Episode Transcript
Speaker 2 00:00:06 Welcome to that makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis, Boetti a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every, every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice. But the how sometimes eludes 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.
Speaker 0 00:00:39 All right, everybody, I'm here today with Steven Matson who has written an incredible book that I just can't finish at this point. <laugh> I told Steven before we started recording. I'm so sorry. Please take it as a compliment. I'm just not done with your book, but that is because the book is called on love and mercy, a social justice devotional. And so I have been using this, um, month long devotional in my personal time with the Lord every morning. And I have been encouraged and challenged and kind of felt different parts of me rise up that I wasn't necessarily expecting, which is great because this is a topic that I love to, to talk about and to listen, uh, I try to listen well in this space. And so, um, and so, yeah, so I didn't necessarily expect some of those emotions and some of those things pinging off of me like they have. So thank you for that and welcome Steven.
Speaker 3 00:01:40 Thanks for having me. And thanks for reading.
Speaker 0 00:01:42 Yeah, yeah, of course. I will get through it. I will. It's beautiful. I just don't wanna rush it. You know, it's kind of what I'm feeling.
Speaker 3 00:01:49 Perfect.
Speaker 0 00:01:51 Yeah. So, um, for some people, so I kind of wanna start off by saying you have written the book like that. I wished I could have written, like I was, I was working on a project several years ago and in the little kind of subtitle of this project that I was working on, I had, I had the, the term social justice. Okay. And it was moving along in some areas. And I ended up chatting with a pastor that I didn't, um, previously that someone had recommended, Hey, why don't you call this guy? So I called him, he was a retired pastor of a mainline, a large mainline church here in Houston. And he said, this was several years ago. And he said to me, if you want any evangelicals to read what you're putting, you cannot use the term social justice.
Speaker 3 00:02:48 Oh wow. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:02:50 It will be a nonstarter. So you're gonna have to figure out another way to say what you're saying crazy, right?
Speaker 3 00:02:58 Yes. Crazy, but totally understandable at the same time. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:03:05 Yeah. Yeah. So I'm hoping like I'm gonna throw out two things for you and then I'm just gonna let you take it away. So one of those is one of the things I'm hoping that, that you can help us with early on in this conversation is kind of defining that term. Maybe letting us know, like, why is it so scary? You know, you're, you're not in the head of that pastor, but I have a sense that that's a familiar response that you've probably gotten in this, in this, uh, culture. So that's one is, can you help us understand the term and maybe why it's so scary, um, and some in some contexts, and then maybe a little bit about your own like personal faith journey. Like why is social justice something that is so compelling for you in your own faith and your own, um, discipleship in Jesus? So,
Speaker 3 00:03:57 Yeah, that's great. Um, I start off the devotional by describing the term social justice. And I think it's important to start there because descriptions can mean anything to anyone. You know, when someone says they're a Christian, you know, the very next thought is, well, what does that mean? Is it, um, a KU Klux Klan member who believes that they're ordained by Christ to bring about white supremacy or what denomination are they affiliated? And so it's the, the same thing with social justice, you know, a hundred different things are associated with the label. And it's recently been used as kind of a fear mongering tool, especially among various parts of mainstream Christianity and evangelicals. And so it can be interpret, interpret, interpreted any number of different ways. And so I start out by trying to define social justice in the simplest of terms, and I define it simply as justice within society.
Speaker 3 00:05:04 I take the two terms and, um, start there as a good starting point of this is what I'm talking about when I talk about social justice. And I also talk about the rich Christian tradition that involves social justice. So it's part of, um, the Roman Catholic church catechism, for example, social justice is a key element there. Um, and it goes back hundreds of years. And it's only recently within the last few decades that people have associated it, um, mistakenly with like radical partisan politics, like, oh, it's this super liberal agenda or it's anti-Christian, or this is what it means when in reality it's justice within society. So when I look at the life of Jesus and what he stood for and the things he advocated for within the Bible, I see justice within society as a major theme of, of what he is, what he is doing.
Speaker 3 00:06:08 He's helping the poor, he's helping the oppress. He's trying to bring about fairness. Um, he's standing up for those who are marginalized society. He's, um, defending those who are being mistreated, he's healing. Those he's providing food for people. Um, so all these issues that are very relevant today in today's society, I feel like the life of Christ provides a great blueprint for us as Christians who ideally should emulate our life after Jesus to follow. And I think we do a disservice to Christianity and our Christian faith when we reject social justice. And one of the really remarkable experiences that happened within the last few years was we're within this worldwide, um, pandemic, worldwide refugee crisis, the worse in, you know, almost over a generation. We have food shortages, um, violence, political violence wars. We have, um, you know, social within the United States. We have, um, police violence coming, um, to the forefront, a lot of racial injustice.
