November 13, 2025 • 57 mins
DJ Black Unicorn and the Rabbi speak with Dr. Theron Williams, author of The Bible Is Black History, about Christian nationalism and its impact on the Black church. Dr. Williams explains that many young people question the Bible because of white-washed imagery and distorted teachings. He argues the Bible reflects Black history and that white supremacy has hijacked Christianity to serve political and racial agendas. He encourages believers to study scripture in its historical context, challenge inherited narratives, and “decolonize the gospel.” He also invites listeners to explore the Bible Is Black History Online Academy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is w o v U Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Welcome, welcome, Welcome to our voices today right here on
wov U ninety five point nine FM with your beloved
Unicorn of the Land, DJ Black Unicorn aka Uni and
the Rabbi.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
How are you living, How you're feeling a Rabbi, I'm.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Doing good, Uni, I'm doing good. Had a good weekend.
You know, as you know, I'm on the Adams Board
of Cuyahoga County. We had a training for the board
every year and we had that on this Saturday.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
Rested and then the.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Pastor of the Emanuel Baptist Church, my pastor now that
I'm retired, had this eighteenth anniversary.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
We had a wonderful time.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I had a wonderful pastor out of Athens, Georgia, delivered
the morning message Overallly. It was a good weekend. Came
home and kicked my shoes off and just just did
I reading. And you know, as you know, I'm writing
a book, and so did a little entry into the
(01:08):
book that I'm writing.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I love that. My weekend was very chill.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
I unfortunately was under the weather over the weekend, so
I spent it taking care of myself and resting lots.
But that was about it for my weekend, very slow motion.
I spent some time with my daughter, of course, hung
out with baby girl.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
How's the new house coming?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Interesting? Actually interesting that you asked.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
I just had a little clog in the kitchen, sing O, Yes,
found out I need a new garbage disposal.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Okay, Sun. Sometimes ownership is fun.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Sometimes it's not the disposal, it's the line the drains
the clogs. So check that line before you buy a
new disposal.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
So mind the line is behind the disposal, like you
goes down through the disposal first and then into the line.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah no, I'm not talking about it from the.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Sink into the disposal.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
There's another drain of plastic pipe that once it's the
ground up, it disposes all right. Many times that clogs up, okay.
And then there's a little key that you can buy.
Sometimes the the some something will get into the disposal
(02:30):
that will not allow it to turn.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
There's a little.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Funny shaped alan key that goes up underneath. You take
it in, turn the clock counterclockwise, all right, that under
the clog, and then hit your reset button.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, I will try that. I will try that.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
I don't my cousin who was a maintenance man, came
over and looked at it him. Ask him if he
looked at that and he had some type of alan
key looking things going on.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
All right, then, well, listen, we got a wonderful guest.
I am excited. It's been a while since we've had
him on the show. It's been more than a year.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
But this man is.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
He is very insightful informative as it relates to drawing
our attention, uh to the history of the Bible and
the theology that we ought to be embracing rather than
following that of a Western culture that had nothing to
(03:40):
do with the creation of this way of life. Doctor
Thorne Williams, who is the pastor of Malcarmel Baptist Church
in Indianapolis, Indiana, and he is the author of The
Bible as Black History and also Black Church White Theology. Gee,
and I shared with him today that I really was
(04:04):
interested in the impact that Christian nationalism had on the
Black church. And he has also suggested that we talk
about the religion of whiteness. All right, doctor doctor Williams,
great having you introduce yourself to our listening audience. Uh,
we you know, our our format has changed since we
(04:27):
were last on. We're now we're iHeartRadio. We're now a
podcasts and so now we go globally.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
You doing yes, are you doing right?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
I'm doing good, Man, I'm doing good.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Good, good, Ben. Thank you for having me. Man, I
do appreciate thanks for going to coming back all that back.
It's good to be bad.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Yes, all right, Okay, you're you're you're.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
On the same radio station you were.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Yes, but well now iPod we're now podcast well now
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Before we were just a local footprint. Now we're global footprint.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Oh wow, okay, great, great.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And so iHeartRadio now we're part of that iHeart dot com.
And our show is getting a little national acclaim just a.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
Little bit, okay, yes, yes, And so we have gained
a lot of new listeners, yes, worldwide listeners. So for
those listeners who may not be familiar with you, can
you give a brief introduction to yourself, just a little
bit more than what the Rabbi said about you previously?
And what inspired you to write all of these amazing books.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, I've always had an interest in African presence in
the Bible. My mentor was Caine Hotelder, and I learned
so much from them. You know, he wrote that book
Problem Biblical Waters, where he deals with black presidences in
(06:09):
the Bible. So he piqued my interests in my curiosity.
And then coming behind that, doctor Jeremiah Wright also impacted
me profoundly, and he did a lot of work in
this area. And so and then you look at the
world around you, and you see images of white Jesus everywhere,
(06:34):
and then you begin to wonder why that image is
so persistent when everyone knows Jesus didn't look like that,
even the people who are replicating these images knew he
didn't look like that. So I knew it was something
deeper and perhaps even more sinister behind the reputation of that.
(06:58):
Particularly there one rep location. It's called the salmon Head
of Jesus. It's the one that probably everybody on the
planet has seen. It's been replicated a half a billion
times in the twentieth century alone. It's the most replicated
image in history. So I wondered why that image is
(07:23):
so prevalent, Why do they keep depicting Jesus as a
white man? And so I had to do a deep
dive into it and figured out that it was as
sinister as hypothesized it was. Now I'm finding out rather
(07:44):
that it is a symbol of the religion of whiteness
was we're going to talk about today. But yeah, that
those types of things is what inspired me to write
the books.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Would you repeat the name of the book again, salmon Head.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Saw by S. A. L. L. M. M A N.
Salmon Head And if you if you google it, you'll
see it and you'll say, oh, yeah, I've seen that
before everywhere. As a matter of fact, some of us
might say we had that in our house hanging on
(08:24):
the wall next to Martin Luther King and John Kennedy
like every most black families.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Okay, I'm definitely gonna google sertly.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
So you're your book inside O the Bible is Black
history has become a major talking point in churches and
classrooms across the country, and hopefully you'll, you know, you know,
you'll be going international as well. What first motivated you
to write this book?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
In particular, I was having a conversation with my young
people by young people back in two thy eighteen nineteen
something like that. At seventeen, started dropping out a church
and I was trying to figure out what the heck
(09:18):
was going on. I thought it was a unique problem
with Mount Carmel, and I looked around and I'm like,
where are my young people? They're not coming to church.
I used to have a really strong young adult population
in our church, and our church historically when kids would
grow up and go to college, they would go to college.
(09:41):
If they returned to the city, they returned to their church.
And even if they didn't return to their home church
in the city, they returned to some church in the city.
And I found that that wasn't happening anymore. So I
thought I was doing something wrong. They didn't like me,
or the program or something. I don't know who's gonna
(10:02):
So I called a meeting with our younger belts on
one Saturday morning, and I reached out to the young
people who had left and asked them what they attend.
They said, yeah, so it was maybe one hundred, one
hundred and fifty of us. There were not fifty. It
(10:23):
was more than a hundred, not more than undred to fifty.
So we were in in at our church. It was
a relaxed atmosphere, and we started having a conversation. I
wanted to know what's happening with you guys, how come
you are you mad at me? I mean, you know,
I braced myself because I thought I was going to
get the attack. But I did get attacked. They still
(10:47):
loved me, appreciated me, and their reason for not being
their church. If it was one hundred kids and young
people in there, it was one hundred different reasons why
they weren't that church. And this hundred it included the
(11:09):
young people who were still at the church. So if
there were young people who left and young people who
were still at the church, and we were all having
this conversation, but there was a couple of things that
was consistent with the young people who had left with
their answers. Number One, they question the authenticity of the Bible.
(11:35):
They didn't believe that the Bible was divinely inspired word
of God, but they believed there was a document that
was used that was weaponized against our people to justified
domination and slavery. And they wanted to know, how can
you still use that book as it was weaponized and
(11:55):
you still using it. Number Two, they question they had
a problem with the efficacy of the church. You know,
they said the church doesn't have the power it used
to have. The church is not the way it was
back in the sixties. It lost its militant edge, and
(12:16):
it's just a place where preachers come to get money.
Number Three, they said, they questioned the historicity of Jesus.
They said, Jesus was an invention of the Roman government.
He's not real. There is no historical president for me.
