Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to that. Makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis resetting the Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the house sometimes alludes us. That makes total sense is a way for us to get together posture ourselves as learners and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Hi, I'm Alexis <inaudible> and this is, that makes total sense. I am just so thrilled even with COVID. I don't quite have zoom fatigued just yet. Especially early this morning, sitting across my computer screen from me is pastor Daniel Hill all the way in Chicago. And I'm so thrilled that he's here. Hey Daniel.
Speaker 2 00:00:59 Hey, Alexis is so good to be with you,
Speaker 1 00:01:01 Daniel. You are a pastor, you're an author. You're a speaker. You're a trainer. Can you give us a little bit of context for you and the church that you're currently pastoring and then we'll get into, into the meat of it?
Speaker 2 00:01:14 I'm sure. Yeah. So lifelong Chicago in, um, grew up thinking I would leave here at some point, but I'm 47 now. I think that ship has probably sailed. So I'm, um, pastor's kid. So I grew up in the church when I was a pastor and a scholar, fairly well known scholar in the angel community. So, um, I don't imagine this could actually possibly be the case, but the actual first word I remember saying wasn't mama or daddy, first word. I remember saying with the Caio sooner. Um, my dad wants a little sense of righteousness every day. So that's the kind of home I grew up in. So, um, uh, saw a lot of church dysfunction as a lot of people in our generation did. So kind of pretty significantly straightaway from church in high school and college get my business and undergrad. I was part of a few dot comms, um, but God kind of brought me back into the faith in my early twenties and ended up coming on staff at a large church in the Chicago suburbs called Willow Creek community church that was there, my whole twenties.
Speaker 2 00:02:05 And that's really where I kind of learned a different, different dimension of church work than I'd grown up with kind of more of the like intense scholarly type, you know, Willow Creek was much more known for its engaging people wherever they were at and trying to kind of create a welcoming environment. So it was kind of a very much again and yang kind of church experience. Um, it was there that, you know, probably a lot of what we'll talk about today, kind of the racial awakening process that a lot of us go through, especially those with her white, it was there that my racial awakening process began and so many, many chapters to that. But, um, when I was 29, January, 2003, uh, left there and started this church river city community church, which is the humble park neighborhood, Chicago, um, neighborhoods about half Latino, half African-American a little bit white major now with gentrification, pretty historically poor neighborhoods. So it's got a lot of the kind of dynamics you'd imagine with kind of urban life. And so we've been there 17 and a half years now administering that environment
Speaker 1 00:02:57 17 and a half years. Yeah, that's a, that's a bit, I mean that's a minute and I didn't think I'd realized it'd been that long. Yeah, that's incredible. Um, so you've got two books out right now. The first one is white awake, which I confessed via an Instagram story that it had been on my list for a while. And I actually didn't start reading it until I started reading white lies, but, um, but I did start it and it was, um, and it was incredible, but there, your newest release is white lies, which I finished yesterday. Um, white lies, nine ways to expose and resist the racial systems that divide us and Daniel. That was incredible. I don't think I was prepared fully for, for what I was going to read inside of white lies, but can you give us kind of a, I don't know, kind of the inside cover flat to that before we get into the content, because while we don't have, I know you're open to not necessarily staying to every single thing that would be in the book. There was just so much good content there that I want to, I have a few notes of things that I hope you'll explore with us.
Speaker 2 00:04:09 Yeah. Thanks. Well, just to give like a thumbnail sketch so right away, cause I don't want to exactly call them one Oh one, two Oh one, but I think it has a little field like that wide awake is really for the white Christian in particular, but the white person in general, who's beginning the process of contending with race and seeing race. And um, oftentimes that actually feels like we're deeper than we are. It's kind of, most of us conscribed that light bulb moment, so to speak, you know, where we, you know, in fact for a lot of people this year, George Floyd was that light bulb moment, right. Where they're starting to see something, what a lot of whites, what a lot of us who are white fail to realize is that like the light bulb moment doesn't mean you're deep in the journey. It means that's like day one, right?
Speaker 2 00:04:39 So there's like a lot of stuff that's going to happen. There's a lot, we're conditioned to have a lot of defense mechanisms to the growing reality of race. So what awake is really to like help the white Christian steady the course to like really stay on this journey. And again, I think it's applicable to somebody, not a Christian, but it's very much rooted in the reality that I just believe that the only staying power that really lasts for people is belief that Jesus cares about this deeply and that if you love Jesus, you hate white supremacy, you know? And so that's kind of the starting point white lies, which we're talking about today. It's a little bit more of two one, just in the sense that it's got kind of a starting assumption that somebody cares deeply about this, um, and is looking how to continue to move forward in the process of naming, identifying, joining the ranks of those who are challenging dismantling and even hopefully by God's grace uprooting it at a minimum within the spaces we're in, hopefully in society someday. So it's kind of thinking about the white journey specifically. That's trying to come up against the system of race and white supremacy.
Speaker 1 00:05:36 Right. And I think that, um, thank you for that. I feel like when, when you talk about wide awake and just kind of having that realization, like I've got to contend with race. Um, one of the things that has stuck out to me, um, I mentioned when we had, uh, before we started recording that I'm in my first quarter of seminary right now. And so it's, it's a little bit like trying to drink from the water, uh, from the fire hose, um, in, in some ways, but in one of my courses, I kind of followed a rabbit trail of, of journals and ended up at, um, one that was written by a professor. And she was talking about how in class, when people were, they were talking about race and having conversation and basically writing these kinds of autobiographies, um, about their own spiritual formation, um, that the white students really didn't tend to identify with race at all.
