Stepping into Kingdom Justice with Michelle Ferrigno Warren

What does it mean to move beyond awareness and into action? In this episode, Loren Richmond Jr. sits down with Michelle Ferrigno Warren, author, activist, and faith-rooted organizer, to discuss what it takes to engage in meaningful justice work. Michelle shares her journey from growing up in a fundamentalist Christian environment to becoming a public theologian and advocate for community development and justice. She discusses the importance of proximity in transforming perspectives, why churches often struggle with moving from mercy to justice, and how pastors can engage in advocacy while navigating political and institutional pressures. The conversation also delves into the intersection of faith and immigration, the role of public discipleship in shaping Christian witness, and the challenges of engaging a younger generation disillusioned with the church’s response to injustice.

Michelle Ferrigno Warren is the President of Virago Strategies, a consulting group which provides strategic engagement and project management support for churches and non-profits stepping more deeply into the work of public justice. She has been working in Christian community development for over 30 years utilizing her skills as an educator, worship leader, non-profit manager, public policy specialist & faith-rooted organizer & activist. She is an adjunct professor at Denver Seminary and a Senior Fellow with The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute. She is a fierce advocate for justice and has shared much of her journey toward civic engagement and activism in her books, The Power of Proximity, Moving Beyond Awareness to Action, IVP 2017 and Join the Resistance, Step Into the Good Work of Kingdom Justice IVP, 2022.

 

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Future Christian Team:

Loren Richmond Jr. – Host & Executive Producer

Martha Tatarnic – Co-Host

Paul Romig–Leavitt – Associate Producer

Dennis Sanders – Producer

Alexander Lang - Production Assistant

Episode Transcript

>> Paul (00:07):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether

(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.

>> Martha Tatarnic (00:43):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
Loren Richmond Jr. Welcomes Michelle
Farigo Warren to the show.
Michelle is the president of Farigo
Strategies, a consulting group which
provides strategic engagement and project
management support for churches and
nonprofits. Stepping more deeply into the

(01:05):
work of public justice. She has been working
in Christian community development for over 30
years, utilizing her skills as an
educator, worship leader, nonprofit
manager, public policy specialist, and
faith rooted organizer and activist.
She is an adjunct professor at Denver
Seminary and a senior fellow with the Dietrich

(01:28):
Bonhoeffer Institute. She is a fierce
advocate for justice and has shared much of her
journey towards civic engagement and activism in
her books the Power of
Moving Beyond Awareness to Action
and Join the Step into
the Good Work of Kingdom Justice.

(01:48):
A reminder. Before we start today's
conversation, please take a moment to subscribe
to the podcast, leave a review and share
Future Christian with a friend. Connect with
Loren, Martha and Future Christian on
Instagram. Shoot us an email at, uh,
laurensonediaproah.com
with comments, questions or ideas for

(02:11):
future episodes. We appreciate your
voice in how we faithfully discern the future
of the church.

>> Loren (02:29):
All right, welcome to the Future of Christian podcast. I'm, um,
here recording live in person at, uh, Open
Door Ministries in Denver, Colorado with
Michelle Fergno. Warren. Thank you so much
for being here. Thank you for your time and uh, welcome to
the show, Loren.

>> Speaker D (02:44):
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to have the conversation. And thanks for coming to Open
Door.

>> Loren (02:48):
As I was explaining offline, I always
enjoy in person conversations more than like we
talked about staring at a screen trying to
read, uh, you know, a flat surface
so listeners will probably notice.
Michelle, uh, and I are a little scratchy throated, so please
forgive us for the, uh, audio quality

(03:08):
if our vocal, uh, quality is not as good as
we might like. But we're looking forward to having this conversation
and um, looking forward to hearing more
in the conversation.
So let's, let's begin with this, uh, Sheriff Juice Wood.
Anything else you want listeners to know about you?

>> Speaker D (03:24):
Well, that is a really broad question, so I thank
you for that. You know, I've been married for 31 years.
I share that because it's good work, but it's probably the hardest
work.

>> Loren (03:33):
Yes.

>> Speaker D (03:34):
And so my husband and I were college sweethearts. I have
three kids. They're all adults. Um, two lawyers and an
engineer. So I'm very excited about that. But,
you know, mostly. And we'll get into the conversation,
but one of the things that I like to share
is that I strive to be a good neighbor. And.
And in the Christian faith, that holds a lot of
weight. And so, yeah, so I would just say that I'm

(03:56):
practicing being a good neighbor and had been
trying to do that since my eyes got opened
to not just the concept of being a neighbor, but
having neighbors who have had different experiences.
Lived experiences. And. Yeah, just
walking in life with each other along our
ways.

>> Loren (04:14):
Why don't we go into that a little bit? Uh, I usually ask
folks to share about the beginning of the faith journey,
what that looks like today. I don't know if you're willing to kind of frame
it through that lens. You mentioned your eyes being opened.
If you can share a little bit more about that.

>> Speaker D (04:28):
Yeah. So I think it's good to start
kind of in the sort of the beginning and trajectory, because I think your
formation is how you begin to see and
shape the world. And I was born into a
Catholic family, so I have Catholic roots.
And my parents, um, came
to a different expression of their Christian faith
when I was in. When I was 5. And that

(04:51):
doesn't seem like it should be that big of a transition, but
it was, because as they stepped. They didn't step out
of Catholicism. They stepped into a
different expression. I like to refer to it as a
generous Christian orthodoxy. Um,
anyway, so I think they were kind of part of the Jesus
movement, and some of that captured them.
And they ended up actually going to

(05:13):
a church that was fundamentalist. They
don't know if they realized all of what they had chosen. And, you
know, they put me in private Christian schools because that
was what was starting back in. I guess that would have been
1976.

>> Loren (05:26):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (05:26):
And so. Yeah, and so that was a lot of. My formation
was actually a Christian
fundamentalism. And what I didn't catch
Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night was
reinforced Monday through Friday. And I don't want to
criticize that, because I was loved and I was nurtured.
And maybe. Maybe there's some things I could say that I wasn't
seeing with my potential as A girl.

>> Loren (05:47):
Right.

>> Speaker D (05:47):
But my parents were not a part of that
indoctrination. You know, they had walked out of
Catholicism and had felt like a lot of their formation was
centered around guilt and shame, and so they weren't going to take anything.
But I think for me, being an oldest child,
trying to be a good girl, I'm an enneagram one. You know, I
think I just adopted all of that Christian culture that

(06:07):
even my m parents didn't put on. I kind of thought they were bad
at being born again. Anyway, that brought me to,
you know, college, and I chose to go to Cedarville University.

>> Loren (06:16):
Yes.

>> Speaker D (06:17):
Which is a very conservative school. It was not as
conservative as the high school I went to.

>> Loren (06:22):
Interesting.

>> Speaker D (06:22):
So this is kind of me stepping.

>> Loren (06:24):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (06:24):
And I would say was nothing was a rebellion or a
reaction. It was just a broadening of my
experience. It was great to be at Cedarville. You know, being 18 to
22 is awesome. I met in my
future husband there. We were college sweethearts and married
soon after we graduated, then moved down to Texas for three
years. During our time in college, we had both

(06:44):
done a lot of community ministry and outreach.
I had done tutoring in a, um,
girl's home that, you know, people that were not juvenile
detention, but kind of like that. My husband David, was
doing a lot of street outreach work in
Cincinnati. And without getting into too many of the
details, as the two of us were coming together, we knew that we
wanted to have a life

(07:07):
that would be centered around
people who were very poor and that we
didn't want to live in a different community, that we would
be committed to working,
worshiping, and living in the same
community. And that really set off a trajectory
for that neighboring piece. Because in my mindset, a

(07:27):
neighbor was who lived next to me.