(12:40):
He's an invention. He was created and was used as
a tool of domination and operas by the Roman government.
And those themes were common in their answers. And so
I said to them, do me a favor if you
(13:02):
beat me here on Wednesday night, I want to have
a Bible study just for young adults to address the
issues that you guys brought up. I want to talk
about those issues. I want to address them biblically and
challenge what you've just said. And if you're not convinced
(13:22):
and you don't want to be at church anymore, that's fine.
But if you are convinced, then you're stayed with the church.
They said, fine. We started on a Wednesday night, and
it was scheduled to be for one month. That study
(13:44):
turned out for nine months because I was learning as
I was teaching, and researching for this. At the end
of nine months, some of them stayed, you know, some
of them were converted. Others and made up their mind.
I don't care what you say, I ain't coming back
one of those type of things. But they were never
(14:06):
respectful and all of that. And when we were done,
many of the young people said, what are you going
to do with all that material? You need to write
a book. You got the material, put the book together.
This is too rich for just us. And so that's
how the book came about.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I love it. I love it. Can you tell so
you mentioned I'm sorry, Rabbi, I don't want to no, no,
go ahead.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I told you last time.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
So many questions and you know, like I said, we
got so many new listeners. I just want them to
have a bit of a background about you and just
know a little bit about you. But you mentioned an
African presence in the Bible, So I want to know
what does it mean exactly that the Bible is Black
history and when you talk about these African presence, these
African individuals that was all throughout the Bible. Can you
(14:57):
put a few emphasis, just a couple examples out there
to our listening audience about them, Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
The Bible is Black history is the idea that the
people of the Bible were people of African descent. The
term black that I explained, the term black as a
race had not been invented during Biblical times. Race was
(15:27):
invented during the European Age of Expansion, the European Expansion period,
the Enlightenment period as they called it. So race was
not a thing, it was ethnicity. There was no such
thing as a black person. White person brought that. That's
(15:48):
not how they did it. That's an invention of the
Enlightenment period to justify racism and white supremacy. So when
I say the Bible is black history, I mean it
in terms that if you would take a Biblical Israelite
(16:10):
and place him in twenty twenty five, he would be
considered African. He would be considered black by modern racial standards.
So the idea that the Bible is black history indicates
that the people of the Bible were people who look
(16:32):
like us, those of us who are on this phone
call on this radio show right now, and you ask
what individuals in the Bible were black? The question is
what individuals in the Bible story were not black? You know,
that's a question. You know, we open the Bible to
(16:55):
try to look for black presents. The question is, let's
look for whence where are the white people in the Bible?
You know? And I have a thing about that. I'm
working on something on that the Bible. I got a
outline for a book, white Presence in the Bible, how
(17:16):
that the Biblical Israelites view and understand Caucasian people. So
I'm developing that manuscript as we speak. So, yeah, that's
the short answer. All of them were the main characters,
that is, were people who look like us.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Before you give me those examples, can we talk about
the importance of why it is important.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
To explain the.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
Actual race of these individuals discussed in the Bible.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Why is this such a big deal?
Speaker 6 (17:50):
And what do you say to the critics who claim
that it shouldn't even be a discussion.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, the people who claim it shouldn't be a discussion,
and are the people who have internalized whiteness as the standard.
People who have written and have developed these images and
develop theology. They develop their theology as its center's own whiteness.
(18:18):
And so when people tell me that black presence in
the Bible shouldn't matter, and it shouldn't. It really shouldn't.
I shouldn't have to write this, I should not have
to deal with this. But since white people decided to
color the Bible everything in it is white, then you
(18:41):
begin to think about why would they do this, and
what they're covering up and what are they suppressing. So
when people ask me why do I do it, I
say it's to uncover truth. It's to expose suppress, not
because they kept this knowledge from us on purpose. That's
(19:04):
number one. And it is designed to challenge the white
images in the Bible. I do a podcast and I
had a young lady named Christina Sinks on my last podcast,
and she wrote an article. I can't remember the name
(19:26):
of the article, but her article was arguing, now, this
is a young white girl. Her article was arguing that
Jesus was not white, and she was talking about the
psychological impact that the image of white Jesus has on
black and white people. She found that prolonged exposure to
(19:52):
the image of white Jesus create prejudice views against black
people that black and white people. In other words, the
longer I have that image of white Jesus, the more
prejudice I show toward black people, whether I'm black or white.
(20:13):
So even black people show prejudice against other black people
when they have been impacted by the image of white Jesus. So, Maloni,
does it have theological effects, It also has psychological effect,
and so we are dealing with it. That's number two.
Number three, the image of white Jesus is one of
(20:38):
the sacred images of the religion of whiteness. There are three,
perhaps four sacred symbols of the religion of whiteness. Number
one white Jesus, Number two the American flag, number three
(20:59):
sometimes the Confederate flag, and number four the rifle. Those
are the three or four sacred symbols. Not the cross,
not the empty tomb, but the white Jesus, the American flag,
the Confederate flag, and guns. Not the Bible, not a
(21:23):
sacred scroll. Those are the four images symbols of the
religion of whiteness. And so I challenge all of that
by saying, no, this was a black story. The second piece,
the reason is is that there has been a study
done that says those persons who engage in black history
(21:47):
black people have a higher self esteem of other blacks
who don't. So this is not only theological, it's also psychological.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Thank you, mister Williams, Rabbi.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
You know this is ground we've covered already, so you know,
so you you know, I don't think you were the
initial interviews. Uh you were.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yes, we're doing yes, yes, I remember.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
All of.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
This is more so, like I said, for our new listeners,
iHeart around the world that may not have heard our
first conversation that took place last year. If you're just
tuning in, we're having a great conversation with doctor Thorne Williams,
the author of the Bible is Black History, and we
mentioned how we wanted to tap on Christian nationalists and
(22:44):
the intersections of all of that in conjunctured with the
sinisterness behind why it was important for them to introduce
white Jesus not only to us but to the world.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Okay, I'm hearing you lead us into the conversation, doc
of of the religion of whiteness and or the impact
of nationalism on the Black church psychologically, physiologically to some degree.
(23:22):
But let's let's can we explore the spirituality of what
is happening to us as we as we struggle between
the two tensions, If you will.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
Yes, Yeah, all right, Uh, yes, go on, yes.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
No, no, no, I'm waiting for a question or.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, well I was you know, how how is is
the the Christian nationalism in acting the Black Church spiritually?
As you know, you and I have talked uh in
the past about moving our our our congregations, our people
(24:16):
in mass away from white theology, if you will, and
we were having I'm finding that you were absolutely right.
I was a little more optimistic than you, not to
say that you were pessimistic, but the our ability to
(24:38):
move our older generations away from the old the the
European or Western theology.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
So how how.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
How does this this Christian nationalisms circumvent neutralize the spirituality
of the Black Church?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
And then how as a people, how do we how
do we.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I don't want to say some five, but how do
we how do we exist navigate between the two tensions
of what is and what has we been told?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Was? Well, I think we have to be intentional about
what we believe, be intentional about what the Bible actually says,
because white nationalism, when you look at it, it's very direct,
(25:46):
it's in your face, and we resist that, most black
people do. But then the religion of whiteness is a
lot more subtle, a lot more attractive, and a lot
more more alluring to black people. So we have to
point it out, we have to teach about it. One
(26:11):
of the greatest teachers of the religion of white white
nationalism was Charlie Kirk. When Charlie Kirk was killed, it
showed the sharp divide between black and white Christianity. White
(26:32):
Christianity celebrates Charlie Kirk. I mean, when you're talking about
white Christianity, I'm not talking just about the white Church.
I'm talking about the white Church, para organizations like Christian colleges,
white seminaries, white conventions, and even the right wing of
(26:57):
the American government. All of the these people came around
and celebrated Charlie Kirk as a great Christian man, a
great leader, a follower of Jesus Christ. Some even put
him on par with the Apostle Paul. And so when
he was yeah, when he was killed, a lot of
(27:22):
African Americans didn't know who he was. But the ones
who did know who he was, they remembered his white
supremacist rhetoric, particularly about former First Lady Michelle Obama, Katanji
Brown Jackson, the Supreme Court Justice Kamala Harris Joy Anne
(27:47):
Reed from MSNBC, and Sheila Jackson Lee, the late congresswoman
from Texas. He talked really bad and disparaging about thought
those brilliant black women. And then he talked about THEI,
(28:07):
and he said DEI and a firmative action took away
good jobs from white men who were better equipped and
better prepared to the people than the black people who
took the jobs. And he talked about when he gets
on an airplane and he sees that the pilot is black,
(28:28):
he gets concerned if the pilot is qualified, notwithstanding wheber
that every airline accident in US aviation history happened while
a white man was in the cocknit. A black man
(28:49):
or woman or a person of color have never had
a flight accident, never in the history of US aviation.