Speaker 1 00:06:37 Or they would use phrases kind of like, Oh, I'm just white or I'm just an American, you know, so, and so is a, is a Mexican American or an African American, but I'm just an American. And it really sent something off in her. The professor was also white, but it sent something off in her of what, what is this? Why, why, why can't my white students name anything about their racial or ethnic identity? And so I, um, and in my house, my husband's white, I am my mom's Mexican American. My dad is white. And so we kind of joke that it's like, well, because white is neutral, it's kind of the unraised right? Like, like that's kind of how it's seen. Um, it's, it's, it's like, it is the, it just kind of is. And then everything else kind of has to, has to recognize itself in relationship to this, to white. Um, and that is something that people of color have probably always recognized, but white people have not always recognized that. Right. So can you tell us, like, what was, and this is kind of going back to wide awake a minute, but will you just for a minute kind of revisit that moment of awakening for you where you were like, Oh, this is a thing like being white is a thing
Speaker 2 00:08:04 You don't want to, um, I don't feel a need in order to do. I think we need to talk about white privilege at all. Um, other than just I'll use this phrase, my pastor friend in Chicago, Julian to Shazzie a black customer Southside defines privilege is simply the ability to walk away, which I think is an interesting way to think about privileges across the board. Um, I say that because growing up, I realized there was multiple points where I could have and should have engaged with race deeply. Right. And so simply no matter how hard my life would have been at any point, the fact that I could walk away from the race conversation, just my life was a lifelong when a privilege. So we're actually began was an unusual and unlikely place. It was actually a wedding that ignited, um, one of my good friends who was in India, his parents were from India and he was, you know, he had grown up here and he was getting married to a white woman.
Speaker 2 00:08:46 And so it had a very intercultural feel to the wedding. And he said, Hey, at the wedding rehearsal the night before, you're going to get a deep dive into Indian culture. I was like, Oh great. I can't wait for that. You know, and indeed we did. It was like a really fun evening and, um, get to see, you know, all these different kind of elements of Indian culture at that. At the end, I wanted a compliment to my, I really meant it sincerely as a compliment at the end of polluting. I set aside and I said, Hey, I just want to tell you, I'm so thankful for this and that, if I'm honest, I'm actually jealous of you. Um, you've got such an amazing culture and like, obviously it's a white person. I don't have the culture. And so this was a real treat for me.
Speaker 2 00:09:18 You know, it's people experience something like this, and this was a gregarious, fun, loving guy who very rarely had serious conversations. Um, but he'd got very serious in the moment. I'm there for his wedding. And put his hand on my shoulder was a big guy, big, tall guy. And he said, Daniel, not only do you have a culture when your culture comes in contact with other cultures, yours always wins. One of the greatest gifts you could give me for my wedding is to become serious about understanding your own culture. And if I'm honest like that, there's nothing inspiring about that. Or, but like it ticked me off, right. It felt unfair to like, love me in with all other white people. And then to like, not only do that, couldn't even grasp that part. But then to say that Michael trolleys wins when it comes to contact with other cultures and like, what, so that's where my journey began.
Speaker 2 00:09:58 And it was really in a defensive place. I really wanted to disprove him. I wanted to kind of aggregate some arguments that could kind of undermine kind of what he had said to me. And it was in that process of trying to make sense of what he said that I started getting exposed to. What's very, like you said, like very common thinking among most people of color who have had to navigate the system of white it's their whole life, but white people. Yeah. You know that one of the adages is often used just like a fish to describe the water it lives in. Right. Like even if you decide, you want to understand it, it's so confusing because it's all you've ever breathed. That's all you've ever known. Right. So that's really the process began and it really took me a couple of years to start making sense of it.
Speaker 2 00:10:33 And then as I start to become making sense of it, that's when like this kind of immense faith crisis started to form right alongside of it. Because you start to realize, like, that's a big conversation trying to understand what's unique about whiteness to all other cultures, like what makes it, what it is, um, in the kind of lengthy history of this behind it. So I'll stop there. That's, that's the, that's really where the awakening part you. So I was in my, yeah, I think it was like 24, 25. So with that, when that happened and like that's what really kind of made the journey for me, totally confessing. There was points along the way I should have been engaged, but ironically it was the beginning of the process.
Speaker 1 00:11:03 But I, but I think that when you say like you, you could, you could walk away. That's true. I mean, I actually read that last night in, in and wide awake, both of those things that the definition of privilege and the fish trying to describe the water because actually my husband who is white has not read white awake, but when he kind of had this like major turning moment in the last few months, he looked at me and said those exact words, like he described it in that exact way. He's like, babe, I've been swimming. It's like, you're trying to tell me there's something besides being under the ocean. Right. And I don't believe you right.
Speaker 2 00:11:40 The world. And I mentioned the well, but it's, I like that metaphor too, because not only does it describe the difficulty in understanding white culture, but if you use that metaphor, it's terrifying. The feeling is if I come out and squatter on my die, right. That's another reason why it's so terrified. It's not just a lack of information. There's a terror that kind of gets unbleached. Like this is the only way I've come to know the world. So if you start pulling on this thread, how deep is this going to go? Right? Like what, why they left at the end and to put a Christian perspective on it. Like, this is what a lot of white folks who are from white evangelical or white conservative Christian environments, especially when they find out how much whiteness has been kind of wrapped around the gospel over the course of life. It's a terrifying reality. I think I might not. There might not be no Jesus at the end, there might not be no actual faith yet, which I don't think is the case at all. Obviously I'm more committed to follow Jesus than ever, but that's a terror. It's a little terror. It's not just a fair fear. It's a terror that comes on to white folks that if, yeah, it just seems safer to kind of go with the status quo and to risk discovering how deep the whole thing goes.
Speaker 1 00:12:39 For sure. And that's actually, what I was going to ask you is, is I feel like there are, um, there may have been some people who just got lost when you said it became a faith crisis because this like, okay, what like white culture and you're white. Okay, great. But you're also a Christian, like what does this even have to do with your faith? Right? Like what, what, what does this even have to do with your faith? So I'd like for you to tell me a little bit about that. And then I feel like that's a great place to kind of go into the intro that D what dr. Willie Jennings talks about specifically about, um, about the church in America, but what was it for you? Like, why did that turn? Because I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm watching kind of these eyebrows going, like, what, like, how did, how did that realizing, uh, something about your whiteness turn into a crisis of faith? Like, there's not a connection there yet for something.
Speaker 2 00:13:34 Yeah. So I can go ahead eat for just like two or three minutes, but it's kind of hard to grasp the stuff I like. So when I go back to my Willow Creek days, when I was trying to disprove my friend, who said, I know that you have a culture, but there's was always wins when I start trying to understand, okay, is there such a thing as white culture? If so, what is it? Whatever he kept saying as well, white culture doesn't make sense until you understand the system and construct of race. Oh, great. I really don't have any idea what you're talking about. Right. I'm okay. Like did like take me on the journey. What is the system of contract of race? And this is where, um, and if I can actually do parallel tracks, this is what becomes confusing for Christian. Cause on white conservative, Christian settings, racist never talked about slight bit.