>> Loren (07:29):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (07:30):
And because of socioeconomic status, because of
education, they all pretty much look like us. Um,
maybe not at the moment. You would see distinctives, but compared
to where I was ready to begin to plant my roots
and raise our family. And we've been in Denver. We were in
Dallas for a few years, and then in Denver these almost 30
years, it has changed everything. And

(07:50):
that has, you know, faith isn't some abstract that
you kind of check in. It's a part of who you are. Your
spirituality is a part of who you are. My faith is
rooted in Christ and his words and, you know, his
word. And trying to embody my hermeneutic
is Jesus. So I'm trying to embody, you know, his love in
action. And that is really what has
Shaped my faith is just the difference of neighbors

(08:13):
and the struggles of life, the struggles of community.
Going back to Jesus and trying to see, okay,
really, what does it mean to love my neighbor as, you know,
my neighbor as myself. What does it mean to love my
enemy? Uh, et cetera, et cetera.

>> Loren (08:27):
Yes.
Well, share, if you would, any kind of spiritual
practices, spiritual disciplines that are
meaningful for you or help you stay
grounded.

>> Speaker D (08:36):
I mean, I was brought up to be a good fundamentalist. So, I mean, I'm very.
I was very good at doing all of what I
call Sunday school. You know, I was, I was. I
think I wrote in my book Join the Resistance that I was taught to
love God, love others, and be a very good
Pharisee. You know, that, um, was really what I was trained to
do. So my spiritual practices have deviated a little bit.

(08:57):
I mean, it is definitely centered around, you know, God's
word. I just really think there's a lot to learn from the
Bible. I also think there's a lot to learn from the saints who
come before us and those who are with us now. So
a lot of my practices changed after Covid,
and so some of them are going to sound funny, but it's
actually a spiritual action. Um, spiritual practice

(09:17):
of walking.

>> Loren (09:18):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (09:19):
And, you know, St. Augustine has kind of coined the phrase, it is
solved by walking or Salvatore on
balando. And so I just really feel like there's something
very deeply meaningful and spiritual in that practice
of walking and all of the different things that you think
about and listen to and pray along the way and see
even what you see.

>> Loren (09:36):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (09:37):
Another thing is, is I'm always growing something, no matter
what it is year round. Because I think
especially the work that I do, living and working and worshiping in the
communities that are forgotten or that are
vilified on the news. I live in a, an immigrant community
and have, you know, for almost three decades.
I need to see hope alive. So

(09:57):
hope isn't something you're going to see. It's not about the present, it's about the
future.

>> Loren (10:01):
Amen.

>> Speaker D (10:01):
Um, and when you look at a seat and this is the spiritual
practice of taking something that looks like
trash or dirt, and you put it
in that dirt and you embed it and you
put it in the right elements and you don't see the
underground activity of all that growth and
breaking that happens. And then all of a sudden, this new life.
I'm kind of addicted to growth and the, and the growth of

(10:23):
life. So I honestly am always growing something.
Not maintaining, but growing Something from seed,
you know, in all year round. And then,
you know, I spend some time journaling. I don't do as much as I used
to because I'm a different person
now. Um, but I definitely follow the Christian
calendar practices of Lent and Advent. You
know, I. I read and pray.

(10:46):
But I would say what characterizes the
post 50 versus the pre 50,
Michelle, is I do everything in
my spiritual discipline. Slower.

>> Loren (10:59):
That's a good lesson right there. I'm
thinking as we're recording this,
there's sitting to my left,
Michelle, your right, an Advent wreath.
And we're coming up on Joy Sunday. I
believe in Advent. Hope was the first Sunday. Is that right?

>> Speaker D (11:17):
Hope, peace, joy, love, worship. Pastor. You know I'm going
to do that, right?

>> Loren (11:20):
Yeah. Well, that's great. We're here to
talk a little bit about Michelle and
her broad work. Her book Join the
Resistance, and
I think evangelicalism writ large. I
suppose we'll see where it goes.
But I think I, uh, suppose you've
already sort of identified this in beginning to talk

(11:43):
about your. As you mentioned, your eyes
being opened. Is there anything else you want to share
about a call or a prompting that
really. Certainly, uh, in the Christian
tradition, I imagine for me, and I imagine for
you also, people talk about a call
of God on their lives. Do you want to share
anything that resonates there?

>> Speaker D (12:05):
There's definitely different points that I have had that. And it's
not that I wouldn't want to share it. I just don't know if
one's more significant than the other. You know, it's just a
series of stepping into the next hard thing.

>> Loren (12:16):
Okay.

>> Speaker D (12:16):
And really a surrender.

>> Loren (12:18):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (12:18):
To God and his requests.
Am I willing to go? You talked about my book during the
resistance before I wrote Join the Resistance, after we had
been living out this working, worshiping.
Because that is a call in itself.

>> Loren (12:31):
Right.

>> Speaker D (12:31):
I mean, I have three kids. I put them in the worst
schools in the worst community.

>> Loren (12:36):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (12:36):
When I say worst, I mean by statistics.

>> Loren (12:38):
Right.

>> Speaker D (12:39):
And I trusted that that seed going into that dirt
would result in beauty. And so all of
that is a call. It's actually obedience to a
call. And so getting a call versus living at
your call, you know, they should be connected. And so that's probably
been the story of my life. But the first book I wrote, after
we'd been doing it for about 24, 24 years before I published

(12:59):
my first book, was called the Power of Proximity.
And it was because of that seeing, you know,
you can't fix problems. You don't understand.

>> Loren (13:07):
Right.

>> Speaker D (13:08):
And so how are you going to move from an awareness
of something? And for me it was an awareness of issues
that my neighbors were facing. Some people are hearing about
it on the news here in Denver. We had a lot
of Venezuelan migrants coming these last two years, more
in our city per capita than any other city, including
Chicago and New York for two years. And so

(13:28):
you're hearing about the story of immigrants and it may
move you from an awareness to I want to do something which is
great. I think that is deeply spiritual, important,
human as well. Response. For me,
I was living with immigrants in proximity to
immigrants and proximity to the poor, in
proximity to working class and proximity to the homeless

(13:48):
and all the different people groups, I guess you could say, even though
we were just one big community, right at Open Door
Fellowship and in my neighborhood it
was powerful because it moved me from an
awareness of injustice
to a, ah, question of what was I going to do with what I
knew and how was I going to move and
be authentic in solidarity? Because I do community

(14:10):
development and I mean I do activism and advocacy too.
But it's with this community development and organizing model that you
never do anything to a community or for a community.
You would do it with it. So they can do it by themselves.
And so that is really the learning is
nobody was waiting for me to show up, but when I did,
how would I humble myself and walk in

(14:30):
solidarity and do whatever we needed to do
to do well? And so the power of Proximity really is the
story of call and
conviction and also just an invitation to all of
us. If we can't fix problems we don't understand,
then how are we going to understand them? Um, that's why Proximity is
key. And then Join the Resistance is another series which we
can talk about at some point.

>> Loren (14:52):
So let's talk a little bit about
this aspect of community development because I'm thinking
about in recent years I've begun to
study social entrepreneurship. I'm thinking
of um,
asset based community development.
Where is there interlapation for those unfamiliar?
Someone me. Right. Give a little

(15:14):
background, details of what that looks like.

>> Speaker D (15:17):
Yeah, I can do that. Although this is really painful because I
teach at a seminary and I teach social concerns and community
development. So I have way too much, way too
much information to um, answer that question. So let me try to
think. I'll re emphasize one thing that I shared.
Uh, because community development and assets based
community development is an acknowledgement
of that a community has resources

(15:40):
within itself to get it what it
needs. Uh, sometime it just has not been
invested in, or it has been
stripped of its resources and things that are taken,
uh, so that it can't.