So when he gets on an airplane and sees someone
other than a white man, particularly a black person, and
the cockpit, he said, he gets concerned, which the opposite
(29:14):
in my opinion, if you look at the statistics, didn't
be true. So when the white church looked at Charlie Kirk,
they saw a hero. When the black church looked at
Charlie Kirk. They saw white supremacists. So that shows us
the sharp divide between White Christianity and Black Christianity, the
(29:37):
White Church and the Black Church. Here is the problem
that the White Church is so seductive with the religion.
In fact, Michael Emerson and Glenn Bracy wrote a book
in twenty twenty four last year. If you haven't read it,
rather you really need to get it. It's called The
(30:01):
Religion of Whiteness. These are two sociologists. Michael Emerson is
a white man, Glenn Bracy is a Black man, and
they are both sociologists, and they teamed up to do
this in depth massive study of the religion of Whiteness.
(30:23):
And what they have found that the religion of Whiteness
is a legitimate religion. That definition, it has a state,
it has a system of beliefs and practices, it has
a deity that they subscribe to, and it has a
(30:47):
distinction between the sacred and the profane. Now, for the
religion of Whiteness, the beliefs and practices they embrace is primacy.
The deity they embrace is the God of whiteness, and
the sacred, secular, sacred, profane distinctions they have is that
(31:14):
whiteness is holy and everything non white is profane. That's
their religion, and they are when they evangelize, they are
not evangelizing people to worship the God of the Bible Yahweh,
or embrace Jesus of the Bible. But they are evangelizing
(31:36):
people to bound down to the God of whiteness. That's
their religion, but is cleverly cloaked beneath the banner of Christianity.
So when you look at it, you see a church,
you see the steeple. They have the same Bible everything,
(32:00):
But the true religion is the religion of whiteness. And
it's very, very seductive. And so you have African Americans
leaving their black churches going to white churches and practicing
the religion of whiteness. One of the criteria for black
(32:23):
people or people of color to join these white churches
is to negate everything ethnic about themselves and immerse totally
in whiteness. Then you might be accepted. When you read
Robert Jones or Glenn Bracy and Michael Bracy, I mean
(32:49):
Michael Imberson and Glenn Bracy. When you read their work,
and these are sociologists, they have the receipts. They're just
not talking theory. They have proved it that the white
church is the most anti black racist demographic in the country.
(33:11):
So you have African Americans joining the most racist demographic
in the country. And many of these African Americans experienced spiritual, psychological,
and social trauma at the hands of white Christians, so
(33:36):
much so that there was one particular young lady who
had been a praising worship leader at one of these
churches black woman for five years. She testified that she
experienced so many microaggressions, so many attacks, that she suffered
(33:57):
from anxiety attacks. Question. After five years, she couldn't take
it anymore. She left. She is now in therapy trying
to recover from what she sustained at those white churches.
She was diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome from dealing
(34:20):
with white Christians. That's what our that's what African Americans face,
by and large, and the ones who stay, the ones
who make it are the ones who have negated their
black identity and ethnicity and they have emerged totally in whiteness.
(34:44):
Those are the ones who stay.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Yeah, what happens to their psyche at that point with
that close proximity to whiteness and assimilating to that degree.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
What does that do to a black person's psyche?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
They lose their souls. They are soulless people because they
are no longer who God made them. They are now
what white supremacy made them. They have lost themselves. And
when we read the Bible, when Jesus start talking about
(35:23):
stuff like this, a lot of times we have taken
the word of God that we have made it Jesus,
and we have mythologized the Bible. We have turned it
into over my words, overspiritualized the Bible to the point
(35:44):
that we miss the historical relevance of what the people
of the Bible were trying to do and what they
actually meant. Jesus is rooted.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Just real quick.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Historical does are historical and practical synonymous in this case?
Speaker 2 (36:05):
No? No, all right there too no No. No historical
means to me that there The Bible was written in
a historical context. What we do in Western Christianity is
that we take Jesus out of his historical contexts, place
(36:33):
him in twenty twenty five America, and turn Jesus into
something we want him to be. Particularly white people want
him to be a white Republican who favors rich people
over the poor, which is the exact opposite who Jesus
(36:58):
was historically. You know, so when we started reading the Bible,
I tell about euch all the time. When we're reading
the Bible, let's first understand what it meant historically in
the historical context. After we get a understanding of what
was happening historically, now we can use the application of
(37:24):
that universally. So there is a particular interpretation or understanding,
then there is a universal understanding. For example, when Jesus
says love your enemies, he is talking about his community.
(37:46):
His community was underseized by the Roman Empire and his rule.
His community was a mess when Jesus was ministering. I mean,
they had robberies and rapes, they had murder, and they
were doing this to each other. They were an oppressed people.
(38:07):
And the reason we know that is because flavor Is Josephus,
the Jewish historian, wrote about it, and he talked about
how dangerous that place was and how much crime existed.
In that context. Jesus comes on the same he's teaching
this community. Listen, y'all, we are a small community. We
(38:32):
are under oppression by Rome, and look at how we're
treating each other. If we're going to survive as a people,
we have to learn how to love each other. So
he was selling this community, love your enemy. The brother
next door who doesn't like you lives in your community.
You can't hate him back, because if we have inner
(38:55):
ethnic hatred among one another, we will implode. We were
lapse from within. So somebody has to think if our
community is going to survive. So Jesus was talking about
inter ethnic love and connection when he talked about love
(39:18):
your enemy. Now, yeah, when he talked about love your enemy,
he wasn't talking about love the Romans. They were the oppressors.
He never said love the Romans. So now when he
talks about love your enemy, he is talking about inter
ethnic relationships. He's talking to poor people, people who have
(39:43):
been oppressed and dominator. That's who Jesus is talking to.
But then we take his teachings and make it universal
about everybody. Now it does have universal applications. We should
love our enemies. To tell you this, how do you
love somebody who won't love you back, who keeps oppressing
(40:06):
and dominating you, who takes money, from poor people to
give it to multi billionaires. You know, study was done
that the larger the wealth gap is the less money
(40:26):
you make, the more pronounced the wealth gap. The more
money you make, the less pronounced the wealth gap. In
other words, a family that makes fifty thousand dollars a
year and another family that makes thirty thousand dollars a year,
that wealth gap is significant. The fifty thousand dollars family
(40:49):
can afford far more than the thirty thousand dollars family.
Now that wealth gap is pronounced. Now a person that's
got ten million dollars and a person that has fifteen
million dollars, the difference is not that much because right now,
(41:10):
if you got fifteen million, I got ten. I can
get anything you can get. I can live in your
same neighborhood, I can go to the same trips, I
can have the same kind of car, because the difference
doesn't make that much. Doesn't matter that much because we
make that much. So if you have a regime that's
(41:33):
taking money from the thirty and fifty thousand dollars family
and giving it to the ten and fifteen million dollar
family who don't need it, but it's not going to
make that much of a difference. You have an evil regime,
that's evil, and how do you love somebody who is
(41:59):
doing that to you? And so we see over and
over again police attacked on black people, and then we
have black people who are forgiving these white people, and
then white people applaud the black people for being Christian
(42:20):
and forgiving people who just killed their son in cold blood.
Now should you forgive? Yes, But I don't believe forgiveness
in that context is a Christian mandate. I believe it's
a psychological mandate. I forgive because I want to be
(42:41):
set free. I give not so that I can get
back in the good graces of someone who just shot
my daughter in cold blood and said I thought she
had a gun. I don't love them like that. I
forgive them because I want to be set free. I
(43:04):
don't want to be consumed with anger and hate and
rage my entire life because that hurts me.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yes, doctor Williams.
Speaker 6 (43:13):
The reason I'm sorry, we only have a few moments left,
and I want to make sure.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I just said. The reason I forgive is because I
want to be set free. In that context, the reason
I forgive my brother is because I'm trying to help
our community survive, because we can't have this ethnic on
ethnic killing like we're having in our community. So love
is the ethic.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
So many Christian nationalists claim that there are defending bilitical values.