Speaker 3 00:07:28 We have the me too movement like sexual assaults, um, misogyny, all these things, immigration huge thing. And in a huge set of mainstream evangelicalism puts out a report against social justice. <laugh> in the midst of this, of all the things going on in the world. They gathered all their cloud and all their money and all their power to, to put out this statement against social justice. And it was kind of a moment for me when I was just like, what in the world is going on? Like of all the things happening. This is what you're up in arms against. And, and it was just heartbreaking. And that was kind of the impetus for starting this book for over a decade or so. I've been kind of writing various, um, posts for various publications. And there were the majority of them were themed around social justice issues, Christianity politics, and that type of thing.
Speaker 3 00:08:35 And, and I wanted to provide readers with the found basis that associated their faith around following the person of Jesus with social justice and for people who either already had accepted that, or for people who didn't know anything about social justice and maybe were scared about what does it mean or whatever. I wanted to really make a case based on scripture, but most importantly on the life and words of Jesus and show like, Hey, this is a Christian, this isn't something crazy meant to topple Christianity or to, you know, break families apart or whatever that, um, you hear propagated by various people, but this is really like a divine and holy tradition emulated by the person of Christ. Um, and so that, that's why did devotional exist someone to provide a resource for that to hopefully draw people closer to the person of Christ through acts of social justice, bringing about justice with, within our society.
Speaker 3 00:09:50 Um, and over the last, you know, decades, there's no monolithic formula for, um, you know, Christianity, obviously Christianity like social justice has different interpretations, but we can see from a lot of different people who have been oppressed, um, in the United States and in the world in general, that in a lot of cases, they point to the church as being the oppressor and, and not a source of hope or comfort. Um, and I think this statement against social justice is just a classic example of in a time where people are needing the inspiration of Jesus and the manifestation of like real practical help, whether it's racial injustice or any of the issues, immigration that we mentioned, instead of doing something about it, a lot of churches just pile on and, and add to the problem and are oppressive in not only their theology, but practically on the ground, um, whether it's their partisan politics or passing the laws or whatever, um, to do things that just perpetuate injustice and whether that's financial injustice or corruption or food insecurity or homelessness, or, um, you know, incarceration issues, um, injustice within the court system or whatever. So it's really a Clarion call to Christians to, Hey, we need to, um, be supporters of justice within our society because in doing so, we are emulating the life of Christ. So that's kind of the background of this devotional.
Speaker 0 00:11:34 Yeah. Thanks for that. Steven it's as you were, as you were talking, I, you know, this is, this is a topic that I, that I talk about a lot and try and listen, as I mentioned, but I think about it a lot. Right. And so, as you were talking, I was kind of reflecting on some of the thoughts that I've had surrounding social justice recently and, and just, you know, kind of, um, how we're kind of seeing church life being lived out, um, in a, and, you know, I, I identify as evangelical and I'm American, I'm in the south, I'm in the Bible belt, I'm in Texas. So it kind of looks a little bit different than it does maybe in the Northeast or in California or in some, some other places, some parts of California, I might say. Um, but one of the things that I'm kind of wondering, and, and, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this is, is I'm wondering if our, um, like the antagonism that, uh, some groups feel toward social justice for that terminology or toward the concept kind of in general.
Speaker 0 00:12:35 I'm, I'm wondering if it is, if it has been a consequence kind of one, one of the places where we see, um, the church is kind of failing in, in this, because just of our general detachment and I'll, I'll tell you what I mean by that. Um, you mentioned, you know, church tradition, right? The church tradition has, has been for centuries to engage in societal justice. Right. I remember listening to a podcast about the, um, like various plagues that had happened before. Right. So this is coming out in 2020. And so that was kind of the of thing is that like when, in other places in the world in, um, you know, previous centuries when there have been plagues, because they just have been right. It's just a, it's just a once in a lifetime thing for us, but it's, it's not unheard of in history that a lot of, um, kind of a phenomenon, like a bizarre phenomenon was that when everyone was leaving the places where the plagues were, um, were the worst kind of being manifested the worst, what was happening is that Christian groups were coming in to those spaces to help care for the sick, to bury the dead, to help the orphan and, um, the widowed from the plagues.
