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Monique Duson: From Critical Race Theory To ‘Walking In Unity’ · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity.
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No topic off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Hey friends, thanks so much for tuning in for listening, sharing the podcast and another
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important topic today.
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As God see racism, very interesting book by Monique Duson and Christa Bondtrigger, it's
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called Walking in Unity.
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I encourage you guys to check this out.
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It is an amazing apologetic and just an explanation of critical race theory and Christianity
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and how they contrast.
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So I want to bring in the guests today, Monique Duson is the president at Center for Biblical
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Unity and the website is centerforbiblicalunity.com.
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She has a background in social service and children's ministry.
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She's worked with a diverse array of communities and she's worked as a missionary to South Africa
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for four years plus serving children and teaching.
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She also, this is the interesting part here, she spent two decades advocating for critical
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race theory, CRT, we've heard a lot about that in recent years.
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But through a series of events, she began to clearly see the contradictions of CRT
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with the historic Christian worldview.
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So Monique is now convinced that CRT is not the best way to achieve racial unity and she
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actively speaks out against the use of CRT within the church.
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So we're thankful for her voice, thankful for the book.
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Monique, so good to have you on, thanks for your time today.
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Thanks for having me.
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You're welcome.
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Forward by Alisa Childers, I think that's a selling point right there, God bless her, she's
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got an amazing ministry herself.
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But you have a fascinating story and we were going to get, try to get both of you and
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you and Krista on today.
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But I think this is going to work out very, very good because Krista didn't make that transition.
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But you connected with her when you came back from a missionary trip to Africa and you
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didn't know what you were going to do if I remember some of the details right.
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How did that friendship start and whatever you want to share about the differences you
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had at the time when just talking about views on racism or CRT?
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Yeah, so I transitioned off of the mission field in 2018 and I really wasn't sure where
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I was going to land here in the States.
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It was an emergency transition off and so Krista and her husband Robert invited me to
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move in with them and their family, they have two daughters.
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They had an extra room and so they were like, hey, we have this room, you can stay here
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for about three months and it helped you at least get some footing in the States again.
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That actually that arrangement lasted for almost five years.
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And I came to me, Krista in the fall of 2017 when I was speaking up north, I was home
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from South Africa on a furlough and I was speaking up north just about the work that I was
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doing and a mutual friend of ours, I had never met Krista but we had this mutual friend
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in common and she shared my talk on Facebook, I believe it was, yeah, on Facebook.
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And Krista saw it and she reached out to me and so we started talking in around November
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of 2017, we just stayed in contact, she found out more about the work that I was doing.
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When I came home in 2018, she actually offered to pick me up from the airport because no one
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goes to LAX and I was flying into LAX.
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My family was like, well, meet you at a midway point but we're not picking you up and so
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she met me at the airport and we went to dinner and just began to talk and find out more
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about each other as I'm making my emergency transition off of the field, the invitation
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is offered.
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And so that's how Krista and I became connected.
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I, in conversations with Krista and I'm very, I will give this background, I'm very passionate
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about things like justice, race, equality and I always have been, what is fair, it just,
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I'm really driven by that.
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And so as I was learning who Krista was, I would ask questions like, you know, you must
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have voted for Trump, right, because you're white, because all white people are Republican.
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Or things like, well, how do you care for the poor, believing that she would not have
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the same level of care for the poor that I would have, being that I was born into a lower
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socioeconomic community and that was where I was raised, you know, my entire childhood.
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And so, you know, now Krista, she comes from a single mom, just like I did.
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She didn't grow up in as lower socioeconomic conditions as I did, but her mom did work
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to jobs so that she could, you know, make sure that Krista was in a private school and
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that she would have an education paid for and things like that.
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So we have similar backgrounds, both grew up, you know, in the LA area, but still very distinctly
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different backgrounds.
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It's, it's really fascinating your story and people can watch that video.
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I, it's on one of the pages of your website about the book, but tell us about Center for
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Biblical Unity.
