Buckle up for this one, friends, because Dominique DuBois Gilliard brings straight fire. Dominique's book is, "Subversive Witness: Scripture's Call to Leverage Privilege", and it's a good one. In this episode, we talk about using privilege on behalf of the marginalized, giving power away, what it's like to be Black in America (and in the Church in America) and many more topics. Make sure to share this on the socials...everyone needs to sit in this with us.
The podcast with Willie Jennings that Dominique recommends in the episode is "My Anger, God's Righteous Indignation."
The beer we tasted in this episode is Evil Julius from Treehouse Brewing Company. It's delightful.
The beverage tasting is at 0:56. To skip to the main segment, go to 5:24.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.
Content Note: This episode contains discussion or mention of racialized violence and intimidation, rape, and profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
Buckle up for this one, friends, because Dominique DuBois Gilliard brings straight fire. Dominique's book is, "Subversive Witness: Scripture's Call to Leverage Privilege", and it's a good one. In this episode, we talk about using privilege on behalf of the marginalized, giving power away, what it's like to be Black in America (and in the Church in America) and many more topics. Make sure to share this on the socials...everyone needs to sit in this with us.
The podcast with Willie Jennings that Dominique recommends in the episode is "My Anger, God's Righteous Indignation."
The beer we tasted in this episode is Evil Julius from Treehouse Brewing Company. It's delightful.
The beverage tasting is at 0:56. To skip to the main segment, go to 5:24.
You can find the transcript for this episode here.
Content Note: This episode contains discussion or mention of racialized violence and intimidation, rape, and profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
Welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar.
Kyle:The podcast where we mix a sometimes weird, but always delicious cocktail of theology, philosophy, and spirituality.
Randy:We have a treat of a guest for you today, friends, his name is Dominique DuBois Gilliard. And the book that Dominique wrote is called Subversive Witness. The book is incredible. In this interview, I was as we were talking, I was just so engaged in. I mean, he's, he's brilliant. And he communicates in this profound way that I think is going to arrest pretty much everyone who listens to this.
Kyle:Yeah. I don't know if I have anything to add to that; it's great.
Randy:I'm excited to re listen to this and to learn from it. And to learn from Dominique's perspective, and perhaps to have him on again, but I'm excited to share Dominique with you guys. And also, I'm excited to share this hazy IPA it looks like.
Kyle:I should say he's got a hell of a taste in whiskey too, we learned. So look forward to that. Yeah, but we're drinking as you just said, beer. This is an IPA, hazy IPA. So I just happen to have that. Normally, I would not have this sitting around. But I had a huge beer share with a bunch of friends this weekend. And this one we just didn't get to. So this is a special IPA. So this is from tree house Brewing Company in Massachusetts. And they didn't invent the hazy IPA, but they're widely regarded to have perfected it. They're the standard bearer. They are the standard bearer to the extent that if you want their beer outside of Massachusetts, you have to kind of pay a pretty penny to get it because they don't really distribute at least not very far. So they have a line of beers really, really juicy hazy IPAs, not with actual juice just juicy from the hops called Julius and this is a version of that. So this is called Evil Julius because it came out kind of around Halloween. Okay, so just smell this.
Randy:I'm so excited that we get a Tree House.
Kyle:Just put it in front of your nose. It's, it's incredible.
Randy:So if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I had COVID recently, fully over it, I'm not going to infect these guys and all that stuff. But my taste and smell are compromised, but even still, so delightfully citrusy hoppy.
Elliot:Yeah, it's like a it's like all the dark tones of a lemon.
Randy:But it's not one of those, you know, overhyped, hipster bullshit pale ales. This is like, brilliantly hopped.
Kyle:Yeah, they're all very carefully balanced. They're creamy without having lactose...
Randy:This doesn't have lactose?
Kyle:...they're fruity without having fruit. No, don't believe it does.
Randy:As I tasted it, and had that in my mouth, it just felt creamy. Like you said, that's incredible.
Elliot:Yeah, balance is a great word for it.
Randy:Yeah. See, I'm all about adjuncts. You've won me over, the purist in me is like, put whatever you want in there as long as it's delicious. I don't care. However, it makes me respect guys like Tree House even more, because there's not anything like that in there. And yet you still get that creamy mouthfeel, you still get that citrusy action. This is nice.
Kyle:Yeah.
Elliot:What's the ABV on this one?
Kyle:This is 9.2%. So this was not a slouch. It will sneak up on you.
Elliot:But it fits into the balance too. That's, it's not overwhelming. It's, it's exactly where it needs to be strong enough to stand up to huge flavors.
Kyle:This is actually believe it or not zero IBU.
Elliot:I don't know what an IBU is.
Kyle:Which means no bitterness. So, bitterness unit. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, if, if your only experience with an IPA is that kind of bitter quality to a hop that's added early in the boil, this has literally almost none of that which is unusual even for the Julius line. Usually they have a little bit of bitterness, but this is extra, extra creamy and fruity and none of that other stuff.
Randy:I mean, I don't know how much of this is due to my spidey sense being compromised, but when I taste this, I taste like taste and feel three things. Citrus, bitterness, tartness, and creaminess. Those are like my my things that I experience here.
Elliot:Citrus, creaminess, and bitterness, that you can't taste the rest.
Randy:Yeah, no, I don't, nope. FU COVID. What extra flavors are you guys getting?
Kyle:So I get something close to passion fruit. Maybe?
Elliot:There's cloves, when you said passion fruit it made a ton of sense. Peach. Like a nice sweet Georgia peach.
Kyle:Yeah I can see that. Almost a vanilla-esque kind of thing. I
Elliot:I was gonna try that. Yeah, I was gonna try that and I wasn't doing enough to say vanilla.
Kyle:Yeah.
Randy:I'm angry.
Kyle:It'll come back.
Elliot:We don't know that.
Kyle:I'm trying to be encouraging.
Randy:Thank you.
Kyle:There's always whiskey.
Elliot:Suddenly, all he likes is barrel proofs. Yeah. You said this would be hard to find like, how much would one have to pay for...
Kyle:I needed it kind of quickly and I was willing to pay what the people were asking. So that means about $10 a can plus shipping.
Randy:You my friend...
Kyle:If I'd like had time to look around...
Elliot:This is love.
Kyle:...I might have been able to get it a little bit cheaper but.
Randy:Yeah, you my friend have a problem that I'm excited to benefit from. All right, well what say what it is again and where it's from.
Kyle:So this is Evil Julius from Tree House Brewing Company in Charlton, Massachusetts.
Randy:Tree House, cheers.
Elliot:Delicious beer.
Kyle:So Dominique DuBois Gilliard. Thank you so much for being on a pastor and a philosopher walk into a bar.
Dominique:Hey, I'm excited to be with you all.
Randy:Yeah.
Kyle:Well, we do like to ask our guests because bar is a part of the theme of our podcast. So if you're drinking anything you want to tell us about or if you have a favorite adult beverage you'd like to tell us about, feel free.
Dominique:Booker's bourbon.
Randy:Booker's.
Kyle:Nice, good choice.
Randy:You were quick with that too, Dominique.
Dominique:Yeah, I'll pour my glass after we finish.