Speaker 2 00:14:10 Racism has talked about like the sense that you shouldn't mistreat somebody or look down upon somebody. Like, we all agree that you shouldn't miss. That's what we'll get to this. That's not really talking about race at all. Right. So I had to kind of leave the church to learn about race and then come back into the church, kind of put it back together with what I had learned biblically, which is one of the reasons I think it's, I actually think white Christians already a bigger disadvantage than any single population of white people when it comes to understanding grace. So I had to go into kind of academic spaces like that, which were often called liberal and had an agenda, you know, to undermine, spread the gospel. There was a whole lot I had to work through, but so I'm to understand what is a system of contract of race, right?
Speaker 2 00:14:44 So pretty much what everybody agrees is what we know of as the system of race it's created by human beings, right? It's 500 years or less old, which is not actually super old in the grand scheme of things. Right. I'm like, okay, that's super confusing. I'm not sure it aligns with my theology. I mean, theologically, I believe God is the one who created all human beings. If you're saying race is created by human beings, they're like, no, no, no, no. So eventually what I was able to do is kind of differentiate kind of a biblical idea of like ethnicity, like ethnicity, I think is something that's all through scripture, right? The word ethnicity was constantly a new Testament in Matthew 28, go to all the nations, all the ethnicities and proclaim the gospel where I may have built, build, build disciples. Um, acts 17 when the apostle Paul is talking to the Athenians at Mars Hill and he says, um, God has established the boundaries of every ethnos of every ethnic group that like who you are, the kind of ethnicity and culture you come from that I firmly believe that's of God and redeemable and Repart reflects his sovereignty.
Speaker 2 00:15:38 Of course it can be corrupted. Like anything it'd be corrupted because we're simple beings, but ethnicity being something that's from God from the beginning, that's been reflected since as long as there's been people that helped me understand like, so race is something completely different. In fact, I think it's important. We, this one thing you want to say in the book, I think whenever we use the word race, we should have a shutter Layla like a feeling go up the back of our neck saying, Oh, we're talking about something evil right now. Like the word race should be equivalent to evil. I think because what they mean by a construct is there was a system of classifying human beings that was used basically to justify the two most pervasive barbaric things we've ever seen on this side of the world. Right. Of colonialism and therefore kind of killing off native people and then of slavery.
Speaker 2 00:16:20 Right. And most of us can agree. Those were horrible things. What a lot of us, especially verse white don't understand is that the system of race was created to categorize human beings. Right. So there had to be Europeans weren't called white when they started coming to America, right? Like, you know, I'm Irish, I've done like a lot of historical work and kind of my like Irish Jewish, Irish work, definitely not white when they started coming, you know, you had Italians and poles and French and all the, you know, and most of them have bitter infighting between them. Right. But as they had to make sense of like the surgeon colonialism and of the kind of need for slavery, you had to kind of consolidate all the European groups into this category called white. You had to establish blackness as something that was synonymous to slavery and to being able to be owned by human beings.
Speaker 2 00:17:03 And so, so, so race is a system basically that says white people are inherently superior. Black people are inherently inferior. Everybody else finds their worth and value in between. Which of course anybody who's a Christian knows. That's a direct assault on how the Bible talks about human beings. The Bible says human beings find their dignity in the fact that they're creating the image and likeness of God that nobody can challenge or take away the danger of a human being because we reflect the divinity of God. So race is a literal, the system of race was designed to attack and assault God. Um, and so even though that was created 500 years ago, we still live within the messaging, that social construct. And so that was all th that was like where my breakthrough happened. Okay. The ethnicity, the fact that I'm a white guy, you know, made up of Irish, French, and German, that's all part of God's good dad design and sovereignty, right? Like I'm not, I'm not questioning the veracity of God's goodness in that. But I live in this system of race that assigns meaning based on those things and organizes all of society around those things. That part is really dangerous and bad in an assault on God. And so I need to embrace who I am so that I can enter into this kind of fallen construct that directly assaults the kind of image of God in all people.
Speaker 1 00:18:17 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:18:19 And there, you can help us go from where to go from there.
Speaker 1 00:18:21 No, it's really good because I think that, um, one of the first times that that was pointed out to me in a very, um, in, in, in a similar way that, that you just pointed it out, um, was probably when I read Latasha Morrison's book. Um, and, and she does also an incredible job of, of kind of putting that forward because it, and, and th this is, this is probably where we're going to go. Cause I just thought I was thinking of this intertwining, right. Because we, because we sing as children, Jesus loves the little children, red and yellow, black, and white. They are precious, precious in his sight. And in our minds, even as grownups, when I think red and yellow, black and white, I think of a census form. Right. Okay. Well, here we all are, here are our races and God loves our, you know, and it's just this intertwining, um, of, of this because we think, okay, well God made us red and yellow, black and white.
Speaker 1 00:19:18 And so he loves that. But like you said, it's this race and this construct of racist, evil, but ethnicity and having different groups and having differences, different nations and tribes and tongues is beautiful. Um, but race is not the same thing as that. And, and that is kind of where it is. So, so maybe from there, we can go to this, um, this intro of your book, where you give an analogy that dr. Willie Jennings gives. I am, I am a fan of dr. Willie Jennings. He is, uh, just a brilliant theologian, but this, um, this introductory and analogy, I, it sets the stage for everything in the book. And, and I feel like it maybe will help us connect that picture between Y recognizing the part of your white culture and then the faith, why there, why there was the connection. So can you talk about that? And Knology that Willie Jennings gave us
Speaker 2 00:20:22 Yes. Um, happily, and it's an analogy it's very powerful to me to, it is one that's a little risky. If somebody is unfamiliar with the conversation of race, it's gonna, it's going to be a little bit of an inaccessible one. So I, is it, can I suggest, cause the whole analogy is built on white supremacy. Should we talk about white supremacy for a minute before using the appellant? So he tried to describe the major white supremacy, so we've kind of hinted at it, but I do think it's important to address you. And I have talked about for a lot of us, the term white supremacy is a very charged term. It's very polarizing term. It's a very, I don't know, what's the word when it actually almost pushes you in reverse, right? Like it's not one that pulls you into the conversation. It's one risk shutting people down, especially white people.