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It's very interesting that unity can be misunderstood.
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I think some people define it in an unbiblical way.
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You cannot unify around things that are not supported by scripture, but yet we try to,
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just under the guys of being nice.
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Would you speak to just that word unity and then tell us about the center for Biblical
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Unity?
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Yes.
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We believe that unity must be founded on the truth of who Jesus is and the words of scripture.
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And so we can now, we can talk about having agreement.
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You know, we can agree that Butter Pecan ice cream is the best ice cream that there is.
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But when it comes to truth, Jesus must be our foundation because once we get to Jesus
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throughout all of our agreements, at some point, we are going to go different ways.
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If Jesus isn't our foundation, I can agree that the color blue is the best color.
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And vanilla cake is the best cake.
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But when we come to Jesus, if you can't acknowledge that he is the son of God, that he is
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part of the triumphant God, that he, um, he is truth, that he is the only way where, you
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know, that his words are truly what give us, um, our way forward for life and Godliness.
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What do we, what do we do?
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It's great to have agreement on some things, but we have to understand that a simple, simple
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agreement is not unity.
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Unity must be founded on something and it must be founded on Jesus.
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And at the center for Biblical unity, we exist to have Biblically based Christ centered
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conversations on race, justice, unity and the critical social theories.
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So we're going to talk often on about racism on this, this podcast, your book is a lot
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about that and unifying, uh, scripturally, biblically, um, what do you think that the Bible
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talks about racism, um, but I think we kind of blow it up into this thing that should
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divide people, um, when we all come from one blood, I think I think there's a part in
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your book, um, where is it?
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Oh, does God see race?
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And that is on page 73 where you guys, you talk about the descendants of shem, ham and
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japeth.
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I mean, there are some fascinating things that the average person doesn't understand as
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far as where we came from and how that, in that sense, we are united as human beings,
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but we see skin tone.
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And so could you speak to that for a minute or more?
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Yeah.
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So I do believe in using biblical terms, the term race, as we use it today, is not in
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scripture.
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It is, it is foreign to scripture.
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This idea of, you know, you have black, white, Hispanic, Asian things that we look
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on, look at on the census that isn't how the scriptures understood race at that time.
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What the scriptures talk about is our nationality, our tribe, our clan, um, and, and like common
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language, our ethnic background and things like that.
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This idea of racism would have been foreign to scripture.
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There is no verse that says thou shalt not be a racist.
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What we find in scripture are things like thou shalt not participate, you know, partial,
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according to partiality, you know, like what, what James talks about, we shouldn't favor
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the rich or favor the poor that we shouldn't carry hatred in our hearts that I shouldn't
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be, um, participating with one group in this special way by some arbitrary standard like
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skin color.
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And so when we think about how do I live with my neighbor, well, I want to live with
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my neighbor, according to the, the ways of scripture and scripture encourages us not
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to participate in certain ways with one another.
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When we, I would say bring all of these, you know, ways together or, or some of these
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ways together, we get this modern concept of racism.
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We would say it's some part slander hatred, um, ethnic favoritism, ethnic idolatry or
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partial and partiality.
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And so that's where when we're talking about this idea of racism and the Bible sees race
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and things like that, I would say, you know, the Bible really talks about ethnicity.
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There's no verse that says thou shalt not be a racist.
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But there are ways that we are told in scripture about how we should and should not participate
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with one another.
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And God is no respecter of persons.
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And I think you, you said a keyword, partiality, God does not show partiality human beings.
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You know, we kind of do show partiality a lot.
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That's where we get ourselves into trouble, um, and, and racism comes up because we show
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partiality one way or another, but I want to read a scripture and let you, uh, share
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a little bit more about this.
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This is Galatians chapter three.
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Um, I love these verses because in Christ, we are united.
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It says for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ, Jesus, this is Galatians 3,
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26 through 29.
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For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
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There is neither Jew nor Greek.
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There's neither slave nor free man.
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There's neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ, Jesus.
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And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to
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promise.