What would you say are actual biblical values versus what
they are weaponizing for power and politics? And how dangerous
and why is it dangerous for Christianity with this ideology.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Well, when they talk about value, they are talking about
these things that will support the perpetuation of their race.
What do you mean. Here's what I mean. What we're
(44:20):
saying in Christian nationalism and all of this hate and
all of this violence is a reaction to the reality
that the white race is shrinking fast, and the white
population in the United States of America is shrinking really really,
(44:44):
I just read an article yesterday that how the population
in Russia is sinking, shrinking. They have one of the
oldest countries in the world in terms of age. That
means white people are having fewer kids and their populations
(45:05):
are getting older and older. On the other hand, Black countries,
particularly Kenya, is the youngest country in the world. They
are having babies and they are populating, you know, and
so their age overall is the youngest in the world.
(45:29):
One of the oldest countries in the world is Russia,
and that's true across the board. White people are having
fewer kids, and they are getting older and older, and
they are intermarrian with other people of color. And when
a white person marries a black person, that eliminates the
(45:50):
white footprint. In the next two hundred years. At this pace,
the white race will be extinct. They will be gone.
So what you see is white fear of annihilation. And
so when they start talking about Christian values, they are
(46:13):
talking about basically two things. Abortion. Because the white fetus
is the most aborted fetus in the country. They want
them to stop killing their future. It ain't got nothing
to do with Bible, but they poke it in Bible
(46:33):
language to sanctify it, to spiritualize it. The next one
is sexuality or same sex marriage. Now they're talking about
inter racial marriage. Our governor just had a conversation about
the legality of interracial marriage. Look at the trend. Abortion
(47:00):
kills off their future. Same sex marriage can't reproduce white children,
and interracial marriage you can't produce white children. So they
take all of that and they cloak it in Christian language,
(47:21):
to preserve the perpetuation of the white race. That's their
values have and Jesus didn't speak of any of that,
none of it. But those are their values. Those are
the values of the religion of whiteness.
Speaker 6 (47:42):
So, doctor Williams, you've been known to often say we
must decolonize the Gospel. What does that look like in
practice for everyday believers?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Well, again, the Gospel is interpreted through the lenses of
the religion of whiteness, you know, And when they talk
about the Gospel itself, they're not talking about the story
of Jesus, but they're talking about the story of whiteness,
(48:16):
because whiteness is personified in white Jesus. They have hijacked
the Christian faith. They have hijacked Jesus to make Jesus
into something they want him to be, to perpetuate and
(48:37):
to substantiate their false narrative. So it has been hijacked,
it has been colonized. To decolonize it is to go
back to the scripture itself and to study who Jesus
was and to perpetuate that biblical narrative.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Thank you, doctor will.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Doc I I just want it was wonderful, and you
have given us a mouthful of today, and of course
this is gonna call for us to uh come back
and have you back with us again again and again
and again.
Speaker 6 (49:20):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
Just I just want to deviate just a moment from
from this central thought. I was looking at my UH
primer for the Hebrew language, and in the Hebrew language
there's no letter J in the Hebrew alphabet.
Speaker 5 (49:42):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
In the English language there was no letter j uh
until approximately fifteen twenty four.
Speaker 5 (49:51):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
And so h w is the is uh? The name
Jesus another attempt of westernization.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Now, the name Jesus, of course it's Essua with the y, yes,
you know, I mean that's how it is pronounced. It's
not Jehovah is Yahweh with the y. So that's a
that's a that's a language thing. It was translating the
(50:28):
Hebrew and Greek languages into English, and they replace the J,
they replace the y with the J. So if you
go throughout the Bible, Jesus and Jehovah are not the
only words that were I mean, you got John, Joseph,
(50:52):
you got Judas, you know, you got you know, all
of these dream words Jerusalem, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
And even my name, even my name is Ben Yemman
because Ben jimmun okay, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
So so I don't think a big deal should be made.
I know there was a segment of people in our
community who make a big deal out of that, but
I really don't think a big deal should be made.
But of course we know his name wasn't Jesus as
we understand it. It was es Sua, you know, And
(51:31):
but to me, that doesn't make a big difference in
my understanding.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
All right, doc, you you you you made it made
it clear with me. You have a hard stop at eleven?
What would be your closing words as we close.
Speaker 5 (51:47):
Out to do what?
Speaker 1 (51:48):
I'm so sorry? Can I have one one more? So?
So quick?
Speaker 2 (51:52):
So quick?
Speaker 6 (51:53):
It's really really quick. It's forty to fifty two. Yeah,
we real quick, doctor Williams, real quick. For the young
folks like me out there who may be looking for
some guidance, who may be, you know, looking to cross check,
where should they be looking? Because we always encourage people
to buy the books that we talk about each and
every week on book Club Tuesday, we always encourage people
to do their own research. So where should people be
(52:13):
looking for this information besides your BOK.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
I'm glad you asked that. We just launched the Bible
is Black History Online Academy. It's a nine month Oh yeah,
it's a nine month academy. At the end of that
nine months, you can become a certified Bibleist Black History
instructor and you can get continuing education college credits from
(52:41):
Virginia Union University. Yeah, if you go to our website
Bible is Black History dot com, you can find out
all you need to do. I mean, it's a tremendous curriculum.
We have two cohorts going as we speak, and then
(53:03):
you have and it's really intense and rigorous. But then
we have another track, the Bible is Black History for churches,
you know where you can teach it in Sunday school,
vacation Bible School, and however you want a teacher. So
we got two tracks. One is rigorous because you're going
to get college credits, and the other is less rigorous.
(53:26):
You can teach it and learn it as if you
were in a Sunday school class. So that's what I
advise people to go. If you want to do a
deep diamon into this and look at the psychological and
theological ramifications for black presence in the Bible. The Bible
is Black History Online Academy is where you want to go.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Thank you so much, doctor Williams Rabbi.
Speaker 5 (53:52):
All right now, doctor closing thoughts.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
We need to be careful about what we believe. We
need to challenge and scrutinize and be critical about what
we've been told about the Bible, because much of what
we've been told about the Bible came from people under
(54:20):
the influence of the religion of whiteness. So we need
to read the Bible for ourselves and stop letting people
tell us what's in the Bible. I mean, that was
just like somebody telling you what happened on January sixth,
and you're looking at it, and they're telling you it
didn't happen, and we're looking at it unfold. We heard
(54:43):
the man tell them what to do on January sixth,
and yet there are people who are saying it didn't happen.
And the same thing is true with the Bible. You're
reading the Bible and folks are saying, well, that's not
in there. Well I'm reading it, I'm looking at it.
So we have to be into We should know about
how we interpret the Bible and be aware of what's
(55:05):
happening with this movement of the religion of whiteness. It's
a powerful movement and the goal of the religion of
whiteness is to get the entire nation to bow down
to the God of whiteness. I refuse to bow I
might burn for it, but I refuse to bow down
to the God of whiteness.
Speaker 4 (55:26):
All right, Doc, listen, I'm gonna let you. We're gonna
let you go so that you can move to your
next commitment.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
We will be.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
Back in touch with you to have you back on
our show again to continue this conversation. Thank you for
sharing with us your insights and this very appropriate information
that everyone who has a black card should be.
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Listening to and.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
Making adjustments in our spiritual life, our psychological dementor now
our culture, just in our culture period. Thank you again,
and God bless you.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Already enjoyed the compensation that you as well.
Speaker 4 (56:12):
Oh man, that was wonderful. Juny, that was wonderful. We
got We've got to have it back again.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
I still have so many questions.
Speaker 4 (56:20):
Yes, all right, all right, Well I tried to get
back and let you have it, you know, since you
had your questions.
Speaker 5 (56:26):
Okay, because I'm a little.
Speaker 4 (56:28):
Farther ahead in this, I feel that you maybe you
are okay because you know my research. Uh and how
I came to the station all right six years ago?
Speaker 5 (56:40):
All right Ome on April will be seven.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (56:43):
Okay, but we.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
We we I certainly enjoyed doctor doctor Williams uh uh
and uh we we we're we're going to uh maybe
one weekend, take a little five us. It takes about
five hours to drive to Indianapolis and visit within me.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
I would love that.
Speaker 6 (57:04):
I would love that when we could talk for hours
and hours and we could just break it down, Robert,
what you want them people to know on the way out, I.
Speaker 5 (57:13):
Will drink from my part of the river, and no
one shall keep me from it.
Speaker 6 (57:17):
And each day provides its own gifts. Make sure you
open your eyes to look around at them. Oh, thank
you so much for tuning in a book club Tuesday
right here on w ov U ninety five point nine
f M Cleveland's urban alternative.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
This is WOVU Studios
This is w o v U Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Welcome, welcome, Welcome to our voices today right here on
wov U ninety five point nine FM with your beloved
Unicorn of the Land, DJ Black Unicorn aka Uni and
the Rabbi.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
How are you living, How you're feeling a Rabbi, I'm.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
Doing good, Uni, I'm doing good. Had a good weekend.
You know, as you know, I'm on the Adams Board
of Cuyahoga County. We had a training for the board
every year and we had that on this Saturday.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
Rested and then the.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Pastor of the Emanuel Baptist Church, my pastor now that
I'm retired, had this eighteenth anniversary.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
We had a wonderful time.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
I had a wonderful pastor out of Athens, Georgia, delivered
the morning message Overallly. It was a good weekend. Came
home and kicked my shoes off and just just did
I reading. And you know, as you know, I'm writing
a book, and so did a little entry into the
(01:08):
book that I'm writing.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I love that. My weekend was very chill.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
I unfortunately was under the weather over the weekend, so
I spent it taking care of myself and resting lots.
But that was about it for my weekend, very slow motion.
I spent some time with my daughter, of course, hung
out with baby girl.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
How's the new house coming?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Interesting? Actually interesting that you asked.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
I just had a little clog in the kitchen, sing O, Yes,
found out I need a new garbage disposal.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Okay, Sun. Sometimes ownership is fun.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Sometimes it's not the disposal, it's the line the drains
the clogs. So check that line before you buy a
new disposal.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
So mind the line is behind the disposal, like you
goes down through the disposal first and then into the line.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah no, I'm not talking about it from the.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Sink into the disposal.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
There's another drain of plastic pipe that once it's the
ground up, it disposes all right. Many times that clogs up, okay.
And then there's a little key that you can buy.
Sometimes the the some something will get into the disposal
(02:30):
that will not allow it to turn.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
There's a little.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Funny shaped alan key that goes up underneath. You take
it in, turn the clock counterclockwise, all right, that under
the clog, and then hit your reset button.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, I will try that. I will try that.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
I don't my cousin who was a maintenance man, came
over and looked at it him. Ask him if he
looked at that and he had some type of alan
key looking things going on.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
All right, then, well, listen, we got a wonderful guest.
I am excited. It's been a while since we've had
him on the show. It's been more than a year.
Speaker 5 (03:13):
But this man is.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
He is very insightful informative as it relates to drawing
our attention, uh to the history of the Bible and
the theology that we ought to be embracing rather than
following that of a Western culture that had nothing to
(03:40):
do with the creation of this way of life. Doctor
Thorne Williams, who is the pastor of Malcarmel Baptist Church
in Indianapolis, Indiana, and he is the author of The
Bible as Black History and also Black Church White Theology. Gee,
and I shared with him today that I really was
(04:04):
interested in the impact that Christian nationalism had on the
Black church. And he has also suggested that we talk
about the religion of whiteness. All right, doctor doctor Williams,
great having you introduce yourself to our listening audience. Uh,
we you know, our our format has changed since we
(04:27):
were last on. We're now we're iHeartRadio. We're now a
podcasts and so now we go globally.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
You doing yes, are you doing right?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
I'm doing good, Man, I'm doing good.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Good, good, Ben. Thank you for having me. Man, I
do appreciate thanks for going to coming back all that back.
It's good to be bad.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Yes, all right, Okay, you're you're you're.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
On the same radio station you were.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Yes, but well now iPod we're now podcast well now
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Before we were just a local footprint. Now we're global footprint.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Oh wow, okay, great, great.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And so iHeartRadio now we're part of that iHeart dot com.
And our show is getting a little national acclaim just a.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
Little bit, okay, yes, yes, And so we have gained
a lot of new listeners, yes, worldwide listeners. So for
those listeners who may not be familiar with you, can
you give a brief introduction to yourself, just a little
bit more than what the Rabbi said about you previously?
And what inspired you to write all of these amazing books.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, I've always had an interest in African presence in
the Bible. My mentor was Caine Hotelder, and I learned
so much from them. You know, he wrote that book
Problem Biblical Waters, where he deals with black presidences in
(06:09):
the Bible. So he piqued my interests in my curiosity.
And then coming behind that, doctor Jeremiah Wright also impacted
me profoundly, and he did a lot of work in
this area. And so and then you look at the
world around you, and you see images of white Jesus everywhere,
(06:34):
and then you begin to wonder why that image is
so persistent when everyone knows Jesus didn't look like that,
even the people who are replicating these images knew he
didn't look like that. So I knew it was something
deeper and perhaps even more sinister behind the reputation of that.
(06:58):
Particularly there one rep location. It's called the salmon Head
of Jesus. It's the one that probably everybody on the
planet has seen. It's been replicated a half a billion
times in the twentieth century alone. It's the most replicated
image in history. So I wondered why that image is
(07:23):
so prevalent, Why do they keep depicting Jesus as a
white man? And so I had to do a deep
dive into it and figured out that it was as
sinister as hypothesized it was. Now I'm finding out rather
(07:44):
that it is a symbol of the religion of whiteness
was we're going to talk about today. But yeah, that
those types of things is what inspired me to write
the books.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Would you repeat the name of the book again, salmon Head.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Saw by S. A. L. L. M. M A N.
Salmon Head And if you if you google it, you'll
see it and you'll say, oh, yeah, I've seen that
before everywhere. As a matter of fact, some of us
might say we had that in our house hanging on
(08:24):
the wall next to Martin Luther King and John Kennedy
like every most black families.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Okay, I'm definitely gonna google sertly.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
So you're your book inside O the Bible is Black
history has become a major talking point in churches and
classrooms across the country, and hopefully you'll, you know, you know,
you'll be going international as well. What first motivated you
to write this book?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
In particular, I was having a conversation with my young
people by young people back in two thy eighteen nineteen
something like that. At seventeen, started dropping out a church
and I was trying to figure out what the heck
(09:18):
was going on. I thought it was a unique problem
with Mount Carmel, and I looked around and I'm like,
where are my young people? They're not coming to church.
I used to have a really strong young adult population
in our church, and our church historically when kids would
grow up and go to college, they would go to college.
(09:41):
If they returned to the city, they returned to their church.
And even if they didn't return to their home church
in the city, they returned to some church in the city.
And I found that that wasn't happening anymore. So I
thought I was doing something wrong. They didn't like me,
or the program or something. I don't know who's gonna
(10:02):
So I called a meeting with our younger belts on
one Saturday morning, and I reached out to the young
people who had left and asked them what they attend.
They said, yeah, so it was maybe one hundred, one
hundred and fifty of us. There were not fifty. It
(10:23):
was more than a hundred, not more than undred to fifty.
So we were in in at our church. It was
a relaxed atmosphere, and we started having a conversation. I
wanted to know what's happening with you guys, how come
you are you mad at me? I mean, you know,
I braced myself because I thought I was going to
get the attack. But I did get attacked. They still
(10:47):
loved me, appreciated me, and their reason for not being
their church. If it was one hundred kids and young
people in there, it was one hundred different reasons why
they weren't that church. And this hundred it included the
(11:09):
young people who were still at the church. So if
there were young people who left and young people who
were still at the church, and we were all having
this conversation, but there was a couple of things that
was consistent with the young people who had left with
their answers. Number One, they question the authenticity of the Bible.
(11:35):
They didn't believe that the Bible was divinely inspired word
of God, but they believed there was a document that
was used that was weaponized against our people to justified
domination and slavery. And they wanted to know, how can
you still use that book as it was weaponized and
(11:55):
you still using it. Number Two, they question they had
a problem with the efficacy of the church. You know,
they said the church doesn't have the power it used
to have. The church is not the way it was
back in the sixties. It lost its militant edge, and
(12:16):
it's just a place where preachers come to get money.
Number Three, they said, they questioned the historicity of Jesus.
They said, Jesus was an invention of the Roman government.
He's not real. There is no historical president for me.
(12:40):
He's an invention. He was created and was used as
a tool of domination and operas by the Roman government.
And those themes were common in their answers. And so
I said to them, do me a favor if you
(13:02):
beat me here on Wednesday night, I want to have
a Bible study just for young adults to address the
issues that you guys brought up. I want to talk
about those issues. I want to address them biblically and
challenge what you've just said. And if you're not convinced
(13:22):
and you don't want to be at church anymore, that's fine.
But if you are convinced, then you're stayed with the church.
They said, fine. We started on a Wednesday night, and
it was scheduled to be for one month. That study
(13:44):
turned out for nine months because I was learning as
I was teaching, and researching for this. At the end
of nine months, some of them stayed, you know, some
of them were converted. Others and made up their mind.
I don't care what you say, I ain't coming back
one of those type of things. But they were never
(14:06):
respectful and all of that. And when we were done,
many of the young people said, what are you going
to do with all that material? You need to write
a book. You got the material, put the book together.
This is too rich for just us. And so that's
how the book came about.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I love it. I love it. Can you tell so
you mentioned I'm sorry, Rabbi, I don't want to no, no,
go ahead.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I told you last time.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
So many questions and you know, like I said, we
got so many new listeners. I just want them to
have a bit of a background about you and just
know a little bit about you. But you mentioned an
African presence in the Bible, So I want to know
what does it mean exactly that the Bible is Black
history and when you talk about these African presence, these
African individuals that was all throughout the Bible. Can you
(14:57):
put a few emphasis, just a couple examples out there
to our listening audience about them, Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
The Bible is Black history is the idea that the
people of the Bible were people of African descent. The
term black that I explained, the term black as a
race had not been invented during Biblical times. Race was
(15:27):
invented during the European Age of Expansion, the European Expansion period,
the Enlightenment period as they called it. So race was
not a thing, it was ethnicity. There was no such
thing as a black person. White person brought that. That's
(15:48):
not how they did it. That's an invention of the
Enlightenment period to justify racism and white supremacy. So when
I say the Bible is black history, I mean it
in terms that if you would take a Biblical Israelite
(16:10):
and place him in twenty twenty five, he would be
considered African. He would be considered black by modern racial standards.
So the idea that the Bible is black history indicates
that the people of the Bible were people who look
(16:32):
like us, those of us who are on this phone
call on this radio show right now, and you ask
what individuals in the Bible were black? The question is
what individuals in the Bible story were not black? You know,
that's a question. You know, we open the Bible to
(16:55):
try to look for black presents. The question is, let's
look for whence where are the white people in the Bible?
You know? And I have a thing about that. I'm
working on something on that the Bible. I got a
outline for a book, white Presence in the Bible, how
(17:16):
that the Biblical Israelites view and understand Caucasian people. So
I'm developing that manuscript as we speak. So, yeah, that's
the short answer. All of them were the main characters,
that is, were people who look like us.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Before you give me those examples, can we talk about
the importance of why it is important.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
To explain the.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
Actual race of these individuals discussed in the Bible.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Why is this such a big deal?
Speaker 6 (17:50):
And what do you say to the critics who claim
that it shouldn't even be a discussion.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, the people who claim it shouldn't be a discussion,
and are the people who have internalized whiteness as the standard.
People who have written and have developed these images and
develop theology. They develop their theology as its center's own whiteness.
(18:18):
And so when people tell me that black presence in
the Bible shouldn't matter, and it shouldn't. It really shouldn't.
I shouldn't have to write this, I should not have
to deal with this. But since white people decided to
color the Bible everything in it is white, then you
(18:41):
begin to think about why would they do this, and
what they're covering up and what are they suppressing. So
when people ask me why do I do it, I
say it's to uncover truth. It's to expose suppress, not
because they kept this knowledge from us on purpose. That's
(19:04):
number one. And it is designed to challenge the white
images in the Bible. I do a podcast and I
had a young lady named Christina Sinks on my last podcast,
and she wrote an article. I can't remember the name
(19:26):
of the article, but her article was arguing, now, this
is a young white girl. Her article was arguing that
Jesus was not white, and she was talking about the
psychological impact that the image of white Jesus has on
black and white people. She found that prolonged exposure to
(19:52):
the image of white Jesus create prejudice views against black
people that black and white people. In other words, the
longer I have that image of white Jesus, the more
prejudice I show toward black people, whether I'm black or white.
(20:13):
So even black people show prejudice against other black people
when they have been impacted by the image of white Jesus. So, Maloni,
does it have theological effects, It also has psychological effect,
and so we are dealing with it. That's number two.
Number three, the image of white Jesus is one of
(20:38):
the sacred images of the religion of whiteness. There are three,
perhaps four sacred symbols of the religion of whiteness. Number
one white Jesus, Number two the American flag, number three
(20:59):
sometimes the Confederate flag, and number four the rifle. Those
are the three or four sacred symbols. Not the cross,
not the empty tomb, but the white Jesus, the American flag,
the Confederate flag, and guns. Not the Bible, not a
(21:23):
sacred scroll. Those are the four images symbols of the
religion of whiteness. And so I challenge all of that
by saying, no, this was a black story. The second piece,
the reason is is that there has been a study
done that says those persons who engage in black history
(21:47):
black people have a higher self esteem of other blacks
who don't. So this is not only theological, it's also psychological.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Thank you, mister Williams, Rabbi.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
You know this is ground we've covered already, so you know,
so you you know, I don't think you were the
initial interviews. Uh you were.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yes, we're doing yes, yes, I remember.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
All of.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
This is more so, like I said, for our new listeners,
iHeart around the world that may not have heard our
first conversation that took place last year. If you're just
tuning in, we're having a great conversation with doctor Thorne Williams,
the author of the Bible is Black History, and we
mentioned how we wanted to tap on Christian nationalists and
(22:44):
the intersections of all of that in conjunctured with the
sinisterness behind why it was important for them to introduce
white Jesus not only to us but to the world.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Okay, I'm hearing you lead us into the conversation, doc
of of the religion of whiteness and or the impact
of nationalism on the Black church psychologically, physiologically to some degree.
(23:22):
But let's let's can we explore the spirituality of what
is happening to us as we as we struggle between
the two tensions, If you will.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
Yes, Yeah, all right, Uh, yes, go on, yes.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
No, no, no, I'm waiting for a question or.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, well I was you know, how how is is
the the Christian nationalism in acting the Black Church spiritually?
As you know, you and I have talked uh in
the past about moving our our our congregations, our people
(24:16):
in mass away from white theology, if you will, and
we were having I'm finding that you were absolutely right.
I was a little more optimistic than you, not to
say that you were pessimistic, but the our ability to
(24:38):
move our older generations away from the old the the
European or Western theology.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
So how how.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
How does this this Christian nationalisms circumvent neutralize the spirituality
of the Black Church?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
And then how as a people, how do we how
do we.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
I don't want to say some five, but how do
we how do we exist navigate between the two tensions
of what is and what has we been told?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Was? Well, I think we have to be intentional about
what we believe, be intentional about what the Bible actually says,
because white nationalism, when you look at it, it's very direct,
(25:46):
it's in your face, and we resist that, most black
people do. But then the religion of whiteness is a
lot more subtle, a lot more attractive, and a lot
more more alluring to black people. So we have to
point it out, we have to teach about it. One
(26:11):
of the greatest teachers of the religion of white white
nationalism was Charlie Kirk. When Charlie Kirk was killed, it
showed the sharp divide between black and white Christianity. White
(26:32):
Christianity celebrates Charlie Kirk. I mean, when you're talking about
white Christianity, I'm not talking just about the white Church.
I'm talking about the white Church, para organizations like Christian colleges,
white seminaries, white conventions, and even the right wing of
(26:57):
the American government. All of the these people came around
and celebrated Charlie Kirk as a great Christian man, a
great leader, a follower of Jesus Christ. Some even put
him on par with the Apostle Paul. And so when
he was yeah, when he was killed, a lot of
(27:22):
African Americans didn't know who he was. But the ones
who did know who he was, they remembered his white
supremacist rhetoric, particularly about former First Lady Michelle Obama, Katanji
Brown Jackson, the Supreme Court Justice Kamala Harris Joy Anne
(27:47):
Reed from MSNBC, and Sheila Jackson Lee, the late congresswoman
from Texas. He talked really bad and disparaging about thought
those brilliant black women. And then he talked about THEI,
(28:07):
and he said DEI and a firmative action took away
good jobs from white men who were better equipped and
better prepared to the people than the black people who
took the jobs. And he talked about when he gets
on an airplane and he sees that the pilot is black,
(28:28):
he gets concerned if the pilot is qualified, notwithstanding wheber
that every airline accident in US aviation history happened while
a white man was in the cocknit. A black man
(28:49):
or woman or a person of color have never had
a flight accident, never in the history of US aviation.