Speaker 2 00:21:02 Right. Um, and in my earlier work doing this, I would try to work around that. But now I'm realizing that's, that's a bad idea because, um, white supremacy is actually one of the best terms that there could have been to describe this. So the problem with white sperm. So we've been conditioned to think of it exclusively as the most extreme forms of racial hatred. Right? So most of us, when we think white supremacy, we think of KKK, we think of combat boots. We think of Tiki torches. You know, we think of white supremacist rally and stuff like that. Right. And so it's really easy for almost all equal. They'll say that's terrible. Right? Like I reject that wholeheartedly. There's no confusion in here about describe me at all. Right. It doesn't describe me even at my worst moment. It doesn't describe me. Right. So there's just an immediate association with the term, right?
Speaker 2 00:21:48 The problem is that's not really what white supremacy is. Um, extreme violence is a natural extension of the full measure of white supremacy, but white supremacy describing an ideology, plain and simple describing an ideology. And that's where the terminology is right on. Like those supremacy sounds is such a loaded word. It's a simple word. It just says, there's something that's inherently Supreme, right? There's something that's inherently stupid. That's inherently superior. And so another phrase that's kind of coming out around, especially this kind of post George Floyd kind of setting Warren as we hear the term, anti-blackness a lot. Right. Which people don't always exactly know what that term means, but really anti-blackness is nearly synonymous with white supremacy. Right? So it's saying it's an ideology of the world that says white, the Supreme or superior black is inferior or less than human. Um, and then organize the world around that.
Speaker 2 00:22:37 And this is, if I can go back to your other comment, this is what gets tricky of, especially those which are Christian. We grew up thinking red and yellow, black and white, they're all precious in God's sight. That's a hundred percent. Right, right. Like w we don't actually need a different theology than that. That is absolutely right. So, but what that should do is if on one hand, we're seeing that sign, and then the other hand we hear white supremacy and anti-blackness are real. What should happen should be like super basic. We should say, this is what I believe. God says that all human beings have value. This is what white supremacy says that no, not all human beings have the same value that actually white people are more like, they're almost like dummy gods that, you know, they're slight like godlike and they're in the, in how we're created. And then in a terrifying way, it says black people are literally so human, right. They're littlest and human. Of course, that was necessary in order to justify slavery. You can't have a whole country owning black people without creating a story behind that narrative behind that, that says black people are inferior. Right. Yeah. Please,
Speaker 1 00:23:28 If I interrupt for just a moment, because I feel like, um, it was it's actually, when you, when you were just keeping saying that the red and yellow, black, and white, so my mom who's Mexican American. She had said to me multiple times, you know, they left me out of that song. Right. Because I'm Brown. And, and, um, and so what I think is also important, and this feels, again, this, this is not a comfortable conversation. Like I almost feel like we should have like a disclaimer, right? Like this is not a comfortable conversation to have, but, but that our value when there's, there's whiteness and blackness, but our value based on what white supremacy says, it, our value is defined for us on our proximity to, to whiteness. And I think that might be one of the words that you use and blackness, for sure.
Speaker 1 00:24:15 Right. And so, and so there's kind of like, I'm getting ahead of myself, but we'll talk about it later. One drop rule and stuff like that. Right. But then there's also, you know, you have people of mixed races who, um, can this person pass, you know, kind of using that in quotes, can this person pass as white, um, can, does this person have the ability to do this or that, how, how is assimilation working for some of these shades in between whiteness and blackness? Um, and, and the society, the world, like the, the, the construct of race is defining our value for us kind of, um, with, you know, not just whiteness and blackness, but our proximity to either one, um, on this scale, on this continuum of, of whiteness and blackness is, is that fair? Totally, totally. So sorry, please. If you can remember where you were before that,
Speaker 2 00:25:13 So what we're doing, we're kind of going to come in and out of this, we're gonna have like some practical conversations around what it means, but we're also taking a step back and talking about like how to even think about it. Right. So, you know, I would say this is probably true for everybody. This is particularly true of white folks. Like at a large level first, we just have to understand what it is. Like we have to come to a knowledge of what is the system of race that's kind of powered by white supremacy. Um, can we define it for ourselves? Can we understand, like, forget it, forget it, any conversations of, what does it mean for you? Does it implicate me or not implicate me? Do I think it or not that like, you almost have to suspend all of those things, right? Because it's the moment you start evaluating your own self, without a clear understand what the thing is out there.
Speaker 2 00:25:48 It tends to shut down the process. Right? So I'd say like, like that's the, that's the first enormous task is to kind of start to wrap our mind around what it is. Right. And we've already done a lot of that. It's not actually that complicated to say it is complicated to like see it right when you've been conditioned not to see it, but it's like, I think the first big task is just understanding what it is, like being able to have a sense. Then I think, especially for those who follow Jesus, I think the next big step and something that we're not taught to do in church, we're not there to do either. We're not taught to understand what it is. But the second thing is we have to understand why it's absolutely horrible from a spiritual perspective. Right? Right. Like it has clear social implications.
Speaker 2 00:26:24 I'm not minimizing that, but at its heart, white supremacy is a spiritual problem because it's defining human beings. That's literally like we should make it more complicated that the system of race is built on a lie that categorizes human beings, like you said, based on proximity to the superiority of whiteness and basically the inferiority of blackness, that's really where somebody needs their content like that. Can I hear that? Can I believe that that's real again, forget what it even means to be. Can I believe that that's real, that there's this 500 year old system of race to categorize people based on proximity to whiteness and blackness. And then can I say it out loud? If that's true, then Jesus must hate that. He just says red, Brown, yellow, black, and white, they're all precious in his sight. Right. Which is how a lot of people tend to that song to attend to the same thing that your mother said, right.