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So spiritually, Monique, good news for us, all of us.
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We are Abraham's descendants if we are in Christ.
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Can you speak to that a little bit before we get back into the book?
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Yeah.
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So let's take that scripture and think about partiality.
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One, when we say that we are not and God is not playing by these partial rules with us,
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the foot of the cross is level.
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We all must go through Jesus to get to God.
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Like that is, that is the words of scripture.
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And yet what we see in scripture as well is that not all people are children of God.
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So there are some distinctions that we see in scripture.
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All people are created in the image of God with equal dignity, value and worth.
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And yet to those who believed on his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
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And there is a special, I would say distinction for those who are children of God in the verse
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that I quoted was John 112.
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Now when we look at this passage in Galatians where there is neither June or Greek, you
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know, all of these different distinctions, what is being said and what is being encouraged
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is that we should not be creating these sex or SECTS or these rules based on these distinctions
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because when we come into the household of faith, we are now brothers and sisters.
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We are God's family.
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When we think about Ephesians 1 to 3, Paul really lays out, it's a gospel.
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All the things that cannot, we cannot achieve on our own.
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The dividing wall of hostility has been torn down.
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That we are now brought into the household of God adopted as God's children according
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to his good pleasure.
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Like there's a lot that has happened because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
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And so when we hear something like, hey, you know, these distinctions, you guys shouldn't
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have them and be separating yourselves or playing by these rules of partiality because
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in Christ, you're all children of God, okay, neither slave nor free.
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Now when I became a Christian, I did not become white, nor did I become clear, nor did
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I become a man, I still remained a black woman.
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There is something to God's providence that allows me to have my skin color and my sex
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and for you to have your sex and your skin color.
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It is providentially allowed by God.
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We are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
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And so when I think about the providence of God, one of the other things that I can do
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is I can be aware of when injustice may be happening based on a providential characteristic
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that God has allowed.
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Case in point, we can go back to Jim Crow, we can go back to Redlining, we can go back
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to slavery.
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There were things that happened to people in our country based on skin color, something
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that was providentially allowed by God.
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But when I look at Disney, Disney released a statement maybe four months ago that said
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they noticed a system within their own ways of hiring that excluded white men.
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So if I am clearly just like, well, we're all sisters and brothers, we're all the same.
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No, we have to look just in reality and not necessarily be color blind to the fact that
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well, now we're all the same.
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So I don't have to be aware of your skin color.
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No, sometimes it's okay to notice, hey, I noticed that you're white and that this injustice
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is currently happening as our culture has really uplifted things like critical race
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theory or critical queer theory.
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And or I can look back in history and I can say, I noticed that this has happened in history.
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But we should not be of the mindset that racism will ever go away or that partiality
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will ever go away.
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Americans are sinful.
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And because we are sinful, we always have the opportunity to sin or to play by partial
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rules.
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Excellent.
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So much in what you just said.
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And big amen.
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I want to thank you for clarifying that not everybody is a child of God.
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This goes back a few minutes to what you were talking about.
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But we are all created in the image of God, a mago day.
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But to become a child of God, you've got to believe in Jesus.
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And then we have the right to become.
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We've got to take a brief pause.
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We'll be back.
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We'll talk more with Monique about the Center for Biblical Unity and the book Walking in Unity
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on World View Matters.
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16:56
Our guest today, Monique Dusan, and she's a co-author with Krista Bone Trigger of Walking
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in Unity, a very important book.
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And Monique, I want to go back before we dive into the book a little bit more.
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I want to go back to your story.
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You must have had some amazing conversations with Krista about politics.
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And I just want to hear a little bit, I mean, if we could just have been a fly on the wall
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and recorded some of those conversations about the differences in how you saw the world
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being an advocate of critical race theory for, I think, two decades.
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And then her world view, looking at yours and going, wait a minute, I don't see things
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that way.
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Just share a little bit more about that because you are sisters in Christ, unified under
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God.
