
SPEAKER_05: Since uh the spirit of the province is subject to the province, I'm gonna ask the last question here, gentlemen, uh for this one.
22:12
SPEAKER_05: But uh doesn't it just all come back to understanding?
22:16
SPEAKER_05: Um some who are listening today uh to this um are are in the suburbs and uh they they want to be supportive of what is uh going on to help bring racial uh rec uh reconciliation.
22:29
SPEAKER_05: Uh um isn't it about understanding?
22:32
SPEAKER_05: Maybe you can make some comment about that uh just as we bring this uh to a close.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, briefly, let me just say uh the history of Camat, if if the church would have stood up against uh institutional slavery and what have you, we wouldn't have had a lot of these problems.
22:46
SPEAKER_03: And and and and and our denomination in particular, they they developed the sociological construct to use it to justify theological orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
22:56
SPEAKER_03: And and in other words, they supported slavery, and and that's when our convention split and the dehumanization of a person and treating them as property as three-fifths of the person.
23:07
SPEAKER_03: So, so to move forward, what do we need to do?
23:11
SPEAKER_03: Number one, we need to pray, because it's spiritual warfare.
23:13
SPEAKER_03: Bottom line, hearts ain't gonna change by passing laws.
23:16
SPEAKER_03: You can't legislate righteousness.
23:18
SPEAKER_03: Uh Brussel Knott, Ephesians 6 10, 18, flesh and blood.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: So I I said we we need passionate, persistent fasting and prayer, because this is a battle.
23:27
SPEAKER_03: And and and we got it got the uh the out the agenda of the Almighty has to be primary.
23:33
SPEAKER_03: Uh in issues of race and injustice to help people.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: Uh, visit the African American Museum down in D.C.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: We spent two days there.
23:41
SPEAKER_03: It was just and and still then uh take in, you know, learn some history about it.
23:45
SPEAKER_03: Michelle, I mentioned Michelle Alexander's book.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: I mentioned uh uh the doctrine, the documentary Unchained.
23:52
SPEAKER_03: Uh learn something about the history about Jim Crow and slavery and civil rights and police brutality, um, uh, and then building relationships.
24:01
SPEAKER_03: That's how I built relationships with people as brothers.
24:03
SPEAKER_03: And and we talk about things from a Christocentric perspective.
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, this is what we're doing.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: Uh uh, this is what the scripture says.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: Help my brother out.
24:12
SPEAKER_03: I'm seeking to understand, not to be understood.
24:14
SPEAKER_03: I'm speaking and not offending and listening and not defending.
24:18
SPEAKER_03: Developing a relationship, like my brother said, uh uh being friends, going out to dinner and talking and fellowshipping.
24:25
SPEAKER_03: That's I've built a lot of relationships with people that doesn't look like me.
24:28
SPEAKER_03: As kingdom citizens, you know, and then uh serving together, you know, and then standing up and speaking out.
24:35
SPEAKER_03: You know, all of us have spheres of influence, and it's gonna cost you something, you know, about issues of righteousness and justice, because when the heathen can't hear us when we holler about the holy because of our hypocrisy, you know, and calling the church uh uh to a greatest commandment revival.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: You hear a lot about the Great Commission.
24:55
SPEAKER_03: You don't hear a lot about the Great Command, Greatest Commandment, because inextricably linked up in how I feel about God is how I treat you.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: 1 uh John 3.14.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: We know that we've passed, to get an indicator that we've passed from death unto life, and we love the brethren.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: You know, it it ain't says in looking at the White House and the church house not together.
25:14
SPEAKER_03: Like I said earlier, this is dress rehearsal.
25:17
SPEAKER_03: And so, a greatest command of revival, uh, whatever sphere of influence.
25:21
SPEAKER_03: I was talking to one of my leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention the other day.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: You you're in some rooms I'm not in, and you gotta stand up and check uh in love uh uh people that are supporting unjust laws that are oppressing people.
25:36
SPEAKER_03: You gotta stand up for righteousness and justice.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: And then that's where the bread issue comes in.
25:41
SPEAKER_03: And you gotta be willing to pay the price.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: It costs Jesus his life.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: And the Lord said to me, I don't know how you expect to anything else.
25:50
SPEAKER_03: The servant not great as master, they hated me without a cause.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how you expect anything else to change.
25:59
SPEAKER_03: Uh uh, you're gonna be treated any different than I was treated if you look a little bit like me.
26:05
SPEAKER_03: And so listen, learn, build relationships with one another, uh, serve with one another.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: Uh our people come together and serve to one another, view each other as kingdom citizens.
26:17
SPEAKER_03: Because this is not our home.
26:19
SPEAKER_03: And and the Bible talks about Matthew 24, 12, when iniquity shall abound, when lawlessness is the law of the land, the love of many.
26:27
SPEAKER_03: And I'm glad he said, Well, wax cold, I'm glad he said many and not all.
26:30
SPEAKER_03: My prayer is God enlarge the remnant.
26:33
SPEAKER_03: We need a revival.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: And uh Rick Warren said, until America deals with the original sin of this air, and it's it's you know, let us not love in word and tongue, but in deed and in truth, revival won't come.
26:47
SPEAKER_05: You've been listening to Centrally Speaking, a broadcast ministry from the Central Schreckfelder Church in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
26:52
SPEAKER_05: Our website is www.cscfamily.org.
26:57
SPEAKER_05: And we encourage you to see our website for service times.
27:00
SPEAKER_05: If you're in the area, we warmly welcome you to join us.
27:03
SPEAKER_05: We've been speaking today with Reverend Keith Williams and Reverend Alfred Duncan about racism.
27:08
SPEAKER_05: In our next broadcast, we will be speaking about reconciliation.
27:12
SPEAKER_05: We recommend to you the documentary Unchanged, Generational Trauma and Healing, as well as the ministries of these two fine gentlemen.
27:19
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for joining us.
27:20
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having us.