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Unity Without Uniformity: Multiculturalism in the Church (Benjamin Matthew) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking
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  Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world
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  Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that
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  Speaker 1: more about making a difference in mental health through Christ
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  Speaker 1: centered education. That's CiU dot edu. Hey, everybody, welcome to
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  Speaker 1: this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm joined today by one
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  Speaker 1: of my favorite and recurring guests, Ben Matthew. He is
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  Speaker 1: a professor at Columbia International University in their counseling and
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  Speaker 1: I think it's counselor education. He's a professor of counselor
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  Speaker 1: education at Columbia International University. And so today we're going
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  Speaker 1: to talk about a subject that Ben's been speaking on
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  Speaker 1: and thinking about for a while now, multiculturalism in the church.
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  Speaker 1: And so welcome Ben back to the program. I'm excited
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  Speaker 1: to have this conversation with you.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Jay's I always love these conversations in the ways
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  Speaker 3: in we've gone.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate being back with you as.
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  Speaker 4: The randomness is always good.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, so I was looking through your CV and I
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  Speaker 1: read a couple of pieces on immigration and uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: how we treat the other And then I noticed you've
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  Speaker 1: been doing some talks on multiculturalism, biblical theology, those kind
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  Speaker 1: of things. So maybe just give me a give to
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  Speaker 1: everybody a little bit of a sense of why you
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  Speaker 1: got interested in these issues in the first place. Ye
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  Speaker 1: and uh, and maybe what your general approach to them is.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: For those of you that are watching, you can see
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  Speaker 3: that I have a lovely tan here. It's kind of
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  Speaker 3: year because my family is originally from India. And so
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  Speaker 3: for those of you that are listening and don't see me,
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  Speaker 3: that that's uh, that's what you'd be looking at if
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  Speaker 3: you saw me, and that that has always informed part
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  Speaker 3: of my just understanding of life identity. You know, this
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  Speaker 3: family that migrated from India lived in Canada, and then
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  Speaker 3: I moved here to the US. You know, there's been
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  Speaker 3: a lot of movement of culture and identity and content
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  Speaker 3: for me personally. One of the stories I often think
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  Speaker 3: about is my mom remained an Indian citizen for a
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  Speaker 3: number of years while we were living in Canady. She
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  Speaker 3: just didn't want to give up her Indian citizenship, and
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  Speaker 3: so she was known as a resident alien. I think
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  Speaker 3: is the term they use up in Canada. I don't
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  Speaker 3: know if they use that still, but that was the term.
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  Speaker 3: I remember like the first time hearing a customs immigration
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  Speaker 3: officer asked my mom like, where is she an alien from?
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  Speaker 3: And I'm like, what, She's an alien? Like this was
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  Speaker 3: like me coming off the heels of et back in
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  Speaker 3: the eighties, right, So I'm like going home kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: And to be honest, you know, after learning what that meant,
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  Speaker 3: you know, being from a thereland land, it made sense
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  Speaker 3: then for why we then experienced a lot of the
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  Speaker 3: struggles we did growing up. To give you a little context,
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  Speaker 3: our family grew up in Canada near Toronto, but in
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  Speaker 3: a very very to be honest, with white community and
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  Speaker 3: first moved there as we were kind of moving up
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  Speaker 3: the ladders of life as it were, that community did
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  Speaker 3: not embrace us at all. In fact, our house was
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  Speaker 3: regularly vandalized, firebombed kind of And I'm like, are six
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  Speaker 3: years old, right, So we moved to this community and
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  Speaker 3: like I remember this one time my grandfather, who was
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  Speaker 3: visiting from India, he took out, he would take a
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  Speaker 3: walk every morning in the neighborhood and he stopped in
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  Speaker 3: front of our garage door and he's just looking at it,
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  Speaker 3: and I see him from the living room window. So
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  Speaker 3: I walk out and I look in the garage door
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  Speaker 3: and spray painted like all over it our words like
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  Speaker 3: get out of here, go back to where you're from,
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  Speaker 3: get out of here, n word like written on there.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And so I remember as a kid, you know, experiencing
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  Speaker 3: all these things, seeing all these things, and to me,
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  Speaker 3: the answer, obviously then is the color of my skin,
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  Speaker 3: Like this is what's wrong. So I would have these
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  Speaker 3: prayers as I alwayd walk to school, Lord, please turn
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  Speaker 3: me white, like this would just make everything so much better,
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  Speaker 3: make my life so much easier. And then as I
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  Speaker 3: would walk home, I'd be like, but God, turn me
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  Speaker 3: back Indian, because if I show up white at home,
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  Speaker 3: my mom's gonna kill like this.
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  Speaker 2: Is this will not be able to see. Well. Oh
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  Speaker 2: that that was.
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  Speaker 3: That was very formative, right, like clear understanding of how
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  Speaker 3: race impacts communities, cultures, perspectives, unfortunately in some really really
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  Speaker 3: ugly ways. But it was through really the faith of
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  Speaker 3: my parents, how they engaged their faith through racial animosity.
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  Speaker 3: And I won't get into all the Jesus, but my
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  Speaker 3: dad started just volunteering in the soccer club in the community.
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  Speaker 3: He would hold a flag and call off sides and
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  Speaker 3: then he worked his way up to becoming like the
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  Speaker 3: head of the program. My mom started realizing these Canadians
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  Speaker 3: do these weird things called barbecues, which she had never
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  Speaker 3: heard of before, and so he ended up buying a
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  Speaker 3: barbecue and just started inviting people over for meals, which
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  Speaker 3: of course, you know, no one was available. We're busy,
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  Speaker 3: you know, can't do it. But they were just persistent
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  Speaker 3: and they just loved loved the community, They loved people,
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  Speaker 3: and I just saw their faith and it gave me.
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  Speaker 3: Twenty five years later, when they decided to move from
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  Speaker 3: that neighbor just to downside, that neighborhood, threw them a party,
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  Speaker 3: just shot in showing how much appreciation they had for them.
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  Speaker 3: So when you asked the good question like what got
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  Speaker 3: me into this, to be honest, it was my family's
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  Speaker 3: faith in the midst of racial animosity that did. I
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  Speaker 3: didn't really understand how my faith necessarily spoke to that,
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  Speaker 3: but I saw it. So when I grew out and
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  Speaker 3: developed my own understanding of things, both theologically as well
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  Speaker 3: as clinically, oh man, I want to get more into this.