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And here you are having early on in your relationship, those disagreements.
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Yes.
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So I was definitely staunch, Democrat.
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I believed in a woman's right to choose.
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Even if I wouldn't have made the choice for myself, I did believe that all women should
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have the right to choose.
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Part of this also, that woman's choice leads into the intersectionality part of the critical
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race theory framework that people are oppressed, not just on the basis of skin color, alone,
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but also on the basis of their sex and so being a black woman.
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We want to fight for the freedom of black women.
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But in upholding a critical race theory mindset or ideology, I saw oppression everywhere.
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And I saw oppression or marginalization to blacks and minorities all the time.
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And when I would speak with Kristin, have some of these conversations, I had a lot of assumptions
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about the way that she thought, about the way that she viewed the scriptures.
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It was through that white lens, and I was coming to the scriptures with my black lens.
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And she would challenge a lot of what I thought, but then I would challenge her as well.
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There was a lot of history that she didn't know.
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There were assumptions she also had about black people, the same way I had assumptions
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about white people.
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It was not just me changing.
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It was both of us changing and growing.
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Now, if you're going to talk about who had to do, I guess the most, if we're going to
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quantify it, the most of the biggest amount of change, yes, it was me because I had to
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change my paradigm.
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Prista already had a very solid biblical paradigm, but there were gaps in knowledge, and
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there were certain biases or assumptions that she had about blacks that needed to be
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realigned or readjusted.
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Or I'd ask her, well, why do you think that?
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And you know, well, I saw it on TV, you know, so there was that she didn't need to change.
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I don't want to create a set up where, you know, the black girl is just out here being
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changed by the white woman.
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That isn't the case at all, and our culture would really run and play with that, you know?
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We don't want to do that.
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We do want to be true to exactly what happened for me, for Prista, for her family.
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And I definitely, you know, our story in the book, and I hope it reads this way, but it's
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that we are more than friends.
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I am a part of her family.
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My last name could be Bontrager, and there would be no distinction, no question about
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it.
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I'm just the brown Bontrager.
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But, yeah, our conversations were often arguments.
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It was painful at times.
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It was hard.
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Like, unity is not easy.
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It's so funny, because this morning, I was thinking about Ephesians 4.
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Ephesians 4, you know, is really laying out how we walk together, how we maintain our
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unity.
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And I'm like, that has to be one of the hardest chapters in the scriptures, because it
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really talks about how do I die to myself?
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How do I prefer my neighbor or my sister over myself?
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How do I forgive and keep forgiving?
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How do I bear with someone when it's really hard?
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How do I share?
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I like keeping my things to myself.
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You know what I mean?
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So, there's a lot there, but our conversations were often very heated, very emotional.
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But what we valued was the other person.
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And we were going to fight for the other person.
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Now I was fighting for her to come into critical theory, and she was fighting for me to come
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into a historic Christian worldview, but we were clear.
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We were going to hold on to one another as long as we were having these conversations.
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I think that's such a great testament to the fact that you can still disagree on some
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points and keep plowing forward if you love.
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Truly love, as Jesus said, love one another.
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You can disagree and still care about the person's knowledge, understanding, and, I mean,
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family.
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We are family in Christ.
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Yeah.
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Families argue and fight all the time, and maybe not all families, too, there are different
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degrees of disagreement, but I think it's healthy as opposed to what we've seen maybe
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in America.
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And you can speak to this if you want, sweeping things under the rug and kind of ignoring
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the past.
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I know you probably have a lot to say about that if you could just share it for a moment.
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Sure.
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I think that there are, at times, you know, places in our history that aren't always acknowledged.
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A better way to put it though, I believe, is that students are often offered two different
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versions of history.
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And so I grew up in South Central Los Angeles.
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I did the majority of my schooling in South Central Los Angeles with black teachers.
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I learned about black history.
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Krista grew up in the valley, and I would say she did not have a majority of black or
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minority teachers.
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And she knew things about American history that I had had no idea of.