Speaker 2 00:27:06 Just sneak around in the red, Brown, yellow, black, and white, they are precious in the sight. So that, that is an omission for sure. Which I think we could even have a conversation on how that happened. But anyway, that's that. So I feel like this is probably the big work that has to happen is I say, I understand that it's true. And I understand you just must hate that because it tries to categorize people differently than he categorizes, which is playing God. Right. That's page. One of the Bible is in God's image, right? Male and female, God created them in his likeness and his image. That's where human value comes from. So something attacks that shouldn't just be, shouldn't just go without saying that that's something Jesus hates, right. Then somebody is ready to start having all the other conversations, but I actually find it straightforward as those first two are there's real and undisputable way that Jesus hates that that's actually an enormous task for most of us to get to that place where we can embrace both of those things. Yes,
Speaker 1 00:27:50 Yes, no, I, I, I completely agree with that. And, and even after, um, after George Floyd's death, I kind of jokingly say, I have talked to my dad more in the last few months, on a weekly basis, you know, multiple times a week than I have in the last 20 years almost because, um, he and I have really similar perspectives and he'll call and just say, I've just got a bent. I just read this in the news. And I've just, you know, I've just got to banner, I've got to do this. And at the beginning of our conversations, he was using the words, white supremacy with me over and over and over again. And I have to tell you that was making me shutter, but for not for the right reasons, because I was kind of like, I was almost kind of like, what, what is he talking about?
Speaker 1 00:28:38 He's crazy. Right? Like we, he and I both read the book almost together. We read, um, there's a book. I think it's by, uh, Derek black, uh, called rising out of hatred. So he was a former white supremacist who, um, who, uh, got turned around basically with, by relationships and, um, completely turned as he turned his life around. But I S I was envisioning him. Right. It's kind of like you said, like it was, it's the KKK, it's that, it's the riots, all of this stuff. And I'm kind of like, I don't, I'm not sure why my dad has gone off the deep end here. Why does he keep saying white supremacy? When what I know he means is racism. And then it slowly started to hit me. No, no, no, no, no. My dad was a hundred percent. Right, right. What he meant was white supremacy, because that is, as you say, that is the construct.
Speaker 1 00:29:30 That is the lie. That is the, I love how you name it in your book. That is the principality that we are up against. Um, it's easy to say racism falls off the tongue easier than white supremacy does. And, and so I, I'm just saying, I agree with you from an experiential standpoint that, um, that, that is a big, that is something big that we have to contend with first to recognize it is a thing and naming it and, and just naming it and agreeing and saying, yeah, that really is out there. That really is a thing. And it's not just out there, it's here. So I'm so sorry. We were going to talk about, uh, the, the analogy. I mean, I don't know, I say you are, are we ready? I know we may not actually be really ready. Um, but now that we've kind of defined white supremacy, are we ready to go there a little bit?
Speaker 2 00:30:30 Yeah. I'm happy to if you think you're. Yeah. So the reason I kind of just stress that is if you're unconvinced that white supremacy is real. And if you're unconvinced that it's a huge problem facing all of us, right. If you're unconvinced written, I mean, for me, and I don't want to, I want to be judgmental about these things, but I feel like once you see it for what it is like, we're not talking about white people. We're talking about an ideology that says whiteness is superior. Blackness is inferior, and then organize the world around that. Once you see that there should never again be ambiguity, but Hey, is it real? And B, should I be standing up against constantly? Right. I mean, for me, I'd go so far to say, it's like, if you're not regularly evaluating the degree to which your part of the fight against this ideology, then kind of what are you doing?
Speaker 2 00:31:07 Right. Like, it just means you're right. I mean, if that's true, right. If it's really true, and again, if you don't believe that that's, we have to have a conversation, but if it's true that there's this kind of pulsating ideology that everyday communicates that one group of people is inherently superior and other groups inherently inferior. And then it's organizing hospitals and neighborhoods and economic systems and schools around that reality. Right. Like none of us can stand by, ideally. All right. So the problem is we get lost in terminology or we feel attacked. And so we start defending ourselves, you know, and it's just like, I just feel like we've missed the larger point. We're trying to understand that this ideology is pulsating on a daily basis and we need to be standing up like this. All right. So all I'm again, summarizing is what, what you're going to kind of lead into.
Speaker 2 00:31:51 Now. I like, how did it get here? How has it survived as long as it has, how does it continue to pass on from generation generation also, I think really important conversations, ready to go there with you if you want, but I'm just acknowledging if you don't have, as a starting point, I believe it's real. I believe I want to stand up against it. This next part will be hard for the person who already does see that we have to go to the next part. So if you feel ready to go, the next part, I'm ready to do it.
Speaker 1 00:32:13 Good. Then let's do it. And, um, and I'm going to throw out the word and then, and then I'm going to let you, you lead us through the analogy. So Don dr. Willie Jennings is a professor at the Yale divinity school. Um, he writes on, he writes on theology, not just about issues of race, but he is definitely seen as, um, I mean, just internationally known as being, um, really wise in this space. Um, not just from, not just from the perspective of, of race and sociology and kind of in a secular way, but, but definitely from the perspective of faith, he, he definitely has a faith lens when it comes to this. And the analogy he uses is of a parasite. Right. So now I've said it parasite, tell us what dr. Jennings says. And then, uh, and I, I felt like this was, you know, I, even though you don't necessarily mention the, this analogy in your book a lot, I definitely feel like it set the stage for everything that you presented. And, and in my mind, I was continuously going back to this picture, which is, which is ugly. But, um,
Speaker 2 00:33:31 Me too, no, it's been a really helpful one for me too. Yeah. So when he tries to describe this ideology of white supremacy and kind of what it is yet, he uses image of a parasite, which probably we have a sense of that. But, you know, Joan speaking parasite is a Massey little organism, right? That is unable. And just in general, in the creative world is unable to survive on its own. And in order to survive has to attach itself to a larger host, right? And so a parasite and a host kind of develop this symbiotic relationship where for the parasite to survive, it draws its nutrients and vitamins, whatever it needs, you know, from the host. And it's almost always a negative influence on the host. So he's saying white supremacy as an ideology can survive on its own. It has to attach itself to something, right.
Speaker 2 00:34:10 So that's just interesting itself, you know, then you go, okay, what did I have to touch stuff? And so he makes a case that, um, for what's prompt some remedies by particular, the Western world in North America, that attach itself to Christianity as the host, which is kind of a terrifying idea that this evil ideology that organizes human beings not only survived in general, but survived because it attaches itself to Christianity. So, yeah. So if white supremacy is a parasite that needed a host attached to Christianity, it's a terrifying idea right there, not only white supremacy survived for generation generation, right. And again, most would guess it put it about 500 years old, very much tied to the advent of slavery is where white supremacy really solidified an ideology, but then it's a hype because of the church, right. So we can go down that road if we want, but I, um, the that's to me, and this is where as a pastor, this becomes really relevant to me.
