Episode 173: Navigating Faith in a Divided World With Joy J. Moore

[00:00:00] The

[00:00:30] Hey everyone, welcome to Church and Main. The podcast is at the intersection of faith

[00:00:41] and modern life. I am Dennis Sanders your host. Church and Main is a podcast that is looking

[00:00:48] for God in the midst of all the issues that are affecting the church and the larger society.

[00:00:54] You can learn more about the podcast, you can listen to past episodes and donate by checking

[00:01:00] us out at churchandmain.org or churchandmain.substac.com

[00:01:08] When you are at the substac, you can also see some articles that I have written that don't

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[00:01:20] do that on your favorite podcast app. You can also do that at the substac page and if

[00:01:28] possible, consider leaving a review that helps others find the podcast. So I've wanted

[00:01:33] to do this episode for a long time and I'm not going to go into a really long intro here.

[00:01:39] But I am really pleased and thankful that I had the opportunity to talk to Professor

[00:01:46] Joy J. Moore today. She is the Professor of Biblical Preaching at Luther's Seminary in St.

[00:01:54] Paul, Minnesota. That is my alma mater. She is also at this time serving as visiting professor

[00:02:02] of religion and is also the Chapman Benson lecturer at Huntington College in Montgomery, Alabama.

[00:02:12] Reverend Moore is the United Methodist Minister and she sees herself as an ecclesial storyteller

[00:02:17] and that basically means that she describes its community-forming stories from the Bible

[00:02:24] as a follower of Jesus. Reverend Moore was also a parish minister and her last congregation

[00:02:32] actually before she came to Luther was at Bethel United Methodist Church, a church that

[00:02:37] I am very familiar with in Flint, Michigan which is my hometown. She was there as the city

[00:02:44] was going through its water crisis in 2015 and 2016. She is also a one-third of the host

[00:02:52] of the sermon breakway, sermon breakway of podcasts from Luther that looks at the revised

[00:02:59] common-lectionary passages for the week each week. Now this was an engage in conversation

[00:03:05] we talked about how we can be followers of Jesus in such a chaotic time and especially

[00:03:11] a time that is so politically and socially divisive. We also talk about race in America

[00:03:17] and why we don't hear as much about racial reconciliation these days. I really had

[00:03:25] a great time talking to Professor Moore and I think that you will enjoy this interview.

[00:03:31] So without further ado, here is Professor Joy Moore.

[00:04:01] I'm glad that to have you here. I've been looking forward to talking to you and to be honest

[00:04:16] being trying to find a reason to talk to you. It's like, it's kind of funny in this year,

[00:04:24] it's an election year everyone is kind of talking about different things and we're all

[00:04:29] kind of not looking forward to this election year. I think for a lot of reasons we're

[00:04:36] just because of the state of our civic culture, it's not even just our politics, it doesn't

[00:04:43] seem like we can come together and just kind of at the beginning there was a lot of talk

[00:04:52] a few weeks ago of the duet at the Grammys with Tracy Chapman and Luke Holmes. One of

[00:05:00] the things I remember reading in the Atlantic magazine was that this was like something

[00:05:06] that for a few moments, red and blue America could come together. I think right now it seems

[00:05:14] like our culture is so divided but it's also that our church is so divided and we don't

[00:05:19] know how to talk about issues. I wanted to bring you on today just to kind of talk about what

[00:05:26] is it that's going on in our culture today, and especially within the church. When I say that

[00:05:34] I don't mean simply evangelical Christianity but also within mainline churches, I could even include

[00:05:41] Catholicism or Orthodox. We just can't talk without it being at each other's throats.

[00:05:49] It's interesting that we are scripturally illiterate to the point that we don't recognize this isn't

[00:06:01] the first time that humanity has not been able to talk with one another. My biblical imagination

[00:06:11] is re-understanding Genesis chapter 11 where because of the evil in the world, God separated the nations

[00:06:26] and it's described that they were separated into different languages. We know that language

[00:06:33] is a result of culture. It's also a result of location. I tell my students in Alaska or in Minnesota,

[00:06:45] you can have a lot more words for snow than you would need say in Florida or in Alabama because it's

[00:06:56] so central to your existence, you're going to have an idea of clean snow and fluffy snow and snowman

[00:07:03] making snow and skiing snow. You wind up with all of these ways to talk about snow not so much

[00:07:11] in a different climate. So language becomes a way of speaking out of where we are and

[00:07:19] the landscape around us. And in some ways, our inability to talk with one another is twofold. It's a

[00:07:29] result of focusing on our desire to make a name for ourselves. I wonder where I got that line from

[00:07:40] and wanting to place God away from us so that we get credit for going to God. Think of that image,

[00:07:51] building a tower to God. What have we done? We've centered God or de-centered God from our lives

[00:08:01] and then we say we go to church where church in the original language would be the gathering,

[00:08:11] the assembly, the ecclesia. So it's when the people assemble not a building or a place.

