February 15, 2024 • 47 mins
Embark on a profound exploration as we welcome Dr. Willie James Jennings to discuss the transformative insights from his books "The Christian Imagination" and "After Whiteness." Prepare to uncover the unsettling reality of how racial identity and the concept of whiteness have infiltrated and often taken precedence over our Christian belonging. In a world where whiteness operates not just as a phenotype but as a societal architect, Dr. Jennings guides us through the necessity of reimagining our spiritual and educational frameworks to foster inclusivity and diversity, reflecting Jesus's revolutionary way of uniting people.
Wrestling with the intricacies of Christian faith and its practice today, we uncover the challenges of revitalizing doctrine through lived experiences. We probe the unique obstacles encountered by those from evangelical backgrounds, striving to disentangle their faith from the historical threads of colonialism and the quest for power. Our conversation journeys through the painful schism within Christianity, as we seek to distinguish between the distortion of a faith bent on supremacy and the genuine pursuit of a Christ-centered community that nurtures justice and collective well-being.
Concluding with a pressing discussion on the housing crisis and the theological implications of our built environments, we grapple with the call to intentionally design spaces that reflect our faith commitments. I share insights from my upcoming book, which draws from lectures on these very issues, urging us to consider how education and architecture can inspire hope and equity, particularly for black students. Join us for an episode that transcends mere discourse, fostering a robust dialogue on how we can live out a faith that not only acknowledges but actively works against societal disparities.
Life After Leaven is sponsored by Sub:Culture Incorporated, a 501c3 committed to eradicating cultural, social, spiritual, financial, and academic barriers for Black College Students. If you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation toward our work with black college students, you can do that here. Thank you for helping us ensure temporary roadblocks don't become permanent dead ends for students with marginalized identities. You can follow us on Instagram: @subc_incorporated, Facebook: facebook.com/subcultureinco, and Twitter: @subcultureinco1.
Our episodes are written and produced by Tamice Namae Speaks LLC.
Don’t miss out on what Tamice has planned next! Follow her on Instagram and Twitter, or subscribe to her Patreon page.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everybody?
Welcome back to another episodeof Life After 11.
I'm your host, tamise SpencerHelms, and I am talking with one
of my heroes.
This is Dr Willie JamesJennings, who significantly
changed everything about my walkwith God, and so I'm very
honored to have you.
Welcome, dr Jennings.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thank you, tamise, glad to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Let me just jump in.
I know that a lot of mylisteners some of them are just
getting into some of thedecolonization work, some of the
deconstruction work, and sowhat I really would love for you
to talk about at the outset ofthe interview is kind of the
diseased imagination that youtalked about in Christian
imagination.
On a lot of my shows and in alot of my social media work I
(00:42):
definitely show off Christianimagination as one of the
primary books that really helpedme get free.
So for those who haven't readit, could you summarize that
what you meant by diseasedimagination?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'd be glad to so.
In my book the ChristianImagination, theology and the
Origins of Race, I talk aboutthe thing that plagues Western
Christianity, especiallyChristianity in this country,
and that is it is a diseasedimagination, which.
What I mean by that?
It's a sense of belonging thatis racially in the racially form
(01:18):
, so that, even though peoplecall themselves Christian, their
racial sense of belonging ismore powerful, more decisive,
more compelling than Christianbelonging.
And so we are inside thatracial imagination, as a special
effect on people who identifyas white, that whiteness becomes
(01:41):
an organizing center of theirimaginations.
Even as they call themselvesChristian, they are yet bound by
more, far more decisive realitythan their Christianity it is
whiteness.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
And it's so interesting because the way that
I've been thinking aboutwhiteness, obviously as Levin,
as this sort of subtle,pervasive agent that gives rise
to everything else, I've alsolately been thinking about it as
a technology, that whitenessfunctions like a technology in
society.
What are your thoughts aboututilizing a term like that when
(02:19):
it comes to whiteness?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean you could call it a technology in
the sense that it's, that itoperates in ways that form
people and continue to form waysof life.
So, very much like a technologyhelps to enable a particular
way of life, so whitenessfunctions like that.
(02:42):
The challenge for so manypeople is to try to understand
whiteness as not first phenotype, as not first a matter of
appearance and certainly not apart of God's creation.
Whiteness is a way of being inthe world, a way of seeing the
world and the way of being seenin the world.
(03:04):
At the same time, Whiteness isa way of organizing the world,
giving a logic in an order tothe world.
And here's what's crucialwhiteness is having the power to
carry out that vision, to ordera world by that vision, and so
whiteness becomes a compellingway to imagine how one can
(03:25):
operate and control and masterone's world.
And so in that regard you cancall it a technology, because it
really works to help peoplemake sense, to come and to
control their world.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well, that's really helpful and I'm glad I got the
okay from you on that.
I've just been kind of likeconceptualizing it that way and
wasn't sure if that made sense.
I've been like secretly askingyou whether that term makes
sense in my head.
So now I've gotten to ask you.
But then you wrote, you went onand you wrote another book I
follow everything that you doand you wrote After Whiteness,
(04:02):
which was a little bit of adifferent flavor, which I kind
of like.
The style and the cadence ofthe book was a lot different.
But I would love for you totalk about how the formation of
whiteness shows up intheological education.
I think right now we're dealingwith we're going to talk a
little bit more about what'shappening with university
presidents a little bit laterbut how are you seeing that show
(04:23):
up in theological educationright now?
What do you think is the futureof theological work if we are
going to sort of resist anddivest the whiteness?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, so we are yet in the midst of a huge problem
of formation, and by formationfor your listeners, let me
explain what I mean by that isthe direction of cultivation,
the direction of creating whatpeople ought to be once they've
been educated.
And it's, you know, the largerreality in Western education.
(04:56):
But there's also the slice ofit, the big slice of it, that is
theological education.
And that ongoing problem isthat we have all been formed
into one particular kind ofpersona, one particular kind of
identity, one particular form ofbeing in the world, and that is
what I call the white,self-sufficient man who
(05:18):
operationalizes three, what Icall a dismal virtue possession,
mastery and control.
And all of us in education hasbeen shaped to move us all, no
matter how we identify, towardbecoming that man, as a sign of
showing that we have beeneducated.
And so theological education,like all Western education, is
(05:42):
struggling now and has alwaysstruggled with what it means to
aim human beings toward that oneparticular profound image of
what it means to show theeducated state.
And so what we are, what we arein the midst of, is a
rethinking of it, and what Isuggest in every whiteness,
(06:03):
especially for theologicaleducation, especially for
Western education that claims towant to be Christian, is that
our proposal is a differentimage that should drive us
forward, and the image is notbasically one image, but it's an
image that opens up newpossibilities of multiple
energies.
But what is it?
And that image is of Jesusgathering a crowd, and that
(06:26):
crowd is people from all walksof life, people who don't know
each other, some who do knoweach other and would never want
to be with each other, but theyare drawn together by Jesus
because they want to find outwho he is, learn something from
him, get something from him.
So Jesus forces, if you will,people to be together who would
(06:49):
now want to be together.
And so the way I put it is thatJesus gathers a crowd.
So we want to know what oureducation and for forming people
, cultivating people in theeducational and intellectual
life, is that they form peoplewho, in whatever work they want
to do, whatever things that theythink they want to be about,
(07:12):
they gather people together, andthey gather people together who
would normally not want to betogether.
So they form, they gestate whatI call communion.
They gestate a life together ofjustice and peace and equality.
Because they are together,because they want to be with you
, the one who has brought themtogether, whatever they do.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yes, I'm so intrigued by that.
I'm taking classes right nowand leadership and I've been
thinking about what kind of anadaptive collaborative
leadership model might be andthinking about.
There was someone I read andit's blinking because I'm
nervous, but they said that thenext Buddha is the Sangha, the
(07:58):
community, and that there's somesort of a shift taking place
where the and Phyllis Tickletalks about this a little bit
too that the question ofauthority and who is in charge
and hierarchy it always kind oftends to be question.