Speaker 0 00:13:51 And it was this bizarre social phenomenon, but that was kind of like in its roots, you know, where hospitals came from and things like this, because the believers were coming into those spaces, um, to care for people when everyone else was leaving. And, um, this has been our tradition, right. But I think that's one way in which we're kind of detached from our own history as believers. And the second thought I had was I remember I was reading recently just a little bit of the history of evangelicalism in America. And if I'm remembering correctly, there was a time, right. When kind of evangelicals people who identified in this space kind of focused, had two kind of folk eye on, on evangelism and on what we would term social justice, right. Helping, especially people who were living impoverished lives and things like that. And there was kind of these, these two train tracks that went together and kind of with the birth of more fundamentalist movement and things like that, then they kind of ended up splitting, right.
Speaker 0 00:14:51 And the, the focus became on evangelism, which can lend itself toward a more individualistic faith perspective, which I think is some of the things that I at least kind of heard reflected in that statement that you were talking about, which is like individual righteousness, individual sinfulness, or individual for, you know, repentance and forgiveness. And we're detached from the larger community of Jesus, which I think can't help us can't we can't help, but then be detached from the larger society outside of us. We don't feel that responsibility if we're not even really communing with each other and that way. So I, so I kind of feel like social that what we've seen with social justice is like one of the consequences of this kind of general detachment that we've had from Christian community historically and in our present day. So do you have any thoughts kind of in that area?
Speaker 3 00:15:49 Yeah. My initial of thoughts are that yeah, I think you're, you're true. There is a lot of detachment, especially among certain populations. Like I wouldn't say there has been there hasn't been detachment in a lot of Christian traditions too. So, you know, there's some traditions that have always been very social justice and, um, you know, we always, well, I shouldn't say we are always, but there is a tendency to, um, focus on like white Christian evangelicals for sure. And that I would say, yes, there's a detachment for there too, but, but then for generations like the African American church and a lot of other, um, you know, Latino churches and various global denominations that are represented, haven't been detached, they've always, you know, said, Hey, this is what's happening. Um, and then a lot of the political power that was associated with various partisan politics, especially, you know, recently within the last years or so I think has increased detachment as far as we don't want to acknowledge our history of the church and like the white church specifically.
Speaker 3 00:17:07 Um, but yeah, I think it's a good point. It's interesting, you know, I always get some pushback of, whenever we talk about social justice and Christianity, there's a lot of dark history that you have to confront and a lot of bad history and, and just, you know, even recently we always hear about, um, you know, sex scandals in the church, sexual abuse, molestation, um, and, um, you know, all sorts of even during the civil rights era people, well, Martin Luther king Jr. He's, you know, a Christian look at the church, all this good that he did, but he, the reality is he was a minority of Christ facing the majority of Christian culture at the time, when you look at church attendance, people, you know, in the fifties, I think was the highest weekly church attendance, something above 90% or whatever, but that's when racism was rampant, you had sec separate but equal.
Speaker 3 00:18:04 You had like separate drinking fountains for people. Interracial marriage was outlaw all these things. And so same thing, if you go back even further to like William Wilber force, you know, in his fight against, uh, his fight for abolition and, um, in England and great Britain. But again, both those cultures would've considered themselves mainstream Christians. And so you have this, this group, this Christian stream of people, Martin Luther king, these activists, these Christians who are fighting for change fighting for justice, and they're actually going against an opposition, um, who are Christians as well. And, and so it's all these complex issues. Even now I look, you know, one example I use is you crane in Russia, millions upon millions of Russian Orthodox Christians are supporting this invasion from the Russian perspective. They're like, yeah, God wants us to, it's ordained, you know, at the highest levels by the Russian Orthodox church.
Speaker 3 00:19:04 And then you have Ukrainian Christians who are like, hold on and, and you have millions on each side and throughout history, that that is the battle, you know, and it's, it's all these complicated sides and you're right. There's, I feel like the detachment, especially the further away the Christian community detaches itself from the life and words of Jesus, especially you see, you see their detachment from the rest of society and the fact of like being unwilling to help their neighbors, you know, and, um, you know, even within the last decades, I, you know, in, in college, I did an internship with world relief who worked with refugees and people coming in. I remember growing up in short, like that was a major organization within my evangelical stream. I grew up charismatic in a small Pentecostal church, but, you know, refugees like churches would, you know, sponsor refugees go.
Speaker 3 00:20:05 And I'm not saying that's not happening now, but within the last couple years, once it became like a partisan issue, all of a sudden I was like, no refugee. We do not want refugees in our country. You know, we don't, uh, there was Vil vilifying refugees saying they're criminals are gonna take our jobs, blah, blah, blah. And that, that was totally like a new trend associated with this partisan dynamic of all of a sudden it became a political platform, refugee immigration, and these things that I had seen my local church support for decades, immigration refugees, volunteering with all these organizations, suddenly they were like villainized, um, vilified because of this unhealthy marriage. And so you're right, there's all sorts of detachments happening. And I think it's always, always best to center on Jesus in the life and the words of Jesus. And, you know, I kind of talk about even, even the Bible, you can take things outta context and misuse scripture and that type of thing.