Speaker 2 00:35:00 Um, so when I try to make sense of, right, like one of the, one of the strongest things in the new Testament is that the church is meant to be unified, right? It's meant to be this unified body across all different tongues, all different nations. Right. Um, and when you look in the United States, particular like clearly we're not unified, right. Work period divided. And I think it's pretty uncommon and biggest case to make that the most racial, the most severe division we experienced would be around Rick's. Right. Um, even again, like I'm not making any political company budgets, but even just the latest stat show, I think it's now up to 85% of white evangelicals support Trump, 5% of black Kevin Joko support Trump. Right. I mean, the is in many ways magnified, most clearly, you know, in terms of like the differences in terms of how we look to politicians to kind of enact, you know, what we believe the Bible says we should be doing in society.
Speaker 2 00:35:47 Right. So, um, uh, so when I try to make sense of the growing polarization around this, it, when he said that I literally had an aha moment because it explained to the groups I see in my church that are coming from very different polls. Um, what I see more than ever. I see people who grew up, but particularly people who grew up around the white church, white Christians, but also people of color who grew up around the white church. They're leaving it. Like, I mean, that's well documented. They're leaving in mass and there's different reasons why people can disenfranchise. But I do think one of the most substantial reasons in terms of folks, I know it's because they're sick of the way the church, what they would perceive. It makes allowance for white supremacy, like makes it like it doesn't, you know, if there's something that happens to society, a black person is killed, you know, unfairly, the church will never mentioned it because they don't want to, like, they don't want to dip their toes in the water, white supremacy, the bottom line, just saying a lot of people are leaving the church because they see the church as the white church as being complicit with white supremacy.
Speaker 2 00:36:45 And then on the other end, there are so many white Christians who refuse to acknowledge the reality of white supremacy in general, but for sure, the presence of white supremacy in the white church. And so rather than having thoughtful, engaging conversations around white supremacy, they defend white Christianity from it. And what they don't realize that they're basically defending white supremacy along with Christianity. So there's a very thoughtful, authentic defense of Christianity. It's mixed in with a unthoughtful, terrible defense of white supremacy. And what I think you see do, I actually think both groups are guilty of the same thing. It's a refusal to decouple the things, right? If it's a parasitic relationship, it gives you a sense of what needs to happen, right? It doesn't mean the host is wrong. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Christianity. It needs something horrible is attached itself to Christianity.
Speaker 2 00:37:27 And the horrible thing has to be pulled off, right? As we pulled out, it has to be decoupled as we separated. And it's been helpful for me at that level to say, Oh, the word is actually the same. Despite the extreme on both sides. In both cases for the people are walking away from the church, I have to help them be couple and say, I'm not minimizing experience. I actually think it's true that we've been complicit, but don't be intellectually lazy and assume that Jesus is not real. Because some people who follow him have refused to be couple of white Springs. You don't fall into the same trap as them of refusing to decouple them. And for folks who have grown up in white church and never experienced the reality of what white supremacy is and how hosts itself, it brings light by attaching some to the host of Christianity.
Speaker 2 00:38:05 It's very careful. This is where it feels very pastoral to me. It's not as simple as just teaching a lesson and saying, all right, we got that good. Let's move on. That's the scary part of a parasite. We actually just did this. We're caucusing at our church right now, all summer where, um, the white folks, black folks, Latin X folks, Asian folks are meeting weekly to kind of discuss the system of race, kind of in the wake of all the George flight stuff. So we just had this conversation, we're going through white lies and the white group. And on the weekend, the parasite, um, um, somebody was saying actually, was it really thoughtful? He said, he actually has a parasite that he like can't kick. And so at first glance, he thought that it wasn't a sufficient metaphor, but then he started studying parasites and he found in India that there's this parasite that once it gets in you, um, the doctors can't get it out in one shot.
Speaker 2 00:38:51 So they have to break, open the skin. And then once a day, they have to get a whole, it's like a worm kind of a parasite once a day, they have to pull just a little bit and then they can't go anymore. Cause it can do damage to you. And so you can do this over a course of like seven to 10 days upon per set out, and then they can get it out. But it's gotta be this very careful thoughtful kind of extraction, which she's like Matt, when I think of it, that's it like in comparison to Jesus? That's how big white supremacy is. Is that right? There's no contest between white supremacy and Jesus, but it also shouldn't be minimized that once it's gotten in deep, um, it may be small compared to Jesus, but it's, it's, it's, uh, not only a little bit of a painful process, but it's like, you have to be careful with it.
Speaker 2 00:39:26 Right. Cause if you do put too hard, too fast, if you, if you treat it too broadly, right. You start to hit other things besides what? Right. So, um, so there's profound implications for me as a pastor thinking about, and it's the Holy spirit that does, it's not me, but as I contribute to that going, like, again, this isn't an intellectual thing where I want to convince people that race is real and like, okay, good. We're all on the same side of this can move forward. It's like saying now, like this thing kind of lives in us a little bit now in Jesus is real and true and beautiful, which is why we have to go after this. Right? If something lives inside of that host, now we have to get that out because it's inevitable that it'll take away from the beauty of who he is. But the question here isn't as Jesus real and true and beautiful. The question is, is it true that something like the person who has supremacy could get in, um, and that becomes a lot of up till now. We've been talking about the workout, they're combating it, but like that's the internal work for me, especially if those are white, is what does that process look like to pull the warm out, so to speak so that it's not infecting us anymore,
Speaker 1 00:40:22 Right? No, I, I was, I was reminded, so it kind of a few parts of your book are, we're kind of melding together as you were talking about that. And, um, and it was, it was this, this, uh, message of wokeness, uh, kind of combined with this confronting the lie dueling with the devil kind of thing in the repentance. And so how that went together for me in my head, um, real quick, I thought this was funny. Um, and I think I've shared it on, on one other episode, but I've shared it with some close friends of mine. So this was after, um, the murder of a mod Arbery became public. Um, this was a big deal for a lot of people, but, um, there were several people who I had communicated with who were like, what, what is the, what is the deal like we've been in the news like, like eight hours a day.