But how do you think societylooks when we have less of a
hierarchical structure in termsof leadership and leadership is
(08:20):
more communal?
What kind of society would becreated and what would be the
steps towards that, towardsreally having this sort of
revolution of the intimate andthis crowd mentality when we
think about faith andspirituality?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
on that.
Well, what you're pointingtoward would be a society that's
shaped by some very powerful,very powerful characteristics of
listening, that's, first, ofbeing able to listen to one
another and facilitate thelistening deep listening to one
another.
It would also be a place thatwe're talking about as a society
(09:00):
, as a whole organization, wherethere is an ongoing practice of
learning from one another,where people listen and learn
from one another, and then thereis a shared project of living
together, and that comes out ofthe ongoing desire to listen and
(09:21):
to learn and to draw on as Ilike to say when I talk to
various faculties andinstitutions to draw on the
collective wisdom, collectivecreativity of a group.
That is something that's allude,that alludes so many
institutions where people aretreated as cards in the machine,
(09:43):
where there is no sense ofdrawing on the collective voice,
the collective wisdom, thecollective creativity.
I'd like to say what anyorganization wants is to see
itself as a great band.
In a great band, everybody canhear everybody else play all the
(10:05):
time, even when they're soloing, because their solos are built
on knowing how their colleaguesin the band play, and so there
is something incrediblyimportant about forming people
who, in terms of theirleadership.
Understand that facilitationmeans that we come to know our
(10:29):
sound, what we sound like and,as you know, every great band
has a sound.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
This is really interesting when I think about
kind of where things are going.
I'm wondering about I've hadsome questions recently about
what do we call ourselves.
I think that there is so muchconversation about whether or
not we want to identify asChristianity, what is the
meaning of Jesus and things likethat.
(11:00):
I'm wondering, as you talkabout the sound and this sort of
band mentality, do you thinkthat now, kind of moving forward
, the gathering impulse would bemore around values and ethics
as opposed to morality anddoctrinal agreement?
Do you see that being morefoundational to the communities
(11:22):
that are coming towards us inthe next generations of the
faithful?
How do you see us making thatshift as people who are people
of faith but may not know whichcamp we belong to?
For those of us who feel likeexiles, how would we begin to
create our own sound in our ownbands after being in such a
(11:45):
rigid structure.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
That's a great question, especially for people
coming out of evangelicalcontexts, because evangelical
contexts often front load acertain kind of ascension to
various doctrinal themes.
As a theologian, I can saythere's nothing wrong with
doctrine.
(12:07):
The problem is that it's frontloaded in a way that extracts it
from its living reality.
When you extract something fromits living reality, what you
present to people is somethingthat's dead because you've put
it out of the living thing.
What has to be presented topeople?
Let's come back to this analogyof the band.
(12:27):
What does the band do?
The band plays, the bandpractices.
What we're doing is drawingpeople into a set of wonderful
practices that we do together,that we deepen with each other
over time.
When we are inside thosepractices, we are inside the
logic of them, but we're alsoinside the effect they have upon
(12:52):
us.
What is that effect?
They help us see the world in aparticular way.
That's what's so great aboutChristian practices.
What we wind up doing is we windup putting all that doctrinal
stuff that has been extractedback into the living reality of
it.
We live inside what it means tobe a follower of Jesus.
We live inside what it means toyield a life to the Spirit.
(13:15):
We live inside the communitythat is God, father, son and
Spirit.
We live inside what it means toshare a life one little another
.
We live inside the reality ofbaptism and so forth and so on.
We live inside of it.
At that point, is that aquestion of have I extracted the
beliefs that have held them inyour face and said you have to
believe these Exactly?
(13:37):
It's like taking a base andputting the strings in front of
somebody and saying you have tobelieve that these strings
actually make music.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I believe the strings make music, but now what?
So what we want is put thestrings back on the base, put
the base back together to givepeople the whole base and say,
god, let's play this together.
And then, at that point, I'mnot asking the question what do
(14:12):
you believe?
I'm asking the question how doyou believe in a way that allows
life to flourish?
That's a different question.
And so you know, I think, atthis moment, what so many people
coming out of the even,especially in the evangelical
context, are struggling to finda set of practices in the faith
(14:34):
that actually make anydifference, because they've been
so woven inside whiteness, sowoven inside the colonial
situation what I mean by thatfor your listeners so woven
inside of a world in which thecolonial, settler mentality of
coming to possess, control andmaster people in land has been a
(14:55):
part of their Christian faith,has been so woven inside of that
that for so many people theydon't have anything to do with
Christianity because they're notsure what's real in it.
All of it seems to be so suspect.
There are a lot of folks whoare evangelical, formerly
evangelical, now who arestruggling to figure out what is
(15:18):
Christian faith.
And my dear, my dear, my dear,my dear sister.
Here's the thing about it.
The reality of it is that whatis happening in the Western
world, but especially in thiscountry, is that there is a very
painful process of separationhappening that many people are
(15:40):
not clear about.
And what is that process?
There is a white, nationalistvision of Christianity, and it's
been the dominant reality ofChristianity for many
evangelicals, and that realityof Christianity is not in a
fundamental sense.
It doesn't worship Jesus, itworships a white man, and that
(16:03):
white man is imagined as Jesus,but that ain't Jesus, and it
worships power.
As I like to say, there are manyChristians in the Western world
.
They don't want Jesus, theywant Jesus's power.
So they don't believe in theresurrection, they believe in
(16:24):
the power that the resurrectionchose, and so they can kill us
about Jesus.
All I want is that power, andso, at the end of the day,
they're not following Jesus,they're trying to get his power,
and so what's happening rightnow is that there's a separation
happening, those people whocall themselves Christians, who
(16:47):
really just want power.
The former president says I'mgoing to give you power.
Various leaders who have moneyand resources says here's power.
And they're going in thatdirection because that's what
they worship.
They worship power.
But there's another reality ofChristianity that's always been
there, that's not trying to beinhabit a world of power, light
(17:14):
that world.
They don't want to be powerless, but they understand power to
be something different.
They understand power to be inthe gathering, in the following,
in the light together, in thesearching out together a way of
not only surviving but thriving.
And those Christians are tryingright now to figure out what
this Christianity looks like.
But they're in the midst of theunprecedented tearing of a
(17:40):
heretical form of Christianityfrom within.
And that's the most difficultpart about it.
What do you do when you realizethat there is this foreign
substance that's in your body,but it's been there forever and
you think it's a part of it.
And all of a sudden the doctorsays no, that's not a part of it
, we got to take that out.
And the doctor says and it'sgoing to hurt, so we're going to
(18:02):
give you some pain medicationbut it's still going to hurt.
Like H-E-L-L, and there's somein this country there are a lot
of people who are raising thechurch.
They have church hurt but theyhate the church.
But they're not sure whatexactly they're hating.
They're actually hating thisform of white nationalist
(18:26):
Christianity that's presentacross the colonial terrain, so
that white nationalistChristianity is present wherever
the colonial imprint was, allover the world, and so many
people are struggling againstthat.
And so what we're in the midstof?
We're in the midst of a greatshaking, a great pulling that we
(18:51):
haven't yet seen the fullreality of it.
Because, as I said a moment ago, for so many people Jesus is a
white man, and I don't mean thisin terms of his appearance, I
mean in terms of his reality.
He is the white self-sufficientman and he was power, and
(19:12):
that's what, of course, theywant his power.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Golly, there's so many questions popped up in my
head just now.
Okay, let me see if I can.
Hmm, okay, so I let me put thison the show.
I want to talk about how weembrace the meaning of
resurrection if we divest ofwhiteness.
I want to have thatconversation, but let me ask
(19:38):
this you talk about possession,mastery and control, and to me,
I keep getting an image ofGenesis three in my mind.