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  Speaker 3: And it's just continued to expand. But it really started
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  Speaker 3: in those real expressions of faith by my parents.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think, you know, from a clinician's perspective,
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  Speaker 1: when we talked about some identity issues before, and how
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  Speaker 1: you know how one views oneself? How do you think
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  Speaker 1: about or how do you counsel people to think about
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  Speaker 1: their ethnicity racial background in relation to their overarching identity?
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  Speaker 1: And you know, maybe that's the general question, and then
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  Speaker 1: sort of digging down and maybe the second question would
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  Speaker 1: be how do you do that with a Christian right?
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  Speaker 1: It's a you know, how do you cultivate a Christian
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  Speaker 1: first identity without losing the appropriate distinctives that come along
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  Speaker 1: with being part of an ethnic group and a culture.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, first step like, how do people usually think
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  Speaker 1: about that ethnic identity? And how would you love to
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  Speaker 1: see them think about that ethnic identity as a counselor.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: One of the things that we always wanted to do
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  Speaker 3: in a clinical context is first understand their narrative. How
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  Speaker 3: do they understand their ethnic realities as part of their
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  Speaker 3: own narrative? And so that's not to say it's either
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  Speaker 3: right or wrong, it's just I need to build some
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  Speaker 3: therapeutic rapport right to be able to understand which do
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  Speaker 3: you think is if I can use the word somewhat
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  Speaker 3: incarnational in itself, like, how do we step into those
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  Speaker 3: realities before we speak to those realities? That to me
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  Speaker 3: then gives me some understanding of then maybe to some
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  Speaker 3: degree helping me understand how either important it is to
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  Speaker 3: them or how marginalized it is to them. Have they
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  Speaker 3: over emphasized it? Have they not emphasized it enough? I
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  Speaker 3: know if you talked to Ben Matthew when he was
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  Speaker 3: like five or six, I wanted to get rid of
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  Speaker 3: my ethnic identity here right, It was shameful, it was
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  Speaker 3: causing problems.
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  Speaker 2: If he went to counseling.
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  Speaker 3: But I would hope of clinician would be able to
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  Speaker 3: identify that and okay, how do we actually have a
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  Speaker 3: healthier understanding of your ethnicity as part of who you
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  Speaker 3: are rather than trying to put it away in light
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  Speaker 3: of all these contexts. But I've worked with others on
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  Speaker 3: the other side where in some ways that has become
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  Speaker 3: an overwriting part of their identity. And what I mean
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  Speaker 3: by that is that because of the desire to kind
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  Speaker 3: of maybe work out of hardship or animosity or whatever
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  Speaker 3: it is, they made such a high priority of their
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  Speaker 3: ethnicity as kind of the dominant part of their identity,
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  Speaker 3: and so when and if others in culture or community
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  Speaker 3: or family don't recognize that, they feel offended and they
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  Speaker 3: transfer a lot of animosity against other people as well.
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  Speaker 3: So I use these terms particularly that we've often heard
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  Speaker 3: color blindness and color essentialism. So color blindness, if many
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  Speaker 3: of your listeners probably know that term, the idea that well,
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  Speaker 3: we don't see color, we don't see rays, we just
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  Speaker 3: see everyone kind of as they are. And the good
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  Speaker 3: of that, and I actually think there is some good
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  Speaker 3: is that we don't want to prioritize ethnicity over and
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  Speaker 3: above just humanity.
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  Speaker 4: Right, yeah, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: The concern of.
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  Speaker 3: That is that you're removing an aspect of the individual
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  Speaker 3: that is part of the individual, and sometimes individual clients
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  Speaker 3: of mine sometimes have to rest with it. But I
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  Speaker 3: think we can go to the other extreme too, of
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  Speaker 3: what I refer to as color essentialism, where we make
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  Speaker 3: race and ethnicity actually too much of a priority in
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  Speaker 3: terms of identity, and when others don't give you reciprocate
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  Speaker 3: the same level of importance, we then get offended and
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  Speaker 3: we kind of go out of turn against those other people.
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  Speaker 3: When I'm working with clients, I'm having to kind of
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  Speaker 3: help manage where they are on that spectrum, And yeah,
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  Speaker 3: how is this actually helping or hindering your own flourishing,
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  Speaker 3: which then for Christians takes on like another whole level.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm speaking to someone who knows this a lot
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  Speaker 3: better than I do. But I love pulling out the
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  Speaker 3: biblical theology. I think of what God's vision is for
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  Speaker 3: the nations, you know, from Genesis eleven, Tower of Battle
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  Speaker 3: to acts to God through language, either dividing or uniting,
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  Speaker 3: and so what that looks like in the community of Christ.
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  Speaker 3: That again, it's not supposed to be the main part
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  Speaker 3: of your identity. Color essentialism. And so when Paul talks
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  Speaker 3: about neither Jude nor Greek male or female, I think
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  Speaker 3: we need to prioritize our identity in Christ. But neither
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  Speaker 3: is it ignored. Right read Revelation seven, like gathered around
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  Speaker 3: the throne, or people from every tribe tongue in nation. Right,
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  Speaker 3: as I say with my wife who is of Scandinavian
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  Speaker 3: background and I have Indian background, when we get to heaven,
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  Speaker 3: God will not take out his remote control and like
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  Speaker 3: color contrasts us to neutral, right, He's not gonna bage
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  Speaker 3: us all out because the diversity actually adds to the
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  Speaker 3: glory of of our risen Lord. And there's something in
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  Speaker 3: there that we struggle here because this topic often creates
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  Speaker 3: a lot more more heat than light. But if we
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  Speaker 3: can frame it from a biblical construct, I actually think
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  Speaker 3: that there's a lot there that we can help our
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  Speaker 3: Christian colleagues and communities deal with.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, Ephesians has always been interesting to me on
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  Speaker 1: this right. I mean probably a circular letter. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you've got the textual variant of in ephesis sort of
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  Speaker 1: in the first line where that may or may not
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  Speaker 1: it looks like it's a later edition, so you know,
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  Speaker 1: a very circular letter that's dealing with the coming together
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  Speaker 1: of Jews and Gentiles into one body united in Christ,
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  Speaker 1: and this somehow serving as a calling into account the
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  Speaker 1: principalities and powers of the day. You know, it's Phijians
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  Speaker 1: I think three ten, where it talks about the church
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  Speaker 1: calling them to account. Like there's a sense in which
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  Speaker 1: we are supposed to accomplish this unity through Christ that
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  Speaker 1: everyone else is trying to do. But it always goes
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  Speaker 1: astray because the unifying factor, the peg in the ground
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  Speaker 1: is it's constantly sort of shifting and moving.