>> Loren (15:52):
Right.

>> Speaker D (15:53):
And there's a lot of metaphors and a lot of workshops that I actually
teach churches and nonprofits, and if
anybody's interested, you know, they contact you to really kind of
explain that in depth. But I'll
reemphasize. When you look at communities,
whether it's from the inside or the outside,
everybody has potential. It's deeply theological
in imago dei, in the call to subdue, you know, even

(16:15):
in the levitical commands to help protect
vulnerable so that everybody can live to their most
productive place. And that's the Hebrew word mishpat, or the
word for justice, to restore people
and whole societies to their most productive place.
So when we're talking about doing community development, especially as a
Christian, how can I be a part of restoring

(16:36):
people and places to their most productivity? So we need
to be honest about what's going on, right? And then we need to
be honest and
creative and imaginative to believe that we have
what we need. And so that if you're on the outside, like
me coming in, I. It's very arrogant posture
to say, I know what's best, so I'm going to do this to you. It's
even pretty arrogant to say, I'm going to do it for you. So I always say there's

(16:58):
four. There's four, um, prepositions for
community development. You never want to do two or four,
Right. But you do want to do it with. And that's the
solidarity. Because communities do need
accompaniment. Individuals need accompaniment. Here at Open
Door, we do a lot of individual accompaniment out of
homelessness, out of addictions. I mean, there's so
much that communities, because of things

(17:21):
that have happened. It's not always an individual decision,
but individuals still make decisions.

>> Loren (17:26):
Right?

>> Speaker D (17:26):
And so as you walk with people and you walk with whole
congregations or you walk with whole communities, we're
doing it together so that eventually
individuals and communities can do things by itself.
Think of community development as tutoring. You never want to
hire a tutor for long because they're expensive. It takes extra
time. You want to tutor for

(17:46):
a while. You can't take the test for the student.

>> Loren (17:49):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (17:49):
You don't want to belittle and shame and make them freeze.
But if you have something to offer, how do you
accompany people and
places so that we can all
flourish? Community development
is based on community organizing.
Community organizing builds social networks. It
is a leadership from behind. It doesn't

(18:11):
mean there's no leadership. It requires some. But the
community is driving everything. The community is
dreaming. The community is planning. And we
assemble. Leadership within and when we need it,
collaborate without. Because maybe we need extra social networks.
Definitely economic.

>> Loren (18:27):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (18:27):
So that we can imagine if we had all this, what can we
do together? Holding ourselves accountable. So that's kind of the essence
of community development. I did that for a very
long time. I still believe in it. But
after doing the work, I began to
realize. Well, I guess let me just say I kept asking questions.

>> Loren (18:44):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (18:46):
Much like the Brazilian
priest who is pretty famous for saying, I can't remember his
name.

>> Loren (18:51):
Gutierrez.

>> Speaker D (18:52):
I don't remember his name. I'm so sorry, sir, but that's okay.
When I gave the poor.

>> Loren (18:58):
Yes, Gustavo Gibbs.

>> Speaker D (18:59):
Yeah, I was gonna say I couldn't remember. Yeah. When I gave the poor something to
eat, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor
were hungry, they called me a communist. So I've been
labeled a Marxist, a communist social. I mean, like, that's what
happens.

>> Loren (19:11):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (19:12):
Because I asked questions and I wanted to be a part of that solution.
And that moves from community development
into the confrontation of injustice. I'll
give another metaphor. You don't want to give people a
fish.

>> Loren (19:24):
There's.

>> Speaker D (19:25):
You love mercy, so you want to give people fishes. Don't hear
me wrong. But community development says, I don't want to give you a
fish perpetually. I want to teach you to a fish.
Teach you to fish. A, uh, community
organizer or somebody who's been here for a very long time, like
myself and others, we know that it's an access
issue.

>> Loren (19:42):
Right? Access to the lake to fish.

>> Speaker D (19:44):
Access to the fish. Yeah. It could be the perfects. I
mean, there's.
There could be. You could come to our lake. You can use whatever rod you want.
You can use whatever tackle you want. But you
need to pay this much money to get this. And you can only be here
at this hours. Those
are the kinds of things that lead to
that have led to people being written out of a system.

(20:05):
And the system is operating the way it was created to do. And it's
until we rise up and resist that
system and do it. And I'm not saying just to be
difficult, but create disruption,
advocate, uh, be those prophets.
Advocacy is the prophetic word and the prophetic work of the
church to say that, you know what, if these systems are
not just, then we will not stop

(20:27):
until everyone has justice.

>> Loren (20:31):
Let's dive into that a little bit more because it leads
into a question. I wanted to Ask you
around, you identified
it. Works of mercy versus works of
justice, uh, which is a bifurcation I often
hear. And it seems like in some
contexts churches or Christians are far more
comfortable with what we might call works of mercy,

(20:53):
which, like you said, would be giving people a fish
versus works of justice, which we might define, like you
said, as opening access to,
uh, the lake to make sure folks can get to the lake.
What are your thoughts around? And I think, I
want to acknowledge that I think there can be some nuance because I
think there can be some disagreement around what is the best way to

(21:15):
open up access to the lake. So for that justice,
that can be complexity. But what are your thoughts? Because, uh,
it feels like to me that churches and Christians tend to be a
lot more comfortable with giving out the
fish, so to speak, to say with that metaphor versus the
latter. What are your thoughts there? What have you seen?

>> Speaker D (21:32):
Oh, my goodness.
All right. Well, first of all, we're commanded to love mercy. Sometimes people in
the development space kind of put down
the giving of a fish.

>> Loren (21:40):
Right, right.

>> Speaker D (21:41):
And I don't want to do that because we. Mercy is a
response to a problem. Justice isn't
a response to a. It is trying to figure out
why the problem exists and, uh, fixing that.

>> Loren (21:53):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (21:53):
I've kind of shared a little bit about the, you know, Hebrew
word for justice. Not going to go into the Hebrew word
for mercy. But we know that we're
committed to love. That little voice
there. We're commanded to love it, which means we should
never get tired of it. And so we're going to always need to
do that posture. And I'm grateful that

(22:13):
churches want to practice some of that loving mercy.
I usually call it outreach, compassionate
acts.

>> Loren (22:19):
Right.

>> Speaker D (22:20):
Um, doing
justice is long.

>> Loren (22:25):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (22:26):
And it is always met with resistance.

>> Loren (22:29):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (22:29):
So imagine being a church. And I remember when doing
mercy wasn't so great. I mean I do remember Something happened in
1995 or 6. I can talk to you quite
a bit about how political reform
has either made the church cold or warm
to things. But once the welfare, uh, reform
act happened in 1996, you will begin to see
churches, especially those with middle income security

(22:52):
or higher, all of a sudden loving mercy wasn't so bad.
Right. So there's just an interesting sociological
political lens we won't get there. But
anyway, when you hand
somebody, I mean, we're told this to do, give the hungry
food, you know, give the, give the naked
clothes. We
need to do it. It is, it is not easy. We're called

(23:15):
to love It. Because we have to do it so much. However, you
have an instant gratification. And when you look at
a whole church, you want your people not
just to be absorbers of the word, but
doers. And so to put them on a
trajectory that's going to take an entire lifetime doesn't
seem probably as incentivizing.

>> Loren (23:33):
Right, right.

>> Speaker D (23:34):
And I see that with mainline Catholic,
evangelical.

>> Loren (23:38):
Yes.

>> Speaker D (23:38):
Got to give our people the good endorphins that they did
something.

>> Loren (23:41):
Yeah. Uh, I mean, I, uh. We both been in
leadership ministry leadership. We know. Like,
how am I going to get this person engaged? I need to get them a
quick, quick hit.