Randy:Okay. All right.
Dominique:Putting my son down so I'll do that after he goes to bed. Yeah, so Bookers is a nice day. If I'm doing just the standard staple, it's Woodford.
Kyle:Oh.
Randy:Nice.
Kyle:Yeah.
Randy:All right.
Kyle:Ditto, yeah, hard to beat.
Randy:We got a guest who has good taste in whiskey.
Kyle:Heck yeah, sweet. So just to get rolling here, if you could tell our listeners a little bit about yourself who you are, what's your background like, and specifically, what led you to write this book that we're gonna be talking about?
Dominique:Yeah, so I'm from the metro Atlanta area, and just recently relocated back not too far from where I grew up. And I am somebody who jokingly says that the Lord has taken the best virtues of my parents call upon their lives and combined it into one call upon my life, my father, for a number of years worked for the SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which is a social organization that became founded during the Civil Rights Movement. And my mom is a bishop for our denomination over the southeastern region of the country. And so that combination between pastoral ministry and advocacy and justice has really kind of morphed into the call upon my life. So that's kind of a lot of who I am. In addition to that I am somebody who is zealous about trying to make the world a more just and equitable place, and trying to leave the world a better place for my son, then what I grew up in.
Kyle:Yeah. So the book that we're going to be talking with you about that just came out this year, I believe, is called Subversive Witness. Really excellent read, thank you for writing it, the title might strike some listeners right away, right? Because that word subversive is kind of loaded kind of carries a bit of a punch. So can you before we dive into the content of the book, just explain what you were going for in the title? And why did you include a word like subversive in it, especially in a context of a discussion about social privilege, right, it carries a connotation of trying to undermine something so so why did you choose that title?
Dominique:Yeah, before I answer that question, I have to, the running joke with this book is how many people have Freudian slips when they're reading the title, and they say what they wish I would have wrote, which is "Subversive Whiteness." It is a consistent reality. I've literally been on podcasts before and people were like, let's talk about your book Subversive Whiteness, I'm like, dude, you really know that's not the title? Like, we can talk about that, but that's not the title of the book. And so...
Kyle:Actually, that's one thing that stood out to me that I really appreciated is that it's about all kinds of privilege, not just racial privilege.
Dominique:Yeah, that was really important to me, because I think privilege is such a loaded conversation, as you alluded to. And I think part of the challenge when we try to have this conversation in a constructive manner, is that people presume that they already know what you're going to say before they even give you a chance to articulate kind of where you're coming from. And so for me, it was really important to make the conversation about privilege, more expansive, than just race. And I think the reason why I've really felt like it was important for me to do that is because as a black man, it would be very easy for me to write a book about pointing the finger at other people. But the really the integrity within our work is when people realize that we're willing to look inward and also critique the systems and structures that work for us as well. And not just point out the ones that are causing harm to us. And so for me, it was really integral for me to talk about privilege in a more expansive way, and particularly, to press into concepts like male privilege, which I've been in front of and also say that like part of what I believe the subversive nature of the kingdom is that it causes us to actually work against our own self interest at times. And when we try to dismantle and deconstruct systems and structures that are actually working for us in a fallen world. That's actually what we're doing. We're working against our own self interest and in a worldly logical way of thinking about things because we To understand that there is something true or something real or something more robust on the other side, if we can actually understand the biblical truth, which is that we are all inherently connected to one another. And our flourishing and thriving is found when we cultivate places and spaces for us all to flourish and thrive and not just look out for our own self interest. So, when I'm talking about subversive, you're right, the title is intentional. And because I believe that's what the church is supposed to be, it's supposed to be a witness that is trying to subvert the status quo, that is trying to declare the good news that the kingdom of God has been inaugurated in that the way that things are not the way that they're going to continue to be, and that there is something more expansive, something more liberating, that's possible, when we live as Kingdom citizens first above any commitment that allegiance to a flag or a nation. But we have this way of understanding that to faithfully follow Jesus means that we are going to have to live in a way that causes us to be seen, as disruptive to be seen as people who are not always affirmed in our citizenship in a worldly empire, to be seen as people who are living in living for the night yet in the midst of them now, to use the more theological language of how do we press into all the things that we know that the kingdom will be, and ultimately will fully crescendo into in the midst of them not yet being our earthly reality. And so I think to live in that way, is subversive because it ultimately to Klk errs, that Jesus is Lord and not Caesar. And when you live that way, that is a subversive lifestyle that's going to come with persecution or resistance. And the kingdom, people need to know that this is part of what it means when we talk about the cost of discipleship.
Kyle:Yeah, can you just define the word privilege really quick as you're using it?
Dominique:Yeah. So I think this is always something I want to first start by saying what I'm not talking about. So acknowledging privilege is not about condemnation, shaming or guilting, one another into coerced actions. What I am talking about is how we live in a world where sin has really distorted our, our vision and our behavior. And so the way in which sin has really created this kind of sliding scale of humanity, where some people are seen as more reflective of the divine image than other people, and because of that, they are treated with more dignity, humanity, and their lives are protected and guarded in ways that other peoples aren't. And so we see this kind of inscribed into custom culture, Law Education. Perfect example is how indigenous people are referred into the Constitution as merciless Indian savages, or the fact that black people have been legally constituted as three fifths of a person or slavery and property, not actually people. So we get the sliding scale of humanity. And when we understand that, our fallen society has literally ascribe currency to bodies based off how they are composed based off their racial, gender, ethnic, mental cognition, physical ability, those things create this currency that goes along with the sliding scale of humanity. And so when we're talking about privilege, I'm talking about it in two different ways. I'm talking about privileges that come from sin, that are rooted in a worldly ideology that is diametrically opposed to the biblical Truffaut, Genesis 127, that tells us all people, regardless of their diversity, or equitably made an image of God, and then we're talking about a second out element of privilege, which is positional privilege, when we look at how people can be placed in places of distinction strategically with the missional purpose of bearing witness to who and whose they are through how they choose to engage in, in those places of power and influence. And so that's that's what we're talking about. When we're talking about privilege, we're talking about privilege that comes from sin. And then we're talking about positional privilege, and in both position in both instances, and how we choose to live in love declares to the world who we belong to. And so when we are looking at the fallen nature of our society, and the way in which sin is connected to embodied men and how people are treated, and their humanity is affirmed, as a male, when I go into spaces that my sisters don't have access to, I'm supposed to use my access in that space to actually create a more just and equitable conversation about how we're actually treating or responding to our sisters. I'm supposed to be subversively using the access that gave me a place at the table to try to create a more just and equitable society in a way that my sisters wouldn't have a chance As to give voice to because they were excluded from the table because of their gender. So the expectation is because I'm part of the good old boys club, quote, unquote, that I'm going to live, I'm going to function at a certain in a certain way at the table. But we're supposed to subvert the normative way of being when we get access to those tables because of who and whose we are. And the same thing would be case with positional, a lot of times, but just positionally, we're invited into places and spaces, because people expect a certain orientation towards us. But when we actually get into those places, and we actually establish Kingdom pressure points in these places of distinction, then we actually get to be about the work of the Kingdom. And we get to actually start to work subversively, from the inside to deconstruct unjust systems and structures so that we can ultimately prophetically reconstruct them in a way that is more faithful to the gospel.