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  Speaker 4: It just can't work. And so.
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  Speaker 1: But it's not a call to to your point, like
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  Speaker 1: it's not a call to color blindness, like Paul still
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  Speaker 1: refers to Jews and Gentiles. There's a sense in which
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  Speaker 1: these two groups are the interesting part of them coming together,
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  Speaker 1: maybe the god glorifying part about them coming together is
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  Speaker 1: that they're not becoming uniform. Yeah right, right, they're they're
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  Speaker 1: they're coming together in love despite difference, yeah right, and
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  Speaker 1: and and being together as different peoples. They're not being
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  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, made uniform whitewashed.
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  Speaker 4: However, we wanted to say that like good contrast on
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  Speaker 4: the TV.
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  Speaker 1: I love that, right, it's nothing's adjusted to beg like
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  Speaker 1: it's it's that it's they're coming together in difference.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And the diversity, I mean it is moving towards not
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  Speaker 3: towards uniformity, but it is moving to unity. Yes that
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  Speaker 3: that that the fact that unity because of that diversity. Actually,
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  Speaker 3: I mean that this is the vision that John gets
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  Speaker 3: that when they're gathered around the throne from every tribe
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  Speaker 3: tongue in nation, it actually brings more glory to the
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  Speaker 3: one who has unified us.
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  Speaker 2: Like yeah, on paper.
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  Speaker 3: I was just in Thailand just this past summer, just
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  Speaker 3: as an example of this being played out, and on
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  Speaker 3: Sunday morning, I'm literally worshiping with tribe tongue in nation
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  Speaker 3: all around the world. We were in a pan Asian context.
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  Speaker 3: It was beautiful and at one point one of the
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  Speaker 3: guys who was singing, he's from India. He asked for
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  Speaker 3: all the Indians to come up and sing a song
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  Speaker 3: of praise with him. And then he's thoughts that, in fact,
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  Speaker 3: I'd also like the Pakistanis to come up as well. Now,
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  Speaker 3: for those of you that know the history between Indian Pakistan,
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  Speaker 3: there's not a lot of love.
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  Speaker 2: Between these communities, right.
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  Speaker 3: These are two nuclear nations that are at odds with
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  Speaker 3: each other, have been for decades. James to see these
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  Speaker 3: two groups up on stage together, and there was probably
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  Speaker 3: about one hundred of us out of this conference of
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  Speaker 3: a couple one hundred people that were singing praises together
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  Speaker 3: that on paper, there's no reason why those two groups
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  Speaker 3: should be singing together.
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  Speaker 4: Yea.
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  Speaker 3: And yet because of the finished work of Christ, who,
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  Speaker 3: as he says in Revelation five, buy your blood like
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  Speaker 3: part of the Atonement plays into this right by your
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  Speaker 3: blood you purchase for yourself people from every tribe, tongue
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  Speaker 3: in nation. It was one of the most beautiful experiences
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  Speaker 3: that I saw of how the Gospel still maintains the identity,
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  Speaker 3: the reality of ethnicity, but for this greater purpose, this
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  Speaker 3: greater symphony. Right, we want woodwinds and brasses and percussions,
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  Speaker 3: we want the different parts of the symphony, but the
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  Speaker 3: whole point is that they work together for this greater
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  Speaker 3: performance of the lamb. Which, yeah, seeing things like that.
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  Speaker 3: So for me as a clinician, I'm trying to do
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  Speaker 3: that on a little more of an individual level, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: trying to help people understand what God is trying to do,
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  Speaker 3: I think on a macro level through the Church for
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  Speaker 3: the world. How do I help you then understand that
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  Speaker 3: either identify as it too little, too much, and then
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  Speaker 3: actually push towards something that actually gets to be part
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  Speaker 3: of it. Whether they are a Christian, whether they are
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  Speaker 3: someone who can kind of be part of that larger
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  Speaker 3: narrative of God's work, or even for those who don't
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  Speaker 3: have a faith perspective. It is amazing how I'm still
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  Speaker 3: able to speak into helping them understand whether it's too
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  Speaker 3: much or too little, and how that may contribute or
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: pull away from human flourishing and that's ultimately what we're
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: trying to do here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really I think it's a really interesting challenge.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, when you're talking about the color blindness and
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  Speaker 1: the color of essential ism, my mind went to universalism
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  Speaker 1: versus tribalism.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: There's this sense in which, like, yeah, we're all human,
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  Speaker 1: but just saying we're all human doesn't really acknowledge any
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  Speaker 1: of the unique ways each one of us is actually embodied.
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  Speaker 1: But if we say, well, let's be tribal, then it's
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  Speaker 1: just you know, me and my fellow white guys hanging out.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, you're kind of like what just happened there?
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  Speaker 1: Like neither one of those is quite right, And so
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  Speaker 1: you're sort of navigating these two ideas and saying, well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's okay to understand your tribe, right, and it like
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  Speaker 1: you're going to be shaped by your tribe to some
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  Speaker 1: degree and understandably so, right, But that doesn't mean your
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  Speaker 1: tribe is better than every other tribe, and that doesn't
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  Speaker 1: mean that you're detached from the human race so that
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  Speaker 1: these people aren't part of the Like now, you've got Okay,
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  Speaker 1: you're shaped by your tribe.
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  Speaker 4: That's cool.
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  Speaker 1: Now you're integrating in with everyone else somehow, like this
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  Speaker 1: is a negotiation process maybe, But again I think I
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: don't know how familiar you are with an Asia Art's work.
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  Speaker 4: Have you ever read any nature Art?