Right, I keep getting an imageof exploitation, even of the
tree right to take the knowledgeas opposed to just remaining
curious and learning, and tohave to possess rather than to
(20:03):
share, and I see those thingscoming up as I've been reading
Genesis three.
I don't want to oversimplifythings, but I think about what,
what empire does, how empirefunctions, and I think about the
sort of the way of Cain.
Do you think I mean, do youthink that things simply boil
(20:23):
down to like whether or not,when faced with the choice to
love, we will either, you know,be a murderer or a martyr, so to
speak?
Right, like the choice foreveryone, or that the garden
choice is coming for us all thetime?
What are your thoughts aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Well, you know it's.
That's an interestingpossibility to think about.
The garden choice.
I prefer to think about thatchoice that comes out of the
other garden, the garden of thecity, and it's the choice of
following this Jesus and that,see, the thing that we want to
keep in mind is that, from thevery beginning, the disciples of
(21:07):
Jesus struggle to follow him,and when the spirit comes out,
struggle is intensified.
Right, because when the spiritcomes, the disciples of Jesus
are being asked by the spirit todo what they don't want to do,
and that is to build a new kindof community with people they
would prefer not to.
(21:27):
And so that's that, and to manyways, that's what it boils on
to at this moment.
It boils down to can weactually follow him?
Right?
Following Jesus, especially inthe Western world, has never
been so serious, because what itmeans right now is we have to
(21:51):
say no to as usual word familiara set of technologies that
would establish control, weapons, guns, violence, the use of
resources to continue to creategrotesque disparities in wealth
(22:12):
and magnified poverty,homelessness.
Because the follow Jesus now isto say no to the configuration
of an economic system and notonly will continue to strangle
the planet, but willfundamentally show that the
world is not just a place for usto live, but a place for us to
(22:33):
live, that there is no hope inthe kind of Christianity that is
being presented as in supportof that.
So I think it comes down tothat crucial matter and I do
think there are many people whoare struggling to follow Jesus,
(22:54):
but I think they're hoping inmany ways that there'd be more
light for the past.
That's a little bit narrow, butI think there's more people who
would love some more light onthe path I'm giving.
What's happening in this country, especially with so many
(23:15):
Christians supporting policiesthis is not just a matter of
supporting the former president,but supporting policies I want
to keep that in mind supportingpolicies that are diametrically
opposed to the way of JesusChrist.
Exactly, until we getChristians who will not support
(23:37):
policies that are diametricallyopposed to the life of Jesus
Christ, we are going to struggle.
We're going to struggle deeplyand again there'll be more and
more folks disaffected by notonly evangelicalism but
disaffected by Christianity, whojust threw their hands up and
said I don't want to have theirfaith in the Virginian, but
(23:58):
knowing that there is somethingin them that needs that faith
that they will form, and somepart of them knows that they
need it, but they don't know howto access it without all the
toxins Gosh.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I've helped that deeply in my soul.
Okay, since we're talking aboutpolicy, let's just talk about
this.
Obviously, this advent I amthinking very deeply about what
it means to have a particularfondness for a baby born in
Bethlehem and what is happeningin Bethlehem as we speak.
(24:39):
I'm wondering how you see theAmerican project that you've
talked about, how you see thesort of whiteness, how you see
that playing out right now withregard to what's happening in
Gaza.
I mean, I'm not sure if you canspeak on that, given what's
been going on with universities.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, I can, I'm totally free to speak on these
matters, but for us we areChristian this brings what's
happening in Palestine andIsrael, what's happening to
Palestinians, what's happeningin Gaza, but what has been
happening in Israel.
(25:20):
Palestine is the culmination ofthe long history of settler
colonialism.
For your listeners it'simportant to understand that the
nation state of Israel is anation state that is inside the
operations of colonialsettlerism that is, to come in
(25:42):
and occupy and take over anddrive out the people of the land
.
Now the difficulty forChristians is that we have not
thought through the reality ofour relationship with Israel,
theologically speaking, biblicalspeaking.
And so what has been the waythat many Christians have been
(26:06):
taught to think of thatrelationship is inside a
particular evangelical vision ofIsrael, as the people will
return to their country, returnto the Middle East, return to
that world, and that would be atrigger within evangelical
(26:31):
thought for what God is doing inthe world.
And so then a text has beentaken out of context and it's
turned into a kind of fetish,and by that for your listeners
it's like trinket.
They will say they danglingsome funer Christians and say to
support Israel is to ensurethat any nation that supports
(26:53):
Israel will be blessed by God.
It's a little trinket andtherefore it has been the basis
for the unrelective support ofthe nation state of Israel and
the refusal to make a properdistinction between support of
Jewish people and support ofZionism and support of the
(27:16):
nation state of Israel.
So many Christians, they havenot thought at all about the
distinction between the nationstate of the people.
But there was a time whennations did not exist and there
was a time in which people didnot understand themselves inside
(27:37):
of nationalist logic.
But because we are inside ofthat, it has limited our vision
of how we might think about lifein the Middle East, life in the
Holy oil.
So I bring you to Acts 1 and 2.
Acts 1 and 2 is a perfectexample of how we might think
about what should be the case.
(27:58):
In Acts 1, jesus was risen fromthe dead and the disciples
asked what I call theproto-nationalist question, a
kind of nationalist questionbefore nationalism.
They asked Jesus when will yourestore the kingdom of Israel?
He has risen with all power inhis hand and, as I mentioned
earlier, some folks just wanttheir power.
(28:19):
He's with all power in his handand he says I will give you
power.
Go to Jerusalem and you'll getpower.
But now remember, thesefollowers of Jesus have on their
mind the kingdom of Israelrestored, which they for them is
to get these Roman boots offtheir neck to overthrow Rome.
(28:39):
But in Acts 2, what happens isthat they receive the spirit,
they make a long story short,they speak in the languages of
others.
What God gives is not powerover people, but power for
people, power to build lifetogether.
And so what's supposed to bethe case is that these followers
(29:02):
of Jesus, these Jewishfollowers of Jesus, there in
Jerusalem, are to build lifetogether with others, not build
a segregated, exclusive,racially based nation state that
excludes, pushes out powerstates, that turns Arab, jews
(29:26):
and others into second classcitizens.
And so what we're watching isthe ongoing we're not watching
two problems at the same time.
This makes it difficult forpeople to understand.
We're watching the ongoingoperations of a colonial logic
in the way the nation state ofIsrael functions, and we're
watching a terrible theologicalvision of Christians in the West
(29:50):
being deployed, being usedthere to cover up, to excuse
unbelievable violence againstPalestinians.
So what does this mean?
It means that the way forwardis for a shared world, a shared
land where people can live.
(30:11):
People can live together and italso means for so many
Palestinians reparations to havehomes doing this and land doing
that.
It means the end of violent andradical gentrification of
Palestinians are being pushed up.
It means the end of a kind ofsegregation that is the most
(30:35):
brutal the world has ever seen,built into the very broken Bible
.
But the difficulty forChristians, I mean I want to
underscore this we don't knowhow to think theologically about
Israel.
We don't know how to thinklogically about land, and so we
think that in both those caseswe don't know.
(30:56):
We've come to the end of ourtheological negotiations and so
we have to think there.
That has to do with here and,as I like to say, we Christians
do not have a real doctor ofcreation.
We don't know how to thinkabout life together in the land
and we don't want to think aboutlife together in the land here.
(31:18):
We can't think about lifetogether in the land there.
If in the city of Boston, likepeople are steel treated,
second-class citizens andthere's many Christians in the
city of Boston, then of courseChristians here can't think
about the life of Palestiniansin the real Palestine because we
(31:39):
are not, as I said, we willthink be illogical.
Think from the roots of ourfaith into what it means to live
together.
In Acts 2, the disciples and Iwant to make sure your listeners
hear this in Acts 2, as theywere waiting for power to
overthrow their enemies, godgained them the mother tongues
(32:04):
of those very enemies, and sothose other Jews listening to
them said how is it that we hearthem speaking in our mother
tongues?
And I translate that mothertongues, because it's not just
that they spoke their languages,but they spoke the intimate
reality of the language, the waymama talks to her babies.
(32:27):
And so they hear these folks,who are not a part of their
cultural reality, speaking asthough they are part of it, and
this was the sign of theSpirit's coming People being
drawn together into an intimatereality of life together.
And that is what should be thecase, should have been the case
(32:47):
and might yet be the case ifChristians stop supporting
violent war in the Middle Eastand they stop supporting the
constant, re-ominent anddeep-in-ominent of the Jewish
state.
But this is always a difficultmoment for us.
(33:09):
You can support Jewish people,care for Jewish people, be
completely upset about Hamas'taking and killing of Jewish
people and yet not support theJewish state.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
You can do that.
It's okay, we can do that.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They cannot see the difference.
And why is that?
Finaries maybe?
Well, that too.
But for so many of us, we areso wedded to the collective
image of the nation, so weddedto nationalist vision that for
us to imagine ourselves outsideof nationalist vision is an
(33:57):
impossibility.
This gets back to the veryfirst thing I said to you in
terms of a diseased imagination,nationalist existence is more
powerful, more compelling, morepalpable than Christian
existence.
For so many people, being apart of the Church is the most
decisive collective reality forthose of us who are Christians,
(34:21):
but in this country, the vastmajority of Christians have
never gotten that memo.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
My goodness, I'm wondering about having a
conversation as we kind of cometowards the end.
I wanted to ask you kind ofwhat brings you hope.
But I want to couch it intalking about framing of
resurrection, because I thinkabout the story of Jericho and
(34:50):
reading that differently nowthat I'm realizing that I was
theologized to be complicit inwhat's happening in Gaza and so
I am wrestling with that.
I am grieving that, but I'mthinking about stories like that
that we are told in the waythat stories like Jericho and
the taking of Canaan are heldout to us when we come into the
(35:14):
faith.
So for folks like me who arestruggling with stuff like that,
I'm watching what's happeningin Gaza and remembering how I
learned these stories, theseBible stories.
How can I reframe those in a waythat is about sort of the
intimate, the collective voice,the community?
How can we reframe resurrection?
(35:35):
How can we reframe some ofthese stories of conquest, even
in Scripture?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
That's always a very important question and it gets
back to in many ways, how wewere all poorly educated into
them.
That is, we were given what Icall a supercessionist vision.
And for your listeners toexplain that it meant that
Christians were given this ideathat we replaced Israel, and so
(36:00):
all those stories became ourstories.
God gave them to us untilIsrael goes someplace, I'm proud
of y'all.
And so that supercessionistlogic meant that we could take
those stories and make themapplicable to our own political
desire.
We could take all of that andread it, not as an allergy, but
(36:21):
read it as literally a logic forthe nation state, how the
nation state can justify itsactions.
Because just as God gaveancient Israel conquest, god can
give us conquest.
Just as God gave ancient Israelsomebody else's land, god gave
us somebody else's land.
So the first thing we have todo, we have to recognize that
(36:42):
we're stuck in a disease readingof those texts that somehow
thinks that we can apply them.
So I always say the most, thefirst thing I realized that was
a one time only reality.
Now, even as a one time onlyreality, we still have to
wrestle with what it means tospeak of conquest.
(37:04):
And so what most biblicalscholars who have been
thoughtful about these things.
We never ignore what ishappening in those stories, but
we can see a line of witnessmoving through all those stories
that brings us to this realityGod is shutting down through all
(37:29):
those things, shutting down thepossibility of doing violence.
See, and here's the thing youalways want to remember, my dear
sister, when you read thosestories, there is violence, but
here's what God is doing.
God is positioning God's self,god's self, as the logic behind
(37:50):
it, and what I mean by that isGod is saying kill and God is
saying don't kill.
And I do it outside of what I'msaying.
But as we read, as we continueto read through those stories,
guess what's happening?
The opportunities to do thatare diminishing.
(38:10):
God is saying less and lesskill.
God is saying more and moredon't kill.
By the time we come for those ofus who are Christian and we
read this with the New Testamentby the time we read the New
Testament, those options havebeen completely shut down.
(38:31):
When we come to the NewTestament, god ain't saying us
at all kill.
And in fact, the only reason wedon't kill now, we shouldn't
kill now, is because we believethat the same God who said then
made you insure of kill and theyobeyed.
And we are the followers ofthat same God.
(38:54):
That same God says to us youcannot kill.
Now that doesn't mean we goback and say killing was all
right because God said it.
We go back and say the God whonow tells us not to kill teaches
us how to read these texts andnever glorify the killing.
(39:14):
We can see it.
We can see war, we can seedeath.
We can see God giving victory.
But we're not glorifyingkilling.
What we're glorifying is thatGod is God, but that by the time
we come to the New Testamentand somebody says, take this
handgun, what we should besaying is God is God.
(39:37):
That said no the killing.
What I want to say to yourlisteners is let's worry less
about what happened to theCanaanites Though we should see
that.
Let's worry more about us actinglike people who can kill
Canaanites today.
Let's worry more about havinghandguns.
(39:59):
So I said anybody who'sdisturbed by the Canaanites,
they should be more disturbedabout living in a country in
which more weapons are beingcreated than any place else in
the history of this planet.
Anybody concerned about whathappened to the Canaanites and
the Amorites are to be moreconcerned about a country that
(40:21):
has written into itsconstitution the right to kill
someone if they step on yourproperty.
That's what I'm concerned about, because, until we face the
fact that the only reason thereare some of us who is used to
owning guns, it's because webelieve that the God who said
kill in ancient Israel, who wefollow, has said to us you may
(40:45):
not kill.
Wow, and so that that's, that'sthe logic that we have to bring
to it, and so we struggle withreading those stories and that,
and I always say to pastorsGlorify the God who gives
victory, don't glorify thekilling of people.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Who made a way out of no way.
Don't glorify bloody bodiesright, and that means by the
time you hit the life of Jesusand when it takes up that sword,
you understand who this God isput away that sword.
Let me heal the man that youjust cut his ear off.
(41:29):
That's what we are thinkingabout.
But now what you, what youbrought up is them, is, I think,
the most important thing foryour listeners to keep in mind.
We live in a country thatbelieves in the gun.
We live in a country thatexports the gun, and by gun I
(41:50):
mean all weapons, mean thiscountry has given to the nation
state of Israel more weaponsthan Than any other country in
the history of this planet, andso what we have to understand is
that, as long as we arecomfortable living in a country,
a Washing weapons, it'sfundamentally.
(42:12):
And once I once wrote up essayand I began it with, with a play
on that John.
One text was in the beginningwas the word and the world was
God.
I said in the beginning was thegun, and the gun was with God
(42:33):
and the gun was God.
So many in this country.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Wow, I Thank you for that.
I am, I'm feeling full, I guessmy my my last question for you,
and something that I've alwayswanted to ask, if I ever got the
opportunity, which was which is?
What are you intrigued by rightnow, what, what is, what are
(43:06):
you pondering?
What are you thinking aboutwriting on or speaking on?
What's intriguing you?
And I'd love to know, I'd loveto know what's keeping you up at
night Theologically, right now?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Well, I'm.
I'm finishing up a book on thebuilt environment.
This is based on my banterlectures I did a few months ago,
and so I'm thinking about therelationship between race,
theology and the builtenvironment.
What's keeping me up isthinking about the connection
between the body, the buildingand design, and Trying to get my
mind around and help Christiansget their minds around I'm not
(43:40):
just Christians, everyone gettheir minds around the problem
of housing in our moment.
This is what's keeping me up.
We have, we have reached thegreat crisis that is in the
middle of every crisis.
What is that?
Housing, homelessness,habitation.