Kyle:Can you give us an example of positional privilege and what it might look like to overcome that just something concrete that our listeners can kind of sink their teeth into?
Dominique:Yeah, so this one is really important, because I think one of the push backs to privilege or conversations about privilege is often times, well, my life hasn't been easy. I've had hardships I came from poverty, those kinds of things. And so part of what I wanted to show is that there's no denying that God puts people in positions of power and influence with the expectation that they live missionally, remembering that their privilege has a missional purpose. So to to I'll give you a quick story. So I think the story of Joseph is a beautiful illustration, where Joseph was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but ultimately endures abuse and torture and essentially human trafficking when his brothers sell them away, and he gets abused. And he's like, at the bottom of the bottom, but God lifts them up from that place, and then puts him in the second most powerful position in the land. And he ultimately is tempted when his brothers have to come back to him when he's in a position of power to exploit his position of power to get revenge. But he's able to overcome that temptation, because he remembers, again, that there's a mission or purpose to his privilege. And his privilege is ultimately to help navigate the people got through a famine that otherwise would have killed many, if not decimated, the entire people and people group. And so it is this kind of way in which we take seriously that when we get access to places of influence, it's not only just because of our hard work ethic, it might be because God has actually specifically positioned us in that place for such a time as this. So you think about the story of Esther, you think about, you know, somebody like Moses are these different folks. But I even think about in our own every day to day lives, like if you get appointed to a position on school board, like you're supposed to think about, like how do I strategically use this, this platform and this access, I have to ultimately cultivate a more just an equitable educational system that's more reflective of all of the people who interact with this system and not continue to repair perpetuate a broken educational narrative that says that certain people have made this country great and prosperous, and flourishing and other people have been inconsequential. Like, it's just not a faithful telling of the story. And so when we get places, when we get invited to places of influence and distinction, we get a chance to start to write some of those wrongs.
Kyle:Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Any, any follow ups?
Randy:No, it's perfect.
Kyle:So I want to talk about the Bible a little bit, because this is a major feature of your book that honestly, I didn't expect to going into it. It was kind of refreshing to discover that and you start off right off the bat telling a story about Acts chapter six verses one through seven, which I gotta be honest with you. I'm Pentecostal. I've read Acts. I don't know how many times in my life. I did not remember that passage. Just skirted right over it. Okay. But it's in there. I mean, it's, it's right there. Like you tell this, you have this kind of dramatic retelling of it. And I think, Surely he's reading something into that. So I go back, and I look it up and damned if that's not what it says. So, so just a couple of verses. Yeah, seven verses, but it's so packed with meaning that I just never saw and no Pentecostal preacher in my life ever bothered to unpack for me. So can you tell us a little bit about that passage and why you started off the book with it and what you think it can teach us about dealing with systemic injustice?
Dominique:Yeah, I started there because the the major pushback to this conversation for many people is that they say that privilege isn't a biblical concept. And I wanted to show how thoroughly biblical this concept is and how we see scripture repeatedly addressing it and bring it up before us to try to help us have eyes to see yours to hear and hearts to respond when we encountered in our midst. So I love this passage and the fact that the church is growing the churches trying to live missionally they are evangelizing, and everything looks good on the surface. But these church leaders are also blinded to the fact that there's an injustice going on right underneath their noses. And so in trying to carry out the prophetic tradition of making sure that we care for the least of these church leaders realized that there is essentially poverty going on that is hindering the flourishing of widows in their community. And so they start a Food Distribution Program to meet the needs of widows. One emergency is that there's two groups of widows who are actually being served by this food district or bution program, and the two groups of widows are having a divergent experience. There are that he break widows who are cultural insiders with direct access to the city and the churches, dominant culture, customs and languages. And then you have the Hellenistic widows who are Jews who lived most of their lives in Greek speaking cities and towns outside of Jerusalem. And when they returned to Jerusalem, they return this culture outside the Hebraic. Widows had advocates at the table of power, as well as cultural, linguistic and relational advantages that led them to receiving superior treatment than the Hellenistic widows. The Hellenistic widows felt as if their outsider status was causing them to be overlooked and marginalized in the in the church's distribution of food. And so they ultimately bring their complaint to the leadership and say, Hey, this is what's going on. And this is where I think the story really flips because it is a beautiful illustration of what maturity in Christ should result in. So these leaders hear the distribution complaint, and instead of responding by saying that you're the one who's actually causing the problem by bringing this complaint, or you're the one who's making something out of nothing, or you should just be happy that we're giving you food, we don't even have to do that. Or, you know, the whole apology, non apology thing, they actually soberly hear the discrimination complaint, go back, do their own research. And then they not only legitimate the complaint, but they actually say that the problem is actually systemic in nature. And if we don't actually deal with the table, and who is actually at the table of power, then we're just going to put a temporary bandage on this. And we're going to have to come back to this place in three to five months, maybe a year. And so these men who were deeply compelled and guided by the Spirit, ultimately come back and say, You know what, there was a discrimination complaint. I mean, there was a discrimination problem. And the problem was rooted in who actually has the power over this program. So we're going to pray and invite the community to pray and we're going to discern who it should be. And ultimately, this group that was all full of he break widows chose seven Hellenistic, I mean, sorry, not braided widows who break Christians, celeb seven Hiebert, Hellenistic Christians, and say that you're actually the ones who should be at the table of power. And you're the ones who are are appointed to lead us through the blind spots that we've had historically, if we're going to actually bear a faithful witness in this community. And what I loved about this is that as soon as they do that, they said that the gospel in their context started to explode. And people started to give their life to Christ and other people who are already Christian started to live more faithfully. That is a beautiful illustration. Because all too often we have settled for a gospel that decouples evangelism from justice. But what is beautiful about this passage is that, and I connect this passage in my reflections to John 1334, and 35, which says that the world will know that we belong to Jesus by how we love one another. You see, people in the community knew that there was a distribution problem going on, they knew that there was discrimination as happening, and they were waiting to see how the church would respond with the church, I own up to it with the church, have integrity, with church, be willing to do the hard thing like restructure the table of power to respond to the brokenness, or again, what they do what we often do today, the apology, non apology or to victim blame or trying to shift the responsibility. And they didn't do that. And they acted with maturity, Southern gospel flourished there, but not only there, but the seven men who were appointed to the council ultimately down the line are the first to proclaim the gospel to the Gentile world. And so we see again, the connection between evangelism and justice reintegrated again, in a way that I think is just such a more holistic understanding of the gospel than what most of our congregations settle for today.
Kyle:Yeah. Quick, nerdy follow up. How do we know that all seven of them were Hellenistic?
Dominique:So we, there's been exegetical study about the names and all of the names or Hellenistic names as opposed to Hebraic.
Kyle:Yeah. So that part was really striking to me, right? I'm reminded of, I don't know, somebody like the Southern Baptist Convention just to pick out an easy target will decide to have a panel on gender issues or something and converse about, you know, whether there's any sin here that we need to deal with or anything, and then they'll populate the panel with white dudes, right? Not a woman in sight, never considering that there might be something a little bit off about that or that there might be some sort of biblical testimony that suggests an alternative means of proceeding with an issue like that. So that's really striking, right? They didn't even have representation on the body that they formed.