So when he gets on an airplane and sees someone
other than a white man, particularly a black person, and
the cockpit, he said, he gets concerned, which the opposite
(29:14):
in my opinion, if you look at the statistics, didn't
be true. So when the white church looked at Charlie Kirk,
they saw a hero. When the black church looked at
Charlie Kirk. They saw white supremacists. So that shows us
the sharp divide between White Christianity and Black Christianity, the
(29:37):
White Church and the Black Church. Here is the problem
that the White Church is so seductive with the religion.
In fact, Michael Emerson and Glenn Bracy wrote a book
in twenty twenty four last year. If you haven't read it,
rather you really need to get it. It's called The
(30:01):
Religion of Whiteness. These are two sociologists. Michael Emerson is
a white man, Glenn Bracy is a Black man, and
they are both sociologists, and they teamed up to do
this in depth massive study of the religion of Whiteness.
(30:23):
And what they have found that the religion of Whiteness
is a legitimate religion. That definition, it has a state,
it has a system of beliefs and practices, it has
a deity that they subscribe to, and it has a
(30:47):
distinction between the sacred and the profane. Now, for the
religion of Whiteness, the beliefs and practices they embrace is primacy.
The deity they embrace is the God of whiteness, and
the sacred, secular, sacred, profane distinctions they have is that
(31:14):
whiteness is holy and everything non white is profane. That's
their religion, and they are when they evangelize, they are
not evangelizing people to worship the God of the Bible Yahweh,
or embrace Jesus of the Bible. But they are evangelizing
(31:36):
people to bound down to the God of whiteness. That's
their religion, but is cleverly cloaked beneath the banner of Christianity.
So when you look at it, you see a church,
you see the steeple. They have the same Bible everything,
(32:00):
But the true religion is the religion of whiteness. And
it's very, very seductive. And so you have African Americans
leaving their black churches going to white churches and practicing
the religion of whiteness. One of the criteria for black
(32:23):
people or people of color to join these white churches
is to negate everything ethnic about themselves and immerse totally
in whiteness. Then you might be accepted. When you read
Robert Jones or Glenn Bracy and Michael Bracy, I mean
(32:49):
Michael Imberson and Glenn Bracy. When you read their work,
and these are sociologists, they have the receipts. They're just
not talking theory. They have proved it that the white
church is the most anti black racist demographic in the country.
(33:11):
So you have African Americans joining the most racist demographic
in the country. And many of these African Americans experienced spiritual, psychological,
and social trauma at the hands of white Christians, so
(33:36):
much so that there was one particular young lady who
had been a praising worship leader at one of these
churches black woman for five years. She testified that she
experienced so many microaggressions, so many attacks, that she suffered
(33:57):
from anxiety attacks. Question. After five years, she couldn't take
it anymore. She left. She is now in therapy trying
to recover from what she sustained at those white churches.
She was diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome from dealing
(34:20):
with white Christians. That's what our that's what African Americans face,
by and large, and the ones who stay, the ones
who make it are the ones who have negated their
black identity and ethnicity and they have emerged totally in whiteness.
(34:44):
Those are the ones who stay.
Speaker 6 (34:47):
Yeah, what happens to their psyche at that point with
that close proximity to whiteness and assimilating to that degree.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
What does that do to a black person's psyche?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
They lose their souls. They are soulless people because they
are no longer who God made them. They are now
what white supremacy made them. They have lost themselves. And
when we read the Bible, when Jesus start talking about
(35:23):
stuff like this, a lot of times we have taken
the word of God that we have made it Jesus,
and we have mythologized the Bible. We have turned it
into over my words, overspiritualized the Bible to the point
(35:44):
that we miss the historical relevance of what the people
of the Bible were trying to do and what they
actually meant. Jesus is rooted.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Just real quick.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Historical does are historical and practical synonymous in this case?
Speaker 2 (36:05):
No? No, all right there too no No. No historical
means to me that there The Bible was written in
a historical context. What we do in Western Christianity is
that we take Jesus out of his historical contexts, place
(36:33):
him in twenty twenty five America, and turn Jesus into
something we want him to be. Particularly white people want
him to be a white Republican who favors rich people
over the poor, which is the exact opposite who Jesus
(36:58):
was historically. You know, so when we started reading the Bible,
I tell about euch all the time. When we're reading
the Bible, let's first understand what it meant historically in
the historical context. After we get a understanding of what
was happening historically, now we can use the application of
(37:24):
that universally. So there is a particular interpretation or understanding,
then there is a universal understanding. For example, when Jesus
says love your enemies, he is talking about his community.
(37:46):
His community was underseized by the Roman Empire and his rule.
His community was a mess when Jesus was ministering. I mean,
they had robberies and rapes, they had murder, and they
were doing this to each other. They were an oppressed people.
(38:07):
And the reason we know that is because flavor Is Josephus,
the Jewish historian, wrote about it, and he talked about
how dangerous that place was and how much crime existed.
In that context. Jesus comes on the same he's teaching
this community. Listen, y'all, we are a small community. We
(38:32):
are under oppression by Rome, and look at how we're
treating each other. If we're going to survive as a people,
we have to learn how to love each other. So
he was selling this community, love your enemy. The brother
next door who doesn't like you lives in your community.
You can't hate him back, because if we have inner
(38:55):
ethnic hatred among one another, we will implode. We were
lapse from within. So somebody has to think if our
community is going to survive. So Jesus was talking about
inter ethnic love and connection when he talked about love
(39:18):
your enemy. Now, yeah, when he talked about love your enemy,
he wasn't talking about love the Romans. They were the oppressors.
He never said love the Romans. So now when he
talks about love your enemy, he is talking about inter
ethnic relationships. He's talking to poor people, people who have
(39:43):
been oppressed and dominator. That's who Jesus is talking to.
But then we take his teachings and make it universal
about everybody. Now it does have universal applications. We should
love our enemies. To tell you this, how do you
love somebody who won't love you back, who keeps oppressing
(40:06):
and dominating you, who takes money, from poor people to
give it to multi billionaires. You know, study was done
that the larger the wealth gap is the less money
(40:26):
you make, the more pronounced the wealth gap. The more
money you make, the less pronounced the wealth gap. In
other words, a family that makes fifty thousand dollars a
year and another family that makes thirty thousand dollars a year,
that wealth gap is significant. The fifty thousand dollars family
(40:49):
can afford far more than the thirty thousand dollars family.
Now that wealth gap is pronounced. Now a person that's
got ten million dollars and a person that has fifteen
million dollars, the difference is not that much because right now,
(41:10):
if you got fifteen million, I got ten. I can
get anything you can get. I can live in your
same neighborhood, I can go to the same trips, I
can have the same kind of car, because the difference
doesn't make that much. Doesn't matter that much because we
make that much. So if you have a regime that's
(41:33):
taking money from the thirty and fifty thousand dollars family
and giving it to the ten and fifteen million dollar
family who don't need it, but it's not going to
make that much of a difference. You have an evil regime,
that's evil, and how do you love somebody who is
(41:59):
doing that to you? And so we see over and
over again police attacked on black people, and then we
have black people who are forgiving these white people, and
then white people applaud the black people for being Christian
(42:20):
and forgiving people who just killed their son in cold blood.
Now should you forgive? Yes, But I don't believe forgiveness
in that context is a Christian mandate. I believe it's
a psychological mandate. I forgive because I want to be
(42:41):
set free. I give not so that I can get
back in the good graces of someone who just shot
my daughter in cold blood and said I thought she
had a gun. I don't love them like that. I
forgive them because I want to be set free. I
(43:04):
don't want to be consumed with anger and hate and
rage my entire life because that hurts me.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yes, doctor Williams.
Speaker 6 (43:13):
The reason I'm sorry, we only have a few moments left,
and I want to make sure.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I just said. The reason I forgive is because I
want to be set free. In that context, the reason
I forgive my brother is because I'm trying to help
our community survive, because we can't have this ethnic on
ethnic killing like we're having in our community. So love
is the ethic.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
So many Christian nationalists claim that there are defending bilitical values.
What would you say are actual biblical values versus what
they are weaponizing for power and politics? And how dangerous
and why is it dangerous for Christianity with this ideology.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Well, when they talk about value, they are talking about
these things that will support the perpetuation of their race.