[00:08:20] So we've set God outside of our regular lives and maybe the fact that we can't speak to one another

[00:08:30] is because we don't have anything to speak of the same anymore. We can't talk about

[00:08:38] our humanity as in we are all created as divine-facemilies.

[00:08:45] We have to well modify our identity by our politics or our nation or you know, I don't know how

[00:08:55] long after the Super Bowl, this is going to air but what team we want to. I mean those

[00:09:02] modifiers can seem innocuous but the reality is they spend more time dividing us and so that bleeds

[00:09:12] over into every aspect of our lives and as you said our civic discourse right now is trying to

[00:09:21] make a name for ourselves over and against others. So that moment in the Grammys, red states

[00:09:32] and blue states. I'm pretty sure that there's someone who votes on both sides of the ticket

[00:09:40] in all 50 states. I think I think I'm accurate about that but what we want to do is we want to

[00:09:49] do. We want to other people by saying your state is and all of a sudden I'm trying to make a name

[00:09:56] for myself. No, no, no, I didn't vote that way or I'm proud to say that's how I voted

[00:10:02] and we aren't finding a way to speak well what are the things that we need our leadership in the

[00:10:08] government to do for our state, for our country? And so we're losing the language of speaking

[00:10:17] together of the assembled people. So when you kind of talk about the and the haqq tower of

[00:10:25] Babel and all that does this basically mean in some ways we've are and we've kind of focusing on

[00:10:32] our kind of all the descriptors that it's a form of idolatry. Oh absolutely, absolutely.

[00:10:40] The first temptation and I should probably say I'm teaching ethics course

[00:10:49] using the 10 commandments. So I'm kind of stuck right now on the fact that this

[00:10:56] conditional covenant that God made with Israel begins with restoring the relationship

[00:11:04] between them and God and then therefore living in a restored relationship with the

[00:11:11] fact similes of God, those God created to bear God's image. And when we want to make a name for

[00:11:18] ourselves and when we want to put God in a space that we go to rather than allowing God to be

[00:11:25] everywhere, that's exactly what it is. It's idolatry. In the condition of the way the 10 commandments

[00:11:32] were given, if you read it in the context and not just for 10 rules that I can hang up on a wall

[00:11:41] or carve into stone. God has shown up and shown out for Israel, destroying the greatest empire

[00:11:53] that they know, setting them free from captivity and asking them to say or to respond,

[00:12:06] I'm God. This is what I can do. Look what I've done for you. I've got your back. Here's how I want

[00:12:12] you to live in relationship with me, in relationship with one another. Anything other than that breaks

[00:12:22] the commandment because we are using for our pleasure what is supposed to be things that we're either

[00:12:33] to enjoy, to be in the recognition that God, the Creator has given us so much beauty to enjoy.

[00:12:42] Or we take into things to use them to create, where I want to say, to create distractions from

[00:12:53] the beauty of being in relationship with God. And both of those are idolatry.

[00:13:00] So if we look at this especially in our current climate, how has politics become a distraction that

[00:13:13] makes us look away from God's beauty? Because it is a distraction. It's not being used in the way

[00:13:18] I think that it was intended to be used or at least we hope it would be used but it's been used

[00:13:24] in a different way. Well, for that because I just like to work out of my scriptural imagination,

[00:13:32] I go to first Samuel chapter 8 when the people of God desired to be like everybody else.

[00:13:45] And when you think of what if I just speak of our nation but the truth is I can do this from every

[00:13:52] political group around the world today. They are not creating communities for their people.

[00:14:03] They are creating systems that will allow a few to be empowered over and that automatically creates

[00:14:13] a population over whom that few has some type of authority. And so in first Samuel,

[00:14:28] Israel who was supposed to be as I just described in a unique relationship with God and what

[00:14:34] I should say is chapter 12 in Genesis that call to Abraham and Sarah was never about one particular nation.