>> Speaker D (23:51):
Here's the thing is, I'll take your money. Like, people like, oh, don't just give me your money.
Give me your body. I want your body, too, but if you'll give me that. I
want your money.

>> Loren (23:58):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (23:59):
We need your money. We need those acts of
mercy. What I try to challenge people is don't stop
there. Ask God how to move you and extend
you beyond loving mercy to doing justice. Because when
you start to be willing to do justice, that is
slow, uphill, grueling
work. But I think that's the kingdom work. That
is kingdom work. And you just see it

(24:22):
so clear. That's why I said my hermeneutic is
Jesus. I heard that from Tony Campolo.

>> Loren (24:27):
Yeah. Who just passed. Right.

>> Speaker D (24:29):
Just passed. Oh, my goodness. He's also the one to
challenge me. A week after the Trump
election, the first time we were in this big prayer group, Jim
Wallace had called a bunch of national leaders, and I think there was like
50, 60 of us in the room, maybe not even that much. It
felt like a big room. We all bowed our head in prayer,
and I heard a gargly voice, and I knew it was Tony. And he's like,

(24:49):
God, help me to find the imago
DEI and Trump. And I was like, why did you have to say
that? So it's been my prayer.

>> Loren (24:57):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (24:57):
I get to use it a little bit more, Right? Yeah, I get to use it.

>> Loren (25:00):
And maybe today, help me to find the imago DEI in Trump
voters.

>> Speaker D (25:03):
Oh, for sure. I mean, here's the thing. When you
begin to pray to find the imago DEI and your enemies.
I won't say the Trump is my enemy.

>> Loren (25:11):
Yeah, but. Sure.

>> Speaker D (25:12):
But people who. Who will hurt
my community.

>> Loren (25:16):
Right.

>> Speaker D (25:16):
And who are against me. Let me phrase it. That. To find the
imago de. And people who are against me.

>> Loren (25:21):
Yeah. And what you're doing, people I love. Yeah.

>> Speaker D (25:24):
It is a challenge. But Then I remind myself
of Jesus, my goodness. He said, love
enemies, do good to those
who persecute you. Like that's so mind boggling. So I have
a lot to learn. But as far as the doing justice,
it is a strap in for a
hike. It's the sojourning, it's the

(25:44):
pilgrimage, it's you get to practice the disciple
part of being a Jesus father, which man I gotta love, I
gotta do things I don't want to do. Those Beatitudes are impossible.
And then it's the sojourning pilgrim. I don't
know how convenient or inconvenient this
work is going to be. And so that's why I try to encourage people
we are to honor God is to do the work

(26:05):
of justice. That's the whole theme of the Old Testament. It's
embodied and it's sprinkled all through parables, rules in
the kingdom. And so the work of justice, which I
think we should probably tell our people that in the
Greek the word for righteousness is
also the word for justice. And it
does a very. I believe, yes it is good
job.

>> Loren (26:25):
Took uh, four semesters many years ago.

>> Speaker D (26:29):
Well, if we were just to
start to flip that, uh, if we were being
students of God's word and reading the New Testament every time we
saw it's not 100% but a majority of the time when we see the word
righteousness put in justice, it would transform the way
we live it out.

>> Loren (26:45):
Let's stay on this if I may because I'm thinking
about. I like your point about justice. Well we
interpret righteousness as right living,
perhaps better translated just
living and especially in some
circles. And we'll bang on
evangelicals a little bit here. That
right living can be right.

(27:08):
What am I trying to say? Adherence to the
right kind of beliefs. Living.

>> Speaker D (27:14):
Mhm. So
I get to preach
and on the evangelical churches that will allow women to
preach. So that's a very few and far
between. I preached in my first. The first time I
ever preached was in a mainline church. So I thank them
and respect and appreciate their
recognition of my own gifting and call.

(27:37):
They invited me. So I've preached in lots. I've even given
stuff to Cat like in a homily. So it's kind of been all over the
place. But when evangelicals will allow me to preach,
mostly everybody wants me to talk about the intersection of faith and justice. That's what
I'm known for. That's the work, you know, and that's plus I
think it's easier to get an outside person to speak about
it, because, you know, it's like the prophetic voice, like, well, she was only here

(27:57):
for a week. She's only here for a week. You know,
forget that she was here kind of thing. Um, but. But all
the. I often, almost always exclusively talk
about the connection between righteousness and
justice, because in religious
circles, so it could be mainline, it could be Catholic, could be
evangelical, it could even be non Christian.

(28:17):
But more of this, what I do that
qualifies me, like my religious practices, my
practices, my spiritual piety, that is
not righteousness. Righteousness, uh, and justice.
Because you see them so intrinsically into the Old
Testament, righteousness and justice kind of are paired. And
in the New Testament, same word, even in the Greek.

>> Loren (28:37):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (28:37):
It's because they are not disconnected. You
don't do your righteousness and then decide if you want to do
justice. Righteousness is not about
spiritual practices. You need spiritual practices to be
able to live a righteous life. Because righteousness, or the
Hebrew word tsedeq, is the right actions
towards somebody that become justice
for everyone. You can't do righteousness without

(29:00):
justice, because that's what tsedeq, and
that's what the concept of the righteousness
justice connection is. Righteousness as a Christian
is my right actions towards
you, and my right actions are
so right in such a way that it
becomes justice not just for you or me, but
it becomes justice for everyone.

>> Loren (29:23):
I, uh, appreciate you sharing that. I want to lean into
this big E word.

>> Speaker D (29:28):
Hey, listen, I have no problem. I'll just let you know, I'm an
evangelical. You can ask me why I want.

>> Loren (29:34):
To lean into that.
Um, as we talked prior offline, you.
You. You mentioned to me that you've chosen to
retain that word, even though in some
circles, you're seen. If I'm. Hopefully I'm not speaking out
of turn as a bad evangelical, I'm pro.

>> Speaker D (29:49):
A really lousy evangelical.

>> Loren (29:51):
Um, conversely,
as you, I think you would admit. Again, I hope I'm not speaking for
you. Evangelicals have done their fair share
of stuff to kind of deserve a bad rap.
What do you want to say about why you've chosen to
kind of retain that moniker? Uh,
what good can you share about, uh,

(30:12):
evangelicalism? Because, I mean, again,
here we are in the Denver metro area. I see a lot
of really good stuff happening
from churches and people who I
think would broadly identify well within
evangelicalism as a whole. So I think there's a lot of good happening
beyond just the headlines that we see on the national
News.

>> Speaker D (30:35):
So I told you I have Catholic roots and
evangelical roots. Of course, I was some fundamentalists. We didn't call ourselves
evangelicals because we thought they were going to have roots. Right.

>> Loren (30:42):
They were liberals.

>> Speaker D (30:43):
Yeah. So, yeah, I know we have. The Southern Baptists were
liberal. So, I mean, like I said, everybody has their own
camp. So I usually tell people I have Catholic and evangelical
roots because that's a very honest telling of who I am. It's
an. It's an integration
evangelicalism. Um, first of all, I don't want to be
some sociologist, uneven Jews. I do
remember kind of that awareness, like, okay, this is sort of a

(31:06):
negative thing in the political stream, or
positive, depending on what camp you were sitting in. Right.
Uh, and I also knew it was a powerful leverage tool
in politics. Okay, so let me just share this.
For many years, I didn't identify in it as anything. I was a Jesus
follower. I was a Christian. It wasn't until I
became very public in my stand
with immigrants. I actually went to

(31:29):
night school to study public policy for
housing policy. I'd been a public school teacher and did
education policy. I'd worked at Open Door and had a
transitional. So social. Social, um, human
service. So I'm an education, human
service and housing policy person who lives in
an immigrant community. All these things are happening now. My
expertise, by far, I know immigration policy better than anything

(31:52):
at every single level because of all the years of practice.
In 2009,
we had things, a lot of things in color. I don't want to go
through all the different political things that were happening, but my
awareness to the fact that the camp
that I had hailed from, evangelicals, were now on the
opposite side of the poor. I, um, mean, I could keep listing.