What do you mean. Here's what I mean. What we're
(44:20):
saying in Christian nationalism and all of this hate and
all of this violence is a reaction to the reality
that the white race is shrinking fast, and the white
population in the United States of America is shrinking really really,
(44:44):
I just read an article yesterday that how the population
in Russia is sinking, shrinking. They have one of the
oldest countries in the world in terms of age. That
means white people are having fewer kids and their populations
(45:05):
are getting older and older. On the other hand, Black countries,
particularly Kenya, is the youngest country in the world. They
are having babies and they are populating, you know, and
so their age overall is the youngest in the world.
(45:29):
One of the oldest countries in the world is Russia,
and that's true across the board. White people are having
fewer kids, and they are getting older and older, and
they are intermarrian with other people of color. And when
a white person marries a black person, that eliminates the
(45:50):
white footprint. In the next two hundred years. At this pace,
the white race will be extinct. They will be gone.
So what you see is white fear of annihilation. And
so when they start talking about Christian values, they are
(46:13):
talking about basically two things. Abortion. Because the white fetus
is the most aborted fetus in the country. They want
them to stop killing their future. It ain't got nothing
to do with Bible, but they poke it in Bible
(46:33):
language to sanctify it, to spiritualize it. The next one
is sexuality or same sex marriage. Now they're talking about
inter racial marriage. Our governor just had a conversation about
the legality of interracial marriage. Look at the trend. Abortion
(47:00):
kills off their future. Same sex marriage can't reproduce white children,
and interracial marriage you can't produce white children. So they
take all of that and they cloak it in Christian language,
(47:21):
to preserve the perpetuation of the white race. That's their
values have and Jesus didn't speak of any of that,
none of it. But those are their values. Those are
the values of the religion of whiteness.
Speaker 6 (47:42):
So, doctor Williams, you've been known to often say we
must decolonize the Gospel. What does that look like in
practice for everyday believers?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Well, again, the Gospel is interpreted through the lenses of
the religion of whiteness, you know, And when they talk
about the Gospel itself, they're not talking about the story
of Jesus, but they're talking about the story of whiteness,
(48:16):
because whiteness is personified in white Jesus. They have hijacked
the Christian faith. They have hijacked Jesus to make Jesus
into something they want him to be, to perpetuate and
(48:37):
to substantiate their false narrative. So it has been hijacked,
it has been colonized. To decolonize it is to go
back to the scripture itself and to study who Jesus
was and to perpetuate that biblical narrative.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Thank you, doctor will.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Doc I I just want it was wonderful, and you
have given us a mouthful of today, and of course
this is gonna call for us to uh come back
and have you back with us again again and again
and again.
Speaker 6 (49:20):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (49:22):
Just I just want to deviate just a moment from
from this central thought. I was looking at my UH
primer for the Hebrew language, and in the Hebrew language
there's no letter J in the Hebrew alphabet.
Speaker 5 (49:42):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
In the English language there was no letter j uh
until approximately fifteen twenty four.
Speaker 5 (49:51):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
And so h w is the is uh? The name
Jesus another attempt of westernization.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Now, the name Jesus, of course it's Essua with the y, yes,
you know, I mean that's how it is pronounced. It's
not Jehovah is Yahweh with the y. So that's a
that's a that's a language thing. It was translating the
(50:28):
Hebrew and Greek languages into English, and they replace the J,
they replace the y with the J. So if you
go throughout the Bible, Jesus and Jehovah are not the
only words that were I mean, you got John, Joseph,
(50:52):
you got Judas, you know, you got you know, all
of these dream words Jerusalem, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
And even my name, even my name is Ben Yemman
because Ben jimmun okay, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
So so I don't think a big deal should be made.
I know there was a segment of people in our
community who make a big deal out of that, but
I really don't think a big deal should be made.
But of course we know his name wasn't Jesus as
we understand it. It was es Sua, you know, And
(51:31):
but to me, that doesn't make a big difference in
my understanding.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
All right, doc, you you you you made it made
it clear with me. You have a hard stop at eleven?
What would be your closing words as we close.
Speaker 5 (51:47):
Out to do what?
Speaker 1 (51:48):
I'm so sorry? Can I have one one more? So?
So quick?
Speaker 2 (51:52):
So quick?
Speaker 6 (51:53):
It's really really quick. It's forty to fifty two. Yeah,
we real quick, doctor Williams, real quick. For the young
folks like me out there who may be looking for
some guidance, who may be, you know, looking to cross check,
where should they be looking? Because we always encourage people
to buy the books that we talk about each and
every week on book Club Tuesday, we always encourage people
to do their own research. So where should people be
(52:13):
looking for this information besides your BOK.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
I'm glad you asked that. We just launched the Bible
is Black History Online Academy. It's a nine month Oh yeah,
it's a nine month academy. At the end of that
nine months, you can become a certified Bibleist Black History
instructor and you can get continuing education college credits from
(52:41):
Virginia Union University. Yeah, if you go to our website
Bible is Black History dot com, you can find out
all you need to do. I mean, it's a tremendous curriculum.
We have two cohorts going as we speak, and then
(53:03):
you have and it's really intense and rigorous. But then
we have another track, the Bible is Black History for churches,
you know where you can teach it in Sunday school,
vacation Bible School, and however you want a teacher. So
we got two tracks. One is rigorous because you're going
to get college credits, and the other is less rigorous.
(53:26):
You can teach it and learn it as if you
were in a Sunday school class. So that's what I
advise people to go. If you want to do a
deep diamon into this and look at the psychological and
theological ramifications for black presence in the Bible. The Bible
is Black History Online Academy is where you want to go.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Thank you so much, doctor Williams Rabbi.
Speaker 5 (53:52):
All right now, doctor closing thoughts.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
We need to be careful about what we believe. We
need to challenge and scrutinize and be critical about what
we've been told about the Bible, because much of what
we've been told about the Bible came from people under
(54:20):
the influence of the religion of whiteness. So we need
to read the Bible for ourselves and stop letting people
tell us what's in the Bible. I mean, that was
just like somebody telling you what happened on January sixth,
and you're looking at it, and they're telling you it
didn't happen, and we're looking at it unfold. We heard
(54:43):
the man tell them what to do on January sixth,
and yet there are people who are saying it didn't happen.
And the same thing is true with the Bible. You're
reading the Bible and folks are saying, well, that's not
in there. Well I'm reading it, I'm looking at it.
So we have to be into We should know about
how we interpret the Bible and be aware of what's
(55:05):
happening with this movement of the religion of whiteness. It's
a powerful movement and the goal of the religion of
whiteness is to get the entire nation to bow down
to the God of whiteness. I refuse to bow I
might burn for it, but I refuse to bow down
to the God of whiteness.
Speaker 4 (55:26):
All right, Doc, listen, I'm gonna let you. We're gonna
let you go so that you can move to your
next commitment.
Speaker 2 (55:32):
We will be.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
Back in touch with you to have you back on
our show again to continue this conversation. Thank you for
sharing with us your insights and this very appropriate information
that everyone who has a black card should be.
Speaker 5 (55:50):
Listening to and.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
Making adjustments in our spiritual life, our psychological dementor now
our culture, just in our culture period. Thank you again,
and God bless you.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Already enjoyed the compensation that you as well.
Speaker 4 (56:12):
Oh man, that was wonderful. Juny, that was wonderful. We
got We've got to have it back again.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
I still have so many questions.
Speaker 4 (56:20):
Yes, all right, all right, Well I tried to get
back and let you have it, you know, since you
had your questions.
Speaker 5 (56:26):
Okay, because I'm a little.
Speaker 4 (56:28):
Farther ahead in this, I feel that you maybe you
are okay because you know my research. Uh and how
I came to the station all right six years ago?
Speaker 5 (56:40):
All right Ome on April will be seven.
Speaker 2 (56:42):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (56:43):
Okay, but we.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
We we I certainly enjoyed doctor doctor Williams uh uh
and uh we we we're we're going to uh maybe
one weekend, take a little five us. It takes about
five hours to drive to Indianapolis and visit within me.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
I would love that.
Speaker 6 (57:04):
I would love that when we could talk for hours
and hours and we could just break it down, Robert,
what you want them people to know on the way out, I.
Speaker 5 (57:13):
Will drink from my part of the river, and no
one shall keep me from it.
Speaker 6 (57:17):
And each day provides its own gifts. Make sure you
open your eyes to look around at them. Oh, thank
you so much for tuning in a book club Tuesday
right here on w ov U ninety five point nine
f M Cleveland's urban alternative.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
This is WOVU Studios
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.