Dominique:They surrendered it all.
Kyle:They gave control away. That's remarkable.
Dominique:Yeah. I think is a beautiful message for us. I think the last part of your question is, what does it mean for us today, this is a biblical illustration of the fact that sometimes it is necessary to not share power, but to give it away. And I think we're really scared of that concept. But it's right there in the text. And the other thing I think is important for us is that it helps remind us that when there is discrimination, or, or wrongdoing in our myths, that people are watching and waiting to see how we're going to respond to, and how we respond actually gives our witness and our words and our ministry credibility in many people's eyes. And if they see that we're not willing to do the same things that we're constantly calling the world to do confess, repent, those kinds of things, when we're in the wrong, why would anybody want to come and be a part of that kind of fellowship?
Randy:Yeah, yeah. I mean, as you as you were talking, Dominique, and I had the same experience as I read it as Kyle, I'm sure so many of you listeners stopped and we're like, holy crap. I never realized that's in that story. I thought this was all about, you know, preaching the gospel and not getting caught up in in serving widows. When really, it's a story about privilege, power, and what what happens when you take the Gospel seriously. In seven verses, you've solved all our problems. It's unbelievable. I mean, the early church, we have so much to learn from the early church, you're talking about a subversive witness who's convinced that they are not going to become the empire that they live in the midst of, but we're going to subvert the powers that be in the status quo. The early church was seen as a group of people who Romans thought they wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire, because they were so countercultural, and took the gospel seriously and gave slaves honor and dignity and gave women honor and dignity gave Gentiles honor and dignity. I mean, there's so many things in which the early church just perfected this without even all this elaborate and extravagant teaching that we have an exegesis that we have, they just took Jesus seriously. It's striking how different that sounds, then, honestly, and I hate being so negative, but what we find in the church in America today. It's striking.
Dominique:Yeah. And, you know, for people who struggle with the prophetic nature of your word, I will alway, I will remind everybody, there's always a remnant. And so yes, the vast majority of our congregations are not bearing a subversive witness right now. But there's always a remnant. So we should stay encouraged by by that truth. And we can become part of that remnant too.
Randy:See, repentance is the most beautiful thing. Yeah. I mean, we act like you know, admitting that I'm getting it wrong is the worst thing in the world. Well, actually, that's part of the gospel. And repentance is what Jesus came and brought, when he brought the kingdom we said, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is here. So let's just be a little bit less afraid of repenting admitting we're wrong, and walking in a direction towards life in Jesus. That's just Bible one on one gospel one on one, right.
Kyle:So why do you think it is that--that Acts story is just the tip of the iceberg, you've got something like that in just about every chapter in the book--so why do you think it is that so many, I'm just gonna say it, white evangelicals, but but not just, Protestants in general, Catholics, too--why do we so easily overlook, or misread or misappropriate passages like that when we're otherwise very familiar with the scriptures?
Dominique:Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great question with multiple layers, as a part of it is, who has been doing the biblical interpretation for us, and who's been writing the books, who's been writing the commentaries, who's been teaching at the seminaries and the Bible institutes, and then forming the pastors who are ultimately going to get up and preach to congregations. So an example from the book I love to use as an example of like why hermeneutics how we stop and read and study the Bible is so important. So when we look at the passage from Chapter There are two in the book about Moses being born into the world. And we see that the Egyptian empire has created a law that literally says that Hebrew boys have to be put to death because of their ethnic identity and gender. Moses, his mom, is put in an impossible situation where she either must kill her beloved son, because of an unjust law, or she must break the law and ultimately harbor a fugitive. If you've never lived in a society that has had, grievously unjust laws like that, you can read that passage and not actually have to stop and sit with Moses's mom in the weight of that decision. And really ask the question, how can she believe that the gospel is still good news in the midst of such a harsh and horrid reality. But when you've lived in a nation that has made legislation like that, and you come across Moses as Miles predicament, you sit with that, because that is part of the biblical witness that there are people who have their backs against the wall, who have consistently been an oppressive context who've had to believe that the gospel is still good news when everything around them tells them that death, destruction and oppression as the last word. And that informs how you preach and teach that passage. And so part of the revelation of this book is I'm introducing folks to a whole different way of understanding the fullness of some of these passages because of the incomplete exegesis that's been done on them because of who's been actually been at the helm of reading, interpreting, and declaring what is actually the good news from texts. And what I what my argument is, is that they've actually missed some of the goodness of the news and there's still more gospel truth to be drawn out of these texts in a way that can be instructive for our life, witness and ethics in the world.
Randy:It reminds me of Walter Brueggemann saying basically it's almost impossible for people in power and privilege like we are, particularly as white Americans to read and understand particularly the Old Testament, which is written by and for a marginalized people group, who are enslaved and exiled more times than we can count. And for us to read that it's just when you break down these biblical stories in your book, it's almost like reading a different Bible. Right? I mean, it's, you have this experience where you're like, I grew up reading about Esther and Mordecai, I grew up reading about Moses, I grew up reading the stories, but I never saw this stuff in there. It makes me want to swear, in a good way. And it's convicting, though, right? Because I think you're right. I'd like to believe that this exegesis that's been done and been hand handed down and passed on to us, that's been scripturally executing from a place of privilege. I'd like to think that that was accidental, accidental, and not intentional.
Dominique:I think it's sometimes it has been accidental. But I think other times, it's been extremely intentional.
Randy:Wow. Well, maybe let's go. Let's come back to that in a second. But even so, I mean, you did this extraordinary job of opening our eyes to this, this under this, this new level of the scriptures that most of us haven't seen. How do we read? How can you? How can we read the Bible like that? How can we approach the scriptures in a new way and see these things that are hidden in plain sight?