Speaker 1 00:41:17 All right. Let's this was like, at the beginning of the COVID locked down. It's like, how in the world did we not see this? Well, because it wasn't reported. Right. And so, so there was, you know, the, this fact that it kind of came much later that we became aware of what had happened in all of this. And, and it was on mother's day weekend, and we're sitting in the front yard and, and I think I was reading jemartisby his book color of compromise. And I was just kind of, um, thinking about, um, uh, mod Arbery and, and I'm, I'm emotional, I'm, I'm affected thinking about his mother and, and I'm just kind of having this this whole day, right. Was just, was just kind of a really, um, a really somber day for me and my husband kind of looks over. And at one point I kind of have what, what I look back, it's kind of like this funny, kind of this internal kind of breaking point moment and what came out of my mouth was I'm crying. And what came out of my mouth was I'm just not as woke as I thought I was. Right. And I'm like, I'm like crying. My husband looks over at me and he says, I don't even know what that means, but I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1 00:42:26 This was, this was before he knew that he was swimming in the water. Right. Um, but you know, part of it is I'm like I have a masters green social justice. I have a, you know, I, according to some people in biracial definitely have mixed ethnicity. I'm a trans racially adoptive parent. I was a social worker. I've done the reading, like I'm aware, you know, and, and it was something about his death that brought another sense of awakening for me, but it was this, um, exactly, as you say, uh, and, and kind of how you end your book with this daily repentance, this is an internal work, but where I would like for you to go, if you have in, in the moments that we have left is I'm just gonna throw it out there and say, I have, um, I have seen probably like a lot of people have seen it and you experienced yourself when we start talking about this, there are people specifically, I'm just going to say, there are white Christians who will come and say, this doesn't have anything to do with faith.
Speaker 1 00:43:32 Or they will say, it's only it's yes, it's a sin issue or something like that. But the overarching field that I get in the, and the comments that I read are basically like, you're studying something secular and you're trying to take away from the gospel. You're trying to pivot our attention. You're trying to pivot the attention of the church. You're trying to make this into something that it isn't, I don't know if you've seen these types of comments, I'm crediting this conversation, right? It is a way of discrediting the conversation. I agree. But one of the things that, um, when I actually actually wrote down a quote from your book, that was, that was really great for me. It says every time you experienced tram from transformation, at one level of sight, you'll move to the next level of ignorance that must be contended with.
Speaker 1 00:44:25 And I thought, no one is going to disagree with that statement. If we look at it in discipleship and truth as a whole, right, we are be, are being transformed glory to glory, right? We are working out our salvation with fear and trembling. We are experiencing sanctification. We are moving to greater levels of righteousness and knowing Jesus. And if you took that statement and put it in the context of anything related to Christian discipleship, that would get a Hardy. Amen. Right. Um, I feel like the difference is when it comes to this subject and, and you lay the framework for it beautifully in the book of saying, when we recognize white supremacy as a, as a lie, and we are people of the truth, then this is included in that transformation process, granted, and you're not making the argument that it's the only thing that's included in the transformation process, but it is part of the transformation process. So maybe in the moments we have left, can you talk about how or why including this topic as a part of the broader work of discipleship and, and, and really personally for sanctification, why that's important for us individually and the church? I know that's a real small question, but maybe just give us a little, just give us a little foretaste of that. Some encouragement that we can move forward. Um, once we recognize this, this is what it is.
Speaker 2 00:45:53 So let's start a little bit specific, then go more broad, you know, one of the things, particularly those who've grown up in conservative Christian spaces who have been conditioned to see conversations on race is social or political or liberal. Um, one of the things I try to want to exercise, I try to take them through immediately just to help them understand a psychic break that they haven't even identified for themselves. Um, it's unquestioned and religious rights circles. That one of the most important manifestations of faith is to be pro-life and to challenge the system of abortion. Right. I mean, that's kind of, that's, that's assumed everywhere. Right? And, um, and I say, isn't that interesting that you haven't been groomed to think of that as a social issue, give them a groom to think of that as a political issue, you haven't been groomed to think of that as a liberal issue.
Speaker 2 00:46:32 You've been Googling to think of that as a biblical issue, and I get it right. Your actual starting point for that is the same starting point it's conversation on race. I keep believing in Margot day, right? You believe this social system attacks the Tomago day of God's created human beings. And you want to give yourself fully to this work. Like, can you not see like the profound disconnection between a total embrace of the assault, the Imago DEI, and that area that you care about? And then we're saying that race is built on the same thing and assault on Imago DEI. And I really think you'd probably make a pretty easy case. Like has much farther reaching implications. Like I'm not pitting them answer. I'm just saying I could care about that. That should like be a no duh that you then go to the next level, which is far more debt, which they taking far more lives, um, as far more, you know, deadly implications, but isn't that interesting that you need exact same theological crunch construct. It makes complete sense to the point where like, you're willing to organize yourself exclusively around a certain political party to see that happen. You're willing to like, constantly name that for yourself, but then you try to apply it to like the next big arena and you just completely shut down. Is that just not, can you not see like that to me, that's like a psychic break, right. That just speaks to something deeper. Like when you can't follow your own consistent thought pattern, um, right. We should just take note of that. Right. Right.
Speaker 1 00:47:48 I think the technical term you used there was it it's a NoDa, right? It's a no doubt moment. Yeah, exactly. To move from there to there precisely.
Speaker 2 00:47:56 Right. Um, and so some of it is, you know, I, I think this is why kind of thinking about history and definitions is important because if you do think of race as a political agenda, I can actually see why you would get to why it's not an issue. If you see race as simply a very small group of people in society who do really bad things to other groups and all that's required to say, I'll never do that. And I condemn that, then I can see why it's unimportant. Um, but it's all about seeing clear if you see it as the entire system we live in, or, uh, you know, one of the elders, our church always says, it's atmospheric. It's like, it's part of the air. We all breathe in at that level. It's no different for white folks. And as anybody else, we all breathe in this lie.
Speaker 2 00:48:36 Um, but you know, w we're we're, if you don't mind me doing a shameless plug, we're doing our own podcast or out called listen in where we're kind of centering black leaders within our church and inviting white folks to listen to conversations about black leaders. It's pretty new, right? Yeah. I'm excited about it. Yeah. So thank you. It's been fun to do. Um, but one of the things Shemeka who's part of that podcast says is this explains if you're a person of color, particularly black, you have a lot of incentive to name those lives. Right. Cause the lie say I'm less human than you. Right. So my own survival is predicated on saying no, that like, can't be true. Right? Like there's nothing more spiritual in the world for me than to say, no, I will not live under that lie. Like the truth. Jesus said, I matter, right.
Speaker 2 00:49:17 Like I belong. Right. So there's like nothing more spiritual I can do then on a daily basis confront the lies of white supremacy, you know? But she said, if the license, you, your superior, it kind of makes sense that you could be ambivalent about it. It was like, you know, maybe I should care about it. Maybe I shouldn't, maybe it's spiritual. Maybe it's not. I mean, it doesn't affect my sense of everyday life. Right. And so that's where I think we have to like, be really careful, like not only might we be missing the fact it's really spiritual, but, um, you know, is that possible that everybody else has to take it seriously and need Jesus more than anything to combat that lie. But because the license to us, we're better. Everybody else, even if I don't say, I believe the lie, I'm not motivated to organize myself to confront the lie because the lie is comfortable.
Speaker 1 00:49:56 Well, and one of the most powerful parts in the book for me was when, you know, you, you were, you were talking about this and you, you even just said it, like, we're all breathing in the lie. Yeah. But it's like, but if it is a lie and we have to, some degree believed it, breezed it in, then even to the white person it's damaging, damaging. Right. And that was so powerful to me because on a conscious level, you can say I'm ambivalent. What does it really matter? All of those things that you just said, but we have to recognize spiritually that any, any other circumstance we would wholeheartedly agree that if we are believing a lie about our identity, then it is severely damaging to us. But white supremacy is a lie. And even to white people, that lie is severely damaging, severely damaged.
Speaker 2 00:50:50 Other than that, thank you, Alexis. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:50:53 So, I mean, I feel I interrupted you, but I just, that was so powerful when you, when you made that. Right.
Speaker 2 00:50:58 I think, yeah, no, I think that was right on.
Speaker 1 00:51:00 Yeah. So I just think that if we, if we look at that and say, thank you for connecting it to, to the, to the pro-life issue because they are in the same, it's the same thing. Like you said, see a Mongo day, that's being attacked. It's our identity as children of God that's being attacked. And, um, I think that there is it's, it's not even about making it is about making discipleship broader in that we're including things like this, but
Speaker 3 00:51:26 It is, this is the, this is the
Speaker 1 00:51:29 Baby steps. These are the seeds of discipleship. Who am I in Christ? Totally. This is at the, this is at the, this is at the bottom of it. Right. And, um, and when we teach our kids and when we teach the people who we're mentoring and we, when we were being mentored, right, that's, that's, that's the bare bones of our formation.
Speaker 2 00:51:50 Every single one of us is under attack from white supremacy at that very base level of who am I in Christ. Right. Sort of like fail to even name that as a starting point, puts us in such a vulnerable position because we don't even realize we're under attack.
Speaker 1 00:52:01 Yeah. Oh my goodness. Danielle, thank you so much. I, I just, I can't even tell you how many dog-eared pages and things I have underlined and starred and things that I will revisit and how many, the notes that I've taken on this book. I feel like we could, as your church is doing, we could talk about this every week for 10 weeks and kind of not cover it. Um, so, but I, um, I feel like this is a great place to kind of wrap up. I want to ask you, if you have any final words to give our audience, um, that you really want to make sure to drive home before, I'll let you tell us how we can connect with you and how we can get our hands on a copy of this book.
Speaker 2 00:52:40 And it's, you know, I do this work in secular spaces too. Cause I think we need to be confronting white supremacy everywhere we can. But I do think it's for those, for those of your listeners who are followers of Jesus, I think this is a particular importance, right? I just, I don't know how to say it more simply. I don't think you can love Jesus and not hate white supremacy. And so if that's not a no, duh, I would just invite people to like wrestle with that. Right? Like, why is that statement hard to hear if it's hard to hear, um, that I just don't think, I don't think the two can go together. I I'm convinced Jesus hates white supremacy, right? Colossians one, when the apostle Paul reflects on Jesus, he says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Over all things are consoling, all things himself, heaven on earth seen and unseen.
Speaker 2 00:53:14 Right. And it's for the purposes of him having supremacy over all things. So anything that's contesting with Jesus to have supremacy over all things Jesus hates right. And is going to eventually. So, um, that would be my encouragement, right? This isn't about an attack on whether you racist or not, or how you grew up. But like, it's about saying, there's this, there's this evil ideology out there called white supremacy that Jesus hates. And if we love Jesus with the hate that too. And I think once that lines up, it turns, you're like, well, we're just in a complete different posture then to like start asking like much more detailed questions about how to actually do that in your faith life. But I think until somebody can get that alignment to love Jesus, a white supremacy where, so that's the work.
Speaker 1 00:53:53 Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. I just, I just jotted them that quote because I love it so much. So how can we, um, connect with your ministry and how can we grab a copy of this book? Because I, I think when this releases it will have been out for a week or two, so I Zondervan pushed this book a little bit forward. Right. So it's coming out on September 1st, I believe. Is that correct? Yes.
Speaker 2 00:54:19 Um, yeah. So for the book itself, there's, it's got its own website and white lies, book.com white life book.com in terms of me on social media, um, at Daniel Hill 1336 one three three six, a little bit of a complicated handle from my earlier days, but at Daniel hold 1336. Um, so I'm pretty easy to find on any of the big, uh, social media things that way.
Speaker 1 00:54:40 Awesome. Thank you so much, Daniel. I just am this, this conversation this time, this book it's just invaluable to, um, to us, I, I told you I find it. I just think it's, it's an incredible gift to the church. Um, specifically this teaching, just how you lay it out. And, um, and, and the case that you bring that you summed up so beautifully, which is, I don't know how we can love Jesus and not hate white supremacy. And so I really appreciate that. Thank you so much for joining me
Speaker 2 00:55:12 Really been a joy. Thank you, Alexa. I've really enjoyed getting to know you. Thank you for your good thanks.
Speaker 1 00:55:19 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth vicinity. Be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit us at that makes total sense.