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And so we would come to the table, and I'd be like, well, let's talk about Emmett Teal,
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or let's talk about black Wall Street.
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Let's talk about Christmas addicts.
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Let's talk about, you know, Medgar Evers, and she would be like, what?
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But then she did recite things from the Declaration of Independence and the founding fathers
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and on and on and on, and I'd be like, what, you know, so I think more than the idea that
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people just want to sweep history under the rug, I think what I tend to see is that certain
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people are comfortable talking about certain parts of history.
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We also tend to segment history.
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And I don't think that that's, in my opinion, I don't think that that's something I appreciate
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where we have this black history month, or Latin history month, or Asian American month.
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No, why don't we just simply, if we're going to teach, especially American history, why
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don't we teach American history from a more fully orbed perspective, and like, I'm looking
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at this period of history, what's happening in America with different groups?
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And then we can, you know, usher our students through American history in a way that just
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seems more full, if that makes sense.
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Yes.
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There are so many questions I wanted to ask, but we're running out of time quickly.
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Division has been done on purpose, I think, dividing people in the groups, dividing,
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pitting people against each other, and that's Marxism, oppressed, and oppressor.
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But even race and so many other things, I mean, how do we overcome that as a church?
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Now, our perspective is the biblical worldview, looking at as Christians, there's a lot to
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overcome in this country when it comes to the great work the enemy did, and I mean
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great, not as a compliment, but evil in dividing and getting people to, I don't know, hate
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each other.
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How, what can we do about that, Monique?
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I mean, we could do another, as you said, don't ask big questions like that at the end
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of the podcast, but here I am.
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I did it.
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Yes, you know what the Lord has really been impressed in upon my heart is forgiveness.
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This was a major fight between me and Christa in the book.
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She actually writes about forgiveness.
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I think I write about it just a little bit too, but how do we in the church, I do not
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have this expectation of people in the world, but how do we in the church actually talk
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about forgiveness?
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How do we preach it from our pulpits?
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How do we disciple young people in the understanding?
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How do we talk about walking a road with someone today?
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It is so easy to become angry and let go of someone that is the way we are discipled
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by our culture, but we are never really discipled into attitudes and mindsets or a theology
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of forgiveness.
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How do I forgive?
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And so when we look at a lot of American history, I can say yes, a lot of American history
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has been slanted against minorities or slanted against black people if we want to just
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divide it into black and white, but I cannot in the church hold that over a white person's
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head and say, well, you're just participating in systems of whiteness.
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You are continually oppressive or marginalizing me and my family.
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We need to be able to look at someone and judge rightly.
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This is what the scripture say.
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And so if that person is not participating in racism, then I would not just deem that
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person a racist, regardless of culture's definition of racism that says all white people
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are racist.
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No, how do we actually have real conversations about family and forgiveness and what that
26:43
really means until we have conversations on family and forgiveness within the church?
26:48
I don't actually know that we will be able to truly walk together in a way that is meaningful
26:54
and in a way that Jesus refers to in John 17, where the world will know, our unity
27:02
is so that the world is made now.
27:04
Yeah, it's got to start in the church.
27:06
We've got to do a better job.
27:08
I love one of the quotes.
27:09
All the work to make us family has already been done by Jesus and got to start with the
27:14
heart.
27:15
Monique, I knew it would go by fast with you today, but I want to send people to center
27:19
for BiblicalUnity.com and you can get so much more information on the book and walking
27:26
in unity.
27:27
I'm sure it's already out there.
27:28
A lot of great five star reviews.
27:30
Go check that out, friends.
27:32
Thank you so much for your time today and God bless you have a Merry Christmas.
27:36
Thank you, Merry Christmas.
27:37
All right.
27:38
Thanks, Monique.
27:39
All right, friends.
27:40
So many books, like I said, there are great ones out there, but there are specific ones
27:43
I like to talk about on this podcast and not just to promote a book, but very important
27:48
topics and information that I think the church would really benefit from.
27:52
God bless you, and as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.