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  Speaker 1: I mean that his notion of memetic desire, which for
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: those of you who aren't familiar, Basically, it's this idea
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that we all have something that we're sort of shooting for.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: We all have models, and as we follow this model,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: it inevitably comes to a point of conflict because as
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: we conform to the model that we're seeking to emulate,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: we start to pick up the same desires, the same interests,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and go after the same for lack of better term resources,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and so it almost always creates a conflict, except with Christ.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And this is what Gerard really highlights is that when
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: we're all seeking to conform to the image of Christ,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: if Christ is the one we're seeking to emulate, you
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: don't run into conflict.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: You ultimately run into peace.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And so that's sort of a rough summary of Nature Art,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: but it seems app to what we're kind of talking
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: about a little bit.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: I think so and that is the this is this
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: is my my Chesterton tension point, right, this is this
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: is what GK did for me, is that he helped
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: me appreciate it's in the tension that you're find the
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: greatest joy, right, instead of saying, well is it this
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: or that? And and he goes out of his way
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: to say, and I thing this is an Orthodox where
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: he goes out of his way to say, listen, it's
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: not a matter of balance between it's the tension of
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: right that yes, you have this identity that's informed by
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: your culture and ethnicity and your tribe, and you're part
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: of this greater narrative, this greater story, this greater humanity
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: that is actually not about you in your tribe. It's
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: actually something bigger. So is it either or no? Chesterton
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: actually says it's both. And then the questions of affections
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: that you're ultimately saying, yeah, James Smith to me has
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: helped a lot in this.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Area, like we become that which we love.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: So if I if I love my tribe so much,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: and I'm not saying that's wrong, I have a Canadian
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: flag hanging in my house somewhere, there's a certain love
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: of country that I have. Right, I'm not saying that
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: that's wrong, But to what end right If I'm not
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: pushing on the tension point of how love of culture, context, ethnicity, nation,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: whatever it is, If it doesn't push up against this
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: tension point of something bigger than just that, I actually
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: find less flourishing. I find my affections are not satisfied
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: in what I think is the best, and I become
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: a smaller sense of self in that sense because my
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: affections are actually whittling away rather than being nourished.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, I know you've done some work on critical
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: race theory. I have too, and.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: There's part of me that sort of is sympathetic to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the arguments there.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Right, even some of the intersectional work that I've read.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: You kind of sit back in your life, like, no,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: some of this actually does make sense, Like you can
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: see that it's working itself out like that, that there
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: are these sort of double oppressed classes where you know,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the maybe the legal protections just haven't caught up, or
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: maybe you have you know, not only a prejudice, sort
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of a racial prejudice, but also you're physically smaller, right
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: or something like that, Like you have all these sort
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of money plays into it, whatever else plays in At
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the same time, I kind of find myself saying, man,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like there's any way to work this
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: out really and fix it. And so what I like
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: about what you're saying with the tension point is you
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: don't have to let go of either side. What you
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: have to do is you have to recognize the tension
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and constantly adjust to it. But you're sort of always
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: readjusting to this tension, and you're not trying to sit
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: in just one place and be really comfortable in the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: discomfort right and say, you know, I'm gonna this is
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: my flag, I've planeted.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: I'm not moving anywhere.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: You have to sort of let that tension move and
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: shape you a little bit and and push you toward repentance,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: push you toward change strategy, push you toward you know,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: all those different kinds of things that would actually make
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you rethink stuff.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a great point because as you've probably
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: had conversations as I have, when someone does read the
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: full title of my dissertation and they see that I
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: engage with CRTs poretic, they're like, yeah, man.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I thought you loved Jesus, what's going on here?
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, let's let's have a conversation, because again,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: to many, it's like either or either this is the
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: best thing that has ever happened since sliced bread, or
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: this is from the pit of hell. Right.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And what I often try to do is similar to
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: what you just said. Listen.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: I think I think there's some valid observations here that
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: it provides, as especially first generation as as they were
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: essentially trying to look at why have not advanced in
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: the ways of civil rights that we thought we should
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: be at this point, right, And so Eric Bell and
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: others are trying to wrestle with that, and they're identifying
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I think somewhat correctly some diagnoses of culture.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: The concern comes in when they and I would argue
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: more second gen CRT comes along and when a prescription
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: then is applied to the diagnoses.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: So good diagnosis needs a right prescription, but a wrong
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: prescription to treat the diagnosis can actually make it even worse. Right,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: And so the prescription that second gen CRT actually doesn't
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: appreciate some of the tension points, and then try to
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: apply these other narratives that were never necessarily part of
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: the original contract. So whether it is from Syrian or
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Marxist ideologies or whatever it is, we won't get into
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: all these details, but the reality is that they're pushing
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: into it an answer that then give room for exactly
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: what you're talking about. Where do we both need to challenge?
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: But where do we also need to grow? Where do
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I need to help others? But where do I need
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: to repent of myself? Is it either or? Or is
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: it both?
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: And?
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: And so I often talk about that as a good
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: example of good observation but bad prescription. So how do
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: we think that much better? We as Christians have a
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: narrative amid a narrative that speaks even more so to
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: this reality that I think we can lean into as
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: a means of helping people in their flourishing.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I've.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Always found so when I was studying it, I was
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: kind of like, are there any instances in scripture where
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: we could actually see something of this dynamic?
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: Not?
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: Can I prove CRT from scripture? Right?
