Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible> welcome to that. Makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis. We setting 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. Okay. So today I am still processing this book that I finished yesterday. And when I say finished, I will say duke, I read like 160 pages or something like that at this book yesterday. Um, and there are so much here. So I want to go ahead and say what the topic is going to be for our conversation. And then I'm going to introduce our guests today and I'm so thrilled to have on. Um, I finished this book yesterday, reparations, a Christian call for repentance and repair by duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson. And I have duke Kwon on the show today. Hey duke.
Speaker 1 00:01:17 Hey Alexis. It's good to be here.
Speaker 0 00:01:19 Thank you so much for coming on and thank you for this book. You're welcome. Wow. I mean, this, I just cannot wait to dig into the content of this book, but before we get there, um, could you do us the favor of just giving us a little bit of an introduction? I know you're in DC and you're a pastor, but maybe you can expand on that a little bit and then we'll get into to how your social location and your position kind of led you to, into this study of reparations. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:01:54 Thank you so much, Alexis. And thanks for having me. Um, as you said, I'm a pastor of the local church called grace Meridian hill in, um, right in the city of Washington DC. And we've been here in DC, um, as a family for about, uh, I've been here about 17 years now. So came in 2004. So this is home. I actually grew up in Southern California. And so it was there through high school, came to the east coast for college. So I still have some family over there right now. It's NBA playoff time. So I'm still a diehard Lakers fan. So a lot pieces of my heart are still over there. Uh, but
Speaker 0 00:02:33 This is the Twitter conversation. Like I get onto it and see something and I'm like, I can't even keep up. Like, everyone's, everyone's stopped tweeting all the finals right now.
Speaker 1 00:02:42 That's right. So, um, but this is home now and, and being, uh, doing ministry in DC, being a part of a church that was started in oh four and then planting our own congregation about 10 years ago, um, in 20 10, 20 11, um, is really a part of the story of how reparations landed on my radar. And that is, um, becoming more and more invested, not only in what we describe in our church's mission as, uh, having a cross-cultural vision for life in the world, right? This idea that the grace of God gathers us into a community of people from all varieties of backgrounds, every tribe, tongue, and nation represented, um, around the throne of Jesus. But believing that part of that work is to get to know your neighbors and their stories and being in a historically African-American city like Washington, DC has sort of nudged even called me into learning.
Speaker 1 00:03:33 Um, African-American history, learning the history of black church or learning African American theology and perspectives shared among black Christians and just black citizens across the city. That itself is a big part of what got me into this subject matter that has been largely concealed in non-black Christian traditions, but is very a vibrant, ongoing historical conversation among African-Americans. And so, anyway, not to get too much into it right away, but just to say, even where I am today is a big part of that story personally, of how this, um, became a passion, uh, for myself at its core. It is, and was always about loving neighbor. How can I love my black neighbors, my black sisters and brothers? Well, well, for me, that means understanding reparations,
Speaker 0 00:04:21 Man. I want to get into that. I wanna, I wanna get into that. Um, what's been concealed right versus what's been a vibrant conversation. And so, um, you, in the book, you mentioned, uh, jemartisby his book, the color of compromise, um, and in his second book, how to fight racism, he has a, you know, he has a, he has a pretty meaty section on reparations, right. And that was one of my, kind of, not introductions to the topic as a whole, but kind of the, my introduction almost to the logistics of that. Like, you know, what would that look like kind of in real life? And that's not a conversation as you say that started in 2020 after, you know, the death of George Floyd or something like this, right? This is something that, you know, as, as he talks about these, this is things, you know, um, bills have been presented on this, right? This is an ongoing conversation on the logistics of it, but you and Greg really focus on not so much the logistics of what would that look like, but more on the case for why even, why even talk about this right at the beginning, right? Like why, why even, why even talk about this for forget the other stuff we're going to table the other discussion for now. Right. But let's kind of get on the same page for this. So I guess part of my first question is who did you guys write this for?
Speaker 1 00:05:47 Yeah, we, we had a pretty broad audience in mind, as we try to explain in the introduction of the book, uh, you know, as you were touching on our primary focus in this book is to make the moral case, the biblical case for why reparations is needed, or our primary aim is not to spell out every detail of how to, uh, create reparations programs as enacted by the federal government or even by the church per se, uh, that we do provide a framework. At least we attempt to we're, we're just at the stage, we believe as a church to even be convinced that it's necessary or that the Bible actually has something to say about it. There's a lot of work that needs to be done on that. Um, and of this process of growing into a new vision of reparations. Um, but in terms of audience, therefore, uh, we are speaking primarily to people that are unfamiliar with that moral and biblical case.
Speaker 1 00:06:41 Um, so that might be primarily those in a more conservative leaning wings of the Protestant, uh, Christian tradition. Um, we obviously have evangelicals in mind, um, just from given our own location and upbringing ourselves. Um, but we weren't not specifically or exclusively speaking to people in our own denomination. We were not just speaking to evangelicals or white evangelicals, um, because we believe that this is a work that needs to happen across Christ church, um, to whoever is willing and whoever feels called. Um, and we hope that's many and we hope that's a broad coalition as it were of people. Um, but, uh, so a little bit of a both, and in terms of focusing on those that maybe are newest to the conversation into the case, um, but also seeking to gather people in, and I'll say this too, there are people, um, who identify as Christians who are supportive of the idea of reparations, but don't actually know how to see that as emerging from the Bible.
Speaker 1 00:07:44 So we had them in mind as well. Uh, so people that might politically or ideologically be all about reparations, but they have sort of, uh, uh, retrieved or, um, sort of constructed, uh, those beliefs convictions or commitments, uh, more politically, um, or maybe culturally because of the political cultural world in which they move. But they actually don't know that this is something that God cares about that they actually don't know, or they think that they got ought to care about, but it, but they're not convinced that it is, or they actually certainly don't see people who call themselves Bible believing Christians saying that God cares about this. So, uh, providing them with the tools, the lenses, uh, the scriptures, um, that can more deeply in truly anchor their provisional beliefs, their provisional convictions, um, ensuring them that indeed I'm sure with some tweaks and differences, uh, in the way that the case might be constructed, but this is absolutely a Christian thing and not simply an ideological thing.
Speaker 0 00:08:51 Yeah. I, I loved your, so your list of endorsers, I'm like, I'm like all on board and, and you know, like I'm like, jemartisby is kind of at the top of the list and he, and I've spoken a couple of times for the podcast and I love his work and mark laboratorians their ride and I'm at fuller. And so I'm like, yeah, this is, you know, it's really good. But probably my favorite one was Scott Sauls and I have talked and I had talked to him for the podcast and he's so great, but I love the honesty. Right. Which he basically, unless I misread it, he basically said, I don't really know where I land on this. Yeah. Like I read it and I'm not sure where I land, but, but I hope it serves you up. Right. He said to, to the reader, right. Like I hope it, it kinda messes with you, like it kind of messed with him. Right. And I think that's really honest, like that's a really good place to be maybe even before. And maybe even after you read this book, which is like, I'm not sure how convinced I am of this, but at least now I'm thinking about it. And maybe I'm thinking about it in a different way, from a different perspective, right? Like, like you said,
Speaker 1 00:09:52 No, that's right. It's funny that you mentioned Scott's, uh, word of endorsement because that's specifically is why we found what he said at the end attractive. Right, right. Helpful. Because we want this to be a book where people in Scott's shoes can actually come and say, look, it's okay. That at the end of, uh, the final page of the book as I close it, if I'm not a hundred percent convinced, or if I still have many questions that feel unanswered, or maybe if I actually come up with more questions than answers that's okay. Because that's part of that learning process. That's part of the conversation that we want this book to be all about.
Speaker 0 00:10:25 Yeah. Yeah. No, I loved it. I just kind of, I just kind of kept coming back to that and thinking, um, you know, I kind of had a different perspective when I came out of it, but man, you know, part of, even with this podcast, it's like, let's just position ourselves as learners. Right. And if this book stirs something up in us as believers to go, even to, you know, go back to the Bible, right. I mean, this is, this is so rich with scripture and you know, what does this say about God's character and, and you know, how do we implement this as ambassadors and, you know, things like that, that it's like, if it's got us turning, you know, turning our minds and interning to other resources and specifically back to scripture, I think, I mean, that's a win, right. I mean, I didn't write it, but I think that's a win.
Speaker 1 00:11:06 Yeah. I agree. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:11:09 It's so good. So I think the next place that leads me in, and you talk about this in the introduction, I'm so thrilled that you do, but we've got two pastors, two men, one Korean American and one white writing, a book specifically about reparations for the African-American community go.
Speaker 1 00:11:31 Right. It is, it is, you know, when you think about that, um, it does stand out to people as being, um, somewhat odd and, you know, in truth, we've had to kind of give an account, uh, for, um, for this, that there is a danger, a risk and a responsibility that we have not tell these stories as if they are our own and a responsibility not to appropriate, um, both African-American ideas and suffering as sort of our own, uh, sort of, uh, you know, assets that we own that we can then, um, personally profit off of and benefit from. And, um, so we've had to answer some questions and we've had to even be, um, wise and humble ourselves in the way that we handle this. We are, um, as you say, not black ourselves, that we are telling the story of, um, African-American history that leads us to these convictions about black reparations.
Speaker 1 00:12:40 Um, but we see reparations historically and, um, and conceptually as being essentially a dialogue between two different parties. And we say this in the book, but in the, in the introduction, as well as the seventh chapter, uh, that there are two parties in this converse conversation, uh, those who owe reparations and those to whom reparations is owed. And we felt like it was important for us to represent that, uh, first part of the conversation, um, in part, out of a gesture of honoring African-Americans and their communities that have actually been trying to talk about this for generations. Right. And that our job at this point is not to say, can you say it one more time? Right. You know, like
Speaker 2 00:13:26 We don't need to, I mean, of course there there's, there's no, sorry, I wasn't listening. Can you repeat yourself? Right. Yeah. As if,
Speaker 1 00:13:33 I mean, so, so we, we felt it was necessary to represent this side, um, of the conversation. And, uh, certainly most of the book is positioned as a conversation between black and white. I'm not white, I'm an Korean-American. So that both may be introduced to some complexity as well as possible clarity by complexity. What I mean is I and the Asian American community certainly, uh, are often victims of racism ourselves. And there's a lot that goes on in there as it relates to white supremacy. So it's not that I am intending as a Korean-American author to position in myself in every way as being identical in my location as say Greg or other white readers. So complexity, but also clarity because I'm able to say, as I tried to say that I am committed to this, and it's not because I have any ancestors that own slaves and it's not because my family even was in the states during Jim Crow that has nothing to do with, I am in this because I'm an American.