[00:14:45] Not to be privileged, it was the responsibility of their descendants to be such a blessing

[00:14:53] to all those nations scattered in Genesis 11 that they would recognize there is a God

[00:15:01] and that this God would have their back too. That's what it means to be blessed or happy in the Lord.

[00:15:08] And Israel began to say, no we want to be like all the other nations, we want to be power over.

[00:15:15] And that's what you see in how they acted once they got into Canaan.

[00:15:21] And so here they are generations later and they ask for a king as if to Samuel's disbelief

[00:15:32] God isn't their king. And God says to Samuel, give them what they want but tell them what they're

[00:15:38] going to have. Your king is going to take care of his cronies. And that's what politicians do now.

[00:15:51] You know our politicians, I don't want to have to talk about the other team we can talk about our own

[00:15:57] team and that isn't describing what team I'm on. If we're honest, we both sides need to acknowledge

[00:16:07] that there is no one that is at the helm or desires to be at the helm that is perfect if we're honest.

[00:16:15] And so they're going to take care of the people that will take care of them,

[00:16:20] um, ignoring or displacing the other. They're going to keep you in war.

[00:16:30] Wars and rumors of wars, you know, they're going to send your sons now, sons and daughters

[00:16:36] into military. What is the best way for our economy to be expanded? It's to sell military equipment.

[00:16:47] You know, that war economy works very well. It sounds very much like the warning that was given in

[00:16:53] 1 Samuel 8 is the warning we should attend to today. They're going to take the best of your land,

[00:17:03] the best of what you create. You will become their slaves. You will work for them.

[00:17:11] I thought our political leaders, our governments were to serve the people.

[00:17:21] And so using that apiblical interpretation, it seems to me that the problems that we have are

[00:17:28] because at least for those who are called to point to a different system, the church. We've become

[00:17:37] like everybody else. And so we have language that I don't know how your listeners will respond to

[00:17:45] this, but we have language of Christian nationalism and some people wear that proudly.

[00:17:52] They want this to be a Christian nation. But it's very interesting that Paul did not set

[00:18:02] to change the Roman Empire. He said about calling the called out community, the church,

[00:18:11] the assembly, the ecclesia, the followers of Christ to be so peculiar in the Roman and Greek culture

[00:18:19] that Gentiles were saying we want to follow this God of the Jews made known in Jesus. I don't hear

[00:18:27] people saying that about the church today.

[00:18:34] Talking about that whole being of a peculiar people on these, I think in our discourse when

[00:18:41] we're talking about politics and power and the church, we would probably say that that definitely

[00:18:49] characterizes American heaven jolklism. And I think that there is some truth to that.

[00:18:54] Certainly. Can that actually characterize other parts of the church? I mean,

[00:19:00] our other parts also bowing down in different ways to different kings. It's just that their king

[00:19:07] is a little bit different than the king that the other one wants.

[00:19:11] I try to communicate the idea of what fundamentalism looks like on the left and on the right.

[00:19:19] It's the same. It turns around to what you brought up earlier. Is this not idolatry?

[00:19:25] It is. We have different lines or we expect people to stand on one side of the other of the

[00:19:33] drawn line. And then we hold that up to say if you don't speak the way that I speak, act the way

[00:19:42] that I expect you to act in relationship to this ideology or these practices, then you aren't

[00:19:51] in my group. I other you and that can be true of the left or the right. So I think your question is

[00:20:04] it's hard for us. But I think that's the very place where the church has to stand.

[00:20:11] We have to be able to recognize that, well, again, he's a Bible in judges. I know we don't like

[00:20:23] to go to judges. But I read the book of judges beginning with chapter one through chapter two verse six.

[00:20:33] And what you have there is in judges, my students actually pointed my undergraduate students

[00:20:40] actually pointed this out to me. When you read the beginning of judges, they don't go to God

[00:20:47] to find out how they're to conquer the land. They go to each other. Which is different than Joshua,

[00:20:53] which would be a very different conversation. But in Joshua, Joshua reminds them to go to God.

[00:21:00] In judges, they go to one another. And then they make agreements with the people who

[00:21:08] may be so evil and you define what evil is. I'm not going to tell you what I think that evil is.

