Too Woke for Church? (Part II) | Sho Baraka

the world is filled with problems and god has given us the raw materials to address those solutions with our time talent and treasure and so i just try to apply the things that the lord has given me to create solutions in areas that i feel like you know i'm either called to or i'm competent [Music] well everyone hey this is lisa fields this is our last session for the through eyes of color conference and as promised we have to walk for church part two so many of you uh hit me up asking me about the interview with show and how much you love it is one of our most watched interviews on youtube and facebook um and i thought it would be really cool to close out the conference with the conversation with uh the great artists mr amisha baraka lewis welcome welcome show it's all down here from here you pumped it up and you were like the most watched and now it's gonna be terrible so yeah you know thank you you know it's a song you have about galatians that really are you trying to you trying to come for me right now i don't appreciate this i don't appreciate you all right no but for real i i call you about the cd but i really wouldn't pass my exam on paul without the 13 letters from 116. uh helping me 166 so before we even get started uh for the people who may not know who you are that may be living under a rock because you're such a celebrity uh let them know know who you are um well i've learned that i need to start off by saying i am a husband to a wonderful wife a father to three wonderful children my name is uh show barack or some people may know me as a baraka uh in short i'm just a uh i'm an artist in the sense that i make music and also act and create film and soon to be an author uh even though i've contributed to other books but this is uh i'll have my first book releasing pretty soon so uh ideator consultant um i just i like to call myself a solutionary i i think of you know the world is filled with problems and god has given us the raw materials to address those solutions with our time talent and treasure and so i just try to apply the things that the lord has given me to create solutions in areas that i feel like you know i'm either called to or i'm competent solutionary never never heard of that before but that's that's dope uh also you used to be my favorite rapper until i met you and i was like man this innocent i was just like man his shoes are matches outfits uh you know okay see you gonna stop clowning my wardrobe game because they stay i stay with the fastest well uh let's get to what we're here to talk about to work for church part two um i think the reason it resonated with people is because they're in this uh space where they're meeting a lot of people or they are themselves a person that found themselves waking up um to new concepts about their identity and felt disconnected it was disconnected from what they were hearing in church but it seems to have a ball since that conversation we had three years ago and i don't know if you survive to a place that is healthy at all what what are your thoughts uh mr mr baraka can i first say that i know that you know this um this conversation is somewhat postured in in the negative but i i want to say something positive about because we're gonna we're gonna have a lot of critiques but i want to say something positive about what's happened um i think the church and society has been um complicit and a lot of ills socially physically financially i mean the world is is we can easily look in our communities we can look around the places where churches are closest to and we can see that there's there are a lot of problems right um christianity on this particular continent has not been the panacea that it should be especially for people of color and in a lot of ways it was used as a tool to subjugate and oppress people and so the ways in which are the the need to to castigate it and to scrutinize christianity and society is so necessary and so for people to to wake up to these particular critiques or these particular ills that are being propagated i think is amazing i think it's necessary um and i encourage it con i continually encourage that critique however there are particular uh ideologies in particular results that have been um fleshed out that i don't think are healthy for the church nor do i think it's um biblical right um i think some of the the the results that of that people have come to some of the uh methods that people use i think are quite damaging and i think the bible actually has has answers to how we should address a lot of these issues within society so i would say to your question i would say i don't think i would agree i don't think that um i think we're in a much worse place i don't even remember what year we did that conversation but i think we're in a worse place now not only um as how society maybe views racism but also how society is trying to deal with racism i was thinking about something um this morning and i was thinking about isaiah and um how uh before he gets to chapter six he's talking about the ills in society when he gets to 6 he said woe is me i am undone that he realizes that he's a part of the ills and i wonder though if we never get to chapter six which doesn't give us grace for chapters 1 through 5. we keep talking about every the ills of society without ever realizing that we are undone ourselves um do you think that contributes to it that's so we we're done we're done with this conversation because everybody wants justice right but nobody wants justin justice exactly on them right because we it's easy for us to look around and point out the flaws and and systems um but oftentimes we don't want to want to look at ourselves and how we can be complicit now i do think it's important for us to address issues in society um but i think part of the problem with how we address uh wokeness is this kind of like moral absolution or how we we set up these objectivities of these objective views on our particular ideologies and we leave no room for nuance and man i think when you when your posture it lacks humility when you feel like you're absolutely right about something you put yourself in the most vulnerable place to perpetuate heinous evils and i believe that we are in a position where people who believe they're absolutely right who lack humility are gonna are gonna become the very products that they're trying to fight against it's almost as if that when i think about who's right or who's wrong i think about the fact that even the people that start to say you know this person is right that person that they deemed as right then they say oh this person is wrong so they become the arbiter of right and wrong and nobody is able to fit in their framework even people that they upheld become demonized at a certain point um absolutely and it's just like well if and then they'll be like well everybody goes to heaven and i'm like i don't even think in your framework you want everyone with you there for eternity because your scope is so limited only you and maybe your friend if they survive the next five years based on your framework will make it will be people you even want to be around facts man it's it's a very fragile faith like you know i mean but when you when you i mean think about this for the most part people have i have fans with friends who have punted the faith because donald trump got elected by people who would claim to be christians or evangelicals and i and i'm like if that's the reason why you've abandoned a particular faith i i just man i say your faith and your foundation and jesus was so fragile um we i mean i look at all of my heroes in history and i can find deep flaws in each one of those individuals and the moment when we begin to remove the human element from our faith um is the moment like we don't understand what true faith is like i have to understand that i believe in something that's much greater than me that accomplishes great greater works than i and and i alone through my human power cannot accomplish anything apart from the spirit of the lord which is more powerful than anything so to to to recognize that people have flaws and they make flawed decisions is part of the course for christianity and yes that means electing people who are ridiculous and that means supporting people who are ridiculous my one of my heroes alexander crumble was the father of pan-africanism right was racist against native americans said really heinous things about uh uh native americans but that people aren't going to punt pan-africanism because of the things that he talked about the things that he believed because they understand that the that he held an idea an ideology that was somewhat beneficial right same with with king same with uh many of our leaders there are people who are deeply flawed and the the truth that they carry is in broken vessels and that's what corinthians talks about like we are fragile broken people who carry a wonderful truth and sometimes you can see those cracks but the treasure that is inside is is way more valuable than the vessel hey man come on somebody i'm about to preach this thing um yeah so and the other thing is that i know we've kind of talked about this a little bit what they're abandoning like so you they abandoned one ship for another flawed ship right uh it's the same thing when i used to tell like i used to be an elder at a church and people would leave our church too because they were like well i just can't handle this and i need to go to this church and i'm like look i'm not i'm not about trying to keep you at this church but recognize no matter what church you go to you're gonna you're gonna have to deal with sinfulness because we live in a we're plagued with humanity humanities humanity has problems and until you are able to solve that problem no matter what church you go to is going to be issued so you have people who are leaving one flawed institution because academia is telling them one thing right academia is a flawed institution as well and they teach they it's funny to me how christians are trying their best to shame the church with people who have no love for the faith that they will hold dear to their heart and it's like you're you're partnering with folks who have no love for the church to tear it down and guess what the moment you begin to uh expose yourself for whatever belief you have they're going to shame you as well or you're going to have to in some ways deconstruct the things you believe to your point to get to a place where you have no real faith and you're just believing anything and that and that's no faith at all and we realize that's not jesus jesus had standards jesus had a a moral i guess you can say absolutes that he says that for us to follow and so not academia so anyway i can ramble on so i'll let you uh smash the mic no i think that's good but i wonder because i think we are exposed to so much um and i think traumatized people struggle with reason right um and i say that we're consuming a lot of information and i wonder how does that affect our ability to reason um the r one of the reasons why we started this conference off with a lecture from dr cj rose on called uh philosophy 101 a reason for reason is because i feel like people have lost their ability to reason not saying that reason is the end-all be-all because obviously um there's flaws in that um but emotion has to be balanced with reason and i think we're in a culture that is only filtering how we process through our emotions which is dangerous and the expectation for the church and christians is so high um and everything else is so low why do you think the expectations for christians in the church is so high um and other things get passes well i think it should be high so let me let me say that it should be high maybe not as high as we often like like indict the church to be a perfect institution right so for instance you can't name an institution that hasn't practiced some form of oppression and hasn't been on the side of uh some sort of subjugation academia science science has been used right when you think about eugenics when you think about um how that science that practice was used to teach uh inferiority of a particular group of people and which in a lot of ways spawned other practices like slavery and etc um nobody's going to abandon science nobody's abandoning institutions of academia because they feel like well that has been used for the subjugation of et cetera et cetera economics has been used for the subjugation of people groups when you think about redlining when you think about um how the banks took black people's money and and uh and then floundered it uh or used it for frivolous things and then turned around was like oops well you know but ain't nobody gonna stop trying to make money you'll feel me um so there's there's relationships right people fall in love and then fall out of love every day but nobody's going to say the institution of relationships or marriages are pointless right well some people do for some reason we do this with religion we we do this with christianity we see the flaws in it and we say well because of people's misuse or misappropriation of this particular institution or the teachings therefore i am done with this thing and i am no longer being a part of it and i think that's unfair um uh and i think it's unwise hopefully that makes sense in my ramble yeah and i think a lot of people are gonna be uh struck by what you just said um yeah i'm absolutely fine with that i know i know you are completely fine with that oh as you think about nuance and the ways in which we we we would process that because we could deal with the stat stats and the data and policing and all that but i think that would get us off the topic of uh to work for church uh the inability to engage nuance what do you think what is some things that have been helpful for you when you're confronted with trauma and reason how what have been helpful tools for you to engage nuance that you think will help our audience so one of the practices not to go back to the previous conversation but with many things right so like within the last five six months i've been very vigilant about all right with this policing thing like i i found myself tweeting and saying things that i was like man do i really believe this right uh and i've been rapping about police brutality since 2010 and so this is not this is nothing new to me right there are people now who just found out that they were black and that there's racism and now they have huge platforms within the christian spaces i'm cool with that because i do think people need to learn and evolve and and get to a particular place as i got to a particular place around 2010 2011 where people were like so you need to wake up right however the one thing that i've i've done in the last six months is when i read a book so for instance i read the end of policing which i think is a great book by alex vitale and it's about basically reforming policing across the across the board and i think that's necessary i think we ask police to do way too much which causes way too many violent interactions however on the other flip side of that i'll say you know what let me read some counter arguments to this so some academic papers one by roland fryer another one by jonathan mcwhorters um who say you know what ho there's racism in our country but the way we're talking about policing may be a little bit skewed right and i take those two pieces of work and i say man how can i build a articulate intelligent foundation for what i believe when it comes to this particular issue and so within that i've come to the point where i'll say you know what yes there are ways in which police where there is a racial animus towards policing black uh uh uh policing people but also i also see that there are ways in which we talk about it which i don't think are are are are true and are helpful for our community policing is a problem in our in our country in general i think way too many people are dying the police get called on way too many circumstances issues however every particular issue is not a racial animus issue and so for me i'm like how do we address this and talk about this issue in a way that i think is honest but also a way that i think it's beneficial to actually create change and so what i do is i try to get multiple sources on an issue that i think are credible and i attack the information and i try to pull up like all right i may be wrong and let me say this i am perfectly fine with people saying that was a ridiculous thing because i am a learner and i think that is the part of the problem i don't come to the table thinking like what i'm saying is absolute facts and true i come saying i think i'm confident in this however changed my mind yeah and i think that is the the challenge right because people think they're real well read they're only well read on one side they go for the left and the right and so when you're asking people i was in the meeting and uh a guy was saying yeah i've read on this issue i've read thomas soul and uh and other black conservatives and so the other guy was like but have you read anybody have you ever read tony house coats angela davis but that's like and so yes absolutely but it's what's funny is even if we take it past like uh some of the political stuff one thing i realized because i've done it too so i'm guilty and i and i have to stop doing it um we quote oftentimes we quote people and we r and we really don't read them like i know so many people who for instance will quote tony morrison right for a particular argument and i and i've i love tony and i read a lot of tony i don't just read her lit her fiction i read her essays i have like three books of her essays and it's fascinating that this stuff and the same thing with zora neale hurston it's fascinating when you read people's essays they begin in their biographies you begin to say oh this is kind of like what they believed on this particular issue i think baldwin's another one of those individuals baldwin goods quote a lot but oftentimes he's misquoted or he's quoted in a con out of context right so i think oftentimes we'll we won't just read a book and say oh now i'm authority on issues we quote people who may not have had a particular view on this on this issue that we thought that they had um so um for instance like ruth bader ginsburg just died um you know a couple days ago and and i i don't i didn't know anything about her i just knew obviously i knew she was supreme court court justice and so you know i'm gonna read some stuff about her and then i'll start watching multiple documentaries and you know what i realized because all she she became more liberal as time went on but in her first couple years within the um and even before she became um a supreme court justice she has some some very conservative views right and so when people tweet about her being this you know demonic liberal et cetera et cetera it's like oh she's nuanced she she has layers to her and i think the problem is is we don't think about people as being layered and being nuanced we think of women categories because we want political polarization yeah and if they do something we don't like and definitely they become demonized so the ability for relationship across a denominational line across party lines becomes increasingly hard there was a supreme court justice that i um can't i can't think of his name but he died and he was extremely conservative yeah um and him and ruth bader ginsburg had a great relationship they were really close and the fact that they could coexist with different ideologies is something i think we can learn from because we we struggle with that today um that's one of the reasons i created courageous conversations to have dialogue because i believe that the truth often is in the middle um but if you can never have that conversation where you're sharpening each other you don't get to see the truth in all of this new times nuance um and sometimes the truth is not nuanced it just is what it is um the tips have to follow what they may you either agree or disagree with that um right yeah so i think that is the challenge for us today because we we are quick to demonize and so we get in these unhealthy patterns where we're not able to have relationships we're not able to interact with institutions on any level and i mean that's that that's i guess extreme of that is a society collapses yeah yeah when like i said i think when people get to a place where they feel certain things need to be shut down there are certain beliefs and ideologies that need to be shut down and people need to um i guess you could say be canceled like that however i think we are so we're too quick to pull the trigger on on canceling people than i think we need to be um i i don't i just you know the bible i think is very clear about humanity's condition we are depraved people we are people who had the opportunity to participate in great flourishing uh in a land that was bountiful and we desire to colonize it all um through our wicked desires and yet god still granted us grace and favor to uh to be able to get to a place of redemption and reconciliation um and yet and still you know it's it's funny to me especially within the christian space the amount of the the lack of grace that we're willing to offer to people who may say or do some ridiculous things that doesn't mean just because somebody says something ridiculous don't mean that you that we don't call them out they need to be corrected um and in some ways people need to be shamed uh shame is something that's good uh i do think when people do something utterly ridiculous for them to feel shame it will lead them to repentance hopefully however to totally say that someone needs to be canceled or shut shut up or like they they can no longer participate in the public discourse they they no longer should get any kind of public support because of something they've done and said leaves very little grace for them to be uh repented and to turn around right um and then even when people do repent and turn around we don't receive them in a way that the father receives the prodigal son right and we don't celebrate that um it's almost like we we thirst and we we live for people's demise especially with social media um it's it's it's heartbreaking because as as my brother john john omacha makes the statement he says man to get people to to get people to stop shooting at one another is a wonderful thing but ultimately what real love is getting enemies to be family and i don't see people wanting to be family i just don't see it um so anyway you know i think the irony of this is many people don't go to church because the the fact that they say they were shamed so younger people say they were shamed for their sins um if they got pregnant uh they were shamed um and they don't buy into the institution because they feel like people weren't gracious to them in their sin and look down upon them and i think that what you're not healed from you become and i do think when people have these wounds and scars from church or home or different spaces they become the enemies that they once they once despised yeah and i do see that pattern happening to where people say you know i didn't like this institution because i didn't feel like they handled my sin properly well when somebody else says against them or do something they don't like that they have the same posture sometimes they can be harsher than those who did the initial infraction because unforgiveness usually makes you repeat offender maybe not in the exact same way but usually that way and the only way to break that pattern is to forgive yeah you man so and so to in defense this is the reason why i said earlier that the church should be there should be greater expectation for the church in some regards right um especially for individuals who are shepherding your soul grace to me is what is what christianity is about grace and love people are going to sin i don't think christianity is about the you know the the avoiding of sin or uh um walking a perfect life it's about knowing who what humanity is and growing closer to god in grace and love and if we have that as the major tenets of the of the christian faith that we recognize as people violate us as people violate society that we challenge them in their sin with the hopes and expectations that they return now there are certain things that i feel like you handle there are certain particular shortcomings or sins that people that people practice that you you definitely use more compassion for um especially if it's a situation like a pregnancy right like what i think of people don't deserve harsh um punitive like some sort of punitive uh uh uh uh response for things that aren't harming people you know what i'm saying um when you think about violence when you think about things that are bringing extreme detriment to our society yes in those situations people need to be like shaken challenged and shamed to some degree with the hopes that they will will turn around and we receive them back in grace and love and there are certain things where people have shortcomings and we don't use the same kind of gravitas same reference the same type of heavy-handedness i guess you can say however oftentimes to change the subject just a little bit the things in which we think are is church hurt our shame is really the bible it's just the teaching of scriptures that uh that have that have offended us and it's not the church it's just people people suppressing the truth and unrighteousness absolutely and so so and in a situation like that i found so many people who just don't walk who just don't like the laws of god and the truth of christ has offended them and so therefore they leave the church and i'm like you know the reality it is is this is one of those situations where the bible teaches us how to address systematic issues the bible teaches us how to reason the bible teaches us how to be in line with the gospel and yet and still fight for justice uh and if you find that the the the that the church and the gospel is insufficient in that then you may have a problem with jesus and not a problem with your pastor now yes there are pastors out there who are teaching um or are being negligent in how they talk about justice there are pastors out there who are who are being an obstacle and those people need to be corrected and challenged as well but at the end of the day the church in its essence is for justice it's for marginalized people um and for us to say that you know the christian faith is uh is not as adequate as some of these academic and social sociological ideas to me is deeply flawed and problem and troublesome yeah and i think that is instructive i think for us to evaluate our hurt and trauma with church yeah and start to deconstruct that um before we start to try to deconstruct our faith uh because if we could say okay what pieces say you were in the church where the pastor was walling out okay then you that's something different where you're in the church where they're preaching something that you don't want to align your life to so then you have to start to separate and deconstruct what your issue is to even be able to speak truth to it and to see that like if your pastor was walling out in the scriptures preachers and priests were welling out all the time and god was corrected them through the prophets uh about their their abuse of of monetary so this is not new so you can tell that god is uh very much against that so then you could separate that from what is what the god uh that they claim to be representing um and i think it's important for us to do that to interrogate our own hurt and our own trauma so we can process things as they are not as our emotions have inflated them to be am i making sense yeah absolutely making sense and i get it though you know black people have been through some bleep in this country and it almost feels hopeless right and a lot of ways i do think a lot of what's being taught in some of these um you know a lot of these ideologies is is nihilism it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a black pessimism and your hope it sucks away your hope no there is no hope right there so and i think that is that is obtuse from what the bible teaches us first of all it's it's it's it's antithetical to what uh to what the bible teaches but it's also obtuse to what we've seen and and actually witnessed in black theological history in this country we've seen people live through much worse times than we live in right now and guess what they had the greatest of hopes in in the gospel they had the greatest of hopes in jesus they sang about it that's how we got negro spirituals think about james weldon johnson's poetry wrote about it think about the the dancing how you take cake walking cake walking you take the shame of of slavery and you turn it into something right where we got soul trait lines from you like theo like you get that's where you get the the harriet tubmans that's where you get the sir jordan of truth this is where we our theological history comes from people who did who had the audacity to hope in the darkest of times and i can't believe that we're taking on these ideologies the theologies of pessimism and nihilism and promoting this lack of hope as if there is no redemption and reconciliation every day we hope to be reconciled with people we love i wake up every day and i'm like man hopefully me and my wife will love each other today we have problems in our marriage and then we wake up and say let's work on it because we have hope that our marriage will last and that it will um restore us to our dying day and in the same way i hope that we have hope in our relationships with one another across race across culture across class as well that's another thing we're not talking about um is the class issues that we have within society and even some of the privilege that academia has in trying to tell people how to think and how to process information in situations when a lot of the black community is like nah i don't know if i rock with that you know what i'm saying so there's a lot of nuance and and i i can't use the word nuance if we had a we're playing a drinking game we both be drunk right now how many times nuance has been used but you know i tell the story me and my friend uh we're having brunch and you know dc boozy boujee brunch uh like us uh i consider people say i i operate in the bougie space you know i don't i i'd say i have preferences um but anyway i'm all the way yeah i'm like the lord the lord saved me but i'm still [ __ ] yeah so you know so we're waxing eloquently about the ills of the world land uh the how we need to fight for justice and the marginalized and he was completely passionate about it so we get outside and a homeless man asks for some money and i'm like man i don't have anything you know i really don't care cash and i said do you have something he's like i don't give homeless people money they uh they probably gonna use it for something else at that moment i was like that is the black elite relaxing eloquently yeah about the ills of society but don't necessarily want to be around the marginalized help the market lies with the words get on cnn and commentate about the marginalized write books about the marginalized but you ain't going to see us hanging with the marginalized on this yeah it's funny how a lot of these a lot of these uh academics they you know i wanna call out this one particular person um talks about black injustice and blackness and black that and was asked why don't you teach at a black institution because there are many of black institutions that can use your institute your intelligence and your presence right well they don't pay enough and i'm like well well i ain't that capitalism [Laughter] we you know we talk about injustice and people look oh there's there should be no such thing as billionaires and et cetera et cetera but how many of y'all are gonna stop using amazon to get your stuff you know what i mean this is the kind of things this is this is why i think a lot of our our conversation around justice is just totally situational it's situational ethical it's like what's ethical for me it should be ethical for everybody else however when we put that and we apply it or take it to its furthest end it does not hold weight and i think this is where the bible communicates truth it's like what does the bible say about these issues and it's not just good for my soul it's good for society and oftentimes the things that we want to push and promote aren't really good for society it's just good for our own self-consciousness and and but or is good for our particular class of people and so i don't know man there's gonna be profits to the people outside of our doors but don't be a profit to the person in our mirror and that's that's the going back to the isaiah one through five but we never get the isaiah six so well it's me um we are not we don't see ourselves as a part of the problem we see ourselves as fixers of the problem and only and when we see ourselves as fixers we see ourselves as saviors not someone in need of a savior um and i think that's where we are we're like we don't need god we don't need church we don't need religion we are the solution um without realizing that we also are the problem amen is that is there anything you want to add to this uh conversation i think it's been rich and i think i love the point you brought up especially about hope because i think that is the only way in which we survive these times is to have hope in the unshakable unchanging you are as alert or as king to the zeitgeist of the day as anybody is what it what is your what are your thoughts um first let me say this praise god for you and what you guys do um and ju3 project and i and i think this this is a you are a jewel and a treasure to us to our church into our community to go back to you know the question what are you what are you what do you think are you hopeful do you think we live or we're in a time that um especially with the election coming up racial discourse being extremely unhealthy um the need for justice the need for reform um of you know a foot however the the postures of people like how do you feel like what is your post on things so that i think that's a really good question um i've seen all the you know scrolling on social you see and i really let me let me let me ask let me add some to this especially in context of the black church and kind of like the black traditional church black evangelicalism and kind of like the the woke black crowd those three little you know categories what are your thoughts um so one i say scrolling on social i i realize that people even though their anti-american capitalism their hope is very much in the american system [Music] um and i started to notice this recently when i was seeing more of my progressive friends when things would happen in government they'd be like i'm crying or i'm physically shaken and i'm like did you think they were really going to save us and i think people have put their hope in systems they don't even believe in yeah but i don't fault them no but let me let i want you to finish i don't this is my thing i don't have hope in the american system as well however i i i do have it's funny like i said this at a talk recently it it it amazes me that i do think if black people are waiting for some majestic allyship from white people then we'll be waiting for another century and we'll be having this conversation another century from now i do think our our attention needs to turn away from this idea of trying to solve white supremacy to more towards black empowerment i just i i think that's and sometimes those things are one of the same however i don't think it's always one of the same i think you can achieve black empowerment which i've seen many people do which i think i do myself um which i've seen communities if we've seen communities in history do it without us depending on one white allyship or always having our attention on white supremacy and trying to figure out how white supremacy is either an obstacle force or um some sort of thing for us to solve which i don't know if we'll solve it and i'll say this real real quick that to me means not just focusing on political change right because i do think political change is quite important political capital and power is quite important but i think it also means trying to turn our attention towards human and social capital like how do we get people better jobs within our community create better um uh institutions within our community and start supporting uh people and institutions in our community rather trying to figure out how to get to some white table or deconstruct some white uh idea um and we've seen black people thrive within this society in this system and so the best way to me and i know people have said i have adverse opinions on this i believe that the best way to thrive is to see the system for what it is and try to figure out how to use it for our benefit while doing it in a benevolent way that's not traveling over people now i know i wanted you to answer the question that was my male privilege i guess my patreon and i apologize no you you're fine um but i do think you know when i say did you believe that american sister was going to save you i'm i'm not saying that we shouldn't have hope in the you know in the progression of the system or the american ideal i'm not saying that at all what i am saying is that as believers i think we have put too much weight on american the american idea and not enough weight on the god we serve come on uh-huh um so i think we have an imbalance there so our disappointment goes up to i i wonder have we really bought in to the god we serve or we claim to serve um and i i as i see people rattle and shaken it is almost as if to the like not saying like oh my god you know we all were shaking when trump got elected so i'm not saying that you know but i'm saying that to their core as if life is over and they might as well just lay down and die and i'm like that seems to for that reaction seems to be a bit much it's time to be a believer in god not saying that you can't be shaken or concerned but i'm like to your core like we like we don't got no hope like this a god of the universe that you bought in to this is it yeah i've just been you know challenging people like this is not this is not our home this is not it there is life after this and justice won't bring you the healing that you think it will yeah right but it don't make life better but you're right dude part of him it doesn't solve the problems it won't solve the problems but i'll say this i'll take a check i'll take a reparations check but that don't mean that it's gonna make my life that much better but i'll take that check though yeah no i i'm definitely we fight and i don't want anybody to say oh i'm just saying we don't fight for justice or reparations all those things but i think we fight for those things also in the proper perspective of knowing that it won't save our souls or heal us from the trauma so think about a person yeah that's good if if you're if your parent was killed you getting justice and that person going to prison doesn't replace that parent or heals the pain of that parents yeah and so i think we it is a part getting justice is an art because you don't want to see that you want justice but think about if i if all my hope is injustice here and i think about all the people who don't get justice here i would be really hopeless if this was all that there was think about our ancestors that were lynched uh injustices that were raped murdered slaughtered and they didn't get the murderers got away scot-free if this is all there is and i that is a hopeless state i have to trust that god is a just god and that will give judgment to those who did wrong to my ancestors you know what i'm saying and not only that god is a jedi i'm sorry i'm sorry go ahead i thought you were done i said not only that god is a just god but that he's a forgiving god and he's a gracious god because often times we never see ourselves as part of the problem and you know within racism no you know we're i would say yeah but there are other situations when we think about so i'm i'm one i would consider myself somewhat well traveled but i also participate or i'm on the board of uh organization that does a lot of uh overseas advocacy when it comes to environmental justice the things that we the the way that america contributes to the pollution around the world is somewhat devastating and we think about the the consumerism within this country we think about the way we waste stuff we think about even some of the practices and habits we have we we we create poverty in other countries and so if we're talking about the type of justice that we want we want justice now then we are complicit in some of the that poverty overseas we're complicit in some of the poverty a couple communities over and to your point because in america we see like kovitz is very problematic for us but i was thinking about it there are countries especially on the motherland that live this is their life to live under a pandemic all the time and it's like for us we think it's the end of the world no it's just a discomfort to us but is living with this kind of discomfort for most of the time and it's like when it becomes us then it's the end of the world when people have it so much worse and this is their this has been their reality since they've been born so that's why we just need to be sober minded i think that's at the end of the day you know my goal my my thought is just how are we centered how are we people who are centered and sober minded so as we close um to vote for church i think we've been all over in this conversation but we were all over in the last conversation i think that's why people liked it um as people are really struggling kind of trying to decolonize their faith and you know wanting to be wanting to separate it from white supremacy completely what advice would you give them um as your closing thoughts for them i would say the first thing is to understand that um you're in a good space because many of people have come to this place where they've recognized like what do i believe why do i believe and who's informed of my belief system and there have been some terrible stories that have shaped my identity and i want to i want to get to a place where the person who i am who god made me is dignified through scriptures into a litany of of theologians and activists who share the same belief system i have my encouragement would be is to read those people to search those people if there is a theology out there that is not attached to attached to justice then that theology and that gospel is anemic um when i think about black theological history um it is a it is a gospel message that is that is tied to the idea of justice and there there there's there's a lot of writing out there there's a lot of history out there for us to engage and around 2010 2011 um is when i started to say you know what for if my my lexicon if my uh my my library is just full of white calvinist and reformers i am missing out on a on a just a world of wisdom and i began to just explore orthodoxy and east in ethiopia orthodoxy in north africa i started to explore uh theologians in history is where i found so many people like the the the uh richard allen's and the francis grimkes and the lemieux haines's and i found all these wonderful books and anna julia coopers the gerina lee's and guess what these folks aren't being celebrated in our in seminaries right um maybe in certain um african-american seminaries they are but most predominant seminaries aren't teaching about these people are teaching them about the theological history that was tied to justice and i would say find those folks there are great books out there i know an individual who we both admire uh vince sponsored dr vince bontu just recently wrote a book um and uh i think there are resources out there resources that you guys give at you three that i think will be beneficial for those folks out there but and all of that as you research as you get more information as you get more centered in this this this context of black theological thought growing wisdom growing love growing grace if wisdom is not teaching you to love better than it's demonic it's not helpful you know i mean i am very adamant that the information we obtain should make us wiser and make us people who love god more and love our neighbor more the whole posture of the folks from richard allen to the thomas skinners uh are are was for us to one have an identity that is censored in the imago day but also to see our brothers and sisters as individuals who are also created in the image of god and if we can't love people no matter who they are then we have a problem with our theology and i i won't apologize for saying that i think that we are to love our neighbor and to be reconciled to people even in the in the most ridiculous of countries like america so um the hope is in the gospel and my hope is in god redemption of all things our personal relationship with god our relationship with one another and the systems that we've created dope that's super helpful and i love when you talk about wisdom i always ask god for wisdom since i've been a child and i've heard i heard the story of solomon and i used to uh pray uh i learned to serve so i'm in sunday school or am i gonna do a church service and ever since i was a kid i prayed for god to give me wisdom and then i heard the story of solomon falling and i used to pray god give me wisdom but help me to have the wisdom and to apply it and not be like solomon and not end up like him but i've been thinking a lot about solomon's son rehoboam and when he got the kingdom and when he took the advice of his peers versus the advice of the elders and how the advice of his peers caused the kingdom to split and him to lose the majority of the kingdom of israel and i thought about how in in our generation we're only listening to people our age or in the same life chapter as us and how much we lose by not engaging the elders and getting with those who are older and so i love that you brought in wisdom um and also the ability to hear from those who have been through things um because oftentimes when we listen to our peers and people in the same space we think that this life chapter is all there is but people who have been through life are able to say no i understand this feels like this or this decision seems like right based on your eyes your own perspective or vantage point but if you're looking at the whole scope and how this is going to impact the next part of your life yeah um you you'll see things differently and i think our propensity to maybe only go to church with people our age um versus doing life with people in other life chapters also hinders us from progression um i know that was a candidate but it was good that was good and actually i wish i would have said that because i do think another element to to this whole conversation is to work for church is you need community you need people you need i'm not saying go to the traditional church gathering um but i do think you need some sort of context where people are gathering and uh there are people who are speaking to your soul and you guys are in this mutual edification process where we're growing together in the scriptures not just having conversations about sports not just having conversations about racism not just having conversations about how broken this world is but like literally are coming together in the mutual edification of the scriptures to one another's soul and i realized that in times recently i've i've kind of church top in the last year um and i realized how it's been a detriment to my soul honestly like how i am hurting because i don't have a like a legitimate church home and i'm not submitted unto any particular group of elders and uh and then this pandemic hits and it's even worse right because you can't gather anymore and uh i'm i'm doing church over the internet and and that's it's taught us the need for community and the need to be with people it is not only necessary and the the theoretical but it is good for our bodies it is good for our soul there is there are studies out there that people who live in good communities live longer right and so i'm just this is just this is like and i say community not in the sense of like buildings i'm talking about like when they are when there's a social healthy social community they have better health um so anyway i know i'll be rambling but thank you for for catalyzing that thought i had um and saying that thank you show this has been great y'all i hope y'all enjoyed uh our conversation to work for church part two thank you show baraka for your wisdom uh your insight and um and for your fashions no scarf today but i pray i really appreciate you hey first of all can i get a shameless plug for this brand good culture uh sooner drop you know what i'm saying soon it dropped okay [Music] all right do merchandise and your boys stay fresh well thank you so much for joining us this has been to work for church for the through eyes of color a virtual experience god bless [Music] you

Channel: Jude 3 Project

Views: 3,892

Rating: 4.8390803 out of 5

Keywords: Sho Baraka, church, black church, woke, staywoke, black twitter, #blacktwitter, Donald Trump, 45, Jude 3 Project

Id: oDujS2P6nrw

Length: 58min 58sec (3538 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021