Speaker 1 00:14:42 And even more importantly, because I'm a Christian, because I am part of Christ's church who historically and corporately has been a part of the perpetration of a mass multi-generational cultural theft of African American. So I can say that as a Korean American, um, even though there might, that might itself be sort of a surprising or counterintuitive sort of way of reasoning through reparations. No, I feel, uh, just as committed to and convicted of the necessity of this work. And I think that introduces just an interesting dimension to the argument. So just to say, um, it's an oddity and also hopefully a bit of an advantage to
Speaker 0 00:15:27 Yeah. Yeah. And, and let's talk about that theft, um, for a moment because, uh, I, I mentioned before, when, before we started recording that I was processing this book last night with my husband and he kind of said, you know, what's the angle, what's the angle of the authors. And I'm like, okay, if I, if I had to, if I had to shrink it down, um, I would say, look, they spent the first half of the book making a case that a theft has actually taken place, right. Uh, uh, a theft of you talk about it, three aspects of it, truth and power and wealth. Um, and that this culture of white supremacy is responsible, you know, for this stuffed in America and the latter half of the book, um, really saying as believers, what do we do when we recognize that a theft has taken place?
Speaker 0 00:16:22 And it's actually interesting when you talk about yourself, as you know, um, the complexity added of saying, you know, w my family, the Asian American community also is there we've been victims of racism. And we weren't even here, you know, for a lot of this, my ancestors didn't own slaves. And, and during the course of this book, I was thinking about, there was a, a time in college when one of our friends was stolen from his guitar was stolen from his house. Right. And, um, the guy who took it was long gone. Right. And at the time this my group of friends and I, we were young adults, I guess. I don't remember if we were in college or just out, but anyway, we were all young and broke and we were trying as a community at that moment, just kind of a lot of, I don't know, I would look back and say maybe kind of social experimentation of like, what does it look like to just kind of like, do what the Bible says, you know, just give it a shot. I mean, I don't know, and, and kind
Speaker 2 00:17:23 Of wild
Speaker 0 00:17:25 Ideas, but, but kind of like barring our own church cultures at that time, you know, and just kind of saying, I don't know, let's just give this a shot. And so, without him knowing we, um, we just pulled together, um, as a community and we bought him a new guitar and we surprised him with it. Um, and, and, and we just kind of said, you know, we, we understand that we weren't the ones who were responsible for this. Um, but you're a friend and we saw what this did to you. Plus he led worship a lot with us. So it really was meaningful for us that he had a guitar. Um, and we, um, you know, we bought it for him. We, and we gave it back to him, you know, this, this, this new guitar. And that story came up as I was reading the book multiple times, you know, because, um, we say, we're, now I'm convinced that a theft has taken place after I've read the first half of the book, but the second half you really do answer well, what if I didn't steal it though? What if I, wasn't the one, how do I respond as a Christian? Right. And I feel like, so that is so much the heart of this book.
Speaker 1 00:18:39 Right. That's right, man. I appreciate you identifying sort of that centrality, that concept of theft. Um, and there's so much even in what you said, so I know we can unpack all these different dimensions of it, but let me simply first underscore and emphasize again, the idea that we're proposing in the book. And that is that the best way of understanding the nature of the effect of racism in this country is theft. And I think that is crucial because we almost have to slow ourselves down to recognize that is not normally how we think about this, right? So maybe we think of racism as being primarily about hurt feelings on, sorry, I offended you. Or maybe we see racism as having the effect of breaking our relationships. So what we're as strange, we, you know, uh, one person hates another person, the other person resists the other person, right?
Speaker 1 00:19:38 So broken relationships, or maybe we might even say racism is about, um, dysfunctional institutions. Um, there's all these ways in which we can conceive of the effect of racism. What we are saying is that, um, the primary effect of racism, and I would say the way that makes it most visible in the way that we can now take up this moral lens and sort of start looking around right with our decoders sort of lens at the world and through American history is to understand that the primary, primary effect of racism and w what we call white supremacy, um, in the book. And we can unpack that as well, is theft things have been taken, things have been stolen, um, things that are measurable, uh, things that are not measurable, but, um, this is essentially what we would call a mass violation and a repeated addictive habitual violation of the eighth commandment of the 10 commandments thou shall not steal, um, as ton of Hotsy coats, uh, journalist, author, and thinker.
Speaker 1 00:20:52 Um, and he wrote that Seminole article, um, popular article on, uh, the case for reparations several years ago in the Atlantic. He's got this really memorable quote in there. He says, when we think about white supremacy, we usually, uh, imagine, or picture colored only signs, but what we should actually picture our pirate flags because the central social effects of white supremacy and racism is theft. And that is the moral starting point for any argument for reparations, right? So this is returning to how you were summarizing the core argument of the book. Um, reparations has no place in the conversation and makes no sense unless we actually start with the conviction that a theft has occurred. And many, many, many, many, many thefts have occurred. Reparations is a response, a Christian response to theft. And as you mentioned, we do break down what we describe as a multidimensional theft that has occurred theft of African-American wealth theft of African-American power theft of African-American truth. And we can unpack that as well. Well, that's
Speaker 0 00:22:05 Where I wanted to go next is like, can you, you know, break down those three areas for us, because I think that's so often in this culture of white supremacy that we have in America, and this is, I love the way that you guys described that and take the time to really put those pieces together, um, in the book. But I think that part of it is, especially because you can see the disparity of wealth, right? You can see red line, you can see, um, you know, a lot of those things in numbers on paper, and we can focus only on the wealth portion. Um, now you, you mentioned also you guys cite Bryan Stevenson, and that was one of the things that was really key for me when I was, you know, introduced to the, his idea of, of the narrative. Right. Which is, which is part of the truth and power picture really, um, you know, that you guys present, but there's so much more to this than wealth. So I guess, can you break those down and then talk about why those, especially why truth and power matter when we're talking about reparations? Because I think when we think about reparations, we think about money. So we can tie those two together. We can tie the theft of wealth and reparations together, but why does truth and power that theft of truth and power matter in this conversation?
Speaker 1 00:23:29 Yeah, I think one way to illustrate it might be, uh, to take, um, probably the, the clearest and most concrete, morally clearest example, um, of, uh, these dark moments in American history and that's chattel slavery. And to raise question, what exactly is it that happened? Um, when, um, Africans were brought to the United States and slaved and, um, were forced into labor and abused and all sorts of nightmare, sorts of ways, um, what was going on there morally speaking? Well, what happened there was, uh, there was a first kidnapping, right? So forcible taking of human lives, uh, uh, subjugation, um, being brought over to a country, not their own. So taken from their families, taken from their livelihoods, taken from their homelands, taken from their, uh, cultural narratives, uh, rituals stories, right, brought over here. Um, in many cases murdered along the way. So lives itself being taken, and then being sold and being placed.
Speaker 1 00:24:42 Um, coercively of course, in these situations where they were, uh, uh, uh, working, um, without compensation, um, in many cases for generations, um, it, and during that time, tortured, abused, um, killed, um, raped, um, and not only adults, but children as well. And, um, and then moved along through an economic system that treated them literally as chattel that is property. Um, and then, then to justify all of these horrors, um, stories are told about the nature of who these creatures are, that it would be morally permissible for us to do all of these things well, who are they? Well, they're not really human beings. I mean, maybe they are depending on how you look at it. Uh, but they are essentially animals, or at least they act like them. Uh, they are unpredictable and immoral in their behavior. In fact, they're inherently criminal. And so they're actually better off under subjugation because they can act human, uh, but only under certain conditions, uh, they're better off, um, here and enslaved, uh, and doing good with themselves rather than in their natural conditions over there.
Speaker 1 00:26:08 And that far away continent doing all the terrible things that tribal people do. So here, here's a story that's being told, uh, that needs to justify our treatment of these dark skinned non-human deans. And then as we move forward in history, then we need to tell stories about what actually happens during that period of, of slavery from 60 19 through, uh, the middle of the 19th century, that in fact, these things were not always good. Surely there were abuses in human, uh, in the institution of slavery throughout history. Of course, every institution is imbued by sin. So things are going to go wrong, but at core, the institution was not an abusive one. In fact, it was an inherently good one. In fact, God's word tells us that it's sanctioned by a deep divine command as we find in this part of scripture and that part of scripture.
Speaker 1 00:27:02 And so when we look back in history, it wasn't so bad. My dear people, right? We, we, we can tell the true story of what slavery actually was. We were actually family. Uh, we were actually more, uh, hold as a human community here in the Americas. Uh, and these people were better off in fact why? Because they came to know Jesus, praise God, what a wonderful thing. Uh, we, we surely there were things that happened that were bad along the way. Uh, but they are better off now because they have eternity in Christ. And so we should not complain and we should not actually look sourly upon the Providence of God. We should be grateful and they should be grateful. Uh, certainly, and we move forward in history and so on. And so, so I could go on and on about that, but I want to unpack it as a narrative because this is truly what it is that we're dealing with.
Speaker 1 00:27:52 What was the story? The history that I just described, what we just described was theft upon theft upon theft, upon theft, upon that compounded by theft, starting with the theft of bodily agency that is called kidnapping. I am taking you forcibly against your will, uh, kidnapping and the, the sale of people, uh, treating you as property. Uh, so again, now stealing bodies, not to mention stealing families, stealing you from your original family, stealing you, stealing your identity in your connection to your Homeland, stealing children from parents, literally from their arms, right? Uh, a theft of power again and again, and again, forcible labor without compensation, which is a theft of wealth, and then also an obstruction of the ability to accumulate wealth. And then these justifying and sacralizing stories that are told are essentially the theft of the truth, about the image of God in the face and the bodies of enslaved Africans.
Speaker 1 00:29:28 And so they are not actually robbed of their dignity because that's not something that can be stolen from us. It is a truth that is inerasable, uh, and that is eternal. We are made in the image of God period, but stolen from them is the, the social recognition of that dignity stolen from them is the, uh, universally socially recognized grounds, uh, for their dignified treatment. Uh, so we have stolen the truth about black identity. And then in order to justify these treatments, we have then told him histories and lies and narratives about not only who they are, but who we are and who our nation is and how it is that we got from there to here. Right? So there's a romanticization of American history. Uh, there is any ratio of major spots of the story of slavery. And, uh, so there's the theft of truth in regards to that broader narrative as well.
Speaker 1 00:30:37 So again, this is just to take that one point in history that we identify as American slavery. And to say, what we find then is a theft of truth, a theft of power and a theft of wealth. And, um, this takes some sitting on the realities of history a little bit to see all these different dimensions of it, but it's very, very important so that we don't flatten out these evils. And th this is the hard work. I know I'm going on a long time here, Alexis in this little segment here, but this is the hard work that I think needs to be done, because there's something about these different horrors that are almost too familiar to us, that we only deal with them in shorthand. And for that reason, it doesn't adequately grieve our souls. I mean, I tell people that one of the problems with how critics of our book are reading the book is this, I don't think you can really get the book unless chapters three and four move you to tears.
Speaker 1 00:31:50 Like I don't, I don't know that we actually have sufficient moral clarity about the grounds for reparations and the realities of these thefts, unless we are really unpacking them. And we're sort of like fanning out with, uh, a moral prism, the true horrific colors of the evil that has been committed in the past. And that in many regards in Georgia, the present that we need to talk, not just generically about racism, but we need to talk about the thefts of racism. We need to not just talk generically about theft, but we need to unpack it categorically as a multidimensional theft of truth of power and of wealth. And then we need to take those categories and break them down further as we try to in the book and see all the ways that we've done this and most terribly done it again and again, and again, and again and again,
Speaker 0 00:32:38 Right, because it's our, it is. And you're asking us, you're asking your reader to look underneath what we live out every single day, because, because this is a part of our culture. It's like saying, well, why, why do you like hamburgers? I dunno, I never really thought about it before. Right. Why, why does she wear a wet, dry, or a white dress to a wedding? I don't know. Why, why does he propose? Why, why do you have pizza and movies on Friday nights? I don't know. It's just a, it's just part of being an American, right? This is what you do. And, and white supremacy is so much a part of the American culture that when you are saying this was on purpose, this was a theft, this was something that was, um, created and, and intentional. And it is something that is being perpetuated intentionally and, and, and perpetually, um, it takes it, it almost takes an act of God, right?
Speaker 0 00:33:47 Like I'm glad this is written from a Christian perspective to say, separate me from this culture long enough that I can sit with the Y that I can sit with the truth of the history. We have to be able to separate ourselves from our culture long enough, um, to be able to understand where it comes from that's right. And that's really, really difficult. Um, and so I I'm, I'm thankful for, um, for how you guys wrote it out and, and to be truthful. I, in those chapters that you were, that you were talking about chapters three and four, um, I was, it, they were really, they were, they were really hard to sit with, um, those chapters and I, and I, and I knew it got better. So I kept reading.
Speaker 0 00:34:44 Right. Um, but you know, I was, I was, I was angry and I was sad and I could feel, you know, starting to get depressed and, you know, things like, and, and really the truth is, as far as the history is concerned, there wasn't a ton of the history that was new information, um, for me, but, but how it was woven together. And I could see the full, you know, a more full picture, um, made a huge difference. Um, I don't even know how specifically I wanted to get into some of this stuff, but I'll say one of the things that rocked my world, and I think it was in those chapters, it was in the introduction. And then for sure, you brought it up in the chapters, again was we can do this whole reparations thing. Right. And we, and we know some of the, some of the cases that we are familiar with as Americans, but the one that caught me was we gave reparations to slave holders. I'm sorry, what can you rewind that? And say that again. Right. And then I had to read it a couple of times to go, wait, what, but this is part of it.
Speaker 1 00:35:53 That's right. No. And, and what you're referring to, of course, Alexis is, is, um, well, you know, I live here in the district of Columbia and so we continue to celebrate what's called emancipation day, which was almost like, um, the city's test run, um, president Lincoln's test run of, um, emancipation, but before the emancipation proclamation was declared for the entire nation, and that was, Hey, we need to do this first here locally. And so they, they freed enslaved people here in the district of Columbia, but in order to work out that deal, what they essentially did was the federal government did not just in that, uh, liberation, what they did was essentially purchase those slaves and thereby freedom. Right? So the government gave the owners, the slave owners money compensation, so that they would not be left empty handed, sort of a peace deal and negotiation there.
Speaker 1 00:36:56 Um, and, uh, and, and it was through that agreement that, that enslaved people were, were emancipated here in the district of Columbia. And of course the irony of, of that is for all our resistance to, uh, you know, this idea of compensating African-Americans and their descendants, uh, for the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow and beyond it's like, no, actually we th there is, there was a moment where some reparations have been paid in regards to African-Americans and, and, and enslavement, um, oh. But it wasn't to them. It was through their slave owners. Right. Um, but, and, and the wider point there of course, is that contrary to people's, um, perceptions that reparations is far too much for people, uh, for the government to, to, to enact. And, and by the way, our book does not focus on the government's responsibility, uh, which is something to, it's hard for a lot of people to get their minds around.
Speaker 1 00:37:50 We're talking about Christians in their local communities doing a repairative work, but even with respect to the government, people would say, well, that's just not practical. That's not pot the government. The federal government has paid reparations on a number of occasions throughout history to native American communities, more recently to Japanese Americans for their unjust incarceration in, in camps after world war II. Right. It was actually under president Reagan, right. That great reparation is Ronald Reagan, right. Uh, under, under his administration that, um, reparations for Japanese Americans were actually, uh, approved. And so just to say, you know, that's the wider point that there actually is a tradition of reparations in American, uh, government history. Um, not always in, in, in ways that aren't head turning our head scratching. Um, but it's, it's not too hard to be done, uh, when we have the political and moral will to do it right.
Speaker 0 00:38:45 And I want to go back. I mean, that was just one of the things that struck me in those chapters. I thought really what, and so that was, that was new. I will say that that was new. At least I hadn't, I didn't remember that previous, but, um, but I'm wondering if you can, I don't know if saying connect, these two ideas is the right, the right phrasing, but, but two of the things that, that kind of kept circling in my head as I was, as I was reading, and as I was processing it afterwards were kind of this bigger picture of, of being able to see it, being able to just see what has happened and what is happening. And so, so that's, that's the one that's kind of the larger piece, right. For Christians to get, can we see this? Um, but on the, kind of the more granual, one of the, the lines that won't leave me, and I will say this, I'll just say a warning of this book.
Speaker 0 00:39:39 Once you, once you see it, you can't unsee it, right? Like once there are certain, maybe it's not the big picture, but I would say even the smaller pieces of the puzzle, once, once you read some of these lines, you're not going to be able to go back to having not read them. Um, so fair warning out there. Um, but one of those smaller lines for me and not have the, I don't have the exact quote, but, um, so when you guys talk about that, kind of the goal of like racism or white supremacy in America was not, it's not hate it's invisibility man, like that kind of on this, on this detailed scale, combined with this goal of this lofty goal, really of getting Christians to kind of see what's happening. I don't know, pick one, combine them. I don't know. Can you talk about those? Cause they were really impactful.
Speaker 1 00:40:35 Yeah. I mean, you know, the idea that you're touching on there is that, that essentially the goal of racism in America was not simply to personally hate or confer hate upon African-Americans. It was essentially to utilize them and then to do so devoid of accountability, which entailed, erasing their identity, their history, and also the horrors that were done, uh, in pursuit of that utility of African-American life and labor. Um, so erase her is an essential part of this. And, and what we mean by that is not that people don't know that African-Americans live in America or, or, or anything like that. What it means is there's a, there's always been an, uh, an essential separation, uh, that was part of, uh, life with African-Americans in our midst. We always did everything we could to socially who they were in, what they were all about. And so you live over here and do your thing over here, and we're going to thrive and flourish over here.
Speaker 1 00:41:42 And so that has seemed most easily in the era of segregation where we literally codified this separation, but more generally socially, uh, we've always had this habit of not wanting to see and not wanting to know and wanting to put their lives and their stories over here. The social effect of that over time has been, we literally don't know what is over here. Well, that's by design. We didn't want to know how bad it was. We didn't want to see what it was really like. In fact, then we have this terrible tradition of then blaming them for their own condition, right over time. Right. Sort of like, look at them, ghettos over there. Number one, who put them there. And number two, let's talk about the history of how it was that, you know, these, uh, communities became impoverished in the way that they often are.
Speaker 1 00:42:33 Obviously not exclusively are, but, um, often are so we separate and therefore we do not see, and this is the thing why, why does do American Christians not see the truth about our history and the truth about what has been done to black communities? Uh, number one personally is it's just hard to face the truth and it is uncomfortable and it is, um, terrorizing and immediately our minds and our hearts go to, uh, an accounting of the potential losses. What will this mean for me, for my home, for my children, for our sense of identity, uh, what, and as every person does by nature, we therefore try to get around the truth. I mean, this is just part of our sinful condition. We will do anything. We can not to face that reality, but there's a second contributing factor. It's not just our own personal unwillingness to see.
Speaker 1 00:43:29 It's also the patterns of our society that have been built around. Not seeing, we just don't even encounter black stories and black lives and black history because we can literally in America, even today choose not to do so. And this is one of the items and he's about reparations. People are freaking out about and always have about reparations. Is this strange concept. That's just <inaudible> to our democratic tradition and alien to the Christian tradition. And the reason why it's alien, just because we have set aside a whole black tradition that has considered these things for centuries and turned our faces away from it. Reparations has been discussed in the black community, in the black church for generations. And the only reason why it feels alien, alien foreign to some of us is because of this separation. That's the irony people reject reparations for being strange and foreign. When that foreignness is the very thing that is seeking to heal and to change, to make us whole, to make us one, to bridge those divides and to actually name the sources of that alienation and that separation
Speaker 0 00:44:45 Good night. That's good. No, you're exactly right. Um, I wanna, I want to touch just a little bit on, um, so once the case was made that this really was theft, that at theft has occurred, that that at theft is occurring. And then, and then you and Greg asked, so what do we do about it as Christians? How do we respond, um, to a theft? And I think, um, I think you guys answer questions kind of on both, you know, when you, when you talk about this conversation being, um, you know, the representatives of this conversation being, you know, who owes it and to whom is it owed. Um, but you guys answer kind of the, what ifs on both of those sides, right? I mean, I have four kids, right. And so sometimes we get this well, but that wasn't me. Well, I didn't do it.