We are in crisis and the world,unless we can think through
(44:07):
this matter of housing, thismatter of where we live and how
we live together, then so much,so much is at risk, and so I've
been spending my time a lotabout that.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
I cannot.
I Can't wait to read.
I am so very grateful for yourtime.
I know that it's very valuableand some very honored that you
would spend this 44 minutes withme.
I think one of the things thatI asked all my guests before we
go is if you had some words tolive by, or are the audience?
What would they be?
(44:44):
And that's usually how we closethe show, so I'll just leave it
with you some some, some wordsto live by.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
I I would like to say to folks these days, especially
folks who seem so Much indespair, without hope Always
remind them, especially in thisseason, as we're coming to that
season, that the God who wasborn in manger, who Was
assassinated, he survived asuccessful assassination, he got
(45:17):
up, and so there is no reasonnot to follow him.
That's what I want people tokeep them.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Thank you so very much, dr Jennings, I really
appreciate.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Thank you for listening to pick your money in
your heart is donate toSubquature.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Inc and clear the path for black students today.
What's up everybody?
Welcome back to another episodeof Life After 11.
I'm your host, tamise SpencerHelms, and I am talking with one
of my heroes.
This is Dr Willie JamesJennings, who significantly
changed everything about my walkwith God, and so I'm very
honored to have you.
Welcome, dr Jennings.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thank you, tamise, glad to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Let me just jump in.
I know that a lot of mylisteners some of them are just
getting into some of thedecolonization work, some of the
deconstruction work, and sowhat I really would love for you
to talk about at the outset ofthe interview is kind of the
diseased imagination that youtalked about in Christian
imagination.
On a lot of my shows and in alot of my social media work I
(00:42):
definitely show off Christianimagination as one of the
primary books that really helpedme get free.
So for those who haven't readit, could you summarize that
what you meant by diseasedimagination?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'd be glad to so.
In my book the ChristianImagination, theology and the
Origins of Race, I talk aboutthe thing that plagues Western
Christianity, especiallyChristianity in this country,
and that is it is a diseasedimagination, which.
What I mean by that?
It's a sense of belonging thatis racially in the racially form
(01:18):
, so that, even though peoplecall themselves Christian, their
racial sense of belonging ismore powerful, more decisive,
more compelling than Christianbelonging.
And so we are inside thatracial imagination, as a special
effect on people who identifyas white, that whiteness becomes
(01:41):
an organizing center of theirimaginations.
Even as they call themselvesChristian, they are yet bound by
more, far more decisive realitythan their Christianity it is
whiteness.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
And it's so interesting because the way that
I've been thinking aboutwhiteness, obviously as Levin,
as this sort of subtle,pervasive agent that gives rise
to everything else, I've alsolately been thinking about it as
a technology, that whitenessfunctions like a technology in
society.
What are your thoughts aboututilizing a term like that when
(02:19):
it comes to whiteness?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, I mean you could call it a technology in
the sense that it's, that itoperates in ways that form
people and continue to form waysof life.
So, very much like a technologyhelps to enable a particular
way of life, so whitenessfunctions like that.
(02:42):
The challenge for so manypeople is to try to understand
whiteness as not first phenotype, as not first a matter of
appearance and certainly not apart of God's creation.
Whiteness is a way of being inthe world, a way of seeing the
world and the way of being seenin the world.
(03:04):
At the same time, Whiteness isa way of organizing the world,
giving a logic in an order tothe world.
And here's what's crucialwhiteness is having the power to
carry out that vision, to ordera world by that vision, and so
whiteness becomes a compellingway to imagine how one can
(03:25):
operate and control and masterone's world.
And so in that regard you cancall it a technology, because it
really works to help peoplemake sense, to come and to
control their world.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well, that's really helpful and I'm glad I got the
okay from you on that.
I've just been kind of likeconceptualizing it that way and
wasn't sure if that made sense.
I've been like secretly askingyou whether that term makes
sense in my head.
So now I've gotten to ask you.
But then you wrote, you went onand you wrote another book I
follow everything that you doand you wrote After Whiteness,
(04:02):
which was a little bit of adifferent flavor, which I kind
of like.
The style and the cadence ofthe book was a lot different.
But I would love for you totalk about how the formation of
whiteness shows up intheological education.
I think right now we're dealingwith we're going to talk a
little bit more about what'shappening with university
presidents a little bit laterbut how are you seeing that show
(04:23):
up in theological educationright now?
What do you think is the futureof theological work if we are
going to sort of resist anddivest the whiteness?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, so we are yet in the midst of a huge problem
of formation, and by formationfor your listeners, let me
explain what I mean by that isthe direction of cultivation,
the direction of creating whatpeople ought to be once they've
been educated.
And it's, you know, the largerreality in Western education.
(04:56):
But there's also the slice ofit, the big slice of it, that is
theological education.
And that ongoing problem isthat we have all been formed
into one particular kind ofpersona, one particular kind of
identity, one particular form ofbeing in the world, and that is
what I call the white,self-sufficient man who
(05:18):
operationalizes three, what Icall a dismal virtue possession,
mastery and control.
And all of us in education hasbeen shaped to move us all, no
matter how we identify, towardbecoming that man, as a sign of
showing that we have beeneducated.
And so theological education,like all Western education, is
(05:42):
struggling now and has alwaysstruggled with what it means to
aim human beings toward that oneparticular profound image of
what it means to show theeducated state.
And so what we are, what we arein the midst of, is a
rethinking of it, and what Isuggest in every whiteness,
(06:03):
especially for theologicaleducation, especially for
Western education that claims towant to be Christian, is that
our proposal is a differentimage that should drive us
forward, and the image is notbasically one image, but it's an
image that opens up newpossibilities of multiple
energies.
But what is it?
And that image is of Jesusgathering a crowd, and that
(06:26):
crowd is people from all walksof life, people who don't know
each other, some who do knoweach other and would never want
to be with each other, but theyare drawn together by Jesus
because they want to find outwho he is, learn something from
him, get something from him.
So Jesus forces, if you will,people to be together who would
(06:49):
now want to be together.
And so the way I put it is thatJesus gathers a crowd.
So we want to know what oureducation and for forming people
, cultivating people in theeducational and intellectual
life, is that they form peoplewho, in whatever work they want
to do, whatever things that theythink they want to be about,
(07:12):
they gather people together, andthey gather people together who
would normally not want to betogether.
So they form, they gestate whatI call communion.
They gestate a life together ofjustice and peace and equality.
Because they are together,because they want to be with you
, the one who has brought themtogether, whatever they do.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yes, I'm so intrigued by that.
I'm taking classes right nowand leadership and I've been
thinking about what kind of anadaptive collaborative
leadership model might be andthinking about.
There was someone I read andit's blinking because I'm
nervous, but they said that thenext Buddha is the Sangha, the
(07:58):
community, and that there's somesort of a shift taking place
where the and Phyllis Tickletalks about this a little bit
too that the question ofauthority and who is in charge
and hierarchy it always kind oftends to be question.
But how do you think societylooks when we have less of a
hierarchical structure in termsof leadership and leadership is
(08:20):
more communal?
What kind of society would becreated and what would be the
steps towards that, towardsreally having this sort of
revolution of the intimate andthis crowd mentality when we
think about faith andspirituality?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
on that.
Well, what you're pointingtoward would be a society that's
shaped by some very powerful,very powerful characteristics of
listening, that's, first, ofbeing able to listen to one
another and facilitate thelistening deep listening to one
another.
It would also be a place thatwe're talking about as a society
(09:00):
, as a whole organization, wherethere is an ongoing practice of
learning from one another,where people listen and learn
from one another, and then thereis a shared project of living
together, and that comes out ofthe ongoing desire to listen and
(09:21):
to learn and to draw on as Ilike to say when I talk to
various faculties andinstitutions to draw on the
collective wisdom, collectivecreativity of a group.
That is something that's allude,that alludes so many
institutions where people aretreated as cards in the machine,
(09:43):
where there is no sense ofdrawing on the collective voice,
the collective wisdom, thecollective creativity.
I'd like to say what anyorganization wants is to see
itself as a great band.
In a great band, everybody canhear everybody else play all the
(10:05):
time, even when they're soloing, because their solos are built
on knowing how their colleaguesin the band play, and so there
is something incrediblyimportant about forming people
who, in terms of theirleadership.
Understand that facilitationmeans that we come to know our
(10:29):
sound, what we sound like and,as you know, every great band
has a sound.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
This is really interesting when I think about
kind of where things are going.
I'm wondering about I've hadsome questions recently about
what do we call ourselves.
I think that there is so muchconversation about whether or
not we want to identify asChristianity, what is the
meaning of Jesus and things likethat.
(11:00):
I'm wondering, as you talkabout the sound and this sort of
band mentality, do you thinkthat now, kind of moving forward
, the gathering impulse would bemore around values and ethics
as opposed to morality anddoctrinal agreement?
Do you see that being morefoundational to the communities
(11:22):
that are coming towards us inthe next generations of the
faithful?
How do you see us making thatshift as people who are people
of faith but may not know whichcamp we belong to?
For those of us who feel likeexiles, how would we begin to
create our own sound in our ownbands after being in such a
(11:45):
rigid structure.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
That's a great question, especially for people
coming out of evangelicalcontexts, because evangelical
contexts often front load acertain kind of ascension to
various doctrinal themes.
As a theologian, I can saythere's nothing wrong with
doctrine.
(12:07):
The problem is that it's frontloaded in a way that extracts it
from its living reality.
When you extract something fromits living reality, what you
present to people is somethingthat's dead because you've put
it out of the living thing.
What has to be presented topeople?
Let's come back to this analogyof the band.
(12:27):
What does the band do?
The band plays, the bandpractices.
What we're doing is drawingpeople into a set of wonderful
practices that we do together,that we deepen with each other
over time.
When we are inside thosepractices, we are inside the
logic of them, but we're alsoinside the effect they have upon
(12:52):
us.
What is that effect?
They help us see the world in aparticular way.
That's what's so great aboutChristian practices.
What we wind up doing is we windup putting all that doctrinal
stuff that has been extractedback into the living reality of
it.
We live inside what it means tobe a follower of Jesus.
We live inside what it means toyield a life to the Spirit.
(13:15):
We live inside the communitythat is God, father, son and
Spirit.
We live inside what it means toshare a life one little another
.
We live inside the reality ofbaptism and so forth and so on.
We live inside of it.
At that point, is that aquestion of have I extracted the
beliefs that have held them inyour face and said you have to
believe these Exactly?
(13:37):
It's like taking a base andputting the strings in front of
somebody and saying you have tobelieve that these strings
actually make music.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Wow yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I believe the strings make music, but now what?
So what we want is put thestrings back on the base, put
the base back together to givepeople the whole base and say,
god, let's play this together.
And then, at that point, I'mnot asking the question what do
(14:12):
you believe?
I'm asking the question how doyou believe in a way that allows
life to flourish?
That's a different question.
And so you know, I think, atthis moment, what so many people
coming out of the even,especially in the evangelical
context, are struggling to finda set of practices in the faith
(14:34):
that actually make anydifference, because they've been
so woven inside whiteness, sowoven inside the colonial
situation what I mean by thatfor your listeners so woven
inside of a world in which thecolonial, settler mentality of
coming to possess, control andmaster people in land has been a
(14:55):
part of their Christian faith,has been so woven inside of that
that for so many people theydon't have anything to do with
Christianity because they're notsure what's real in it.
All of it seems to be so suspect.
There are a lot of folks whoare evangelical, formerly
evangelical, now who arestruggling to figure out what is
(15:18):
Christian faith.
And my dear, my dear, my dear,my dear sister.
Here's the thing about it.
The reality of it is that whatis happening in the Western
world, but especially in thiscountry, is that there is a very
painful process of separationhappening that many people are
(15:40):
not clear about.
And what is that process?
There is a white, nationalistvision of Christianity, and it's
been the dominant reality ofChristianity for many
evangelicals, and that realityof Christianity is not in a
fundamental sense.
It doesn't worship Jesus, itworships a white man, and that
(16:03):
white man is imagined as Jesus,but that ain't Jesus, and it
worships power.
As I like to say, there are manyChristians in the Western world
.
They don't want Jesus, theywant Jesus's power.
So they don't believe in theresurrection, they believe in
(16:24):
the power that the resurrectionchose, and so they can kill us
about Jesus.
All I want is that power, andso, at the end of the day,
they're not following Jesus,they're trying to get his power,
and so what's happening rightnow is that there's a separation
happening, those people whocall themselves Christians, who
(16:47):
really just want power.
The former president says I'mgoing to give you power.
Various leaders who have moneyand resources says here's power.
And they're going in thatdirection because that's what
they worship.
They worship power.
But there's another reality ofChristianity that's always been
there, that's not trying to beinhabit a world of power, light
(17:14):
that world.
They don't want to be powerless, but they understand power to
be something different.
They understand power to be inthe gathering, in the following,
in the light together, in thesearching out together a way of
not only surviving but thriving.
And those Christians are tryingright now to figure out what
this Christianity looks like.
But they're in the midst of theunprecedented tearing of a
(17:40):
heretical form of Christianityfrom within.
And that's the most difficultpart about it.
What do you do when you realizethat there is this foreign
substance that's in your body,but it's been there forever and
you think it's a part of it.
And all of a sudden the doctorsays no, that's not a part of it
, we got to take that out.
And the doctor says and it'sgoing to hurt, so we're going to
(18:02):
give you some pain medicationbut it's still going to hurt.
Like H-E-L-L, and there's somein this country there are a lot
of people who are raising thechurch.
They have church hurt but theyhate the church.
But they're not sure whatexactly they're hating.
They're actually hating thisform of white nationalist
(18:26):
Christianity that's presentacross the colonial terrain, so
that white nationalistChristianity is present wherever
the colonial imprint was, allover the world, and so many
people are struggling againstthat.
And so what we're in the midstof?
We're in the midst of a greatshaking, a great pulling that we
(18:51):
haven't yet seen the fullreality of it.
Because, as I said a moment ago, for so many people Jesus is a
white man, and I don't mean thisin terms of his appearance, I
mean in terms of his reality.
He is the white self-sufficientman and he was power, and
(19:12):
that's what, of course, theywant his power.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Golly, there's so many questions popped up in my
head just now.
Okay, let me see if I can.
Hmm, okay, so I let me put thison the show.
I want to talk about how weembrace the meaning of
resurrection if we divest ofwhiteness.
I want to have thatconversation, but let me ask
(19:38):
this you talk about possession,mastery and control, and to me,
I keep getting an image ofGenesis three in my mind.
Right, I keep getting an imageof exploitation, even of the
tree right to take the knowledgeas opposed to just remaining
curious and learning, and tohave to possess rather than to
(20:03):
share, and I see those thingscoming up as I've been reading
Genesis three.
I don't want to oversimplifythings, but I think about what,
what empire does, how empirefunctions, and I think about the
sort of the way of Cain.
Do you think I mean, do youthink that things simply boil
(20:23):
down to like whether or not,when faced with the choice to
love, we will either, you know,be a murderer or a martyr, so to
speak?
Right, like the choice foreveryone, or that the garden
choice is coming for us all thetime?
What are your thoughts aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Well, you know it's.
That's an interestingpossibility to think about.
The garden choice.
I prefer to think about thatchoice that comes out of the
other garden, the garden of thecity, and it's the choice of
following this Jesus and that,see, the thing that we want to
keep in mind is that, from thevery beginning, the disciples of
(21:07):
Jesus struggle to follow him,and when the spirit comes out,
struggle is intensified.