Dominique:Yeah, I think we have to always take seriously many of the categories that we think are just contemporary categories that were very much at play in biblical times. But oftentimes, we don't read through that lens. For example, trauma, trauma is something that feels like a newer concept, and people are all like immersed in it, but people act like the biblical characters didn't have trauma. And I think in not breaking down their experience and naming it as trauma, what we actually do unconsciously is create distance between us as readers and the texts. And when we're in the midst of trying to navigate the complexities of our lives, that complexity of living in oppressive circumstances, and trying to figure out how God heals trauma. If we never see trauma in the text, we're not going to turn to the text for guidance, we're going to think that the text is archaic and outdated and doesn't deal with the complexities of what we're trying to navigate on the ground. But if we actually see that the biblical characters were deeply traumatized people because of the same powers and principalities and spiritual wickedness that's at play today, then we can actually drive closer to the texts and these moments where we're seeking healing and liberation or restoration as opposed to thinking that It's irrelevant. But the other thing I think we have to attend to power, I think we are discipled to not take power and economic seriously when we're reading the biblical texts. And that causes us to have a very lacking interpretation of many of the texts that we we should really be pressing into. So like you alluded to it and in Esther's story, like when we skip over the sexual exploitation and oppression of bash need to get to the good news of Esther. Like we're complicit with rape culture, and toxic masculinity, like and that is, that is a part of the church's legacy, all of the ways that I know you want to get back to this, I'm gonna just integrate it here. I think that's one of the ways that interpreters have intentionally sidestepped what Scripture is trying to offer us up to us as a discipleship issues within our congregations, I think there's been a very intentional choice to not reckon with the experience of bash de, to breeze over it to get to the news investor. But by doing so, we have made our congregation safe paces for people who enact abuse on other people within our congregations and within their families. And we have to understand and own our complicity with that, and confess, repent and commit, because we are putting people's lives humanity, in their dignity at risk when we choose that, that type of interpretation and preaching and teaching from texts that explicitly call us to reckon with this, I'll give you another example of a way that we do this. When we talk about David. I mean, we talked about King David just as a man after God's own heart. And we don't reckon with the fact that David murdered best sheep as has been an ultimately right turn. People want to use law less, sir, less aggressive, worse than right. But that's what he did. And then on top of that, we don't understand how the biblical narrative actually goes full circle. So when we first talk about him as a man after God's own heart, and don't really reckon with that, that's the first problem. The second problem is sometimes we reckon with that and then call him the man after God's own heart and sign up, crosses, crossed the high, cross the T's and dotted the eyes and say, that's the end of the story. But that's not the end of the story. Because ultimately, David, even though he was a man after God's own heart, because of the sincerity and contrition of his repentant, he ultimately didn't do what he really needed to do, which was go upstream and to disciple his son in a way that made sure that he didn't replicate the same kind of toxic masculinity that he exuded in his life. And because he didn't do what he needed to do, his daughter had to pay the consequence. That's biblical exegesis. That's what the text is actually trying to help us to see. But we choose to refuse to do it in our biblical interpretation. And because of that, so many members in our congregations don't have eyes to see or hears to hear this. And what we ultimately end up doing is there's so many Christians right now who are trying to take seriously the histories and legacies of oppression and sexual violence. But our preaching and teaching literally, is empowering the things that we say that we want to deconstruct.
Randy:Yep. And it's gotten so deep that if, if I wanted to go and preach that on a Sunday morning, a lot of the room would say, You're retelling history, this isn't that's not the truth. That's not who David was. Yeah, it's insulting. And it's, it's, it's heresy.
Dominique:Yeah. So I would say that I would, I would personally do that more in a Bible studies format. So I could like literally walk people through the text and show them how the pieces connect, then in a sermon, because that's the state of affairs where we are right now. Oh, man, that might feel a little too complex for folks in in a Sunday morning sermon, where they're the kind of the communication is one way versus back and forth. But yes, you're spot on. We are so far away from the biblical truth that we can't just get up and preach what's in the biblical texts without responding and rebellion, because that's just how they'd been discipled to not see these things. And to refuse to believe that the text would actually invite us into such charged conversations.
Randy:Yeah, yep. And let me just say, for those people from my church listening, I wasn't literally talking about you. You're better than that Brew City Church. I was talking about a hypothetical scenario. Let's just be clear.
Kyle:So in chapter five, I think it is, on Paul and Silas, yet another powerful, unexpected example of the kind of subversive use of privilege that your whole book is about, you quote Willie Jennings, and I want to read this this quote, or at least part of it and get some more thoughts on it from you so so Jenny says political power seeks to isolate and individuate injustice is done, turning them into singular episodic events that do not point to systemic structural and serial realities of oppression and the misuse of power. Disciples call out such operations. And they will use whatever resources of the nation state to do so. So that's the quote hearing that I'm reminded of lots of conversations I've either had or witnessed, where some kind of injustice will be named, and a privileged party to that conversation. However, whatever form the privilege takes, a privileged part of that conversation will try to reroute the conversation towards an individualist explanation of that event, or give some kind of counter example, that shows that we'll look there's a similar kind of injustice in the other direction, but it's equally individualist and anecdotal. So what do you tell us what you think that quote means? And why you put it in there? And specifically? What does it mean for wealthy white, male, straight, cis, able-bodied, whatever kind of privilege you're talking about, what does it mean for that kind of person, who is a Christian, who is engaged in a conversation like that and feels this strong urge to make it about an individualist thing?
Dominique:Yeah, yeah, great question. So I put the quote in there, because this is the defense response that is alive and well. And to many of our congregations. It is a response this route into rooted in conformity to the pattern of this world that ultimately says that I don't have to be concerned with a problem unless I'm the one who actually caused the problem. And that's not a gospel way of thinking this. I would I believe that, you know, part of how we mystify oppression is by trying to turn systemic institutional, structural realities into episodic realities. And to say, there's no story to tell here. There's nothing larger at play, it simply boils down to, to use like a quote from Franklin Graham in the past, where he says, Well, if they just listened to what the officer had to say that none of this would have ever happened. And it's that, it's that knee jerk reaction to, don't try to tell me that my worldview is built off of a facade. And it's rooted in privilege, because I know that all of this boils down to individuals choice, and people's morality, their willingness to do the hard things, I pull themselves up by the bootstraps, all these kinds of things. There's not a systemic structural, institutional reality at play. Those things exist in other countries, maybe like India with a caste system. That's why we have so much empathy for global missions. But domestically here in the good us obey. There is not these kinds of systemic structural, institutional things, everybody has equitable opportunity, we can all pull ourselves up by the bootstraps if we work hard enough and have the right morality. And so I just think that that that knee jerk reaction is so strong and palate, palpable in our congregations, I felt compelled to put that quote in there because we need to understand that that's part of the Imperial logic that is constantly trying to contrast the truth, in breaking kingdom of God. And it's something that prohibits many Christians from developing eyes to see kind of what we're actually up against, and what it would take for us to subvert systems and structures that are rooted in Empire so that we can advance the kingdom on earth has is in heaven. So that's that's one area of it. What does it mean for Christians who possess privilege? It means that the gospel is an invitation to soberly look at our lives and examine where we have access influence, and to think about how do we intentionally and strategically use those things for our creative purpose, which is to make guy's name known and loved shown throughout the world. And when we give into the temptation, which is always going to be there, to exploit privilege just to make our lives nicer, neater and more comfortable and honestly to separate ourselves from the pain of the world, and the cry cries of our wounded neighbors. That's when we actually give him too soon. And so for me, not only the Gini has passed, since it's that you read but the whole Parliament silence passage is so powerful in the fact that we see like the judicial system and Rome did Didn't care anything about their mistreatment of Paul and Silas until they realized that they actually had citizenship status. And that's a glaring illustration of privilege. These brothers were stripped, beaten with Rhys denied access to a trial and falsely incarcerated, all because they were misidentified as Jews. And the moment where it comes back to the magistrates that they have Roman citizens ship, that's when they become concerned. And the reality is our world is the same. We have realities where some people don't give a flip about how they treat you until they realize that you're connected to somebody in a position of power, or before until they realize you have some kind of status that they ultimately rulers must respect. Because if they treat you in a dehumanizing way with that status, and other people with that same status are going to come and make them pay. But when you do that, in vulnerable communities, disenfranchised communities that don't have status, don't have representation don't have that kind of political power or social currency, then we care little to nothing about how we treat those people. And again, it creates this us in them type of thinking, that, again, is rooted in the pattern of this world and not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because the gospel of Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 25, when we see the least of these, the most vulnerable the people that the world tells us to ignore and to shun and defame. Those are the people we're supposed to be most intentional about getting proximate to because there's something about the truth of the gospel that is unlocked when we're in communion with the least of these. And so I think it is a commission for folks with privilege to take a more sober look at their lives, and to look at all of the ways they're being seduced by the wet the patterns of this world to ultimately exploit that privilege for selfish gain, as opposed to subversively use it to advance the kingdom and to sacrificially love their neighbors.