Speaker 0 00:45:37 That wasn't my, you know, and it's like, and that wasn't even his in the first place, he got it from somewhere. Right. And it's like, oh my goodness, these things, we're no, we're no different as grownups. Right. And so, so this, so this happens, this is well to whom is it owed, right? Um, you, you guys answer those questions and then you also answer the questions for the community that you're calling out. And you're calling up to say, this is us. We are the ones who owe this, but Y Y if I didn't do it, I didn't know anything about it. You know, even kind of your description right. Of you in the beginning. But I, I think what I'm, what I'm getting at is, but just talk to us as why this matters as Christians, that those, even though you answer them, and I think that you guys do it well, and I'm, and I'm satisfied with the argument that you give. There's kind of an overarching truth, which is, these are kind of the wrong questions. I'm going to answer them because you have them, right. And this is the culture that we, that we live in, but kind of the overarching truth is, um, is that perhaps once we can get past it, we won't be asking these questions anymore of what if it, what if that doesn't pertain to me,
Speaker 1 00:46:58 I think that's insightful Alexis, the way that you just framed that, because there is a level in which we are laboring in the book to answer sort of the ground level ethical realities of like how it is that we can reason ourselves based upon scripture and moral logic into an understanding that reparations is an ethical thing to do. But of course, for as Christians, we're never merely called to what's ethical, right? We are called always by the power of Christ to go the extra and another thousands. Right. So we do make the case. And so of course, what we do is we spell out, okay, what does it look like to ask this question? So a theft has occurred, what does the Bible say about theft? So the question that we pose is not, what does the Bible say about race, or what does the Bible say about broken relationships based upon our ethnicity?
Speaker 1 00:47:51 Right? So that's the question that most evangelicals typically bring to the Bible. And so the answer they get again, and again, is Ephesians to reconciliation. It's like, well, that's all the Bible has to say about race. Why? Because it's a sin problem, right? So it's like reconciliation, broken relationships are essential problem. And therefore reconciliation is the answer. That's not wrong on some level. That is an important truth of the Bible and an important power that the gospel brings to us. What we're saying is you will get from the Bible, the answers to the questions that you bring to it. If you bring a different question, which is what is the proper response of Christians to racialized theft? Well, let's just look for theft bottle. What do you say about theft? Well, the Bible says two things about that. Number one. Well, the first thing that says, which we don't really get into a stop doing it, but there's that right?
Speaker 2 00:48:41 But it's very, very
Speaker 1 00:48:43 Important. And Paul actually says an infusions for, you know, the thief needs to at first stop. Um, but, uh, we discovered two moral logics, two responses that the Bible requires the ethic of restitution. And the ethic of restoration restitution is giving back what you stole, not just saying, sorry, giving it back. Restoration is based upon the parable of the good Samaritan. It is taking a robbery. And even if you yourself are not guilty, you give what was taken from that person. It's neighbor love, not restitutionary obligation based upon your personal culpability, but it's neighbor love based upon the love that you've received in Christ restitution restoration. So that's the moral logic of reparations. And I am happy to unpack that a little bit more because I think that this is where a lot of people's questions actually reside in sort of like, okay, what if this, and do I owe, or do we, and who as a church, as individuals and all of that, but I want to get to what you actually asked, which is so important.
Speaker 1 00:49:57 There's something even deeper than all this, which you could maybe describe as, um, the missiological vision and calling location of Christians in this world and the church of Christ, or you can call it the identity, the essential identity of Christians called in Christ. And it's this love restoration is what we do. It's who we are. And it's not primarily about litigating. Who did. I mean, of course it is that, but it's not only that it's more than it's not just who did what and who owes what? And the Belgian confession from the 16th century says the heart of the gospel is this, uh, he who did not commit a theft paid for our sins. I mean, this is the essence of the gospel. So he paid what he did not actually owe having stolen nothing. And yet here we are saying, what are you saying? Oh, well, we don't have it.
Speaker 1 00:51:20 Or the missionary impulse in our hearts. You know, if you were a missionary call to South Africa or to Rwanda or to Vietnam or to some other place that's been harmed and devastated by different forces in history and different evils, a good missionary says, look, w whatever the case I'm coming in, and I'm going to restore, I'm going to repair. I'm going to heal. And it is absolutely contrary to our Christian missionary impulse to walk into such devastations and say, I didn't create this, this isn't my problem. This isn't what, you know, I don't want to sacrifice for this. My ancestors weren't here. When all this junk was made, it's like, no, you give, you love you serve. This is simply who we are now that still being said, people will get uncomfortable because reparations does actually have a framing that does talk about culpability. And we do actually believe the American church is culpable for its participation in historical theft. So there is that dimension as well, but I just want to make sure that people know that at the end of the day, what we're calling people to is what scripture calls, the more excellent way it's love. It's love. That's what reparations is.
Speaker 0 00:52:44 Amen. I'm sure you saw me frantically flipping because I was looking for this quote. That was just, it was so impactful for me. And I feel like it just, it, it just goes right along with what, with what you're saying and it, and, um, so this was, um, in the chapter where you tell the story about, um, Riverside church, where James Foreman comes in and makes his speech. And then, and then after that, it says, um, when asked in 1970, why did you single out the church? Uh, Reverend Calvin B Marshall of third chairman of MB EDC responded without hesitation quote, because the church is the only institution claiming to be in the business of salvation resurrection and the giving and restoring of life, general motors has never made that kind of claim. That's right. And that just, I mean, that just hit me in the head, right. You know, it's like, this is our business. This is what we are called by our savior to do this is our business. And, and we can talk about federal government and who owes what and what, how things should look. But, but it's exactly, as you say, like, this is our identity, this is who we are as people of God.
Speaker 1 00:54:07 Yeah. And in that regard, that's why the hope and the dream, the call really is that Christians should be at the forefront of this work. And in fact, we even gestured towards this in the introduction. We do believe that as far as the mass devastation that's occurred is concerned. The federal government probably at some level does need to be involved if any deep lasting work is to be done. But if perhaps Christians could in their local communities begin that work, that perhaps we can spark the moral imagination of this nation to do something, um, even at the civic level, um, what could it look like? And I don't think, I mean this in any triumphal way, I mean, Christians have obviously proven to dragon to drag their feet and not be, uh, always the best of leaders on the front of, uh, racial distress in this country. Right. But, but what if Christians on some level can be leaders, uh, leaders as we are followers, right. Because the whole work of reparations needs to be following the leadership of African-Americans and African-American Christian, uh, uh, Christian community leaders. Um, but what could it look like for us on our knees to show the way for the country as a whole? Um, we should be the first ones.
Speaker 0 00:55:22 Amen. I feel like we could just do a book club on this, um, you know, and talk for an hour every week and bring our friends. Um, but since we don't have that kind of time, what would you, um, you know, what's, what's the question I didn't ask? What, what is the thing that you, that you wish you could leave us with as we kind of round out this discussion and hopefully as it is, uh, you know, just as an introduction and a catalyst for people to, to read the book, that's my hope. Um, but what would you like to leave us with in this conversation?
Speaker 1 00:55:56 Yeah, maybe I'll say two things. Um, first one briefly, I think one thing that trips people up when they think about reparations and especially the way that we approach it in the book, one thing that trips people up is that we are all as American Christians in the habit of thinking individualistically, that's the lens that we use to apply to all kinds of ethical questions. And so, again, everyone, they, it, examples that come to people's minds in the, in the, in the responses are always like, well, but are you saying I, or what about my grandfather? And it's like the primary lens that we're applying to history, as far as this book is concerned is a corporate lens in seeing our shared responsibility as Christians. It is a we project, right? Just as a, you know, again, just a reference Tallahassee coats who sort of himself was be fuddled over the way that people come after him saying, are you saying I need to pay, like who needs to pay?
Speaker 1 00:56:53 And he's of course talking about the federal government. He's like, we do, I do, we like, this is how you do this. Like as a nation, we are all like, if he's an African-American right. And it's like, look as a church, we pay again, this goes back to why I, as a Korean American can be fully invested in this without any hesitation or reservations and be like, no, this is a we thing. Our church, our churches need to be all in on this because our churches, without respect to ethnic origins or anything committed these things corporately, this is our shared history. And what we cannot do is sort of take and draw from the wonderful parts of our heritage and leave aside the ugly parts of the heritage. What we cannot do is take, uh, the, the, the, the, the glories of our inheritance and celebrate them and exalt them, and then sort of edit and excise out.
Speaker 1 00:57:44 Uh, the unpresentable parts, the horrific and evil parts of our inheritance. All of it is ours. We need to reckon with all of it and actually move forward with all of it. So that's the first thought of just, uh, it's not a cautionary word, um, about being overly individualistic in our thinking as much as it's an invitation to be thinking in we terms, because I think that's really the way forward. Uh, the second thought is just a, um, a reminder that, um, we are at the very beginning of what we hope to be a very long and deep public conversation about reparations. And th we are all beginners at this for the reasons that we've mentioned. It's been a conversation in the black tradition, black church for centuries, for generations, but for the rest of us, it's so new. Can we just slow down and just talk, like, give me just pray over this.
Speaker 1 00:58:33 Give me just marinate a little bit more in these ideas, because one of the things that we do hear from people is, well, it doesn't tell us how to do this, right? And we do give a basic framework in chapter seven, about what reparations look like, what the restoration of stolen truth and stolen power and stolen wealth might look like reverse engineering, all these ills, and sort of what does giving back to the black community look like? So we have a basic framework, but we don't give into all these details. And people want sort of a blueprint of like, what are my next steps and all that. We can talk about some of that, but listen, folks, we don't have a clue we need to sit. And this is actually part of the humility that we need to inculcate in ourselves, in our communities. Not to be so quick to think that when we have just that, that site is hints of conviction, that we then need to go and change the world on the basis of that alone table.
Speaker 1 00:59:30 We're clueless, we're clueless. We need to grow into these convictions. We need to talk about them in our communities, which is why I appreciate your podcast and what you're trying to do in having these conversations. We need to sort of grow in our moral imaginations, believing that the more we settle into the chapters, one through six of this book, proverbially speaking, I'm not making much of our book in that way, but just to say the case, that biblical case where reparations and the understanding of American history and even church history in America, the more we trust that God will give us ideas of what needs to be done. God will give us providential opportunities for what needs to be done. God will give us a way of repair if we wait on him. And if we actually humbly leave ourselves in a posture of lament and repentance, that actually new, joyful, powerful desires to love and serve will emerge from that place. It does. It always will. That's what we actually call revival. That's what we're talking about. A revival that's marked by repentance and repair. Maybe that's a new way of looking at reparations.
Speaker 0 01:00:46 Amen. Thank you so much, duke. Again, the book guys. Get your hands on this book. It's called reparations, a Christian call for repentance and repair by duke Kwon, who is with us today and Gregory Thompson. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1 01:01:03 You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 0 01:01:06 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth B city. 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.com.