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: That's not what I was trying to take amautical principle. Yeah,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it's always yeah, that's always what you want to do.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I'm going to I'm going to take my idea to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: scripture and make Scripture prove it. But no, I was like,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: are these dynamics available? I mean, you think about the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: early ur right, and you've got you know, all of
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: these communities that are at the crossroads of all these
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: multiple trade routes. They are metropolitan, right, They're they're getting
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: in an influx of different sorts of Jews and Gentiles
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: from all over the place in addition to having the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: more stables you and gentile communities that are melding together
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: as part of the church. And so they're not like,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not like they have the Jewish Church
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: over here in the Gentile Church over here. It's there together.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, I looked at things like
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Romans fourteen and fifteen. You see some of these dynamics,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and what do you seek Paul doing? You say, you
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: hear him calling like, hey, don't judge one another, you know,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: out do one another and showing honor, come together, be together.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: The historian acts where the Greek speaking Jews come and
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: they're like, hey, I don't know whether you noticed this,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: but we're not being fed, you know. Yeah, yeah, And
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I mean the apostles aren't just like a stop and planning.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: You're not praying it, you know, like, they respond, They
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: recognize the problem and they respond to it, and they
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: sort of reorder themselves to make sure that this is
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: cared for. And I just think that those stories, again,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: not that they demonstrate CRT or something like that, but
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: they do offer some insights into dynamics that occur within
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: communities of difference and how we sometimes just our assumptions
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: lead us towards something that we weren't intending. Yeah, now
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that's not to say that those that we never intend
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: to do bad stuff. It's just saying that these things
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: can tend to just sort of systemically grow into us,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and we need to be aware of those and allow
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: ourselves to be shaken out of them a bit.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: And it's a great point because I mean, to me,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Acts really does. I've actually done this in counseling with
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: some people those are faith perspective who are struggling with
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: these issues. How do I understand my ethnic realities in
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: light of the cultural pressures as I'm trying to live
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: this out in my faith. Acts to me is a
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: great casebook of sorts. I know, again, for hermeneutics. That's
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: not the main point, but it is a great facebook
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: of the church wrestling with this and sometimes stumbling through it. Right,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: whether it's Peter up on this roof and he has
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: this vision a rise, kill and eat, and you're like,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: what the heck is all that about? Like, what the
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: and then he gets this knock at the door by
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: this Italian like okay, wait, is that that's oh interesting? Okay,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: So I'm supposed to go tell him the gospel, O.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: God, I'm supposed to eat him.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the constructs that are be but he still
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: stumbles through because you have just other story in Galatians
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: where Peter has no problem eating with him Gentiles until
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: the Jews walk in.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Sorry, dude, I'm not I gotta go okay with my
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: brotherre In.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: And when Paul finds out about this, he's like, you're
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: kidding right, like and and what Paul says is this
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: is this is because you're in a this is an
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: affront to the Gospel, right And then fact to me
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: is always what fascinates me with this is that this
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: is this is not just a peripheral issue. This is
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: not a second or tertiary issue. Yeah, this is this
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: is a core issue that again, if we only make
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: it about us, I think that's when it gets too far.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: But if we do relate it to the Gospel, to
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: the work of Jesus Christ. So when Paul confronts some
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Englatian says, you are not in keeping with the Gospel,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: it's not about necessarily who you're eating with, it's what
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: you're doing to represent Jesus Christ.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: That's us, right.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: And so I love that I can use passages like
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: that to kind of help my clients and others. Listen,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: we're gonna stumble through this, and that's kind of part
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: of the other thing is can we just give each
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: other some grace here? Like this is this has been
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: going on for two thousand years. Jews has struggled with
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: it because they're like, hey, we're God's chosen people. But
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: now all of a sudden you want them like to
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: come in like really, you'll be in Eunichs like really, okay,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Like sure, yes, yeah, we're still stumbling through it and
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: we have. But I think that that's why the Gospel
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: gives us the north start to be able to kind
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: of keep pushing.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting to look the transformative relationships in
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the New Testament more generally, and then think about how
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that might inform the way we think about multiculturalism in
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the church today. I mean, Paul's letter to Fi Lehman,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you know, asking him to receive as back. Yeah, right,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: And and the way Paul encourages him to treat Anissimus
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: when he comes back was a social innovation in and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of itself, like don't don't overly punish me, you know
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: this person like put all that on my account.
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: It's almost as if Paul is saying, if you're going
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to beat him, just beat me, you know, like, if
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: you're going to punish him, punish me. And he involves
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: himself in that in such a way that you get
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: this sense that, I phi Lehman is not going to
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: do this to Anius, like he is going to welcome
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: him back as a Christian brother, and that the use
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: whatever breakage of that relationship there would have been, that's
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: going to get healed up. But I mean, I think
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: those are relational dynamics that the New Testament really does encourage.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And when we think about how to deal with that
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: in a multicultural situation, I think there's good resources there
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: for us.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: I guess that's all I'm saying.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's exactly, And it's constantly pushing us to then, yeah,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: push towards this greater identity. Again, particularly for those of
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: us that have faith in Christ. It uses those realities.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: I often refer to this as I want to avoid
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: cultural egalitarianism, right, Yeah, whatever your thoughts are about the
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: original egalitarian complementarianism, what I'm trying to avoid is that
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: God gets rid of, or flattens out all the cultural
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: distinctions as it relates to salvation. Yes, none of us
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: hold any swim to salvation because of our ethnicity, and
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: so in that sense, it's miles apart. And I think,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: going back to what you said about Ephesians, this is
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: the beauty of the gospel, right, But then the outworking
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: of the gospel is the bringing together of these two communities.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Like the dividing wall of hostility has been broken down,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: and these groups, I mean those gentiles, we're gonna be
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: on the far walls of the temple, right, Like there's
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: a court for you guys.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Way out there.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: We'll let women first, and then Jews and then like
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: there's enough separation. Yeah, and in Christ, all of that
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: is removed. It's just such a radical notion that still
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: understands their reality and yet invites them into something bigger.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Well, I think those Romans fourteen and fifteen, which we
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: often sleep on. You know, by the time you get
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: through Romans, you're like, we've spent so much time on
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: one through eleven, rightly, right one through eight, you kind
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of you're like, those are the chapters. Then nine through eleven,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you know, everybody's interested in eschatology and what's the separation
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: prechurged is, So you got to do those, and by
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the time you hit chapter twelve, you're just like, I'm
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: out of the.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: So fourteen and fifteen you kind of we usually sleep on,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: but I think they're really crucial because in those chapters,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: what Paul is saying is, look, let the week be weak,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: let the strong be strong, and figure out how to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: live together with that. And I think, you know, in
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: that context, it was there's some mix of juw gentile
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: in there, and so he's not looking at flattening out distinctives.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: What he's saying is all of these people, and he
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: actually talks about this, is that they all belong to
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: a different You know, you're not their master. They're answerable
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: to God, and so don't worry about judging them. Just