Speaker 3 00:21:17 But I personally believe the main point of the Bible is to point people to Jesus. Um, and so I, you know, even it's subtle, a lot of times, especially Christians attack, social justice, they'll use lots of different verses outta context and stuff like that. But when you look at the life of Jesus, you can't misinterpret that it's harder to really take that outta context, like helping the poor, um, you know, just loving your neighbor as yourself. And I think that's one of the strengths of social justice as a discipline is one of the few disciplines that is really practical for your neighbor. Um, you know, when we look at spiritual disciplines within the church, you know, we spend a lot of time, um, doing great things like reading you, devotional prayers, like worship, all these things, but social justice is really centered on loving your neighbor when, um, God talks about the great command they ask you, you know, what is the greatest command, love God with all your heart soul mind.
Speaker 3 00:22:23 The second of love, love your neighbor as yourself. And really that's the, the heart and soul of social justice. And as Christians like loving our neighbors as ourselves is really one of the holiest tasks that we can do. And that is essentially a large part of social justice, like bringing about justice in society. And the next question in that parable, you know, um, when they ask you and who is my neighbor, and Jesus follows up that with the story of the good Samaritan with which is essentially loving your enemies <laugh>. And so, um, you know, the Samari Samaritans and, and Jewish people at that time really hated each other to the point of, there was a couple war during that time period and the each other, and that type of thing. So, so you can't get around the fact that Jesus is really calling us to love everybody, and it's a very radical and amazing message.
Speaker 3 00:23:23 And, and I think that's very uncomfortable for people to hear when they are so detached and they're idolized their own, um, you know, political opinions and beliefs that contradicts that message of Christ, because it will, at some point in time, our, you know, whatever our political opinions are, there will come a time where they contradict the life of Jesus at some point. And, and it's hard, but we have to make that decision, like when push comes to shove, are we gonna follow Jesus? Or are we gonna tow the party line of our preferred political ideology? And I think that's what a lot of Christians have faced recently. And throughout history, they've done this where it's like, do we do keep going with what's profiting bus and our, um, you know, our power structures that we prefer, whatever, or will I help my neighbor who's suffering over here?
Speaker 0 00:24:19 You know? So there's, there was a couple of, of places in the book where, um, the, the places I I referred to earlier, I kind of felt pinged in a real uncomfortable way that I wasn't, um, anticipating. And, you know, part of me wants to, wants to kind of take this one, one track from what you said and just, and just go down this loving neighbor road. And I think that that's good, but I'm gonna pause for a minute and say, just admit, right? Like this like feels really vulnerable. I didn't really wanna do it, but, you know, for someone, like, I feel like I'm like relatively well versed in this area. I feel like I'm relatively self-aware, you know, with some of these things, but when you said, like, there are gonna be places where our ideology is gonna, it's gonna butt up against the life of Jesus, and we're gonna have to deal with that.
Speaker 0 00:25:03 And, um, you, you alluded to it earlier, kind of this, you used the word marriage, and my thought was like, kind of this, like faith and nationalism kind of marriage, you know, faith and partisanship kind of marriage. We, we see, um, in American evangelicalism pretty strongly in, in some sex. And one of the places in the book where I was like, I wish that didn't make me feel uncomfortable was you have a couple of days where I think it's in, like the prayer portion, you use the words from our pledges and say like, I pledge allegiance to Jesus. Right. And it's one of those things. Like I can't, I probably can't formulate it very well. Why I felt so uncomfortable, I'm embarrassed that I felt uncomfortable, um, like emotionally uncomfortable kind of trying to go through that exercise. Um, but at the same time, I think it was really good and rich because it's exposing in me some things that I didn't really, I, no we're there. Right? Like I get a little uncomfortable, but not that much, like during the pledge of allegiance, right. To the, to the flag or, I mean, in Texas, they, I, we didn't grow up in Texas. So I didn't know this till my kids started going to school here, but they were like down, like they pledge of Allegion to the Texas flag. Okay. Wow.
Speaker 3 00:26:27 Is like,
Speaker 0 00:26:28 It's like I pledge allegiance to the Texas. I'm pretty sure like T H E E like it's legit. Like people here are, are really serious, um, about, about Texas love you, Texas, but they're serious about this now. And, um, and I'm like, oh, oh dear. You know, and, and it's great, cuz at my kid's school, they're kind of like, you know, like if, if, if this isn't your family tradition or whatever, like just have a moment of silence or, you know, they don't make anybody say anything or whatever. Right. But I grew up saying the pledge, right. I mean, like we learned in kindergarten. Right. Definitely. And, and you know, we're, we're, we, we stand up at, you know, high school football games and, and, and junk like that. But when you are writing out this prayer and I'm using the same language, it wasn't that I felt UN I can name this.
Speaker 0 00:27:10 It wasn't that I felt uncomfortable. Like, um, like in the way that I probably maybe should have like, oh, maybe I should think about before I pledge allegiance, this, it was, why do I feel so comfortable comparatively? Like, why do I not, why am I not jumping on the opportunity to say I pledge my allegiance to Jesus? Well, when I call him Lord, that's what I'm doing. But the wording made me think about it and process it in a different, so I just kind of wanna like admit that and like throw that out there and say, this is one of the reasons I haven't finished the book is because I'm trying <laugh> to kind of take it slowly and see where are those places in me still where I thought everything was cool, but maybe there are places where Jesus really, I need to encounter Jesus this in those places that I didn't realize.
Speaker 3 00:28:08 Yeah. That was that part of the book is pretty personal to me because in my faith journey, that's been a recent revelation within the last few years. Um, as I mentioned earlier, I grew up in a very charismatic Pentecostal church in the twin cities, Minnesota, and grew up in a faith environment where nationalism was very strong in the sense that I have a, like my dad was in the coast guard. My brother was in the army. My grandfather was in world war II. And, you know, patriotism was seen as like this amazing, beautiful thing. Um, and we should celebrate our country and respect it and service and all that stuff. And then recently it was, I remember the first, the first instance where I sensed there was this contradiction was during call. I was attending a Bible school when nine 11 happened September 11th. And, um, you know, after that attack, there was this renewed national, um, fervor, rounding, you know, nationalism.
Speaker 3 00:29:21 And we were all, you know, ready to avenge the deaths of these innocent people or whatever. And I remember just like our Christian community at this Bible college was just so set on bringing about violence on somebody <laugh> yeah. At that time it was countries in the middle east and, you know, Islamic terrorists and, and we were just ready. And I remember going out and we were required to do street evangelism and, and a passage. We were part of our training, you know, street evangelism was talk about certain versus or whatever. And one of the past passages was like about the love of Jesus being the prince of peace. And I was like, what? And the world is going on. You know, we were just in chapel at this Bible college and we're, you know, singing praises to our country and wanting to drop bombs on people and then lit, you know, and not, not more than two hours later, I'm trying to tell people about the prince of peace who calls us to love our enemies.
Speaker 3 00:30:29 And, and that was the first time where my heart was just like, what, there's this major contradiction here? And then a few years later, this probably six or, or seven years ago, we discovered a, a church that was really impactful for my wife and I, and, and they were in AAP church. And so AAP follows a lot of the traditions of like Mennonites and Amish. And we weren't familiar with it at the time, but two of their big beliefs are passive as some nonviolence and passivism. And they try to be apolitical in the sense that they don't identify with a political party or a country. So for anti Baptist churches, it would be really, they wouldn't have American flags in their church or any type of flag whatsoever. And they wouldn't say the pledge of allegiance or they wouldn't join the middle. There would be conscientious subjector during wars and that type of thing.
Speaker 3 00:31:27 And I remember that was really like radical. And at, at the time I just thought of the stereotypical, you know, Amish cart and buggy or whatever. And, um, but one thing that really came across through the teaching was that God loves people in a sense that was really hard for me to understand at the time. So they talked about how, you know, it's easy. I shouldn't say it's not easy for a lot of people. What I can, I can understand that God loves me and like loves my family. And I love my family. Um, and we have a good relationship and I can understand if people had uncomfortable relationships or bad relationships, how that's harder to accept. But for me, it was easier for me to accept that God loves me, but it was harder for me to accept that out. Also loves my neighbor, who is a middle Eastern Islamic person, who for decades, I've been socialized in this American society to view as like a terrorist or potential terrorist or whatever.
Speaker 3 00:32:43 Um, and so to see everyone in God's divine image was just a revelation and it was just a fundamental thing that, you know, theologically is, Christians is pretty basic. Like, God, God loves people. Everyone is created in, um, you know, his line image. But practically, like to take that to this, to the step that we don't wanna hurt or destroy somebody, man, in God's image, it was just a radical, like this idea of passivism and, um, loving your neighbor as yourself. It just seems so basic to me when I look the life of Jesus, like, yeah, how did, how did I miss this? Like growing up in a Christian community, in a family? How did I not understand that Jesus's love for people should cause me to not kill them? You know? And I, shouldn't just, you know, I shouldn't just GLI accept the fact that my country is gonna bomb, you know, tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 3 00:33:54 Um, and I, I shouldn't just accept that as yeah, that's deserved, you know, because if I shift my pair to these people are made in the divine image of God and these people are loved by God. And these people are my neighbor, it changes everything. And it's, it's hard. It's a constant, I mean, there are times I have road rage, you know, driving down and I'm like, okay, I just wanna freak out at this person that cut, cut me off. And I get it. I've, you know, all the, the, the, you know, examples of like, what are you gonna do when someone breaks into your house and has it gone and threatens to kill your kid or whatever, you know? But, but God sees everyone as his creations love. And, you know, a good example I heard of like, to switch that, that theoretical situation around where someone breaks into your house and is gonna kill people, like, imagine you're the parents and your siblings are like trying to kill each other.
Speaker 3 00:34:54 Like, which person would you kill as a parent? Like, that's kind of how God is described as like, God wouldn't kill any SI sibling. He wouldn't kill. I mean, his children, his children, and that kind of like blew my mind too, of like, oh yeah. Like as a parent, even if your children were like being violent to one another, like that parental instinct of a loving parent, wouldn't be to like you murder one kid to save another or whatever. Um, and I know these are kind of crazy and dark <laugh>. These are what Anna B is. Do you know, we, we try to go through all the scenarios of nonviolence and, and that type of thing. But in, in another thing that really struck out that struck me was like how free it was as a Christian to let go of those political ideologies that I was hanging onto.
Speaker 3 00:35:53 Because one of the things of about anti baptism that really helped me in my faith was that I no longer had to choose between faith and, and my political ideology as often. Um, because faith is inherently political. So I think there's this common misconception that, um, you know, pledging allegiance to Jesus doesn't mean you're not political or that you don't talk about it. It's just that you don't align yourself with a political party. And so there's all these problems that Christians get into because they're like, well, I'm pro-life, but I, I have to choose between being pro-life and pro and the on pro refugee or, and what happens when your faith gets torn on all these sides. And so it's just really freeing to try to focus on, okay, Jesus loves, everyone loves calls us to love our neighbors as ourself. What does that look like? And so obviously there it's way more complex than that <laugh> in the everyday world, but it was really freeing to no longer have to really pledge my allegiance to any political party. And I could focus more on what do I feel like God is calling me to do, and how can I love my neighbor better? And it was just E easier to do that once I kind of dropped the baggage of, do I align myself with this political party or this candidate or whatever. So, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:37:31 Yeah. It, it has me thinking about a couple of things, you know, one is that, um, gosh, this is, this is really tough because we see when people are doing really horrible things, right? Like, like right now I'm thinking about lair, Putin, red, like this, he's doing totally, really, really, really horrible stuff. Um, but in my mind, I've done some of this, some similar exercises in my mind, right. Like I've actually told, has been like, look, if it was just me, I didn't have to, I didn't have to concern myself with any of the rest of you. Like I, I told him I, I would totally be anti Baptist. Like I would just, that would be my tradition. Just forget about it.
Speaker 3 00:38:11 Um, oh, join us. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:38:12 Yeah, I know. It's great. I know I'm thinking now about like all the ANAB guests who have been on the podcast, I'm like, this is so great. Um, but I'm like, I, I, I would totally be and a Baptist before I even knew what the word pacifist meant. Someone accused me of being that, like when I was a teenager, a younger teenager, and he was like, what are you some kind of sist? I was like, I don't know what is that? You know? And so anyway, but that's kinda always been my, my natural bent, um, is, is toward that. But you know, one of the things I was think that I, I, when I do these kind of exercises in my mind, like you're describing one of the ones I do often, and just my now I will call it my theological imagination, um, is with Judas because I'm always like what would've happened if he wouldn't have ended it.
Speaker 0 00:38:55 Right. You know, like if, if he wouldn't have taken that step, like, I, if I believe in, in Jesus being who he actually said, he was, then that for me in my, my imagination, that means for me that I also have to believe that Judas was completely redeemable. That, and that's hard, right? Like the one who kissed him and said, you know, this is the guy, but if he wouldn't have ended it, right. So I have my imagination. And I think that I'm not far off. Right. Because I also, you know, am reminded that Jesus, we, we would call it taking communion. Right. But Jesus ate with him that night. Right. Like this, you know? So, so that's one thing I think about people being redeemable, right. Things that we can't see, and that kind of bleeding into some of the narrative that we see in the gospel, when Jesus, if he was accused of anything, it was accused of having the wrong neighbor, having the wrong friends.
Speaker 0 00:39:49 Right. Like he's a sinner, can't you see that? Don't, you know, what kind of woman that is that you're doing that, are you kidding me? Zaki sees a th like, what are you doing? But a everybody's redeemable and B this is the complex nature of humanity. Um, I, I had a guest on previously who in his book, he, he called it, um, the gold and shadows of everyone. Right. And, um, you know, in, in the church, we love his example. His biblical example was great because I have always been one who's wrestled with king David. Like I just spent years just not liking the dude, like at all and feeling totally bla as for it. Right. Like how can he not like king David? Right. Like God said, he's a man over God. Yeah. I don't like him. I'm sorry. I just, I don't like him.
Speaker 0 00:40:40 Right. But mm-hmm <affirmative> but, you know, saying with, we esteem David in this way and, and God did, and Jesus spoke of David. So it's not that there wasn't anything beautiful in David goodnight. There absolutely was. Um, and you know, he, this author said, but how would Orion's family have, have experienced David? Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> not like a man after God's own heart, for sure. Right. Like a murderer. And, um, that, you know, just not an excuse for our behavior, but just a reminder that we're complex people that who are made in the image of God, but who are stained with sin. And so there is this complexity to all of us. Right. And so it is easy because I'm just gonna tell you your sins, not as bad, I mean, your sins, like worse than mine, right? Like whoever you are. Yep. Whatever you've done, it's probably worse than, than mine.
Speaker 0 00:41:35 So it's easy to discount you in our interaction. Right. Um, because I know me and I kind of know the situation that was kind of surrounding that simple thing that I did. And it probably wasn't really as bad as maybe you thought it was because you didn't really see me, but, um, I don't think that Jesus didn't interact with us in that way. Praise him. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, he doesn't interact us in, in that way. And so, um, when you, you know, going back, even, you know what you're talking about this love for neighbor, think it's remembering that there redeemable just like us, whoever it is, um, and embracing that complexity that we all bring, you know, into, into life. And for me, part of what that includes is trying not to put mental labels for myself on people, right? Like I'm just gonna be real.
Speaker 0 00:42:31 Like one of the things I'm trying to, to do right now, even in my thinking is not called Putin a jerk in my head, he's doing some things that are absolutely horrendous that unfathomable, um, devastation to humanity. And so it's not that he's not acting like a jerk. He's totally acting like a jerk, but I'm trying to not let that encompass his whole being, even in my mind in part, because I think it helps me remember. I think it helps me remember who Jesus is. Like, as you're saying, he's, he's seeing us as siblings. Um, and that's so powerful to think about that image, um, to think about Jesus in that way, but also to think about how we might interact with our neighbors in that way. Um, if it wasn't, it's not just about who I know or who loves me or who I love, but who does God know?
Speaker 0 00:43:34 And who does God love and how is he interacting with people? Um, yeah, gosh, oh my goodness. I'm looking at my notes. I'm like, we're just not gonna get there. We're just not gonna get <laugh> some of these places that I was that I was hoping, um, that we might, but I guess one thing I would ask you <affirmative> is what are some of the ways besides the ones that we've already talked about in your community, or specifically in the book where, where people maybe you've received some feedback and they've said, yeah, that's actually really helpful for me to help, um, to start like embodying some of these ideas in real life. What, whether that's like, uh, embodiment through prayer or embodiment through certain, um, spiritual practices or embodiment through, um, you know, like physically tangibly doing things in their community, but what have been some of the feedback that you've received that you can say if someone is like, yeah, I think I kind of wanna hop on board, like maybe what are some of the places that might be good for them to start exploring in their own lives?
Speaker 3 00:44:40 Yeah. One of the things that gets brought up a lot and that I try to talk about and introduce people to is just actively engaging with your neighbors. Um, so it's like Jesus views everyone as his children and he intimately knows them. So everything changes once we know people, you know, so it's like our thoughts and ideas about immigration for dramatically change. If we're introduced to a coworker friend or relative who's on DACA, or who's an immigrant, or if we have a friend who's a refugee or, um, you know, once we hear stories of our friends and relatives and family who have experienced races or, um, injustice in some sort. So, you know, these, these issues are so complex and it's easy just to constantly, you know, I think the, the first step in the easiest step, in some ways for social justice within Christianity to read, and I think it's important like to read, to learn, to do all that, but it's the hardest and probably most vulnerable step is to actually take that and engage with other people and to go out into your community, even something that's simple as volunteering like at local, Y M C a as a soccer coach or being a tutor at a local elementary school or something, it doesn't have to be, you know, a radical moment of activism where you're part of a, you know, a March or something, although it can be, but the more you're involved in your community and with your fellow neighbors, just the more awareness you have of their humanity and of their divine worth.
Speaker 3 00:46:45 And, you know, when you're volunteer coaching, you'll realize all the different issues that the kids on your team are going through at home home. And maybe, maybe they're homeless, maybe they're suffering from food and security. And so suddenly, you know, these ideological concepts that seem so detached from your world are personal. And because you, you care for the soccer player on your team where you have a relationship with your friends, from, you know, the tutoring group or book club or whatever. So I think it's, you know, and in order for that to happen, we do have to be invested in our community and interacting with our neighbors in, in a good natured way, not with like an agenda of like, oh, I want to convert you to, um, our church or whatever, but just having a heart that sees people for who they are. And like Jesus, like emulated Jesus is like goes everywhere, um, and is just interacting with people in a real meaningful way.
Speaker 3 00:47:56 Um, but something as simple as like dining with people, you know, stuff like that. So I think that's the most profound way that social justice in the CRI within the Christian tradition comes about is just interacting with our neighbors. And those interactions, again, can be anything as mundane as being part of a community group or book club or volunteering or something like that. But over and over again, that I hear is, you know, the most profound change in people and like, oh yeah, I discovered this of just volunteering, you know, at a food shelf or there's immigration centers. And there's, you know, right now the, the nation is desperately trying to fund, um, you know, Afghanistan, refugees that are coming and relocation projects throughout the United States, wherever you live. You know, if you're true, just looking for an opportunity to support, you can call your local government agency and they'll have a family for you, a refugee family, immigrant family in some way you can invest.
Speaker 3 00:49:01 And, and you'll learn from that family. And, and, um, you'll learn more about these ideas that we see in the media and, um, are used and weaponized by, you know, both political parties or whatever, but these people are made the divine image of God and our neighbors, and how can we reach out to the people around us? And I think that's the best way, and it's easy. We can all do that in some capacity. Um, so I think that's probably, you know, the most profound way that students or readers and people and Christians and everyone kind of interacts with each other and how we grow as those personal interactions we have with each other and our neighbors.
Speaker 0 00:49:47 Absolutely. I think it just, you know, for us, it just, um, has started with availability. You know, I'm embarrassed, we've been in this, in our current house, in our current neighborhood for over seven years, but it really wasn't until the pandemic that we started really getting to know our like actual physical neighbors. And, um, here we were in 2020, we were absolutely ridiculously blessed with were just spring in Houston, which doesn't always last as long as it did. Um, in that I know if you, if you're in Minneapolis, you may still be freezing, but we're, we're gonna hit the nineties this week. And so it's all over. I mean, it's, it's done, but it wasn't that way in 2020. And so, um, my family and I, we just kind of parked ourselves in the front yard. You know, we, we bought some new chairs and we parked ourselves out front.
Speaker 0 00:50:33 And now when we, when we go on walks and we see people, you know, I think it's easy. Sometimes you just get, you know, you pull into the garage or into the driveway, you go into your house through the back door and you may never see the people that you live next store to. And that was our life here for, you know, probably the first five years that we lived here. But exactly what you're saying. I noticed a huge difference in me just in how I was engaging people, just because I kind of through circumstances that no one would want, um, we just made the decision to try and make ourselves available. And it's been a huge blessing, you know, it's been amazing, but it is much more difficult to do kind of all of these negative, some of these negative things we've talked about when, you know, someone <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:51:19 Yeah. You know, their kids' names, you've had lunch with them. You've, you know, you see each other every day as you're taking a walk. Um, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it is really helps us, um, identify with each other. Thank you so much, Steven, for that that's, that's perfect. That's a wonderful, a wonderful reminder and a wonderful call to action for all of us. Um, so I'm gonna say the name of this book that I'm, that I'm not finished with, but it will <laugh>, but it'll happen. I appreciate it so much. Um, this is on love and mercy, uh, on love and mercy, a social justice devotional. I will put the link for this book in the notes for this episode. Um, and where can people, um, find you and read a, read some of your other stuff. What's a good place for them to connect with you online? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:52:04 You can go to Google, um, and find some of the publications that I posted on Sojo journals, red letter, Christians, Christians for social action, some other platforms as well, so
Speaker 0 00:52:18 Awesome. Are you active on anything like, um, Twitter or Facebook or anything like that?
Speaker 3 00:52:23 I'm on Facebook primarily. I do have a Twitter handle, but Facebook is a place to go is my main platform right now that I use. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:52:31 Awesome. Well, we'll put the link there too. Thank you so much, Steven. I appreciate you spending time with me this morning.
Speaker 3 00:52:36 Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:52:39 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth. Boetti 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.