(32:12):
I'm like, well, this doesn't do well. So I had kind of
just never used a moniker, knowing that that was
my rootedness, that theologically I am
evangelical, but social practices,
social policy. I couldn't have been farther away. So how do
you integrate your theology and your practice with some
dumb moniker? And so I remember it was

(32:32):
January 2010, and there was a group of
us in Colorado that felt it
was insufficient that evangelicals had not weighed in on immigration
ever. This is before the evangelical immigration table. This is
before people were really speaking up.
Not that it has changed much in our own voting, but it is
not unusual to find an evangelical who supports immigration

(32:52):
reform. This is in the. I would say, the dark ages of
immigration. When you did not see that. And
I remember they put me as the first speaker, and this Other guy
as the bat, the last speaker. And we had this whole slew,
and, you know, NPR was there, the associate. It was a
big deal. Um, we were going to come out that to be
pro life, meant to be pro
immigrant. And I was the opening

(33:15):
speaker. And I thought, michelle, this is the time to
be the most bold.
And I. That was when I used it, uh, and said
who I was, and people were
shocked. How can you be an evangelical you care
about? I am. I'm my theology. And I honestly
think that the evangelicals that we know

(33:35):
of in the past, they are not following evangelical
theology. They have become a voting block that is
completely separated. I told you my hermeneutic was Jesus.

>> Loren (33:43):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (33:44):
You know, if you read any of my books, I mean, you've read my book, you
see that. Enjoying the resistance. It couldn't be more biblical.
I've got. I focus on a prophet in every single
chapter, and then I focus on multiple parables of
what the kingdom of God looks like here,
you know, through these stories. That is an even.
I mean, evangelicals, one of the biggest things is the Bible as the

(34:05):
authority. I don't think they're reading their
Bible. So I would just say that
we have a missed discipleship. And then I
will just throw the entire Christian faith kind of. Not the
Catholics. They're the North Star on social, you know, social, um,
concerns and really
addressing social concerns in the world. They're the North Star.

(34:26):
Usually what I say is that
I'm a public theologian. It means social
concerns exist in the world and God has something
to say about. If evangelicals are really
living the way they say, then they need to know the Bible.

>> Loren (34:40):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (34:40):
I was taught to memorize whole books of it.

>> Loren (34:42):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (34:43):
I was growing up, and I had to diagram the King James
Version in English, and that's how much I had to
do.

>> Loren (34:49):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (34:49):
You know the Bible.

>> Loren (34:51):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (34:52):
Then you know that God has something to say
about social concerns that
exist in the world. And there are different
approaches to it in government,
however, the assault on the poor,
whether it's the welfare Queen of the 80s.

>> Loren (35:08):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (35:08):
To the assault on immigrants, that they are
murderous and rapists.
Nobody should be endorsing that. That is not anywhere to be
found in the Bible.

>> Loren (35:17):
Right.

>> Speaker D (35:18):
And I could continue, you know, uh, in my
seminarian, you know, debate. I'm not an apologist, although I do
know my Bible. So I would say that
public theology should be something. We
all who follow the Bible should be public
theologians. And so I'd say we lack our public
theology. And we lack a public
discipleship we don't even understand. And the

(35:40):
idea that evangelical churches, for sure, in the past and
even now, it's like caring for the poor is
optional. I mean, let's not even get into
how you vote. That should not be. So. I,
I'm, I'm not sad to use the word evangelical. I
understand that it's loaded. It's a good leverage.

>> Loren (35:56):
Right.

>> Speaker D (35:57):
But it also makes me sad that my
people lack an understanding
of the Bible and God's care and concern
and centering of the poor.
And you see it all throughout, from Genesis
all the way through Revelations, uh, that God has a special
care and a special concern for the poor,

(36:17):
for the widow, for the orphan, for the
immigrant. And if we don't have a special concern,
then we are misaligned not only with Jesus and
what he demonstrated for us, but, but the word
that he.

>> Loren (36:29):
Spoke, I'm thinking
about, obviously, like you
mentioned, I, uh, want to acknowledge and I think it's very acknowledged, like Ryan
Burge, if you're familiar with his research, he certainly pointed out
how evangelicalism, or the
label evangelical, certainly has become a voting
moniker almost more than a theological
moniker. But I'm also intrigued kind of by what you

(36:52):
said about discipleship, or at least that's how I understood it.
But you've obviously been in ministry
leadership. Your family has.
And I wonder. I'm just thinking,
I think I've heard this. Certainly there's a story.
What, recently or relatively recently? A couple
years. Right. Russell Moore. I'm thinking about

(37:12):
how, uh, he shared about
how pastors were getting pushback, about sharing,
um, the
Beatitudes.
Uh, I mean, it certainly seems like, and
I don't know if this is too broad brush, but it feels accurate. People
are being certainly discipled far more

(37:32):
from the cable news
or the influencers than they are
by scripture and their
pastor. And I think in some
ways, um, if I can go after
my own camp a little bit, pick my own side, I think
there is a challenge because one's
politics almost are elevated over

(37:55):
one's theology.
How do we begin to turn that tide?

>> Speaker D (38:02):
So many things are coming in my head
right now. It's Martin Luther King talking about the
prophetic zeal that needs to be in our
churches. Um, okay, I'm going to
tell you a story. So I was
working to try to talk to senior
pastors all around the metro area, and it ended up
expanding nationally. And because

(38:24):
I had started Open Door
Ministries, a lot of pastors from
megachurches knew me.

>> Loren (38:30):
Right.

>> Speaker D (38:30):
Uh, and So I had audience with them, and so I set
a meeting. And, and almost everybody dreaded it because they knew what I was
going to talk about. And I'm not a, I'm not a mean
person. I actually have a really. When I'm not sick, I have a
really gentle voice. And, you know, and I'm. I'm
prophetic and unapologetic, but. But certainly not
harsh. And so I, I made a meeting.
It was one of the largest, um, churches in Douglas

(38:53):
county, very wealthy, third wealthiest county in the
country. And, you know, he. We had some
nice things. We were saying some niceties and kind of were getting
down to the conversation.
And I was sitting across on his couch, and he said, you know,
Michelle, nobody's talking about
immigration here.

>> Loren (39:12):
Ah.

>> Speaker D (39:13):
And I said nothing. And just in case I
hadn't caught it, he said it again with a little bit more
passion. Nobody's talking about
immigration here. And I
waited and I said, no,
you aren't talking about immigration here. And so
you have allowed. And I numbered the amount of thousands of people in his

(39:33):
congregation, this many thousands of
people to allow their views of
immigrants to be determined. Determined by cable
news.

>> Loren (39:42):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (39:42):
And then the conversation really got spicy and we got into it,
you know, but that is the problem is
pastors know, because the Hebrew word
for immigrant or the Hebrew word ger is
used 92 times in the Old Testament.
All you do is hear the story of every
founding patriarch of the Old
Testament being on the move. Being an immigrant,

(40:05):
you get into the New Testament. Even Jesus isn't alive for two years
and already he's fleeing border.

>> Loren (40:11):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (40:11):
We're told to live as soldiers
in a land and be citizens in heaven. And
so pastors know the theology is there.
I've had thousands, hundreds, at least
one on one meetings with pastors around
immigration and their, Their,
their nervousness, their fear to preach
about it.

>> Loren (40:33):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (40:33):
Because public discipleship.

>> Loren (40:35):
Right.

>> Speaker D (40:35):
Uh, in the. What I'm talking about is we're talking about public being not
private. You know, public means we care about everybody.