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: live in peace with them, bear with them, don't cause
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: them to stumble, right, Let them have their distinctive, whether
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: it's weak or strong, and let them live as they
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: seek to conform more closely to the image of Christ.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Just let them do their thing, but do it together.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Don't isolate yourself.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: From one another. You know, it implies that you're you know,
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: he doesn't.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: He's not just like, hey, just let the Jews go
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: do their things and the Gentiles go do their things
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: like and don't just stop looking at each other, right,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: you know, and not like separating two little kids in
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: a room. What he's actually saying is no, stay together
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and figure this stuff out, but be kind to one another,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: allow everybody room to grow and think. And you know,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: don't be so hell bent on figuring all of this
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: out like you're right there wrong and it should be
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: this way and it should you know. I just think
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: those are chapters that help us frame out maybe how
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: these relationships should go and the sort of approach we
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: should be having.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love how you said we shouldn't sleep on
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: this because actually all thought it was really important. This
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: is the outworking about theology that he spends that's right,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: chapters getting into and so how much more I mean
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: for me? Honestly, I was just talking about this last
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: week with some students on campus, about the other conversation
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: of deconstruction right about you know, doesn't mean to leave
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: faith to struggle, doubt, all those different things. And I
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: was sharing with some students how do we maintain our
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: faith in the midst of significant evil too, especially when
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: it is in this construct racially oriented right in fact,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: to my story and my parents and their willingness to
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: persevere in faith in the midst of racial evil, to me,
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: the community of the African American Church in particular has
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: been a wonderful source of encouragement that for whatever hundreds
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: of years of chattel slavery that they were put under
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: and then moving into Jim Crow laws of lynching, like
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: all the other historical realities, most of them maintain their faith.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Their faith in CHRISTI is actually what helped them persevere
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: in the midst of such racial hatred that if anyone
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: had a right, if I can even say it that way,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: to deconstruct from Christianity you would think of being the
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: Black Church, right, Yeah, given the horreduous evil that many
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: generations of blacks have had to endure, and yet it
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: actually helped them persevere in their faith because they realize
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: it's not just having to work together. How do we
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: live together with whites? Well, what if the whites are
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: subjecting you to slavery and are constantly putting you in
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: horrific situations to which they still say, no, we still
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: got to figure out how to live with them.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: We still need to love them.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: We still have to figure out what an example to
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: me and to I think successive generations of not just
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: the American narrative, which I think it speaks into that,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: but I think even more so to the Kingdom narrative
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: right of how we as Christians can learn and that
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: stort can be repeated in multiple contexts outside of America
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: as well, that I think we need to hear more
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: of that and realize this is actually what helps from
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: about with the Kingdom in some some really beautiful ways.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Well me ask you this because this is something that
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: comes up an awful lout when I'm talking to people
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: on the podcast, and I just think it's really interesting.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: So I'm kind of looking for how do you use
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: this in a counseling context, But where does the lament
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: actually come into the healing process, like an admission that
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: something is actually loong here and not just you know,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: sort of the fact base, yes this is wrong, this
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: is right, but also a real deep sense that just
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: you know, as Planting could put it, the world is.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Not as is not as it's supposed to be shalom.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Right, And this this like tension is like rising up
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: within me.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: But I don't know what to do with it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: And we're not a lamenting culture, right, We're pull ourselves
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: up by our bootstrap sort of culture most of the time.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: So how do you do you do you do you
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: find that lament enters into counseling it?
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Like, how does that work for you know?
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: This is kind of where some of my own cultural
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: realities play in. I kind of refer to myself as
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: a bit of a coconut. I'm brown and hairy on
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: the outside, but I'm pretty white on the inside. Because
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: while my parents are from India and I grew up
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: with food and culture and language, I grew up in Canada,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: and so you know, I had all the contexts of
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: you know, church and school and community that were generally white. Yeah,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: so we often use this word code switching, right, You're
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: able to kind of move in different circles and adjust
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: yourself to those different realities. In my more kind of
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: Caucasian white contexts, I remember hearing phrases like, you know,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: when someone would die, they would ask, how's he doing? Oh,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: he's doing well, he's keeping it together.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize until later what essentially that mean. It
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: means he's not emotional, he's not crying, he's able to.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: He went to the funeral, and then the next day
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: he went back to work, and you know, it just
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: kept on going. That's what that's the good good. And
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: then I'd go to funerals over on my Indian side
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: of the family and I would be like, they are wailing,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: They're like sometimes prostrate on the floor or like hunched
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: over each other, and it would go on for days.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm like, what is going on here? And it
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: helped me realize again some of this distinction. And we're
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: not saying one is better than the other. I think
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: it's just the realities of both these cultures. But the
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: challenge that always comes is how scripture then speaks to
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: this right And so when you when you read the Psalms,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: my goodness, the opportunities that they give for lament as
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: a means of an appropriate, if not expected, response to
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: the evil. As you said, plantic that that plantic a
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: quote for me, just helps the.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Vandalism of shaloam. This is not the way supposed to be.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: And yes, do we want to figure out how it
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: can be corrected by the grace of God and the
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: movement of the kingdom. Yes, but before we get there,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: can we just sit for a moment and just we Yeah.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: I find myself with a lot of my clients who
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: are coming out of a Western individualistic construct. To them,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: that's a really hard pill to swallow because it feels
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: like a failure on their part, Like I just need
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: to get over I just need to get back to work.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: And when I'm able to open this up, you know,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: another element of the Psalms that I often use sometimes
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: is sometimes not just lament, but in precatory and trying
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: to kind of how do I help you get angry
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: over this reality too?
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: And yes, that mean we need.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: To pray for the mountains to descend on your enemies.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know if we don't want to go that far,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: but we may need to be willing to just be
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: angry over the evil that you see. That those emotions
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: are part of the vocabulary God has given to humanity.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: And before you could move move on to what's next,
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: you have to sit.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: In the here and now.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's really that's a hard pill to swallow.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: But to me, that's what counseling is is a lot
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: of times just opening a space for them in that
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: moment away from work, away from family and the expectations
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: of their community that stiff up or a lit keep
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: it together, right, I give them a space just to say,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: like Job's friends did right, We often rightfully complain against
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: his advice, but the good they did they sat with
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: him for seven days.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And weft right.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's something good and holy about that. And
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: so for my clients, I'm just trying to They're often
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: thinking what do I do next? I'm trying to say,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: what do we do here and now? How can we
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: use this space in the vocabulary of emotion to see
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: where God wants to lead us?