Randy:Dude, I'm about to like stand up, and, and just come on. Just spitting fire here, Dominique, it's so good and the way you use scriptures, and again, using passages like Paul and Silas being beaten, stripped, humiliated, and then realizing oh, shit, these guys are Roman citizens. These are the things that so many of us just haven't recognized in the Scriptures. And it's beautiful.
Dominique:Paul, like, even counteracts it, like, in himself and like says, naw, y'all want to do all this stuff publicly and let us go quietly at the crack of dawn when there's no accountability. No, y'all come here. Let us out and own up to what you did. And I think I think that's instructive because he shows there is, there is a time to play the card of privilege, but it is to enact systemic accountability and to call people to repentance, not to escape suffering, and to separate ourselves from the pain of the world.
Elliot:Friends, before we continue, we want to thank Story Hill BKC for their support. Story Hill BKC is a full menu restaurant and their food is seriously some of the best in Milwaukee. On top of that, Story Hill BKC is a full service liquor store featuring growlers of tap available to go, spirits, especially whiskies and bourbons, thoughtfully curated regional craft beers, and 375 selections of wine. Visit storyhillbkc.com for menu and more info. If you're in Milwaukee, you'll thank yourself for visiting Story Hill BKC, and if you're not remember to support local. One more time that storyhillbkc.com.
Randy:So Dominique, zooming out now from you know, the book calls us to zoom out and just examine the way we interact with our world and what's what's happening in our world right now. I mean, you, the book was released in August of this year, and I'm sure you were, were you still writing it last summer?
Dominique:Yeah, yeah.
Randy:Okay.
Dominique:I finished right before the insurrection attempt.
Randy:Oh, gosh. Okay. I wish you would just spaced it out a little bit longer. So we could have had some of that in there.
Dominique:I do too.
Randy:Can you read an appendix? I have this thought a lot recently. I've had, I've had a moment mentally where I can't I can't watch the news as much as I have have been. And I can't engage on social media like as much as I have been because it's made me an angry, mentally frayed person. And I just, it's affected the way we live in it's because it feels like our world has gone mad. And a lot of that is in the church. And I've had the thought recently of how how hard it is and how decentering it is for me to see CRT witch hunts and to see school boards trying to do away with you know, whitewash history that it's already been effing whitewashed, right? All this madness. And it's just gotten me to think On a regular basis, what is it like to be black in America right now? Like, I was so excited last year when I mean, we had floods of people protesting and walking in the streets supporting Black Lives Matter and George Floyd and breonna Taylor, and it was brilliant to all of a sudden, the table's turned and we went back and regress 50 or 60 years, and we're whitewashing already whitewashed history. And again, it just makes me think, what is it like to be black in America right now?
Dominique:Yeah, so I think, first, I'll start off with the words of James Baldwin, which, you know, he says, to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all of the time. I don't know that I can say it any better than that. But I will say, you know, particularly as a Christian, it is so disheartening and dehumanizing to have to try to convince your brothers and sisters in Christ, that these are real realities, and that people aren't before the evolution of cell phone video, we've been telling these stories for generations and generations, and it was just written off as hearsay. And now we're like, Okay, we got video evidence that's going to change things. Nope. And even when you see something as grievous as George Floyd, there's only a temporary total engagement and increased acknowledgment of the problem. So I think for me to be a black man, but to be a black Christian, to be even more explicit, to be a black Christian and evangelical tradition right now, in this country is a weary place. And I'm reminded of the prophetic words, Paula Murray, who said that hope is a song in a weary throat. And I think the reality for black folks is that we realize that our hope can't be rooted anything less than Jesus Christ, because the church ain't gonna do what the church needs to in a collective way. And that's been proven generation after generation after generation. And so our hope is not in the church, our hope is in the cross, our hope is in Christ. And so for us, I think that's why we talk about the way that I wrote this book. And you're like, I've read all these passages before, but I read these, these passages in your book, it feels like another Bible, another gospel, because we cling to that other gospel, because the interpretations that have been historically canonized and celebrated are interpretations that don't get into the muck in the mire enough to actually sustain black faith in the midst of anti in the midst of anti black we need something deeper, something more trance, transformative, something more rooted in the lived experience, a Savior who comes from a community that was believed that nothing good could come from, bypass our experience. And we need folks who know how to tap into that experience, and to talk about a guy who truly makes a way out. And that's that's what it is to be black in America right now, but once explicitly to be a black Christian, to crave for communion with other brothers and sisters who understand the truth of what Willie gybing says in his profound podcast in response to George Floyd, that black anger is shareable. And that righteous anger is a natural byproduct of faithfully following Jesus. And it's ultimately when we press into that complexity of righteous anger, do we ultimately surrender and submit our lives to Jesus who is has the power to keep anger from touching basically angered from spiraling down into a detrimental place, but the anger can be channeled and fueled for productive purposes that allow us to be a part of the solution to the problems that we continue to see in our communities.
Randy:I want our...
Dominique:I'll add that podcast for y'all for the show notes in case anybody's interested in it.
Randy:Yeah, thank you please do.
Dominique:It's profoundly transformative.
Kyle:Yeah. What is, does it have a title that we can easily Google?
Dominique:Yes, it is called "My anger, God's righteous indignation."
Randy:I just had a pause because I would love for particularly, our white Christian listeners to just re listen to that answer. We need to sit with that. Like we need to sit with that reality and hear that reality and ask better questions. Only way forward. Hmm. So, Dominique, your position, you're the director, tell us what your official position is within the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Dominique:Yeah, I'll tell you that now tell you what actually means. So it's a fancy title. So I am the director of racial righteousness and reconciliation for the evangelical Covenant Church. And what that means is that I am a pastor to pastors throughout our denomination, helping them make connections between scripture, discipleship, and the gospel is commissioned to be ambassadors of reconciliation in a broken world. So we have roughly 880 congregations throughout North America, throughout North America. And my job is to equip those pastors to embody the gospel and to disciple people into a faithful response to the gospel. So we have roughly 880 congregations throughout North America, throughout North America. And my job is to equip those pastors to embody the gospel and to disciple people into a faithful response to the gospel. I also write curricula for our denomination and create what we call immersive discipleship experiences, like what I talked about in the book with Sankofa, so I curate those experiences, and then I go and facilitate those trips as well.