>> Loren (40:40):
Right.

>> Speaker D (40:41):
So social concerns. We care about every. My discipleship
is. I got to make you care about everybody, including the immigrants
you're afraid of, including the gang bangers you're worried
about in the city, including, you know, everybody.
You shy away from it because in.

>> Loren (40:55):
The evangelical work, it's church growth at all costs.

>> Speaker D (40:58):
Well, it's not just that, but evangelicals don't have
bishops.

>> Loren (41:02):
Yes. There's no one holding them accountable.

>> Speaker D (41:04):
The polity of an evangelical church is the elder Born,
which is made up of the body in that community.
And usually wealthy.

>> Loren (41:13):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (41:13):
Men.

>> Loren (41:14):
Yeah, Jose.

>> Speaker D (41:15):
Wealthy landed men, land owning men. You pick your most
powerful men to put on your altar board, and they
determine if that pastor is in or
out. You say a couple sermons, you're out, you're
out. And that's kind of the political spectrum, too. And I've
worked with congressional leaders, obviously, at both the Senate
and the House level. You know, I've had access to working with
people who've worked in both, you know, in some. Some of the White

(41:37):
House positions. And, you know, and then I've got State around the
country and stuff. When you have those private
conversations, it is very hard
to find a legislator at any
level behind closed
doors, not to admit
that there needs to be a
restoration for undocumented immigrants.

>> Loren (42:00):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (42:00):
That knows the narrative that's being sold
is a lie.

>> Loren (42:04):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (42:05):
But what happens is, when you stand in front of that pulpit or you
get out publicly, if you have a
congregation that pushes back in an older board, then
you're like, well, then I'm just going to be out and they're going to keep finding
that person.

>> Loren (42:17):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (42:17):
I'm not defending any of it. I'm just saying that's the chronic
system. And right now, here we are. All these appointments and
all these. If you fight me, I'm
going to primary you. It's kind of the same
idea. So this is a time. There's always
a time. But this is an easy time to see
that the rise of the prophets need to come. Which is why I thought about

(42:38):
MLK and the prophetic.

>> Loren (42:39):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (42:40):
Is that we should be both in our pulpits. We
need. We need. Well, Jesus came as prophet, priest
and king. We need leadership in all of that way.
But when we lose the prophet in the
pulpit, we sell our
congregation, our flock, to the
culture.

>> Loren (42:57):
Yeah.
Let's stay on this, because I think this is an important point.
It seems like primarily I see this from an
outsider perspective, so tell me if you think I'm wrong. But it seems
like in evangelical churches, there tends to be a lot of,
like, we see you struggling with your marriage, we see you struggling
paying the bills. Kind of like a lot of empathy around
helping you have a good marriage, helping you with your relationships, helping you

(43:18):
with your kids, like, really kind of banging in on those
or cycling through those things, which I think
mainliners tend to struggle with. Like, mainliners crush the
prophetic, I think, but don't always help folks with
the empathy around Their kind of lived
experience struggles. Whereas, uh, from, again, an
outsider perspective, it seems like evangelicals really do a

(43:38):
good job saying, hey, I hear you when you're struggling with this and that
and the other. But then don't move them
to that. Like, hey, I hear you when you say you're struggling with your marriage and,
and paying your bills and all that. But let's move you to
that. I mean, uh, you've kind of already said it. Is
it, Is it just like
survival? You know, why pastors, I don't think.

>> Speaker D (43:57):
Oh, the pastors of this. I don't think, first of all,
evangelicalism is majority white and it is
majority middle class income or higher.

>> Loren (44:04):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (44:04):
Okay, so let's just start with that. You know, I told
you that proximity had transformed
me.

>> Loren (44:11):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (44:12):
I remember when Nick Wolster. Stoff,
you know him?

>> Loren (44:16):
I don't.

>> Speaker D (44:16):
Okay, well, maybe I shouldn't go down that, that vein. But
he is a very well known,
um, theologian on the work of
justice.

>> Loren (44:25):
Okay.

>> Speaker D (44:26):
He's the one who coined the quartet of the
vulnerable, the poor, the widow, the orphan, the
immigrant. I was speaking Grand Rapids and
he was in the audience. Glad I didn't know that. That would have scared
me and made me nervous. I mean, he's kind of a big deal
globally. And he asked me, he's like, how did you know to go
from charity to justice? I didn't know who was asking
me that question, but I had to stop and

(44:48):
I said, because I saw injustice.
So if you don't see pain, poverty and justice, what
Nick said was, that's what happened to me too. So it was,
to him, it was like, how can I look at this white, educated, privileged
woman who completely understands moving
from charity to justice. That
can't be possible. When I think about the
socioeconomic background and framing.

(45:11):
How did you do that? And you
have to see injustice in order
to get to justice. That's why the black church is so good. I would
say, yeah, the main line's fine. The black church is
good. I mean, I probably argue with you on the mainline church, but I would
say that, that the prophetic and standing up for
justice and teaching us a way forward is the black church, uh,

(45:31):
uh, from the earliest of times,
not just through the 1960s.

>> Loren (45:36):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (45:36):
I mean, the Jim Crow period, they were getting schools and yeah, they were
getting substantive schools. They'd get schools. They had substance, but
they got. They were getting them in for life and land, you know,
so you see, and they were doing it through the social network
of the church. And when the,
you know, when the leaders of Alabama said, we're
not going to have an ACLU in our

(45:57):
state, you know, all of a sudden the pastors of the Black
Church of Alabama said, well, we'll form
our own Alabama
to their. To their death, practically. Like their lives
were constantly in, you know,
question as far as their safety because of that prophetic nature
of we are going to fight for justice. They knew

(46:17):
it because they were intimate with injustice, because they were living
it. I would say that
moving from charity to justice is not
self serving for white privileged
America. And so you don't
see or feel the urgency of injustice.

>> Loren (46:34):
Yep.

>> Speaker D (46:35):
So you're going to focus and then also,
we are not a resilient
people.

>> Loren (46:42):
Yeah, that's a good point.

>> Speaker D (46:44):
And justice is a long work.

>> Loren (46:47):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (46:47):
Whether you're white or not, if you're gonna do. I mean, you don't. Just because I
have my white skin. I mean, there's plenty of white senior pastors. I have
this friend, Alan Cross, white senior Southern
Baptist pastor. The people that we
would meet with, don't look at him and say, oh, well, because you're a white Southern
Baptist pastor, we're going to give you immigration reform.
They're like, no, we're going to kick you out of the church, which is what happened.

>> Loren (47:08):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (47:08):
So I'm just saying that there's.
Justice is a very long work and we don't
have resilience by nature in our
congregations. We have a very myopic view.
So we're going to focus on our own family. And then there's folks in the
family that's re emphasized. That is, though, that is the God.

>> Loren (47:26):
Yeah. Yep.

>> Speaker D (47:28):
And then we're going to focus on our own emotional health, which is
important in our own spiritual development. But here's
is the ineptness of us. We
were made to be salt light in
darkness. And when you have light that just
cloisters into light, you can't even see if your light
is very strong. It's not until you put it into
the darkness that you can see that you're being effective. I

(47:50):
wish people would just preach that metaphor.

>> Loren (47:52):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (47:53):
Run to the darkness with the light. Only
idiots would hide it. I'm sorry, there's a.
There's something in the Beatitudes about that. You know, we
as evangelicals and I would even say
white privileged America. And I have seen it even with
mainline churches in some communities for sure.

>> Loren (48:10):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (48:10):
And then I've seen it even in Catholics, even though
their social teaching is the North Star.
But Evangelicals especially, we have
been hiding out in our basements
with our canned goods, uh, batteries,
and our flashlights, and we're waiting for the darkness to pass
until Jesus comes.

>> Loren (48:30):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (48:30):
Instead of using everything we can with the light that he
says, I'm the light of the world, you are the light
of the world. Go shine.

>> Loren (48:38):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (48:39):
And I think we cloister and we're taught to be afraid
through culture.

>> Loren (48:43):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (48:43):
And then the church does not explain how powerful light
is in darkness. And then we created all these schools
that we can make our children grow up in bubbles. And
we're afraid of the darkness. And that is moronic because
the only thing that should be the darkness should be
afraid because the light is penetrating it. And I'll end with
this. God. Evangelicals believe in
the creation narrative. I mean, there's an intelligent design. There's some debate

(49:06):
on how long, but they all believe it to be a
real story. And the beautiful
thing about the narrative that echoes of the
light pushing out darkness is, guess what was created on
day one? God has been pushing out
darkness with light since day one. He is
commanded, commissioned, and equipped us to do
it. Horse not doing the work.

>> Loren (49:30):
Yeah.
Let me ask one more question then, before we take a break.
I'm thinking again about the word proximity has
come up multiple times through this interview. Certainly you
have a book on that topic. I'm thinking also about. Are, uh,
you familiar with Brenda Salter McNeil's book?

>> Speaker D (49:46):
She's a very good friend of mine.

>> Loren (49:47):
Okay.

>> Speaker D (49:47):
And yes, I know her well,
uh.

>> Loren (49:51):
Because I read hers, I don't know, over the summer or
something.

>> Speaker D (49:54):
Which one?

>> Loren (49:56):
I, uh, can't remember. It's her recent book. Uh, but
from the book, it said something. She
said something that proximity breeds care, which is certainly something
you've alluded to. Again and again, I'm thinking again,
um, of this broader dynamics within
evangelicalism of
the kind of, like, the megachurch campus

(50:18):
when we think, like. I'm thinking about
throughout the metro, as we're sitting here in person,
I'm thinking of out east and out
north, and certainly you alluded to south of
these huge behemoth churches that really have become
like. I love your imagery of just like, we're going
to have a beacon of light here. We're not going to take our light out into the

(50:38):
darkness. Certainly, if I'm understanding correctly,
that really goes against the mission
and ethos of open door here.

>> Speaker D (50:46):
Oh, yeah.

>> Loren (50:47):
Of taking light into the darkness.
And it's so funny, um,
because, yeah, there's been like this protectionism
against how then
what are some simple
steps, some beginning practices
churches can do, pastors can
do, because maybe in

(51:09):
some context, like getting up and giving whole justice sermons
is going to get them right out the door. And they, they. They want to pay their
mortgage and keep their family fed, but also they want to move
the needle.

>> Speaker D (51:19):
Yeah. Well, that's the reason I wrote
Proximity. The way I wrote it was because we
need to be willing to humble
ourselves and leave our places of
comfort.
We need to be willing to humble ourselves and
leave our places of comfort

(51:39):
to love people
who are different. That
is literally what
Jesus did. Jesus
left and emptied himself
of power and position
and rights to leave his
godliness. Uh, I mean, he kept it with him, but, you

(52:01):
know, the perfection, you know, the.
The essence of his power to be born as a
baby and be a human being for a
stretch also. Ah. He could
demonstrate. That's what I said. This is how we know one love is. Jesus Christ
laid down his life. Yes, he died. That was a part of it. That was
a huge part of it. But he laid it down from day

(52:22):
one.

>> Loren (52:22):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (52:23):
And so I would say that the reason
proximity is powerful is it makes you search
scripture to try to understand the
complexities of the brokenness and the pain of the world.
And so what I would say is that what
I would want. The next steps would be to the pastor, not
the discipleship pastor or
the missions pastor. I want the senior pastor.

>> Loren (52:45):
Yeah, yeah.

>> Speaker D (52:45):
I want him as an elder board, not to give the
money.

>> Loren (52:49):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (52:50):
But to. And not just one time.

>> Loren (52:52):
Right.

>> Speaker D (52:52):
But as a practice.

>> Loren (52:53):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (52:54):
Be journeying as a practice to pair up. And this is
an organizing methodology I have with immigrant, non immigrant
pastors. That's why I get a lot of people who are supporting immigration
because they've walked with immigrant pastors and their
brothers.

>> Loren (53:06):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (53:06):
And their sisters, their family. But for
a pastor from a well to do
congregation to literally not do anything
to the inner city pastor or for them, but do it
with them, um, so that we can mutually
encourage one another. If that would be
so radical. Because yes, preaching would change, but people
would follow. And here's the thing is we are watching a mass

(53:29):
exodus of a younger generation leaving the church
because they. The Christian Witness, specifically the
evangelical church. But the Christian Witness is a
scandal. It doesn't measure up. The
actions are embarrassing. If you would
see pastors and elders pouring themselves
out on behalf of the poor, not for a sermon illustration.

>> Loren (53:48):
Right, right.

>> Speaker D (53:49):
But as a practice and a way of Life.
Yeah, that's what I would want to
see.

>> Loren (53:55):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (53:55):
Because I know it would be transformative. It is
humiliating, humble and humiliating
to pour yourself out in a
community that has a perpetual
poverty problem, who has been written out of a system,
who doesn't have the resource, that doesn't have the economic,
the social or the political capital to be able
to survive, and then gets blamed for

(54:18):
it now, uh, from the inside.
How dare you. Yeah, but, uh, from. From looking
as a person who's grown up from the outside.
Come be with us.

>> Loren (54:31):
That's good. Let's take a
break and we'll come back with some closing questions.

>> Speaker D (54:40):
All right.

>> Loren (54:41):
We're back with Michelle Frigna. Warren. Thank you so much
for this conversation. Closing questions. I
always tell folks. We tell folks. Co host Martha, Shout
out.
Uh, you can take these as seriously or not as you want to,
but if you're Pope for a day,
what does that look like for you?

>> Speaker D (54:58):
My goodness. If I was Pope for a day, I really would shake things up
because the Pope is supposed to be the head of the church and
has a global reach and some
of that has been used for harm. I'm thinking of
sort of the Papal Bulls of the doctrine of discovery
and all the harm of colonization. I
actually wrote a paper that I presented in Oxford now, a couple

(55:19):
years ago now on how we
could fix our white Christian
nationalism problem and the Pope
could do it. Oh, so if I were Pope for a day.

>> Loren (55:29):
Oh, my goodness.

>> Speaker D (55:30):
I would insist that we, as the
church establish. I'm talking about the global Christian
Church established a truth Racial
Healing and Transformation Commission, much like the
healing commissions of itself. Apartheid. I mean, there's been many
across the whole, whole world in history. But we would
have a truth Racial Healing Transformation Commission,

(55:51):
and the church would not run it. At least the white or
dominant or Euro church, so the black church could run
it. But that we would need to present
ourselves before a truth
commission to answer for our
atrocities and then ones we continue
to perpetuate by insisting that
a kingdom that has come through Christ and his humility

(56:14):
and emptying himself out, that
we have grabbed power,
we have tried to have dominion. I mean, like, we should follow the
temptations of Christ. You know, he did not say yes to being
in power and we need to say no as well, and that
we should submit humbly to a commission, and if we lose titles
and buildings and property, so be it.

(56:34):
So, yeah, I would establish a commission and I would make the
white Euro church
be the ones who have to answer to it.

>> Loren (56:43):
That is Perhaps the most well thought out
response I think I've gotten, perhaps.

>> Speaker D (56:47):
Well, if you read the paper that I wrote for
even the progressive group at Oxford, he was quite shocked.

>> Loren (56:53):
I feel like I need to, like, have a link in the show notes,
so.

>> Speaker D (56:56):
Oh, I should find out where in the press
link it could be. I will look for it.

>> Loren (57:01):
Send it to me. Um, a theologian or historical
Christian figure you don't want to meet, bring back
to life.

>> Speaker D (57:07):
Okay, there's two.

>> Loren (57:08):
Yeah, that's allowed.

>> Speaker D (57:08):
I don't want to bring anybody back to life.

>> Loren (57:10):
That's okay.

>> Speaker D (57:11):
I appreciate them for their.
Okay, so very Old Testament Deborah. I
actually write about her in chapter 8 or 9
of the Power of Proximity, as
a worship leader, as, uh, a wife of a man who was
respected at the Cape. In that
scenario, as well as one that grows up in a fundamental
evangelical church, how would God

(57:32):
choose a woman to lead?
My husband did a toast
probably 15, 20 years ago now and said to a
modern day Deborah, he got me a palm tree and said, a
modern day Deborah, because he was watching me
lead senior pastors, national leaders,
literally to war in the political realm,

(57:54):
in the spiritual realm, on behalf of justice.
And so, Deborah, she says, who am I? In
her song, who am I But a mother in
Israel? That's why I feel, who am I? Just a mother in
Denver.

>> Loren (58:05):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (58:06):
These little kids, this is hard to even believe. So,
Deborah, oh, my goodness. I want to talk to her.
And then the second one is Mother
Cabrini, hands down. I write about her enjoying the
resistance. I write about. A lot of people join the resistance,
but Mother Cabrini here in
Colorado, we no longer have Columbus Day, we have
Cabrini Day because we want to respect

(58:27):
Italian American heritage or
heritage without using someone who
did some horrible acts.

>> Loren (58:34):
Yes.

>> Speaker D (58:35):
And Cabrini was. She was the
first American citizen to be
canonized as a saint.

>> Loren (58:42):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (58:42):
She is the saint of the immigrant.
She wanted to do work, and the Pope told
her because she had a bad lung condition, she was
too weak, and she wouldn't give up.
And so instead of being able to go to the east, he said, go to the
west and help the Italian immigrants in New
York. And she ended up starting and moved

(59:03):
all the way from the west, further
west, and ended up in China with the largest Catholic order
in her name. And I will just say that I am
struggling with whooping cough because I had complications, because
since I was a very little girl, four, just like a
rainy four or five, I have very weak lungs.
I'm an asthmatic. When things happen I'm

(59:24):
hospitalized. Um, I mean, like, it is not. It doesn't happen
often.

>> Loren (59:27):
Uh-huh.

>> Speaker D (59:27):
I'm very fierce, but when it does, I have no good health to
fall on.

>> Loren (59:31):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (59:31):
So to be hospitalized on oxygen, struggling these months
later. That's right. That's about right. Well, Mother
Cabrini was fierce for her love for Christ
and her care for the poor, her care for immigrants.
I'm an Italian American. She's an Italian
immigrant who became an American, and she was
told to play it safe because of her health.

(59:52):
Exactly like people wanted to bubble wrap me.

>> Loren (59:55):
That's a good answer. Um,
this is a broad question, so feel free to answer how
you wish.
What do you think history will remember from our current time and
place?

>> Speaker D (01:00:05):
It will not remember us kindly.
We've had a good conversation. I haven't.
I felt passionate at times, but not
emotional.

>> Loren (01:00:16):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (01:00:16):
I feel emotional.
History's hand is being written,
and it needs to be stopped because
the church. And that's all of, um, us, not just the
evangelicals.

>> Loren (01:00:30):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (01:00:31):
The Christian church will
not be remembered
kindly.

>> Loren (01:00:39):
Yeah. How hard to argue with
turning.
Turning this a little bit more optimistic, I suppose, or
hopeful. What would you then hope for the
future of Christianity?

>> Speaker D (01:00:50):
I won't tell you right now.

>> Loren (01:00:51):
Yeah, we've talked about this. Yeah.

>> Speaker D (01:00:52):
Hope is what we got. You know, I've had friends. I had this one particular friend.
He's like, how. How can you do another day? And it was
during a really bleak time. I said, you know what? Every day
I have to drink a glass of hope.

>> Loren (01:01:03):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (01:01:03):
And sometimes that glass is asked to be huge.

>> Loren (01:01:06):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (01:01:06):
I mean, hope. It's not about the present.

>> Loren (01:01:08):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (01:01:09):
It is this conviction, this faith to believe
that what I see right now does not have to be. It's setting a
vision of what can be. So I hope
for what I have been literally
created and called. I think
humanity has been called to hope for peace,
for wholeness, for restoration. But there
will not be peace without

(01:01:32):
doing the work of justice. So
my hope for my people and, you know, enjoying the resistance,
a third of that book is how to help our people.
And when I say help my people, they're one of my people.
My hope is that we will understand
a, uh, public theology that would
drive and deepen us

(01:01:53):
into a public discipleship and
engagement. No more private
need it. No more private. Needed
meaning public for everyone. God so
loved the whole world. The church needs to love the
whole world in
action and in truth.

>> Loren (01:02:15):
All right, well, I appreciate this conversation.
Thank you so much for your time. Um, obviously, the book
is power. No, I can tell you tell.
I'm getting the titles confused. Give your book, give how
folks can connect with you, all that stuff.

>> Speaker D (01:02:29):
First of all, I'm not an email snob, so if you email
[e-mail]
it would be very rare that. I mean, something happened. I
got whooping cough. So email me again. So my
first. So Michelle ferrignowarren.com is my
website. I obviously can get to know me. I have
organizations locally and nationally that can help you do the

(01:02:49):
work of justice groups. I work with groups I
trust. Even my company, Virago Strategies, you can see who
I work with. I do a lot of technical assistance for church, churches and
nonprofit, um, leaders to help them do the work of justice.
Um, and also if you're in Denver, how to actually specifically
help migrant arrivals. And now how to respond in
protection defense to possible immigration deportation.

>> Loren (01:03:09):
Gosh, I wish we had more time to talk about that because just some news came out on
that and churches, but we don't have time.

>> Speaker D (01:03:13):
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, check out the website. But
my books, I have two books right now, and on my website
I have podcasts and articles, and I've written quite a bit. But the first
book was the Power of Proximity Moving Beyond
Awareness to Action. And the next book
is actually picks you right up from chapter nine into
chapter one. It originally was supposed to be called

(01:03:34):
the Power of Resistance.

>> Loren (01:03:35):
Okay.

>> Speaker D (01:03:36):
I changed it Join the Resistance, because it came out and I
was writing it right around George Floyd.
Uh, and I didn't want anybody to think that they
should start something new, uh, that we needed to
join the move that was already happening. Not just for
a day.

>> Loren (01:03:51):
Right.

>> Speaker D (01:03:51):
I mean, a day is fine.

>> Loren (01:03:52):
Yeah.

>> Speaker D (01:03:52):
But keep going. And so join the resistance. Step
into the good work of Kingdom Justice. It has a
study guide built into it. It has a Spotify playlist.
You know, it's. It's a. It's an in depth book, a kind of a
manual to, uh, how to do the work of public
discipleship and engagement. As a Christian, I
might have evangelical rootedness, but I wrote that book

(01:04:12):
with Catholics in mind and mainlines inline. I
think it has a generous Christian orthodox.

>> Loren (01:04:17):
Yeah, I forgot about the, the songs. That was a fun part about the
book.

>> Speaker D (01:04:21):
I'm a musician.

>> Loren (01:04:21):
Yeah, there's. Because there's another book. Well, we don't have time to discuss, but
thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate the
conversation. Always, um, leave folks with a word of peace.
So may God's peace be with you.

>> Speaker D (01:04:31):
Thank you. And also with you.

>> Loren Richmond (01:04:39):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
The Future Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
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(01:05:00):
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