[00:21:18] But whatever line we cross, we have a line of what evil is. And in this story,

[00:21:26] the Canaanites would represent that extreme evil. And God is saying, I don't want you to associate

[00:21:38] with that. I don't want you to make deals with that. And they begin to do that. And it gets to

[00:21:45] the point where the language begins to shift from them being victorious to them not being able to

[00:21:51] win. And then from them, not living merely the Canaanites living with them, but them actually

[00:22:01] enslaving the Canaanites, which is red that the creator has torn down the biggest empire to set people

[00:22:11] free. And they think that they can now enslave others. That was what they were asked to do.

[00:22:20] So in chapter two, the angel of the Lord comes and says, you've not done what you've been asked to

[00:22:26] do. So God is going to do to you what God has been doing to the Canaanites. And that's the story

[00:22:35] of judges. That's the context for the story of judges. Fast forward. Israel winds up in exile

[00:22:43] because they have become like the worshipers of battle. And God says,

[00:22:53] sin is sin, evil is evil. And just because I've called you, if you are not following my way,

[00:23:01] there are consequences. And I believe that there are consequences for our choices today.

[00:23:09] And if I dare to use the idea that Paul talks about where he says, people that are not followers of

[00:23:18] Christ will be held accountable for what they know to be right. It doesn't matter whether you're far

[00:23:27] to the left or far to the right. You have a moral compass. And if you are not holding integrity

[00:23:37] to that moral compass, that hypocrisy is going to make it very hard for people outside of your

[00:23:45] community to say, I want to be a part of that group. In the first century, what was so incredible

[00:23:53] about the followers of Christ is they held to the integrity of the hospitality and the hope that

[00:24:01] they offered. And they offered it regardless of what Greek and Roman culture said was your

[00:24:08] social status, your economic status, or your gender identity. They offered that same hospitality

[00:24:16] and that same hope. And people said, what's with you guys? I think I want some of that. That's

[00:24:24] because of their integrity. You got me answering the questions too long.

[00:24:32] Notice how I blame that on you. I have no problem with you doing that. That is okay.

[00:24:40] But I think you have that point of what the Scriptures talked about

[00:24:48] with the people of Israel is that they wanted to be like everyone else and there were consequences

[00:24:54] for that. And I also think the thing that's probably hard here is, and as you talked about

[00:25:01] with the first century church, maybe how hard it is to be a peculiar people because we want to be,

[00:25:09] it's just a lot easier just to go with the crowd. To do what everyone else is doing. To do

[00:25:13] all of you know, to follow the leader. And I think it's also easy to kind of make God into our own

[00:25:24] kind of little cheerleader for our side and not for your side. And you know there's just this very little

[00:25:33] actually what it comes down to is that it doesn't seem like there's very much humility

[00:25:37] of understanding that we are limited and maybe now I'll bring in a biblical story because it

[00:25:45] made me think about the temptation of Adam and Eve about knowing good and evil.

[00:25:52] And the reality is, we can't really always know good and evil. We confused it too. You know

[00:25:59] that was the lie that the snake told us is like, oh you'll know this. No we won't. And I think we

[00:26:06] kind of fall into that always again and again. We think we know what's going to be good and bad.

[00:26:13] No, we don't. We don't have, we are not God. And that's just it. We're not God. Even when we know

[00:26:22] we can't handle it. Even when we know what is good and what is evil, we can't handle it. We don't

[00:26:32] know how to handle the consequences of our actions. So I'm disappointed to find out that the idea

[00:26:40] of the frog burning out boiling in the kettle is actually probably biologically not accurate.

[00:26:48] But it's a great metaphor. It's a great metaphor. It's a great metaphor. Yeah. And so the truth is

[00:26:55] if you're in that jacuzzi, and you don't pay attention to oh maybe it got too hot and I should

[00:27:02] get out because I was so comfortable a moment ago. And then when I do recognize that I'm already

[00:27:08] scalded. Right? And that that's the way our being like everyone else is. For those first few

[00:27:19] years, decades, I don't know if it's been a century yet because I look at time and I realize that

[00:27:29] some of the things that people in their 80s and 90s have seen before, some of the things that we're

[00:27:35] going, if we're honest, they've seen before. So definitely decades. And after those decades pass,

[00:27:45] we find ourselves saying this is uncomfortable and I don't know what to do with it because

[00:27:50] I've participated in it. I've turned my faith away from it. I've allowed it. I've excused it. I've

[00:28:01] you know, I remember being that kid who all of my friends had a curfew when we were growing up.

[00:28:11] And outside of being the house when the street lights come on, I didn't have a curfew. I didn't

[00:28:18] have a time when my mom said, you better be home when I was in high school. And I'm that kid that

[00:28:25] came home one day from school and said, mom, I don't have a curfew. Take advantage of this

[00:28:31] girlfriend. Don't. But I went home and I said, mom, how come I don't have a curfew? All my

[00:28:37] girlfriends have a curfew. And my mom just looked at me and said in mama's tone, you know when to be

[00:28:44] in this house. And I did. And as I look back, she didn't give me an hour then. But I never got in

[00:28:55] trouble for coming into late. I knew and I think that's what it means when it when it says that we will

[00:29:03] know in our hearts, what is right? That God says, you know, that we're not going to need someone to

[00:29:12] tell us where to worship or how to worship. But in order for that to true, we have to be in such

[00:29:20] living sympathy with the creator like I was with my mom. I knew, right? We were on the same page.

[00:29:31] If I had been going through a rebellion stage, I would not have asked, right? But I was in that

[00:29:38] living sympathy with my mother. And I wanted to be sure and she knew, she knew I was in relationship

[00:29:45] with her. She didn't have to give it to me, right? When we are in that right relationship with God,

[00:29:51] then it's not our knowing good and evil that is guiding us. It's the spirit informing us. Adam

[00:30:02] and Eve at that temptation shows to no good and evil wanting to be like God.

[00:30:11] Sam Wells, who used to be the Dean of the Chapel at Duke says, they chose not to be in relationship

[00:30:19] with God but rather to be like God. And my spin on that is and we can't handle that.

[00:30:32] I'm drawing kind of on that too. Kind of the topic of reconciliation. And I was reading an

[00:30:42] article that you wrote about reconciliation and the funny thing is, especially when it comes to

[00:30:46] the topic of race, I almost don't hear the word reconciliation anymore. It just doesn't exist.

[00:30:54] And I could talk about, and that really even could go into other issues that we could talk about.

[00:31:00] But I don't hear that. I don't hear much about how do we come together? How do we knit things together?

[00:31:09] Why is that? Why do we not want to talk about, especially racial reconciliation?

[00:31:17] And this is not just a problem on one side. It seems like everyone. We don't want to talk about that

[00:31:25] anymore. It's interesting. There's been some criticism around this, but Jim Wallace said that

[00:31:33] racism is the ontological sin of America. If a nation can have an ontological sin, then racism would

[00:31:44] be it. And when we think about it, everything that we've talked about so far is talking about a

[00:31:51] broken relationship between humanity and our creator. And the immediate result of that broken

[00:31:57] relationship was a broken relationship between creation, not just humans with humans but also

[00:32:07] with the earth and nature. And so God's work through all of this has been to recover the good

[00:32:20] that creation was intended to be. And every time the people of God walk with God in that living

[00:32:29] sympathy, then what we see are communities come together, right? And when they don't, when

[00:32:37] when God has put aside, then we have to put up little lines to say, okay, if you want God to walk

[00:32:45] with you, you can't be with us as we build this tower, right? Because we're going to put God up here

[00:32:51] and we're going to go to God, right? Well that even before God separates the nations,

[00:33:00] we can imagine that is dividing the people, right? What is the most evident way of dividing people?

[00:33:10] It's not culturally, it's not ethnically, it's not tribally, it's not by gender,

[00:33:19] it's not by class. It is to assign an identity that is completely socially constructed, called race

[00:33:32] which we did a few hundred years ago. There is no racial identification in the Bible,

[00:33:38] it does not exist. This is something humanity has created in our desire to be like God. We wanted

[00:33:46] to create a name, something we have and we can't handle the consequences. And the consequences are

[00:33:55] that we've created this thing and we don't want to admit first of all that it's not existed.

[00:34:01] If you want to find reconciliation, the first thing we have to do is we have to stop

[00:34:10] essentializing, that's the word you used before we were recording, the ideology, this false ideology.

[00:34:19] That does not mean the consequences of the creation of this idea does not affect us all.