Right, because when the spiritcomes, the disciples of Jesus
are being asked by the spirit todo what they don't want to do,
and that is to build a new kindof community with people they
would prefer not to.
(21:27):
And so that's that, and to manyways, that's what it boils on
to at this moment.
It boils down to can weactually follow him?
Right?
Following Jesus, especially inthe Western world, has never
been so serious, because what itmeans right now is we have to
(21:51):
say no to as usual word familiara set of technologies that
would establish control, weapons, guns, violence, the use of
resources to continue to creategrotesque disparities in wealth
(22:12):
and magnified poverty,homelessness.
Because the follow Jesus now isto say no to the configuration
of an economic system and notonly will continue to strangle
the planet, but willfundamentally show that the
world is not just a place for usto live, but a place for us to
(22:33):
live, that there is no hope inthe kind of Christianity that is
being presented as in supportof that.
So I think it comes down tothat crucial matter and I do
think there are many people whoare struggling to follow Jesus,
(22:54):
but I think they're hoping inmany ways that there'd be more
light for the past.
That's a little bit narrow, butI think there's more people who
would love some more light onthe path I'm giving.
What's happening in this country, especially with so many
(23:15):
Christians supporting policiesthis is not just a matter of
supporting the former president,but supporting policies I want
to keep that in mind supportingpolicies that are diametrically
opposed to the way of JesusChrist.
Exactly, until we getChristians who will not support
(23:37):
policies that are diametricallyopposed to the life of Jesus
Christ, we are going to struggle.
We're going to struggle deeplyand again there'll be more and
more folks disaffected by notonly evangelicalism but
disaffected by Christianity, whojust threw their hands up and
said I don't want to have theirfaith in the Virginian, but
(23:58):
knowing that there is somethingin them that needs that faith
that they will form, and somepart of them knows that they
need it, but they don't know howto access it without all the
toxins Gosh.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I've helped that deeply in my soul.
Okay, since we're talking aboutpolicy, let's just talk about
this.
Obviously, this advent I amthinking very deeply about what
it means to have a particularfondness for a baby born in
Bethlehem and what is happeningin Bethlehem as we speak.
(24:39):
I'm wondering how you see theAmerican project that you've
talked about, how you see thesort of whiteness, how you see
that playing out right now withregard to what's happening in
Gaza.
I mean, I'm not sure if you canspeak on that, given what's
been going on with universities.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, I can, I'm totally free to speak on these
matters, but for us we areChristian this brings what's
happening in Palestine andIsrael, what's happening to
Palestinians, what's happeningin Gaza, but what has been
happening in Israel.
(25:20):
Palestine is the culmination ofthe long history of settler
colonialism.
For your listeners it'simportant to understand that the
nation state of Israel is anation state that is inside the
operations of colonialsettlerism that is, to come in
(25:42):
and occupy and take over anddrive out the people of the land
.
Now the difficulty forChristians is that we have not
thought through the reality ofour relationship with Israel,
theologically speaking, biblicalspeaking.
And so what has been the waythat many Christians have been
(26:06):
taught to think of thatrelationship is inside a
particular evangelical vision ofIsrael, as the people will
return to their country, returnto the Middle East, return to
that world, and that would be atrigger within evangelical
(26:31):
thought for what God is doing inthe world.
And so then a text has beentaken out of context and it's
turned into a kind of fetish,and by that for your listeners
it's like trinket.
They will say they danglingsome funer Christians and say to
support Israel is to ensurethat any nation that supports
(26:53):
Israel will be blessed by God.
It's a little trinket andtherefore it has been the basis
for the unrelective support ofthe nation state of Israel and
the refusal to make a properdistinction between support of
Jewish people and support ofZionism and support of the
(27:16):
nation state of Israel.
So many Christians, they havenot thought at all about the
distinction between the nationstate of the people.
But there was a time whennations did not exist and there
was a time in which people didnot understand themselves inside
(27:37):
of nationalist logic.
But because we are inside ofthat, it has limited our vision
of how we might think about lifein the Middle East, life in the
Holy oil.
So I bring you to Acts 1 and 2.
Acts 1 and 2 is a perfectexample of how we might think
about what should be the case.
(27:58):
In Acts 1, jesus was risen fromthe dead and the disciples
asked what I call theproto-nationalist question, a
kind of nationalist questionbefore nationalism.
They asked Jesus when will yourestore the kingdom of Israel?
He has risen with all power inhis hand and, as I mentioned
earlier, some folks just wanttheir power.
(28:19):
He's with all power in his handand he says I will give you
power.
Go to Jerusalem and you'll getpower.
But now remember, thesefollowers of Jesus have on their
mind the kingdom of Israelrestored, which they for them is
to get these Roman boots offtheir neck to overthrow Rome.
(28:39):
But in Acts 2, what happens isthat they receive the spirit,
they make a long story short,they speak in the languages of
others.
What God gives is not powerover people, but power for
people, power to build lifetogether.
And so what's supposed to bethe case is that these followers
(29:02):
of Jesus, these Jewishfollowers of Jesus, there in
Jerusalem, are to build lifetogether with others, not build
a segregated, exclusive,racially based nation state that
excludes, pushes out powerstates, that turns Arab, jews
(29:26):
and others into second classcitizens.
And so what we're watching isthe ongoing we're not watching
two problems at the same time.
This makes it difficult forpeople to understand.
We're watching the ongoingoperations of a colonial logic
in the way the nation state ofIsrael functions, and we're
watching a terrible theologicalvision of Christians in the West
(29:50):
being deployed, being usedthere to cover up, to excuse
unbelievable violence againstPalestinians.
So what does this mean?
It means that the way forwardis for a shared world, a shared
land where people can live.
(30:11):
People can live together and italso means for so many
Palestinians reparations to havehomes doing this and land doing
that.
It means the end of violent andradical gentrification of
Palestinians are being pushed up.
It means the end of a kind ofsegregation that is the most
(30:35):
brutal the world has ever seen,built into the very broken Bible
.
But the difficulty forChristians, I mean I want to
underscore this we don't knowhow to think theologically about
Israel.
We don't know how to thinklogically about land, and so we
think that in both those caseswe don't know.
(30:56):
We've come to the end of ourtheological negotiations and so
we have to think there.
That has to do with here and,as I like to say, we Christians
do not have a real doctor ofcreation.
We don't know how to thinkabout life together in the land
and we don't want to think aboutlife together in the land here.
(31:18):
We can't think about lifetogether in the land there.
If in the city of Boston, likepeople are steel treated,
second-class citizens andthere's many Christians in the
city of Boston, then of courseChristians here can't think
about the life of Palestiniansin the real Palestine because we
(31:39):
are not, as I said, we willthink be illogical.
Think from the roots of ourfaith into what it means to live
together.
In Acts 2, the disciples and Iwant to make sure your listeners
hear this in Acts 2, as theywere waiting for power to
overthrow their enemies, godgained them the mother tongues
(32:04):
of those very enemies, and sothose other Jews listening to
them said how is it that we hearthem speaking in our mother
tongues?
And I translate that mothertongues, because it's not just
that they spoke their languages,but they spoke the intimate
reality of the language, the waymama talks to her babies.
(32:27):
And so they hear these folks,who are not a part of their
cultural reality, speaking asthough they are part of it, and
this was the sign of theSpirit's coming People being
drawn together into an intimatereality of life together.
And that is what should be thecase, should have been the case
(32:47):
and might yet be the case ifChristians stop supporting
violent war in the Middle Eastand they stop supporting the
constant, re-ominent anddeep-in-ominent of the Jewish
state.
But this is always a difficultmoment for us.
(33:09):
You can support Jewish people,care for Jewish people, be
completely upset about Hamas'taking and killing of Jewish
people and yet not support theJewish state.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
You can do that.
It's okay, we can do that.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
They cannot see the difference.
And why is that?
Finaries maybe?
Well, that too.
But for so many of us, we areso wedded to the collective
image of the nation, so weddedto nationalist vision that for
us to imagine ourselves outsideof nationalist vision is an
(33:57):
impossibility.
This gets back to the veryfirst thing I said to you in
terms of a diseased imagination,nationalist existence is more
powerful, more compelling, morepalpable than Christian
existence.
For so many people, being apart of the Church is the most
decisive collective reality forthose of us who are Christians,
(34:21):
but in this country, the vastmajority of Christians have
never gotten that memo.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
My goodness, I'm wondering about having a
conversation as we kind of cometowards the end.
I wanted to ask you kind ofwhat brings you hope.
But I want to couch it intalking about framing of
resurrection, because I thinkabout the story of Jericho and
(34:50):
reading that differently nowthat I'm realizing that I was
theologized to be complicit inwhat's happening in Gaza and so
I am wrestling with that.
I am grieving that, but I'mthinking about stories like that
that we are told in the waythat stories like Jericho and
the taking of Canaan are heldout to us when we come into the
(35:14):
faith.
So for folks like me who arestruggling with stuff like that,
I'm watching what's happeningin Gaza and remembering how I
learned these stories, theseBible stories.
How can I reframe those in a waythat is about sort of the
intimate, the collective voice,the community?
How can we reframe resurrection?
(35:35):
How can we reframe some ofthese stories of conquest, even
in Scripture?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
That's always a very important question and it gets
back to in many ways, how wewere all poorly educated into
them.
That is, we were given what Icall a supercessionist vision.
And for your listeners toexplain that it meant that
Christians were given this ideathat we replaced Israel, and so
(36:00):
all those stories became ourstories.
God gave them to us untilIsrael goes someplace, I'm proud
of y'all.
And so that supercessionistlogic meant that we could take
those stories and make themapplicable to our own political
desire.
We could take all of that andread it, not as an allergy, but
(36:21):
read it as literally a logic forthe nation state, how the
nation state can justify itsactions.
Because just as God gaveancient Israel conquest, god can
give us conquest.
Just as God gave ancient Israelsomebody else's land, god gave
us somebody else's land.
So the first thing we have todo, we have to recognize that
(36:42):
we're stuck in a disease readingof those texts that somehow
thinks that we can apply them.
So I always say the most, thefirst thing I realized that was
a one time only reality.
Now, even as a one time onlyreality, we still have to
wrestle with what it means tospeak of conquest.
(37:04):
And so what most biblicalscholars who have been
thoughtful about these things.
We never ignore what ishappening in those stories, but
we can see a line of witnessmoving through all those stories
that brings us to this realityGod is shutting down through all
(37:29):
those things, shutting down thepossibility of doing violence.
See, and here's the thing youalways want to remember, my dear
sister, when you read thosestories, there is violence, but
here's what God is doing.
God is positioning God's self,god's self, as the logic behind
(37:50):
it, and what I mean by that isGod is saying kill and God is
saying don't kill.
And I do it outside of what I'msaying.
But as we read, as we continueto read through those stories,
guess what's happening?
The opportunities to do thatare diminishing.
(38:10):
God is saying less and lesskill.
God is saying more and moredon't kill.
By the time we come for those ofus who are Christian and we
read this with the New Testamentby the time we read the New
Testament, those options havebeen completely shut down.
(38:31):
When we come to the NewTestament, god ain't saying us
at all kill.
And in fact, the only reason wedon't kill now, we shouldn't
kill now, is because we believethat the same God who said then
made you insure of kill and theyobeyed.
And we are the followers ofthat same God.
(38:54):
That same God says to us youcannot kill.
Now that doesn't mean we goback and say killing was all
right because God said it.
We go back and say the God whonow tells us not to kill teaches
us how to read these texts andnever glorify the killing.
(39:14):
We can see it.
We can see war, we can seedeath.
We can see God giving victory.
But we're not glorifyingkilling.
What we're glorifying is thatGod is God, but that by the time
we come to the New Testamentand somebody says, take this
handgun, what we should besaying is God is God.
(39:37):
That said no the killing.
What I want to say to yourlisteners is let's worry less
about what happened to theCanaanites Though we should see
that.
Let's worry more about us actinglike people who can kill
Canaanites today.
Let's worry more about havinghandguns.
(39:59):
So I said anybody who'sdisturbed by the Canaanites,
they should be more disturbedabout living in a country in
which more weapons are beingcreated than any place else in
the history of this planet.
Anybody concerned about whathappened to the Canaanites and
the Amorites are to be moreconcerned about a country that
(40:21):
has written into itsconstitution the right to kill
someone if they step on yourproperty.
That's what I'm concerned about, because, until we face the
fact that the only reason thereare some of us who is used to
owning guns, it's because webelieve that the God who said
kill in ancient Israel, who wefollow, has said to us you may
(40:45):
not kill.
Wow, and so that that's, that'sthe logic that we have to bring
to it, and so we struggle withreading those stories and that,
and I always say to pastorsGlorify the God who gives
victory, don't glorify thekilling of people.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Who made a way out of no way.
Don't glorify bloody bodiesright, and that means by the
time you hit the life of Jesusand when it takes up that sword,
you understand who this God isput away that sword.
Let me heal the man that youjust cut his ear off.
(41:29):
That's what we are thinkingabout.
But now what you, what youbrought up is them, is, I think,
the most important thing foryour listeners to keep in mind.
We live in a country thatbelieves in the gun.
We live in a country thatexports the gun, and by gun I
(41:50):
mean all weapons, mean thiscountry has given to the nation
state of Israel more weaponsthan Than any other country in
the history of this planet, andso what we have to understand is
that, as long as we arecomfortable living in a country,
a Washing weapons, it'sfundamentally.
(42:12):
And once I once wrote up essayand I began it with, with a play
on that John.
One text was in the beginningwas the word and the world was
God.
I said in the beginning was thegun, and the gun was with God
(42:33):
and the gun was God.
So many in this country.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Wow, I Thank you for that.
I am, I'm feeling full, I guessmy my my last question for you,
and something that I've alwayswanted to ask, if I ever got the
opportunity, which was which is?
What are you intrigued by rightnow, what, what is, what are
(43:06):
you pondering?
What are you thinking aboutwriting on or speaking on?
What's intriguing you?
And I'd love to know, I'd loveto know what's keeping you up at
night Theologically, right now?
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Well, I'm.
I'm finishing up a book on thebuilt environment.
This is based on my banterlectures I did a few months ago,
and so I'm thinking about therelationship between race,
theology and the builtenvironment.
What's keeping me up isthinking about the connection
between the body, the buildingand design, and Trying to get my
mind around and help Christiansget their minds around I'm not
(43:40):
just Christians, everyone gettheir minds around the problem
of housing in our moment.
This is what's keeping me up.
We have, we have reached thegreat crisis that is in the
middle of every crisis.
What is that?
Housing, homelessness,habitation.
We are in crisis and the world,unless we can think through
(44:07):
this matter of housing, thismatter of where we live and how
we live together, then so much,so much is at risk, and so I've
been spending my time a lotabout that.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
I cannot.
I Can't wait to read.
I am so very grateful for yourtime.
I know that it's very valuableand some very honored that you
would spend this 44 minutes withme.
I think one of the things thatI asked all my guests before we
go is if you had some words tolive by, or are the audience?
What would they be?
(44:44):
And that's usually how we closethe show, so I'll just leave it
with you some some, some wordsto live by.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
I I would like to say to folks these days, especially
folks who seem so Much indespair, without hope Always
remind them, especially in thisseason, as we're coming to that
season, that the God who wasborn in manger, who Was
assassinated, he survived asuccessful assassination, he got
(45:17):
up, and so there is no reasonnot to follow him.
That's what I want people tokeep them.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Thank you so very much, dr Jennings, I really
appreciate.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Thank you for listening to pick your money in
your heart is donate toSubquature.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Inc and clear the path for black students today.
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