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I will say, it's really interesting. So my wife and
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I've talked about this several times. So I am that
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: sort of pull myent, you know, like just gut it
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: out right, like I was going most dependable in high school,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: and that's just sort of carried through. And so it's like,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: you know, look when when stuff is going crazy in South,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: it's like everybody kind of says, okay, yeah, but he'll
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: do he'll make it right. Yeah, And so it's fine,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: like I don't mind that, but it's also you know,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: it does sort of limit my emotional range and difficult situations.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: But the one thing I will say, like the imprecatory palms,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: those sort of speak to me a little bit more.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: I will say, it's only within a limited range. And
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: so that's the other thing my wife and I usually
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: talk about.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: She's like, you're very tribal, right, You're you have a
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: small group of people that you want to protect, and
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: when bad things happen to them, you get really animated
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: about it. When things happen outside of that, you're not
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: so concerned, right, And I find it really interesting just
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: to hear you talk through that, because my tendency would
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: be like if I'm psychoanalyzing myself a little bit. I
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: would say that part of my problem is that because
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I don't lament, I don't all also get angry, right,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: like the smallness of the world that you really care
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: about almost like for me conditions what I feel sad
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: about and what I get angry about. And so there's
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a broadening that I think I need to do in
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: some cases, and I've seen that happen, like when I've
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: done some of this, like multicultural research, when I talk
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: to people about it. I have a friend who's really
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: good in this, like he understands it from a biblical
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: and theological perspective, and it's like I start to feel
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: that way, but it requires a broadening. Does that resonate
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: with you, Ben at all? Like this idea that there
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: has to be sort of a broadening of your scope
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: on some level without just sort of decoupling you and
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: detaching you from your embedded reality.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: No, I appreciate you. Yeah, working that out yourself. That'll
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: be one hundred and fifty dollars for the session.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, checking the mail. Checking the mail.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Part of that is and I think this is where
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: it connects to some of this discussion of ethnicity and
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: multiculturalism and things like that. As well, if we've become
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: so focused in on our own tribe, our own community
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: without realizing no, we are part of this larger community
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: called humanity, right and somewhat understandable. Listen, when my wife
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: is offended, I'm going to fight back. When my kids
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: are under threat, I'm going to do something about it.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: And as my concentric circles move out, my emotional attachment
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: to them is less, and so my response may be
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: less accordingly as well. But I need to give some
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: space to realize I can't be I can't fight for
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: everyone in that sense. I just don't have the emotional, physical,
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: mental capacity to kind of be so broad to be
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: effective for everyone. And Yet at those times where I'm
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: so singularly focused on this reality and I feel all
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: the feels as we're here, sometimes I do need to
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: open it up. I'll help my clients open up as
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: well and realize, are you missing something bigger beyond this?
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Though? As well?
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: To be honest, I think this is what the psalms
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: do right. All my enemies surround me strombles of basing company.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Where's my hell come from? I look to you like
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: the posture of looking up that we read in the psalms,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: So it's both recognizing the evil that's here, but at
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: this same time, the psalms often say well where can
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: you look though, where can you find hope? You need
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: to broaden your your perspective. This is not denying the
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: reality of this. It's just saying this is not just
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: the reality. There's a big, greater reality that needs to
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: be brought into focus as well. So I'm always trying
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: to give space for what you're dealing with now. I
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: don't want to minimize that. I don't want to say
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: I'll just get it's not that bad. No, this really
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: is bad right now right here and tension point, there's
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: something bigger. How can we kind of expand into that
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: broader perspective that doesn't minimize it, but actually gives it
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: some clarity. It helps you understand this is actually something
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: part of something bigger. Right This is why I think
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: biblical theology for me is so helpful, because it gives
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: me that broad, broader meta narrative to kind.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Of speak into people's lives.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sort of strikes me as you're talking there
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: that it's very similar to what Augustin talks about with
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the love love of neighbor. You know, he talks about
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: number one, you know, all of our love should be
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: tossed into the current of our love for God, and
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: sort of this picture of a river flowing and all
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: the you know, God's love is the current. Your love
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: for God is the current, and anything that you throw
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: into that river is going to flow with that current.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a I love that, you know, sort
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: of idea, this immersive love that and you know, encompasses
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: and carries along all of our other loves. Then he
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: also talks about everyone in the world. Every I think
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: he phrases it, every man in the world deserves an
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: equal amount of love. They're all equally deserving of love.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: But each of us has a limited capacity, and so
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: our role is in large part to love those who
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: have been put in front of us. And he talks
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: about in terms of God's ordination, like God has placed
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: you somewhere, and so love the people where God has
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: placed you.