Randy:Awesome. So you've got some expertise about this next question, I want to ask you, I mean, in thinking about the racial divide in the church in America, it seems as if, if we just simply knew one another better, and loved one another, and we're in relationship and had more friendships between people of color and white people, and more trust was established these conversations and realities would be very different, I gotta believe, right? I gotta think. And at the same time, there are like real large cultural differences between most traditional black churches in America, and most traditional white churches in America. I mean, I've, I've preached at black churches, and I've, you know, let's let's certain expectations at black churches and been part of worship, and had black pastors into our church, and there's just a very real cultural difference in divide. Now, it seemed as if in the church and as church leaders, we've seen, the answer to all our problems is just getting people together in the same room and having my white church have more black people in it in your black church having more white people in it. But that seems to me, I've got this dilemma within me for the last while now that it seems to ignore this cultural difference in the different the difference in spirituality, the practice, spirituality, and even our theologies are, there's some differences there. Right. So how do we move forward? And is diversity and bringing more, you know, black people into white churches, white people into black churches that the answer is there's something deeper and longer that we need to actually set ourselves to?
Dominique:So I'm a I'm a proponent of the multi ethnic church. But that's not the answer. The answer is talking about why the separation exists for the first place. The answer is talking about how the black church only emerged because of white supremacy and WIPO kicking black people out of their church. The answer is talking about the church's complicity theologically, through pastors, missionaries, in creating things like the slave Bible, which literally distorted the Word of God and took all of the liberative emancipatory passages out so they could pedal gas, a false gospel to slaves to pay them complicit with the ungodly system and structure. Yes, sir, is like really having hard conversations about that, and how that is created these divergent trajectories of what we understand the good news to actually be, like, when you can believe that gospel can be the good news of Jesus Christ without justice. That's because you have lived in a reality where you've never lived and experienced your back against the wall because of structural sin. And I think the fact that I can go into Black Heritage creations and say this, in almost any space, and nobody's gonna bat an eye, but I can go into non black congregations. And when I say this very simplistic statement that I'm about to say people are like, like it's some bigger aberration like some new revelation, you cannot faithfully follow Jesus Christ and simultaneously subscribe to a logic of white supremacy. The two are incongruent, in every way, shape, or form. But like we haven't made the gospel as explicit as we need to. And because we haven't said that, because we haven't said that being a good Christian and being a good citizen, are not synonymous. Then we see the distortions of the gospel with the rise of Christian nationalism. We see the distortions of the Gospel where folks were able to, you know, during the 1930s, go to church on Sunday morning and then go and participate in the spectacle lynching on Sunday afternoon, and see no incongruence with their ethnic we can see how they're still happens to Charlottesville by. This is something that is a foothold that we've allowed state Satan to establish within our midst. And we have not routed it out because we have not been willing to prophetically speak the truth and bringing people together for kumbaya ash essence and potlucks where we were each other's clothes and share in a couple of good meals, it's not going to solve anything, it actually does more harm than it does help. Because the truth is that the Western Church is enamored with the vision of reconciliation, that says that we can be beneficiaries of the resurrection without having to endure crucifixion. But the reality of the gospel is, the death is necessary for new life to emerge. And there are things that we have to die to, if we're really going to ever become the interconnected Body of Christ that scripture causes us to be. And part of what we have to die to, is this notion of comfort within our congregational spaces. This notion of the church needs to culturally feel comfortable, and churches just something that gives me inspirational fuel to go out into the world into I come back on next Sunday, right? We're called to disciple people into the life witness in the life of witness of Jesus. And that means that we have to speak some uncomfortable truths. And we have to realize that the cure for the pain is in the pain. And we keep trying to go around it. And I love kind of illustration of Jesus, where it talks about how Jesus had to go through Samaria, when everybody else went around, and the integrity of his witness was dependent on his willingness to go through. And when we have this conversation about race and diversity in the church, like the credibility of our witness is going to be us. We are willing to go through these tough places, the murky, the hard places of US history, to understand all the ways in which we've been complicit if not flat out driving racism, and to convince Lapeyre lament, and commit to repentance and keeping, producing fruit and keeping with repentance, by how we turn away from that legacy and bear witness to something true and real, and gospel.
Randy:Seems like and you pointed this in your book, but it seems like before we could think about being subversive witnesses in the in the nation that we live in, we need to be subversive witnesses in our very churches.
Dominique:Come on, bro.
Randy:Right? And how can we set our country's house in order if we don't have our own? So I want to, you wrote, this is not your first book, your debut book was called Rethinking Incarceration. Right? When did you release that, Dominique?
Dominique:That was 2018.
Randy:Okay. So in the introduction, I was arrested by this, you wrote, and I'm quoting you "I, along with much of the African American community, am living in a perpetual state of trauma, resonant with this haunting line from Hamilton: I imagine death so much it feels like a memory. When is it going to get me?" And then you said that you lose sleep contemplating, contemplating that question, sometimes feel paralyzed by the gravity and weight of it. Can you just bring us into the awful reality of what's behind those words and that reality?
Dominique:Yeah, I think every time a new video comes out, another unarmed black person being shot and killed in their homes or in the streets, be at somebody who had mental mental health challenges, be somebody who mistaken identity officers went into the wrong home, is somebody who's selling loose cigarettes on the street corner, you know, that your life is susceptible to such a reality. And you know, and you wake up, I mean, you you lose sleep, knowing that the world is so rooted in anti blackness, that your child doesn't even understand what they're going to be up against. And as somebody who has people in my family who actually have cognitive development challenges, this is a real, haunting looming reality for me. I mean, it takes every element of the wit I have to navigate the complexities of this world. And I think about sisters and brothers who don't have the same kind of mental capacities. And I see how, because of the racial logics of this world authority figures insist on a different kind of deference and obedience from black bodies. What it means for somebody who says on the spectrum to not respond immediately when the officer gives them an order because they're mentally trying to process it in their head and now offers to respond since a perceives that as disrespect, or perceives it as them challenging their authority, and they are oftentimes trained to up the ante, when that is the perception. And it just creates this cascading reality where we ultimately know that black life is hanging in the balance. And we might see a contemporary manifestation of strange fruit all because of the way folks have been indoctrinated into an anti black logic. And the way it's our systems and structures are rooted in a kind of militaristic force compliance, as opposed to a humble posture of indisposition of trying to understand where people are coming from. Now I understand like being a law enforcement is super challenging to have sometimes it splits that can choices, all that kind of thing. I'm not trying to take any of that away. But I'm saying to live in a body where you know that you're more prone to elicit a more aggressive response from people who actually have the power to take your life that is something that leaves you awake at night robs you of sleep and solace in the midst of what feels like a reality. That's only regressing. I think we I mean, people, most people know it is in the air, we're regressing to a time we haven't seen in 60 years in this country. And it's not just about law enforcement, it's just about the atmosphere, what's in the air. And there has been something awakened in our nation that was dormant or at least latently. at play, that is like arising and very aggressive mutating kind of way that that should give us all pause and should take us all to our knees in prayer, because the retrenchment is real. And the lives being lost, are tangible. And they matter. And they come from families and communities, and they are integral players. And they're not all criminals, thugs, and rapists, and people who we want to put these categories on. Many of these are people who are just trying to navigate the complexities of all that's up against them.
Randy:Yeah, I mean, as you're talking, I'm thinking of this, I mean, it's just right now happening, where a group of parents at a school board meeting stood at a school board meeting with the Nazi salute in the back of the room. And Senator Ted Cruz is excusing that and saying they have a right to do that, while a couple of years ago, when Colin Kaepernick is taking a knee on a damn football field, and our president is saying, Get that son of a bitch off the football field, that makes me want to scream. I mean, that's the reality that we're living in.