[00:34:27] It affects us all because we have created systems in our government, we have created systems

[00:34:34] in our education. We have created systems economically that allow the oppression of people based on

[00:34:43] this constructed idea and just saying I'm not going to see color. That's impossible

[00:34:51] because I need you to recognize that you may say you don't see color, but when I walk into a room,

[00:35:01] when you and I walk into a room, there are people there who are going to say what are you doing here?

[00:35:07] Who invited you? What can you offer? Or oh my goodness things have changed even if we say that

[00:35:15] positively. Oh look at us, things have changed immediately. What have we done? We have seen

[00:35:23] this socially constructed idea of race. So there's no such thing as color blindness. Okay. I need you

[00:35:31] to recognize the consequences of this idea, but on the other side, we want to say well there can be

[00:35:40] no reconciliation if you don't acknowledge. That's true, but there also can be no reconciliation

[00:35:48] if both sides aren't willing to meet in the middle. I need folks to realize I'm not perfect

[00:35:59] and I'm going to be as grace-filled to you as I possibly can. Can you return the favor?

[00:36:07] And if that's possible, then with humility as you mentioned earlier, we come together

[00:36:15] and we try to find what are the things we share in common. And if I'm coming together simply to

[00:36:23] bridge the racial divide, it's not going to happen. I like to use the example of building habitat

[00:36:31] houses, habitat for humanity houses. At that point we all come together most of us having no idea

[00:36:39] how to put up, I can't even say it, put up drywall, right? And we find our common inability laughable

[00:36:53] and we have a common goal. And the goal is not to bring black folks and white folks together.

[00:37:00] The goal is to build this house. And all of a sudden we realize that we can tell stories

[00:37:08] that sound a lot alike about how we grew up coming in when the street lights came on, playing

[00:37:15] hopscotch or jump rope, playing basketball without a hoop, right? There are ways that our lives are

[00:37:25] similar that come out of sharing space, that is more authentic when we share a common goal.

[00:37:35] And that goal has to be bigger than essentializing our difference created by the ideology of race.

[00:37:45] If that's if we are saying I need you to be black and I need you to be white

[00:37:51] and I find it fascinating that while we talk about brown, the reality is we only use that language

[00:37:59] for black and white. No one would ever approach a person of Asian ancestry in that in itself is

[00:38:10] such a broad category but no one would go to someone and call them yellow, right?

[00:38:16] Right. But we use the language black and white. What does that mean?

[00:38:23] If what we do is we come together as Americans, wow! What an incredible step to say.

[00:38:32] I preached this at Luther a couple of years ago

[00:38:36] and at water. And C.P. Ellis, a movie was made by them with

[00:38:47] Hanson, a Tarraja Henson playing and at water. It's how the schools were desegregated in Durham

[00:38:55] on North Carolina. It was when... Oh I think that heard about that.

[00:38:59] You know yeah best of enemies. I haven't seen it in the movie. Great book, excellent movie but

[00:39:04] I love Tarraja. But she did a wonderful job of recreating the story of Ann Atwater who was

[00:39:16] African American woman activists in the NAACP and C.P. Ellis also born in Durham, North Carolina

[00:39:28] of white ancestry. He was the head of the KKK. Not exactly two people you expect to work together.

[00:39:39] But what the NAACP recognized, they had to first convince Ann Atwater of this

[00:39:45] and then she was able to convince C.P. Ellis of this and that is that

[00:39:52] to go all the way back to the early part of our conversation. That king you wanted, that government

[00:39:57] that will take care of his cronies. There was a group of people that were creating a segregated system

[00:40:08] that was not serving poor whites and what the NAACP realized was if they wanted to serve

[00:40:18] what was classified as poor blacks which was all the blacks. They needed to partner with those in

[00:40:28] the white community who weren't being benefited by the school system, poor whites.

[00:40:34] And the person to get that who had the voice to speak to that community was C.P. Ellis and C.P. Ellis

[00:40:41] wanted his community to thrive. He cared about his children and so he accepted Ann Atwater's

[00:40:50] invitation and together they were able to move forward to desegregate the schools but he lost

[00:40:59] everything. When he decided to work with and for persons of African descent, persons that

[00:41:09] identified or believed themselves to be white disowned him. He lost all of his status.

[00:41:17] He was ostracized in fact when he died Ann Atwater paid for just lost my my my headphone

[00:41:27] and what at water paid for his funeral. Fast forward to September 2016.

[00:41:40] Hawk Newsom had a Black Lives Matter in New York City. He and a group of Black Lives Matters

[00:41:50] activists go to what was a Trump rally in Washington DC on September, it was September,

[00:42:01] I want to say 2016 and they were given, he was given, Hawk Newsom was given two minutes

[00:42:09] to speak to these activists at the Trump rally. And what he did was he identified

[00:42:17] I'm an American, I'm an African American but I'm an American. I'm a Christian.

[00:42:27] I believe that our nation says that if you have a bad cop you need to say something just like

[00:42:37] if you have a bad politician you need to say something and each time he made those kinds of

[00:42:44] rhetorical parallels the audience began to lean in with him. And when he finished speaking

[00:42:53] those people who would identify themselves as white supremacists, a Christian nationalist

[00:43:01] anti-Black Lives Matter began to say they wanted to befriend him that they realized that they had

[00:43:09] something in common with him. I invite your listeners to look up the, there's a YouTube

[00:43:19] recording of this in an interview because I bring that story up because Hawk Newsom's mind was

[00:43:27] also changed. He realized what he said was true if we are going to change the world we must do

[00:43:37] together. And when he went back to New York City they didn't want him to be the leader or the

[00:43:44] voice for Black Lives Matter. Back to what I said earlier about fundamentalism on the left and the

[00:43:52] right, whenever we have made an idolatry of any ideology we are not going to find a way to find

[00:44:02] reconciliation. We have made the social constructed idea of race an idol and until we remove that

[00:44:17] idol we will not from the left, from the right, from I want to use the color language from the Black

[00:44:26] or the white side we will not find reconciliation because reconciliation only comes when we find our

[00:44:34] identity as human beings created in the image of a good God. Yeah it makes me think in both of those

[00:44:47] situations that if you want to change the world you have to be open to change, to be changed.

[00:44:55] In some ways to be open to the church context, to be open to the spirit changing you. Yes

[00:45:03] because I think maybe in our culture we want the world change because we think we've already

[00:45:10] are perfect and it's like no no no we have to change too. That's right that's right

[00:45:17] in Hollywood a good story. This is the language that they use. A good story has a conflict

[00:45:29] and it has a moment of redemption. The Hollywood writer producer that used that language said to

[00:45:37] a group of theologians, that's your language redemption. That's church language. Hollywood says

[00:45:46] the best story has a moment of redemption and when you think about it there's that moment of

[00:45:52] resolution of the conflict of the tension that makes for a good movie, a good novel. Right?

[00:45:59] The hope of the Christian message is that the creator God is redeeming a fallen creation

[00:46:11] which means we have to recognize our need as you just said so well, our need to be transformed,

[00:46:19] our need to be changed. It's not just that the people on the other side are wrong. We both

[00:46:26] we all have sinned and fallen short of glory of God. And if we're willing to admit that to

[00:46:33] gravity then we're willing to say maybe maybe God is still at work setting things right

[00:46:44] and that's a hope-filled language that I think everybody could benefit from hearing.

[00:46:54] I'd say to the hand because it's kind of like wow, just kind of it's just a lot but I think it is

[00:47:01] true. I mean it's I think that there is way too much kind of the sense of self-righteousness

[00:47:11] and a lack of grace. You just don't hear a huge amount of grace in our society.

[00:47:19] And for grace to have kind of room for graces to really understand I don't have all the answers

[00:47:25] that I'm not perfect and that that other person is also a child of God. And they think

[00:47:33] sadly we're not there yet. Well, that's very powerful what you just said to see

[00:47:43] the other as a child of God. That takes us all the way back to how have we othered one another

[00:47:53] and how have we allowed society to other us where we begin to accept, tell me what label

[00:48:04] will allow me to fit in. We are compromising our own identity as created in the image of God

[00:48:13] or redeemed by our baptism so that we are siblings in Christ. And when we see the other

[00:48:22] in that identity I've found grace because of Jesus Christ. You find grace because of Jesus Christ

[00:48:34] and as that old adage goes because at the foot of the cross we're standing on the same level ground.

[00:48:41] What a wonderful place to meet. And an important place to meet.

[00:48:47] Well thank you for this conversation. As I said before I kind of opening up this year is

[00:48:58] we're not all looking, well none of us are looking forward to the kind of the political

[00:49:03] fights that are happening but this is a moment of hope of what can be and maybe that can happen

[00:49:12] if even only on a small scale to hear these words of hope, to understand as kind of the saying

[00:49:21] as you were saying that all is level at the cross.

[00:49:28] If I add this idea of what's happening with the political situation

[00:49:36] all of us, all of your listeners, viewers need to decide how we're going to respond no matter

[00:49:46] who wins the election. I mean I know we don't know even fully, we can anticipate who's running but

[00:49:52] we don't even fully know that. Lot can happen between now and November. But whether it's our team

[00:50:00] or not, how we respond in victory or in defeat will make a difference for the next four years.

[00:50:13] How I respond whether in victory or in defeat is what will make a difference.

[00:50:20] It becomes a kind of a witness for the Church of how and that's Christian, how do we respond?

[00:50:33] Yes. Yes.

[00:50:38] Well if people would like to connect with you, how can they do that?

[00:50:43] I, you can hear me weekly on the sermon brain wave workingpreacher.org.

[00:50:52] I'm at Luther Seminary and so you could find me there on the faculty page. Currently this year

[00:51:02] I'm on leave and I am a visiting professor of religion in Montgomery, Alabama. So if you're

[00:51:09] down in Montgomery, jump over to Huntington College and say hello to me. I'd love to come and walk

[00:51:17] with you through the legacy memorial or the museums down here and I'm doing some work on just our

[00:51:25] civil rights history and it's been thrilling. So if you're anywhere near Montgomery, you can look

[00:51:31] up at Huntington College until I return to Luther Seminary in the Twin Cities.

[00:51:39] Well there's one thing I've been wanting to do for a long time is actually what I've been

[00:51:43] calling a civil rights tour especially in Alabama. I've gone through most of the south, my

[00:51:49] dad's side of the family it's for Louisiana. Strangely enough, Alabama is the only state I have in

[00:51:54] the south I've not been to. I had not either and I was surprised to realize that. Yeah, until a year ago

[00:52:03] well yeah it's been a year ago. I was in Benin, West Africa and then I came back to a conference

[00:52:11] that was actually being hosted by Huntington. It's actually how I wound up with this this opportunity

[00:52:17] and so I came back from Benin, West Africa. I'd love to talk to you about that and then I went to

[00:52:23] the legacy memorial. Talk about an incredible way of tying the history together. So Dennis, if

[00:52:34] you come down while I'm down here, if you can get down here on the next few months, I would love to

[00:52:39] walk you through the birthplace of the civil rights movement that is also the seat of the Confederacy.

[00:52:50] Talk about history. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, definitely. I will definitely be thinking about that

[00:52:59] because it's like I do want to kind of do that type of a tour to all of that history. So

[00:53:07] thanks. Thanks. Thanks for more. Thank you so much for taking the time and I definitely will have

[00:53:12] you back on to talk more at some time in very near future. I love that. Thank you so much and

[00:53:18] I'm so grateful to be able to be with you on this conversation. Very important conversations as

[00:53:25] all of your podcasts are. So thank you for for the work that you're doing. All right.

[00:54:06] Well, I hope you had a good time listening to the conversation as much as I enjoyed

[00:54:11] having that time to chat with Reverend Moore. And I did put links to some information there if

[00:54:20] you would like to just learn more about Reverend Moore and that will be in the show notes.

[00:54:26] Just one note of clarification that's coming up is that episodes kind of coming up might be

[00:54:37] a little bit more scarce or not always as frequent. Part of that is because this is lent and we're

[00:54:45] getting closer and closer to Holy Week in Easter. Very busy time for pastors like me. So that's one

[00:54:53] reason. The other reason is just some family issues that have come up. I won't go into much

[00:55:02] detail right now, but I will share later. But they're important issues that are taking my time.

[00:55:10] So it doesn't mean that you won't see another thing out for another month or something, but it

[00:55:16] may not always come as quickly as they have. So just to let you know about that.

[00:55:25] That's it for this episode of Church in Maine. Remember to a rate and review the episode on

[00:55:30] whatever podcast after you listen to this podcast. Pass the episode along to family and friends

[00:55:37] who might be interested in hearing hearing this. And finally consider donating so that we can

[00:55:43] continue to produce more episodes. As I said, that's it for this episode of Church in Maine.

[00:55:49] I'm Dennis Sanders your host as I always say thank you so much for listening. Take care God speed

[00:55:56] and I will see you very soon.