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: This is your role as a Christian.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: But he never really loses sight of this broader perspective.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, that's largely what we're talking
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: about when we're talking about these other emotions as well,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: that it's sort of appropriate for us to be angry
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: or sad about the things that are close to us,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: but those are within a context of us recognizing that
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: creation is groaning for the restoration that God is going
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: to bring. And this is one instance of that. You know,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: we're now feeling the cosmic weight, you know, balanced on
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: the head of a pin of everything that is broken
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: in this one moment.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: That's a great point.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and someways connects a little bit back to what
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: we were saying about some of the larger discussions of race, ethnicity,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: how c our teammate even may help or speak into that.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: One of the other areas I usually try to help
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: people kind of grasp is that in your quote of August,
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: I think highlights this this individualistic reality coupled with these
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: systemic realities.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Right, so this is another big discussion in large of this.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the question off, guys, is it this or that? Again,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: Chesterton helps me and it's like, well, actually it's both.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: And that's hard for some to to kind of digest
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: because we do have individual responsibility, right for all have sin,
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: and I'm individually responsible to the to the to the
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: call of the gospel. In my life or to the
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: responsibilities of my identity and how that played itself out. Ye,
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: and I'm part of systems. I'm part of there's larger
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: realities at work that are more more than just the
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: individualistic tribal entity that I have. That I mean, it
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: helps explain why I have sin to begin with. Because
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: as one of my non Christian friends, and so you're
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: telling me some dude named Adam thousands of years ago
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: on the other side of the world ate some fruit
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: and now I'm messed up because of it. I'm like, yeah,
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: you actually that stinks, Like from his individualistic perspective, that's
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: unfair that someone over there would have this negative impact
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: on me today. That's a system, right, it's called the
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: human race sin. Yeah, the second atom gives us the
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: hope though another guy that you had nothing to do with,
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: that you didn't earn, and yet because of what he finished,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: this new system, this new reality can be placed into
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: your life. I'm often having to help people kind of
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: sometimes they're a little more collectivistic in their mindset and
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: so they lose the individualistic responsibility, or they're a little
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: too individualistic and they don't appreciate some of the larger
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: systems at play as well. Yeah, Keller, for me, has
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: been a huge help in this area as he tries
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: to recognize again we need to push into both and realities.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: As he says it, that we are individuals of systems
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: both for racial engagement but more so for kingdom engagement
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: and what that looks like.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's been interesting.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think when I was having more frequent
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: conversations about CRT, and I don't know whether I'm sad
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: that that conversation has sort of started to dwindle down
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: or whether I think it you know, we need to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: continue sort of bringing it back up and have good
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: biblical and theological conversations about systemic evil and our role
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: within that. But one of the things I found was
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: when I drive into Saint Louis from my house. I
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: live over on the Illinois side, so I'm drawing over
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: the Missouri side and I have to pass these It's
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: like strip club row and on one of the digital signs,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: they almost always have an AD and it says student
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: loans got you down, We're hiring wow, And I'm like,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: what an instance of systemic evil?
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: Wow?
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: You just think about all the things that come into
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: play for that sign to make sense, to work, to work,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: and you just sit back and you're like, Wow, this
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: is this is what we mean when we talk about
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: systemic evil. People are now you know, they're struggling under
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: student debt, and this place is going to offer them
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to exploit themselves to pay it off.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: And it always drives.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: And every time I see it, I'm like, man like,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: if we don't believe in systemic sin, I don't even
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: know how to make sense of that.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: Right, right, And and that's that's part of what I,
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: with a large number of my clients, is trying to
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: then recognize, as much as your individual narrative matters, it
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: is part of this larger system well for good and
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: for bad. So the bat that we examples like that
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: that highlight, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: against powers and principalities, against the that the agencies that
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: are at active work in these systems to pull down
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the Kingdom of God. And yet the calling for us
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: as a community of faith, right and so to me
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: that that then plays back into this discussion of ethnicity
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: and race that one of the greatest I heard this
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: quote recently, I don't even know who's attributed to, so
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: I'll pretend it's mine that the silence of God is
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: answered in the community.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Of the church.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: Violence of God has answered.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: In the community of the church. And there's something about,
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: particularly when the ethnic realities, that the things that on
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: paper we should not be together, but through the Gospel
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: we can come together. Is such a declaration to those powers, right,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: is such a pronouncement against those systems at work. But
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: it's through the church.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: It's not just me.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, I want to do the best I can,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: but to the scree that I have to be part
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: of this other system called the church. That's that's where
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: these these realities start taking place in some beautiful ways.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like we are the light of the world, right,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: and so we are the salt.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: We are the light.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: And it goes back to that Ephesians three ten passage
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: where we are calling the powers and principalities to account,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: demonstrating to them that they can't do what they're trying
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: to do. Only Christ can do what they are trying
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: to do. Absolutely, He is the ultimate power and authority,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: and so when we unify around him, we we demonstrate
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: something different.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: World.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Well, man, this has been great. We're coming up on
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the end. I'll give you kind of the last word.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: When we think about multiculturalism in the church and you
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: think about what could be done and some you know,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: maybe one or two concrete steps that we could take
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: to start advancing in this area, what comes to mind.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a great question, and again, thank you so
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: much for giving me some time. I I'm always interested
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: in people stories. I think it's one of the things
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: that got me into counseling, to become an educator, to
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: become a pastor, Like all the different opportunities I've had
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: in my life, it's always because I just love story,
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: whether it's your story, James, whether it's the church's story
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: and ultimately God's story.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: And I think that.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: Curiosity of just I want to get to know people
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: and understand their story has has helped me both developed
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: some if I can say cultural humility, right of recognizing
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: I clearly don't have the full story of existence, of truth,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: of reality. I do believe there is truth. I do
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: believe there's beauty. I do believe there is reality. It's
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: just I don't have it all. So I encourage people
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: just get curious about people's stories, especially when it comes
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: to this area of ethnicity and multiculturalism. I know, were
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: so encamped into our own political tribal realities, and it's
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: hard to get out of that.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: For me.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: One way I kind of push myself in others is
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: just get curious about other people's story. Let it develop
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: some cultural humility to help you understand I need I
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: need these other people, which to me then pushes me
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: into okay, so how can I be part of this?
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: The cultural humility actually energizes me more than anything else
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: when I realize I don't have all the answers I
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: need to hear these other stories. But you don't have
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: all the answers either. In fact, we're a bunch of
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: people that are stumbling through this thing. So how do
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: we help each other? And how do we help the
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: church and the community of God make movement towards this
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: greater reality called the Kingdom? Usually one kind of has
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: to come before the other. So I usually tell people
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: get curious about what God is doing in people in
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: other people's lives. Find ways to just learn about that
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: coffee podcast, whatever it is, and you'd be surprised that
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: what it helps you then kind of reprioritize in your
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: own heart and then what you can really get excited
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: about as God is wanting to move his kingdom.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: For his glory.
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: Very cool. Yeah, I like that a lot.
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Well, Ben, always a pleasure having you on. Thanks so
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: much for being here. I think this is an important topic.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you're tackling it and it's a great conversation.
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: Really appreciate it.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Always a joy for me, James.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: All right, everybody, Well, we will catch you on the
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: next episode of Thinking Christian check Down. In the show description,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I'll put a link to Ben's faculty page at CiU
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: and his CV is posted there. If you want to
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: check out some of the other stuff he's written and
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing, you can go right there and
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: check that out. Otherwise, just encourage you to come on
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: back listen to the next episode of Thinking Christian.
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Well, I just want to take a second to thank
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to life
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: audio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and more.