Kyle:It's also probably worth pausing to point out that if we have listeners who have never experienced the sorts of things that you were just describing Dominique, who've never been pulled over by a police officer and had that kind of visceral bodily reaction, who've never had to wonder about family members who are mentally disabled or on the spectrum or anything like that, who, like happened to me one time, cop shows up at my door at midnight with a flashlight in the window, and my only emotional response is annoyance. And I go to the door with my pants off, ready to tell the guy off. And it occurs to me hours later how differently that might have gone if I had been of a different skin color. If, that's privilege, that's what we're talking about, right. If you can skirt through the world without that, that's privilege.
Dominique:Because I am most black men I know my age have had an encounter where we have had to confront the realities that our lives can be taken just because somebody's having a bad day, you know, to be dehumanized in public, by law enforcement, because of the perceptions and assumptions that they have about you is it's something that you never fully bounce back from. I remember I had I'm not gonna go into the whole story, but I got pulled over and the officer wanted to know where I was going. And so I told him So, little side story. I'm a huge Deep Blue Devil basketball fan. I know that for some nobody's perfect. But I was coming from Atlanta going back to Chicago and a friend of mine had gotten me tickets to go see a game on camera and I had never been the camera and so like Purdue folk, you got to do it. Got it. Yeah. So I did it. I spent the night the next morning first thing in the morning I drove back to Chicago and then right as I'm leaving the city, this officers telling me obviously clearly for about five minutes, he's telling me this kids to the lane right next to me, pulls up beside me looks directly into my car, then drags back and starts telling me again and then pulls me over a few minutes later. He gets real intense and he's he does a lot of bye All things in the interaction. But ultimately, he asked me where I'm going when I get pulled over. And I said, Well, I'm actually going back to school. And he's like, What school do you go to? I say, I go to North Park Theological Seminary. And he looks at me, he said, You are in seminary. And I was like, yeah, he's, uh, do you have some kind of ID to prove that? In, I pull out my ID card? Well, first I tell him, I'm going to reach into my pocket, he's in my back right pocket, I'm going to show the ID card, I pull it out, and I give it to him. And he looks at it and goes, and then throws it back in my face. Like that kind of disrespect. That kind of is pervasive. It's like, and it's not officers clearly. And I it's a shame that we have to say that as a way to get people engaged in the conversation. Yeah, we do. But it's it's a pretty normative experience for black people to be treated in a different posture with a different type of humanity, when they are in vulnerable situations with authority figures like that.
Kyle:And your options for expression are extremely limited there. Right? You have to be polite to that bullshit.
Dominique:Yep.
Kyle:I'd have told the fucker to ask me a Bible question. Right? There's no chance I would have shown him my student ID. But you don't have that option.
Dominique:You don't have it. And that's the, that's the crazy
thing about anti-blackness:to know your rights literally puts your life at risk.
Kyle:Yeah.
Dominique:For you to exercise your civil rights in a situation like that literally makes you more prone to being killed.
Randy:Yes.
Dominique:That is the reality we're living in.
Randy:So, Dominique, one more question, quick question about rethinking incarceration, your first book, you also talk about evangelicals fascination with quote unquote, law and order. I mean, we've said a lot in this last election. And do you equate that actually, interestingly, I think fascinating with what we find in our theology around evangelicals, particularly, evangelicals commitment to the penal substitutionary theory of atonement. We did a, we did an episode on the atonement and talked through our problems with the penal substitution or theory of atonement. But it's super interesting when you're equating obsession with law and order with our theology. Can you just tease us with that a little bit?
Dominique:Yes, so you asked me to do some work from a couple of years ago, so it's not going to be as sharp, but I think we have to really understand who gave us that framework of penal substitutionary atonement, and their vocational experience in the courtroom and how ultimately what they were trying to articulate was a gospel encased in it in a worldly concept of, we need to be separated from sin, as God is separated from sin. And ultimately, therefore those who are sinners ultimately have to endure the wrath of God to ultimately experience the love of God like this is this very, super distorted way of kind of understanding God's love in the fact that, you know, the incarnation is inspired by what John 316 God's love. Now God's wrath, and Christ goes to the cross compelled by God's love. And I think when we actually sit down with the biblical texts, and we really reckon with the fact that, you know, Scripture tells us why we were yet sinners, that's when Christ enters in on our behalf. So it's not about this whole wrath versus love kind of thing. It's about understanding the divine, the finding motif of the action and activity of God is restorative love restorative justice, and is not rooted in this logic of punitive kness. Guys, Justice always has a redemptive purpose to how it's expressing itself in the world. And I think we have allowed our worldly definitions of justice and really informed by revenge to really allow us to settle for punishment as being equivalent to justice when punishment is never going to give us a true equivalency to justice.
Randy:Particularly someone who's innocent being punished for someone who's guilty. It's just not just. Yeah. So we've, we've waded through some heavy, dark
Dominique:Yeah. waters in this interview talking about the reality of being a black Christian, being a black man, being a black person in America. The book Subversive Witness, everyone needs to buy it and read it. It's going to change the way you see and interact with scriptures. But what we try to do on this podcast is try to end in some some way, shape, or form hopeful. So as you look at the landscape of the American church, Dominique--you're right in the middle of it--what makes you hopeful right now? Yeah, so on a personal note, what's making me hopeful is people's response to Subversive Witness. I've been really encouraged by that. I was speaking a few times ago and someone, two people told me, one person said, we decided to rewrite our will after we read this book, because we realized that the blessings that we have are not just for our biological family, but they are actually meant to flow through...
Randy:Whoa.
Dominique:So that was super encouraging. And I met another person who said that because of the treatment on land expulsion, and some of the ways in which racial terror has led to the segregated reality of our geographic spaces, they went back and did some stuff in their history and they realized that a part of the land that they own initially belonged to an indigenous tribe. And they're in the process of reaching out to that tribe to ultimately try to gift the land back to them. So those are, those are some things that are personally inspired me. In the big picture, I think we are, even though the conversation is still inadequate, I think we are starting to move the needle for a lot of Christians to help them to understand that sin is just not about individual sin, but there are systemic, structural, institutional manifestations of sin. And until we're willing to soberly look at them, we're gonna keep having a circular conversation. And so I think people are actually starting to get beyond that kind of simplistic, toxic evangelist, evangelical reading of the text, and actually starting to see that more is actually required of us and that we are--I love the way Isaiah 58 puts it--we're called to be repairs of the breach, which means that they're breaches that exist in society--it says nothing about the fact that we created those breaches--but it still says we have a responsibility to actually be repairers of it. And I think the church is moving in that direction. And that's extremely encouraging for me.
Kyle:Well, the book, again, is Subversive Witness. Dominique DuBois Gilliard, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking with you.
Randy:Really great.
Dominique:It's been great to be with you all.
Elliot:Thanks for listening to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please rate and review the podcast before you close your app. You can also share the episode with friends or family members with the links from our social media pages. Gain inside access, extra perks, and more at patreon.com/apastorandaphilosopher. We're so grateful for your support of the podcast. Until next time, this has been A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar.