Podcasts about ktf

Nicht nur Serafin und Philipp tun sich mit der Hitze schwer, auch manche Kernkraftwerke machen schlapp. Trotzdem gibt es heute eine kurze und knackige Folge mit den wichtigsten Themen. Überblick: Mehrere Kernkraftwerke in Schweiz und Frankreich runtergefahren, Stromsteuersenkung für Industrie und Landwirtschaft beschlossen, Beihilferechtliche Genehmigung für Industriestrompreis genehmigt, Gasspeicherumlage zukünftig aus KTF finanziert, Förderung für grüne Technologien in USA laufen durch One Big Beautiful Bill Act aus, 500.000 Emissionszertifikate im Zusammenhang mit Kohleausstieg stehen vor Löschung, ArcelorMittal beendet Grün-Stahl-Projekt, Lesetipps Personalie der Woche Lesetipps: FfE (2025): Warum ist Wasserstoff in der Praxis teurer als bisher häufig angenommen? Deloitte, Öko Institut (2025): Wasserstoff-Erzeugungskosten  ENTSO-E (2025): Iberian Peninsula Blackout Deutsche Energie-Agentur (2025): dena-Verteilnetzstudie II Quellen: Die Zeit (2025): Grüner Stahl: ArcelorMittal steigt aus Grüner-Stahl-Projekten in Deutschland aus energate messenger⁺ (2025): USA kassiert Erneuerbaren-Förderung Umweltbundesamt (2025): Deutschland löscht über 500.000 Emissionszertifikate und sichert damit den positiven Klima-Effekt des Kohleausstiegs tagesschau.de (2025): EU-Kommission: Weg frei für den Industriestrompreis tagesschau.de (2025): Frankreich und Schweiz: Mehrere Atomkraftwerke wegen der Hitze runtergefahren Kontakt: X (redispatch_pod), LinkedIn (Redispatch)

We're sad to announce that KTF Press is closing down, and this will be our last episode of Shake the Dust. But both of us will continue to do work in different places. In this conversation, we cover:- Why KTF is closing- What will happen to our newsletters, articles, podcasts, and books- What we're both doing next- What the experience of running KTF has been like for us- What we want to leave listeners with- And a benedictionWhere you can see some of our upcoming work:- Jonathan's new book that you can preorder now! Beauty and Resistance: Spiritual Rhythms for Formation and Repair- Jonathan's new Substack, The Crux- Sy's new website for his freelance workCredits- Follow Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.- Follow Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.- Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.- Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.- Editing by Sy.- Production by Sy and our incredible subscribersThe transcript for this episode was autogenerated by Substack and may contain errors This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com

Running a tattoo shop is hard enough—don't let outdated systems slow you down. In this episode, we sit down with Adam Facenda, owner of True Love Tattoo and founder of Keep The Fees, the all-in-one tattoo shop management software designed by tattooers, for tattooers. We dive into: • How Adam created KTF to solve real tattoo shop problems • Why most tattoo shop POS systems and CRMs fall short • How you can automate client booking, payroll, and release forms in one platform • The secret to eliminating credit card processing fees and saving thousands • Building better client relationships with smart automation and aftercare texts • Why paper & pen shops are falling behind (and how to fix it fast) Whether you're a solo artist or managing multiple artists, this episode gives you the tools to streamline your shop, save money, and focus more on tattooing.

It's our season finale! We're answering listener questions and talking:-        Staying grounded and emotionally healthy post-election-        Some mistakes people are making in their election analysis-        Why the politics of identity will never go away in America-        How the Church can and can't fight anti-Blackness and other forms of injustice-        Where you can hear us in between seasons-        And a lot more!Mentioned in the Episode:-        Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor by Rev. Caleb Campbell-        Our newsletter from last week with a worship playlist and sermon Jonathan recommended-        The Webinar Intervarsity is doing with Campbell on Tuesday – Register here.-        The article on patriarchy by Frederick Joseph: “For Palestinian Fathers, Sons, and Brothers”-        Our free guide to processing and acting on the injustices you encounterCredits-            Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Editing by Multitude Productions-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscriptIntroduction[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Sy Hoekstra: The beauty of the church is not in how good it is. The church is beautiful in the light of Christ, not in the light of its own good work and goodness. The church is beautiful when it is people collectively trying to put their faith in the grace that governs the universe, and not put their faith in their own ability to bring the kingdom of God into this world.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton. We have a great show for you today. It's our season four finale. We're answering listener questions and continuing our discussion from our Substack live conversation two weeks ago, about where to go from the Trump election as followers of Jesus.Sy Hoekstra: And because this is the finale, let me just take a quick second to tell you where we are going from here. We are gonna be doing our monthly bonus episodes for our paid subscribers, like we usually do when we are not on a season of this show. We are going to be doing them though slightly differently. You will have the opportunity to hear them at one point if you're not a paid subscriber, because we're gonna record them like we did two weeks ago on Substack Live. So if you want to see those when they are being recorded, download the Substack app. If you get on our free emailing list, you'll be notified when we start. You just need to go ahead and get that app, it's both on iOS and Android.And if you wanna make sure that you're getting our emails in your Gmail inbox, because we've heard some people tell us they're going to the promotions folder or whatever Gmail is trying to do to filter out your spam, but actually filtering out the stuff that you wanna see, you just have to either add us to your contacts, or if it's in the promotions folder, just click the “Not promotion” button that you can see when you open your email. Or you can actually just drag and drop emails that show up in your folders to your inbox, and then it'll ask you, “Hey, do you wanna always put emails from the sender in your inbox?” And you can just click, yes. So do one of those things, add us to your contact, drag and drop, click that “Not promotions” button that'll help you see those notifications from us.Jonathan Walton: If you'd like access to the recordings of those bonus episodes, plus access to our monthly subscriber Zoom chats, become a paid subscriber at KTFPress.com. We would so appreciate it and you would be supporting our work that centers personal and informed discussions on faith, politics, and culture to help you seek Jesus and confront injustice. We are two friends resisting the idols of the American church in order to follow Jesus faithfully, and would love for you to join us. So become a paid subscriber at KTFPpress.com.Sy Hoekstra: And we've said this before, but we should probably say it again. If you want a discounted subscription or if money's a barrier to you joining us as a paid subscriber, just email us, info@ktfpress.com. We'll give you a free subscription or a discounted subscription, no questions asked. You will not be the first person to do it if you do. Other people have done it, we've given it to them. We won't make it weird because we want everyone to have access to everything that we're doing. But if you can afford to support us, please as Jonathan said, go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber. Let's jump into it, Jonathan.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, man.Sy Hoekstra: We, a couple weeks ago on our Substack Live, we were talking about processing through grief and like what we have been hearing from people. We've had lots of questions and lots of conversations since then. So we're sort of combining, amalgamating [laughs] lots of subscriber questions into one, or even just questions from friends and family. I just wanna know how you are continuing to process the election and what you're thinking about grief and how we move forward, or how we look back and see what exactly happened.Staying Grounded and Emotionally Healthy Post-ElectionJonathan Walton: Yeah. So I think that one of the things I just have to acknowledge is that I'm tired of talking about it, and not okay talking about it. Like just the level of energy it takes to have regulated, like emotionally regulated healthy conversations is exhausting.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And so, just naming that. So last week I think I was in a better place than this week recording. And so I'm recognizing I need to be able to take steps back and set boundaries so that I can be in a healthier place. And I just encourage everybody to do that. We all need rhythms and disciplines that keep us grounded. That is not like, oh, when I'm in this season, I need spiritual discipline. No. We actually are supposed to have them all the time. But I think in moments like these and seasons like this, we actually need them just in a more pointed way. It reminds us that we do. So those are things that I'm doubling down on, like starting to listen to worship music.If you check out last week's newsletter, I actually had a worship set from a worship leader in Columbus, Ohio, who basically said, if you can't sit across someone who has a different political perspective than you, then you probably can't worship with them. So let's start off with worship. And so they made a, I don't know, a six hour playlist of songs from different traditions and said like, play it without skipping it. Without skipping a song. Don't be like, “I don't like this song, I don't like this. I don't like…” This reminds me of them. Like, just listen to the whole album because somebody who is different from you meets Jesus through the words of the song. And he said, “You would never know that I don't like some of the songs that we sing [laughter], but I sing them. And I thought that was just a really honest thing.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. You said it was six hours long?Jonathan Walton: It's a lot. I haven't made it through a third of it.Sy Hoekstra: Okay [laughs].Jonathan Walton: It's long. And the sermon is also linked in the newsletter as well. It's just a great message from Pastor Joshua.Sy Hoekstra: This is a pastor in Ohio that you're familiar with?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: How did you get connected to this?Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So someone on the political discipleship team for InterVarsity, shout out to Connie Anderson, who's written…Sy Hoekstra: Oh, great.Jonathan Walton: …a lot of our stuff. Our InterVarsity stuff.Sy Hoekstra: Yes. Not KTF stuff.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. She just, she said, “Hey, I really appreciated the sermon and I was able to listen to it, and I'm working my way through the songs. And if I skip a song, I'm gonna go back, because I'm not the only person on my Spotify. Shout out to all the Moana and Frozen tracks that get stuck in there.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: So all that to say, that's like the first big thing, is setting boundaries, trying to have healthier rhythms so that I can be fully present to my family and myself.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Having Difficult Conversations by Meeting People Where They AreJonathan Walton: Also, I think it's really important to remember, particularly when I'm frustrated, I have to remember to meet people where they're at the way that Jesus met me. I have not always known that Christian Nationalism was bad. I didn't always have another term for it that captures the racialized, patriarchal environmental hierarchy of it called White American folk religion. I didn't always know about police brutality and the rural urban divide. I didn't know about those things. And what I desperately needed and unfortunately had, was patient people who were willing to teach me. And so as we're having these conversations, there's a book called Disarming Leviathan, ministering to your Christian Nationalist neighbor. It's really, really good. We're doing an event that you will hear about in our newsletter as well with the author of that booked Caleb Campbell.Sy Hoekstra: And when you say we, in that case again, you mean InterVarsity?Jonathan Walton: Oh, shoot.Sy Hoekstra: It doesn't matter [laughs].Jonathan Walton: I do mean InterVarsity. There's a little bit of overlap here because the season is so fraught.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs]. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Jonathan Walton: Like [laughs], and so you're gonna hear about that in a newsletter as well. InterVarsity Press is promoting it, InterVarsity's promoting it. Pastors and teachers are promoting it because the reality is, we all need to figure out how to tackle difficult conversations.Sy Hoekstra: Yep.Jonathan Walton: And we use that verb specifically, like it's elusive. We have to go after it [laughs] to be able to…Sy Hoekstra: You have to go wrangle it.Jonathan Walton: Yes, because it's hard. It's really, really hard. We would rather run away. We would rather run away from difficult conversations. So meeting people where they're at, we do that because Jesus meets us where we are. Our compassion, our gentleness is in outpouring of the compassion and gentleness that we've meditated on and experienced for ourselves and are willing to embody with other people. So those would be my biggest things from the last week or last two weeks since we last talked about this stuff. What about you?Healthy Reactions to the Election Are Different for Different PeopleSy Hoekstra: Yeah, that's good. We actually had, speaking of people who have a, like a different rhythm or need to adjust something now to be emotionally healthy, we actually had a subscriber, I won't give any details, but write in who's overseas, who basically said, “I've got too much going on in the country that I live in. I can't deal with American stuff right now. I need to unsubscribe from you.” They're on the free list. And I was like, “Man, I understand [laughs].”Jonathan Walton: Yes, right. I would like to unsubscribe from this [laughter]. No, I'm just joking, just joking.Sy Hoekstra: I appreciate that he wrote in to explain why he was unsubscribing. That doesn't necessarily happen a lot…Jonathan Walton: Right. Right, right.Sy Hoekstra: But it's very understandable and it's really sad, but I totally get it. And I want people to take care of themselves in that way. And I think, I mean, the flip side of that is we had a ton of people in the last week or week and a half sign up for the free list because I think a lot of people are just looking for ways to process, right [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: They are looking for people who are having these conversations, which happens. We got started, this company got started during the 2020 election, putting together the anthology that we put together, and we had a lot of response at that point too, and people who are just like, “Yes, I need to hear more of this processing.” And the difference now is there are fortunately, like a lot of people doing this work from all kinds of different angles all around the country, which is a very good thing, I think. We could be tempted to think of it as competition or whatever, but the church [laughs] has to come at this from as many angles as possible. There need to be as many voices doing the work of trying to figure out how to follow Jesus and seek justice as there are people promoting Christian Nationalism, and we're… those numbers are nowhere close to parody [laughs].Jonathan Walton: No.Sy Hoekstra: Not remotely close.Jonathan Walton: Absolutely. No, they are not [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Unfortunately, that's a reality of the American church. So, anyways, I appreciate all those thoughts very much, Jonathan.Mistakes People Are Making in Election AnalysisSy Hoekstra: I think when I'm thinking about the conversations that I've had, I have a couple thoughts that come to mind. I think a lot of the things that I think about in the conversations in the last week and a half are people trying to figure out what happened, like looking back and like playing the blame game [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And the excuses that people are making, or the blame is shifting for why Trump matters now, because you can't say he lost the popular vote anymore. Obviously he won the electoral college the first time, but he lost popular vote, and then he lost the popular vote to Biden plus the electoral college. Now he's won it, and so people are not as able to, to the extent that people were still trying to paint him as an aberration from the norm.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: …that's getting harder. It's getting harder to say, “Oh, this is just a blip on the radar and we'll come back to our normal situation at some point, some undetermined point in the future. But so they're shifting blame to other people. It's like, oh, various non-White groups increased their votes for Trump. Or young people increased their votes for Trump or something.Which Party Wins Tells Us A Lot Less about America Than Who Is an Acceptable Candidate in the First PlaceSy Hoekstra: To me, a lot of that stuff, if you're trying to say that Donald Trump represents a problem with the whole country that you're trying to diagnose how it happened, all those conversations are a little bit silly, because the problem is that he's like a viable candidate who people voted for in the first place. But the people to blame for electing Donald Trump are the people who voted for Donald Trump, which is more than half of the voters in America. Not much more, but more.And the reason it's like a little bit silly to talk about what's different than the prior elections is, the prior elections were like Trump's gonna win this election, the popular vote. Trump's gonna win the popular vote by like two or three percent probably. It could be a little bit different than that, but basically Trump's gonna get slightly more than 50 percent, Kamala Harris is gonna get slightly less than 50 percent. And that's usually how it goes. That is the reality of this, how this country works. We have a winner take all system, and so typically speaking, it's a little over 50 and a little under 50. The swings between who gets elected in any given year, president, we're playing with marginal things. Democratic strategists, Republican strategists are trying to figure out how to fiddle with the margins to get what they want.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: It was only seven states in this country that actually mattered [laughs]. Like 86 percent of the states in this country were decided and then we're just playing with seven states. We're just playing with little numbers. And so all of these, like all Black people went slightly more for Trump. Young people went slightly more for Trump, whatever. It'll go back later. I don't know if you saw this, Jonathan, on Monday this week. So last week, if you're listening to this, John Stewart brought out the map of the 1984 election. Did you see this?Jonathan Walton: Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. It was so interesting [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: It's like it was completely one color.Sy Hoekstra: It's red, yeah.Jonathan Walton: And you're like, “What? Whoa, this looks like a candy cane without the White” [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Right, exactly.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: If you've never seen the Reagan-Mondale electoral map, literally the entire country, except for Minnesota is red. The whole country went for Ronald Reagan. So that's like, it's one of the biggest landslides in history, and the popular vote for Ronald Reagan, I decided to look that up, was less than 59 percent.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Right?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: You get the whole country. You have to get 270 electoral votes to win, he got like 520 something.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, yeah.Sy Hoekstra: He crushed Mondale. But eight years later, bill Clinton is in office and we're kind of back to normal. We're back to America's normal, right?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: It's so small, these little things, and we just have to stay focused on, the problem here is that both of our parties in different ways, to different degrees are just infused with White supremacy and White American folk religion and patriarchy and everything else. And Donald Trump can be a viable candidate in the United States.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: That's the problem [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right, that is the problem.Sy Hoekstra: We have to stop talking about, I don't care what Gen Z did. Gen Z will change just like everybody else has changed. Election to election, things will be different. Anybody who thought that, “Oh, just a new generation of people in the United States of America growing up is gonna fundamentally change the United States of America.” How? Why did you think that [laughter]? Why? Why? Why would the children of the people, who were the children of the people, who were the children of the people who have been in the same country for years and years, generation after generation, why would that just be something fundamentally different? It's the same people, they're just a bit younger. I don't know. I never get those kinds of arguments.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Facing the Reality of America's BrokennessSy Hoekstra: What I'm saying is, I think underlying a lot of those arguments though, is a desire to have some control over something. To have something that we can say is certain that we're changing, that we can be the good people that we thought Americans fundamentally were again, or something like that. It's about control and trying to wrap your mind around something. I think instead of just facing the reality that we live in a deeply flawed country.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Which is, should be biblically speaking, unsurprising.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: But it is also difficult. It's unsurprising and it's difficult to deal with. Facing the reality of the brokenness of the world, not a fun thing to do. We've talked about this before.The People to Blame for the Election are the Mostly White and Male People Who Voted for TrumpJonathan Walton: Well, I think it would be helpful for people to remember, in all the things you're talking about, Trump did not win the popular vote last time, he won it this time. Trump won the electoral college, right? Let's actually just for a moment identify the voting population of the United States of America. So there are 336 million people in the United States per the population tracker today, right?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: There are 169 million people who voted in the election in 2020. The numbers are not final for 2024.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. It's gonna be less, it'll be less than that though.Jonathan Walton: It's less. So let's say 165 million people voted in the election this time. And that's generous. Right?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: So that's less than 50 percent of the country that actually voted. Then we take into the account that 70 percent of this country of the voting population is still White. Okay friends?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Roughly, I would say. Yeah, that's true.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: People give different estimates of that, but it doesn't get much lower than like 65 [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right. So let's even go with 65 percent.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Yeah. Right. [laughs].Jonathan Walton: So let's say 65 percent of that voting population is White, and then half of that population is male. And Trump did an exceptional job at mobilizing White slash men in the United States to go and vote. An exceptional job. Looking at that population and saying, “We are gonna make sure that you feel invited, welcomed and empowered.” Joe Rogan's show [laughs], these other influencers, how he advertised. If you look at who was on stage in these different venues when he was campaigning, all men. And the women, I think it's very important to notice this. I think when he gave his acceptance speech, his now chief of staff that they called the Iron Lady or something like that. The Ice Lady, Iron Lady, something like that.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: That's what they called her. And then she declined the invitation to speak. And so I think that when we are sitting here saying, “Oh man, how could people vote this way?” We are not talking about the entire population of the United States.Sy Hoekstra: Yes.Jonathan Walton: We are talking about a little less than half of the voters in the United States, and then we are talking about 50 percent of that group. We're not talking about people under 18, generation alpha. We're not talking about the vast majority of Gen Z. We're talking about the same voters we've been talking about for the last 30 years [laughs]. The voting population of White adults in the United States. That's who we're talking about. We could blame, oh, this group or that group, but I agree with what you're saying. We have to face the reality that at some point we have to talk about race and we have to talk about gender. When we talk about identity politics, we don't name White and male as an identity.Sy Hoekstra: Right. Yeah.Jonathan Walton: We don't. We call it something else. We say, oh, like the working class or all these other things. But we need to just say, if we look at how White people are voting and we look at how men are voting, then we have the answer to I think, how Trump was elected. But those two things are third rails. Or like in New York City, you don't touch the third rail, it's electric because of the subway.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: So we don't talk about that. And I think, I don't say that because I wanna blame people, I'm just naming statistics. These are just numbers. The numbers of people who are voting, the demographics they represent, this is the group. So when Sy says, who is responsible for Trump's election, it is the majority of White Americans who vote, and men in this country of all races who lean towards hey, opting into patriarchy in ways that are unhelpful.Sy Hoekstra: It's not of all races [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Well, I will say that the increases of Black men, the increases of Latino men, Trump did grow his share of the Black male vote by double digits. Right?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, but it's still a minority of the Black male vote.Jonathan Walton: It is. I'm just saying, I do not want to discount the reality that patriarchy is attractive to all races.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah.Jonathan Walton: That's what I wanna name. And so when Fred Joseph, amazing author, talks about the attractiveness of patriarchy, I think that is something that all men need to say no to.Sy Hoekstra: This is an essay that we highlighted in our newsletter like a month or two ago.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: I'll put the link in the show notes.Jonathan Walton: We have to say no to patriarchy.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And so anyway, that's my rant in response to this [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, no. That's good, and that actually gets into it, the other thing I wanted to talk about was, which even though I think some of these blame game conversations are such like nonsense, we are still able within those nonsense conversations to say a lot of things that are just demonstrably false [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Right.The Politics of Identity Will Never Die in AmericaSy Hoekstra: And what you just said is one of them. Like I've seen some people talking about, “Oh, the democrats lost because they ran on identity politics,” or, “Identity politics is over.” And I'm like, “What are you talking about [laughter]?” Donald Trump is all identity politics.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: It was all about White men and how they were gonna be comfortable and empowered how Christians are gonna be in powered again.Jonathan Walton: How women are gonna be taken care of, whether they like it or not.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah right. Men are gonna be back in power. How citizens are gonna have what they deserve, and then we're gonna stop giving it to the illegal immigrants, right?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Like everything Donald Trump does is about identity. And the bigger thing to say is identity politics in America is not a current or temporary trend. Identity politics is baked into the foundation of the country, and it was not Black people who did it [laughs]. It was the founding fathers who created a system where only White men could be naturalized and only rich White men could vote, and we enshrined racial slavery, all that stuff. Identity politics has been here from day one. It's not like a liberal thing. It was a thing that we baked in on purpose, and it's a thing that came from European culture and it's still fundamental to European culture to this day.Sy Hoekstra: And I, what I think what people mean when they talk about identity politics is, it's another one of the endless string of words that we use since racial slurs became impolite. We can't say the N word anymore. It's another way of saying it's Black people talking about Black people stuff. Right? When people talk about identity politics, they're saying the wrong identity politics, because everybody is talking about identity politics all the time. They're just, like you said, not calling it identity politics. They're talking about “real America” [laughs], right?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: They're talking about, we know what they mean by real America. They're talking about White men and they're just saying this is the default culture. We're all just assuming this is the default culture, everything else is identity politics. Nonsense.Jonathan Walton: Right, right.Sy Hoekstra: So that's one of the nonsense things that shows up in the conversation as a result of a nonsense thing that we say that we think all the time on some subconscious level that we're not always talking about identity politics, even though we absolutely are. And it's because it's been forced upon us. It's not because somebody's trying to create divisions.Jonathan Walton: Right.The Democrats Are the Party the Non-White Working Class Voted ForSy Hoekstra: A similar thing is, I heard people talking about the Democrats are not the party of the working class anymore. The working class is not voting for the Democrats because, and then, obviously the White working class is voting for Trump, and then start to talk about the gains that Trump made among the non-White working class. Again, the majority of everybody in the non-White working class is not voting for Donald Trump. And assuming that voters have some idea of what's good for them and who better represents them, maybe not who best represents them, but who better represents them, the Democrats are still the party of the non-White work—we're talking about the White working class again, you know what I mean? We're trying to make it about economics and it's actually about race. That's a thing that we're doing all the time, constantly [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Well [laughs], the reality is that economics is about race.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: It's like, if we could just like get some daylight between them, then maybe we could make a separation. And so then it just becomes about keeping that separation in place, because if we bring them back together, the system falls apart. It literally crumbles if you call it out. And something that I'll just name, because I think in all these conversations, even as me and Sy are saying, oh, this Democrat about that Democrat, like this is the Republican or that race, when we call out differences, when we name things, our goal is not to dehumanize anybody, dismiss people's needs or grievances, or minimize the reality and perspectives that people have.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, absolutely.Jonathan Walton: The goal and hope is that we would actually grasp reality, name the idol and follow Jesus.Sy Hoekstra: Right. Yeah, exactly.Jonathan Walton: That is our goal and our hope and our aim, because if we can't say it as is, we will never be able to address and communicate with the most marginalized people. And we'll never be able to communicate a vision that draws people in power towards something even more loving and beautiful, unless we name the thing as it is. And so hopefully that is breaking through to folks who might come across this conversation.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, I agree. I can get very passionate about these facts and stats and whatever. And I'm not trying to say that anyone who doesn't…Jonathan Walton: No [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: …agree with me is somehow a bad person. I'm just, this is, it's important, like you said. It's an important goal that I'm trying to move us toward.Jonathan, we got a great question from a listener that I wanted to talk about. You cool moving on, or do you have more thoughts?Jonathan Walton: No, no. Let's do it.What Can the Church Do about Continuing Anti-Blackness?Sy Hoekstra: Alright. So what can the church, practically speaking, do about ongoing anti-Blackness in the country? And not just correct disinformation or post on social media, what can the church practically speaking do? That was the question. Jonathan, solve anti-Blackness. Go.Support Black Spaces, No Strings AttachedJonathan Walton: There's a reason that enrollment at HBCUs is surging right now.Sy Hoekstra: Ah, okay.Jonathan Walton: And that is because when the world is unsafe or feels unsafe, or the reality that, “Oh, trying to get to the master's table and eat is actually not that great,” we're gonna recede back into our communities. And so I think one thing that the church can do is support Black spaces. So financially support Black spaces, empower Black spaces. I did not say create Black spaces moderated by you, that you will then curate for, andSy Hoekstra: Control.Jonathan Walton: Yes, control would be the right word, for an experience that other people can observe. Like, “Oh, this is what Black people really think.” Like no, just support Black spaces. Black, sacred, safe spaces that help and care for us in this moment. The number of Black women that are being harassed online, like showing up to their jobs, walking down the streets in different cities, is radically disturbing to me.And if we wanna get into the intersectionality of it, like when we talk about like Black, queer people, the numbers that the Trevor Project is recording, it's like the Trevor Project is a alphabet community support organization, particularly to prevent suicide. And so their phone calls are up in the last two weeks. So I think we as a church, as followers of Jesus need to create and then sustain spaces for Black folks to hang out in and feel a part of that we control. Kathy Khang, the author of Raise Your Voice said in a workshop that I was in one time, “Spaces that marginalized communities are in, we feel like renters, we don't feel like owners.” So we can't move the furniture. We're not really responsible for anything, but we're just, we could exist there and do what we need to do.Sy Hoekstra: But it's not a home.Jonathan Walton: It's not a home. And so I would want to encourage churches, small groups, bible studies, community groups, parachurch organizations to create spaces for Black folks by Black folks to be able to thrive in and feel a sense of community in. The other thing that I would say is that the church could educate itself around the complexities of Blackness. And so there's the Black, racially assigned Black Americans in the United States that are the descendants of enslaved people. Then there's Caribbean folks that are the descendants of enslaved Africans and the colonizers there. And then there's Central and South American and Mexican. There's a lot of beauty and complexity in Blackness.And so obviously, Ta-Nehisi Coates's book The Message, talks about that in ways that are exceptionally helpful and complex. So that would be a great book to dive into. And again, create educational, engaging spaces around. This education, quote- unquote, educating yourself, not asking Black folks to spend their time educating you. Doing that work, creating those spaces, supporting those spaces financially, time, resources, et cetera, and creating spaces for Black folks to feel and be safe, I think would be just exceptionally helpful in this season. Yes, share on social media. Yes, send messages to your friends. Yes, do all those things on your own time and on your own dime. But I think these are two things that could be helpful because it's not gonna go away the next four years. It's probably gonna be more intense. And so I think creating and sustaining of those places would be helpful.Sy Hoekstra: At least sustaining, you don't have to create.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that's true. There are some that are already there. That's true. Find a place, donate, support, host. Hey, provide the space. Buy food, yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And the reason I say that is you could end up with people who just go to Black people and are like, “Hey, we'll give you money and you get to do a bunch of work to create a space or,” you know what I mean? And there's also the instinct to say, if we're gonna support something, we have to create it.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: We don't. We can support things that other people are already doing. There might be people in your congregation who are already doing that as their job. Just give them money. You know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: The more you're not in charge, the fewer strings are attached. Jonathan already talked about that. Even if those strings are implicit or not even there, but they're just perceived to be there, and that could be a problem too. So it's good to just give money to stuff that already exists or give support. Give volunteer work, whatever. Good, I appreciate that. Thank you for having practical answers.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. No worries. I'm glad you sent it to me earlier so I could think about it.Educating Ourselves on Fighting Racism Works (Sometimes)Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Yeah [laughs]. Continuing to educate ourselves is a good thing too. And I think I've actually seen some of the difference in that. I know this is, there is so far to go and there's so much to do in terms of educating ourselves, but I can personally tell you from having watched a lot of Christians go through the Trayvon Martin case and Ferguson and everything. And I'm saying Christians who want to be supportive of Black people, who want to be helpful, who want to be anti-racist, all that stuff. I saw a lot of people who in 2012, ‘13, ‘14 were just like babies. Just starting out, didn't know what to say. Didn't know whether they could go protest, didn't know why All Lives Matter wasn't appropriate. Like, “Don't all lives matter though?” All that kind of stuff.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Even when you're trying to be helpful, you know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Right, right, right.Sy Hoekstra: And then 2020 comes around and I saw a bunch of those exact same people being like, “I'm gonna go march! Black Lives Matter, let's go.” You know what I mean? So people really can learn and they really can change. And the problem is that you just have to keep doing it to every new generation of people that comes up, and it takes years to do. It's not something that you can do in a couple of sermons or one course that you take or whatever. And again, I know they're so far to go, I'm not trying to say… I understand that you can work for years. A White person can work for years, and the differences can be trivial and frustrating and like enraging. But it's also true that people can learn [laughs]. And talking about meeting people where they are, that's kind of what I'm saying to White people as we're trying to educate ourselves and others.Educating Each Other about Race Is a Long, Continuous ProcessJonathan Walton: Yeah, and to build off of something that you said before too, it's like Donald Trump was elected eight years ago, and some people were not alive eight years ago. And some people were 10 years old, eight years ago. So they didn't even…Sy Hoekstra: And now they're voting.Jonathan Walton: And now they're voting. So like Trayvon Martin was killed 12 years ago. They may not have the same knowledge as you, the same awareness as you. So yes, the education and the engagement is ongoing because there's always people that are coming up that had no idea. And I think just going back to what we said in the first part, like you were just saying again, meeting people where they're at because maybe they were too young and they just don't know. Like I was having a conversation this past week and someone said, “Yeah, my mom and dad have been sick. I've made 10 trips to another city the last two years to try and take care of them.” Maybe their world is just small because they've been engaged in loving the people closest to them through illness.We must meet people as best as we possibly can where they're at. And I confess, I have not always done that. And so being able to not be prideful and not be dismissive, and not look down on someone from being ignorant to simply not knowing. And even loving someone who's exceptionally misinformed. As we're doing this recording, one of my friends is meeting with a Christian nationalist right now. Like they're going there. They said, “Alright, can you pray for me, I'm going to have this conversation.” Because it is one conversation at a time that these things change.Sy Hoekstra: I appreciate that. You just reminded me of another story I had, and I won't give details about the individual, but there's someone in my life who is a White person who's from the south, who lives in New York City, who's just one of those people that makes Black people uncomfortable, Jonathan. Just like the moment you meet him, you're like, “something… hmm, I don't know.” And I've heard other Black people talk about him this way. I've heard stuff that's made me uncomfortable. And he was just an easy person to kind of like shun or avoid.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, for sure.Sy Hoekstra: Until I ran into another extremely kind Black person who told me… we ended up not because of me, because of someone else, in a conversation about this guy, and how he sort of makes people uncomfortable. And he was like, yeah, but he just said in not so many words, I kind of tolerate him because he lost his entire family in Hurricane Katrina, and he lives in New York City and basically has nobody and just works this kind of dead-end job and is not a very happy person. Actually, he is kind of a happy person. He's sort of trying to make the best of it, and he doesn't know what he is doing. You know what I mean? It's just like, you have one of those moments with someone where you're like, “Boy, that changes my view of this person.”Jonathan Walton: Right [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: I still don't think any of the things that you're saying to make people uncomfortable are okay, and I'll try and interfere in whatever limited way I can or whatever. But you hear something like that, your heart changes a little bit. You know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Your attitude changes and like, you just, we gotta get to know each other better. We gotta listen better.We Need Endurance and Truly Practical WisdomSy Hoekstra: I think this question about what can the church do about anti-Blackness, for people who are like kind of our age or older, or people who have been through the 2010s and everything that happened up till now. It's just, it's a question of resilience. And whenever you're engaged in anti-Blackness work or any sort of activist work, you're gonna have these questions of resilience of like, what can we do, because this problem is just still going. And then there's another question of the practicality of it when you're asking that question in the church. I'm gonna define the question a little bit or reframe the question a little bit and then give answers.When you ask the question of something like, what can we practically do about a problem in a Christian context, the question is a little bit strange sometimes, and I think you just gave some good practical answers, but we have both noticed, we talked about this recently. In the Christian world, the word “Practical” often means something different than it does to the rest of the world [laughs].Jonathan Walton: That's true. That's true. Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: The phrase practical application just seems to have a different meaning to pastors than it does to everybody else [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And what it tends to mean to professional Christians is, when you're talking about practical application, you're talking about a new way of thinking or a new goal for how you should feel about something.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Or like a new “heart posture” or something like that.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: It's a new attitude, but it's not practical. You actually said recently, you came out of a sermon going, “Okay, I kind of know how to think, I don't know what to do with my body. Now, after listening to this sermon.” You know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Right, right [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: I know what to do with my heart and my head. I don't know what to do with my hands and my feet. And we're supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus, not the heart and the brain.Jonathan Walton: Right [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: And I think, actually, I don't wanna sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I think that problem, it at least promotes racism [laughter]. It promotes institutions remaining as they are. You know what I mean? It promotes, like when we talk about practicality and we're just talking about how we kind of think about things, like the world of ideas and emotions and not what we do politically or whatever, that is a subtle way to reinforce status quo institutions.Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, it is.Sy Hoekstra: And it's not anything to do with the person who asked the question. I'm just acknowledging the reality of how that question lands to Christian ears.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes. Especially institutionalized Christians. Yes, absolutely.The Church Isn't Necessarily the Best Place to Go to Fight RacismSy Hoekstra: And another thing is, I will say, we're talking about the church, the whole wide capital C church. The Black church, is gonna keep doing what it's always done. Black church is gonna do anti-racist work. Obviously, there are problems and questions and whatever that Black people have in their conversations among themselves within the Black church about how to do that best, or what things may be getting in the way of that or whatever. But if you're talking about big picture here, Black church is always fighting racism. I think we're kind of asking questions about the rest of the church. The White church in particular, and then some other churches as well. If we're just talking about the American church in general and what it can do to fight anti-Blackness, if you look at the history of just big picture American church, there are Christians in the United States on both sides of this past election.There are Christians in the United States in history on both sides of the Civil War. There are Christians in the United States on both sides of segregation versus civil rights. There are Christians in the abolition movement, there are obviously Christians in the pro-slavery movement. Christians set up the system of racism and slavery. European Christians did.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: The American church, if you just look at history, is a weird place, is a weird institution to look to, to end anti-Blackness. We have been consistently ambivalent about it for centuries. Do you know what I mean? I understand…Jonathan Walton: No, listen. It's true, and that's sad.Sy Hoekstra: Yes, yes.Jonathan Walton: That reality is depressing, right.Good Things Come from God, Not the ChurchSy Hoekstra: Horribly depressing. And so I understand, one, you just don't want that to be real. So you say, “Hey, what can we do?” Or, you want, and when I say you, again, I don't mean the question asker because I haven't had a conversation or back-and-forth. I'm just saying this is what people could be asking when they ask this question. It could also be the instinct of a lot of White evangelicals, which I can tell you this question asker is not, have the instinct when we say, what can the church do, of kind of thinking that if there's anything good is going to happen in the world, it has to come from the church, and that is so wrong. It is not biblically accurate. You can't look at scripture and go, “Yeah, everything good has to come from the church.” Goodness comes from God. God is the source of goodness, and God sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, and we are very much among the unrighteous. God is the source of goodness, and so we need to acknowledge that we can find goodness outside of the church.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that's a point worth repeating.Sy Hoekstra: Right [laughs]. We can find goodness outside of the church. I will repeat it [laughter]. We can in our congregations have fights that can go on for years and years about how we can just try and move anyone toward anti-Blackness work, and you can work for forever and you can see no fruit. And you could have spent all that time taking the few Christians, because there's always a handful, even in a [laughs], in any church, there's a few people who are sympathetic to whatever you're trying to do.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: You can just take them and you are the church, you and your Christians, and go do work with somebody else. You can go to your local mutual aid organization. You can go to your local Black Lives Matter chapter. You can go to whoever. You can go find the people who are doing the work and work with them, and that's fine, because it's still good and it therefore still comes from God. And we don't have to subtly participate or subconsciously participate in the idea that everything good has to come from the church, which is ultimately a colonial and colonizing idea. That is what a church that is going into a country trying to colonize it wants you to think, “Everything good comes from us, so you gotta come here [laughs] for the good stuff. And all those people out there, those are the bad people.”Jonathan Walton: [inhales deeply and sighs] Right. No, I mean, yeah, everything you're saying is true. That was my big sigh there [laughter].All Justice Work Requires Real, Local CommunitySy Hoekstra: So I read a thing this week from Camille Hernandez who wrote a really great book called The Hero and the W***e, which is a look through a womanist theological lens at what we can learn from what the Bible says about basically sexual violence. Fascinating book. Anyways, she was talking about her reading of Mariame Kaba, who I've cited before in this show, who is a famous abolitionist organizer, who basically said a lot of people who have a lot of influence, activists who have a lot of influence, can be sort of confused and unmoored at times like this because they have a lot of influence. They have a lot of people that they can call to go do a march or whatever. But what they don't have is a local community. So like what I was just talking about, taking the few people in your church, if you have a few people in your church and going and doing the work somewhere else, that's your small community.You need people who are on the same page as you, who you love, and they love you and you're there to support each other, and they will ground you in times like this, doing that work together. We'll ground you in times like this and it will give you a way to move forward. It will give you a sense of purpose, it will give you accountability. That's also a fraught word if you grew up in the church [laughter]. But it will give you the good kind of accountability to be able to do the work of anti-Blackness or fight any other kind of injustice, frankly. So that's one important thing.KTF's PACE Guide Will Help You Engage Practically with InjusticeSy Hoekstra: I also think if you want a good framework for how to do things practically when you are fighting anti-Blackness or other forms of injustice, go get our PACE guide [laughs]. We have a guide that we produced a few months ago.If you have signed up recently on our newsletter, or if you want to sign up for our free mailing list, you get it in the welcome email. If you were on our list before a few months ago, you have it in one of your old emails. It's basically a guide for when you encounter issues of injustice in the news or in your everyday life or wherever, how to process it and do something about it in a way that is, actually takes into account your limitations and your strengths, and helps you think through those things and help you kind of grow as you run through this cycle of steps and questions and prayers that we have for you to go through as you are thinking through these things. So PACE is the acronym. You can find out what it stands for and how to go through it if you go get that guide, sign up for our free emailing list if you don't have it. And that will give you a good sense of how to think through you personally in your context, how you can fight anti-Blackness.Jonathan Walton: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: But yeah, on a bigger scale, the reason I'm talking about small things like community and how you personally can work, is I'm not thinking on as grand a scale as what can the church do to end anti-Blackness. Because we're not God, we are not saviors. We are not here to fix everything. God is here to do all those things. So I'm more asking, how do I join in with stuff that's already happening? And again, that's not like a correction to the question asker. It's just where I'm at [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Well no, it's a reorientation.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: I think something that, and I don't know if this is a generational thing, and I think that me being 38 years old, I have been shaped in a certain way to believe and want institutions to answer big questions as opposed to gathering a group of people and having a community instead of an institution. There's still work that God is doing in me around that, in that communities are vehicles for transformation in the kingdom and institutions it seems are vehicles for power in the world. That's something I'm wrestling with myself because I do think that one of the answers to anti-Blackness is beloved community, not as a concept, but like a practical thing. Like we are checking in on each other, we are going out to dinner, we are sharing recipes.Sy Hoekstra: Yes.Jonathan Walton: We are sending memes and funny videos like that. That is actually some aid that can lift our spirits each day amidst an empire that desires to destroy us.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I think a lot of my journey trying to figure out how to do more justice work and follow Jesus, has been asking those smaller questions about what can I do in my own community? Just because I have, you and I, we have limited influence, and we have a church institution that has supported anti-Blackness in a lot of ways and those are just realities. And they're really sad, and the idea that a lot of the church is kind of useless and sort of opposed to the things of God, a lot of people don't wanna accept that. But I think if you don't accept that, you're gonna be running into these frustrations a lot. Like why is the church not doing this? And then trying to find probably solace in just really small things. Like okay, is my church's theology better than yours, or is my… You know, like in things that are not making a difference in the world [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right. Right.The Church Has to Trust in Grace, Not Save the WorldSy Hoekstra: So, I don't know, man. Look, the beauty of the church is not in how good it is. The church is beautiful in the light of Christ, not in the light of its own good work in goodness. The church is beautiful because… the church is beautiful when, not because, when [laughs] it is people collectively trying to put their faith in the grace that governs the universe, and not put their faith in their own ability to bring the kingdom of God into this world. And that's such a hard thing to do. We so wanna make an institution that is good, that is fundamentally good and that we're a part of it [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Well, it's a hard thing to do and accept.Sy Hoekstra: Yes.Jonathan Walton: Because in how we have been cultured downstream of colonization, if there is no effort, then I don't get a gold star, then I'm not included. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean that I'm supposed to play a small part? No, no. I'm supposed to be a star.Sy Hoekstra: I'm supposed to change the world.Jonathan Walton: I'm supposed to change the world, and I'm supposed to build something. I'm supposed to make something. Like we're an entrepreneurial event, we're supposed to do that. And Jesus hung out for 30 years, and then went and got 12 seemingly disqualified people [laughs] to go and do this thing, and then drafted Paul who was woefully unhelpful, the majority of Jesus' journey to then go and take his stuff to the rest of the world. Come on man. This is [laughs]… it's really hard to say yes to that.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: But when you experience it like you were saying, to live in the grace that governs the universe changes your life.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. People who are free of the need to prove themselves by defeating evil, right [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: Lord have mercy [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: That—look, to me that is a beautiful thing. That is one of the things that animates me, that motivates me. That makes me want to get out there and do more. Which is, I don't know, it's counterintuitive. It's counterintuitive to me, but it also works on me. So [laughs] I'm gonna keep focusing on it.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Season Wrap-Up Thoughts, Outro, and OuttakeSy Hoekstra: Do you have more thought—I think that's a good place to end it, Jonathan. I don't know if you have more thoughts.Jonathan Walton: No, I don't have more thoughts.Sy Hoekstra: Okay, great.Jonathan Walton: I appreciate that you as a White person, or racially assigned White person who's aware of their heritage and trying to engage as best you possibly can across this difference, have so many thoughts. I think that is helpful actually.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, good. Thanks. I appreciate that [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And I say that because there's a pastor that I follow, Ben Cremer, he's in Idaho, and experiences that I've had with different leaders, it is exceptionally empowering and feels like a burden is lifted off of my shoulders when people who don't have to carry the burden of Blackness are trying to be thoughtful around how to stop anti-Blackness.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, I mean, ditto ableism man.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: If this is your first episode, I'm blind and Jonathan does the same thing to me on those grounds. And I think that's a lot of why our thoughts in relationship works. I'm not good at taking compliments, so I'm just throwing it back on you [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. No worries. It's all good. If you haven't seen it, somebody should google “Christian Affirmation Rap Battle” where they just try to compliment battle each other. It is amazing. [laughter].Sy Hoekstra: I'm absolutely gonna do that because that sounds like brilliant and pointed satire.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Alright. Thank you all so much for listening. This has been an incredible season, man. I've had a lot of fun. Fun is a relative word [laughter] when we're talking about the things that we're doing. I've had, I don't know, a very motivating and helpful and stimulating time talking to a lot of the people that we talked to four years ago when we started this, who wrote for us.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: If you haven't listened to those interviews, go back in the season, they're really, really helpful. I feel like they're probably even more helpful in light of how the election turned out. And I don't know, I just appreciate this. I feel like it's been fun. We didn't do it this time, but when we're doing Which Tab Is Still Open and adding, talking about some of our newsletter highlights, I've really appreciated that. I feel like it makes the episode very meaty when we have an interview and some other conversation in there too, and I've just liked what we've put out this season. So thank you, Jonathan for participating in that. Thank you everybody so much for listening.Jonathan Walton: Yep. Yep. And I'm deeply appreciative. I think a brief Which Tab is Still Open that I thought was gonna close was our anthology.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, alright.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] I will say we started this four years ago with the anthology and as we're ending this season, the anthology is probably one of the most relevant things.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: The leaders that wrote in it, the contributors to it, that work and those essays, I hate and love that they are still relevant.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, right. Same.Jonathan Walton: …and helpful. If you don't have a copy, you should go get one.Sy Hoekstra: Keepingthefaithbook.com, that's where you can find it.Jonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: Thank you all so much for listening. Remember, get the Substack app to listen to our monthly recordings of the, the live recordings of our bonus episodes. And if you want to get the recordings of those bonus episodes after the fact, or join our monthly subscriber Zoom calls, become a paid subscriber @ktfpress.com. Or get a discounted or free subscription by just writing into us if money is an obstacle. Make sure you add us to your contacts or drag and drop our emails to your inbox if they're in your promotions folder, just so that you can get everything from us that you need. That's how you're gonna get notified if you don't have the app. That's how you'll get notified when our Substack Lives start.Our theme song is Citizens by Jon Guerra. Our podcast Art is by Robin Burgess. Transcripts by Joyce Ambale, and our editing for a lot of this season was done by Multitude Productions. We are so incredibly grateful for them, they have been friendly and fantastic. Thank you, Brandon, our editor.Jonathan Walton: Appreciate you.Sy Hoekstra: I produced this show along with our incredible paid subscribers. Thank you so much. If you are one of those paid subscribers, we will see you next month. Otherwise, we will see you for season five.Jonathan Walton: See y'all.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: A multi disc Encyclopedia Britannica.Jonathan Walton: Basically.Sy Hoekstra: Do you remember those? Did you have that when you were a kid?Jonathan Walton: I, we definitely bought, my mama definitely bought them. You are absolutely right.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: She did. That man showed up with that suitcase and he left empty handed. That was his goal, he made it.Sy Hoekstra: Oh no [laughs]. Oh no.Jonathan Walton: And you best believe we read all them books.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

India, Canada Expel Diplomats Over Alleged Aiding Criminal Acts, Murder https://osazuwaakonedo.news/india-canada-expel-diplomats-over-alleged-aiding-criminal-acts-murder/15/10/2024/ #Issues #Canada #Hardeep #India #Justin #Khalistan #Nijjar #Singh #Trudeau ©October 15th, 2024 ®October 16, 2024 9:20 am Diplomatic relations between India and Canada appeared to have collapsed on Monday as both countries expelled six each other top diplomats following India refusal to remove the diplomatic immunity on some of its Diplomats, Canadian Government suspected to have been involved in criminal acts and murder of Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was agitating for the declaration of Khalistan Republic from India whom Indian security had accused of being a member of Khalistan Tiger Force, KTF, a secessionist armed group that was declared a terrorist organisation by India government in February, 2023. #OsazuwaAkonedo

On today's episode, we discuss the ways our faith has changed as we've grown in discipleship and justice work. Our spiritual practices, as well as our relationships with church, God, and the non-Christian world have all transformed over time, sometimes in surprising ways that would have made us uncomfortable in our earlier years as followers of Jesus. It's a personal and instructive conversation on how to grow up with Jesus that we know will be helpful for a lot of people. Plus, after that conversation we get into the war in Sudan and why it's an important topic for us to learn about and engage with.Mentioned in the episode:-            The episode of the Movement Memos podcast about the war in Sudan-            The link to donate to the Sudan Solidarity Collective via PayPalCredits-            Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Editing by Multitude Productions-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscript[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Jonathan Walton: I'm trying to live in the reality that God actually loves me and he actually loves other people, and that's just true. And to live in that quote- unquote, belovedness is really, really, really difficult in a extractivist, culturally colonized, post-plantation, capitalistic society.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: It's really, really hard when every single thing that I was raised to do goes against, just receiving anything.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton.Sy Hoekstra: This week we have a great conversation. There's no guest this week, it's just Jonathan and I. And we are actually going to be talking about something that we originally were gonna talk to Lisa about in the last episode, but we ran out of time [laughter]. And we thought it would be, actually it was worth taking the time to talk about this in a full episode format. And the topic is basically this, as people grow not just normally in their faith, but also in the kind of work that we're doing, resisting the idols of America and confronting injustice and that sort of thing in their faith, your personal spiritual life tends to change [laughter], to put it mildly. And we wanted to talk about that.It's something that we don't necessarily hear a lot of people talking about as much and I think it's something that people are kind of concerned about. Like it's in the back of people's heads when they start to dive into these justice issues. It's something that I think conservative Christianity has put in the back of your heads [laughs], like your personal walk with Jesus, or your something like that is going to falter if you stray down this road. And so we wanna talk about how things have changed with us, and be as open and honest about that as possible, with our spiritual practices, with our relationship with God, with our relationship with church and kind of the world outside.And then we're gonna get into our segment Which Tab Is Still Open, where we dive a little bit deeper into one of the recommendations from our newsletter. This week, we will be talking about a really fascinating and informative podcast on the war that is currently happening in Sudan that has been going on for about a year and a half. If you don't know a lot about that war, or if you just want some more insight into what's going on there, please stay tuned for that. It'll be an interesting conversation, for sure. So we're going to get into all of that in a minute. I think this is gonna be a really fruitful and helpful conversation for a lot of people. Before we jump in though, Jonathan,Jonathan Walton: Hey friends, remember to go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber to support this show and everything we do at KTF Press. We're creating media that centers personal and informed discussions on faith, politics and culture and help you seek Jesus and confront injustice, that's so desperately needed today. We're resisting the idols of the American church by elevating marginalized voices and taking the entirety of Jesus' gospel more seriously than those who might narrow it to sin and salvation or some other small, little box. Jesus' gospel is bigger than that. The two of us have a lot of experience [laughs] doing this in community and individually.We've been friends for a good long time, and so I hope that you can come to us and trust us for good conversation, dialogue and prayerful, deliberate action. So become a paid subscriber, and get all the bonus episodes to this show, access to our monthly subscriber Zoom chats. You can comment on posts and a lot more. So again, go to KTFPress.com, join us and become a paid subscriber. And if you really wanna double down, become a founding member. Thanks, y'all.Sy Hoekstra: You get a free book if you're a founding member. So that's…Jonathan Walton: You do get a free book.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Because we publish books too. I guess we didn't… we have to tell people that.Jonathan Walton: That's true.Sy Hoekstra: If you're listening, if this is your first episode, you didn't know that. We've published a couple of books.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Alright Jonathan, let's dive in. Let's talk about, as you have grown over the past however many years since you've been doing this kind of work, which for you is what now, 15? No, almost 15.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: More than 15. It's more than 15 years.Jonathan Walton: It's more than 15. It'd probably be like… I was trying to reflect on this. I think I seriously stepped into this stuff in 2005 when I wrote that first poem about child soldiers and sex trafficking victims and was like, “I wanna do this, because Jesus loves me, and Jesus loves all people.” And so yeah, almost 20 years.Sy Hoekstra: Was that “Decisions?” Is that the poem?Jonathan Walton: I think it was actually “Invisible Children.” That poem.Sy Hoekstra: Okay. Literally because of the documentary Invisible Children.Jonathan Walton: Yes. That was the first advocacy poem that I wrote.Sy Hoekstra: So since then, how have your individual spiritual practices changed your scripture reading, that sort of thing? The kind of thing that at one point we might have called our quiet time, or our daily whatever. Where are you at?Jonathan Walton: [laughs] Absolutely. So I do not have daily quiet times. How do I explain this? When the Psalms say, “write the words of God on your hearts that you might not sin against him,” I think with all of us, it's kind of like building a habit. So I read a lot of scripture when I was a kid. I read a lot of scripture when I was a college student. And I think it was because I literally needed flesh and bones on just the air of my faith. And I think literally sitting there and listening to sermons for hours as I go about my day in my room and not study in college, or me and my brother would do [laughs] these weird things because we lived in the South and had nothing to do on this 30-acre farm, is we memorized the entire Charlton Heston film, The Ten Commandments.So me and my brother literally memorized the entire six hour epic that is The Ten Commandments. And so I just had this desire, and I think habit of just like memorizing and learning about God because the context that you're in. And so I think that there was a season in my life where sitting in the word of God was just a regular practice. And now I would say, just to overtake scripture, scripture is for me a process of recall and reflection. Like I have to give a talk next week on racism and racial reconciliation and justice. And if you had said to me, “Jonathan, what passage are you gonna speak from?” Like, because I've studied Genesis 1, because I've studied Isaiah 61, because I've studied Isaiah 58, because I've leaned into John 4, because I'm leaning in to Luke 4, I can grab from any of these places because it's almost like riding a bike in that way. I don't have to ride a bike every day to know how to ride a bike.And so I think if you're sitting there thinking to yourself, “I don't do a daily quiet time,” I don't know that you are negatively impacted. I know that you may be shaped differently, but we don't lose God, just like we don't lose the knowledge of something in that way. So I think Scripture for me has become more of a remembering and reflective process, rather than an active like, “Oh man, I need to know more.” And I think if we do scripture prayer, so let's talk about prayer, liturgy has taken on a more significant part of my life.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: Partially because I've stepped out of the, “let's prioritize this as better” box. So when I grew up in the South, I was like, oh, I go to a Black southern Baptist church, not a Southern Baptist Church. Let's be clear about that.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Spontaneous worship was quote- unquote, the best in my mind. Then I come to InterVarsity and more quote- unquote, evangelical spaces, and then it's like, well, popcorn prayer. Every single person goes individually and we all listen and try not to fall asleep.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And then I go to another place and it's like the quote- unquote, warrior prayer. Like this lion's war prayer. Everybody's praying at once. And that was amazing.Sy Hoekstra: Charismatic.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And it was amazing, but overwhelming. And I would go to these places and say, oh, one is better than the other, when in reality, these are just expressions of God's faithfulness to different parts of his body. And so I think the season I'm in now, I've leaned into the prayer without ceasing, where it's like I am in conversation with God. I can be in prayer just going about my every day, similar to scripture with the riding the bike thing. These are things that I've marinated in, and so I'm riding the bike all day. I might get on the bike in the morning, I might not, but God is an active part of my day. And so I think the last thing just about church and preaching. This is hard [laughter].And some people might get upset with this, but church has taken, the institution; going to, sitting in. That's probably the last thing that I'm still processing. My children don't want to go to church some days, and I have a high value for that. And I have to ask myself, why do I have that high of a value? And Maia asked me, because she was crying, she didn't wanna go to church. She said, “Why do you wanna go?” And I told her, I said, “Maia, sometimes I have a really hard week, and I go to hang out with other believers because they encourage me that God is faithful and I can make it through.” And I said, “Some weeks are good for me, and then I go to church, and someone may be having a poor week, and then I'm able to encourage them to make it through and center ourselves on Jesus.”And I said, “In that way…” I didn't say this this way, but we bear one another's burdens with love. We are able to come alongside each other. And she didn't get it, and that's fine, she's eight.Sy Hoekstra: [laughter].Jonathan Walton: But I recognize that that's actually what I'm looking for when I go to church. And so if that's what I'm looking for, how can I have that in other spaces that my family also feels closer to God as well, so that we can grow together in that way? So I've stopped expecting the pastor to serve me a platter of spiritual goodies every week. [laughter] I've stop expecting this community in some way to be the buffet from which I gather my spiritual authority and intimacy with God. And that didn't used to be the case. It was like, “I got to go to church or I'm wrong. I got to be in the building, or something's messed up with my faith. I might be falling away.” And that's just not true, because I don't forget how to ride a bike. Like it's just not a thing.So, yeah, I would say those big three things of prayer, scripture and going to church have changed. And later we could talk about justice stuff, but those things around just our relationship with God have changed for me.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. It's funny you said the thing that was a big deal to you, the second one was about like the spontaneous worship is the best, or this kind of prayer is the best or whatever. And that it's just so cultural and stuff because I never had any of those.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: I was like it's whatever. Nobody taught me that one… maybe somebody tried to, but it never got really inculcated in me that one kind of prayer or something was better than the other. But the daily scripture reading thing was so… Like you saying, “I don't read scripture every day,” there's still some little part of me that feels like, “Ooh, should he say that?” [laughter]Jonathan Walton: Right. Right, right, right.Sy Hoekstra: And it really just depends on where you grow up. Because a funny thing, like part of the scripture thing for me is, at some point I realized, I was like, “Hey, wait a minute [laughs], for the overwhelming majority of Christians who have ever lived, they A, could not read…”Jonathan Walton: [laughter] Right.Sy Hoekstra: “…and B, did not have access to the printed word.” The only time they were getting scripture was at mass on Sunday. And it's just one of those things where it's an enormous privilege, and we should, I'm not saying take it for granted, but it's something that has not only been not necessary for discipleship, but literally impossible for [laughter] most Christians who have ever lived. It's just an enormous privilege that we treat like a necessity or we treat like an imperative. And the distinction between those two things can be subtle, but it's real. They're not the same thing [laughter].Jonathan Walton: True.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, so for me, I've talked about this in one of the bonus episodes we did, but I'll make a slightly different point about it, which is, I used to, like you sort of alluded to, I used to come at daily scripture reading and prayer and everything from a place of deep anxiety. Constantly trying to stay up on whatever I had decided was the requirement for the day, and then falling behind and becoming anxious about it, and just getting on this treadmill of trying to catch up and then being anxious again. And a funny thing happened when I got into, as we were talking about on our recent subscriber call, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality [laughs] and learned about that anxiety and where it was coming from, and tried to change my relationship to it, and it decreased a lot, I realized when the anxiety went away I started to feel like my love for or even just my care for God, was going away.Jonathan Walton: Huh.Sy Hoekstra: Like if I wasn't anxious that I was reading scripture every day, it's kind of like what I just said, like there's still some part of me that feels like ugh [laughter]. If I wasn't anxious, then I didn't love God, which is kind of dark.Jonathan Walton: It is. Yes.Sy Hoekstra: You know what I mean? It's like putting yourself in a sort of abusive relationship with God and saying, “If you don't keep up with me, then I'm gonna punish you in some way,” or something negative is gonna happen. It was never entirely clear what negative thing was gonna happen to me.Jonathan Walton: Just a threat. Just a threat.Sy Hoekstra: That something was bad. I was gonna backslide in some way. So, yeah, but the amount of time, like on a daily basis, that I spend praying or reading scripture has also decreased, and then anxiety went away. And then I had to get used to the anxiety not being there and being like, “Hey, that's okay. This is actually a reflection of the fact that I now on a much more embodied level, understand that God loves and accepts me.” [laughter] That's a good thing.Jonathan Walton: That is a great thing. Yes, for sure.Sy Hoekstra: Another big thing for me was, this is my change with regard to scripture, is letting the Bible be what the Bible says that it is, as opposed to what the spiritual authorities in my life told me that it was supposed to be. And so that's things like, I had a really interesting experience where I went through this thing called the Academy of Christian Thought. There was this three-year read-through-the-Bible program. It was run by this scholar named Ron Choong, a Malaysian guy who's really incredible. But one of the things he talked about was the idea that every word of the Bible is literally true. And he would go through it and he would say, “Okay, so there are these stories that Jesus tells, that when he tells them, like the parables.Like say, The Good Samaritan or whatever. We understand that Jesus is telling a story here, and whether or not the story itself is true doesn't matter. He's making a point.” It's a sermon illustration, effectively. And Jesus never claims that the stories are true. We're all fine with that. We're not saying if the guy didn't actually get beat up on the road to Jericho, then the Bible's integrity is in question. And he was like, “Okay, so how about the book of Jonah?” He's like, Take the whole thing with the fish and the spending three days in the belly of a fish, which seems scientifically impossible, and then you get… like without dying, whatever. It could be a miracle. But does the Bible ever actually say, does the book of Jonah ever actually say, “The following is a true story?” The answer is, no, it doesn't [laughter].And can you still learn all the same lessons about faith and everything from the book of Jonah if it's not true, like the parable of The Good Samaritan or any other parables Jesus tells? Yes, you can.Jonathan Walton: Right. Right, right.Sy Hoekstra: So does it really matter [laughs] whether the story in the book of Jonah is true? No, it does not. It affects nothing [laughter]. And by acknowledging that, you're just letting the Bible be what it is, which is, it's here's a story. It just told you a story, and whether or not it was true or not is not a point that the Bible makes, and therefore is not a point that matters.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] And so there were a lot of just simple things like that. He was like, The book of Revelation, you do not have to have a perfect understanding of what every twist and turn in that bizarre apocalyptic dream meant. You don't. You don't you don't have to have it. Because the Bible never tells you that you had to have it [laughter]. It just says, “Here's a dream from John,” and then it tells you a bunch of stuff that happened [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. It's true.Sy Hoekstra: And so it's like there was a lot of that that I thought was extremely helpful and allowed me to then use my mind. And then people would come back with the verse in 2 Timothy, “All scripture is God breathed,” and et cetera, et cetera. And [laughs] Ron would just be like, “That was literally written at a time when the New Testament was not canonized, and half of it was not even written yet.” [laughs] So it's like, what scripture is God breathed, you know what I mean? [laughter And also, does God breathed or trustworthy for instruction, does that mean the book of Jonah's literally true? No. [laughter] Like letting the Bible be what the Bible is was important to me, and understanding…We talked in that episode with Mako Nagasawa about how sometimes translations of the Bible differ from each other in significant ways, and we picked which one we followed, and that's just a reality [laughs]. And you can still have a very high view of the authority of Scripture, it can still guide your life, it can still be an authority, it can be all those things, and you can acknowledge realities, and your faith doesn't fall apart. That was a big one for me [laughs]. A lot of that also has to do with letting go of the need to have everything under control in a perfect little box.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Which is a very… was just a real White way of thinking about it to be frank [laughs]. We must have our systematic theology, and everything must be clear and tied up neatly. So the last thing for me, I think, is just knowing that the way that God speaks to people changes over time. And so like I know there are ways that I could be going back and trying to find the things about my early faith that were really exciting and new and gave me these big spiritual highs, and a lot of those things just don't happen anymore. And I see that as I get older, there are so many people I know like that. And there are so many, there's such a range of reactions to that from people who are like, some people are totally comfortable with the fact that God changes how he talks to people over time.And that even happens in the Bible. People hear from God in different ways, in new ways. And there are some people who are like, can lose their faith over that. They can panic, and it's like, “I'm not hearing God the way that I heard got at one point,” and I guess the possibility of change is not there [laughs]. And so it's like, if I'm not getting that same experience, then something has gone terribly wrong or whatever, and I need to get back there. I would just really encourage people to drop that way of thinking [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely.Sy Hoekstra: It is okay if your relationship with God changes, the way that you communicate with God changes.Jonathan Walton: There's nothing healthy about a plant that stays the same size over year's time.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, exactly.Jonathan Walton: Man.Sy Hoekstra: Alright, Jonathan, you talked about this one a little bit already, but I wanted to talk about our relationships with churches and the institutions of churches. Did you have more to say on that, or was…?Jonathan Walton: Well, yeah. I think something that is intriguing to me, and I dabble in thread and Facebook debates sometimes just to ask questions.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And just as an example, and friends, I again, in the just modeling the growth and change and willingness to ponder in a way that doesn't shake my salvation, I'm gonna try to model that. And so a question that came up for me yesterday while I was on threads, there's a man named Eugene Kim, who I've just followed for a little while.Sy Hoekstra: He's a pastor, right?Jonathan Walton: He was a pastor, and he is a pastor now, but they just launched this thing called the Wild Fig organization. And so essentially, they're trying to decentralize the church and say, there are lots of people who follow Jesus and wanna organize in ways that are transformative and help for them in their walks with God. And we just need to figure out a different way of credentialing people than getting folks organized around this man who we believe is God named Jesus.” And there's another thing like this out in Seattle called Dinner Church, where a church sold their building, and they have 25 dinner churches where people come to church to have dinner, and they just eat and talk about God, almost like they did in Acts. Whoopitty.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And so that's what they're doing, and they're actually putting pastors in these house churches just to be present at these dinner churches. And so there are people who would say, “No, we cannot do that.” Like, I remember sitting down with a pastor in New York City who was just like, “Jonathan, I don't think that you should do campus ministry, because it should be done in the church.” And I was like, “Oh, well, I think this meeting is over.”Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: “And I hope you pay for this food.” But all that to say it's like, that was one conversation. Another conversation was like, “If you do that, what about the traditions of the church?” All of these things. And I'm like, I hear you on the tradition, but why are we choosing to model some things from Acts and then saying other things we can't do anymore? Seems like the Great Commission commissioned all people to baptize. Seems like the Great Commission commissioned all people to… like 2 Corinthians and the model about how to take communion. I don't see where that says I can't do that at home, because they were done in homes. So all of this. Some people say that's great, some people say you can't do that.But when I was specifically looking at the Wild Fig network yesterday in this threads conversation, someone said, “You're doing a heretical thing, you're breaking off. And if you wanna join anything, just go back to the Catholic Church, because that is where it all began.” And I thought to myself, and this is a genuine question, and I haven't seen his response yet, but I said, “Did Jesus come to build the Catholic Church?” There may be, very well be an argument for that that I'm not aware of because I'm not Catholic. Right?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, there definitely is [laughs].Jonathan Walton: There definitely is [laughter]. And so I am wondering what that means, as someone downstream of colonization, abuse, violence and oppression, coupled with the Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, and every other Western faith, political faction that decided to join themselves on the colonialist project, I wonder if Jesus came to build the Catholic Church. And there's 1500 years of arguing about that and making that case to be true. At the same time, I'm like, 1 Corinthians one, when Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, he says, “Some might be for Paul, some might be for Cephas, which is Peter. Some might be for Apollos, but the reality is, we all need to be for Jesus.”So if this person is making an argument against pastor Eugene Kim, I'm like, “Why are you saying he can't go do that? What's the goal?” Because if Eugene goes and baptizes a thousand people, and all these people come to faith and it's an amazing thing, what is the loss for the kingdom? You know what I mean?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Well, so here's the loss. I still don't think this is correct, but the loss from the Catholic perspective is you only can experience the fullness of the revelation of the Spirit of God within the Catholic Church. That is where it happens, and it happens nowhere else, and it cannot happen anywhere else.Jonathan Walton: Now see, okay, this is where I would push back ridiculously hard.Sy Hoekstra: I mean, me too, but yeah [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah, and using Peter, Peter in Acts chapter 10 has a very specific way that he thinks the Spirit of God is being revealed. And God blows that wide open first with a vision for him. The sheet comes down, look at this three times, three times, three times. Then the same thing for Cornelius. And so if we try to limit the spirit or movement of God, we will fail. So why do that [laughs]? There's so many points in scripture where God is breaking through in ways that we cannot fathom or recognize.Sy Hoekstra: Amen to that.Jonathan Walton: And so, I think the thing about the church, I'm like, it's evolving for me, not in the Darwin way, but just like a development. Because to be like, “Oh, evolution,” because we have these wrong conflations in our brain. But my faith is evolving, but I'm not moving farther away from Jesus, and that includes the church. Because similar to you, I would say I am closer to Jesus than I was when I was 17 years old… 16 when I got thrown across the parking lot on a motorcycle, or 19 years old when Ashley told me to follow… Ashley Byrd, me and Sy's staff worker for InterVarsity, invited me to follow Jesus. I'm still close, I'm closer to Jesus than I was then, and I've been a part of very different churches and all those things.So my relationship with God is predicated on my adoption into the capital “C” Church, not the specific church on my block in my neighborhood, or where I gather with folks. And so I'm grateful that the rapture catches all of us and not just insert your denomination here.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So for me, I am less engaged than I used to be, but that's because what I used to do was let Christian community and Christian programming activity take up the vast majority of my free time, because I thought we had something to prove as a community. You know what I mean? Like, I thought you had to be, it's a little bit vague what I thought I think, or a little bit blurry to me now. But it was something along the lines of, some interpretation of the idea that we're the hands and feet of Jesus, or we are here to testify to him and his goodness as a community. That meant that you had to be super involved in your community. You had to be something to prove the worthiness of God, basically.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Which is completely the opposite of what I now think, which is that no matter what your community is, the fact that God loves you is the proof of the worthiness of God [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: You don't have to prove nothing. Similar to my quiet times and everything, it took a lot of the pressure off of my need to be involved in religious activity, and therefore it decreased, but not in like a I'm leaving the church way, just in what I think is a healthy way [laughs]. I am now very suspicious if I go to a church and the consistent thing that they are telling people to do in terms of discipleship is just get more involved in that church's programming. As opposed to being something in their neighborhood, or trying to turn outwards in some significant way. That, to me, is a big ol' red flag. I'm constantly now thinking about what is reasonable to expect of a church, versus what I would have want a church to ideally be.I think this happens to everyone as they grow up a little bit, is you start to see the inner workings of a church and how just very ordinary and sometimes petty and gross, it can be.Jonathan Walton: [laughter] Ordinary, petty and gross.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. It's just another fallen institution [laughs]. And people have all their own little individual problems, and some of those problems are big and some of them are small. And it's just not that different than any other organization. And that is disappointing if you think it's supposed to be this shining beacon on a hill, which is actually a metaphor for the kingdom of God, and not your individual neighborhood's church [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yes, yes, yes.Sy Hoekstra: Scripturally speaking. I think about that balance more, like what can I reasonably expect versus what would I ideally want this institution to be? And from what I've talked to, like Christians who are much older than me, that never changes. That's the mature way to go about [laughter] looking at a church. You just, you have to do it that way, and not just think of the church as this thing that needs to be something that is like this shining example to the entire world of how to do or be something. And this is especially true in a context where we have the idols of empire built in. I have to go to my church in New York City in 2024 and I have to recognize this is a culture that is filled with greed and self-interest.And so odds are, this church is also going to be filled with greed and self-interest. So what can I reasonably expect from this church [laughter]? That's part of it. And again, it's just reality. It's sad. It's a thing that I had to work through emotionally. But it is also a reality that you have to come to terms with.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: I'm much more ready to walk out of a church when I hear nonsense than I used to be [laughter].Jonathan Walton: I'm just willing to go. Thanks.Sy Hoekstra: Which I don't necessarily… that doesn't even mean like leave the community and turn my back on everyone. I just mean if I hear some nonsense from the pastor, I can go home, and that's okay [laughter]. And I've done that a few times. I had this one pastor a while back who just got on a streak. I don't know what happened, man, but it was this one month where at maybe two or three of the sermons he just said some stuff that was super ableist. I don't know what happened. He never even talked about people with disabilities before, and all of a sudden it's like, got to bring disabled people up all the time. You got to say really nonsense, insensitive, ridiculous stuff.And there was one time I just left. I was like, “I'm gonna go to the bathroom.” And then I came out of the bathroom and I was like, “Actually, I'm not going back in there.”Jonathan Walton: [laughter] Right. Yes.Sy Hoekstra: I just remember looking at the door back into the service and the door to leave the building, and the choice could not have been clearer [laughter]. It was like a hundred percent of me wants to go this way, zero percent of me wants to go that way.Jonathan Walton: Brunch with Jesus. I'm gonna leave now. Yeah, that makes sense.Sy Hoekstra: Alright, Jonathan. Last question. How have things changed between you and the rest of the world [laughs]? The people outside of the church? How are you thinking differently? I'm sure there's a lot to say here, but…Jonathan Walton: Lord have mercy. Okay, so I can be friends with non-Christians…Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Not every woman in the world, their primary relationship to me is I shouldn't sleep with them.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, I see.Jonathan Walton: So either this woman is my wife or a temptation. Like that…Sy Hoekstra: Oh, I got you.Jonathan Walton: This is a human being made in the image of God that I am incomplete without on this side of heaven [laughs]. Like God desires shalom between me and her or them. It's a group. Also, it's very possible to be generous to people, and if it doesn't go against my taxes, it's still a great thing to give to. Friends, there's so much crap in that, and I wanted to say the other word.Sy Hoekstra: Churches make a big deal out of that your gift here will be tax deductible or whatever [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And institutional giving or whatever, and you're just like, “No, actually, I can tithe to the guy on the corner who needs a sandwich.”Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely. I also think that, along with the every, I can be friends with non-Christians, and this is still actually hard for me, is I can learn from people that don't believe in Jesus the same way I do.Sy Hoekstra: Is it hard for you? Because I think sometimes, like we were talking about Valarie Kaur the other day, the seek prophet who says amazing things and you were…Jonathan Walton: Yes, yes, yes. So here's what I mean by that. And I think my wife is the one who challenges me on this.Sy Hoekstra: Okay.Jonathan Walton: It's very different to learn from someone online and through their books, but she said, “Jonathan, when you have relationships with people, intimate relationships with them,” she said, “It doesn't register for me as you're talking with them, Jonathan, that you want to learn from them.” And I'll also be really honest, my pastor told me this. When I first met him, he invited one of his friends over, and we wanted to have this conversation. And I asked him, I said, “What was that like for you?” And he said, “Well, it seemed like you were not interested in getting to know us. You just wanted to know what we thought about these things.” And that to me, is something that I'm like, oh.I believed, past tense, and I'm still working through that, I think my relationship with God is based upon my utility to people around me, and if I'm not useful, then I'm not valuable. And if I believe it about myself, I'm gonna reflect that outwards.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And so, something that bothers me that I'm still working through is, how can I be in relationships with people and learn from them, and not require them to change or grow in some way or become or believe like me, those things would probably be the biggest, but that last one is probably… I mean, all of those I'm still working through, but that last one is the most potent right now as I try to make friends and be in community with people. What about you? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, the friends with non-Christians thing is funny to me. The specific thing for me is that I'm not trying to, it's similar, I'm not trying to convert and change everybody. There was a while when I was young kind of late teens or early 20s, where I literally thought just every interaction I had with a non-Christian had to be toward the end of making them a Christian at some point.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And I now realize that ensuring the salvation of anyone, including myself, not my job [laughs]. No one ever said that was my job in the Bible, at least. And my job is to talk about the truth, like talk about what has happened in my life, but that's all I got to do. Just talk about it [laughs]. I got to testify to the truth, and that does not mean that I need any individual person ever changes as a result [laughter]. That is not part of my job. I want people to know Jesus, but that's different than thinking that everything I do must be toward some end of like, honestly kind of manipulating people into [laughs] that, which is the constant evangelical tendency, hell being the biggest manipulator. “Do this or you will be tortured forever,” and framing it that way.We're constantly framing things in terms of manipulating people to just be one of us. I don't do that anymore. Thank goodness [laughs]. And stuff like that that makes me, I look back and I'm always like, I don't think that anything I was involved in actually meets the definition of a cult. But there was some cult-y aspects of it, for sure [laughs]. There was some stuff in there that was [laughs]9 weird in terms of how you related to other people. I'm much less suspicious to the rest of the world. I don't think the rest of the world, kind of like you said about women, just anybody in general, isn't trying to tempt me out of something or send me down a wrong road, which then allows me to enjoy, not just learning from people like you said, but also just beauty and joy in places that I couldn't, I wasn't allowed to find it before.A result of all that is people are no longer projects to me. This is all very similar to what you said, actually. So I think those are my main ones. And I said the last thing was the last question, but I actually did have one more question written down here. Do you wanna [laughter] go through that one too, or no?Jonathan Walton: I mean, I think we've talked about this a lot where it's like, your last question being, how has my relationship and view of God changed?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And what I would say is… and you said this way back in the podcast already. I'm trying to live in the reality that God actually loves me and he actually loves other people, and that's just true. And that can be my posture bent orientation to the world at all times. And to live in that quote- unquote, belovedness is really, really, really difficult in a extractivist, culturally colonized, post-plantation, capitalistic society.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: It's really, really hard when every single thing that I was raised to do goes against just receiving anything.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] I mean, that's why the grace of God is confounding. But all that to say, I think I'm trying to live in that. And I think teaching my children that has taught me that more than anything.Sy Hoekstra: Early on in my faith, one of the seeds that I think God planted really early on was, and I've talked about this before. I had a lot of trouble with the idea of hell when I was considering following Jesus. And the way that that got resolved for me was to stop, I stopped asking questions about the unfairness of the idea of hell, because I came to trust Jesus as a person and say, “Whatever thing is going on there with these problems, with the unfairness of hell that I have, Jesus did something to himself. God did something to himself in the form of the cross that was also extremely unfair [laughs], actively harmed himself in order to get us to trust him.” You know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Actively harmed himself, is maybe a weird way to put it. Like, lived in such solidarity with us as humans, and especially as oppressed and vulnerable humans, that he died and had some terrible spiritual fate that people characterize in different ways, depending on what denomination you're from or whatever, happened to him [laughs]. And that then makes me trust him and ask questions about, why would God do this to God's self?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Why would God do this to himself, as opposed to, why would God do this to us? And I decided to follow and trust Jesus before I really had answers, or had passed through all the different theologies of hell or any of that stuff. And so the seed there is talking about truth and talking about faith as trust in a person, and not as belief in specific doctrines or trust in specific doctrines. And I've leaned way into that. That's the thing that has grown over time and has replaced a lot of the anxiety and trust that I was putting in other things that were either of my own effort, or what other people told me I had to believe or whatever, is trust in God the being, like the spiritual entity with which I have actually interacted and I know and I love.And that part of my faith has just grown, I think, exponentially, and has allowed me to be okay with things I don't understand. And I have long term things that I don't understand, that I do not have answers to that make me uncomfortable. And still be okay with that [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes, because it's about a relationship, not perfect understanding at all times.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And if you trust God, you don't have to understand all things, just like we trust people, even though we don't understand every single thing about them.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, which is different than trusting God as a replacement for understanding [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So let's get into our segment Which Tab Is Still Open, where we dive a little deeper into one of the recommendations from our newsletters. And remember, you can get our newsletter for free just by going to KTFPress.com, and signing up for our mailing list. You'll get recommendations on articles, podcasts and other media from both of us on things that will help you in your political education and discipleship. Plus you'll get reflections to keep you grounded and hopeful as we engage in this challenging work together, news about what's going on with KTF and a lot more. So go get that free subscription, and if you want to, you should become a paid subscriber at KTFPress.com.So this week, Sy, we're gonna be talking about the war in Sudan. Can you summarize the main points for us?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, sure. And I know there are some people who know nothing about this war, so I will give kind of all the basics here. Basically, Sudan has been at war for about a year and a half, since April of 2023. And it's between two state-armed factions, one is the regular military, and the other is kind of a paramilitary force that was set up at one point that were supposed to kind of integrate into each other, and instead they were fighting over power. But what they had done previously together was to suppress the popular uprising that began in 2018 and it was to oust the longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir, and it had started as these organizations called neighborhood resistance committees all over the country.It's a little bit tough to document how many of them there are, but they're these highly localized, very fluid groups that don't have a single leader who are doing all kinds of political organizing at a local level all around the country, coordinating with each other incredibly well, and also providing mutual aid and humanitarian aid as this war goes on. They basically organized these sit ins where they had, I mean, I don't remember the numbers, a ton of people in Khartoum trying to get rid of, Khartoum is the capital, trying to get rid of al-Bashir, and they successfully did it. And then they had a whole plan to transition to an actually civilian-led democratic government, but they were sort of beaten back by military and this other paramilitary group in a coup in 2021.So there was an attempt for a couple of years to really transition Sudan to a democracy government accountable to the people, and it did not work because of this counter revolutionary coup. And so the resource that I had was this podcast from Truthout that's called Movement Memos, and they were talking to two members of the Sudanese diaspora in Canada who, one of the main points they were trying to make was that this is a counter revolutionary war. A lot of the media will portray it as a civil war, and really it is forces fighting over who gets power after basically pushing people down. Racism is a big part of the context of this too, because a lot of the elites, the military and the paramilitary elites, and everybody who's in charge of the country are Arabic. Like ethnically or racially Arabic. And a lot of the people from the South and from the resistance committees who are part of the revolutionary groups are Black.So I think a lot of the reason that we haven't talked about this is the US is not directly involved. There are things that the US does that create some problems, like the sanctions that we still have on Sudan. But the reason everyone needs to care about this is, first of all, about fifteen or sixteen thousand people have died, which is not on the same scale of death as Palestine exactly or whatever, not to minimize those deaths or anything, but they have created the largest displacement crisis anywhere in the world. There are more than eight million people who have been displaced by this war. There's famine and starvation happening. Surrounding countries are refusing refugees. In some cases, Egypt has been doing this for some time.The guests of the podcast are really saying that these neighborhood committees are the people who need outside support the most, because there's, a lot of the NGOs and everybody have fled. So amidst this humanitarian crisis, these people on the ground doing this mutual aid are the only people keeping people alive. And they actually gave a link, which I will provide, to an organization called the Sudan Solidarity Committee I believe. I can't remember the last word. Sudan Solidarity something, where you can just donate money directly to these resistance committees. They're getting it to them via PayPal, and people are just dispersing it as needed. And it's direct giving. It's nothing paternalistic.You're just giving them money, and they're doing with it what they need. And apparently a lot of the Sudanese diaspora is trying to support this group, but they can't do it on their own, and a lot of them are struggling with their own, all the financial issues that come around immigrating to other parts of the world. So yeah, we'll have the link for that in the show notes. Jonathan, that's a lot of information I just gave. I just kind of wanna know what it is that you think about this whole situation, your reaction to it, anything about the podcast that you thought was interesting.Jonathan Walton: So one thing that's really important to me is history. And fortunately, whether we're talking about Gaza, whether we're talking about Haiti, whether we're talking about Hawaii, whether we're talking about any of these places, really anywhere that colonization has touched, there's a history.Sy Hoekstra: Yes. They get into that in the podcast too.Jonathan Walton: They do. They get into it in the podcast, because history, we need to understand how we got here to be able to make something different. And what I thought was normal and revolutionary is what the scholars who are participating and being interviewed and things like that, have done with their education. So the folks they're interviewing got their education here in the West with a mind for liberation of their own people, but not their own people, understanding how this racially assigned group downstream of colonialism called Black is basically undergirding the entire economy in the world for the last 350 years. We have to engage with that as a reality, that Africa as a continent can hold the United States, China, Russia and Europe in it with room to spare. The second largest rainforest in the world is in the Congo.We've got these huge, massive amounts of resources in Africa, not just but also including its people who have been enslaved in various ways by various groups for the last 400 years. So it's helpful just that background that was provided, and then how that trickles down into then conflict in Sudan.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Can I just note one interesting fact that they've mentioned?Jonathan Walton: Absolutely.Sy Hoekstra: That I don't think we think about a lot, is when the colonial government left Sudan, they just vacated 800 government administrative positions or something. I can't remember what the exact number was. It was hundreds. They just vacated them. They did nothing to transition them. They didn't find people to fill them. They just left them empty [laughs]. And what do you think is gonna happen when you just create a massive power vacuum like that, with no transitional plan? You get a dictator, shocking. You know what I mean [laughs]? You get a dictator doing the exact same thing that the colonialist government that came before it did, which was effectively be a dictator.Jonathan Walton: Absolutely. Because whoever had access to power post the colony is the people that colonizers empowered the majority of the time. Those educated folks, those are the people with power and resources. And so what do they do? We do what's been taught to us because we're hundreds of years removed from our own ways of leadership, our own matrilineal, patrilineal, or communal ways of governing and dividing ourselves and working together. And so all we have is the master's tools, as Audre Lorde would say. And so I think that connection to history, the connection to globalized blackness, and then just the ridiculous amount of coordination that I think, in the United States and in more resource places gets minimized, but in order, and this is where I might, “Oh, Jonathan, you're a Marxist,” and da da da.But let's lean on the reality that something Ta-Nehisi Coates said, and something will come up in the newsletter is, the way that we organize ourselves and the way that we exist together in the world is not inherent. We need to have nations that do X, Y and Z. That's a young system. Sharing is as old as we are, and so could we as followers of Jesus, as people who want to see beauty, love, justice and all these things flow in the world, just connect with our neighbors in ways that are transformative and helpful to say, “You are going through something, let me leverage my creative capacity and imagination to create ways that you can get what you need?” And I shared a video on Instagram today of a young woman named Taylor was sharing from North Carolina.She said, “If we can precision bomb people in a building a world away, we can precision guide food to people who need it.” We can do that. And so what I am empowered by, Munther Isaac said this similarly with what's happening in Gaza, when you are forced to be creative, that is where Jesus is, and that's where we can learn. And I think followers of Jesus like me in Bayside, I'm like, “Oh it's so hard for me to buy nothing and figure out this free thing and do this and do that.” And it's because I could just go to Target. I could just order on Amazon, but we don't have to do that. And I was emboldened and encouraged and empowered by the creativity, because I wonder what would happen if we learned from these people.Instead of creating a new way to do things when there's a crisis, we could actually create new ways to do things before the world is just destitute. And so I'm praying for the folks of Sudan. I wanna share [laughs] the ways to give. I'll probably sign up to give myself and then just would God move in us the way he has moved in them to mutually help and care for one another amid such destitution.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. One of the things that the guests said about the neighborhood resistance committees, that I thought was really interesting was, they were like, these committees are running services. Like they're providing food. In a couple cases, they actually took over abandoned hospitals and reopened them, found doctors and staffed them and get supplies there, whatever. They are running the country in a way that these paramilitary organizations are not. And they are out there actively proving we don't need these people [laughs]. We don't need these people, we can run the garment ourselves[laughs]. We can run the country ourselves. We have the energy to do it. We need the resources to do it. We could do so much more if there wasn't so much violence and displacement and poverty and famine.But yeah, that kind of imagination, that kind of, you're right. That kind of necessity has created in them just an incredible capacity to share and to love each other, frankly. And I also hope that we learn from that. But at the same time, that's why they've seen so much violence and repression, is because they are threatening the power structure. And not only that, but when they were doing the sit ins a few years ago, and they ousted Al-Bashir, there were other countries starting to look to them for similar resistance. There are people in, like they mentioned specifically in the podcast, there're people in Lebanon looking at Hezbollah and going, “Could we do something about this?” [laughs]People in other countries are actually looking to these Sudanese organizations. And so the ruling power structures have to shut that down. And it means that there are other countries involved in helping them shut it down. So it's like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and other countries that are not interested in seeing revolutions like this [laughs] are involved, are providing weapons, are doing all kinds of things and just interfering in a regional way, in the way that we as the US are used to doing globally all the time.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: This particular conflict, the US doesn't see as being as closely aligned with its interests as say, defending Israel, or now empowering Israel to go invade other countries.Jonathan Walton: Yes [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Which is what has just started as we are recording this. I'm sure we'll have more to say about that.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: So go listen to this podcast. Go read more about this conflict in the media. The reason we wanted to bring it up is, I didn't wanna become the thing I'm critiquing and not talk about Sudan just because it doesn't affect the US. But man, the media is not talking about Sudan when we should be. So please go listen to this podcast. The link will be in the show notes, please just go learn more. Give if you can. They're asking for 10 Canadian dollars a month, which is like 7.50 US [laughs]. So please, if you have some money to spare, there are people in desperate need of it who are doing very good things with it. Alright, I'm gonna wrap us up there. Thank you so much for listening today. Jonathan, thank you for a great conversation, as always.Jonathan Walton: Absolutely.Sy Hoekstra: Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. Transcripts by Joyce Ambale. Editing by Multitude Productions. And the producers of this show are the lovely paid subscribers. Again, please consider becoming a paid subscriber at KTFPress.com, get all the bonus episodes of this show, join our monthly Zoom calls, comment on our blog, on our Substack, and more. Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you in a couple of weeks for what I think will be the… yeah, will be the last show that we do before the election. So we'll be talking more about some current affairs then, and doing a great interview. So we will see you in two weeks.Jonathan Walton: Stay blessed y'all.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.] Jonathan Walton: That was the first advo—like [sound of something repeatedly hitting the mic hard]whoa, hit the mic [laughter]. My first quote- unquote, advocacy poem that I wrote, for sure.Sy Hoekstra: But can you say that again, just without laughing or hitting the mic [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, and slapping the mic? Yeah. This is a public episode. 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Today, we're talking all about the recently-released Confession of Evangelical Conviction:-        What the confession is and what it says-        Why we signed it and got involved promoting it-        How the American church got to the point where a confession of very basic political theology like this is necessary-        And after that conversation, we talk the many layers of Christian nationalism involved in the debacle at Trump's recent trip to Arlington National CemeteryMentioned on the episode:-        The Confession of Evangelical Conviction, and the associated resources-        The video we produced to promote the confessionCredits-            Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Editing by Multitude Productions-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscriptIntroduction[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Sy Hoekstra: When we first started doing this work and we published our anthology, we went on a couple of podcasts about it. A common thing that people asked of us at the time was, where do you think the White American church, where do you think the like 81 percent of the church, the White evangelical church that voted for Trump is going? And the first time I said it, I sort of surprised myself and I was like, look, it's being cut off the vine for not bearing good fruit and thrown in the fire. There's been a long time coming of a divorce, like a complete split between White evangelicals in America and followers of Jesus.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton.Sy Hoekstra: We have a great show for you today. We're doing something a little bit different. We are talking about a bit of a movement, a little, a confession that we have signed onto that we're a part of that we're producing some media around that you may have seen by the time this episode comes out. And it's a confession of sort of evangelical faithfulness to Jesus in a political context. And it is probably a little bit off the beaten path of kind of some of the political commentary that we normally engage in. And we wanted to talk to you about why we think it is a good and strategic thing for us to do during this season, give you some of our thinking behind how we kind of strategize politically and think about ourselves as part of a larger theological and political movement.So I think this will be a really good conversation. We're also gonna get into our Which Tab Is Still Open and talk to you about Christian nationalism and whiteness through the lens of Donald Trump doing absurd things at Arlington National Cemetery [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: But we will get into all of that in a moment. Before we do, Jonathan Walton.Jonathan Walton: Hey, remember, if you like what you hear and read from us at KTF Press and would like for it to continue beyond the election season, I need you to do two things. Go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber. Now, you could also tell other people to do that as well if you've already done that. We've got a ways to go if we're going to have enough people to sustain the work, but we think it's valuable, and I hope you do too. So go to KTFPress.com, sign up, and that gets you all of the bonus episodes of this show, access to our monthly Zoom calls with the two of us and more. So again, KTFPress.com. Become a paid subscriber.What is the Evangelical Confession of Conviction, and Why Is KTF Involved?Sy Hoekstra: All right, Jonathan, let's get started in our conversation. We've signed onto this document called The Confession of Evangelical Conviction. We've produced some media around it. First of all, what is it and what does it say?Some Basic Political Theology That We Need to Restate at This Cultural Moment with UnityJonathan Walton: [laughs] Well, I think the question of what it is, it's words [Sy laughs]. Like there's these things that we put together, it's words. And I think the reason that it's powerful is because of when and how it's said. And so these are basic confessions that every Christian should believe, but it seems like the reason that we're doing it right now and that I've signed onto is because there are seasons when the discipleship and formation of the church needs to be plain and centered. And so being able to say, “I give allegiance to Christ alone,” and then have that be reverberated across denominations, across movements of quote- unquote, Christians around the country that are usually so disparate, they usually don't communicate, they usually disagree with each other in very public ways, to say, “Hey, hey, hey.”We need people to understand who don't follow Jesus, that when Gandhi said, “I like Christ, I don't like Christians,” that's part of the problem. We are part of that problem. Where we don't articulate what we know, what we believe, what we know to be true. I think this is an articulation of that, speaking particularly to a cultural and political and social moment that needs the clarity that Jesus can bring.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So this is just to get into the weeds of it. It's a confession signed by I would say, the sort of extreme ends, at least to the people that we know about right now, I don't know who's gonna sign it in future, but center-right to more progressive left. And the basic confessions, like the seven statements of the confession are, “We give our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. We will lead with love, not fear. We submit to the truth of Scripture. We believe the Gospel heals every worldly division. We are committed to the prophetic mission of the Church. We value every person as created in God's image.” And “We recognize godly leaders by their character.” So this is very basic theology [laughs] like you said. And you got a little bit at why it matters to put this out there, why we are involved. I agree with you. I think it's more about the context and it's also about who is saying it more than it is about the content.Because, and by the way, we should say we are giving you our reasons for signing this and why we think it's important. This is not… like there's a group of people that were involved in writing it, so there's lots of people involved who we don't know precisely why they signed [laughs] or precisely why the people who wrote it decided it was necessary. We're talking to you about our opinions. So to me, if you have something that says we pledge our allegiance to Christ alone, that's a rebuke of Christian nationalism to me.We judge godly leaders by their character, that's a rebuke of people who argue that Trump is a godly leader or a leader who has been appointed by God in some way or another. So those are important things to say. And it's with people across a pretty big spectrum of, as I said, the political range. Would Jonathan and I go a lot further than this if we said what we thought is important for political discipleship? Yes, we would, and you know that, because you've heard our other episodes. Or if you haven't, go listen to our other episodes [laughs]. We would go a lot further than that, yes. But we think, I think it's good to work with a broad range of people during a political campaign.Reaching a Broad Audience and Pushing the American Church to ChangeSy Hoekstra: Like I think when you're talking about discipleship at a moment when tensions are extremely high around theology and politics, it is good to do these kinds of things where you are trying to scale your efforts.Where you're trying to reach as many people as possible in the hopes that you will change some minds, both so that they will more faithfully follow Jesus, and in this specific context, so they won't vote for Donald Trump. That's one of my personal reasons for being involved in this [laughs]. And that's how you do campaigns in general. That's how campaigns operate. You try and call as many people as you can. You try and put commercials out there as widely as you can toward your targeted audience, whatever. Not in the hopes that the vast majority of the people who see it are going to suddenly be like, “Oh my goodness, I agree with everything you say,” but in the hopes that you'll reach enough of the people whose minds you can change to make a difference in their decision when it comes to November.You will reach them and you will start to be one of the people who affects their choices, is what I'm trying to say. So I don't know, that's kind of the strategy of it from my point of view. It is a similar way of thinking to me from the anthology. When we published the anthology four years ago, it was different because we were letting people say their own beliefs. And it was people from all over the spectrum kind of saying why they weren't voting for Trump in whatever way they saw fit [laughs], on whatever topic they saw fit. That was our approach. But this is the way some other people are going to do it, and we're gonna be happy to work with them in that way.Jonathan Walton: I think for me, I see the political strategy of it. I see the strategery that's happening, to use a word from SNL. My hope is that…Sy Hoekstra: From SNL 25 years ago [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. My hope… [laughs]. It was such a great sketch. “Strategery,” it was so good. “I'm the decider” [Sy laughs]. So I think one of the things that stands out to me, particularly in reviewing it more and assign it and then come on board, is, I hope that this is a Belhar Confession type moment for the United States and followers of Jesus. Particularly, because when we look at the Dutch Reformed Church, the Dutch Reformed Church was the theological backbone and framework for apartheid in South Africa. They gave the covering for those things to happen. It gave theological and moral legitimacy to a movement that was oppressive, violent, exploitative, and un-Christian at every level. Because there are Christian leaders who are willing to say, “You know what? This is really good. This is actually right. This is good and just, and God intended this.” And we have the exact same type of nonsense happening in the United States.There are quote- unquote, prophets and apostles and preachers and teachers and publishing houses and Amazon independent book publishers rolling out materials that say, “America first.” America is the kingdom of God. America is the kingdom of heaven. America is this baptized land on the earth, as opposed to being a land that is rooted in land theft, genocide, violence, patriarchy, greed and exploitation. Which it is that. It's actually not the kingdom of God at all. And so I hope that this creates a groundswell that goes beyond November 5th and beyond January 20th. And could this be a pivot point of orientation for people who followed Jesus to say, “You know what? Actually Jesus didn't say any of that.” If all of these people, right, left, middle, above, otherwise are saying this, maybe I should consider. “Oh, Randall Balmer said that, and Mercy Aiken” [Sy laughs]? “Shane was there too? Alright. Shane is on the same page as Curtis Chang and Sandra Van Opstal? Alright, let me jump in and get on this.” That's what I hope happens, is that it becomes impossible to avoid the question of allegiance to Jesus, or allegiance to the United States. Just like in South Africa the question was, are you pledging allegiance to apartheid or are you gonna follow Jesus?Sy Hoekstra: I totally agree with that. And I would say that it is 100 percent in line with the sort of premise of this podcast, which is helping people shake the dust and walk away [laughs] from the places where the word of God is not accepted as Jesus put it. And you let your peace return to you and you move along on your way.Jonathan Walton: Yes.How Did We Get to the Point Where This Confession Is Necessary?Sy Hoekstra: So let's actually talk about that thing that you were just saying. The thing where all these people from these different walks of life are coming together to make this specific statement at this time. How did we get here, aside from the obvious thing that Donald Trump is very good at uniting people who oppose him [laughter]. How did we get to this point in the church in America?Jonathan Walton: I think we need to narrow the scope a little bit.Sy Hoekstra: Okay.Jonathan Walton: Of how we got to this point, I think I would start at Acts 2 [laughter]. But, and then the church and then the alliance with the empire to escape persecution. Constantinople like Nicea, I mean…Sy Hoekstra: Let's focus on America.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, let's focus on the United States.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Zoom in a little bit.The Moral Majority Took Us Very Far down a Path Away from JesusJonathan Walton: I think that one of the pivot points in the United States is 2008 in the ascendance of Barack Obama. With Barack Obama, you have what was roiling and starting with Al Gore, but like can Christians vote for Democrats and still be Christians? Because with the ascendance of the moral majority, with what Randall Balmer talks about this coalescing around abortion as a position, and then the policies laid out by Jerry Falwell. And there was a conference in 1979 in Houston. Lots of organizations came out of that gathering. And so when those types of things occur, I think we are living in the wake of that wave, but that wave wasn't really challenged until 2008 when many, many, many, many people said, “Oh, I wanna vote for Barack Obama.”And so with the ascendance of Obama, then the question particularly among the Black community from evangelical Christians is like, can you be a Christian and vote for Obama? And that was talked about extensively in Tamice's book, Faith Unleavened, which is amazing. And that scene that she describes of the dissonance between the White evangelical church that she was sitting in, and the conversation she was having with her grandma on the phone, who she called Momma.Sy Hoekstra: Where her family was having a party because Obama had been elected and her White church was having a mournful prayer service.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I think a lament session basically, for the United States being now overtaken by a demonic force. And so I think if we start there and move forward, like if this was a ray coming from a point, then the line actually starts to diverge from there, from the center point. And now we are actually so far apart that it's very, very difficult to justify what's happening. So if we're at our end points right now, we have followers of Jesus legitimizing sexual violence by saying Trump is fine. You have followers of Jesus legitimizing fraud, saying that that's fine. You have followers of Jesus legitimizing insurrection, saying that's fine. We are way, way down the road and very far apart from these basic confessions.And so I think people that are co-opted and indoctrinated by Fox News and the conservative White evangelical and conservative Catholic and conservative… because there's a smattering of Christian movements that have so aligned themselves with political power that it is very apparent even to non-Christians, that this is not Christ-like. And so I think for us, similar to the church in South Africa, to say, “Hey, we need to just make very plain every person is made in the image of God, and you shouldn't enslave, violate and steal from people.”If we could articulate that and do that, and have a movement around that, then I think that is how we got here, is that basic tenets of following Jesus have stayed the same, but forces, institutional, the powers, the principalities, and also people who chose to align themselves with that have taken the ball and run so far down the road that even people who don't follow Jesus and folks who just have basic biblical engagement are seeing that this is just not the way. And so I think followers of Jesus across the spectrum are starting to say, “You know what? This is a moment that we can actually speak into.”The White Evangelical ChurchA Divorce between White Evangelicals and Followers of JesusSy Hoekstra: Yeah, I agree with all that. I think, I mean, look, when we first started doing this work and we published our anthology, we went on a couple of podcasts about it. A common thing that people asked of us at the time was, where do you think the American church, where do you think the like 81 percent of the church, the White evangelical church that voted for Trump is going?” And the first time I said it, I sort of surprised myself, but I was like, “Look, it's being cut off the vine for not bearing good fruit and thrown in the fire.” That's it. There's been a long time coming of a divorce, like a complete split, I think, between White evangelicals in America and followers of Jesus.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: White evangelicals have had a whole long history of being involved in, as you said, in the exact same way that the Dutch Reformed Church was involved in apartheid, just being involved in everything. Every [laughs] terrible thing America's ever done, we've been there cheering it on and supporting it in all kinds of ways. And I think a lot of what Trump in particular, and it's sometimes a little bit hard to put my finger on why it was him, but Trump in particular, I think highlighted to a lot of Christians who viewed themselves as kind of like just nice, gentle, center right Christians who were a part of a larger movement where maybe there were some people who were a little bit off the deep end, but overall, these institutions and these people are trying to accomplish good things in the world and follow Jesus faithfully, realized that that wasn't the case.I think there are a lot of people who realized that they actually had opinions about what it meant to follow Jesus that were dramatically different than the average person in their institutions, or the average evangelical Republican.Policy Debates for White Evangelicals Have Been a Cover for Power HungerSy Hoekstra: Peter Wehner, I think would be one of these people, who writes for the New York Times. He was a George W. Bush speech writer. He recently wrote an article saying, “Look, Donald Trump has explicitly said that if you took one of these super restrictive state abortion bans and you passed it in Congress and you put it on my desk, I would veto it. I would not pass a national abortion ban.”Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Which for the pro-life movement, that's the end goal. That would be [laughs], that would be the thing they've been fighting for for decades [Jonathan laughs]. And he has said, “I will not sign this.” And do you hear anything about that from Franklin Graham [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: So Al Mohler was on the Run-Up of the New York Times this week, when you listen to this probably like two weeks ago, talking about how, “Hey, Donald Trump just said he's not gonna sign a national abortion ban. What's your position on that?” And his position hasn't changed, because again, it is framed as you all are the radical people, not us. We are the victims, not you. There's a constant revision of reality that they are gonna continue to turn out and communicate that is rooted in fear and a lust for power and control and dominance. And that is toxic as all get-out, and obviously un-Christian.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, that was the end of my point, was that a thing that people have been arguing for a long time, which is that, this focus on abortion, this focus on prayer in school, or this focus on whatever the evangelical issue of the day is, has in fact been about power from the perspective of the leaders.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Maybe not the rank -in-file people like marching and the March for Life or whatever.Jonathan Walton: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: But the leaders are after power, and they always have been. That's what, if you go back a couple years to our episode with Mako Nagasawa, the first episode of season two where we talked about abortion. That's what his whole book is about, is the history of abortion policy and how it's almost never been about abortion. It's almost always been about something else like anti-immigrant sentiment or professionalizing the medical profession or whatever. It's always been about some other issue of people trying to establish themselves and gain power over somebody else. That's what I think a lot of people are realizing, and so a lot of people who are, I think more to the right in the group of people who have signed this document that we have are on that journey, like are in the middle of it.Or not in the middle of it, but they've been going on it for a few years and they've been rejected by who they thought were their people for saying things like, “Hey, should we maybe adhere a little more closely to the teachings of Jesus?” [laughs] And now they're saying, okay, they've gotten to a point where they're like, “I need to draw a line in the sand. I need to make something clear here.” And that I think is different. That is genuinely different than eight years ago when everybody was, a lot of people in the middle were just kind of waffling.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Yeah, right.Sy Hoekstra: Were not really sure what to do yet. And they still viewed the people on the far right who were all in for Trump as possibly a minority on their side, or possibly just something like a phase people were going through. Something that would flare up and then die, and it just didn't turn out that way. I think that's kind of how I view a lot of how we got to the place that we are now.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Again, zoomed in on America and not looking at the entirety of church history, which is where you wanted to go [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And I mean, and I'll name some of the people that are key to that. So, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, like her book Jesus and John Wayne, Jemar Tisby's book, The Color of Compromise. And we could also throw in some Christianity adjacent, but loved by them books as well. So like all of the quote- unquote, anti-racist books, where people who are trying to leave the race-based, class-based, gender-based environmental hierarchy that White evangelicalism enforces, like I wrote about that in Twelve Lies as an explicit book. But you could say that Ibram X. Kendi's book is trying to get away from that. That White Fragility is trying to get away from that. That all of these books pushing back against [laughs], what now is called like Trad Wife and all these different things, it's trying to push back against these things. They're trying to call people to another reality because the one that some people have found themselves in is deeply unhelpful and not Christian.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I feel like that's been like you're refrain of this podcast. “And also, not Christian” [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Not Christian. Right.Sy Hoekstra: And not Jesus.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Do we have any other thoughts on this subject, or do we want to jump into our segment?Jonathan Walton: I just think people should go sign it.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah.Jonathan Walton: And there's a fun bible study there that [laughs] we talked about two weeks ago on the podcast and spread the word about it. I think it's gonna be a good thing.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, the link to the website, the people who organized it, Jonathan said, “Hey, you can put the Bible study that we talked about in our last episode up, if you want a place for people to go to scripture on these subjects.” And they did.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: So that's cool. We will have the link to the confession in the show notes, as well as the link to the video that we created, which has a bunch of the signers of the confession reading parts of it, which we would love it if you would all share as widely as possible on your social media, and share the confession as well. We hope that this, as I said, changes somebody's hearts and minds, has some good effect on some people both in their discipleship and in their politics, which is what we're all about.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Amen. There's actually a worship album that came out too. So along with Phil Vischer's cartoons for kids that can be shown in churches, there's a Return to Love album by a bunch of folks that you all may know like Will Matthews, Crystal Lewis, Ryan Edgar. These are folks that have led worship in great places that the evangelical world has followed for a long time. And so having worship leaders willing to call us out as well is pretty great. Along with Phil Vischer, because these videos will definitely be great for kids.Sy Hoekstra: Is that worship album already out?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, it's out right now [laughs]. You could click on it.Sy Hoekstra: I don't know how they did that that fast. That's incredible [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Hey man, listen. There's a thing called the Holy Spirit.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And I think we all know that when Jesus moves, Jesus can do some things.Which Tab Is Still Open?: Trump at ArlingtonJonathan Walton: And so let's get into our segment, Which Tab Is Still Open?, where we dive a little deeper into one of our recommendations from the newsletter. And remember, you can get our newsletter for free by signing up for the mailing list at KTFPress.com. You'll get recommendations on articles, podcasts, and other media from both of us on things that will help you in your political education and discipleship. Plus, you'll get reflections to keep you grounded and hopeful as we engage in this challenging work together. News about KTF and what's going on, and a lot more. So go get that free subscription and a paid one too. Alright. So this is your recommendation, so let's jump into it.Sy Hoekstra: This actually has a lot to do with what we were just talking about.Jonathan Walton: Yes, it does.Sy Hoekstra: This is all about Christian Nationalism [laughter]. And Trump kind of stepping in it when it comes to dealing with his Christian Nationalist followers. So here's the story, and the article that I recommended in the newsletter was actually, it both gave the details of the story, but it was actually for me, an example of kind of the thing that I was critiquing [laughs]. It was an Atlantic article, and basically the facts of what happened are as follows. Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery, which if you don't know, is I just learned the second, not actually the largest, the second largest national cemetery in the country.Jonathan Walton: Oh. Huh.Sy Hoekstra: The largest one's on Long Island, Jonathan, I had no idea.Jonathan Walton: What!Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Yeah.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] I did not know that.Sy Hoekstra: So the people who are buried in Arlington are soldiers who served in active duty. Some of them died, some of them were retired and passed away later. And then like very high ranking government officials, like Supreme Court justices or presidents or whatever. So Trump went and visited a specific spot that had I think 13 soldiers who died during the evacuation of Afghanistan when there was a suicide bomb attack from the Taliban.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And he did this basically to highlight Biden administration screw ups. You didn't handle this evacuation well. And so because Harris is part of the administration, he's criticizing his opponent. And he went and took some pictures, which is fine, but he then was like specifically taking pictures in this area and like narrating a video talking about Biden screw ups and everything. And an employee of the cemetery pointed out correctly that campaign activities are illegal under federal law [laughs] at Arlington National Cemetery. And they kept going anyways. And they got in a little bit of an argument with her, and then later to the press said that she is mentally ill and was having a mental health crisis in that moment, and that she needed to be fired.And, fortunately the cemeteries said, “No, that's all a lie, and she was correctly telling you that you shouldn't have been doing what you were doing and et cetera.”Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: But there were a number of people, and I don't know if this is a majority or anything like that, but there were actually some Trump supporters who viewed this as a violation, like something that Trump really shouldn't have done. He was being disrespectful to the dead, the troops who were there, by doing partisan stuff at the National cemetery. It was not necessarily about the things that he was saying, but just by conducting yourself in a way that you're not supposed to conduct yourself at a national cemetery.Sy's Experience with Arlington and it's Strong Christian NationalismSo here's my in for this. I have a very long history of military [laughs] service in my family. Somebody in my family went on Ancestry.com one time, and I have a direct ancestor who was a drummer boy in the Continental Army with George Washington [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Oh, wow.Sy Hoekstra: And somebody who enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. And my great-grandfather was in World War II in Korea, grandfather was in Vietnam. And my grandfather who was in Vietnam, he died when I was about 10. My grandmother remarried a very highly decorated army colonel also from Vietnam, who he passed away and we had a funeral for him at Arlington. And Arlington does like 20, 30 funerals a day. So if you're a rank-in-file soldier, it's like a very, it's an in and out thing [laughs]. But because of either his rank or his awards or both [laughs], it was an event, Jonathan. It was like, we had the bigger, more beautiful chapel, and then we had a procession, because I can't see, I can't tell you how many it was, but at the very least, dozens of soldiers with a commanding officer taking his casket from the church to the burial site, there was a 21-gun salute. There was the presentation of the flag with the shell cases from the 21-gun salute to my grandmother. It was a big thing.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And if you've been to Arlington, you know that one of the key messages there is that the people who served America and the army served the kingdom of God, served Jesus. That is what they did. They served, and they may have died serving heaven [laughs] effectively. And so what that means is this is one of the holiest sites for Christian nationalism. This is one of the places where you go to be reassured with some of the highest level, like some of the world's greatest pomp and circumstance. The world's most convincing showing of pageantry and religious activity that the United States Army and the people who died serving it are also serving God, which is, you can't get more Christian nationalist than that.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Which is also why we have talked about Christian nationalism, actually far more common than people think it is [laughs]. It is absolutely normal in how we talk about the military. So what I think happened here with Trump is that because what I believe about Trump is that he's a conman to the core. He is pure... he's like self-interest incarnate [laughs]. He is out to promote Donald Trump and nothing more, and nobody more than that.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: I think he forgot that his self-interest can actually diverge from Christian nationalism [laughs]. I think that he forgot that he can step on his people's toes in a way that he doesn't want to. And he's basically going to look out for where those things diverge in future in order to not have this happen again. Because he's just there doing what he does, which is promoting himself anytime, anywhere at all costs. And he forgot that one of the things that he harnesses, which is Christian nationalism, is not actually something that he believes in, and so he can misfire [laughs]. The irony to me is that I want to gain enough power to do anything and not be held accountable for it to better myself in my own position, is a pretty good summary of how kind of the operating principle of the US military in our foreign policy has been for so long.So it's actually, it's like [laughs], it's two entities, a former president and the US military kind of clashing in their basically excuse making for their own unaccountability and their own sin. Which is how I view the Christian nationalism of a place like Arlington. What I just said Jonathan, is [laughs] blasphemy to a [laughs] lot of the people that I probably, to some people that I know personally. So I will just acknowledge that. But that is what I believe, and I think is true to the Bible. So hopefully you can at least give me that credit [Jonathan laughs]. Jonathan, boy, did I just talk for a long time. I'm sorry. I actually had in the outline that I wanted to ask you first what your thoughts were before I went on my rant, and I just couldn't help myself. So, [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Well, Sy, I mean…Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan, what are your thoughts?Jonathan Walton: I think one, I just appreciated the explanation of the closeness, why it's still open for you. Because I think when I was writing Twelve Lies, I wrote about the military, and I wanted to say, “Oh, they're only going to these types of communities to get people.” That would've been my hypothesis or was my hypothesis, but the research proved different.Sy Hoekstra: And when you say that, you specifically mean exploiting like poor Black and Brown neighborhoods?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: You're saying like, “We'll get you into college, we'll give you benefits, et cetera, if you come fight and die for us.”Jonathan Walton: Exactly. And so…Sy Hoekstra: Potentially die for us.Jonathan Walton: Right, there's this exchange that's gonna happen for your body. Whether alive or dead, there will be benefits and resources for you or your loved ones. And so I went in with that lens, but what my research showed me was that the majority of people who serve in the military are family. Their parents were in it, their grandparents were in it, their cousin was in it. It's actually like only about two percent of the United States population is affiliated with the military. We're recruiting from the same groups of people. And this would also be true for law enforcement. People who were in it essentially raise their children and bless and send them into it as well as most often. It's not actually about income.The income, if I remember correctly, was between 50 to 70 thousand dollars a year in a household, which in a rural area is at the time, 10 years ago, felt like a living wage. And so that reality was also something that's interesting for me. So when Trump came out against Mark Milley, when Mark Milley challenged him to say, “Hey, you will not use me, quote- unquote, the military, as a prop in your racism, standing in front of St. John's church holding that Bible up,” which was literally the distorted cover of our book, our anthology, because these things were happening. When he insulted John McCain, that was a moment where the military and I think those who are beholden to Christian nationalism tried to speak up. Tried to say, “Hey, we won't do this.” But then the ball continued down the road.I don't know what the fallout of the Arlington stuff will be, but I do know based on Up First the NPR podcast this morning in the morning that we're recording September the seventh, they said the military and the employees actually let this go. But the reason they brought it back up was because Trump got on Truth Social , used platform and stature to say, “This did not happen. There was no altercation. This person had a mental health episode.” And when you go into that, that's where I think the, “We will not be disrespected” thing kind of came up. Like what do you mean? No, we're gonna talk about this and we're gonna name that. You will not desecrate this holy site. Holy in holy site of Christian nationalism, as you were saying.So I hope that there are more people that are offended, because I think that if we allow ourselves to be offended, to be bothered, to be uncomfortable, then maybe there will be some movement. Because I think you're absolutely right. He is, you said self-interest incarnate. I think that is a great quote [laughs].Trump Cheapened the Spiritual Cost People Pay to Be in the MilitaryJonathan Walton: What's painful to me, so I too have, my father was in Vietnam. My brother was in the Navy, my uncle was in the Army. My other uncles were in Vietnam. And Brodnax, the town where I'm from, has many gravestones from Vietnam and Korea. And so what is fascinating to me is the level of belief that you have to have to commit acts of atrocity or commit acts of violence. Like Shane Claiborne would say, we were not made to kill people, you have to be taught to do that.And I am in no way condemning a soldier or a person who's in military service, who's listening. That's not what I'm saying. I'm observing, it costs us something to do these things. And I think the thing that Trump did was cheapen the cost that many, many, many thousands of people have paid for something that they thought was a collective interest blessed by God when Trump said, “No, you are a pawn in my game. And I will use you for my benefit.” Now you again, you will have people that say that's what's happening anyway. Trump is just doing in like what everybody else does behind closed doors. But I think that tension that he articulates or brings up for us, I hope it's allowed to rise to the surface, and then we can have a conversation about the cost.Like the silent war in the military right now is that even soldiers who have not seen active duty are committing suicide. I hope it brings to the surface the, like my dad, Agent Orange ruined some of his life. They're still figuring out what the effects of that were. You have people who are saying they support troops in one hand, but then voting against resources and benefits for them in the other hand, when the legislation comes up. Lauren Boebert did that yesterday. I hope that the perceived belovedness of our veterans and military versus the reality of how they're exploited and taken advantage of and dismissed and cast aside, we would actually acknowledge that and then do real work to ensure that they don't end up on the street.They don't end up stuck on painkillers. They do get the medical resources they need. They do get the mental health support that they need. Their families do get the resources that they need on and off-base and not just a discount at the PX. If that could be the conversation because of this, then I'd be very glad.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Just one more thing you said there. You said lots of people use the military as pawns and it's true. Or like props for their campaigns. It is just another one of those things about Trump where he will just do what everybody else did, but he'll turn it up to 11 [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah, no, yeah. It's true.Sy Hoekstra: Everybody else, every politician, if they have a military background, if their family does, if they can visit a military site or whatever, they do it all the time. And even if their love for the military or for America is real, it is also true that they use them for their campaigns [laughs]. Use them to prop up. That has been… since we elected George Washington, the general of the Continental Army, has been true [laughter]. Right?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So Trump is just the one who says, “Whatever your rules of decorum are, I'm going to break them.” And in most cases, that is actually his appeal. “Yes. I break rules of decorum and there's no consequences. And that's because these elitist can't tell me what to do and we need to take back power.Jonathan Walton: Oh Lord have mercy, Jesus [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: You need someone like me who can just break through all this nonsense.” You know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Right. Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: That's usually his appeal. And in this case, it just happened to be that he crossed the wrong line for some people. I'm sure there's a lot of people who probably don't care [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right. It may not wrangle a lot of people, but I hope it wrangles the right people.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And him stretching out this poop that he stepped on and not wiping it off his foot and continue his campaign, I hope that roils people. He is a disrespectful person.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And for Christians, literally James chapter four, it's that God opposes the proud. We are called to be humble people, and so I pray for Trump. I pray for his family. Not that he would win an election and all those things, but literally that they would come to know Jesus. Literally that they would know the freedom in him. Literally, that they would be able to experience the freedom that money cannot purchase and privilege cannot provide for you. And so I say all these things in hopes that everyone who is watching what happens is disquieted because we should not be comfortable with what's happening. Especially as followers of Jesus [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Amen to that Jonathan. Amen.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: I think we'll wrap it up there. Just as a reminder, as we finish, please again, go to KTFPress.com, get that newsletter and sign up as a paid subscriber to support everything that we do. We're centering and elevating marginalized voices. We're helping people seek Jesus in their discipleship and in their politics. We really do need some more support than we have right now if we're gonna make this sustainable kind of past this election season. So please do come and sign up as a paid subscriber at KTFPress.com. Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast Art is by Robyn Burgess, transcripts by Joyce Ambale, editing by Multitude Productions. I am the producer along with our lovely paid subscribers. Thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you in two weeks.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Give me one second. One moment. I'm gonna get the name right so that you don't have to go edit this later [Sy laughs]. … So yes, we… Robert Mohler. The—Richard Mohler. Al Mohler. That's his name [Sy laughs]. Al Mohler [laughs]. It says R dot Albert Mohler. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

Today, our episode's all about discipleship around political engagement, based on a series of Bible studies Jonathan and his team at his real job recently created for this election season and beyond. Some points we hit:-        Why it is essential for our political action to understand  we were not created for this world-        Why followers of Jesus won't overemphasize the importance of political victories and losses-        The reality that we are all connected to each other and God desires everyone's political liberation-        And, after that discussion, we dive into a recommendation from one of our recent newsletters on the fallout from Israel's torture of Hamas operativesCredits-            Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Editing by Multitude Productions-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscript Introduction[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Jonathan Walton: If we are clear-eyed about the brokenness of the world, I would love for us to be as clear-eyed about the bigness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't think our concept of sin and our concept of redemption is actually mature enough to deal with the problems of the world.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Jonathan Walton.Sy Hoekstra: And I'm Sy Hoekstra. I'm so excited about what we're gonna be talking about today. We have concluded our series of interviews with authors from the anthology that we published in 2020 about Christianity and politics in the era of Trump. For the next several five or six episodes until the election, you will be hearing more from the two of us. We'll probably have a couple more interviews, but it will not be from those authors. But today, we are jumping into something that I think is very core to what we do at KTF Press. We're talking about political discipleship and how the ways that some stuff that we maybe in some churches relegate to the realm of personal salvation, like the incarnation and the death and resurrection of Jesus, actually have a whole lot to say about how we engage politically. But before we get to all of that, Jonathan.Jonathan Walton: Remember, if you like what you hear and what you read from KTF Press, and would like for it to continue beyond this election season, please go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber and encourage your friends to subscribe as well. We've got a ways to go if we're gonna have enough people to sustain this work, but we believe this work is valuable for us and for you, and so we hope that you do too. Go to KTFPress.com, that'll get you the bonus episodes of this show, access to monthly Zoom chats with the two of us and more, but only if you are subscribed. So again, go to KTFPress.com, subscribe today.The Bible Studies Jonathan's Team Created about Christian Political EngagementSy Hoekstra: All right. So Jonathan, this conversation is actually coming from some work that you are doing in your regular job with InterVarsity. First of all, remind people what you do with InterVarsity [laughter], and then tell people about these resources that you've produced and kind of what the goal of them is.Jonathan Walton: So I'm a Senior Resource Specialist with InterVarsity. And what that looks like is when there are some significant problems, then those things get sent up to the discipleship and leadership team to think about, and one of the things in our sandbox is political discipleship. And so for the last six months, we've been working on a curriculum that folks will be able to use to not just see and seek Jesus during this election season, but actually be formed into people who can see Jesus on the seat in our image as a seat of a stool with three legs, and on the seat. The Lord over our feelings, over our thoughts, over our actions, is Jesus. And so this five part Bible study really leans into that and prayerfully will push people to make that decision, to say, “Oh yes, if I'm a follower of Jesus, then my orthopathy, my orthodoxy and my orthopraxy will be under the Lordship of Jesus.”Sy Hoekstra: You just said three big words. I think a lot of people know that orthodoxy kind of means right belief, and orthopraxy kind of means right practiceJonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: Orthopathy, what does that mean?Jonathan Walton: Orthopathy, which most of us function on is our feelings and passions. So what does it look like for us to actually say, “I feel uncomfortable, I feel afraid, I feel sad.” And instead of acting out of that feeling and then forming a theology that justifies our actions that were based on our feelings of fear or anxiety or discomfort or loss of control, we actually said, “Oh, I feel afraid of this,” or “I feel uncomfortable about this, but I can actually put that fear, that discomfort, that anger, under the seat of Jesus,” and be able to have our thoughts and actions be in line with the kingdom of God, and not just in line with our deepest wounds or whims.Sy Hoekstra: Okay, so that is some helpful context. You have created these Bible studies as part of your job as a resource developer, and we will have links to those Bible studies that are available for free online. So if you wanna do a five session Bible study with a small group or whatever, you can go get Jonathan's stuff and talk about politics with your small group, which I think everybody should be doing right now [laughter], at least if you live in the United States. Not everybody that listens to the show is in the United States, but for all the Americans, go do that, please. Oh, and actually, sorry you didn't write these. You were part of the team that developed these.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: The actual writing was done by other people, but you were very involved in the process.We Were Not Created for This World, and That Affects Our PoliticsSy Hoekstra: So let's get into one of the main ideas here, which I think is, let's talk about some of the implications of the idea that we were not created for the world that we live in. This is kind of a big deal I think, in your thinking, and I would like you to tell us what, first of all, what kind of world were we created for, and then what does that imply for our politics?We Were Created for a World Where Everything Existed in HarmonyJonathan Walton: One of the things that gets lost in most of our theology about the quote- unquote, fall is that we don't engage as much with what the world could have looked like if we had not, quote- unquote, fallen. And so I like to think about every possible thing in the world that is broken and not working well, what if it had been working just fine? So let's imagine for a moment that work, like Adam and Eve in the Garden doing the stuff, was good. Like work was good. Let's imagine for a moment that a man never blamed the problem on a woman, and a woman never blamed the problem on the man. Let's imagine a world free of shame, jealousy, deceit and blaming. Let's lean into that slim window in Scripture and that slim window and stories that were passed down for generations, and generations where there was no deceit.We could know one another and be known. We could forgive, because I don't imagine that no one got hurt, but I imagine though, is people were quick to forgive and quick to ask for forgiveness. To be able to live in harmony with the world, that includes that big Shalom theology, where there's peace in me, there's peace between me and others, there's peace between me and creation, there's peace between me and God. There's reconciliation, there's Shalom there. And so since we do not have that world, the world that we currently live in is one that we will have constant dissonance with.We Must Be People Who Rejoice When Empires FallJonathan Walton: So fast forward all the way to Revelation 18,19, and 20, when quote unquote, Babylon, or the Empire is destroyed.And there are people that are weeping over Babylon, and there are people that are rejoicing that Babylon has been destroyed. Followers of Jesus need to be in the camp that says we are rejoicing that Babylon is destroyed. Hallelujah, salvation and glory be unto our God. If we are those people that say, “Ah, you know what? We're so sad that all the spices and all the products and all the slaves are no longer being brought to our shores to serve us,” then you suffer under the judgment of God. The judgment of God says these systems are unjust. A lot of followers of Jesus and other folks don't like to talk about the judgment of God, but I will be honest, I am totally fine talking about the judgment of God when talking about destroying unjust systems and structures in the world [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: Like Jesus, let that come as quickly as possible. So in Amos via Martin Luther King, how most people recognize it, let justice roll down like a mighty stream. That's what we are talking about. When these systems of injustice and violence are washed away. We were not made to be exploited or to exploit other people. We were not made to dominate, destroy, rule and violate. That's not what it is. And so that's what I mean when we say we should have dissonance with this world that we are in because we were not made for this nonsense that we experience regularly.Sy Hoekstra: And then our politics should reflect that dissonance.We Should Not Be Seduced by ColonialismJonathan Walton: Yes. Our politics should reflect that dissonance, and what we should not do is be seduced by coloniality. And here's what I mean by that. Aníbal Quijano, who was a Peruvian sociologist and scholar on coloniality, talked about the seduction of European colonialism, such as that, even though you take colonialism away, we cannot imagine ourselves independent of that colonized structure being in place. And so if we look around the world, the sun never set on the British Empire in that way, there are entire people groups including Black people in the United States, who it's very difficult to imagine life outside of the stratified, segregated society that we find ourselves in.And so for me, I think when we think about our political systems, and we talked about this before on the podcast, one of the things we need a radical revolution of is imagination. Like to be able to imagine a different way of share, like mutual aid, reciprocity. Being able to say, “You know, what? What if I'm not a wage earner in a society, I am still valuable.” Sy, you've talked about this in your essays about disability. Like, what would it look like for us not to see the CEO and the kid with down syndrome as equally valuable for God, even though one of them contributes more to the GDP, like we need to lean into that. And so when we make decisions in politics, we actually need to wrestle with that dissonance as opposed to trying to impose a perfect will in an imperfect world, because it will not exist or come to pass.We Should Always Be Unsatisfied with Political Outcomes, and Be Aware We Don't Control ThemSy Hoekstra: Yeah. So I think one of the things that you and I have talked about that is basically how we will almost always be unsatisfied with the decisions and the activity that we engage in in politics.Jonathan Walton: Yes, and that is okay [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, exactly. Right. That's part of it. You should be that way, is what we're saying.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: You shouldn't be someone who votes wholeheartedly like, what I'm rejecting right now is people who are just like, “Yes, Trump is God's man. We're with him 100 percent. He's gonna do all the stuff we need him to do.” There isn't really a Christian equivalent to that on the left, or I would reject that as well, if anyone was saying that same thing with that same level of fervor about Kamala Harris [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: But well, we'll talk about how there is still some idolatry on the left, but we'll get into that nuance in a second. I just want to emphasize this point, that it's the lack of satisfaction with our votes and the lack of satisfaction with outcomes of activism isn't just what you should expect, it's reflecting a reality in a good way [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: That you are not… you know what I mean? You're always going to feel that tension because you were made to be loved and treated with justice and kindness and generosity and to do the same for others, and that is fundamentally not how our system ever works.Jonathan Walton: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: We will know that we don't have control over the systems that we have. We should know that [laughs]. We should go into our political engagement with that in the front of our minds, that we don't control the outcomes, and we shouldn't be surprised when they don't come out exactly the way we want them to. But again, when we were talking about this, another thing you pointed out was we also don't have control over God and how God affects the outcomes that God wants to affect [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: We don't know how that's going to happen. So a political loss for us does not necessarily mean anything about God or God's plans, right?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: So that is kind of the hopeful other side of that coin that I was just talking about. And that doesn't mean by the way, that we don't make clear decisions in certain contexts and be like, “No, this person is absolutely better than this person.” I have no problem saying that. You know what I mean? I feel like sometimes when you talk about being a citizen of the kingdom, there's a lot of like, especially White Christians, who will say that kind of means that we should never really judge anybody's choices at all [laughter], and I fully disagree with that [laughs], because in a given context, someone can be much better than somebody else. They're just not perfect.We Should Want to Make Things Better in Small Ways and Do as Little Harm as PossibleJonathan Walton: Well, the only other thing I'll say, and this actually may apply to later questions in the conversation as well. But I had a conversation, I was one of the keynote speakers for the Community Boost nonprofit leaders conference this week. And one of the speakers, she was on the panel I was moderating, her name is Jennifer Jones Austin. She's the Executive Director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare organizations in New York City.Sy Hoekstra: Gotcha.Jonathan Walton: She used to have a position in corrections in New York City as an advocate [laughs]. She said, “It is my job in this space,” holding her faith in all these things she possibly can, she said “This system is toxic, it's broken, it is terrible, and in so much as I can, I will prevent all harm that I can. And if I also could do incrementally better, then I will do that, knowing full well that this is not the kingdom of God, and I will be wholly dissatisfied with all the things, even the progress, quote- unquote, progress that I'm able to make.” And I think that is a sobering embrace of the realities of where we stand as followers of Jesus who are able to and in so far as we are willing to actually participate in the change of the systems and structures that we are in.So that's Priscilla with education. She is going to [laughs], in Jesus name, do as little harm as she possibly can and make as much progress, quote- unquote, progress as she possibly can.Sy Hoekstra: This is your wife, who's the principal of a school for people who don't know.Jonathan Walton: Yes, and I've recognized also that this is me within InterVarsity, an evangelical organization in the United States that fully participates in the system of this country. Like philanthropy is broken, giving is broken. We all know these systems will not usher in the kingdom of God. At the same time, we are called to participate and reflect the kingdom of God as best as we can. And so I think as we vote, as we enter in, as you were saying, we do not have control over the system, we do not have control over God, but we do control if we are obedient to him and faithfully wrestle with what it looks like to follow him in context. Because, as Munther Isaac, Palestinian theologian, prophet, amazing person said, a theology without context is irrelevant, and we are doing our best to live out of theology in our context.Sy Hoekstra: Both of us saw him speak last week, or I guess when you're hearing this, it'll be two weeks ago at Riverside Church, and it was incredible. And one or two of the things Jonathan has said so far, are certainly inspired by Reverend Isaac. If you look at our newsletter from the 23rd you can watch the entire talk on YouTube. It's incredible. I really suggest everyone does it. When Jonathan says he's a prophet, that's not…Jonathan Walton: Oh, I'm not joking. Yeah [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: It's not an exaggeration. It's like the word prophet is something that gets thrown around a lot, and it can be grandiose when you apply to certain people. This man fits the bill [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Why Christians Shouldn't Overemphasize Political Wins and LossesSy Hoekstra: Okay, so let's get into another point that we were talking about that I think is important when it comes to political discipleship, especially in this moment of heightened tension in the election. Which is there are so many ways that understanding yourself as a citizen of the kingdom of God makes you less likely to overemphasize political victories and losses. And you can err to one side in the way that Trump does, which is what I was talking about before, or the way that Trump supporters do, where they can say, “Trump being elected will basically be our political salvation [laughs]. We will be fine. Our power will be given back to us the way that we deserve, our enemies shall be defeated,” etcetera, etcetera.But like I also said, there are ways that the left does this and there are ways that the right does this when it's not Trump and we're not in a sort of cult of personality situation. So can you talk to us about what overemphasizing political victories and losses looks like, and why understanding the kingdom helps you avoid doing that, making that mistake?Our Hope Is Not in Political Victories or Material ProsperityJonathan Walton: Yeah, absolutely. So I think the way the right predominantly does this is using salvific language like, “We are going to save you.” And so there's this identification alliance with right wing rapture theology that says, we just need to be redeemed from the world or going back to something that is more holy, just, beautiful, righteous and good. Usually for White evangelicals, that's around 1958. 1958 was the peak of White evangelical and White American leadership and ownership of all these different things in the United States. And so that reality that many people in the current day White evangelical movement are trying to get back to. 1958 also signals what the left tries to do.1958 was the advent of the civil rights movement coming into the mainstream of the United States when Martin Luther King wrote, when White evangelicals in the United States had to contend with Martin Luther King. So Jerry Falwell writing, segregation or not, like which is it, and then doubling down on segregation. But from 1958 you can begin to see this surging of the rights of women being talked about, the rights of people of color being talked about. Then you get into quote- unquote, the sexual revolution, feminist revolution of the 70s and 80s, like music changing into a way that there's television, things to be broadcast. Folks being shocked that the people they listen to on the radio are people of color, like you start to get this change [laughs].And so what the right says is salvation, the left says is progress. And so pastors and people who push towards more progressivism and politicians who don't read in context like to pull out that piece when Martin Luther King says, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. We take that out, and basically what that does is a soft baptism of generational superiority. Meaning that I'm better than the last generation, and the generation after me will be better, when scripture does not say that. Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. There have always been people fighting against slavery, oppression, abuse and violence, and there have always been people who are trying to impose those systems, whether they be the Roman government or the American government or the Spartans or the Cretans, it doesn't matter who it is.This has always been the same argument and fight. The Nazis before, the Americans today, Israelis one day, slaveholders another day, Palestinians one day, enslaved Africans another day. The reality is this has always been going back and forth. The invitation has always been the same, to follow Jesus. That's the invitation. There isn't a like, “Man, you know what? In 1950, it was really bad.” That's what progressives would say, “But we've come a long way, and we're continuing forward, onward and upward.” And then conservatives would say, “Oh, man, you know it used to be this way. Let me go back to my little town and…” but both of those are salvation narratives that actually don't leave us saved. They don't. Jesus is the only way.They don't leave us saved, because the salvation of Jesus is ultimate and all encompassing at once. The quote- unquote, safety that moral progressivism or conservatism offers us is for a few, for moments in time. The only thing in my estimation, as an individual that has read a little bit and prayed a lot is the only thing that has been as pervasive and adopted by so many people is colonialism. The idea of White supremacy, the idea that we need to exploit and violate, the idea that we need to extract as much as possible and we deserve to accumulate at an unfettered pace, that is pervasive across cultures, backgrounds and narratives. That has been carried everywhere even more so than the gospel.And so I would hope that the salvation of all things through Christ would be as comprehensive and fierce as the salvation through works. So it's life, liberty and pursuit of property slash our own comfort equals happiness, or take up your cross, deny yourself and follow me, they are fundamentally opposed to each other.Sy Hoekstra: That was good and deep, and I love it. Let me drill down for a second on the progressivism, because I think some people would hear you say, and you've explained this a little bit, but I mean, some people hear you say, things haven't gotten better, or things took off in some fundamental and helpful way in the 60s, that that's not something that we should think of as salvation. And they might kind of go, “What does he mean by that? I don't know. That's a little…” Because I know you are saying things have gotten better.Jonathan Walton: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.Sy Hoekstra: Like, obviously, there are people who materially did a whole lot better [laughs] after the Civil Rights Movement.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Absolutely. Right.Sy Hoekstra: But what you are saying is, when you are clear-eyed about the amount of harm that the hierarchies and systems of oppression do in this country globally, there are so many things to be concerned about and so many things to deeply lament that the true and good and incredible thing that Black people can vote now [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes, me and you can have this conversation [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, all those kinds of things. Those things are incredible and should be celebrated, and there are just so many other things that are so wrong and terrible.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: You're just being clear-eyed about the world as it is.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Because you can do that, because you're not looking toward a narrative of progressivism to assure you that you are okay.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes. The fundamental container that you and I find ourselves in has improved. That's true.Sy Hoekstra: You and I, like meaning literally you and I.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, me and you. Literally, Sy Hoekstra and Jonathan Walton, the container that we find ourselves in has improved since the lives of our parents. My momma was not born with all of her rights, I was born with all of mine, to an extent in this country. That container has gotten better. The container is still on this side of heaven, which means it's incomplete.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: So can I celebrate, and I do celebrate, the reality that I could go to a bank and get a mortgage and it would be illegal if they discriminated against me and my wife for being people of color, that is awesome. I can celebrate the fact that my wife can get a credit card in her own name, and my daughters will be able to as well. That was something that was illegal. go look it up. I appreciate that. At the same time, let me not be seduced to think that this is the container I was made for because I wasn't. I was made for Genesis 1.Sy Hoekstra: Or seduced into a kind of softer, subtler idolatry of America.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Or the West, or the societies that we live in, or wealth, or whatever it is that you think has made things more comfortable for you.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Good Political Fruit that Comes with Putting Hope in JesusSy Hoekstra: The reason I spent so much time on that is it's a complicated idea, but I think it's important for people to understand, because it really does free you from the problems that inevitably come when you sort of think, let's say Harris gets elected. We're just like, “Oh, good. We staved off Trump, we beat back fascism. We defeated it, hooray.” [laughs] It stops you from looking at the long history of America and saying no, fascism, authoritarianism, like real oppression of people is a normal part of the DNA of this country, and will continue to come back, and we need to continue to be ready to fight it all the time.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: It does not ever go away, and if you want to sit in comfort and say, “Good, we finally did it,” or “I can rest now,” you can't. You're being seduced into something that is not true [laughter]. And also, being clear-eyed in this way also stops you from doing something that people complain about progressives doing all the time, which is show up to your door every four years or every two years, and ask for your vote, and then not do anything to actually fight the oppression that you're under on a daily basis once they're elected [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: If you're clear-eyed in this way, you can fight for people's flourishing 365 days a year…Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: …and every year. What I'm just doing now is talking about some of the good fruit that comes from letting go of these sort of soft political idols that sometimes people have. Because, I think… And the reason I say soft political idols, they're just political idols, but I think people look at the obviousness and the brazenness of the way that people idolize Trump and Christian power in America, and they think, “I'm not doing that in any similar way,” and a lot of us actually are.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So that's why I'm harping on this.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And two sentences that I hope will help people as well, is that the reason we're saying this too is because what will drive you is actually hope in the right stuff, as opposed to ending up with putting, literally, for me, like my hope in Obama. I remember the posters, like I was excited.Sy Hoekstra: Do you remember that music video?Jonathan Walton: Which one? There were many.Sy Hoekstra: The “Yes We Can” music video.Jonathan Walton: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I do remember that.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs]. I remember that in particular, I remember you being so excited and emotional about that video, and then later coming back to me and being like, “I should not have cared about that video that much,” [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right. But man, it is attractive. Like Lil Jon at the DNC right now is there to seduce a certain group of people [Sy laughs]. And Kid Rock is just, let's swap out Kid Rock. Kid Rock was at the RNC. We have to engage, like you said, clear-eyed, so we know what to put our hope in. Because the gospel is a hope that does not disappoint.What Is God's Good News about Politics, and How Can We Apply It to Our Lives?Sy Hoekstra: Amen to that, Jonathan [Jonathan laughs]. But let's talk about the hope that does not disappoint, because I think the stuff that we've been talking about, if you just stopped there would be a little bit, I don't know, it can be a little bit depressing. If you don't already have this perspective [laughs] it's like, it can be hard.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: It can be hard to deal with being clear-eyed about the brokenness of the world, it's not an easy thing to do [Jonathan laughs]. So let's talk about what actually is the good news about politics that you are trying to get people to see through, through these Bible studies and through this kind of work that you're doing.Question Your Assumptions, and Understand the Connectedness of All PeopleJonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean to what you just said, if we are clear-eyed about the brokenness of the world, I would love for us to be as clear-eyed about the bigness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't think our concept of sin and our concept of redemption is actually mature enough to deal with the problems of the world. And so I think that one, the first session is just what are our starting points? Most of us have been cultured into political discipleship, we've never actually consciously thought about it. And so that's the first part, just where are our starting points? Then we get into the reality that the theology of the kingdom of God, and the theology that we are all made in God's image is a political reality.If I believe that I am made in the image of God, and every single person around me is made in the image of God, then that has political implications, because my flourishing and their suffering, or my suffering and their flourishing, they are actually intertwined. If I actually live out that theology, when they bleed, I bleed, when I bleed, they bleed. That's why the command to mourn with those who mourn is not, it shouldn't be far off, because I'm mourning my own human family, or I'm rejoicing with my own human family. And so that first study gets into that, and then we have, each study has a real-life story, and each study has a testimony about how these things have been applied or wrestled with in the current day.Making Informed Decisions about Whether We Want to Seek God's LiberationAnd so when we get into the choices that the Israelites made in Samuel, they wanted a king. Wrestling with that, oh snap, the Israelites literally said to the Prophet Samuel, we want to be like everybody else.Sy Hoekstra: And sorry, just really quickly for people who are unfamiliar, there's a moment in the book of 2 Samuel, I think, where Israel goes from saying, “We don't want to just be this people of God who kind of live in this promised land and follow these instructions that God gave us, we want to have a king,” which was not part of like God's plan for their society, “The way that all the societies around us have a king, so that we can have kind of similar power and influence the way that they do.”Jonathan Walton: Exactly. And so when Samuel responds, he says, “Your king will be exploitative. Your king will violate. Your king will take your kids. Your king will do all these things.” And they say, “Yes, sign us up.” And so we need to have conversations about what will actually happen when we say, “Yes, we do want this,” instead of what God intends. And then make concrete decisions about, do we actually want that, and what are the implications? And then if we do decide to follow Jesus, then what does he do and what is his response. When Jesus shows up and says, “I am the Messiah,” out of Isaiah, chapter 61 pulled into Luke chapter 4, the initial sermon is, “I have come to set the oppressed free, proclaim sight to the blind, proclaim freedom for the captives.”He did not say, “I have come to convert you to a certain political ideology, a certain political party or platform.” He didn't say that because he literally says, the kingdom of God is not of this world. And so how do we see that as good news as followers of Jesus? And do we see that as good news in the context we're in today? And then finally, if we do see that as good news, how do we partner with God to actually participate as followers of Jesus in seeking the shalom of all the people around us? Because we do live as followers of Jesus in exile. Now, we are different from the Israelites because, friends, we are not disempowered as Americans.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: I have an American passport, which puts me in a fundamentally different political bracket than my brothers and sisters who are undocumented, than my human family that suffers under drone strikes. It's different. But at the same time, I can hold fast to the reality that how can I steward my power, my influence, my resources, towards the flourishing of all people, not just myself, which is resisting the gospel of Babylon. And so we have, one of my favorite people in the world is Connie Anderson, and she talks about how she was one of those White women in a midwestern state who had no idea who she was voting for and why. But then she goes to a board meeting at the invitation of someone to really get involved in local politics, and she realized the person that she was voting for had dementia, and he was on the city council voting for things, arguing for it in one minute, and then some time would pass, arguing against it in another minute.And then when someone said, “Hey, didn't you just say the opposite?” Then shout at them, “Don't try to tell me what I think.” And she said, “The only reason I voted for this person was because I recognized their name.” And she began to get involved, and now she leads workshops on anti-racism, trying to help White people do the work of deconstruction, not deconstruction of their faith, but a deconstruction of the White supremacy in their lives and how they can partner with God towards more redemptive things. And she is doing the good hard work of politics, and not politics from a lens of this world would be better if we get the right person in power, but this world will be better and transformative when Jesus is in power.And so how do I partner with him to reflect his kingdom in the system and structures that I have influence and power over? And besides a lot of the work that we do with KTF, this is probably the thing with InterVarsity that I am most proud of. So I sincerely hope that folks will grab it.We Need to Revolutionize Our ImaginationSy Hoekstra: Absolutely. Go check it out. Thank you for sharing the wisdom from it. And I especially want to emphasize what you said about, what did you say about our imagination? You said change or, the verb I can't remember [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Oh, bring a revolution in our imagination [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, there you go. That's what you said. I knew it was good [Jonathan laughs]. That is something that I am particularly passionate about, and kind of dovetails into why I spend so much time reading speculative fiction, like sci-fi and fantasy and everything [laughs], because… and thinking about how the people who write those books affect the worlds that we imagine too. That may seem like a weird, random turn into another subject to some people, but it is the way that I exercise my imagination, and I find a lot of the way that God talks to me in that work [laughs]. Like in the ways that I think about how we can imagine really different worlds and other stories that we don't see here now.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: That to me, is extremely important, and I know that there have to be at least some of you who feel that way too.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: So [laughs] I know there are some avid fiction readers out there. Jonathan, we have a segment to get into.Which Tab Is Still Open? Israel's Horrifying Treatment of Palestinian DetaineesJonathan Walton: Yes. Yes, we've talked a lot, and we are still talking as we're going to get into our segment, Which Tab Is Still Open, because this is something we're still talking about 10 months later, 76 years later, where we dive a little deeper into one of the recommendations from our newsletter. So Sy, this one is yours, so tell us a little bit about it.Sy Hoekstra: It is mine, although I think I maybe originally got it from you. This is something that we have both been thinking and talking about a lot, so I will just summarize the story very quickly, and then we'll both talk about it for a while. So we're gonna be back on Israel and Palestine. Now, listen everything we just talked about is gonna affect this conversation that we're having now [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: But there have been some horrible whistleblower stories, and I will not get into the details. So hopefully we're avoiding the need for a content warning here. But some horrible whistleblower stories about some things going on, I believe you pronounce it, the Sde Teiman detention center in Israel, which is where basically they're keeping a lot of known or suspected Hamas operatives who attacked on October 7. The allegations are about basically physical and sexual torture, and that's all the detail that I will get into, being regularized and just a part of the culture at this particular detention center. So recently, after a lot of these reports, there were 10 IDF soldiers who were charged by military courts, or nine soldiers and one reservist who were charged by military courts with perpetrating one of these acts of violence.And what followed is something that's a little bit unimaginable to me, until I think about January 6th, which was a series of riots at this detention center of people literally trying to just charge into the detention center and take the IDF soldiers who have been charged and put in detention themselves, and just kidnap them out of the place, just like free them. And these rioters, there were a couple hundred of them. A lot of them were just regular people living in the area. But some of them were actual government administrative workers and some of them, a couple of them were actual members of the Israeli parliament who participated in this riot, and they did not succeed. Like the soldiers are still there.Two of them were let go eventually, meaning, the charges were dropped. Eight of them, the military is actually pursuing the charges against them. There has not been any punishment for any of these rioters [laughs]. Nothing's happened to them. There's been no legal consequences. There was another riot and another base, same thing, no real consequences. I was trying to see if maybe just like the American media wasn't reporting on it, but I used multiple large language models [laughter] to look into whether there were any stories about these rioters and what consequences they face, and it's really been nothing. The members of parliament are still just sitting in parliament.Some people who are not in the government, who are in the opposition parties have called for investigations, but nothing has happened. There were many statements made by different far-right government members of parliament that were in support of the rioters. One person in Benjamin Netanyahu's party, basically stood up in Parliament and said, “I do not care what these soldiers did to Hamas operatives, because anything done to Hamas operatives is legitimate, in my view.” Like there's just no limits. When we say that there's an apartheid in Israel, this highlights kind of what we're talking about, because there is sort of within Israel proper, there is, you can still make some arguments about this, but there is a lot of democratic representation and rights for people who live there.And then in the West Bank, since 1967 there's basically been martial law where a general is in charge and makes all the decisions on behalf of people who live there, with the exception of the Jewish settlers who live there, who still have all the rights, as though they lived in Israel proper. And so there's this kind of weird thing going on where even though this base is in Israel, it is under the jurisdiction of the military. So it's this kind of martial law, I don't know, running into Israel's law in a sort of way that's highlighting some divisions in Israel. Because obviously, there are a lot of people within Israel who are very concerned that this has happened, and that people are going completely unaccountable for it.I mean, some people are literally talking about, I don't think this is a mainstream idea, but there's some people talking about, what if a civil war breaks out in Israel, because there are people who are so against what has happened, but the ruling government coalition is just so in favor of continuing the war at all costs, they're now starting to fight with Lebanon. They may start to fight with Iran. So anyways, those are the basics of the story. Jonathan, what are your thoughts [laughs]?Privilege Marginalized Voices in Your Media So You Don't End UP Believing FalsehoodsJonathan Walton: If you are listening, you've made it this far in the podcast and all those things, I hope you would privilege Palestinian voices and the voices of Jewish activists in your media diet, so that you are not persuaded towards believing what is not true. The reality is Israel, not the people, but the state, is a settler colonial project, and much of this I'm gonna repeat from Munther and other people that I have learned from because I am now trying to privilege their voices. I remember, and I've said this on podcast before, my RA when I was 18 years old, who lived in the West Bank, arguing with a Zionist Jewish young man who lives in Brooklyn and had never been to the West Bank about what it looks like.So you're watching someone from a lived reality argue with someone downstream of propaganda. And so the exact same thing could be true of someone who lives in a segregated Black neighborhood trying to explain how law enforcement works to someone who has never actually dealt with law enforcement in the United States, or a man who is having a conversation with a woman about what it's like to have her rape kit submitted and then it never be tested or run or anything. So just trying to bring things home a little bit in that we have to prioritize the voices of marginalized people in these conversations.Now, that is true all the time, particularly when there is no media or video. And in this particular case, there is video of all of this, similar to George Floyd, similar to Sonya Massey in the United States, there's video of this terrible perpetration of sexual violence, and there's video of the soldiers guarding this action so that people don't see it from the cameras and that it continues to happen, which is why these soldiers were quote unquote, arrested in the first place.What Would It Take for Americans to Wake Up to the Reality of This Suffering?Jonathan Walton: Now, my final thought around this is, which really a question, is like I wonder how desensitized we have become to the suffering of others and made it normal for these types of things to happen. And I wonder what it would take, in Jesus name I pray it is not violence.But I wonder what it would take for us to be awakened to actually do something about it as American citizens, because it is our tax dollars, our money, it's all of us that are funding that. And so those are my thoughts as I consider this, because there's a population of people that is further desensitized running into a population of people as being further radicalized because they are seeing more and more images and media come across their feeds. And my longing and hope is that there would be an awareness of the people who have been so desensitized and propagandized of the pain and suffering of the people who are experiencing deep harm, so that there can be some sort of reconciliation and just peace and a ceasefire and all those things before, not because of a war. That's my prayer.And so, yeah, as I am, [laughs] I'm gonna in Jesus name, be at Hunter College, be at Brown, be at MIT, be in Florida this fall, I'm gonna be talking about that. Having conversations, encouraging people to advocate so that there is a lesser chance of violence. Sy, that was a lot for me [laughs]. What are you thinking and feeling?Dehumanization Always Leads to Horrifying Violence, and Turns Oppressors into MonstersSy Hoekstra: That was very good. The thing that is so frustrating to me is how incredibly predictable this was.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Right.Sy Hoekstra: From the moment October 7th happened, they said, “This is our 911” Okay, This is your Abu Ghraib. This is your Guantanamo. Like we cannot expect to react the exact same way to an attack and not have this happen again. You can't expect to have the same dehumanization and racism against Arabs and not have this happening again. I don't know. It's just so frustrating to me, having grown up with the War on Terror, and just feeling like I'm watching it all over again. And just like it was in America, there's a lot of people in Israeli society who think this is all fine and totally support it.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And we may have done it in a little bit more of a buttoned up way. We might have done it with some lawyers making questionable interpretations of international humanitarian norms or whatever. We might have put the stamp of approval on it of some more powerful forces than they have available to them in Israel, but they're doing the same thing that we were doing. The thing that we need to come away from this is knowing that your dehumanization of other people has real life consequences, and the consequences are both for the victims who experienced horrific things and for the victimizers. Because one of the whistleblowers, when they were talking to CNN, the CNN reporter who doesn't believe this himself, and he put to the soldier, “A lot of people in Israel would say, well, Hamas does way worse than this to our captives. So what's the problem?” And he said, “Hamas is not your bar.” It's like, fine, if you want to be a terrorist organization, go ahead, be a terrorist organization. But you have to recognize that that's the moral decision you're making. You are not better than them, if this is what you are willing to do to them. And your dehumanization of other people at some point will turn you into a monster, is what I'm saying.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And I just, I don't know [laughs]. I'm mad about it because of the horrifying consequences that it has on individual people, so it's a little bit visceral for me, but it is just so frustrating to watch all these things happen all over again and with our same stamp of approval.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And if you want an example of why electing Kamala Harris will not be a victory for all things good and moral, it is because this sort of thing will continue.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.The Church Is Complicit in This TerrorSy Hoekstra: Another thing from Reverend Isaac last week was he really did a good job of emphasizing how complicit in all this the church is. Emphasizing points like, Christian Zionism actually predates Jewish Zionism, and there are actually way more Christian Zionists in the world than there are Jewish Zionists, just the raw numbers.Jonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: And our support of that theology, our creation of that theology, our failure to fight it at every turn, that is what makes us just wholly complicit in what is happening over there. And Jonathan literally, here's the last note that I wrote in our outline: “Hopefully Jonathan has something uplifting to say before we end” [laughter], because I'll be real, I'm not thinking of it right now.Followers of Jesus need to Focus on Doing Small Advocacy out of Deep Love for OthersJonathan Walton: Yeah. So God's good news about politics is what we're talking about. We are talking about the allocation, distribution of resources, and how people have decided to govern ourselves, and what has happened in the United States, if we're just gonna hang out in the container that we're in, that in the United States we have decided with billions of dollars of our tax dollars, that we are going to build, then send, then advise the genocide of another group of people. I do not want the voting and advocacy and time and work that I do to be perpetrating that or be complicit in that. I might be involved because I have no choice not being overruled, but I will not be unopposed or complacent.And so as followers of Jesus, I think we have two options, and Peter did this really, really well. Peter was suffering under the oppression of the Jewish people, just like Jesus was, and Jesus' family and Jesus' friends and all the disciples as they were being occupied by Romans. And Peter thought he was doing the absolute just right, good thing in carrying a knife all the time, so that when Jesus got arrested, he pulled out his sword and chopped off the dude's ear. And this is John 18, the scene when Jesus was arrested. Jesus then picks up dude's ear, puts it back on his head, tells Peter to fall back. And Peter had two options. Peter could have said, “You know what, this sucks. I'm just not gonna do this anymore. Jesus, you're wrong.”He could have done that. He could have said, “You're presenting me with this gospel of hope in the world that is to come, not the world that is right now.” And he could have said, “I'm just going to give up, or I'm going to… look Simon the Zealot, we listen to this dude talk. It's time to start this.” He could have done that, but instead, eventually he got to, “I'm actually going to be the rock of this Church that Jesus said I was going to be,” which is why you and me and so many people listening to this podcast, have decided to follow this man who happens to be God named Jesus, who 12 ordinary men and a bunch of women that we did not name because they too are from a patriarchal society, we know a few of them, like Mary and Mary Magdalene and Dorcas and Phoebe, who decided to say yes, and thousands of years later, we're still talking about them.And so my hope would be that we as followers of Jesus, would say, “Hey, you know what? What small group of people can we do a little bit of revolutionary actions out of a deep, deep love for so that many, many, many years from now, people are still choosing love over fear and violence.”Sy Hoekstra: There we go, Jonathan. I knew you had it. I knew you had it in you [Jonathan laughs]. But I appreciate that, because when I say uplifting, that feels like something I can resonate with even while I'm looking at the horrifying nature of what I'm looking at. That feels like something where you're not sugarcoating it.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, right.Sy Hoekstra: And that's what I appreciate, and that's what I meant by uplifting. I don't want us just to end on a happy note, because you're Christian and you have to or whatever [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Amen, amen.Sy Hoekstra: So thank you so much for all this work that you're doing trying to create those small communities where people love and do good things. We did a lot of work and tried very hard to do it when we were in college, and I appreciate that you're still trying to get people to do the same thing as they go through that time in their lives.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Prayers and Support for Protesting Students Returning to CampusSy Hoekstra: And you and I will be absolutely praying for and supporting in any way that we can the students as they come back to campus and continue to, again as Munther Isaac said, lead the way in ways that the church has been so afraid to do and so unwilling to do.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, exactly.Sy Hoekstra: If you're listening to this, and you're about to go on to a campus [laughs], or you're already on a campus, we are praying for you, and we absolutely cannot imagine, I don't know, just the uncertainty and the strangeness of what you're doing, but we so appreciate it that you are doing it. And if you're not, and you're just choosing to support people in other ways, because there are many reasons to make that decision, then more power to you as well.Outro and OuttakeSy Hoekstra: Okay. We are going to end there. Jonathan, thank you so much. This was a great conversation. I'm really glad that we got to do it. We'll have those Bible studies that Jonathan created in the show notes.Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. Editing by multitude productions. Transcriptions by Joyce Ambale. Production of the show, by me and all of our lovely paid subscribers. Please remember, go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber. Get the bonus episodes of this show, as well as access to the monthly Zoom conversations. When you're listening to this we will just have had one, so be sure to sign up for the next one coming in September. Thank you all so much for listening, and we will see you all in two weeks.Jonathan Walton: Bye.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: We are close to the camera. We are ready to go.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah. By the way my camera, I tried so many different things to make it work here in Canada, and there's just nothing to be done.Jonathan Walton: I understand.Sy Hoekstra: So highlight reels from this episode will come from Jonathan Walton [laughs].Jonathan Walton: No worries, yes.Sy Hoekstra: Just make sure everything you say, you look really cool saying it.Jonathan Walton: I do look really great [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Hey, I'm glad you know that about yourself, Jonathan, I cannot confirm [Jonathan laughs]. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

This episode, Jonathan and Sy talk with the incredible Brandi Miller about:-        How faith and churches change when we engage with the political idolatry of the American church-        The spiritual and political fruit of the MAGA movement-        The good things people still want and can find in Jesus and Christian community amidst all the nonsense-        Developing inner lives that can sustain political engagement and community building-        Plus, Jonathan and Sy discuss some fascinating numbers about the political views and voting patterns of the average Black Christian versus the average overall DemocratMentioned in the Episode-            Our anthology, Keeping the Faith-            Brandi's podcast, Reclaiming My Theology-            Her other show, The Quest Church Podcast-            The article on Black, Christian political beliefs and votingCredits-        Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscript[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending – F#, B#, E, D#, B – with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Brandi Miller: God made people in God's own image, and people's job is not to conform into your pastor's version of following Jesus. It's to conform more into the likeness of Jesus as you become more yourself. And so instead of going to a pastor who is essentially saying, “Follow me as I follow Jesus,” you say, “We're following Jesus, and you're gonna discover who you are along the way.”[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton. We have a fantastic show for you today. We are talking all about church and politics with the great Brandi Miller, who many of you know. And we're doing our new segment, Which Tab Is Still Open?, diving deeper into one of the recommendations from our newsletter. This week, a closer look at the political beliefs of the average Black Christian versus the average Democrat. If you think those are pretty much the same, you've got stuff to learn [laughter]. So stay tuned.Sy Hoekstra: Brandi Miller is the host of the podcast, Reclaiming My Theology. As she calls it, a space to take our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress. She's also now newly the host of the Quest Church Podcast, which is unsurprisingly for Quest Church in Seattle [laughs], where Brandi has the staff position of Chief Storyteller. Before that she was a justice program director with a college ministry working at the intersection of faith, justice, and politics. If you know Brandi, I don't have to convince you that this is a good conversation. If you don't, just, you need to get to know her, so [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes, yes, yes.Sy Hoekstra: Get ready for this one.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, we talked to her about her perspective on evangelical politics, how she sees people's faith changing as they engage with the American church's idolatry, and what Jesus has to offer as a vision for us in this political landscape. There is a lot in the episode, I hope you're ready. Her article in our anthology was called, “Left Behind: What American Evangelicalism Has Lost and Needs to Find.” And of course, you can get the anthology at keepingthefaithbook.com.Sy Hoekstra: And before we get started, just a reminder that we have been telling everyone we need your subscriptions [laughter], please. The best way, if you are into what we do, helping people try and leave the idols of White America and seek Jesus through this media and you want to help us build something that can do that in an effective and far reaching way to people, we need your support. We have been doing this as a side gig for a lot of time. For a long time it's been me and Jonathan in our rooms with laptops trying to make things work, and they have worked [laughs]. But if you wanna see that stuff grow and you wanna see this stuff continue for a long time into the future, we really do need your support.So go to KTFPress.com, please become a paid subscriber. Get access to all the bonus episodes of this show. Get access to our monthly subscriber chats that we're starting, get access to comments on our posts and support everything we do centering and elevating marginalized voices. If you cannot afford a subscription, like if money's the only barrier, please just write to us, info@ktfpress.com, and we will give you a free or discounted subscription. Whatever you ask for, no questions asked. We want everyone to have access to all the stuff that we're putting out, but if you can afford it, we really, really want the support.Actually, one of the things that you'll be supporting now is that our newsletter is free. So anybody can go to KTFPress.com, sign up for the free mailing list. You get news about KTF press, you get all kinds of stuff like that, but you also get recommendations from us every week that are things that we think will be helpful in your political education and discipleship. And you will also get things from us that we think are helpful in staying grounded and hopeful in the midst of all of the difficult issues that we are all seeing in our news feeds and in our politics and everywhere else and in our churches. So please, KTFPress.com, become a paid subscriber. Thank you so much in advance.Jonathan Walton: Yep. Thanks in advance, and here is the interview with Brandi.[the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Brandi, thank you so, so much for joining us on Shake the Dust. We really appreciate it.Brandi Miller: Of course. Glad to be here. Always glad to get to spend time with you all, so.How Does Faith Change When We Engage with The Idolatry of the American Church?Making Our Political Theology Accessible to EveryoneJonathan Walton: Yeah, I mean, now you wrote this bomb essay. Okay. And so something that you said, which [laughs] is still true in 2024: " The result of the syncretism of American religion, propaganda-based iconography and political power is cultish religiosity centered on Donald Trump as God's Messiah sent to buttress patriotism, political power, and global dominance. Regardless of his lack of demonstrable Christ-likeness in his politics, it is clear that pandering to his constituents' desire for Christianized power in the United States has framed him as the president who will ‘bring America back to God.' This is a trade-off: Christian practice and the way of Jesus for American Christian power and utopianism.” End quote.Monstrous, amazing text, right? [laughter] Now, after you wrote this, you became a staff member at a church, right?Brandi Miller: Mm-hmm.Jonathan Walton: And you have a large community of people following and engaging with you online. And as you try to teach and disciple people out of this syncretism slash nonsense, how have you seen their faith change?Brandi Miller: Well, one thing I'll say is something that's changed about myself first, because even as I hear back my own words, I can hear how inaccessible they are to a common regular person. Like how many four to six-syllable words can I use to say Donald Trump does not look like Jesus, and that does not matter to most Christians who follow White American religion. That is what I was trying to say, that there is a propaganda based way of doing religion that has indoctrinated a ton of us into a traumatic type of spirituality that we cannot hold. And so I think even a critique of myself in a way that I've changed is trying to ask, how do I take what is a political reality rooted in a current religious moment and strip it down in a way that a regular person can understand?Because if I am theologizing people out of their own experiences or trying to pull them out of a demonstrably terrible politic and they can't understand where we're going, then that's on me. And so I think that part of my trying to engage with a lot of this stuff has been my own change around how I engage with it so that people who are trying to follow Jesus outside of this kind of syncretism with American nationalism can actually come along.When People See the Idolatry, Staying in Church Community Is HardBrandi Miller: That being said, I think that, I mean, it's been kind of bleak honestly. Like I think that the church that I work at is a church that is people's last stop on their way out of Christianity specifically for these issues. Because they can see the ways that American politics have more say in the lives of people who identify as Christian than Jesus does.And when that is the case, it is really hard to be a part of a Jesus community. And so what I'm seeing a lot is people trying to figure out, can I actually trust community as I follow Jesus? And a lot of people can't. And it makes sense to me, and they leave. But what ends up happening is that people are like, “Well, I can follow Jesus outside of the church,” and I actually believe that some people can do that. But I think because community is at the core of following Jesus, when you leave in those contexts without any kind of community to buttress your faith at all, it's really, really hard to, with integrity, continue to live out those values, and it's really easy to become increasingly cynical in the media ecosystem that we have.And so I don't really know what to tell people pastorally, right? Because there are many ways that I could say, “No, no, no, just come back to the church,” but the church isn't trustworthy. And I can say, “No, go on your own,” but with a lack of community, a lot of the faith stuff falls apart because it's meant to be done together in a non-westernized religious context. And so I'm finding that to be a pretty sad and frustrating space to occupy. So I think that'd be my first bid.What People Can Still Get from Church Community Even after Seeing the IdolatryJonathan Walton: I have so many thoughts, but I'm going to let Sy ask his question.Sy Hoekstra: No, no, no, go for it, Jonathan. We have time.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] So in the midst of that, this new like re-imagining of what community would look like, independent of the colonized faith, what we call it at KTF, White American folk religion, what I call it in Twelve Lies, are there any fireworks of imagination that have happened that you're like, “Oh, that looks nice. That might be something that is hopeful,” for a group of people who are on this subway stop at the end of the line?Brandi Miller: Well, I mean, I think that people still want all the good stuff, right? I think people want connection and community and gentleness and kindness and meekness and self-control and the fruit of the spirit, and the beatitudes. I think people still want the Jesus stuff. People want to live in an accessible and just world where people can be fully themselves, where the image of God in me meets the image of God in you, and somehow in that magic we're transformed. I think people still want that, and I think when people come and get a taste of that, it's really, really beautiful. Because what it results in really is friendship and friendship results in systems change and system change results in world change and political change.Jonathan Walton: Right, right, right.Brandi Miller: And so, I think that what I've seen happen is a lot of progressive spaces have done one of two things. One, said like, well, the individual transformation doesn't matter. And I'm like, that's actually not true. The health of the individual and the health of the system are always a cycle that are moving over and over and over again. And so we're like, “Well, F individual transformation and let's just like go do the system change.” And I'm like, yeah, but if like people don't change, then they're not gonna be alongside you as you change the systems and not understand why the systems change would be good for them. And I think churches do that too.Jonathan Walton: Right?Brandi Miller: So I think a lot of progressive media culture does that on one side, and then the other side uses all of this abstraction to describe what the world looks like when it changes, which is, I don't know, right now sounds like the end of postmodern empire. Like we're in empire collapse right now. And I'm like, “No one knows what that means.” Most normal average people do not know what it means. So they're like, “Let's find creative ways to engage post empire collapse.” And I'm like, can you just say that the United States is participating in all kinds of evil, and when our comeuppance happens, it's going to result in a completely different societal structure that we are not ready for.And so, what I'm always looking for are glimpses of what could life look like after that? Which I think is what you're asking. And a lot of that looks like people choosing to care for each other well to build more simple lives rather than more complicated ones, to choose work that isn't their entire identity and allowing themselves to explore who they are outside of the kind of enculturation that happens when we don't have a life outside of that. And that is what I've seen change people's politics. It's not like having a fancy activist job. It's seeing how your neighbors are suffering and doing something about that together, or getting a measure on a ballot that changes things for folks.And so I think that I'm seeing glimpses of people entering into more embodied, simple space that is actually transformative and actually grounding and does a lot to downshift some of our very present anxiety. And I think that's been really good. And so I think there's some structural and systemic things I've seen too, but a lot of the stuff that I'm seeing is people trying to make sense of this abstracted language and say, what does this actually mean for my life in real time, and how can that be good?The Fruit of the MAGA MovementSy Hoekstra: One thread there that kind of leads into my next question is, you said that the idea that your church is the last stop on a lot of people's road out of Christianity, when I was a kid, I would, in evangelical churches, I would hear the sentiment a lot that—I would hear that sentiment a lot actually. I would hear like, “Oh, when you go to a progressive church, that's just, you're just on your way out [laughs], so don't ever go there.” That was the kind of, that was the warning, right?Brandi Miller: Yeah [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: But basically, what I hear you saying is the reason that it's their last stop or the reason that they're on their way out is not because of they've lost their way or a lack of integrity, they don't really care about Jesus, whatever. They actually care about Jesus maybe more than the places that they left, and got so hurt as a result that that's why they're on their way out. And that's, I think that's a reality that Jonathan and I see a lot too, and I just wanted to point that out to people. But also this kind of gets a little bit into what my next question was, which I also had a big long quote here, but I'll just summarize [laughs] because Jonathan already read a big long quote [laughter].Jonathan Walton: I did.Sy Hoekstra: You basically talked about how there are a lot of masks that evangelicals wear to cover their support for Donald Trump's racism. So it's like the sanctity of life or pro-gun politics or pro-Israel politics. And that it basically that the result of that is you're not talking about the racism of Donald Trump, you're talking to people about those masks and saying, “If you're not willing to wear this mask, then basically you're an enemy to be negated because you're a baby killer, or you're an anti-Semite” or whatever it is. But I wonder if four years on having seen so much more of the fruit of the MAGA movement, if there's anything that you would kind of add on to this description of how it operates.Shifting Acceptable Political Discourse Far to the RightBrandi Miller: Yeah. So one of the main things I think about right now is the Overton window. So for folks who aren't familiar with the Overton window, it's essentially the range of acceptable political thought from left to right. And so there is an acceptable range of political thought, I'm doing some writing and thinking about this right now, but that what is considered far on the left and far on the right changes as that window shifts farther left or right. And what we've seen in the last four years is the Overton window shift so far to the right, that stuff that would've been considered so extreme, so outlandish, so problematic as to not be acceptable is now mainstream.So when George Santos can have an entire political campaign and multiple years of being in the public spotlight, and everyone be like, “Ah, this is just kind of like normal run-of-the-mill American politics,” that's wild.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, yeah [laughs].Brandi Miller: When Donald Trump can have dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of criminal, like of criminal… or like he has so many, so many things that are happening right now at felony levels, and we're like, “Oh, I mean, he's just like working through it.” That is so wild to me, that the Overton window has shifted so far to the right that Marjorie Taylor Greene can do every bit of chaos that she's doing. That Mike Johnson is considered a normal speaker of the house.Jonathan Walton: That is, ugh… [laughs].Brandi Miller: We've moved so far right, that now what used to be considered moderate is considered hyper progressive. That being like, hey, like… maybe we should give people… that we've actually reversed, like with Roe v. Wade, we've reversed rights for people and we consider that normal. Like the Overton window has shifted so aggressively to the right that it is so, so damaging. And that has just continued over the last four years.Shifting Acceptable Religious Thought Far to the RightBrandi Miller: The thing I am observing and doing a lot of work around right now is what does it mean when the Christian range of political or range of acceptable religious thought also shifts to the right? And so I've been asking the question, what is that?What we're talking about really is orthodoxy. We're saying there is this range of historically acceptable Christian thought, but when that gets chain linked to the Overton window and shifted to the right, the way of Jesus that gets to be considered left or moderate or something becomes completely unidentifiable to most Christians. And when that happens, the only response that we have in those super conservative spaces or that have moved to the right that much is to parrot political actors and call it holiness. And that is what I'm most concerned with and what I'm seeing most right now, is that people can't even have conversations because of those things like, yeah, you're an anti-Semite or you're a baby killer, or whatever.You can't even have the conversations about why that ideology became important to someone, because even questioning the ideology itself or that indoctrination feels like it's a deviation from holiness because your religion is so connected to nationalism that to separate those feels like sin.Sy Hoekstra: It's almost, it's like the way that you might get a question shut down in church because if of something you're asking about some orthodox doctrine or whatever, like expressing a doubt of some kind.Brandi Miller: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: You're saying that's not just religious anymore basically. That is political. Or the politic—because the religious and the political are so closely linked that your political doubt is religious doubt almost.Brandi Miller: Yes. Yes, most certainly. Connected to God's connection to a nation.What Is the Good That All the Idolatry Is Overshadowing?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I got in this conversation with a… Sometimes I opt into the online debates to get fodder for more posts [Sy laughs]. And I asked someone what they meant by Orthodox. They were saying “Israel is God's nation. The United States should support Israel because we are also God's nation, we're mirror countries of each other. This is an orthodox view.”Sy Hoekstra: Whoa.Jonathan Walton: They had obviously no, like no image or thought about the non-evangelical 200-year-old, 50-year-old, 25-year, 2-year-old church that they were in [laughter], you know? But all that to say, as you talk about Jesus on your show, talk about Jesus in your writing, talk about Jesus in your church, talk about Jesus with us. We're constantly trying to get people to look at the Jesus of Nazareth and not the Jesus of nationalism. Right? What would you say in this era, like with the church and politics, what value do you think Jesus's teaching, Jesus's witness, his life, death, resurrection has to offer us this election season? And what is the good that all the syncretism that we're talking about is just completely overshadowing?Following Jesus Helps us Find Ourselves and Resist Structures That Demand ConformityBrandi Miller: Well, right. The Jesus story is a continuation of the Hebrew story, and that story is centered on a God who cares about righteousness. And righteousness is not adherence to political doctrine, it's right living in harmony and wellbeing with other folks. Dr. Randy Woodley talks about shalom in the community of creation and that you know that the world is well when the marginalized say so. And the Hebrew scriptures follow that journey really, really closely. Even if the people fail in it, God's calls stay consistent to make sure that the orphan and the widow and the foreigner are cared for. And that we know that a whole community is healthy and well and living rightly when that's the case. And Jesus lives out that same story.And part of that story requires that people are given the chance to be themselves. That if we believe in this kind of, there's a lot that I do not believe about how we extrapolate Genesis one and two, but I think one of the core things is that like God made people in God's own image, and people's job is not to conform into your pastor's version of following Jesus. It's to conform more into the likeness of Jesus as you become more yourself. And so instead of going to a pastor and essentially saying, ‘Follow me as I follow Jesus,” we say, “We're following Jesus and you're gonna discover who you are along the way.” And that is what Jesus does with his disciples. Right? Jesus invites a diverse group of wackadoodle dudes to come and be themselves [Jonathan laughs]. And they change a lot. They change a lot, but they don't change away from themselves, which I think we see in the story of Peter, right? Peter's a fisherman at the beginning and he's a fisherman at the end. And the way in which he's a fisherman is really different, but he is still at his core in some ways who he is. And I know there's some conflation with vocational and whatever, but there are ways that people are, that people who were zealous in the beginning are zealous, but in a more refined way at the end. People who were engaging with the people in a particular way are doing so less judgmentally at the end.So I think there's a way that there is an invitation to become fully ourselves that we do not get in church spaces because we're told that sanctification or that honoring the death and resurrection of Jesus is to become less like yourself. It's to do this… I think we just take the John the Baptizer quote, “more of him, less of me” out of context when you're like… y'all, the reason he's saying that is because they think he's the Messiah and he needs to make some stuff really clear. He's not saying, I need to become less of myself. John needs to become more and more of himself in order to do what Jesus has invited him to do.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Brandi Miller: And so, because in the church we often say, let's collapse our identities into one social, political and religious identity, people lose themselves. And so I think part of the invitation and the good that we offer to people is that you get to be yourself. And that justice work, this other side of the coin in the Hebrews text around justice and righteousness is making things right when righteousness, when people's ability to live fully as themselves to live original blessing is not in place. And so I think that there's an invitation in the way of Jesus to live fully as ourselves and to make right the spaces where people are not offered space to live the life that is abundant.Jonathan Walton: May it be so in churches and spaces this fall [laughs] where that could be extrapolated. And as you were talking, I was just like, yeah, “God loves you,” should not be a controversial statement.Brandi Miller: Right…. Woof…Jonathan Walton: Right? Like it shouldn't [laughs].How Has Brandi's Calling Changed around Political Engagement?Sy Hoekstra: Alright. So, on your show, you're often talking about theology and culture. You obviously have a ton to say about politics though, and I've heard you say on the show you'd be kind of more interested in getting into that somehow at some point in your life. And you took a break from the show recently. Basically, you're in the middle of a season on purity culture, and you kind of took a break from the show because you felt some tension between talking about theology and church culture and purity culture with everything that's going on in Gaza. And I'm just wondering how the last four years have affected your sense of calling or your desire to engage politically from someone who has largely played a pastoral role.Helping People Develop Inner Lives that Can Sustain Political EngagementBrandi Miller: Yeah. Some of what I'm learning is that regardless of whether there's an urgent political moment that people are still entering into these spaces in a lot of different ways. And so me stopping the podcast because of everything happening in Gaza and trying to figure out how to respond wasn't actually as helpful as I had hoped it would've been. It didn't make more space for people, it just disengaged people from one of the only spaces that they're engaging with religion at all. And so pastorally, I think what I ended up doing was leaving people behind. And I didn't, I think I was so at that point unsure of how to respond to what was happening in Gaza and didn't know what my role would be, and felt like as a person who's, it's a little bit like one of my Jewish friends was talking about the parable of the virgins and the oil.Some of us just showed up really late to this party, and we know so little, we've showed up so late, that it feels pretty impossible to show up effectively. And so I was trying to be responsible with what I did and did not know about Israel, Palestine, Gaza, all of that. Instead of just saying what I could unequivocally say, which is that violence in all forms, particularly genocide, is an egregious violence against God, against people and needs to be dealt with aggressively. Like, I can say that without any… we can say, “Free Palestine,” because that is an easy thing to, it's pretty easy for me to say, to agree with that idea. What I did though in being like, oh, purity culture isn't connected, was to say that people have on-ramps to these kinds of justice expressions that are far away.And maybe it's like [laughs], I hate to use this metaphor, but like, or parallelism rather. Yeah, I hate to use this parallelism, but when I think about how QAnon feeds into conspiracy theories, I think there's a lot of ways that progressive Christianity can feed people toward better, more just politics. And so when I take away the on-ramps, I take away people's opportunity to enter into a more just spirituality. And so me choosing to not talk about sex for four weeks or whatever, for me it felt like it was a solidarity practice, but it really was just cutting off people from a community that they cared about. So I think I would say that that was like one thing that I'm learning.And that is, and I think that what I'm trying to figure out is, as a person who primarily plays a pastoral function, what does it mean to invite people into a discipleship that can hold the politics that they're engaging with? Because one of the things I learned from 2016 was that many of us had a ton of passion, a ton of anxiety, a lack of knowledge, and we weren't able to hold onto the activism at the level that we held it during Black Lives Matter. We just weren't able to do it. And so, I think I'm trying to ask how do you build people's inner lives and community orientations in such a way that we can actually hold the political movements that we want to see happen?So how do we become community organizers locally and nationally when our inner lives aren't able to hold even the basics of our day-to-day lives? And that's not a knock on anyone, it's just a, we don't know how to cope. We don't know how to be in therapy. We don't know how to ask good questions about our lives. And so I think that I'm still asking the question, what is the role of the pastoral in the political, when most of my examples of the pastoral and the political is just telling people how to vote once every four years indirectly so you don't lose your funding, and nothing else otherwise.Helping People Learn and Grow through Curiosity and Questioning AssumptionsJonathan Walton: Yeah. I care a little bit about that, the inner life, peace [laughter]. I write, you know, I have a whole thing about that. So as you're talking, something I feel like I've run into is, I had a conversation with someone and they said to me, “The church discriminates against queer people? What do you mean?” And I looked at them and I was like, they were not being facetious, they were not joking. And like, and so I watched this train wreck happen in her brain, right? Where it's like, so then I just said, “You know, let's just talk about conversion therapy.” I said, “Let's just start there…” UN resolutions that say this is to—like all she, you could see it on her face she's like, like she did not know.And so I watched it happen and couldn't stop it. So Brandi, when someone is sitting across from you and you see this lack of knowledge and the capacity to harm. Right? So there's this lack of knowledge, but they're gonna say the homophobic terrible thing whenever somebody asks them, and you are the pastoral person in residence with them. What habits, practices, tactics do you employ not to destroy them, like intellectually? How do you not reduce them to their ideas? How do you love them and meet them where they're at so that they will be at church next week? They will be, like all those kinds of things, to stay on the journey with you.Brandi Miller: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And stop hurting people.Jonathan Walton: And yeah, and stop hurting people.Brandi Miller: Yes. Yeah, I mean, you become a master of caveats, and that's the easy thing. The hard thing is to believe that people are trying their best. I think that most people, and I'm really learning this and trying to learn this in the best ways I can right now, is that if you're not just like on the internet where I know people are not trying to do their best, they're just being mean, like in real life with people who are sitting, who you don't have to question whether they're a bot or not, people are trying to do the best they can and the best they can might be terrible. And that's okay, because when people are trying to do the best that they can, and when people are given the benefit of a doubt, they are more open to engaging with things that are embarrassing or challenging or confusing.And so a lot of what I do is ask questions in the context of my own experience. I'll say, “Hey, when you say that, that hits me in a really strange way, and it's kind of hurtful and I can see where this would be hurtful for somebody else. Can you help me understand where that idea came from for you and how that became so important to you?” Or like, “I can hear that this is really important to you, can you help me understand why?” Because if I can understand that why, I can create a human connection that allows me to walk someone through, like, “Yo, when you say to me as like a partnered queer person, that my future marriage is not God's best, when did that become so important to you? When did thinking about like queerness in this way become so important to you?And how big, like on a scale of one to 10, how big does that feel for you? And what would that feel like for you if I said something back to you like, ‘You're heteronormative marriage where it looks like your wife doesn't really like you that much, you're kind of a jerk, isn't God's best for you,' what would you say back to me?” Like what a strange thing for you to say to me. And so I think I do a lot of assuming that people are doing their best and asking a lot of origins questions. Because I think that most of evangelicalism is more concerned with indoctrination than it is with development and discipleship. And when you can expose the indoctrination, it opens up a lot of space for questions. Because I know a lot of people that have said to me things like, “I have never thought about that before,” or, “I have never considered that before.”Or, “It came from this book.” And I'm like, “Well, have you read these other books?” Or they're like, “It came from this verse.” And I'm like, “Well, have you read the equivalent verse in the gospels that exists?” And the answer usually is no. The people have not done their due diligence to come to their own ideas. They have parroted because parroting in the church gives you survival, and I understand that. I understand that being able to parrot ideas gives you belonging. And so to fall outside of that, to ask questions outside of that risks your belonging. And so I try to create spaces where people's stories can belong, even if their ideologies need to be questioned and engaged with differently. So I think that's the main way that I engage with that pastorally at least.Jonathan Walton: That is amazing. So being able to sit down with someone, see someone across difference in a way, and turn to wonder, awe and curiosity as opposed to prejudice, judgment, and condemnation. That's great. Amen.Where Listeners Can Find BrandiSy Hoekstra: Can you tell our listeners where they can find you or your work on the internets.Jonathan Walton: Or in real life. Or in real life [laughs].Brandi Miller: Yes. Yeah, you can… if you're not being a weirdo, you can find my church, Quest Church out in Seattle [laughter]. We're doing the best we can out there. I work there, I'm a regular person out there, so don't be a weirdo [laughter].Brandi Miller: But I'm online in several spaces. Primarily, I have a podcast called Reclaiming My Theology, that takes a topic.Jonathan Walton: Five stars, five stars, five stars.Brandi Miller: [laughs, then says very quickly] If you'd give it, it takes 30 seconds to do [laughter]. Yeah, that is exploring different types of problematic or oppressive ideologies and how they wiggle their way into our interpretation of the Bible and Christian culture and how they create Christian culture. We're working through a series on purity culture now that feels like it's never ending, but it's like a perfect intersection of a lot of the other forms of oppression that we've talked about. So we'll be in that for a little bit. And then I just launched a podcast with Quest Church, talking to people about formation practices that make them feel at home with God. And so if you're looking for more of a formational storytelling bend, I'm interviewing folks around those practices right now, as well as the stuff that I'm already doing on the podcast that takes a little bit more of an academic theological bend.Sy Hoekstra: What's the name of that one?Brandi Miller: The Quest Church Podcast.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, okay, got it [laughter]. Okay, cool.Jonathan Walton: Cool, cool. Nice.Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for that. If you go and listen to Reclaiming my Theology, you'll hear some familiar voices like Jonathan Walton and Tamice Spencer-Helms and other people that you know. Brandi Miller, this has been fantastic. I'm so happy you joined us [the sound of clapping]. Jonathan's actually applauding, I don't think that's ever happened before [laughter].Jonathan Walton: She's great. She's great. Lovely.Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for being with us.Brandi Miller: Yeah, delighted to be with you all. Thank you so much for the opportunity.[the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Sy and Jonathan's Thoughts about Christian Community and Communicating Theology Well after the InterviewSy Hoekstra: Okay, Jonathan, that was fantastic [laughs].Jonathan Walton: It really, really was.Sy Hoekstra: What are you thinking coming out of that? Where are your thoughts at?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, so I'm actually stuck on the first thing that she said.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, okay. After that you blacked out and then you don't remember the rest of the interview.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] Well, I remember it. But one of the… I thought to myself, you know, I've changed a lot in the last four years since we wrote the essays that we did and since KTF started and all those things. And so it really pushed me to reflect. And when I was in journalism school with Peter Beinart, who is an amazing writer and commentator, especially right now.Sy Hoekstra: Who you've mentioned before, yeah.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yeah, I mean, his work is just amazing. But something that he said in class was, you need to write for the language of the bleachers, like between a fifth and eighth grade level. And that is not a knock on people who are not educated or didn't go to university. It's more like we don't talk like this on a regular basis.Sy Hoekstra: You mean you don't talk the way that highfalutin people write [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: Gotcha.Jonathan Walton: Right. And it was one of those things where I was like, huh, I wonder, would I say things the same way now? Or how can I say them so that people leave saying, “Oh, I know what he meant and I understood what he said,” versus, “I don't know what half those words meant, but it sounded really good [Sy laughs]. Thinking of reflecting on how Jesus spoke to people and who he called and how he called them was something that I just, just struck me about that response. And then obviously we also threw out some big words, some large terms and all those things. And one of the things that stood out to me that I didn't know about was the Overton window that she said. I'd never heard of that before.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, okay.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, but what has become normal. Having a term for that's just helpful. For me, like [laughs] I think I've mentioned this before, is that when I feel anxious, when I feel worried, when I feel concerned, one of the places that I go is information. I need to put it in a box. I need to have words to just feel grounded to engage. And now I can just say, “Oh, the Overton window has shifted [laughs], and that helps me have a place to stand [laughs] in a lot of our discourse and gives me more space to do what she talked about at the end, which is like, can I love people across difference? And when I have cohesive frameworks and information especially like in context, and I can do that more effectively. So I learned a lot. I was challenged and I'm really grateful.Sy Hoekstra: I think actually the thing that stuck out to me, kind of, I end up in a similar place, even though I'm coming from a totally different angle. Which is that the thing that she articulated about the how political doubt becomes religious doubt in like our current, kind of nationalist Christian nationalist landscape was really interesting to me. Because you hear it, so it's such a common thing if you think about it, right?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: At least I've heard so many times people just be like, how can a Christian possibly vote for the Democrats? Right? Or asking like doubting Republican orthodoxy is actually grounds to doubt the foundations of your faith or the seriousness of your faith, when Jesus had absolutely no issue having people who he called disciples who were wildly politically different from each other.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So when she talks about wanting to talk across difference like that, or wanting to how Jesus helps people become a better version of themselves, he was doing that with people who were like the Roman empire is fine and I work for them and I get rich off of them and that's great, like Matthew [laughs]. Versus the Roman Empire is the enemy and we need to throw them off via murder and other forms of violence, AKA Simon the Zealot. And like they're just sitting together with Jesus. They're both followers of Jesus, no question.Jonathan Walton: Exactly, right.Sy Hoekstra: And they have opposite political views. And one of them is like really earnestly advocating and killing a bunch of people [laughs]. Right?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And that is like, it's just a, I don't know, in the context of some of the church context where I grew up or some of the… like it's just a lot of the conservative Christian context now that is unthinkable, but it is also the absolute norm for Jesus [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: So that gives you a sense of when you're a place where your church culture is off, when something that is unthinkable is the norm for Jesus [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Exactly. Exactly. That is what I hope we would say when someone says, what is syncretism?Sy Hoekstra: So syncretism is another one of those big words. I'm not sure we defined it right. Syncretism is a word that a lot of White westerners use for basically poor Black and Brown people, and sometimes Asian people.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: When it's like, oh, you are a Christian, sure, but you're also practicing this native thing. Like my wife's family's from Haiti, right? You are Catholic, but you're also doing this voodoo stuff. And so that's not real pure Christianity, that's syncretism. And now…Jonathan Walton: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: You were saying Jonathan, sorry, that was… go ahead.Jonathan Walton: No, but like, so Brandi's just turn of phrase when she said, oh, when someone's political foundations are shaken, their religious foundations are shaken. That is syncretism.Sy Hoekstra: Right, yes. Exactly.Jonathan Walton: And so putting it in that language just makes it more effective, more practical, more illuminating for people as opposed to saying, “Well, you're political and social and religious ideologies are enmeshed with one another, but creating an agenda…” It's like, we don't need to talk like that [laughs]. You know what I mean? We can just say it plainly and things God can meet us in that.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Which Tab Is Still Open?: Average Black, Christian Voting Patterns and Political Beliefs vs. the Average DemocratJonathan Walton: Alright Sy. Let's jump into our latest segment that we introduced during the bonus episodes, and now we're bringing to you on our wider feed, is Which Tab Is Still Open. Out of all the highlights we've sent around lately in our newsletter, what's still standing out to us? And so, Sy, this one's yours. So go for it.Sy Hoekstra: This one, yeah, this one is mine. It was an article that I had in the newsletter recently by a professor named Ryan Burge, who is a political science professor and a statistician. He's basically one of the go-to experts in America for a lot of media and other sources for data about religion and politics, like surveys, pollsters, et cetera. So he's a professor at Eastern Illinois University, but he's also an American Baptist Convention pastor [laughs]. So this article is about the average Black church attending Protestant. In a lot of these polls and surveys they ask people how often do you go to church, as a measure of your religiosity. Just like an estimate basically, of your religiosity.So he says for the average Black regular church attending Christian, what is the kind of differences in their political beliefs between just the average overall Democrat? And we talked about this in one of our, in the March bonus episode, that for like a lot of people don't realize the distance between… a lot of White people don't realize the distance between [laughs] average Black voter and average Democrat voter, because Black people always vote Democrat, right?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So if you're not kind of familiar with the culture or the politics, then those, the Black people and Democrats can be synonymous. So basically what he said was the average Black church goer is like a self-identified moderate. Is like almost in the middle of the political spectrum. Is more moderate than the average Democrat on abortion, immigration, policing, all kinds of stuff. Not conservative, but more moderate than the average Democrat. And they've become more moderate in recent years. And so there's an actual kind of statistically significant shift toward the right, but voting hasn't changed at all. Or there's been very little change in actual votes.And then the other interesting thing that he pointed out was the average… they do these polls where they have people rank themselves on a political spectrum from one to seven. So one is as liberal as it gets, and seven is as conservative as it gets. And then they also have people rank the Democrat and Republican parties for where they are, like the party overall. And in the last 10 years, the average Black church going Protestant assessment of where the Republican party is, has not changed at all, like in any significant way.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: So meaning when Donald Trump is the standard bearer, no significant difference in how radical or how right the Republican party is than when Mitt Romney was the standard bearer [laughs], right?Jonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: So you're saying that, “Yep. I get it, totally.” I think to a lot of people, that is some pretty stunning news [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.Sy Hoekstra: So, I don't know, the interesting points to me are just how our assumptions are like about voters in general are based on how White people vote, because White people vote very ideologically and Black people just don't. Like I've seen other polling data where it's like, basically Black people self-identify as liberals, moderates, or conservatives at roughly the same rate as White people. They just don't, Black people just don't vote ideologically. That's the difference, right? And then yeah, that thing where there's no difference between Trump and Mitt Romney is so interesting [laughter].Not no difference between those two men, but no difference between the parties under those two men. And by the way, the rest of the Democrat, the average Democrat thinks the Republican party is far more to the right than it was 10 years ago.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: So, basically what I'm saying is Black people knew the whole time [laughs], Black people knew what was up with the Republicans, and the assessment hasn't changed. I don't know, that to me is just a thing that people need to know. I don't know. When people say like, you hear sometimes from progressive people, “Listen to Black people, listen to Black women.” It just gets thrown out there, is like a, what I think to some White people probably sounds like just this weird ideological platitude that people are saying. But this is the reason [laughs]. The reason is marginalized folks in a system understand the system better than people in the dominant positions of the system, and have a, I don't know, have a kind of a clearer sense of where things are, have a more practical view of how to handle themselves in that system, which I think is the non-ideological voting. And yeah, all that stuff is really interesting to me. And I'm wondering what your thoughts were since this was my recommendation.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean, I've… there are so many things that come to mind as we're talking about this. One thing is that the Overton window, as Brandi mentioned [laughs], it has shifted for some people, right? When we talk, when Randy Woodley talks about how people in the United States do not have the luxury of saying, “Oh, it doesn't matter who's president.” Marginalized people know it matters who is sitting in a political position. If it doesn't matter to you, then that creates a different set of problems. And I think another thing I think we have to remember is that [roughly] 70 percent of the voting population in the United States is White. The people who are registered, the people who turn out.And so there's, I think just there's a lot of context to layer over top of this that can obscure just the basic reality of the emancipation and the passing and Civil Rights Act. And the reality is, Black people voted for Lincoln because he wanted to stop slavery. Lincoln was a White supremacist. Lincoln literally argued in his presidential debate in Illinois that he did not believe that Black people were equal and could never be cultured to be with White people.Sy Hoekstra: And therefore we should send them back to Africa.Jonathan Walton: And therefore we should send them back to Africa. That is Lincoln. But why did we vote for him when we finally got the chance to vote, kind of with… [laughs]? It's because he said he did not want to have slavery exist anymore. Now, fast forward to the Civil Rights Act. Why did we all turn into Democrats? Because they said, “Hey, you should actually have civil rights.” Not equal rights, not full rights, not decriminalization. Not all, just some basic civil rights. Bam, now we're in that camp. This has always, always, always been about survival. The statistics are great. You could do the analysis, there's wonderful data that comes out. But at the end of the day, I'm gonna listen to my mama [Sy laughs] and say, “Oh yeah.”It would be preposterous of her to vote for anyone who is for the active destruction of her community. And the reality is, most of the time that is Republicans. Now, there are destructive policies against Black people that come from the Democrats. The difference is, just like we see here, the difference is this thing called White supremacy. One party says White supremacy exists. The other party says it doesn't. One party says White supremacy exists and desires in rhetoric to make it stop, even though they pass policies that continue to perpetuate it. The reality is though, there are more Black people, more people of color, more women in the party that has a donkey and not an elephant. And therefore, we will ride donkeys [laughs].And so that does not mean that we are for… we, when I say Black Christians, are for anything that the Overton window to use Brandi's saying again, has expanded. So Black folks' views on abortion, Black folks' views on war, Black folks' views on policing. Again, we like to be safe too. And unfortunately, a lot of times in communities of color that equals calling the police. That equals saying, “Hey, can someone help me?” Right? In Baltimore, in Chicago, in over policed parts of New York City, Black folks still have to call the police. Like it's not some utopia where we're just gonna let everything go. That doesn't exist in our communities.We still actually desire for the systems to work for us. We do not desire the system to destroy us. And so we use the systems and desire to make them better. And so these numbers I think are exceptionally informative at illuminating the, or illuminating the reality that many people in marginalized communities already know. But hopefully there'll be a common place for us to talk about it. Now there is a resistance to academia and research in progressive and conservative circles [laughs]. And so someone may say, “Well, that's just not true because it's not true for me.” But hopefully it will create some common ground to be able to have a cohesive conversation about Black folks, the Democratic party and progressive and conservative politics.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, that's what we're trying to do. Political education, man [laughs].Outro and OuttakeJonathan Walton: Lord have mercy.Sy Hoekstra: Lord have mercy. This has been a great conversation. We were so happy that Brandi came on. And thanks for talking as always, Jonathan.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: We will see you all in a couple of weeks. Our theme song is Citizens by Jon Guerra. Our podcast Art is by Robin Burgess, transcripts by Joyce Ambale. And as I'm gonna start saying a lot, I'm stealing this from Seth at Can I Say This at Church? This show is produced by our subscribers [laughs]. Thank you all and we will see you all in two weeks.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: And he loves wackadoodles, I'm gonna use that one. Loves wackadoodles [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: That I have never heard. Is that because I'm not from the south that I've never heard that? Was that… [laughter]?Jonathan Walton: Well, no. Brandi's not from the south either.Brandi Miller: Also, you know I'm big up north here. I'm a Pacific Northwest girly full on. There's no doubt there [Jonathan laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Is that a Brandi quote? Is that from you?Brandi Miller: No, I'm certain that come from somewhere.Sy Hoekstra: I'm just lost. It's fine.Brandi Miller: Maybe it's Black. Maybe that's what it is.Sy Hoekstra: Well, obviously if I am the confused one and you're not, that's my first thought as well. So [laughter], there's always, there's just like, I'm so used to that point in conversations at this point in my life where I'm like, “Oooooh it's because I'm White” [laughter]. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

Welcome to the Season four kick-off! Today, we have our first interview with one of the authors from our anthology on Christianity and American politics, the incredible Dr. Randy Woodley. The episode includes:-        How dualism defines White worldviews, and how it negatively affects White Christians-        How love and vulnerability are central to a life with Jesus-        Why our voting decisions matter to marginalized people-        And after the interview in our new segment, hear Jonathan and Sy talk about the attack on teaching Black history in schools, and the greater responsibility White people need to take for their feelings about historical factsResources Mentioned in the Episode-            Dr. Woodley's essay in our anthology: “The Fullness Thereof.”-            Dr. Woodley's book he wrote with his wife, now available for pre-order: Journey to Eloheh: How Indigenous Values Led Us to Harmony and Well-Being-            Dr. Woodley's recent children's books, the Harmony Tree Trilogy-            Our highlight from Which Tab Is Still Open?: The podcast conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Jelani Cobb-            The book A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your LifeCredits-        Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our newsletter and bonus episodes at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra.-        Transcript by Joyce Ambale and Sy HoekstraTranscript[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending – F#, B#, E, D#, B – with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Randy Woodley: So the Europeans were so set in this dualistic mindset that they began to kill each other over what they consider to be correct doctrine. So we had the religious wars all throughout Europe, and then they brought them to the United States. And here we fought by denomination, so we're just like, “Well I'm going to start another denomination. And I'm going to start another one from that, because I disagree with you about who gets baptized in what ways and at what time,” and all of those kinds of things. So doctrine then, what we think about, and theology, becomes completely disembodied to the point now where the church is just looked at mostly with disdain.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. My name is Jonathan Walton.Sy Hoekstra: And I am Sy Hoekstra, we are so excited to be starting our interviews with our writers from our Anthology in 2020 that we published when we [resigned voice] had the same election that we're having this year [Jonathan laughs]. So it's still relevant at least, and we're really excited to bring you Dr. Randy Woodley today. Jonathan, why don't you tell everyone a bit about Dr. Woodley?Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So Dr. Woodley is a distinguished professor emeritus of faith and culture at George Fox Seminary in Portland, Oregon. His PhD is in intercultural studies. He's an activist, a farmer, a scholar, and active in ongoing conversations and concerns about racism, diversity, eco-justice, reconciliation ecumen… that's a good word.Sy Hoekstra: Ecumenism [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Ecumenism, interfaith dialogue, mission, social justice and indigenous peoples. He's a Cherokee Indian descendant recognized by the Keetoowah Band. He is also a former pastor and a founding board member of the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies, or NAIITS, as we call it. Dr. Woodley and his wife Edith are co-founders and co-sustainers of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice situated on farmland in Oregon. Their Center focuses on developing, implementing and teaching sustainable and regenerative earth practices. Together, they have written a book called Journey to Eloheh: How Indigenous Values Led Us to Harmony and Well-Being, which will come out in October. It's available for preorder now, you should definitely check it out. Dr. Woodley also released children's books called Harmony Tree.In our conversation, we talk about what he thinks is the key reason Western Christians have such a hard time following Jesus well, the centrality of love in everything we do as followers of Jesus, the importance of this year's elections to marginalize people, and Dr. Woodley's new books, and just a lot more.Sy Hoekstra: His essay in our book was originally published in Sojourners. It was one of the very few not original essays we had in the book, but it's called “The Fullness Thereof,” and that will be available in the show notes. I'll link to that along with a link to all the books that Jonathan just said and everything else. We're also going to be doing a new segment that we introduced in our bonus episodes, if you were listening to those, called Which Tab Is Still Open?, where we do a little bit of a deeper dive into one of the recommendations from our newsletter. So this week, it will be on The Attack on Black History in schools, a conversation with Jelani Cobb and Nikole Hannah-Jones. It was a really great thing to listen to. That'll be in the show notes to hear our thoughts on it after the interview.Jonathan Walton: Absolutely. And friends, we need your help. We're going into a new phase of KTF, and as you know, this is a listener supported show. So everything we do at KTF to help people leave the idols of America and seek Jesus and confront injustice is only possible because you are supporting us. And in this next phase, we need a lot more supporters. So we've been doing this show, and all of our work in KTF as kind of a side project for a few years, but we want to make it more sustainable. So if you've ever thought about subscribing and you can afford it, please go to and sign up now. And if you can't afford it, all you got to do is email us and we'll give you a free discounted subscription. No questions asked, because we want everyone to have access to our content, bonus episode, and the subscriber community features.So if you can afford it, please do go to www.ktfpress.com, subscribe and make sure these conversations can continue, and more conversations like it can be multiplied. Thanks in advance. Oh, also, because of your support, our newsletter is free right now. So if you can't be a paid subscriber, go and sign up for the free mailing list at www.ktfpress.com and get our media recommendations every week in your inbox, along with things that are helping us stay grounded and hopeful as we engage with such difficult topics at the intersection of church and politics, plus all the news and everything going on with us at KTF. So, thank you so, so much for the subscribers we already have. Thanks in advance for those five-star reviews, they really do help us out, and we hope to see you on www.ktfpress.com as subscribers. Thanks.Sy Hoekstra: Let's get into the interview, I have to issue an apology. I made a rookie podcasting mistake and my audio sucks. Fortunately, I'm not talking that much in this interview [laughter]. Randy Woodley is talking most of the time, and his recording comes to you from his home recording studio. So that's nice. I'll sound bad, but most of the time he's talking and he sounds great [Jonathan laughs]. So let's get right into it. Here's the interview.[the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]What Dualism Is, and How It's Infected the White ChurchJonathan Walton: So, Dr. Woodley, welcome to Shake The Dust. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for contributing to our Anthology in the way that you contributed [laughs].Randy Woodley: I'm glad to be here. Thank you.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Your essay, I mean, was really, really great. We're going to dive deep into it. But you wrote in the essay, the primary difference in the lens through which Western and indigenous Christians see the world is dualism. And so if you were able to just define what is dualism, and why is it a crucial thing for Western Christians to understand about our faith, that'd be great to kick us off.Randy Woodley: Yeah, except for I think I want to draw the line differently than the question you just asked.Jonathan Walton: Okay.Randy Woodley: When we say indigenous Christians, by and large, Christians who are Native Americans have been assimilated into a Western worldview. It's a battle, and there's lots of gradient, there's a gradient scale, so there's lots of degrees of that. But by and large, because of the assimilation efforts of missionaries and churches and Christianity in general, our Native American Christians would probably veer more towards a Western worldview. But so I want to draw that line at traditional indigenous understandings as opposed to indigenous Christian understandings. Okay. So, yeah, Platonic Dualism is just a sort of… I guess to make it more personal, I started asking the question a long time ago, like what's wrong with White people [Sy laughs]? So that's a really valid question, a lot of people ask it, right? But then I kind of got a little more sophisticated, and I started saying, well, then what is whiteness? What does that mean? And then tracing down whiteness, and a number of deep studies and research, and trying to understand where does whiteness really come from, I really ended up about 3000 years ago with the Platonic Dualism, and Western civilization and the Western worldview. And so Plato of course was the great dualist, and he privileged the ethereal over the material world, and then he taught his student, Aristotle. So just to be clear for anybody who, I don't want to throw people off with language. So the thing itself is not the thing, is what Plato said, it's the idea of what the thing is. And so what he's doing is splitting reality. So we've got a holistic reality of everything physical, everything ethereal, et cetera. So Plato basically split that and said, we privilege and we are mostly about what we think about things, not what actually exists an our physical eyes see, or any senses understand. So that split reality… and then he taught Aristotle, and I'm going to make this the five-minute crash course, or two minutes maybe would be better for this [laughs]. Aristotle actually, once you create hierarchies in reality, then everything becomes hierarchical. So men become over women, White people become over Black people. Humans become over the rest of creation. So now we live in this hierarchical world that continues to be added to by these philosophers.Aristotle is the instructor, the tutor to a young man named Alexander, whose last name was The Great. And Alexander basically spreads this Platonic Dualism, this Greek thinking around the whole world, at that time that he could figure out was the world. It goes as far as North Africa and just all over the known world at that time. Eventually, Rome becomes the inheritor of this, and then we get the Greco-Roman worldview. The Romans try to improve upon it, but basically, they continue to be dualist. It gets passed on, the next great kingdom is Britain, Great Britain. And then of course America is the inheritor of that. So Great Britain produces these movements.In fact, between the 14th and 17th century, they have the Renaissance, which is a revival of all this Greek thinking, Roman, Greco-Roman worldview, architecture, art, poetry, et cetera. And so these become what we call now the classics, classic civilization. When we look at what's the highest form of civilization, we look back to, the Western worldview looks back to Greek and Greece and Rome and all of these, and still that's what's taught today to all the scholars. So, during this 14th to 17th century, there's a couple pretty big movements that happen in terms of the West. One, you have the enlightenment. The enlightenment doubles down on this dualism. You get people like René Descartes, who says, “I am a mind, but I just have a body.” You get Francis Bacon, who basically put human beings over nature. You get all of this sort of doubling down, and then you also have the birth of another, what I would call the second of the evil twins, and that is the Reformation. [exaggerated sarcastic gasp] I'll give the audience time to respond [laughter]. The Reformation also doubles down on this dualism, and it becomes a thing of what we think about theology, instead of what we do about theology. So I think I've said before, Jesus didn't give a damn about doctrine. So it became not what we actually do, but what we think. And so the Europeans were so set in this dualistic mindset that they began to kill each other over what they consider to be correct doctrine. So we had the religious wars all throughout Europe, and then they brought them to the United States. And here we fought by denomination, so just like, “Well, I'm going to start another denomination. And I'm going to start another one from that, because I disagree with you about who gets baptized in what ways, and at what time,” and all of those kinds of things.So doctrine then, what we think about, and theology becomes what we're thinking about. And it becomes completely disembodied, to the point now where the church is just looked at mostly with disdain, because it doesn't backup the premises that it projects. So it talks about Jesus and love and all of these things. And yet it's not a reflection of that, it's all about having the correct beliefs, and we think that's what following Jesus is. So when I'm talking about Platonic Dualism, I'm talking about something deeply embedded in our worldview. Not just a thought, not just a philosophy, but a whole worldview. It's what we see as reality. And so my goal is to convert everyone from a Western worldview, which is not sustainable, and it will not project us into the future in a good way, to a more indigenous worldview.Dr. Woodley's Influences, and How He's Influenced OthersSy Hoekstra: So let's talk about that effort then, because you have spent effectively decades trying to do just that.Randy Woodley: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: Working with both indigenous and non-indigenous people. So tell us what some of the good fruit that you see as you disciple people out of this dualistic thinking?Randy Woodley: I feel like that question is supposed to be answered by the people I effected at my memorial service, but…Sy Hoekstra: [laughter] Well, you can answer for yourself.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I mean…Randy Woodley: Yeah, I mean, it's a bit braggadocious if I start naming names and all those kinds of things [Sy laughs]. I would just say that I've had influence in people's lives along with other influences. And now, I mean, first of all when I look back, I look and the most important thing to me is my children know I love them with all my heart and I did the best I could with them. And then secondly, the people who I taught became my friends. And the people I've mentored became my friends and I'm still in relationship with so many of them. That's extremely important to me. That's as important as anything else. And then now I look and I see there's people and they've got podcasts and they've got organizations and they've got denominations and they're... I guess overall, the best thing that I have done to help other people over the years is to help them to ask good questions in this decolonization effort and this indigenous effort. So yeah, I've done a little bit over the years.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] How about for yourself? Because I don't think, I think one of the reasons you started asking these questions was to figure things out for yourself. What fruit have you seen in your own “walk,” as evangelicals might put it?Randy Woodley: Well, I think as you get older, you get clarity. And you also realize that people who have influenced you, and I think about a lot of people in my life. Some I've met, some I've never met. Some you've probably never heard of. People like Winkie Pratney, and John Mohawk and John Trudell, and public intellectuals like that. And then there's the sort of my some of my professors that helped me along the way like Ron Sider and Tony Campolo, and Samuel Escobar and Manfred Brauch. And just a whole lot of people I can look back, Jean [inaudible], who took the time to build a relationship and helped me sort of even in my ignorance, get out of that. And I think one of the first times this happened was when I was doing my MDiv, and someone said to me, one of my professors said to me, “You need to see this through your indigenous eyes.” And I was challenged. It was like, “Oh! Well then, what eyes am I seeing this through?” And then I began to think about that. The thing about decolonizing, is that once you start pulling on that thread the whole thing comes unraveled. So yeah.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think like, just to speak a little bit to your impact, I think something you said to someone that was said to me, was like we're all indigenous to somewhere. And the importance of looking upstream to see how we're influenced to be able to walk into the identity that God has called us to. Including the people who led me to faith being like Ashley Byrd, Native Hawaiian, being able to call me out of a dualist way of thinking and into something more holistic, and now having multi-ethnic children myself being able to speak to them in an indigenous way that connects them to a land and a people has been really transformative for me.Randy Woodley: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. See? Right there.Love and Vulnerability are Central to Christian LifeJonathan Walton: [laughs] Yeah. And with that, you make a point of saying that you're somebody who works hard to speak difficult truths in a way that is loving and acceptable to everybody. I would say that's like Jesus, right? To be able to speak hard truths and yet people are curious and want to know more even though they're challenged. And so why, I could guess, and I'm sure people would fill in the blanks. But like if you had to say why that's important to you, what would you say?Randy Woodley: Well, I mean, love's the bottom line of everything. If I'm not loving the people I'm with, then I'm a hypocrite. I'm not living up to what I'm speaking about. So the bottom line to all of this shalom, understanding dualism, changing worldviews, is love. And so love means relationship. It means being vulnerable. I always say God is the most vulnerable being who exists. And if I'm going to be the human that the creator made me to be, then I have to be vulnerable. I have to risk and I have to trust and I have to have courage and love, and part of that is building relationships with people. So I think, yeah, if… in the old days, we sort of had a group of Native guys that hung around together, me and Richard Twiss, Terry LeBlanc, Ray Aldred, Adrian Jacobs. We all sort of had a role. Like, we called Richard our talking head. So he was the best communicator and funniest and he was out there doing speaking for all of us. And my role that was put on me was the angry Indian. So I was the one out there shouting it down and speaking truth to power and all that. And over the years, I realized that that's okay. I still do that. And I don't know that I made a conscious decision or if I just got older, but then people start coming up to me and saying things like, “Oh, you say some really hard things, but you say it with love.” And I'm like, “Oh, okay. Well, I'll take that.” So I just became this guy probably because of age, I don't know [laughs] and experience and seeing that people are worth taking the extra time to try and communicate in a way that doesn't necessarily ostracize them and make them feel rejected.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I think there's all these iterations of the last 50 years of people trying to say, “Hey, love across difference. Hey, love across difference.” And there's these iterations that come up. So I hope a lot of people get older faster to be able, you know [laughter].Randy Woodley: I think we're all getting older faster in this world we're in right now.Jonathan Walton: It's true. Go ahead Sy.The Importance of Voters' Choices to marginalized PeopleSy Hoekstra: Yeah. So we had another interview that we did, kind of about Middle East politics, as we're thinking about the election coming up. And one of the points we hit on that we've talked about before on this show is that to a lot of people in the Middle East or North Africa, whoever gets elected in the US, it doesn't necessarily make the biggest difference in the world. There's going to be drones firing missiles, there's going to be governments being manipulated by the US. America is going to do what America is going to do in the Middle East regardless. And I assume to a certain degree, tell me if I'm wrong, that that might be how a lot of indigenous people think about America. America is going to do what America is going to do regardless of who's in power, broadly speaking at least. What do you think about when you look at the choices in front of us this November? How do you feel about it? Like what is your perspective when you're actually thinking about voting?Randy Woodley: Yeah, that's a really good question. And I understand I think, how people in other countries might feel, because Americans foreign policy is pretty well based on America first and American exceptionalism, and gaining and maintaining power in the world. And I think that makes little difference. But in domestic affairs, I think it makes a whole lot of difference. Native Americans, much like Black Americans are predominantly Democrats and there's a reason for that. And that is because we're much more likely to not have our funding to Indian Health Service cut off in other things that we need, housing grants and those kinds of things. And there's just such a difference right now, especially in the domestic politics. So I mean, the Republicans have basically decided to abandon all morals and follow a narcissistic, masochistic, womanizing… I mean, how many—criminal, et cetera, and they've lost their minds.And not that they have ever had the best interest of the people at the bottom of the social ladder in mind. Because I mean, it was back in the turnaround when things changed a long time ago that there was any way of comparing the two. But ever since Reagan, which I watched, big business wins. And so right now, we live in a corporatocracy. And yes, there are Democrats and the Republicans involved in that corporatocracy, but you will find many more Democrats on the national scale who are for the poor and the disenfranchised. And that's exactly what Shalom is about. It's this Shalom-Sabbath-Jubilee construct that I call, that creates the safety nets. How do you know how sick a society is? How poor its safety nets are. So the better the safety nets, the more Shalom-oriented, Sabbath-Jubilee construct what I call it, which is exactly what Jesus came to teach.And look up four, that's his mission. Luke chapter four. And so, when we think about people who want to call themselves Christians, and they aren't concerned about safety nets, they are not following the life and words of Jesus. So you just have to look and say, yes, they'll always, as long as there's a two-party system, it's going to be the lesser of two evils. That's one of the things that's killing us, of course lobbyists are killing us and everything else. But this two-party system is really killing us. And as long as we have that, we're always going to have to choose the lesser of two evils. It's a very cynical view, I think, for people inside the United States to say, well, there's no difference. In fact, it's a ridiculous view. Because all you have to look at is policy and what's actually happened to understand that there's a large difference, especially if you're poor.And it's also a very privileged position of whiteness, of power, of privilege to be able to say, “Oh, it doesn't matter who you vote for.” No, it matters to the most disenfranchised and the most marginalized people in our country. But I don't have a strong opinion about that. [laughter]Jonathan Walton: I think there's going to be a lot of conversation about that very point. And I'm prayerful, I'm hopeful, like we tried to do with our Anthology like other groups are trying to do, is to make that point and make it as hard as possible that when we vote it matters, particularly for the most disenfranchised people. And so thank you for naming the “survival vote,” as black women in this country call it.Dr. Woodley's new books, and Where to Find His Work OnlineJonathan Walton: And so all of that, like we know you're doing work, we know things are still happening, especially with Eloheh and things like that. But I was doing a little Googling and I saw like you have a new book coming out [laughs]. So I would love to hear about the journey that… Oh, am I saying that right, Eloheh?Randy Woodley: It's Eloheh [pronounced like “ay-luh-hay”], yeah.Jonathan Walton: Eloheh. So I would love to hear more about your new book journey to Eloheh, as well as where you want people to just keep up with your stuff, follow you, because I mean, yes, the people downstream of you are pretty amazing, but the spigot is still running [laughter]. So can you point us to where we can find your stuff, be able to hang out and learn? That would be a wonderful thing for me, and for others listening.Randy Woodley: Well, first of all, I have good news for the children. I have three children's books that just today I posted on my Facebook and Insta, that are first time available. So this is The Harmony Tree Trilogy. So in these books are about not only relationships between host people and settler peoples, but each one is about sort of different aspects of dealing with climate change, clear cutting, wildfires, animal preservation, are the three that I deal with in this trilogy. And then each one has other separate things. Like the second one is more about empowering women. The third one is about children who we would call, autistic is a word that's used. But in the native way we look at people who are different differently than the West does: as they're specially gifted. And this is about a young man who pre-contact and his struggle to find his place in native society. And so yeah, there's a lot to learn in these books. But yeah, so my wife and I…Sy Hoekstra: What's the target age range for these books?Randy Woodley: So that'd be five to 11.Jonathan Walton: Okay, I will buy them, thank you [laughter]Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Randy Woodley: But adults seem to really love them too. So I mean, people have used them in church and sermons and all kinds of things. Then the book that Edith and I wrote is called Journey to Eloheh, how indigenous values bring harmony and well-being. And it's basically our story. The first two chapters really deal, the first chapter deals more in depth of this dualism construct. And the second one really deals with my views on climate change, which are unlike anybody else's I know. And then we get into our stories, but I wanted to set a stage of why it's so important. And then Edith's story, and then my story and then our story together. And then how we have tried to teach these 10 values as we live in the world and teach and mentor and other things and raise our children.So, yeah, the journey to Eloheh, that's all people have to remember. It's going to be out in October, eighth I think.Jonathan Walton: Okay.Randy Woodley: And we're really excited about it. I think it's the best thing I've written up to this date. And I know it's the best thing my wife's written because this is her first book [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Awesome.Sy Hoekstra: That's great.Randy Woodley: Yeah, so we're proud of that. And then yeah, people can go to www.eloheh.org. That's E-L-O-H-E-H.org and sign up for our newsletter. You can follow me on Instagram, both @randywoodley7 and @eloheh/eagleswings. And the same with Facebook. We all have Facebook pages and those kinds of things. So yeah, and then Twitter. I guess I do something on Twitter every now and then [laughter]. And I have some other books, just so you know.Sy Hoekstra: Just a couple.Jonathan Walton: I mean a few. A few pretty great ones. [laughs] Well on behalf of me and Sy, and the folks that we influence. Like I've got students that I've pointed toward you over the years through the different programs that we run,Randy Woodley: Thank you.Jonathan Walton: and one of them is… two of them actually want to start farms and so you'll be hearing from them.Randy Woodley: Oh, wow. That's good.Jonathan Walton: And so I'm just…Randy Woodley: We need more small farms.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Places where stewardship is happening and it is taught. And so, super, super grateful for you. And thanks again for being on Shake the Dust. We are deeply grateful.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Randy Woodley: Yeah, thank you guys. Nice to be with you.[the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Sy's and Jonathan's Thoughts After the InterviewJonathan Walton: So, wow. That was amazing. Coming out of that time, I feel like I'm caring a lot. So Sy, why don't you go first [laughs], what's coming up for you?Sy Hoekstra: We sound a little starstruck when we were talking to him. It's kind of funny actually.Jonathan Walton: Absolutely.Sy Hoekstra: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if people know, in our world, he's sort of a big deal [laughter]. And we have, neither of us have met him before so that was a lot of fun.Jonathan Walton: No, that's true.Sy Hoekstra: I think it was incredible how much like in the first five minutes, him summing up so much about Western theology and culture that I have taken like, I don't know, 15 years to learn [laughs]. And he just does it so casually and so naturally. There's just like a depth of wisdom and experience and thinking about this stuff there that I really, really appreciate. And it kind of reminded me of this thing that happened when Gabrielle and I were in law school. Gabrielle is my wife, you've heard her speak before if you listen to the show. She was going through law school, as she's talked about on the show from a Haitian-American, or Haitian-Canadian immigrant family, grew up relatively poor, undocumented.And just the reasons that she's gotten into the law are so different. And she comes from such a different background than anybody who's teaching her, or any of the judges whose cases she's reading. And she's finding people from her background just being like, “What are we doing here? Like how is this relevant to us, how does this make a difference?” And we went to this event one time that had Bryan Stevenson, the Capitol defense attorney who we've talked about before, civil rights attorney. And Sherrilyn Ifill, who at the time was the head of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. And they were just, it was the complete opposite experience, like they were talking about all of her concerns. They were really like, I don't know, she was just resonating with everything that they were saying, and she came out of it, and she goes, “It's just so good to feel like we have leaders.” Like it's such a relief to feel like you actually have wiser people who have been doing this and thinking about this for a long time and actually have the same concerns that you do. And that is how I feel coming out of our conversation with Randy Woodley. Like in the church landscape that we face with all the crises and the scandals and the lack of faithfulness and the ridiculous politics and everything, it is just so good to sit down and talk to someone like him, where I feel like somebody went ahead of me. And he's talking about the people who went ahead of him, and it just it's relieving. It is relieving to feel like you're almost sort of part of a tradition [laughter], when you have been alienated from the tradition that you grew up in, which is not the same experience that you've had, but that's how I feel.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean, I think for me, coming out of the interview, one of the things I realized is similar. I don't have very many conversations with people who are older than me, that are more knowledgeable than me, and have been doing this work longer than me all at the same time. I know people who are more knowledgeable, but they're not actively involved in the work. I know people that are actively involved in the work, but they've been in the silos for so long, they haven't stepped out of their box in ten years. But so to be at that intersection of somebody who is more knowledgeable about just the knowledge, like the historical aspects, theological aspect, and then that goes along with the practical applications, like how you do it in your life and in the lives of other people. He's like the spiritual grandfather to people that I follow.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: [laughter] So it's like, so I think you said it, like we were a little starstruck. I do think I was very conscious of being respectful, which I think is not new for me, but it is a space that I don't often inhabit. And I think that's something that has been frustrating for me, just honestly like the last few years, is that the pastoral aspect of the work that we do, is severely lacking.Sy Hoekstra: When you say the pastoral aspect of the work that we do, you mean like, in the kind of activist-y Christian space, there just aren't a ton of pastors [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: Yes. And, so for example, like I was in a cohort, and I was trying to be a participant. And so being a participant in the cohort, I expected a certain level of pastoring to happen for me. And that in hindsight was a disappointment. But I only realized that after sitting down with somebody like Randy, where it's like, I'm not translating anything. He knows all the words. He knows more words than me [Sy laughs]. I'm not contextualizing anything. So I think that was a reassuring conversation. I think I felt the same way similarly with Ron Sider, like when I met him. He's somebody who just knows, you know what and I mean? I feel that way talking with Lisa Sharon Harper. I feel that way talking with Brenda Salter McNeil. I feel that way talking with people who are just a little further down the road.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Lisa's not that much older than us [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Well, is she?Sy Hoekstra: You compared her to Ron Sider. I'm like, “That's a different age group, Jonathan” [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Well, I don't mean age. I do mean wisdom and experience.Sy Hoekstra: Right. Yeah, totally.Jonathan Walton: Yes, Ron Sider was very old [laughs]. And actually, Ron Sider is actually much older than Randy Woodley [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: That's also true. That's a good point.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, right. Ron Sider is, when the Anthology came out, he was legit 45 years older than us, I think.Sy Hoekstra: And he very kindly, endorsed, and then passed away not that long afterwards.Jonathan Walton: He did, he did.Sy Hoekstra: He was such an interesting giant in a lot of ways to people all over the political spectrum [laughs]…Jonathan Walton: Yes, right.Sy Hoekstra: …who just saw something really compelling in his work.Which Tab Is Still Open? Legislators Restricting Teaching about Race in SchoolsSy Hoekstra: So Jonathan, all right, from our recent newsletter recommendations. Here's the new segment, guys. Jonathan, which tab is still open?Jonathan Walton: Yes. So the tab that's still open is this article and podcast episode from The New Yorker, featuring a conversation with Columbia School of Journalism Dean, Jelani Cobb, and Nikole Hannah-Jones from Howard University and the 1619 project. They talked about the attack on Black history in schools. And so there's just two thoughts that I want to give. And one of them is that there are very few conversations where you can get a broad overview of what an organized, sustained resistance to accurate historical education looks like, and they do that. Like they go all the way back and they come all the way forward, and you're like “expletive, this is not okay.” [Sy laughs] Right? So, I really appreciated that. Like, yes, you could go and read Angela Crenshaw's like Opus work. Yes, you could go…Sy Hoekstra: You mean, Kimberlé Crenshaw [laughs]?Jonathan: Oh, I mixed, Angela Davis and Kimber… Well, if they were one person, that would be a powerful person [Sy laughs]. But I do mean Kimberlé Crenshaw, no offense to Angela Davis. I do mean Kimberlé Crenshaw. You could go get that book. You could go listen to Ta-Nehisi Coates testimony in front of Congress on reparations. Like these long things, but like this conversation pulls a lot of threads together in a really, really helpful, compelling way. And so that's one thing that stood out to me. The second thing is I think I have to acknowledge how fearful and how grateful it made me. I am afraid of what's going to happen in 20 years, when children do not know their history in these states. And I'm grateful that my daughter will know hers because she goes to my wife's school in New York.And so, I did not know that I would feel that sense of fear and anxiety around like, man, there's going to be generations of people. And this is how it continues. There's going to be another generation of people who are indoctrinated into the erasure of black people. And the erasure of native people in the erasure of just narratives that are contrary to race-based, class-based, gender-based environmental hierarchies. And that is something that I'm sad about. And with KTF and other things, just committed to making sure that doesn't happen as best as we possibly can, while also being exceptionally grateful that my children are not counted in that number of people that won't know. So I hold those two things together as I listened to just the wonderful wisdom and knowledge that they shared from. What about you Sy? What stood out for you?White People Should Take Responsibility for Their Feelings Instead of Banning Uncomfortable TruthsSy Hoekstra: Narrowly, I think one really interesting point that Jelani Cobb made was how some of these book bans and curriculum reshaping and everything that's happening are based on the opposite reasoning of the Supreme Court in Brown versus Board of Education [laughs]. So what he meant by that was, basically, we have to ban these books and we have to change this curriculum, because White kids are going to feel bad about being White kids. And what Brown versus Board of Education did was say we're going to end this idea of separate but equal in the segregated schools because there were they actually, Thurgood Marshall and the people who litigated the case brought in all this science or all the psychological research, about how Black children in segregated schools knew at a very young age that they were of lower status, and had already associated a bunch of negative ideas with the idea of blackness.And so this idea that there can be separate but equal doesn't hold any water, right? So he was just saying we're doing what he called the opposite, like the opposite of the thinking from Brown versus Board of Education at this point. But what I was thinking is like the odd similarity is that both these feelings of inferiority come from whiteness, it's just that like, one was imposed by the dominant group on to the minoritized group. Basically, one was imposed by White people on to Black people, and the other is White people kind of imposing something on themselves [laughs]. Like you are told that your country is good and great and the land of the free and the home of the brave. And so when you learn about history that might present a different narrative to you, then you become extremely uncomfortable.And you start to not just become extremely uncomfortable, but also feel bad about yourself as an individual. And White people, there are so many White people who believe that being told that the race to which you belong has done evil things, that means that you as an individual are a bad person, which is actually just a personal emotional reaction that not all white people are going to have. It's not like, it isn't a sure thing. And I know that because I'm a White person who does not have that reaction [laughter]. I know that with 100 percent certainty. So it's just interesting to me, because it really raised this point that Scott Hall talks about a lot. That people need to be responsible for our own feelings. We don't need to legislate a new reality of history for everybody else in order to keep ourselves comfortable.We need to say, “Why did I had that emotional reaction, and how can I reorient my sense of identity to being white?” And that is what I came out of this conversation with, is just White people need to take responsibility for our identity, our psychological identity with our own race. And it comes, it's sort of ironic, I think, that conservative people who do a lot of complaining about identity politics, or identitarianism, or whatever they call it, that's what's happening here. This is a complete inability to separate yourself psychologically from your White identity. That's what makes you feel so uncomfortable in these conversations. And so take responsibility for who you are White people [laughs].Just who you are as an individual, who you are as your feelings, take responsibility for yourself.There's a great book that my dad introduced me to a while back called A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being White or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life [laughter]. And it's written by this black, female psychologist named Janet Helms. It's H-E-L-M-S. But it's pronounced “Helmiss.” And she just has dedicated her career to understanding how White people shape their identities. And she has so, like such a wealth of knowledge about different stages of white identity formation, and has all these honestly kind of funny little quizzes in the book that she updates every few, there's like a bunch of editions of this book, that it's like asking you, “What do you think is best for America?” The campaign and ideas of this politician or this one or this one. And she asks you a bunch of questions and from there tells you where you are in your White identity formation [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Wow. That's amazing.Sy Hoekstra: It's really, “how would you feel if somebody said this about White people?” whatever. Tons of different questions, it's kind of like taking a personality test, but it's about you and your race [laughs]. That's just a resource that I would offer to people as a way to do what this conversation reminded me my people all very much need to do.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: I just talked for a long time, Jonathan, we need to end. But do you have any thoughts [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: No. I was just going to say this podcast is a great 101 and a great 301.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: Like it spans the spectrum. So please do if you haven't, go listen to the podcast. Yeah, just check it out. It's very, very good.Outro and OuttakeSy Hoekstra: We will have that in the show notes along with all the other links of everything that we had today. Okay, that's our first full episode of season four. We're so glad that you could join us. This was a great one full of a lot of great stuff. Our theme song as always is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. The show is produced by all of you, our lovely subscribers, and our transcripts are by Joyce Ambale. Thank you all so much for listening, we will see you in two weeks with the great Brandi Miller.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ and you call us citizens/ and you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Randy Woodley: You know, I think I've said before Jesus didn't give a damn about doctrine. Excuse me. Jesus didn't give a darn about doctrine. I don't know if that'll go through or not.[laughter]. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

Season four starts next week! Hear Jonathan and Sy talk about:-            What to expect this year from the show during this election cycle-            A reintroduction to everything KTF does, and why we do it-            How we really, genuinely need your support right now, and ways you can helpCredits-        Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our newsletter and bonus episodes at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Production, editing, and transcript by Sy Hoekstra.TranscriptWhat's Coming in Season Four[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending — F#, B, F#, E, D#, B — with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.” After a brief pause, the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice! I'm Sy HoekstraJonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton. Welcome to season 4!Sy Hoekstra: We are so excited to have you here. We're going to be doing something very special for this season during this presidential election cycleJonathan Walton: Yes, we're going back to our roots. The first thing we did with the company that makes this podcast, KTF Press, was publish an anthology in 2020 called Keeping the Faith. It had 36 authors writing political theology and personal stories to explain their opposition to Christian support for Donald Trump.Sy Hoekstra: We called it an anthology of dissent, a record of resistance toward the church's political witness in America. And our guests this season are going to be authors from that book, talking about what they wrote and how they're thinking about their faith and the political landscape now.Jonathan Walton: You've heard some of the writers from the book on this show before, like Dani Espiritu, Scott Hall, and Wissam Al-Saliby. And we're excited to bring you Dr. Randy Woodley, Brandi Miller, Mark Scandrette, Rasool Berry, and many more this season. The first episode is dropping this upcoming Friday, May 24, with Dr. Woodley.Sy Hoekstra: We've recorded some of these already, and we're really excited to get them to you in the coming months.What We Do at KTF, and WhySy Hoekstra: But before we jump into this season, we want to give you all a bit of a refresher on what exactly it is we do at KTF Press and why we do it. And the reason that we want to tell you all that is because we really need your support right now.Jonathan Walton: That's right. We do everything that we do to help people seek Jesus, confront injustice, and resist the idols of the American church that got us to the religious and political mess we're in right now. This show is all about hearing personal stories and informed discussions to help you do just that.Sy Hoekstra: And our weekly newsletter is where we curate media to help you in your discipleship and learning about politics and policy. You get commentary from us on issues important to our national discourse, and we also give you something each week to help you stay grounded and hopeful. Plus, you get news about what's going on with us at KTF, previews of this show, and a whole lot more.Jonathan Walton: We also write articles on similar subjects for our website, we have the anthology, and Tamice Spencer-Helms' incredible memoir we published last year, Faith Unleavened, about how White Jesus nearly destroyed her faith, and how she left him behind to find her way to liberation and the real Jesus.Sy Hoekstra: And we do all this with a couple things in mind. First, we always pay the most attention to marginalized voices, the people who our society oppresses and pushes to the side. We had a whole discussion on this in our very first episode, so if you want to learn more, you can always listen to that. But simply put, The opinions of people who a society favors get the most airtime, but people who a society harms and ignores actually have the clearest insight about the character of that society. And so if you want to understand the world around you better, you have to talk to marginalized people. Plus, God's ministry throughout the Bible is primarily directed toward the poor and oppressed, and his disciples primarily come from them. So you just have to train yourself to learn from people whose perspectives come from that angle on the world if you want to follow Jesus.Jonathan Walton: Another value of ours is trying to be both kind and humane toward people we disagree with, while remaining uncompromising about our own views. We believe, despite all the evidence on the internet to the contrary, that this is in fact possible [Sy chuckles]. But it requires a lot of intentional growth in the area of emotional health, so we talk a lot about that too.Sy Hoekstra: The good thing is, we've been practicing all this for a long time. We have been friends for 18 years now, talking and learning about these subjects together, and having our own sometimes very strong disagreements. We have had to learn how to talk across lines of difference with each other in real time as friends and followers of Jesus. Fortunately, we have been able to do that in communities with friends and mentors who are doing the same thing. On top of that, Jonathan has been doing justice ministry for well over a decade, and my career before this was in law and advocacy, and we want to just share all of this experience with you.We Need Your Support to Keep KTF RunningJonathan Walton: So, if all that sounds like something you can get behind, here is our ask of you. We need you to go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber to our Substack. We have to get more subscribers if we're going to keep this going. So, if you can afford it, please subscribe. If you can't, just write to us at info@ktfpress.com and we'll give you a free or discounted subscription, whatever you want, no questions asked. Because we want as many people as possible to have access. But if you can, please go to KTFPress.com and sign up. On top of supporting what we do, you get access to all our many bonus episodes, and coming soon, monthly subscriber chats with me and Sy. Also, if you're already a paid subscriber, consider upgrading to our founding member tier, which will immediately get you a free book.Sy Hoekstra: We've been doing all this podcasting and writing and book publishing as a side project for a while now, and we have some incredible subscribers supporting what we do. And they are covering the costs of what it takes to produce this show, to keep the websites running, and pay a bunch of our regular business expenses. We actually would not be here without them. But we've kept those expenses very low. I don't know if you know, but we're not recording this from KTF Press Studios, right next door to NPR. This company is two people with some basic sound equipment that our subscribers paid for, and our laptops. We occasionally get help from other people with laptops. We work in whatever room is available in our homes that are full of other people. At least once, that room was my closet.Jonathan Walton: [laughs]The point is this might sometimes sound like an established operation, but it's a little scrappier than you think. And I think you would agree work like this should not be a side project.Sy Hoekstra: To be fully transparent, I cannot afford to keep doing this as a side project. Jonathan does this work around his full-time job, but if I'm going to keep putting as much time into this as I do, which is a lot, I'm going to have to stop working for free.Jonathan Walton: So here's what we're doing. We're leveling up our branding and designs. You may have seen that on our website and in our emails. We'll also be doing some advertising, and of course continuing to put our best work here. But we need you to do your part!Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan, how many paid subscribers do we have right now?Jonathan about 120.Sy Hoekstra: And how many do we want to have by the end of this year?Jonathan Walton: One thousand! [laughs]Sy Hoekstra: So we have just a few more to go. Please, please go to KTFPress.com and sign up. Don't wait.Jonathan Walton: And there are a few free things you can do apart from subscribing. That newsletter we mentioned is free, so sign up for our free mailing list if you can't become a paid subscriber, and forward that thing so many times. That's also at KTFPress.comSy Hoekstra: You can also give this show a five-star review on Apple or Spotify, and say something nice about us in a review if you're on Apple Podcasts. You can also like our Facebook page and follow us on Instagram and Threads. But to reiterate, the most important thing we need you to do is go to KTFPress.com and become a paid subscriber. By the way, cool new trick. If you're listening to this on Spotify, just go back to the bonus episode right before this one in the feed, click the button to unlock that episode, and it will take you right where you need to go to Subscribe.Outro and OuttakeJonathan Walton: Alright everyone, thank you so much for listening. Once again, we're starting season 4 this upcoming Friday, May 24, with Dr. Randy Woodley. We will see you then![The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Okay, [singing a made-up tune] let me hit the button to stop this recording.Jonathan Walton: [commanding, in an English accent] Cease recording. Immediately.Sy Hoekstra: [with fake dramatic anger] Cease it now! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

Název pořadu jsem si vypůjčil ze stejnojmenného blogu, který Boleslav Vraný píše. Je to technicky vzdělaný člověk, který zároveň vystudoval bakaláře na KTF v Praze. Přispívá do několika časopisů, pořádá přednášky a snaží se svou víru vidět v souvislostech, které mohou některým z nás unikat. Rád fotografuje a zajímá se o vlaky a letadla. A o tom všem spolu budeme hovořit.

Albert-Peter Rethmann se rozhodl kandidovat na děkana KTF UK v Praze. Jako bývalý profesor má k fakultě blízký vztah a touží jí pomoci. Mediální pozornost, do které se KTF dostala výpovědí prof. T. Petráška považuje za trapnou a touží po smířlivém řešení, které by prospělo oběma stranám. Myslí si, že fakulta do médií patří, ale s jinými tématy a při potencionálním zvolení se bude snažit přispívat k akademickému i církevnímu významu fakulty.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.ktfpress.comOn today's episode, Jonathan and Sy talk about what keeps them going in the work that KTF does. Hear their thoughts on:-        The spiritual and emotional practices that keep Jonathan grounded-        Why Sy only prays when he feels like it, and consumes a lot of fiction-        The importance of the image of God and living in shalom with your surroundings to Jonathan-        How Privilege and anxiety interact with each other-        Why Sy wants to show people another way of living is possible-        And Jonathan's recent newsletter recommendation about a massive, nearly untouched national park and the important environmental and cultural questions surrounding itIntroduction[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending – F#, B#, E, D#, B – with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Jonathan Walton: If I hung out, and I could do this, hang out in the systemic all the time, I would not want to get out of bed. I wouldn't. Like if I just read the news and just knew the statistics and just laid my life down every day at the altar of my social media feed and my algorithm to feed the outrage machine, that would be a very, just not a fun way to live.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, leaving colonized faith for the kingdom of God. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton. Our topic today is what keeps us going in the work that we do here at KTF when we're constantly confronted with difficult subjects. Like what are the practices and experiences and the ideas that sustain us. We'll also be introducing our new segment, Diving Deeper into one of our recommendations from the newsletter, which we have recently decided is going to be called “Which Tab is Still Open?”Sy Hoekstra: It's not introducing it. We've done it before, we're just doing it again, but now we've named it. That's the difference.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: We've named it Which Tab Is Still Open?Jonathan Walton: That's exactly right.Sy Hoekstra: Before we get into everything quickly, as always… No, not as always, but as we're doing in these bonus episodes, I'm asking you, please everyone, if you support what we do—and I know that you do support what we do because you're listening to this bonus episode that is only for subscribers—please go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five-star rating. And if you're on Apple Podcasts, give us a written review. The ones that we have there are great, we so appreciate everyone who has already done this, it really does help us. That's the only reason I'm taking time to ask you to do it now. It helps people find us, it helps us in the ranking and helps us look good when people look us up if we have more ratings.So if you support what we do and want to spread our work around a little bit, that is a very quick and easy way to do it. Just pull out your phone, open Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or really any podcast app you have that allows ratings, give us a five star review. Give us that written review on Apple, even just like a sentence or two, we would so appreciate it. Thank you very much.The Emotional and Spiritual Practices that keep Jonathan groundedSy Hoekstra: Without further ado, Jonathan Walton, you're obviously a black belt of spiritual disciplines and emotional health, just a sort of, a sensei, if you will.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] Oh my.Sy Hoekstra: Should I do that? I don't know if I should say that or not.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] It's all good. You can be facetious. It's all good.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give us some of the things that you do to stay grounded. Some of the spiritual disciplines, some of the emotional health practices that you do to keep yourself from losing yourself in the anxiety and everything as you go through stressful news events and deal with difficult subjects in theology and politics and oppression that we talk about all the time.Jonathan Walton: I fortunately, I have thought about this a lot, mostly because I burned outSy Hoekstra: Yeah. That'll do it.Jonathan Walton: And I have anxiety, and because of traumas, little “t” and big “T” Trauma from when I was a child. I have a high propensity for control [laughs]. So I think I've had to think about it a lot so that I could not just get by in life, but actually have thriving relationships where I'm engaged with people and can show up as myself and not as a performer trying to get approval and things like that. So I think one of the things we want to think about a lot of the times is like what is our motivation in these conversations? Why are we getting this information? Why don't we want to engage, things like that. Being able to name our feelings, where they come from and the stories we tell ourselves about them, it's just like an exceptionally helpful thing when we engage with this stuff. So I ask myself those questions regularly, like what am I feeling, why am I feeling it, and then what is the story I tell myself about that feeling? So that's one simple emotional awareness thing. And I do that on a pretty regular basis in conversations. So if this is going to be like a sensei thing, like Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid…Sy Hoekstra: Oh no…Jonathan Walton: …like you're doing these things… you're doing these things and they are hard in the beginning, but then they become natural. It's like, “oh, I'm not going to put my feelings on other people, I'm going to own my feelings.” And often, the reason I'm able to do that is because of the three prayers I pray each day, The Lord's Prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis and the Franciscan Benediction. Because the Lord's Prayer helps me see myself and see God. The prayer of St. Francis helps me out of that, how do I want to see other people, I want to see them in the same way. And then with the Franciscan Benediction, then the anger, the fear, the discomfort, all of those things are good. Those are things you ask for in the Franciscan Benediction: God to bless you with discomfort, tears, and sadness, anger, and then foolishness. So I think after that there's this thing called the Rule of Life that's very old, that I update pretty intentionally, instead of it being like a self actualization tool where I'm like, “I just want to be my best self.” It's like how can I use this so that there's actually fruitful fruit in my community, not just me? Where the fruit is interdependence, the fruit is not independence and my own personal awesomeness. And so being able to practice things daily, weekly, monthly, annually, quarterly, things like that to help me and my family and those around me flourish in ways that are transformative and helpful, as opposed to strictly by utility or productivity or self aggrandizement and things like that.Sy Hoekstra: And the Rule of Life itself is, what exactly, actually, what is it in your life?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, so the Rule of Life is like [mockingly serious voice] an ancient spiritual practice [laughter]. But the image is a trellis, that whenever I've heard it talked about with monks and things like that, there's a trellis like if you're growing a plant, like a tomato plant or a cucumber plant, or something like that, and you want it to grow up, or grape vine, you set up a trellis to help it grow so that it's more fruitful. So for us, it's like these patterns and practices and thoughts and habits help us to create a structure for us to grow. I'd like to think of it more as the scaffolding of our lives. Because when you take the scaffolding away, the building is supposed to stand. So when you take away these systems or structures that you've set up, they become second nature, those things fall apart, and then you continue to do them and you are a whole person.Like nobody is walking down the streets of Manhattan today looking at buildings full of scaffolding. When you take the scaffolding away we're supposed to be whole.Sy Hoekstra: Well…Jonathan Walton: Well, that's true. There's lots of scaffolding around.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And it lasts longer than it's supposed to. And for all those people in Jackson Heights, I know your plight and I'm sorry, that it's dark on your block 10 months out of the year [laughs]. But all that to say, a Rule of Life is just an exceptionally helpful tool to be able to do that.Sy Hoekstra: So then for you, the scaffolding—that's a good New York City updating of agricultural metaphor of a trellis [laughter]. But what do you what do you actually do? Like what do you and your family actually do on a regular basis?Jonathan Walton: So one of the big monthly ones is I looked at every month of the year, and basically put something in there that all of us can look forward to together and or individually. So Priscilla knows that in our schedule, she's going to have at least three snowboarding or skiing trips in the winter. She knows that in the fall, she's going to have at least three or four hiking trips. She knows every October, we're going camping with our family and every September we try to go camping by ourselves. She knows there's two weeks every July where we are out of New York City. Now, I know that every Labor Day there's a chance for me to go away and her to take care of the kids, for me to just like be away from my children and my wife for a little while. I love them dearly, and I'm an introvert [laughter].Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Exactly.Jonathan Walton: So things like that. So yeah, that's something that happens every month. And every day I am… this year for my New Year's resolution, shout out to 2024, for every post and thing that I have that is dealing with something difficult, I want to try and post and think about something that brings the light. So can I actually hang out in the beauty and the resistance, the delight and the struggle at the same time, and kind of show up fully in both spaces? That's what I'm committed to doing on social media.Sy Hoekstra: So that one I think is more directly related to the stuff that we do at KTF Press, and you're saying that all those other things are like the scaffolding that lets the building stand. You know it's built into the rhythm of your life, that there's things that are replenishing and peaceful coming in the not too distant future, which makes the daily stressors easier or seem like they're more, something you can overcome more easily. Is that right?Jonathan Walton: Yes. I've got equal parts depletion and equal parts filling.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, that's great. You mentioned one of your goals for this year. What are some of the other goal setting practices? I guess you talked about how you review some of your emotions. So what are some of the other goal practices that you put in place?Jonathan Walton: Every week I write out a to do list, like every Sunday night or Monday morning, because it's usually after midnight, I sit down, I look at the to do list from the week before, I mark out everything that was done, I rewrite everything that wasn't done and I fill in the stuff for the week. I did that last year almost every week, and that's been something that's really helped me, because I can tell myself I didn't do anything and I'm worthless. That's how I feel a lot of the times, like I just haven't done enough. But if I consciously sit down and say, “Oh, these are things I accomplished this week, this is what I'm looking forward to and what I have to do next week,” and I can kind of close the chapter on one week and move forward to the next one.That's probably the most crucial thing that's helped me in being able to engage with things that are difficult, and things that are good, because I put those things in the same to do list. So I have to spend a good 10 minutes with Maia and Everest, while also “Hey, Jonathan, you need to read this article for the newsletter.” So they're beside each other, like I go back and forth between that beauty and that resistance.Sy Hoekstra: That's good. I should do the look back at my previous… When something's off my to do list, it's just gone. Like I just hit complete on my app on my phone.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And I should… That's a good idea actually.Jonathan Walton: That's a shout out to Flora Beck. I don't know if… oh, actually, Flora Tan now. I don't know if she's listening to this, but her reflections always challenged me. So yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Let's just assume Flora's listening. She's great.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Why Sy Only Prays When He Feels Like It, and Consumes a Lot of FictionSy Hoekstra: I come at this from such a different angle than you, man. So I will say me as a listener, if I just heard everything you said, I would get kind of stressed out and think that I was in trouble if that's what you need to be peaceful in life [laughter]. And the reason is this, it's not because anything you just said is bad, it's just because I come from such a different place, which is, I used to be very hyper-disciplined when it came to my spiritual practices. So I had prayer lists every day, like—meaning, a different list of people to pray for every day of the week. I had quiet times and just all kinds of regularized practices like that, none of which is bad.But it was bad for me because the reason I was doing it was basically out of anxiety that I wanted to be a good Christian and do things well and be a good person, and check all this stuff off my list. And basically remain caught up with Jesus [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: So I would get behind on my prayer list, I would get behind on my Bible reading, I would try and catch up, it would get longer and longer. Because sometimes you're just tired and you sit down to pray at night and you fall asleep [laughs]. It just so stressed me out and I was using, we've talked about this before, I was using prayer as kind of a bad substitute for mindfulness and therapy [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yup.Sy Hoekstra: I had no sense of emotional health or insight into my own emotions at all, I just knew I was really stressed out. And then if I sat and prayed for a long time, I would get less stressed out, which I used to refer to as like “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding,” And I now refer to as mindfulness [laughter]. Because I realized I could actually do, I can accomplish that same sort of ridding myself of anxiety without prayer, which doesn't mean that prayer is useless, or that God shouldn't bring you peace when you pray. What it means is I was using God to achieve an end for myself. It was not a relational, I wasn't there to commune with God, I was there to use God as a stress reliever.So the way that I stay grounded, and the way that I live in my own emotions and put myself in a place where I am more able to handle the stress of life because I'm not so stressed out by my spiritual practices all the time, is I read the Bible and I pray, and I talk to God when I actually want to. Which if you grew up like me, that idea sets off alarm bells in your head.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Because you think that that means that you are giving into your flesh, that you are just not being disciplined, you're going to lose out, you're going to backslide and drift into the way of the world, and all these other phrases that basically mean you're going to lose out because you're not doing something in a rote way. And I really had to lean into all the scriptures where God talks about spiritual practices and worship and everything that are empty of love for him and says, “I don't care about any of that. It disgusts me. Stop doing it.” Which he says over and over again. So I did take hold of that and get kind of into the real, get into a realistic relationship with Jesus where I'm actually talking to a being who I want to be talking to, as opposed to just doing things out of rote obligation.Jonathan Walton: And the fruit of that is a closer relationship with God.Sy Hoekstra: Yes. Right, it is.Jonathan Walton: You didn't backslide, you didn't fall into the sea of forgetfulness. You've actually cultivated a wonderful relationship with God rooted in your desire to be with him and his desire to be with you, and that is a beautiful thing.Sy Hoekstra: And my desire to be with God has increased since I have stopped. Because when I wasn't doing things this way, I fundamentally related to God in obligatory ways. Like the same way you don't want to do any obligation, I didn't want to hang out with God [laughter]. That's where I was. So anyways, it's interesting that because we start in different places, and because God knows both of us, we do two very different approaches to things and we come out the other end more peaceful and happier and closer to God, because, I don't know. Because of the stuff that we did that actually correlated to how we feel. I'm just making another in our million plugs for emotional health and awareness. Everybody, we got to do it [laughter].Jonathan Walton: It's true. It's true.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, one other important thing for me is fiction, which is… I spend a lot of time reading, listening to, thinking about all different kinds of fictional stories. I mean, I've said before I listen to like lots of sci-fi and fantasy and all that stuff like any other 35 year old, White millennial.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: White male millennial [laughs]. But I actually think it's extremely important for us, people who are specifically called to be ambassadors of the kingdom, to be able to consistently exercise our imagination. Because we are supposed to be thinking about how to change the world on a very fundamental level, kind of all the time. We're supposed to be bringing in new realities or praying for them or trying to. I'm not saying you, man, again, me as a younger Christian, I would have felt a whole lot of pressure around that idea of, “You have to bring in a new reality.” [laughter] But you know what I mean.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: That's what we represent and that's what our God does and is after, is a fundamental change and things. This is why I'm pretty sympathetic to abolitionist politics, because they are the ones imagining the most radical changes for us, and for our society and for the most marginalized.

This month's bonus episode features Jonathan and Sy talking about the power of the incarnation during hard times over the holiday season. They discuss:* Why exactly the holidays can be so hard* How our values about justice and systems of oppression interact with the vulnerability of this time of year* What the hope of the incarnation has to say about all of it* And, during our new segment, a recent newsletter highlight about the audacity and courage of abolitionist work throughout historyResources mentioned in the episode:* Jonathan's essay about Poverty and Shame* Mastodon thread about the Civil War military operation led by Harriet TubmanCorrection: in the episode Sy discusses the Abolition Riot of 1836, but mistakenly identified the year of the riot as 1831.Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow KTF on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our newsletter and bonus episodes at KTFPress.com. Transcripts of every episode are available at KTFPress.com/s/transcripts. And you can find the transcript for this episode here.HostsJonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook and Instagram.Sy Hoekstra – follow him on Mastodon.Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.Production and editing by Sy Hoekstra.Transcript by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to shakethedust@ktfpress.com and we may answer your question on a future episode.Transcript[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending – F#, B#, E, D#, B – with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Sy Hoekstra: The narratives that we tell ourselves that allow us to dismiss other people and absolve ourselves of moral responsibility, the incarnation is the complete opposite of that. Who better to relieve themselves of responsibility for your actions and behavior than God?[laughter]And what does God do? The opposite. Says, “I'm going to shoulder the responsibility of everything all of you have done, and I'm going to come down. I'm going to empty myself of the privilege, I'm not walking away. I'm going to be as in it as I can, I'm not kicking you out the house. I'm not leaving. I'm not cutting you off.” That example, the ability that we have to follow and commune with that person just gives me a ton of hope.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, leaving colonized faith for the kingdom of God. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton. Today, we are talking about the vulnerability, loneliness and intimacy of the holiday season. We'll discuss why the emotional stakes seem so high this time of year, how those feelings are often at odds with our own values around justice and resisting oppression, and how the incarnation gives us a path forward to wholeness and flourishing. We're also going to be doing our new segment where we talk about one of our recent newsletter recommendations with a little more depth, but we'll do it at the end of the show this time, so we can jump right into our main topic.Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for joining us on this bonus episode, we really appreciate you, our subscribers and everything that you do to keep us afloat and growing at KTF Press. And we just have one quick request of you, one quick favor to ask, which is go to Apple or Spotify and give us a five star rating. And if you're on Apple leave us a written review. These really help people find us, like they help us actually get up the search and the charts and all that sort of thing. They also help us just when people look us up, they see that other people have listened and like us. You give us credibility. And so insofar as you want to support what we're doing here at KTF press which we know you do because you are subscribing, then please do open up Apple podcasts or Spotify on your phone, give us that five-star rating.As Jonathan said last month, if it's four stars, keep it to yourself, give us a five-star rating. We really appreciate it. And that's all we're going to ask of you because we don't have to give you the pitch because you're a subscriber, and again, we so appreciate it. Jonathan, let's get into it.Jonathan Walton: Let's get started. It's not a new idea to say this, this time of the year is vulnerable and hard for a lot of people, either because they're facing complicated family relationships or facing loneliness or isolation because they don't have the family relationships they want to lean on. Why are we talking about this on the show about leaving colonized faith? What does this have to do with following Jesus, resisting oppression, centering marginalized voices, any of the stuff we normally talk about? We will definitely get there soon. But first, let's lay some groundwork. Can we talk from an emotional health standpoint about what is going on exactly this time of year? Why do people feel so vulnerable and anxious around the holidays?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, I'll start, but I should say in general, this topic, the whole topic of this episode is more your bag. I imagine you will do the majority of the talking this time around, because we are in the realm of how you kind of integrate your beliefs about the world and systemic oppression into the interpersonal. And that is Jonathan Walton [laughs]. That's is literally what you do on a lot of your actual job. But yeah, I guess I'll give some of the, you'll do the deep stuff. I'll give the more obvious ones now just to…Jonathan Walton: No worries. And then you'll be deceptively deep and then be like, well, but go ahead [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: I wasn't planning on that, but if that happens I will sound cool. So, I mean, part of it is when you're among family, and when we're talking about family we mean, I think both biological or chosen or whoever you're around, whoever you happen to be around this time of year. There's often a lot of unresolved trauma. There's stuff that you've buried. It can be something traumatic that happened that was hurtful that you've kind of buried and stopped talking about just for the purposes of being able to move on. It could be trauma that you're not even aware of that just comes from years and years of patterns of behavior amongst you and your family.And those things, I don't know, just kind of heighten the stakes of a lot of conversations and behaviors and everything. There's political, this probably happens more with your biological family than your chosen family, but there's political polarization. There's just, there's a ton of anxiety and fear around a lot of really important subjects. And when people get out of their tribes and their bubbles and get back into these groups of people that they are clinging on to, because they're a part of… The fact that we don't have a choice, but to be a part of, it breaks the bubbles, and that makes things very uncomfortable for everybody a lot of times.I just think when you're not talking about chosen family, when you're talking about biological family, obviously, you're talking about people that you didn't choose. And you're stuck with them, and they are like, deeply a part of your identity and your upbringing, whether you want them to be or not. For a lot of people, that just makes you feel stuck, when there's unresolved trauma, when there's tension when there's whatever. And that kind of stuck, being stuck in things that are difficult, and having no way really of ever fully escaping them, like, that's really complicated. And then even when you're among chosen family, there is some amount of increased pressure there, even though those are often like more, if you're there, they're often more copacetic relationships than you had with your family.But there is some pressure there too, because if that's the family that you're with, but you can choose not to be and then if you're not, or if somebody else chooses not to be part of your chosen family anymore, then you're back to either being isolated and lonely, and we'll talk about loneliness too. Or with the people that you were stuck with, who you don't have a good relationship with. So there's, I don't know, just a lot of that going on. But Jonathan, you're the one who knows about all the terms and the family systems theory and the [unclear 00:06:42]Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: So why don't you take us a level deeper here?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I mean, I don't know all the things. I am not a therapist, let's preface that right now. I am in therapy.Sy Hoekstra: That's enough.Jonathan Walton: But I like to think about the things that impact me the most. And I do believe that I have a responsibility to share the resources that I've been given, and I fortunately have a robust, chosen family. And I think two things that stand out to me, as we're having this conversation, and the fancy words are like enmeshment versus differentiation. And then the other term, which we should acquaint ourselves with is grief.Sy Hoekstra: Can you just define, we've talked about enmeshment and differentiation before, but can you just define that real quick?Jonathan Walton: Sure. So enmeshment simply is when our identities are so affixed with other people that we are unable to distinguish ourselves from them. So that can look like an inability or unwillingness to let people have their own thoughts, actions and feelings independent of someone else. For example, you may have a parent that is deeply uncomfortable or angry with you and you think, act or feel differently from them. You may feel blamed, you may be blamed. You may be critiqued and made to feel guilty when you have changed your political beliefs, or you are eating differently, or you have decided to bring a person home that they are not happy with, right?There's a lot of things that can come up, when we have times with family based on with our biological family expectations that come from that, when we are enmeshed with them, and they are enmeshed with us. Differentiation is when we are able to be ourselves and have our own thoughts, actions and feelings while remaining connected to people. It is possible to differentiate ourselves from someone without destroying them in our minds [laughs], or completely engulfing ourselves and their identity. And so my invitation to you, as I talked about in our one of our cohorts this week is, can you go home to your family and not turn back into your childhood self and play the role that is expected of you?And I think when we're able to do that, and not to individualize in a way that cuts your family off, but individualize in a way that allows you to be more present to the community, that's the goal. So I think that the flip side of differentiation is actually grief. A lot of us, as Sy was talking about, are carrying around this unprocessed trauma. Big T- Trauma or little t- trauma. And so I think…Sy Hoekstra: Wait, sorry, what's the difference between big and little T trauma?Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So big T- Trauma would be something that happened to you, and little t- trauma would be something you didn't receive that you should have.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, okay.Jonathan Walton: So yeah, so let's say big T- Trauma, these things that happen to us that are traumatic, that cause us to have these earthquake events in our lives. Little t- trauma would be something like neglect. I did not, like I can count on one hand how many times I initiated and my mom reciprocated a hug. That's little t- trauma. I should have received that when I was younger. Little t- trauma would be going into my house, and I talk about this in the poverty and shame essay like, there should have been stability in my house around furniture and things like that. Do you know to come home and our furniture is gone [laughs] or to come home and cars are gone? There was a constant sense of instability in my life. So these things should have been there, but they weren't.Sy Hoekstra: Having been repossessed, you mean?Jonathan Walton: Yes, having been repossessed [laughs]. Yeah, man. Some of you all have experienced that before. It's not fun when literally the furniture you were sitting on is now not there anymore.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And these are things from our childhood, but like I said, there are things to grieve each year with our families around the holidays. People get married, they don't come back for holidays anymore, people pass away, they don't cook that dish anymore. People are estranged, and they just aren't present anymore. So there's things that we have to grieve and let go of and reengage with and all of that takes time. But it's exceptionally important to be differentiated, to be able to do that in a mature, conscious and intentional way.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. And just to expand our examples a little bit, grief can also just be the fact that you're lonely, because you don't have anyone to be around this time of year, and there's so much pressure to be with your family. Or it can be the grief of having, even if you are with people who love you, it can still be the grief of having been cut off from your family or whatever. That's something that a lot of people experience. I'll say I in particular, well probably both of us, when we're thinking about like chosen family or people being isolated and cut off, I just really don't want to leave out like that's a ton of our queer siblings, right?Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: That's just so many, there's like such a disproportionately high number of people who have been cut off from their family, because their family are bigots. And that gets in the way of, it's just a way that kind of, I'll start to bring in the systemic stuff that gets in between families and people and I just, I don't know. I feel a, burden is the wrong word. But just feel a desire to make sure we're bringing that into the conversation. Any more thoughts on that or should we get into this systemic stuff? Did I do a segue or not?[laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think if you're listening to this and this is you, I wouldn't rush through this process of processing. And my prayer for you, if you have questions or want to process more, you can obviously email us or reach out for resources or more conversation. But I would not sit alone in these things and think to yourself, nobody else is going through this, but I would reach out because we could actually be a community for one another amidst the hard stuff that's happening.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, even if you are at home happily with a family who loves you and is healthy and great, it also just helps you too. I think this whole conversation I think will just help you too to be a better friend to people who are in this situation. Be a better example of how Jesus comes towards us and tries to be with us, Emmanuel.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: So yeah, I think this conversation is for everyone, not just people who are feeling grief, that's just a note that I wanted to make. But Jonathan, let's bring this kind of into the realm of what we talk about in general, now that we've laid the groundwork. So we and I think a lot of people have a lot of values about when it comes to how we engage with systemic oppression or systems and structures in our society, how we want society to engage with vulnerable people, all kinds of things that we think that when we bring them into really intimate vulnerable settings like our families, some stuff happens [laughs]. Some stuff happens that makes things, that raises the stakes and makes things complicated. Can you tell us what happens a lot of times when we're combining those values in that setting?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I'll tell a quick story, and I may have told the story before, just to ground our example. I had a young racially assigned white 18/19 year old student who learned about the oppression of BIPOC folks at the hands of police and went home and told her dad Black Lives Matter. And he kicked her out of the house and said, “Don't come back until you learn how to think correctly.”Sy Hoekstra: Kicked her out of the house?Jonathan Walton: Yes, kicked her out of the house.Sy Hoekstra: Okay…Jonathan Walton: I've also had students that make decisions around LGBTQIA+ issues and had their money drained from their account by their parents. So these are interpersonal realities that happen because of changes about how a student or a person thinks about oppressive systems. So one of the things that I've noticed in these conversations is that some people in our families literally cannot handle the reality or thought that we would think differently from them. And that we might actually have our own thoughts, our own feelings, and still love and want to be in relationship with them.Sy Hoekstra: You're talking about basically someone who feels really enmeshed, not knowing how to comprehend someone who feels differentiated.Jonathan Walton: Exactly. Right. And so, I think one of the things that I've tried to do in these situations is, how can I be a son, be a father, be a cousin, be a brother, be a friend, in relationship to my family, primarily, rather than being a pastor, a teacher, a leader, a writer, a speaker? That to me feels like the more vulnerable thing, to be able to share myself with my family before I share my ideas with my family. I think that is a lot of work, usually because the way that our quote- unquote, minds are changed when we go to college, when we go to a protest, when we watch a documentary, or when we have conversations with someone, is like we're getting new information introduced to us independent of the home environment that we grew up in.And when we get that information, we often cannot take the people with us who actually helped us make those changes. So this young woman's father did not bring, I mean, this young woman did not bring Jonathan Walton and an entire week's worth of experiences to her dad to have this conversation.Sy Hoekstra: She just brought the new idea.Jonathan Walton: She just brought the new idea. And similarly, like with the person who decided to say, “Hey, I want to make space for my queer family.” They didn't bring the queer people there. They just brought this new idea and this new decision that was not consulted with the leaders in the family.Sy Hoekstra: By the family.Jonathan Walton: And so I think it's helpful to remember that sometimes loving the people that we come from equals acknowledging where they're at and being there with them, as our whole selves, us quote- unquote, changed and them being unchanged, and pursuing the relationship before we try to correct people. In parenting speak it's, we build a connection before we bring the correction. I think something beautiful about Jesus is that he is remaining connected to his disciples primarily before and during their correction. He never left them. He always pursued them. And I wonder, would it be possible for us to pursue our family members? And I'm not talking about big T- Trauma family members that do unhelpful, abusive things. That's not what we're talking about.Sy Hoekstra: That's an important distinction to make.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that is a fundamentally different conversation. How do we handle inter-relational familial tension with Jesus at the center as people who are maturing and changing and desire to be in authentic relationship with the families that we come from? That's what we're talking about. And so when the stakes are that high, I think pursuing the relationship and prioritizing connection over correction is a paramount thing to do. Because we want to win the relationship, not just win the argument.Sy Hoekstra: Which is not to say don't have integrity with what you believe.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: You're actually saying, have full integrity, but just do whatever you can to make it clear that you still love the person or want to be in relationship with them. So you might face a situation where you just want to say black lives matter, and if you say it your dad is going to kick you out of the house. And that's like, you can't do anything about that, right [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So we're not saying hedge your bets and maybe say all lives matter just for the sake of the relationship.Jonathan Walton: [Laughs].Sy Hoekstra: We're not saying like change the message [laughs], but we are saying be careful. What I'm saying is be careful and thoughtful about who you're trying to correct and when and where they're at. That's all. It's I just want to make sure that people understand the limit, you know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Just so we're not suggesting stay silent, do nothing, let people go on and on about horrible things in your presence or whatever [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah, exactly. It is possible to lovingly confront the people and nonsense in our lives.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: It's possible. I think of [laughs] I have, some interesting people in my life. And sometimes they say things that are really, really unhelpful and demeaning to people that I love and care about and I think Jesus loves and cares about deeply. And usually, the way that presents itself is me asking a question, when they say said unhelpful thing. So, for example, someone said to me, “Well Jonathan, like what about men's rights?” And my response is, “You know what? Yeah, you're absolutely right. There is a crisis among men.” Because that's true, I'm not violating a value when I say that. There are real problems with men in this country. I can say that without disparaging women or delegitimizing feminism.But when I also follow up with that and say, it's true, there are real problems with men, but I wonder if the quote- unquote, men's rights movement is just a reactionary movement compared to the rise of women's rights?”Sy Hoekstra: And then you have a conversation about that.Jonathan Walton: And then we have a conversation. Because I'm asked, I'm genuinely having a conversation. I didn't pull out my like one, two, or first, second, third wave feminist philosophers. I didn't start like [laughs], “Let me go get my notes.” I didn't take my phone out. I was just like, this is something I'm thinking about, because they are my peer. This is my, in this case, one of my cousins. They're not a person in my section A discussion class that I'm trying to debate. This is my cousin who I grew up playing sports with, and really care for his mom, my aunt, and like [laughs] we're going to eat biscuits and gravy after this conversation.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: That I think is, we just have to prioritize loving the people who are in front of us, while not dismissing the people who are not there. So if I'm having a conversation with this person in front of me who I think is flattening out women's rights and dehumanizing women, it doesn't justify my dehumanizing him or reducing him to an argument to just be beaten down, just so I can justify the humanity of somebody else. I actually need to hold both of them in tension and love my neighbor, in this case my cousin, by having a conversation about women's rights, which honors him and his humanity, while also honoring the humanity of the women that are in the room in that conversation.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Which is always like, it's just always tough to do, but that is the line you have to walk, in my opinion.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: You have to walk the, “Everybody's a human,” line[laughter].Jonathan Walton: Right, which sounds so basic.Sy Hoekstra: It feels basic, I say it that way to make it sound basic, because it's easy to lose it. It's easy to lose track, it's easy to just say either, depending on what your personality is, or kind of what your politics are, it's easier to say I'm not gonna rock the boat, and I'm gonna let this person dehumanize women. Or I'm going to beat this person down in an intellectual argument and care nothing for them as a human, which is also dehumanizing. And you can feel pressure to do either one of those things from both sides, and I just think neither of them in the end are our Jesus, frankly [laughs]. And we will be we… I don't want to put too many caveats in everything I say, but you have to exercise wisdom, right? There are going to be situations where you need to walk away from a conversation, or you need to just flat out tell someone, “Shut up.”[Laughter]Those situations will arise and people need to figure out where those are, but we're talking about like what your guiding principle is, right?Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And just everybody's human [laughs]. That's a pretty good guiding principle.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And I will be… listen, like something that I think was a learning I had to do is that just because I don't speak up in every situation does not make me a bad friend. Or I lose my integrity in some way, all these things because my temper when I was younger was really bad. So I actually didn't have the skills to lovingly confront the people around me. I would just argue and try to destroy them. With all of the anger and frustration communicated clearly, the talking over them, the shouting them down the statistics. I was like, you cannot debate me. But that was not loving at all to the person sitting in front of me, and ultimately did not make it better, quote- unquote, downstream for the people that I was actually trying to defend. Because this person in front of me may leave thinking Jonathan is right, but they don't leave thinking I should do things differently on behalf of these people.Sy Hoekstra: Why not? Let's say you just utterly destroy them in the argument, why don't they leave thinking I should do something differently on behalf of these people?Jonathan Walton: [Laughs] Sadly, I think it's because it was disrespectful. I don't think that presentation matters, but I do think presentation matters. And how we share things with people is not ultimately how they will change, but how we share things with people will dictate if and how they stay connected to us and engaged in the conversation. So I think it was a transformative thing, the way that Jesus chose to talk to the Pharisees in different situations. So when he managed the crowd, when the woman quote- unquote was caught in adultery, and started to write down, write on the ground, he took the attention away from the woman that was presumably standing there naked in front of a crowd about to stone her, everyone started to look down at the ground and stop looking at her.And then he said, “If any of you are without sin, let them cast the first stone.” That to me is a loving confrontation. It's not violent, he doesn't pick up stones and throw them back at them. He doesn't call down angels to have the stones fall on the people who are holding them, he doesn't do any of those things. He just asked them a question, a rhetorical question in that way. And then they dropped the stones and then walked away. And then he looked at the woman who he did not condemn, and condemnation in the Torah would have been death. He did not condemn her. He said, “Go and sin no more.” So there's an invitation to stay in relationship with him while also taking an action, and I think if we're able to do that, then something transformative can happen.Sy Hoekstra: And that's really hard to do, I think. Because just throwing rocks at the other people who are judging her or depending on what your orientation is maybe joining the rock throwers.[laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Like it's hard to… I was thinking of what my temptation would be, which would be to punch the people in the face who had the rocks [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: But for some people, they have different temptations. I just think it's hard to resist those things because those are, as Jesus would put it, kind of the patterns of the world. Or maybe that's how Paul would put it. And doing the stuff that Jesus does just requires such a different way of thinking.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Because so, when I was thinking about this question I was actually thinking about this question of what happens when your values about systems and structures sort of collide with your intimate family relationships?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: I was imagining a scenario where it's like, let's say you have someone in your family who uses drugs. And you maybe zoom out like not somebody who's your family, how do you think we should be approaching the issue of drug use in our society? Maybe you think it's a public health issue, we shouldn't be criminalizing it. It's something where people need support, not judgment and shame. It's a psychological issue. It's a disease. It's not just like an immoral choice. All those things. Okay, so you have all those beliefs, then bring a drug user into your home, and what changes? Now all of a sudden, it's not like an arm's length policy question, it's is this person going to steal from me to feed a habit? Is this person going to bring, I don't know, a bag of heroin into a home where my kid is or something?Jonathan Walton: My kid, yeah.Sy Hoekstra: You know what I mean? There's all these questions, that just, it raises so many issues of stuff that you have to deal with, and it's so much easier to go back to the way that the world thinks and just erase the traumatic things, cut them off, get rid of them.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: If there's someone who is sick and in need of support, you can't kick them out of your house. But if there's someone who's just making bad decisions and is just selfish, not thinking about other people, and they're a criminal, and they deserve to be locked up, you can kick them out of your house, no problem. And then all the problems go away, then you don't have to worry about your kid. Then you don't have to worry about all the time and energy you're going to have to put into being creatively supportive to this person. So I just think, I'm using this as an example, but this could be people with mental health symptoms, this could be people with, it could even be like you, Jonathan, all the stuff that you just said about how to approach someone who's racist, when you're actually faced with a racist person.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: That's a lot harder to do, you know what I mean? Like, now they're insulting… you know what I mean? It just becomes so easy for us to follow the patterns of the world because they help us reduce trauma. That's why they're there. That's why those narratives about personal responsibility… It's like we were talking about Maxine Davis, actually how the criminal justice system, a lot of it is to put yourself in a hierarchy where you're a good person and the people who commit crimes are bad, and we can get rid of them.Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely.Sy Hoekstra: Those kinds of narratives make the lives of the people who tell them easier. They absolve the people who propagate the narratives of moral responsibility for other people.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And for being in a society and they allow us to make things simple and cut and dry. And we do that most of the time by demeaning and dehumanizing other people, and by ignoring their actual circumstances, ignoring psychological and circumstantial situation that they're facing that you've never faced before. You have no idea how you would react if you're in their situation. Forget all that, it doesn't matter. They're bad. We can lock them up, we can kick them out, we can get rid of them, you know?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, I just appreciate you saying you want to do what Jesus did in the situation with people trying to stone the woman because that's the hardest thing to do. And there's so much soft narrative power that is so subtle and so pervasive against us doing that exact thing what Jesus did.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, and in to push back, or actually not to push back against you, but to push back against the narratives of the world. Let's say you pick up stones and fight on behalf of the woman. The pattern of the world would say, when you realize that you shouldn't have picked up stones to stone the crowd, even though you beat all of them, justify why you did it by this person's, like by protecting this person, as opposed to saying, “Hey, I'm so sorry I resorted to the tactics that you were trying to employ against this person. I used those against you, and that was wrong. I wish that I had done this differently, and I hope that we can all protect the vulnerable people, not using the same tactics of dehumanization and violence.”Sy Hoekstra: Okay. Jonathan, any other thoughts there or should we move on to Christmas?Jonathan Walton: No, we can move on. I think we're good.Sy: All right. So tell me what happens then with the incarnation, Jonathan. We're here talking about Christmas in theory. Now we're actually gonna start talking about Christmas. How does the example of Jesus and the incarnation change kind of how we think about these things or help us move in the direction that we want to move?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think there's a beautifully difficult photo of the Nativity scene right now at the church in Bethlehem. And it's baby Jesus on a pile of broken concrete from a building that was destroyed by a missile there.Sy Hoekstra: Right, and for people who don't know, Bethlehem is in what is now Palestine. Right?Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Currently being bombed, the place where the Christmas story happened.Jonathan Walton: Yes, and Christmas services there have been canceled because of said bombardment. So I think one of the things the incarnation teaches me in this moment, we had a Bible study on Sunday, and leaning into the reality that Jesus is vulnerable as a baby under an oppressive regime. Mary is vulnerable as a teenager who is pregnant about to be quietly divorced or dismissed by her husband that she was committed to. Elizabeth is vulnerable as in a married woman who has been childless for years and when Angel Gabriel shows up and says, “You're gonna have a son,” she says, “My disgrace has been removed.” The entire story of humanity, of the divine encounter with humanity in Luke 1, is about vulnerability. Mary is vulnerable, Joseph is vulnerable. Zacharia is invited to be vulnerable, he doesn't want to opt in, the angel shuts him up [laughs].Elizabeth is invited to be… and Jesus comes into the midst of an oppressed, vulnerable group of people and does not announce himself for a decade. 12 years old, like where do you think I was gonna be? So there's all these stories about what did Jesus do, blah, blah, in all those years, but all that to say is he was silent about the, at least the narrative is silent to us about all the problems in the world. It's fascinating to me that Jesus paid taxes to the Romans and those resources oppressed other people. When I think about, oh, like 54 cents of my tax dollars goes into the military industrial complex of the US, like, Jesus paid taxes. That is, I don't know what to do with that. Jesus was a vulnerable person in the midst of an oppressive system his entire life.So how do we be vulnerable in the midst of the oppressive systems and structures we are aware of and not aware of, and pursue intimacy with God and respond to him in ways that bear witness to this new kingdom and this new family? That's what I'm getting from the incarnation right now.Sy Hoekstra: And what answers if any, have you come up to with that question?Jonathan Walton: It's not so much an answer, but I think one of the things that stands out to me is that the most vulnerable thing I can be, not just with my family, but in any situation is just Jonathan. Like not hiding behind accolades or whatever story I can tell myself, but that reality of… like I was praying with one of our cohorts, one of the people from our cohorts yesterday, when I tell Maia I am accepted, God is not ashamed of me, I'm a son of the most high God, then she says “daughter' and we do that thing, she doesn't have the same generational trauma that I have. But I'm realizing I'm telling her this because I'm debunking narratives within myself and trying to give her the gift as opposed to giving her the liability.And it's fascinating to me that Jesus would subject himself to that, to just be himself. To be 100 percent, human 100 percent divine, but lean into, at least when he's a baby, like his humanity. So how can I lean into my humanity and see it as a good thing?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. That's really good. I think I want to also emphasize on top of that, that the gift of God's presence especially in the vulnerable circumstances that you were just talking about in the Roman Empire and all that. In poverty, in being a refugee and everything that he was, is supposed to signal the idea of Emmanuel, the idea of God with us, which is such a direct contradiction to our vulnerability. Meaning, this is not a complicated point I'm making, but if you really believe in the idea of Emmanuel that's going to help you with your loneliness, that's going to help you with your fear [laughs]. That's going to help you with your insecurities when you're around your family, that's gonna help you with your insecurities when you're alone, if you're feeling like… how much more of an answer can you have for loneliness and isolation than God is with you?And that doesn't mean that me saying that immediately cures everybody's loneliness and isolation, or heals their wounds with their family. But it is just a gift for us to meditate and reflect on and to live into, and to find, I don't know. To find a greater sense of ways that we are not alone. So there's that component of it. There's the somewhat of an antidote to loneliness and fear [laughs]. And then I think there's also just the example of the incarnation meaning in. like how Paul describes the incarnation as God emptying himself of privilege, emptying himself of riches and status and coming to be one of us. The problems that I was talking about before, like when I was talking about having the family member who's a drug user or whatever, that was just my example.The narratives that we tell ourselves that allow us to dismiss other people and absolve ourselves of moral responsibility. The Incarnation is the complete opposite of that [laughs]. Who better to relieve themselves of responsibility for your actions and behavior than God? [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: And what does God do? The opposite. Says, “I'm going to shoulder the responsibility of everything all of you have done, and I'm going to come down. I'm going to empty myself of the privilege, I'm not walking away. I'm going to be as in it as I can. I'm not kicking you out of the house, I'm not leaving, I'm not cutting you off. And at the same time, I'm not one of you. I'm going to be…” It's like perfect differentiation [laughs]. “I'm gonna be here, but I'm gonna be entirely myself and separate from who you all are.”Jonathan Walton: Yup.Sy Hoekstra: And I just think that example, the ability that we have to follow and commune with that person just gives me a ton of hope. Like that's the person that we're following, that we're trying to become more like, is the person who does not cut people off. The person who finds the way to be in the suffering. I don't know. I guess it took me probably a while to get to that point because it's hard what Jesus did [laughter] and following him is hard as the Bible warned several times. But it's just if we were following that example, all of us, man, what a different world we would have,Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: What different policies we would have, what a different government we would have.Jonathan Walton: And I mean, a different church.Sy Hoekstra: Very different church.Jonathan Walton: Like imagine if the Catholic Church had done that instead of the papal bull that was manifest destiny.Sy Hoekstra: Oh that was enshrining White supremacy and theology in beginning the colonial project. Yeah. Right.Jonathan Walton: Let it be so.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, amen. Let's wrap up that discussion there, but then we have our segment to do Jonathan.Jonathan Walton: Cool.Sy Hoekstra: All right. So we still, by the way, we still need a name for this segment. We need to figure out what we're gonna call this. Maybe I need like a sound effect or something. We'll figure it out.Jonathan Walton: Behind the blurb, sound drop [makes the air horn noise].Sy Hoekstra: Behind the blurb [laughs]. Yeah, I'll get an air horn. So what I wanted to talk about today was one from our newsletter last week, if you're listening to this when it comes out. And it was ever since Twitter went from the dumpster fire that it always was to sort of like blazing dumpster inferno that it became in the last year. So I've left and looked for other places to find things.And I spent some time on Mastodon and have discovered the incredible work of D. Elizabeth Glassco who's a Rutgers history professor on Mastodon, who just leaves these incredibly long threads of really cool stories from Black history.It's like a ministry that she's doing over there on Mastodon. And okay, so I'm reading this thread that's about the Civil War, and basically, the Union Army has captured this area in South Carolina. Abraham Lincoln has issued the Emancipation Proclamation and they are noticing of this one kind of area that they've taken over in South Carolina, that they have this one person who's volunteering with them, who is incredibly good at speaking to the slaves that they have freed and creating networks of communication among the slaves, and getting information, getting reconnaissance and espionage, recruiting people to her cause. And she's really good at speaking with the Gullah-speaking populations, even though they're not they don't speak the same language, she's finding ways to communicate.She has camaraderie with them, and the person is Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman is down in this encampment of the Union Army, basically creating networks of currently and formerly enslaved spies effectively. And she's just doing this kind of out of her own accord because she's used to doing it because it's how she operates the Underground Railroad. So they recruit her to lead this one stealth mission. She's the first woman in US history to lead an armed mission for the US Army. They recruit her, she leads about 250 Black soldiers and 50 White soldiers into these basically really backwoods parts of South Carolina, where they're getting into plantations that are just really far away from town centers or anything, going up this river in these boats with a bunch of soldiers.And she has so effectively scouted with all of her spies the area, that they know where all of their anti-troop explosives and traps and gun stations are and everything. And they're basically sneaking up these creeks and rivers at night. They literally in the course of one night, they pull 700 enslaved people off of plantations. And the people who live there have no idea that it's happening, and they basically just gut the economy of this whole area of South Carolina, and free 700 people in like one night, and with one death in the middle of an army. So it's like a huge blow for the Union Army, and all led by Harriet Tubman. So this is more people than she ever freed on the Underground Railroad. She did it in one night with these people.And it's just wild to me, the reason I bring this up and the reason I put it in the newsletter is because of how much I think hope it brings me that people like her exist [laughs] or existed. That like just the sheer amount of bravery and the sheer amount of skill that she had and that she actually deployed on behalf of her cause, as a Black woman in US history, as a disabled woman, she had epilepsy… we don't know if it was epilepsy or not. She had a…Jonathan Walton: Injury.Sy Hoekstra: …seizure disorder caused by head trauma. It gives me hope, and I don't want to say that in a flippant way, because I know a lot of like, you can have White people talking about slaves who did stuff like that. And just like, “Look at this, isn't this great [laughs]? Golly, gee, this is fantastic.”I'm not trying to diminish the ridiculous circumstances that she was in or how hard she had to work, but the story gives me a lot of hope. And I just want to hear what your immediate reactions are to it, because you were raising your eyebrows [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I'm reading this in real time, but one of the things that it reminds me of is that there's a reason why people in power want to ban books and change stories and not tell all these things. I remember I wrote a poem called Just Black. It was the first time I ever did poetry about race in front of crowds in New York City, and I was so nervous that I did it. And one of the lines, it says they don't want us to remember the Martins or the Malcolm's and I just went through all the revolutionary people that had impacted me. Because if we don't know them, we can't change things. And if you don't have the imagination, or the history, then we'll just keep the status quo going.So yeah, this reminds me to get creative this Christmas season around the Congo. Get creative about what to do about Gaza, get creative about the people who are still on the proverbial plantation that we're trying to get off of. So I'm grateful for this story. And I need to reactivate my Mastodon account.[laughter]Sy Hoekstra: The abolitionists that yeah, so much of abolition, I studied a lot of abolition history. I was a history major in college. And so much abolition is like that, like the imagination that it takes to do the stuff that they did.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: To be that audacious and that bold and to just like, you're going to just pull a new world into this one.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Right.Sy Hoekstra: Because nobody could have possibly have imagined this kind of raid being pulled off, because you needed someone as uniquely gifted and dedicated as Harriet Tubman to be able to pull something like this off. And I just, I don't know, there's so many other… Can I do one more before we go, just one more story?Jonathan Walton: Sure. Yeah, go on.Sy Hoekstra: Here's another example of this just imaginative, absolute bold stuff. So there was this, they call it an abolition riot, which is a slanted way of thinking about it, but it's 1831 in Boston. And there are these two women on trial as runaway slaves. They show up on the day that they're having the legal proceedings, and the courtroom is just full of abolitionist Black women, like just packed from wall to wall, the whole gallery, they're out in the hall they're everywhere.Jonathan Walton: Oh wow.Sy Hoekstra: And they let the proceeding happen and then when it becomes clear that things are not going to be fair and these women are going to be shackled, a woman sitting in the crowd just says, “Go,” and they flood the court, like the area where the judge and the attorneys are [laughs]. They all just run in and then they all just leave. And when they leave, the two women are gone. And they have a chariot, like a horse drawn chariot waiting outside of the court. They put the two women in the chariot, it takes off through the streets of Boston, and there's no historical record of those two women anywhere else ever again.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] That's amazing.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. And that's what I mean. Like, that's the kind of stuff, I don't know, to have just the sheer gall to do it. You know what I mean [laughs]? Gall is maybe is the wrong word. Just the audacity.Jonathan Walton: Wow. Like, “Go.”[laughter]Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. They were all ready. They were all just sitting there totally ready.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, they knew the deal. They knew the assignment and that's what we doing.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] But coming up with the assignment is the incredible thing to me. Just the imaginative power of this. That's again, like you said, this is why stories like this get banned and put away and diminished in importance and whatever.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So let's end on that note of hope, shall we [laughs]?Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Get imaginative, get creative and bold this Christmas season everybody with the power that comes with the knowledge that God is with you.Jonathan Walton: Right. Amen.Sy Hoekstra: Before we go, just again, a quick reminder, please rate us, give us a five star rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Give us a review too, just write a sentence or two or five paragraphs, whatever you feel like writing on Apple, if you're there on Apple, they let you do that. It really helps us. We're not kidding, please. We were going to have some news early next year, I think about kind of how we're trying to really grow and we have some big plans and big goals. And you doing little easy free things like this actually really helps us. So stay tuned. In the meantime, five-stars on Apple and Spotify, please.Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. The transcripts for this show are available at ktfpress.com, click podcast transcripts, those are by Joyce Ambale. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. We will see you all in January for our next episode. And everybody Merry Christmas.Jonathan Walton: Merry Christmas.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: I like that when I have to do something on the outline I never write it out for myself. I just wrote, “Sy, colon, welcome, comma et cetera [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I'm like I don't... Yeah, I need more than that in all of my notes.Sy Hoekstra: Well, you're not the… Yeah, but I also want to make sure that you have what you need, but I apparently don't care if I have what I need [laughs].Jonathan Walton: I also think you think you will be much more succinct than me, so therefore a script for Jonathan.Sy Hoekstra: I'm the… whatever.[laughter]Jonathan Walton: I also appreciate it a lot. I'm like, “Yep, staying on task. This is wonderful. Sy knows me, I feel seen.”[laughter]So I see it as exceptionally helpful.Sy Hoekstra: Oh good, I'm glad. This is a public episode. 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Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat der Regierung gerade 60 Milliarden aus dem Haushalt gekürzt, die schon für wichtige Klimaschutzmaßnahmen verplant waren. In dieser Folge erklärt Andreas Löschel, Volkswirt und Leitautor des Weltklimarates, wo Geld für die grüne Transformation fließen muss - und wo nicht.

Das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts hat die Regierung in Deutschland in eine schwierige Lage gebracht. Die Frage, die sich jetzt fast alle stellen: Wie finanziert man all die notwendigen Transformationen, die dringend nötig sind? Und reflexartig kommen die immer gleichen Parolen aus gewissen Kreisen, die wieder mal genau dort kürzen wollen, wo es am wenigsten sinnvoll ist. Dabei ist eine Lösung nicht so schwierig. Der Haken dabei: Gewisse Leute müssten in der Realität ankommen und ihre ungerechtfertigten Klientelinteressen, die ohnehin schädlich sind, vergessen. Doch das wird mit Egoist:innen aus der Gestern-Kleber-Szene schwierig. Das 60-Milliarden-Loch und seine Folgen: Alles, was du jetzt wissen musst (Perspective Daily, November 2023) https://perspective-daily.de/article/2858-das-60-milliarden-loch-und-seine-folgen-alles-was-du-jetzt-wissen-musst/ Habeck nach Urteil: Haushaltsloch bedroht Arbeitsplätze (DLF, November 2023) https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/habeck-nach-urteil-haushaltsloch-bedroht-arbeitsplaetze-100.html Bosetti Late Night - Armut vs. Reichtum (3Sat, Oktober 2023) https://www.3sat.de/kabarett/kabarett-in-3sat/bosetti-late-night-folge1-100.html Lobbyismus für Besserverdienende: Die Show vom Bund der Steuerzahler (Reschke Fernsehen, November 2023) https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/reschke-fernsehen/lobbyismus-fuer-besserverdienende-die-show-vom-bund-der-steuerzahler/das-erste/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLm5kci5kZS80ODY3XzIwMjMtMTEtMDktMjMtMzU Umweltschädliche Subventionen (UBA) https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/umwelt-wirtschaft/umweltschaedliche-subventionen-in-deutschland#umweltschadliche-subventionen

Nach dem Haushaltsurteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts fehlen 60 Milliarden Euro für Klimaschutz und Modernisierung. Doch 2045 muss Deutschland klimaneutral sein. Worauf sollte sich die Ampel jetzt verständigen? Moderation: Ralph Erdenberger Von WDR 5.

(Content warning for discussion of violence in a war zone, including against children). For this month's bonus episode, Jonathan and Sy are talking about the conflict in Israel and Palestine. They discuss how they both approach thinking about the occupation as people leaving colonized faith, the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, how to engage media and advocacy on this subject in an emotionally healthy way, and a lot more. Please write in to shakethedust@ktfpress.com to let us know what you think about the episode, or to ask us any questions you have!Mentioned in the episode:* Adam Serwer's piece on not equating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism* Peter Beinart's Substack, The Beinart Notebook* The YouTube clip of President Biden speaking about Israel as a senator* The New York Times' reporting from its interviews with leaders of Hamas.* The event about Palestine featuring a discussion with Michelle Alexander, Ta-Nihisi Coates, and Dr. Rashid Khalidi [the discussion begins at 26:40 in the linked video]Correction: in the episode, Sy said that dozens of babies died at a hospital in Gaza when the NICU lost power. In fact, the hospital could not provide incubators for about 36 premature babies after the bombing. Five died as a direct consequence. A third of all babies at the hospital were critically ill when the hospital was finally evacuated, and all had serious infections. We at KTF do not know Their ultimate fate at the moment. We apologize for the inaccuracy.Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Transcripts of every episode are available at KTFPress.com/s/transcripts.HostsJonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook and Instagram.Sy Hoekstra – follow him on Mastodon.Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.Production and editing by Sy Hoekstra.Transcript by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to shakethedust@ktfpress.com and we may answer your question on a future episode.Transcript[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending — F#, B, F#, E, D#, B — with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Sy Hoekstra: Why is Israel such an appealing idea? It's because Jewish people have faced so many thousands of years of oppression, everywhere they've gone. The dream of having a place where your oppressed people can be free and flourish, it's not hard to sympathize with that at all, right? It's one of the most natural human instincts. The problem is like Jonathan said before, the way this world is ordered, the easiest way to accomplish that is to trample other people.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Welcome to Shake the Dust, leaving colonized faith for the kingdom of God. I'm Jonathan Walton.Sy Hoekstra: And I'm Sy Hoekstra, welcome to this bonus episode. We haven't done one of these in a long time, Jonathan. But we are going to be talking today about Israel and Palestine and everything that's been going on over there. And we're going to introduce a new segment a little bit. Not a little bit—we're introducing a new segment today. We're going to be trying something out that we might then try on the regular show in the future, where we're going to be talking about one of our recommendations from our newsletter, just like in a little bit more detail before we jump into the topic of the show. Sometimes they will have to do with the topic of the show, sometimes they won't, the recommendations we talk about. Today it does.We're going to talk about the great piece that Adam Serwer wrote in The Atlantic that Jonathan highlighted last week. If you're listening to this the day it comes out, last week. But before we get into all that, one quick thing, Jonathan.Jonathan Walton: Yep, we have one favor to ask of you and that is to go to Apple or Spotify and give this show a five-star rating. If it's four, you can keep it to yourself [Sy laughs], but five stars, that'll be great. It's a quick and easy way, and a free way to support us. And it makes us look really, really great when other people look us up. So please go to Apple or Spotify and give us that five star rating. And if you're on Apple, please do leave us a quick review. We'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much.Sy Hoekstra: We would. Jonathan, don't make jokes just after I've taken a sip of tea, I almost spat that on my microphone.[laughter]One quick note up top, we know how hard this conversation is for people in so many different ways, and there are a lot of different angles. If you just listen to the first couple minutes, you'll only hear our thoughts on a couple different angles of this. So we would ask you to listen with us all the way through to hear whole perspectives, because there's a lot to talk about and a lot to take in. And also just take care of yourself, any specific trigger warnings will be in the show notes.Alright, let's get started. We'll get into this. So Adam Serwer wrote this piece in The Atlantic about not conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And Jonathan, why don't you tell us what he wrote?Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So Serwer defines Zionism as, quote, the belief that the Jews should have a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland.” And that argument then goes on that if you're against that idea, you're denying Jews a right that everyone else has in the world which is inherently discriminatory. So Serwer writes, “There's nothing anti-Semitic about anti-Zionists who believe that the existence of a religious or ethnically defined state is inherently racist, and that the only real solution to the conflict is, as Palestinian-American advocate, Yousef Munayyer writes, ‘equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians is a single shared state, end quote, with a constitution that would ‘that the country would be home to both peoples and that despite national narratives and voices on either side that claim otherwise, both people have historical ties to the land,' end quote. Perhaps you think this idea is naive or unrealistic; that is not an expression of prejudice towards Jews.”Now, he also points out that there have been Jewish voices throughout history and today who make the case for this one-state anti-Zionist solution.Sy Hoekstra: Including one of your former professors, Peter Beinart [pronounced bean-art] Beinart [pronounced Bine-art]?.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Beinart [Bine-art].Sy Hoekstra: Beinart. Okay.Jonathan Walton: Yes, if you don't read Peter Beinart stuff, please go subscribe to his Substack, and then read all of the wonderful, wonderful analyses he does on Israel and Palestine. And he's been doing this for decades.Sy Hoekstra: Okay. Thank you for that summary Jonathan. So, now tell us why did you pick this and what are your thoughts on it? Why did you pick this article?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think I picked this article for two reasons. One is that he makes an argument that everybody makes, and then he makes one that very few people know about. So the first one is that we need to be able to say with distinct clarity and conciseness, that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Now, if we conflate the two, it's helpful for people who have certain agendas. But if we're actually trying to love people well, and see them for who they are, and not just politicize them into entities that we can deny or dismiss or destroy, then we have to be able to say that Palestinians are not Hamas. That the political ideologies that govern us are not held by every single person, especially if you are a child in an incubator, right?We have to be able to see people apart from the ideas that oppress and marginalize them, or the ideas that we have about them. And so that argument for me, particularly in somewhere like The Atlantic, which has made unhelpful articles, by the way, since the conflict started, but Adam just writes a great, concise, clear argument around the nuances necessary. The second thing is that if we are about creating theocratic states that are tied to ethnicity, we are creating states that are racist and exclusatory. Exclusionary?Sy Hoekstra: Exclusionary [laughs]. You just made up a new word, exclusatory.Jonathan Walton: [laughs] Exclusatory. They are inherently racist and exclusionary, and we need to lean into that a little bit more, I think. Because if we are desiring to set up religious ethno-states, we are creating spaces that will be inherently oppressive to people who are outside of that social hierarchy. That is what will happen. So if we are going to create political realities that then create social realities, because politics, like the Greek is like how people, social people deal with power, then we are going to create structures that oppress and marginalize. That's what's going to happen. And so there needs to actually be not a two-state solution, in my opinion, but a one-state solution where people can actually pursue nuance and prosperity and flourishing together.It's not a popular opinion, or popularly talked about opinion, but I do think that is the one that's actually going to lead to prosperity and peace in the region. That's my hope and my prayer when I engage with these things, and I'm grateful that Adam Serwer wrote the piece and it was published.Sy Hoekstra: That's interesting cause Serwer actually doesn't, he's like, “I don't really care one state, two state, whatever works for peace and harmony, that's fine with me. I'm just pointing out what I think should be a point of engagement for people talking about the issue.”Jonathan Walton: Yes, that's true.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, that's good. I like this one. This wasn't my, this is your pick in the newsletter, but I love Adam Serwer [laughs], just in general. We've recommended him, I've recommended him before in the newsletter too. Part of the reason I think it's important is because like you said in the newsletter, that just the noise of the conflict, the intensity of the emotions around it makes it really hard for a point like this that is relatively simple to land. And there are just, there are a lot of people... I mean, I was reading yesterday about how the Anti-Defamation League, which is a well known Jewish organization that kind of monitors extremism of all kinds, not just anti-Semitism, but they focus on that a lot, is now labeling any protests calling for a ceasefire as anti-Semitic—or as anti-Israel. Just calling for a ceasefire.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: That's like the lack of nuance isn't even… there are like grown adults…[laughter]…grown, well-educated adults, saying things that are absolutely wild, because people's emotions and ideologies and all kinds of ideas around this topic are just, they swirl and make a bunch of noise, like you said. And I just appreciate it when somebody says something that everyone needs to understand in an exceptionally clear way.Jonathan Walton: Right. To add to that though, I think what is problematic is that there are major news outlets that interview people that say things like that. Like to be pro-Palestine is to be inherently anti-Semitic. And then they go unchallenged. They go one question and they move on to the next discussion. It's not just that the stuff is out there, it's that it's not challenged and then it's not questioned at all. So the conflation moves forward as fact for millions of people every day. And I hope that there are more leaders that will say, actually, let's slow down and separate the two.Sy Hoekstra: Yep. And we will talk about how to slow down and separate things in a minute. Let's jump into the broader discussion then. Let's just start with where we're coming from when we talk about this with Israel and Palestine. Where we start from, what's our starting point and how do we think about the issues? Jonathan, do you want to…? You've already like intimated a little bit about what you think, but why don't you give us a little more?Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean, I think the starting point for me, I immediately go to the historical context of how and why Israel came to be, and then how and—the State of Israel came to be in 1948—and the United States' and the West's role in that. I dive there immediately just so that I can step out of trying to throw on Old Covenant language, try to graft myself onto some larger cosmic story from God, and just say, “No, that actually wasn't it.” Let me resist that temptation. Because it is so easy to want to be right when we're angry, upset, frustrated, sad, grieving, and an attack like what Hamas did on October 7th can lead to that. I think the big picture is where I start and where I end is just mothers holding their dying children. Those two images for me are really, really, really, really difficult to hold on to.Sy Hoekstra: And even by the way, you mentioned the ICU before, I think.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: Just in case people don't know, like a day or two ago, the hospital that was bombed toward the beginning of the fighting was bombed again and the power went out.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So the incubators in the ICU were not working and a few dozen children, babies died as a result.Jonathan Walton: Right. And I mean, yeah, that just doesn't have to, it just doesn't have to happen. It just doesn't have to happen. And if you follow me on Instagram, I've tried to post… [choking up]Sy Hoekstra: Take your time.Jonathan Walton: …the same photo every day. There's a short video of a woman just holding her kid, and they put… like all of the remains are just in bags. White bags. And that I think… I don't post other videos because I think they're too… Just, I mean, I don't want people to be… Like, even some things are too unsettling for me, and I don't think Instagram is helpful and how they just bombard people with images to keep them on algorithm. But this this particular video, I do share because I think it speaks to the lack of humanity and the humanity… the lack of humanity of what's happening to them and the humanity of what is happening when you lose a child. And it doesn't have to be that way. It just doesn't.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Thanks.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: I think I start at a similar place. The beginning point for me is 1948. The context for everything that is happening is the fact that 750,000 Palestinians were forced off of their land. And since then, in order to maintain, they were forced off their land in order to create space for settlers to come in and create this state, and then have decades of basically violence to maintain that situation. And I think like Jonathan said, if there's a settler situation like that, at no point in history have you ever had hundreds of thousands of people kicked off their land and forced into another place and forced to live as second class citizens under a regime that is fundamentally not built for them and not had violence as a response.Which is not the same as me saying I don't hold Hamas responsible for what they've done. It just means if you're going to have a state like Israel, there's going to be a violent response every single time. And you're going to have to have continuous escalations of violence in order to maintain a situation like that, because you kicked hundreds of thousands of people off their land. And if you don't start from that point and say, how do we go back and do something about that fundamental problem that founding the State of Israel created, you're never going to solve anything, right? There's going to be no… if the only discussion is, “We're here, all the international community says we deserve to be here, the Bible says we deserve to be here, this is our land, nobody else matters,” then you're never going to stop having violence.And by the way, Palestinians live in a lot of different places, they don't just live in Palestine. You're never going to stop having Palestinians, you're never going to stop having the idea of Palestine. A huge percentage of Jordan's population is Palestinians. There are Palestinians in Egypt. There are Palestinians all over the world, it's not going away. And any other framing is just not going to get you to any sort of solution that deals with anything real. For me, like the one state, two state—I don't know the details. I'm just saying you're going to have to address the fact that all these people's land was taken, and they were forced off of it, and there's been an enormous amount of violence and discrimination in order to maintain that situation, and if you don't, this attack from Hamas will not be the last.It's the same thing, 9/11 didn't happen in a vacuum either, right? That happened… again, I hold the people who did it responsible for their actions, but it's also not surprising. That it happened at all is not surprising.The other point I wanted to make is that just like, people call it a colonizing project in Israel, and people are confused a lot of times by that framing of it. But it's not as confusing when you understand how invested the West is in it. Like effectively we are the colonizing country.Jonathan Walton: Yep.Sy Hoekstra: Like the United States and Britain and France to a certain degree, we have all had a hand in this because we want an ally in the region. It is about our foreign policy interests. That's why Israel was created in the first place.That's the only reason they had the political will to do it in the first place, and that's the only reason it continues to exist. Because another reality of the situation is Israel is surrounded by people who would destroy it if it wasn't being protected by bigger countries like us. And they're there because we want them to be there and because they serve our interests in a lot of ways, our foreign policy interests. And I think part of the reason that we don't see it this way, or that Americans especially are primed not to see it this way, is because of the kind of racist colonialist way that we see our own country.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Right? Like we do not… So many Americans, so many Christians in particular—talk about a concrete example of colonized faith, of theology that supports colonization—we talk about American exceptionalism and how we've been blessed by God and how we've accomplished all these great things, and nothing about all the people that were displaced and killed and enslaved and exploited to get to where we are. Like we are so used to that, just celebrating America and not thinking about any of the things that happened as a result. I was just watching something with Rashid Khalidi who's a Palestinian-American historian, and he was just like “A Native American reservation, Palestine, the places where Black people were forced to live in South Africa in apartheid; It's all the same thing.”You're just forcing people to live somewhere so that your colonialist project can stand. And the point is that we're used to talking about self-determination and self-governance. Like us in the United States, we say, “We fought against Britain because we had the inalienable right to govern ourselves,” with no thought to the fact that we were denying the right to govern themselves to a bunch of other people.Jonathan Walton: Yes. Absolutely.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] That is a fundamental part of how America thinks of itself, that kind of doublespeak [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Self-determination for us, but not for the people that we don't want to give it to. So it's not really a surprise that we have no issue saying, “Oh yeah, this state Israel, has self-determination, and we're going to make sure that they continue to have that” with no regard for all the self-determination that they are denying to the people within their borders.Jonathan Walton: Yes. I mean, embedded in our political reality in the United States and all of the economic and social tentacles downstream of that is radical hypocrisy.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: And are socially accepted. Morally, I'm using my big, huge finger quotes, morally justifiable hypocrisy.Oh, and something that I wish Christians understood, which is why I think I enter back in where like where I come into it because I try to stay in a lane to stay grounded, is that like the economic and political and militaristic interests of the United States are not how Jesus runs foreign policy. The idea that the, let's say, the Roman government fits so beautifully with Jesus' desire for the beloved community makes absolutely, positively no sense. And so if you are a follower of Jesus listening to this podcast and you're thinking to yourself, “We should wholeheartedly put just a platform where the kingdom of God is the same as a platform of a political party,” then we are radically out of step with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the apostles and anything before or after that we are sitting in with in Scripture, which is missing it completely.Because Jesus says, “We will be known by the fruit that we bear,” and the fruit of the United States, just like Sy was saying, when Joe Biden stood up in Congress in 1986 and said, as he was fighting for $3 billion worth of funding to go to Israel, he said, “This is the best $3 billion investment we can make, because if Israel didn't exist, we would have to make it exist to secure our interests in the region.”Sy Hoekstra: That is a clip available on YouTube if you want to go watch it.[laughter]Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: I should also say or we should also note, this is implicitly obvious, but we do not come at this from a position of like interpreting the dream in the book of Revelation to figure out who needs to own Israel and when in order to bring about the apocalypse [laughs], or anything like that.Jonathan Walton: Oh Lord… [laughs]Sy Hoekstra: I'm laughing as I say it because it is funny, but you have to note it because that is a dominant view in American Christianity.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: It's not a dominant view in the church in any way, like the global church, but it's the dominant view here. And again, it's not surprising to me that it is a dominant view here, because it is a view that fits very nicely with American foreign policy.Jonathan Walton: Yes. I will also say, and this is not in our notes, but we don't come at this also coming at it thinking that this is some… when we are noting the interests of the United States and Western interests in foreign policy to set this up, we are not then endorsing some grand conspiracy theory about Jewish people.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah, that's a good point to make. We're actually doing the opposite of that.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: We're saying, unfortunately, like sadly, what I'm saying is, I think the Jewish state and the global Jewish people have been,Jonathan Walton: Apro—Sy Hoekstra: like their really genuine cause has been used, has been appropriated as you were about to say.Jonathan Walton: right.Sy Hoekstra: They're pawns in the schemes of America's foreign policy interests. I think that's what it comes down to. By the way, a lot of other... this is not just Israel. Like a lot of times Hamas is a pawn of Iran or Russia. Like a lot of times this is… the Middle East and all these fights, we'll talk about this more, a lot of people are being used for other people's interests.That is generally what is happening in so many conflicts in the Middle East, like they are proxy wars for other people and other people's interests. Okay, so Jonathan, you mentioned the importance, and this actually goes nicely into what we were about to talk about, that which is the importance of separating the people of these two countries or of these two places, I guess. Of Israel and Palestine from their governments. Why is that such an important point to you?Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think it's an important point because people are not always in control or responsible for what those who govern and control them do in the world. It's often that they don't agree. It's often that they don't endorse. It's often if they had power, they would actually stop it. But unfortunately because of how our world is ordered, children can't stop what their parents do. Employees can't stop what their bosses and supervisors do. Like if I held a child responsible for the abuse of their parents, then we have a serious problem, because in all of these interactions there's power and resources at play. So to say that a child or their mother is responsible for rockets firing from wherever, and then therefore you can take a missile and destroy that hospital or destroy that ambulance, or destroy that convoy that you just told to go into this corridor, there's serious, serious problems with that.Similarly, if you are sitting on the other side of the wall downstream of oppression, it is radically unhelpful, radically wrong, to maim and kill and shoot and kidnap people who may not, and particularly an activist that I'm thinking of, she was actually someone who was helping the Palestinians get into hospitals in Israel and get the health care that they need, and she was kidnapped. So I think we have to understand that people are not necessarily endorsers or enforcers of the policies of the governments that govern them.Sy Hoekstra: Right. And you can't talk about them as monoliths. I mean, like you were just mentioning, there's actually a number of people who were killed or kidnapped by Hamas who were peace advocates, who were actually people who are very much on the side of Palestine. That doesn't matter to Hamas. There's no difference to them. And it's the same thing. I mean, actually, the Hamas leadership, just a couple days ago The New York Times published an interview with a bunch of the members of Hamas leadership, and the stuff they cop to is unbelievable. I mean, it's like stuff that people kind of already knew about them, but the fact they just come out and say it, like that they absolutely knew what the response of Israel would be to their attack. And they knew that a ton of people would die as a result. And they were just like, “That's just the price that we're paying to get this issue back on the map, basically.” Right?Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And the specific reason they're doing it was because Israel was attempting to normalize diplomatic relationships with Saudi Arabia and some other Middle Eastern countries, and they didn't want that to happen. They don't want Israel to become normalized in the Arab world, and they want more people talking about Palestine. So they killed a bunch of Israelis and then they knew that as a result, a bunch of their people would die. And that's just like, to them it's just totally is what it is. It's wild. It's not wild, I guess, it's how a lot of terrorists operate. But on the other side, there are plenty of Israelis and there are plenty of Jews around the world who are completely against what the government of Israel does.And the government of Israel right now is one of the most far-right, Jewish supremacist governments they've ever had. And so it's… I wholeheartedly agree with the point that you cannot talk about the conflict in a helpful or nuanced way without I think, realizing that.Jonathan Walton: Right. I also lean into the fact, and this I think, is something we also have to hold tightly, even though it's really, really slippery. Is that even soldiers don't believe in the policies and the actions sometimes that they are forced to carry out. There are a number of IDF soldiers, and reserves and people who have left saying, “I don't want to be a part of this.” And just like you had soldiers coming back from Iraq, coming back from Afghanistan saying, “I thought that I was going for this one thing, and I went for something else. And I ended up fighting for my comrades, like fighting for my battalion. I'm not fighting for this country, I'm caught up in a conflict and I feel like a pawn.”Because I think we have to lean into the complexities of the power that people have, not just that the power we think they have, the power that we perceive. Because behind every gun, and before every gun is a person. They're people. The person who's sending the bullet, the person being hit by the bullet, the person that's dropping the bomb, the person that the bomb is dropped on. They're people, and if we're able to see the image of God and one another, then maybe we could slow down before we dehumanize people and think that violence is justified.Sy Hoekstra: I think that's a good transition for us into Jonathan, how do we in engage with the issues at hand here without burning out or just trying to avoid the anxiety or trying to ignore it? How do we come at this in an emotionally healthy way? And by the way, I'll note before you answer that, we've mentioned a number of articles and other resources along the way in this conversation, and we will have links to those in the show notes if you want to read anything further. But go ahead, Jonathan.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I think that, you know, I gave a talk some years ago, was it two years? It was a year after the march by White supremacists in Charlottesville. So what I said to them was that for some of you, this is your first time engaging with anything about White supremacy and racism and the experiences of Black people and White people in the United States. It's your first time. This is all new to you, all the feels are there. For some of you, you were here when Rodney King was beaten, or you were here when Trayvon Martin was killed, or your first step into this may have happened today, yesterday, or 10, 15 years ago. But regardless of that, we need to be formed into people that are able to respond from our deepest values, not our deepest wounds.So if you're sitting there, and you're like, “Man, all these images are coming into my feed on social media.” I think, again, we need to treat social media like a garden, not a dumpster fire, because the algorithm is feeding off your outrage and desires your constant engagement. But literally, your heart and mind cannot handle that amount of dissonance and pain and struggle. So we actually have to build in patterns of what it looks like to engage, pray, take a break and engage again. And so if you were sitting there and you're thinking to yourself, “I don't want to be someone who just jumps in and jumps out on my own whims and giggles. I decide to get in when I feel guilty and then I get out when I feel overwhelmed.” That's a doom scrolling cycle that's radically unhelpful.And we can take this offline and put it in real life, when we disengage from the suffering of people around us and say it's for self-care, or say it's to take care of ourselves, what we're actually doing is bypassing the suffering of people around us, because we don't have the rhythms necessary to rigorously engage with the world as it is. And so, if we are not going to be people who run to comfort, we have to be people who have done the spiritual, emotional, physical, mental work necessary to have the fortitude to stand in solidarity with ourselves, with the poor and the marginalized, with the family around us, and even our enemies, to be able to see from their perspective so that we are able to love well.And so I think a couple of ways to do that on social media, is to turn off notifications, and to have people you follow and that you don't follow so that you're able to stay engaged without being overwhelmed. Because if you don't curate your social media, the algorithm will do it for you. So that's just the online stuff. In real life, similarly, who are you going to listen to and talk to, and who are you not going to listen to and talk to, so that you are able to be built up into the person that you want to be for the sake of those who are marginalized and suffering, not just for your own sake to feel comfortable and okay? So I need you to lean into the complexity because I'm not saying avoid all the people who are difficult in your life. That's not what I'm saying.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: I'm not saying, “Get away from the folks who challenge you.” That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, seek out the people that challenge you in ways that make you better, so that you can love one another well. I have to listen to hard conversations and engage with people who call me out. Because I'm not trying to live a life that where I and my comfort and my self-preservation is the most important priority, because the Gospel says I need to take up a cross. It doesn't tell me to go buy a croissant.[laughter]Jonathan Walton: I love bread, and that's my comfort food.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: And so that is why I said the cross with a croissant. It wasn't just for the alliteration. [laughs] But God is calling us to make sacrifices, and I think that when we have communities of people who are willing to do that sacrificial work with us, then when the next attack happens, when the next mass shooting happens, we actually have the inner fortitude and the external community to engage with these things for the long term, which is what God is calling us to.Sy Hoekstra: That is all some very good advice. I don't know that I have things to add on to that, but I have other stuff [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Sure.Sy Hoekstra: This has just been important for me when it comes to this particular issue. Actually, it's important for me in a lot of issues, but developing a real understanding and sense of sympathy for the people who disagree with you, to me is really important. So in this particular case, what that means is trying to… it's not even that hard when it comes to Israel honestly, right? Because why is Israel such an appealing idea? It's because Jewish people have faced so many thousands of years of oppression everywhere they've gone. And Israel today has created for the Jews who live there, peace and flourishing that they haven't seen probably since King David, honestly.And it is just the dream of having a place where your oppressed people can be free and flourish. It's not hard to sympathize with that at all. It's one of the most natural human instincts. The problem is, like Jonathan said before, the way this world is ordered, the easiest way to accomplish that is to trample other people, and is to find somebody like the US whose interests are aligned with you, you know what I mean? Like to go that route. But understanding kind of where people are coming from and how real the fear is, even for people who have been a little bit secure for a few decades. You know, what I mean? How real that fear still remains in people.So my great grandmother who was alive until I was 24, was half Jewish, and her dad came over as a young kid from Romania. They went through Russia first, but they came over from Eastern Europe fleeing pogroms and anglicized their names, married Christians, went to church, and they erased Judaism from their lives effectively. And my grandma has told me that my great grandmother told her when she was young, to never tell anyone, for any reason that they were Jewish. But the reason they did that was fear. It's like the fear is so incredibly real, even for people who are living kind of middle class lives in the United States.And, I don't know, being able to understand that makes the problem to me feel a little bit more comprehensible and it makes it feel like, because it's comprehensible, like something that could theoretically be if not solved, at least you could change people's minds. There are ways around that fear, and like expanding people's sense of solidarity and love for other people who are going through the same thing. That's it, you have to be able to see that what Palestinians are going through at the hands of Israel is the same struggle, is the same thing that Jews have gone through forever. So then when I hear like bad faith arguments, or bad faith readings of history, I have an idea of what's behind it, maybe not for the individual speaker that I'm talking to, but for a lot of people, and that helps.Another thing that helps is get out there and do something [laughs].Jonathan Walton: It's true.Sy Hoekstra: It really helps to call your representatives to petition, if you can go to a march or protest or something, I did that this weekend. Being with a ton of people who feel the same way as you, or like participating in some kind of movement like that just makes you feel a little bit less isolated and lost and like you're losing your mind because people around you are saying such wild stuff. Any other thoughts Jonathan, before we wrap up?Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean, for people who are listening to Sy and it's like, “Okay, how can I capture that?” I think what Sy is saying is something we've talked about in the past where it's like, we have to move from pity and sympathy towards incarnation. So the ability to feel sorry and sad for other people, that's just pity and sympathy. To look at someone's experience and say, “You know what, that is sorrowful,” right? And sympathy to feel that sorrow for yourself and then empathy to actually be able to imagine like, “Oh man, okay, I can identify with that.” And you watch Sy just do that when he's like, “Okay, I'm not just far away from this, but how can I get a little bit closer? Oh, my great grandma.”He's moving, he's identifying those feelings. And then he moves to this thing called compassion, where he actually says, “You know what, I'm going to think about, how can I suffer with them, like alongside them, even from the position that I have in Harlem? You know what, I'm going to go and protest. I'm going to put my shoes on and get my family together, and I'm going to walk, and I'm going to actually go be out there.” And if I can get in proximity in some ways to imagine what that compassion will look like and eventually, I'm going to incarnate with the people who are around me that are suffering as well, because I'm sure in that crowd, there are people who are more closely connected than Sy is.And so the fruit of that is the communal connection that he was just talking about. There's this collective grief that can be released. And when you experience the grief and connection, you're less likely to be violent, because the grief and the pain and the struggle and the push for better has somewhere to go and you have people to do it with.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: Because we have to seek out community. We have to have these rhythms, like Sy just walked through. We have to create those things to move from dismissal and dehumanization, and whatever all of might be happening inside of us towards pity and sympathy, towards empathy, towards compassion. And then if we can, in Jesus name incarnation, putting ourselves as close as we possibly can, to those who are suffering the most.Sy Hoekstra: And then when you go at that, like, the emotional health part is part of the incarnation as well, meaning like, because you can go into the grief, and you can get lost in it.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And you can find an outlet for that grief in calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: So I was listening, there's a… I will definitely put this in the show notes. There was a talk, what do you call it? an event [starting at 26:40 in the linked video], that featured a conversation between Michelle Alexander who wrote The New Jim Crow, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the professor I mentioned before, Rashid Khalidi. And Coates, I guess, for those who don't know, is a famous Black American writer who writes about racial relations in the US mostly, went to Israel a few years ago, and went to the Holocaust Museum that they have in Jerusalem.And he went in and felt everything that he felt and then he walked outside and was immediately met with a line of like 10 IDF guards with enormous guns, right? And this is really interesting actually. He talks about how people talk about the situation in Israel like it's so complex, like you need a Middle East Studies degree to really understand what's going on. He's like, “I went there and I understood it in one day.” He's like, “I saw Palestinians not being able to go down certain roads, and they had other roads that they could go down that were not as well kept and whatever.” And he's like, “I know what that is. My parents grew up in Jim Crow, this is not confusing to me.”But he was like, he kind of said, “Imagine if Black people had gone through the hundreds of years of slavery and Jim Crow and segregation and everything and come out on the other side, and the lesson that they pulled from it was, we just need to get power, it doesn't matter what we do with it as long as we're safe.”Jonathan Walton: [long inhale] Mmmm, right.Sy Hoekstra: And he said that's Israel. Like that's what has happened. And it's just tragic in so many ways. So I think all the things that Jonathan was saying are so important, because this conversation just gets people going in so many different directions because of the trauma that is on both sides. Like the really heavy trauma that is on both sides of the wall in Israel.Jonathan Walton: I agree. I think there's, when I say and when we say, pursuing community, we are saying that we are trying to pursue a community that is seeking peace.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: That is [laughs] not… Because unfortunately, there is a solid… we may cut this out, but there is a solidarity that exists in exacting violence. And I think the resistance to that is necessary and difficult. And if we're not careful… No, it's exactly what you said.Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].Jonathan Walton: If we are not careful we will mistake our safety for the really, really, really good fruit as opposed to the collective fruitfulness of everyone being the thing that we long for and seeing it. That's the same thing, that's the exchange that Black slaves made when they became overseers. I will be safe. Those people won't be, but I will be safe. And like Tim Keller would say when he wrote Generous Justice, is that the definition of wickedness is to disadvantage the community for the advantage of yourself. And the definition of justice is to disadvantage yourself for the advantage of the community. And I think my hope would be that continue to push and disadvantage ourselves so that everybody can be free.Sy Hoekstra: Amen.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: That is a hard thing to ask, but nevertheless, I say amen [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Amen [laughs]. It's true.Sy Hoekstra: Before we finish up, well, a couple of things. One, I'm just going to remind you, like Jonathan did at the top. If you appreciate what we're doing here, which you do because you're listening to this, which means you're a subscriber, and we thank you so much for that support, please go and give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you're on Apple, leave us a little written review if you can. It helps, it's a very quick thing that you can do that really does genuinely help us. The reviews that we have on our podcast by the way, are so heartwarming and lovely [laughs], and they make me feel so great inside. So if you want to support us and also genuinely just make me feel real nice in my little heart, that'd be great[laughter]Sy Hoekstra: Oh, you know what Jonathan, I'm going to start doing what I realized I haven't been doing because… So we have not been crediting Joyce who does our transcripts [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Oh man.Sy Hoekstra: I'm going to add Joyce to the list of transcripts. The reason we haven't been crediting her is because when we started the show, we were just doing the transcripts ourselves, and we just got into a rhythm of not crediting ourselves.[laughter]Sy Hoekstra: Joyce Ambale. Ambale? Hmm, Joyce is going to have to tell me how to pronounce her last name because I've only ever seen it in writing. Joyce Ambale does our transcripts. Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra, our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess, and we will see you all in December. Thank you so much for listening.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: We're going, yeah?Jonathan Walton: [singing] We are recording now. We are recording now. Yes.Sy Hoekstra: OkayJonathan Walton: Okay [clears throat].Sy Hoekstra: [inhales for a long time, brrrrs loudly sounding like he's shaking his head, coughs, clears his throat, kind of growls, and speaks in a loud, hoarse voice]. Ready to go.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Everyone, I'm normal [laughter]. I make normal noises and there's no need for concern. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com

Max Krahé und Marco Herack besprechen das Urteil des BVerfG zum Nachtragshaushalt 2021 und die ersten sichtbaren Konsequenzen.

© WDR 2023 Von WDR5.

Daren catches up with Reiver head coach Scott Strohmeier and Carp presents KTF.

Join Dave and Nick as they chat with Dr. Darla Bishop, the author of the upcoming book, How to Afford Everything. Watch on YouTube HERE Her book is available for pre-order until December 12, 2023, and then it will be available to the public. You can use the code KTF on her website for 20% off her book for a limited time. Order here: https://darlabishop.com/ Check out her Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/@my_finansis You can also find her on most social media channels under @my_finanSIS. About Dr. Darla Bishop Dr. Bishop lives and works in the Lansing area. Her expertise in financial literacy and ability to connect with young people on a personal level makes her the ultimate FinanSis for anyone looking to improve their financial situation and take control of their future. Have you ever wished for a big sister who can teach you about money? Someone who can guide you, laugh with you, and also be firm when you have to set goals or need a reality check? Dr. Darla is it! When Darla was in college, budgeting and learning about money, she started to read financial books and realized that not one of them offered a decision tree or step-by-step guide that helped her where she was in her particular situation. She has since read over 100 financial books and still didn't find what she thought would be most helpful - so she wrote it. That is what How to Afford Everything is all about. It includes many worksheets and thought-provoking questions and exercises to help you where you are right now. Who is This Book For? The target audience for this book is people who are under 40, may (or may not) come from a disadvantaged background, now have a good job and money coming in, and want to take their money management to the next level. People who are managing lots of things. Managing careers and sometimes the salary negotiations that come along with that. Thinking about their parents as they get older. Raising children and trying to think about whether they will go to college and what we want to contribute to that. Maybe paying off student loans. Q&A Nick: "What advice do you give to people when you have multiple competing conflicting things for your resources? How do you help walk people through figuring out which one makes the most sense for them because it's not always black and white plain vanilla right? Darla: "What I figure out when I've talked to multiple people who've been in that situation is because it's been so stressful over some period of time. Maybe a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years. They haven't taken the time and probably because they haven't had the energy or the guts to truly look at their financial situation, right? They just kind of feel like they're swimming tread in water and and haven't asked for help. Until this point because they thought maybe someone was going tell them they needed to budget more and spend less money and they can't imagine even how they would do that. So the approach I take is to first write down every cent that you owe to anyone whether it's a traditional debt a credit card, a loan student loan, your mom, your cousin, or your coworker who loans you $10 for gas money. We're going to write everything down and it's gonna hurt a little bit at first. But once we put it on paper we take away its power because now we can do something about it. So we got to get over that first hurdle and then we're going write down every piece of money, every cent, that comes through your door, and if there is a difference between the money that goes out and the money that comes in we have to figure out where we can cut or my personal favorite where we can increase." Listen to the full episode to hear more about Dr. Bishop's journey to writing a book and for more advice. About Shotwell Rutter Baer Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our ...

Daren chats with Independence HC Keith Donerson and Carp presents KTF.

It's our season finale! We're answering listener questions and talking about the history of Whiteness, pastors being experts on everything regardless of qualification, why that episode with Dr. Maxine Davis was the best, and a lot more. We're also talking a bit about the future of KTF and this show, so don't miss this one!Can't get enough of us? Go to KTFPress.com and subscribe to get our bonus episodes between seasons!Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Twitter. Subscribe to get our newsletter and bonus episodes at KTFPress.com. Transcripts of every episode are available at KTFPress.com/s/transcripts.HostsJonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook and Instagram.Sy Hoekstra – follow him on Mastodon.Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.Production and editing by Sy Hoekstra.Transcript by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to shakethedust@ktfpress.com and we may answer your question on a future episode. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

We welcome special guest and “A Date in October with KTF” podcast host, Kelley Franco as we discuss the Sox-Yanks rivalry and then look around the rest of the league.

Phil and Josh return for E156 of the GSP to get into Speed (half) week at Daytona for NASCAR, culminating in the Daytona 500.  However, the guys get into the Super Bowl which saw KTF (aka Patrick Mahomes) and the Kansas City Chiefs win their second Super Bowl in the last four years, coming back against the upstart Philadelphia Eagles.  Phil and Josh discuss the key plays and players in the game along with other significant moments.  Updates on coaching and GM searches are looked at before moving onto NASCAR. All three major series open up their season, so previews of the Craftsman Truck Series, XFinity and Cup Series are done with final four and championship selections made.  Formula 1 car reveals and IndyCar news is brought up next prior to the GSP Roundup that includes Formula E, WRC and MotoGP.  The Tate Fogleman Algorithm makes its return to the GSP for Daytona, with Josh getting the machine out of hibernation to possibly make another insane choice.  Phil and Josh make their picks for all three races, wild cards and who gets the front row and goes home for the 500 (Phil whiffed on both open choices).  Josh gets into the iRacing Daytona 500 with an opportunity to join legends in racing as winners of both Indy and Daytona among other races for this week prior to the Show Close.

Phil and Josh return for E154 of the GSP to discuss a wild NFL conference championship weekend and the Rolex 24 at Daytona amongst other events.  Kansas City and KTF made their third Super Bowl in the last four years after withstanding Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals, which means JD Harmeyer is a mush-mouthed bald guy.  Prior to that game, the San Francisco 49ers season ended six plays into the game after a Hassan Reddick sack and forced fumble on Brock Purdy, which left Mr. Relevant unable to throw and looking at elbow surgery.  Phil goes off in frustration and anger after another close call and the Eagles basically being able to coast to victory.  Also, tech difficulties happened, just like the entire 49ers team had that day. In more positive news, Josh attended the Rolex 24 and let us know about how the atmosphere was for the first race of the new GTP era in IMSA.  The guys get into the race and talk about all the class winners including the Meyer-Shank Acura team repeating as Rolex 24 champs with new hire Colin Braun.  With plenty of talk that the GTP's may not make it, the race came down to four cars (Two Acuras & Cadillacs) battling at the end.  However, Porsche and BMW struggled but they all have time to adjust prior to Sebring in March. Phil and Josh cover NASCAR news before the GSP Roundup looks at the Race of Champions and the Formula E Saudi E-Prix doubleheader.  For the second consecutive year, the NASCAR Cup Series will start their season at the LA Coliseum for the Busch Light Clash.  The crew previews the race and makes their picks before Josh's Sim Segment and Show Close.

Phil and Josh are back for E155 of the GSP to recap Martin Truex, Jr's win at the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum.  The cluster of the "race" featured 16 caution flags and an average speed just over 22 mph.  The guys get into this event and who stood out, like Ryan Preece and Darrell Wallace, Jr.  While they had an opportunity, the RFK Racing duo of Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher missed the main for a second consecutive year.  Phil and Josh look at that, who else of value missed the main and key news stories leading into Speedweek at Daytona.  The Super Bowl is on-tap with the Eagles and Chiefs facing off in the Andy Reid/Kelce Bowl or the KTF coronation ceremony.  The crew make their predictions known along with what to watch from both sides in Glendale.  IndyCar, F1 and other pertinent news items are discussed prior to the GSP Roundup, which includes previews of the Indian E-Prix in Hyderabad and Rally Sweden for the WRC.   Josh lets us know about all things sim racing in his Sim Segment before Show Close.

Na 36ª edição da quarta temporada do podcast Na Ponta dos Dedos, Bruno Fonseca, Rafael Lopes e Luciano Burti recebem Cacá Bueno, pentacampeão da Stock Car, e Rodrigo Baptista. Os dois vão correr pela equipe KTF na próxima temporada da maior categoria do automobilismo brasileiro. Além disso, tudo sobre o GP de Abu Dhabi e o encerramento da temporada da Fórmula 1.

Na 16ª edição da quarta temporada do podcast Na Ponta dos Dedos, Bruno Fonseca, Rafael Lopes e Luciano Burti recebem Gaetano di Mauro, piloto da equipe KTF, para falar sobre a etapa do Velopark da Stock Car. Além disso, tudo sobre o GP da Inglaterra de F1, o ePrix de Marrakesh da Fórmula E e a etapa de Silverstone da W Series.

This week Liam, Jason, Joe and Scott talk defeat against Sevcol whats ahead and usual nonsense. Keep on keeping on! KTF!! HH

Nick and Single White Medusa talk Ukraine, Globalist Defeat, and Coffee.Also today we'd like to SHARE and exciting brand new thing we're doing!!!BIG ASK TODAY!!!!Peter Nealen is the first WarGate Publishing author Author Jason Anspach and I are proud to debut. Ice and Monsters is a Forgotten Ruin-Style WarGate series. I'd like to request you give this Marine a shot.That's all I ask. All he asks. There's also audio from Audible available on launch day and that's pretty cool.Give it be a shot please, and support veteran writers.Let's make this launch huge together.KTF.Get it right now! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickcole.substack.com/subscribe

Paul Casey: Your brain does not see the word knots. So if you're like, I am not going to eat chocolate, you know what your brain hears is chocolate. And so then you're like start moving toward it and you have actually more of a craving for it because the brain doesn't see that where it's just a fun fact about the brain Speaker 2: Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington. It's the Tri-Cities influencer podcast. Welcome to the TCI podcast. We're local leadership and self-leadership expert Paul Casey interviews, local CEOs, entrepreneurs, and non-profit executives to hear how they lead themselves and their teams. So we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey of growing forward services, coaching, and he could be individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success. Paul Casey: It's a great day to grow forward. Thanks for joining me for today's episode with Diane Howard. Diane is the executive director for the port of Benton. And I asked her for something funny about herself and she sees all about classic movies and the time that they're supposed to be watched every year and you're going to have to do it justice. So go for it. Diahann Howard: Yes. I love, yeah, all things. Star wars, DC, Marvel, our fall season for our family and extended family kicks off with the Harry Potter series. Then we transitioned into the Lord of the Rings for over the Christmas period and of hosts. Then we've got to do the TMC movies as well. I got white Christmas, I got everything timed out and my family knows me for this. And it's just a little bit of my, I, I just enjoy all those types of movies and it's just hilarious. And then I a layer, I sprinkle on top of that, a little bit of the peanuts collection for every holiday season. So my kids will come home from college and I've got peanuts, you know, The Great Pumpkin going. It just depends on what's going on, but I just like the things that make them smile and it makes us smile and allows us to connect a little bit and kind of have our, we used to have forced family fun, Fridays and things that we would do. And it's just part of the, the cycle of the year for our family is centered around movies and games and activities. And Paul Casey: I love it. I was going to say you're forcing them into a sedentary life with all that movie watching, but Diahann Howard: Oh no, I hope not. But yeah, that's we don't want to go too many movies in a row, but that's for sure that'll break it up, but nothing better than a crisp fall day and a good Harry Potter movie Paul Casey: That is so much fun. Well, we'll dive in after checking in with our Tri-City influencer sponsor Speaker 5: From the Columbia Basin to the Pacific Ocean, Basin Pacific Insurance and Benefits, help protect families and businesses in a professional, timely manner. Ours are knowledgeable and service oriented, helping you ensure your home auto and toys as well as commercial business, larger small health insurance, individual, or group agribusiness and crop insurance at basin Pacific insurance and benefits. You get the service of a large broker with the care of a local agent locally owned since 2010, visit us online at Basin Pacific Tri-Cities dot com. Paul Casey: Thank you for your support of leadership development in the Tri-Cities. Well welcome, Diane. I was privileged to meet you years ago. I think it was through leadership Tri-Cities is that where we met? I'm trying to, Diahann Howard: That are either a team for meeting and I got an opportunity to meet you. And I literally think it was that same week that our commissioner Robert Larson said, Hey, you got to talk to Paul. He's a great guy. He's got this new business. It was, it was wonderful for me to be able to tell him, you know, I've, I've just met him. And I think it was, it was either you're correct. Leadership tries to do sort of chamber event. I just can't remember. It's been some time Paul Casey: You're right. You're right. And I remember interviewing you over at C3 church for like a meet the leader that was before I started this podcast, but I was trying to start like a community forum where we would just get to talk leadership with, I think Ken Hohenberg was there and it's hard to think who else was there on that one, but that was fun. Diahann Howard: Thank you for having me on again. Paul Casey: Appreciate it. Absolutely. Well, so then our Tri City influencers can get to know you tell us about what your organization does and what do you spend 80% of your day doing in your role? Diahann Howard: So the port of Benton is chartered by under the state of Washington, as all ports are under RCW 53. And our primary focus really is economic development on behalf of the region and on behalf of the state, as well as tourism. And that's, it's just that clear. So our port district is two thirds of Benton county. We've got everything from the north Richland area, a little bit of office R and D commercialization education. And then we transitioned over to Benton city. We've got some redevelopment buildings there. Then we go over to Prosser area, a lot of work with the wine industry there, a lot of work with the Walter Core, which is now a partnership with WSU, and which is fantastic. And then we continue to kind of head south and we've got Kirby park. And in addition to that, you know, port right transport station. Diahann Howard: So we've got barge facilities, that's really just a intake for large components that come to the Hanford site or part of the Hanford project. And then we've got two general aviation airports, one in Richland and the other in Prosser. And then finally, we've got 16 miles of rail track that runs from north Bridgeland all the way down to the Columbia center region. And both class ones could run direct on this rail, which is a really capability in the state of Washington. So that's what we do. So a lot of my day is really just spent collaborating with community economic development partners with my team, ensuring that they have what they need and that, and I think that we all love what we do here at the port, because it's always varies. I mean, you can be working in wine to airports to taking care of not that this is necessarily a good thing, a broken sewer pipe at a facility or a water pipe. So you never know what the day's going to bring. And I think that that's what makes it a lot of fun and why I know that I love what I do. Paul Casey: Wow. That is awesome. I really appreciate giving me the whole scope of that. Cause I remember moving here and hearing port and I just assumed boats, you know, and I, I, it was, I remember going to a chamber meeting where the, all the ports were there and wow, what a, an education. So I'm hoping the listeners by you rattling off the whole scope of what you lead was very educational, Diahann Howard: Good from a broad perspective, you know, at the end of the day ports, we're really, we are a system that lead to the port of Seattle, the port of Tacoma or the sea port Alliance. It's all about getting our value, add and add products to market. And we serve a global market in the state of Washington. So that's really what we're about. We're a system and we're always working in collaboration with our other port districts Paul Casey: And your journey to where you are today. Diane, what have you learned from previous bosses? Previous supervisors probably there's good and bad, right. And don't mention any names keep in mind today while you leave. What has stuck with you from those experiences? Diahann Howard: I've learned from, primarily what I've learned is what I don't want to do when I manage people. To be honest, I also have learned from some of my past managers about just the importance of seeing broad perspective and really looking at things from multiple lenses. And I think that that was the biggest gift that was given to me from that manager. I, myself focus more on a servant leadership style. I really prefer to provide clarity of direction and strong communications, which there can never be enough of. And I really want to ensure that I've got all of my team growing and set up for success, really positive, really positive with them and appreciate them in public in anything that I need to correct. I do that one-on-one in private. I would never want to be treated that way and I don't want to treat anyone else that way is really kind of my motto on that. Paul Casey: I love it. So many leaders that have come on this podcast that said servant leadership is like the only leadership style, right? And all the benefits and how winsome that is to your people to follow you. When you have style, you're not a lording over leader, you're coming alongside kind of a leader and removing obstacles love that, love that style. Even in my own personal mission statement, because I believe in it so much, you, you lead by talking about a broad perspective. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what that means for a leader to have a broad perspective?     Diahann Howard: You've got to, there's always multiple sides of a story. There's also multiple perspectives. Not everybody always has all the information on everything all the time. And I'll speak to this a little bit later as well. I just think that you've got to take the time to listen to get that perspective, but look at it from different angles. How does that look? I know for myself, one thing I've always said is can I face the 70,000 people that live in the ports district and tell them that this is a good decision? Can I explain to them in one or two sentences why it's important and how it creates a job for somebody tomorrow? If I can do that, then I know I'm on the right path. So again, broad perspectives and making sure that you're looking at the good and the bad of it too. I mean, it's not always, sometimes we've got to, to look at the bad. You definitely need to look at the bad and be prepared for that and understand how you're going to help support your team through that and how you're going to manage through that. Paul Casey: What a great rule of thumb to think about. I have to announce this to 70,000 people. Am I in good footing? I make it considered all these issues. Have I talked to the right people? I've often heard, it said like before you send the email, if this were to get published in the Tri-City Herald, do you feel comfortable with that? Or would you probably do some edits? Well, leader has to have to fire themselves up. So Diahann, where do you go for inspiration for yourself as a leader? Okay. Diahann Howard: For me, it's really back to the same thing. It's the community. I think that's the benefit of my, for myself of being born and raised here, I've got a lot of clarity and sense of purse, a purpose, and I've got a strong passion for the community. It's inspiring to me to want, to help people that I know and have grown up with. I've seen their businesses grow. I've known their family for a long time. I also understand what this community looks like in times of trouble in the mid to late eighties. And I know what it was like to see, you know, lots of families have to leave and the impact the region. So for me, the community itself is very inspiring and that's again, the role of economic development. That's what it's all about. It's really, it's, it's a run that never ends. It's about what we're doing today strategically to help support and grow and create an opportunity for someone else tomorrow. And really why I enjoy this type of work. Paul Casey: Well, let me ask this cause COVID affected us all in the last two years. If community is such a good driver for you to fire yourself up, then COVID hits. How did you get, how did you stay connected to community so that you could keep building yourself up and not as a lot of expressive people, you know, that were more extroverted? They, they were just really glum, you know, and discouraged during that, because that was their source and it was taken away. How did you still fire yourself up? Diahann Howard: Actually for the port, it drove us to increase our level of digital communications webinars working with our downtown associations, like the Prosser downtown, the Prosser chamber, the city of Richmond. It actually had us connect further and deeper with them talking one-on-one meetings with industry, folks, and tenants, just to see how they were doing those just one-on-one conversations was how, how we did it. And our role for ports is a little bit different during COVID. We, again are a state entity, we're a special purpose district. We can't waive rents. We can defer them, but we can't waive them. And it still has to be paid back. So just making sure that we were having constant contact with there, with our tenants, making sure that we were really staying in tune with what was going on with them, but it also drove our team. Like, look, we now is our time to strengthen and be ready so that when our community and our region does come out of this, we're in a really strong position to continue to help support them. Diahann Howard: That we've actually created a pathway for everybody to come forward out of COVID. And that's really what we focused on. We looked at our facilities and areas where we can improve them and make them more attractive. And, and basically forward-thinking, you know, simple things like lighting projects and cleaning, just painting up facilities just to freshen them up so that when people do come back, they're going to feel like, yeah, you know, this feels good, this feels good. I feel safe. And I feel good. And I know that the people that manage these facilities have taken the time and the effort to ensure that everyone's following state safe protocols, Paul Casey: What a fantastic response, everything from the buildings being now, what can, what can we focus on when other things we can't focus on, but I love your ears, your phrase of further and deeper in communication. And of course we're not out of the woods yet. So Tri-City influencers. If you still have opportunity while we all have opportunities to go further and deeper in all of our relationships, whether that's at work or on a personal level. And I would just encourage us all to continue to follow that guidance because people are feeling very alone and that leads to a lot of negative emotions. So that's a cool response. Diane, how do you balance or, well, let me ask you this first. I, I would love to know how you develop yourself and what are you currently working on to develop yourself so that you can be a model for developing your team? Diahann Howard: Hmm, well, I'm constantly working on my communications, so I, I just don't think you can ever over communicate. And even when you think that you have, you, haven't everyone communicates in different matters. The other thing I'm really, really working on is just really actively listening, deeply listening. And I also think that right now, you mentioned COVID right now for, I know for my team and for just, it's really a time to provide everybody a lot of grace and empathy. And I stress that to them, not only to each other, but to our tenants, to the people that we engage with on a daily basis. We really want to give everybody some grace and empathy right now. There's just a lot going on. People are managing COVID family's concerns. And then we're also here at work trying to get that this job done. So I really want to listen. Diahann Howard: I would really want to understand more about what's happening in their life. And I, I really focus on providing them as much flexibility as I can because it's a different time right now. And I don't re going forward even post COVID. Cause I believe there will be hopefully a post COVID. I really have discovered that I really, I do not want to lose this connection with my team. So I, I think that this just becomes more part of our normal, as far as our live, our life work balance is what I'm hoping to strive for it. And focusing on them, taking care of themselves and their families from Paul Casey: So good. You know, I just finished doing a training for PNNL on communication skills and you hit, you hit some big ones there, I'm over communicating because if you think you're over-communicating, especially in the land of COVID, you're probably just enough, I guess it goes over communications, going to people are going to miss it so many times. And they're finally going to hit it. Maybe around the seventh time. The research says, and then listening really is the best form of communication and endears people to their leaders. So Tracy influencers, you want more influence? You've got to be a better listener. Not, not, not necessarily the one that's doing all the talking. I love what you said, Diane, about grace and empathy as let's have this go on forever, not just during a crisis time, but let that be a way or almost ground rules for how we communicate with our teams. Great stuff. How do you balance or integrate your family time with work time? And I don't know if that was impacted during, during the COVID shutdowns at all. You can throw that in there if, if it was for you, but how do you give priority time to both? Diahann Howard: So this is one that I constantly have to work on, even when there's no COVID, even before COVID with the very beginning of COVID, we were ripping our organization forward into cloud-based flexibility, ensuring that everybody had the right communications and work tools so that they could either work at home or work in the office. So there was a lot going on. There was a lot to understand and unpack during that period of time, but I am really constantly working on this one. It's hard. It's hard for me to set my phone down. It's hard for me to sometimes I, I, I really have to focus to actively again, listen, and really I am, I am trying to take a better approach to managing a work-life balance. And COVID actually has showed me that I'm not on a constant frantic jumping pace of travel. And I really understanding my need to prioritize. I have a fantastic team and that has been phenomenal for me in order to provide a better work life balance. And I do truly appreciate them each and every day. So I don't feel like I'm always caught up in a fire drill. So it, it it's, you have to actively be conscious about it. You have to actively pay attention to it and you can't let your health, your health has to be a priority. Paul Casey: Yeah, I think for being a little vulnerable because you're probably a driver personality style at some level and just a teeny bit. Okay. And a lot of leaders listening are also a drivers or the line personality styles I like to teach. And it is hard because we love our work and we love excellence and we love results and goals and metrics. And so it is hard sometimes to put the phone down and to divert our attention and have a replenishment plan too. So thanks for, thanks for sharing that. You're a work in progress along with the rest of us. Diahann Howard: Absolutely. Paul Casey: Well, before we head into our next question on hiring and retaining great employees, a shout out to our sponsor, Speaker 5: A lot of sweat and hard work has been put into your farm and ranch protecting it. And your family's legacy is what matters most at Basin Pacific Insurance and Benefits. We understand the challenges Agra businesses face today. Our team is knowledgeable and service oriented from small farms and branches to vertically integrated agriculture. Our team at base and Pacific and manly crop insurance provides the services of a large broker with the care of a local agent locally owned since 2010, visit us online at Basin Pacific Tri-Cities dot com. Paul Casey: And what's your process for attracting great talent on your team. And then what do you do intentionally to make your workplace a place where employees want to stay for a long time? You've actually given us a little glimpse into some of that through your leadership style. Diahann Howard: Well, first and foremost, I seek out really good people. I love people that are better than me and expertise in their fields and see a bigger picture and are collaborative. My first and foremost thing I'm always looking for is how do they play with, along with the team? How do they work with others? That to me is the most important is, is, is the integrity of the team and ensuring that everybody has or feels like they have space here. And everyone has a seat at this table, so good people bring that cause they have the confidence to go with it. So I love that. I also to continue on ensuring that I'm staying in touch all employees, I hold one-on-one meetings with and I call them, stop, start, continue meetings. So what should we stop doing that we're currently doing? What should we start doing that we're not thinking about right now? Diahann Howard: And what is it that you like and how we're going strategically that we should continue depends on the person. Cause not everybody wants to, you know, say hello every morning or have a one-on-one meeting every week, but it just depends on the person whenever they need. So for some, I meet with them monthly, some weekly, some only semi-annual, it just depends again on their needs and wants. I really encouraged them to enhance their strengths, but I focus with them on any weaknesses that they want to develop to drive their passion and success. I really liked the fact of flexibility and the diversity of work here that makes it again enjoyable to be at the port. It's different every day. It's never the same. And there's always opportunities where people might say, you know, I want to try, I want to collaborate with that. Or I want to kind of step into that role. Diahann Howard: Okay. Let's, you know, let's try some new things. I have no problem with that. I actually like it. And we really do strive to be fully transparent with our entire team on what we're working on. I was to provide a monthly email out, to tell, for example, our facility staff that are really out in the field and we don't see them and interact with them, especially with COVID is often. But that, that, that way they know what's going on. They know what's coming in front of our commission for consideration. And it's just really important for me that everyone's B D is treated fairly with integrity because they all bring value back to the organization and they, they literally are what makes support successful Paul Casey: So many golden nuggets there. So let's, there's, you're going to have to rewind to get all those. But two that I picked up from that was the stop start, continue. And I'd heard, I've heard this before. I've heard that leaders can do this for all the themselves as like a leader report card. Like what of my behaviors do I want to do? I need to start doing more of stop doing or continue. I like how yours is organizationally. You make your employees think organizational, what does, what is it that we need to stop doing start doing or continue that that's a neat twist on it that I hadn't heard before. And I also thought it was interesting of the varying cadence of one-to-one so that you're not on the same cadence with everybody. Some people want more of your FaceTime, others, you know, probably want more autonomy. So that's creative, There's so much to do in the leader's chair. So how do you not burn out? How, what, what are you, what are your thoughts on delegation for you? Are you a great delegator? Do you struggle with the, any tips for our listeners on delegation? Diahann Howard: Well, the secret to delegation is when you have good people, delegations, not a problem. So I have no problem with it. I, I do not like a micromanagement approach. It is not very successful. It actually drives productivity down and culture down. And so delegation's really not a problem. The struggle at times though, is just ensuring that they are communicating and collaborating and matching and understanding each other's communication styles. And so that's the important thing is to always touch base with them on and make sure again, all sides are feeling like they are a part of that effort or that they know where things are going or how things are going to be moving forward, or they've come up with a joint plan. And really a lot of times they're doing so well. It's just really my intention, no goal to just to stay out of their way. Diahann Howard: So that can be hard to cause you want to know, you want to know and you want to see the progress and you've got to measure and you want to know, but you can just, it's better sometimes just they're doing great, stay out of their way, tell him how much you appreciate them. And then, you know, see if they need coffee, you know, what, what is it that they need to, to keep going and help them through? And what, what else can you be provided to help support them? So again, try to provide various approaches and work with them. I also really try to set, not set, sorry, unrealistic debt timelines are. I prefer quality, quality over time, quality over just completing that task and checking the box. Because for example, we have an integration project right now on our leases and the finance system. Diahann Howard: I would not want that to be rushed, good input in good data in great quality out. And I would prefer that they don't have the pressure of that. And just knowing that they don't, they actually do a fantastic job of pressing the pedal to the metal because they know that there's there. There's going to be flexibility there. And if something comes up, we can talk about it because at the end of the day, for us, it's about ensuring that we provide good customer service and good end product. So I'd rather just have them again, take the time to do it right and allow them to keep that good work-life balance in place. Because the more we take care of ourselves, the better we can take care of each other and take care of our customer. Paul Casey: Yeah. The old sharpening, the saw from Stephen Covey, right? If we you've got a sharp solver, we're probably going to produce more quality and be less irritated and angry and depleted, or if you have a Bolsa. So yeah. So your philosophy is quality over speed, as much as possible. And, and it's great that you've, you've made that clear as an expectation to your people. Cause I would assume there's some other bosses out there, their speed, maybe they wouldn't say speed over quality, but they would probably say speed is very, very important or maybe they've got different expectations. So it's great that you've got, you're being as clear as you can, with your people about what you expect. You also brought up communication styles. Tell us more about how you assess what a persons on your team's communication style is that, does that start way back at the interview even, or you give them a survey or how do you assess whatever one needs on your team? Diahann Howard: I think it really starts on just the one-on-one. I'm also very observant of people. So I, I just, it's how, it's how they like to be approached. I will go say good morning to people at their offices, just to see that they have everything that they need and kind of check in some, you know, some people might be rolling their eyes like right now, like, oh God, I wouldn't want her to come to my office, but I get that. And those that kind of, I understand. And, and I give that, I give those people space because they don't need that kind of contact. However, that's when you start to learn people's communication styles, you know, some prefer to definitely see it in writing. Some want to be taught, talk it through some want clear direction. I think that's the other thing is a value that we have now as a port has an overarching strategic plan. Diahann Howard: So our again, organization and culture is the number one priority for the port and for our team. And since we all know that, and we talk about it and that leads into their everyone's individual work and goals. I think that that definitely helps, but it's just getting time to, to observe the person and their interaction with other people, as well as with is as well as between us one-on-one then I really try to help weave that web between them and other people and help everybody understand like, well, maybe this person actually does better if he follow up with an email or maybe you need to just go ahead and set a meeting because both of you are, have a lot going on right now. And not that anyone wants more meetings, but in this instance, it's probably better. If you sit down and talk it through it and don't make assumptions. So we always talk about those things because we do have a lot going on. If we can take care of things quickly, we definitely try to do that because we're, we're working in a very collaborative manner. Paul Casey: Yeah. That's great stuff. I've got a tool from Harvard business review years ago called the leader report card, no leader users, guy. That's what it was called. Yeah. And so I made a little tool out of that where a boss can tell his or her people what their style is like, how they want to be communicated with what their pet peeves are. It's, it's a fascinating little tool and then they can get it back from their team to see what their communication style is and their strengths and their weaknesses and their pet peeves. That it's, it's a fun little way to get leaders and their employees learning each other pretty quickly. So they don't step in landmines along the way, like the roll dice of the good morning. That's what, I'm glad you still do that dynamic because research does show, it sets a positive vibe in the office. So I know Diahann Howard: Even if I go down the hall and just care about something we've got going on for that day, because I black, but it's really just to kind of break open the break, open the day and set a good tone. I hope that's my, Paul Casey: Well, you mentioned strategic planning a moment ago. What's your process for that? Diahann Howard: Again, we just two, two years ago, we brought in an outside consultant firm and we did again, the one-on-one meeting. So individual one-on-one meetings start continue one-on-one discussions with the consultant economic development partners, stakeholders with the consultant, and then one-on-one meetings really with our industry folks in order to ensure that we're really meeting the needs of our clients, customers, and really trying to ensure that we are staying strategic on, on direction forward of what we needed to do. It's allowed us to really eliminate a lot of unnecessary costs and expenses that we had. It's been a phenomenal, the things that we've been able to address through that process. And we've also been again, taking this time to do things like the lighting projects to drive energy efficiency, just again, to ensure that where people do come back to work, the environment again is refreshed and safe. So it's, it's been very helpful for the team to definitely feel like we're rowing in the same direction. Everyone has clarity of role. Everyone has clarity of lane, it just drives the productivity. And again, big word for me is efficiency forward in order to meet the needs of business and our customers and tenants Paul Casey: Efficiency forward, it sounds like Growing Forward. So we'll, we'll make those together. Well, finally, Diahann, what advice would you give to new leaders or anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining more influence? Diahann Howard: I think it's a reminder. It's kind of like, you know, Spider-Man right, the leading of the privilege and it comes with great responsibility. You, you definitely need to remember that it is not about you anymore. It's about your team. You have to constantly want to learn and grow yourself and you're going to also learn and grow from them. I'll also take a little bit of note from Jim Mattis that, you know, you've got to know all your business, everything from, for me, it's everything from the facilities to the finance side, to the legislative side, to the transportation side, you need to know your business. And that's really important and be open to all levels of input. This again, can be hard because not everybody always knows all the information. So don't just make judge some quick judgements, take some time to reflect again, listen. And then the end, if you just do what's best for your organization and community, that mindset's really always worked out well for me. And I hope it works out well for them. Paul Casey: Hmm. Great stuff. Great stuff. So Diane, how can our listeners best connect to you? Diahann Howard: Well, the best way to connect to us as our Port of Benton's website, which is just portofbenton.com, you can either call or email us. Everything's listed there as well as our strategic plan. Any updates on any projects, we also have newsletter information, digital and print. So whatever way again, you prefer to communicate, we're here to serve you and we appreciate your trust. And we in our, we appreciate your trust and we hope that we continue to meet the needs and be good stewards of your investment. Paul Casey: Well, thank you again for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a great place and keep leading. Diahann Howard: Thank you, Paul. Paul Casey: Let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend it's a book I just read on vacation called the slight edge. It's been around for a while. The author's name is Jeff Olson and he talks about just little habits done every day. They're not jazzy sexy habits, but it's the little habits, a little exercise, the little 10 minutes of reading professionally a day, they had up to greatness over the long-term. So check out the slight edge by Jeff Olson. Again, this is Paul Casey. I want to thank my guest, Diane Howard, from the port of Baton for being here today on the Tri-Cities influencer podcast. And we want to thank our TCI sponsor and invite you to support them. We appreciate you making this possible so we can collaborate to help inspire leaders in our community. Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road that will make a difference in your circle of influence. Desmond Tutu said hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness until next time KTF keep growing forward. Speaker 2: Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul in your leadership development, connect with him at growingforward@paulcasey.org for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growing your life or your team forward. Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity to your crazy schedule and getting your priorities done every day by offering you is free. Control my calendar checklist, go to www dot take back my calendar.com for that productivity tool or open a text message 2 7 2 0 0 0, and type the word grow. Paul Casey: The Tri-Cities influencer podcast was recorded at fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of safe strategies.

Today's episode is Sy having a conversation with Jonathan about living as a blind Christian, how disabled people think about disability differently, the church's interactions with disabled congregants, ableist theology and church practice, and a lot more.  Resources mentioned during the show: Sy's list of disabled people to follow on Twitter Disability and the Church by Lamar Hardwick The episode of Shake the Dust with Lamar Hardwick The Disabled God by Nancy Eiesland Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show at KTFPress.com. Hosts  Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Sy Hoekstra – follow him on Twitter.  Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.  Production and editing by Sy Hoekstra. Transcript by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra. Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to shakethedust@ktfpress.com and we may answer your question on a future episode. TranscriptSy Hoekstra: Basically every disabled person has had the experience of Christians trying to heal them. And there are genuinely a ton of disabled people who are not Christians because of this, because they were objects for people, right? That you were objectified insofar as people wanted to see you healed. Like you are here to be cured, you're not here to be loved and supported. [The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.] Jonathan Walton: Welcome to Shake the Dust, leaving colonized faith for the Kingdom of God. A podcast of KTF Press. My name is Jonathan Walton and I'm here with Sy Hoekstra. Welcome to the first of our monthly bonus episodes that we're doing for y'all, our wonderful subscribers, while we're in between seasons of the show. Thank you so much for your support. We literally could not do this without you. Now, just a quick reminder before we get started, make sure to follow us on Facebook if you don't already, also on Instagram and Twitter @KTFPress. Give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. And remember as a KTF subscriber, you do get a private podcast feed that has all the regular and bonus episodes of this show in one place.  Just go to any of our bonus episodes at KTFPress.com. Click the listen in Podcasts app button on your screen and follow the short and easy instructions to add that private feed to your podcast player of choice. All right, let's get started. Sy, what are we talking about today and why are we having this conversation?  Sy Hoekstra: So today I am going to be talking a little bit about what it's like living as a blind man and what that does to my relationship with others, my relationship with God and the church and myself. We are talking about this because we at KTF Press are trying really hard to center kind of marginalized stories that you don't hear a lot about, or that are kind of deemed less important. We just want to explain, give people I think more insight into the personal side and the importance of why it is that we at KTF Press spend so much time trying to make things accessible, avoid using ableist language and just sort of be more inclusive of disabled people in a way that the church unfortunately is not all the time. So that's the long and short of it. Jonathan Walton: As we're having this conversation, if thoughts come up for you, always remember you can send an email or ask a question or shoot us a voice message, because this is a learning curve for me as well. So I'm very excited about this conversation, and I'm grateful to Sy for actually modeling what we hope to do with this entire Shake the Dust podcast project. Sy Hoekstra: The email address is shakethedust@ktfpress.com if you have any questions for us, and we may answer some of those questions on future episodes. Also, by the way, feel free to tell us if you have any ideas for future topics of conversation on these monthly subscriber episodes. We would love to hear from you. Jonathan Walton: So let's get into it Sy. Can you give us a little bit of a background just on how you became blind and how you navigate the world today? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So when I was 15 months old, I was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, which is a form of retinal cancer. It's a just random genetic mutation that happened to me. It's not caused by anything that, or not anything that we know of anyways. There were enough tumors in my right eye where they actually had to remove the eye entirely, and then in my left eye, they treated it with radiation, meaning they basically killed the tumor with a laser. That took most of the vision out of my left eye, but not all. So I do have some vision, but I identify as blind because most people kind of within the blindness community want more people to be able to like claim that label as something that's, they identify with and it's positive and it's not a negative thing. And also because the reality is that most people, even people who don't perceive light, like who literally cannot, you know, there's no information flowing from the light rays that enter their eye to their brain, they are what everybody else would think of as completely blind, like their visual cortex still goes, meaning it still is functioning, it still presents images to their mind. There — a lot of studies have now shown actually that like, well really confirmed what blind people already knew, which is that even people who don't see anything, visual images get placed in your head basically through your ears. Like the sounds that you hear around you can actually create activity in your visual cortex and fully blind people can see to a certain degree in that way.  So anyways, yeah. Blindness is more complicated than what people think, is kind of what I'm trying to say. In my particular case, like I don't, there's literally no eye on my right side, and I guess just like the plasticity of my brain, kind of just rerouted all of my vision, all of my, all of the neurons to my left optic nerve or whatever. And my right eye, it's like it doesn't exist. Like people sometimes ask me, “Is it just like you see blackness out of the right side of your, you just see a bunch of darkness or whatever?” I'm like, “No, I see literally nothing.” It's like me asking you, how much do you see out of your shoulder?  Jonathan Walton: [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: Like there's no eye there, you don't see anything. That's how it is for me. I literally have half the visual field of other people or of people who have two eyes. Okay. So how do I navigate the world around me? So as a kid, I was kind of taught a lot of tricks for how to like map places in my head. I'm very good at mental mapping. A lot of blind people are. Like, you teach us a building or a neighborhood or whatever and we just are very good at keeping track of where we are in our heads, because we've been literally trained on how to do it. I use a white cane. I did not use a white cane my whole life, my vision was actually … not my prescription, but my like focus, actually used to be a lot better than it is now.  So I did not use a white cane when I was younger, even though I maybe, it could have been helpful, but so now I use one. I have for 15 years or so. So I get around with that. I do all my work using a screen reader, which is basically, if you're not familiar, it's like a very complicated piece of software that again, you get trained on, you learn how to use it. Complicated is the wrong word, more like sophisticated. It basically just changes the way that you interact with the computer entirely to make it an audio experience. So it's like you don't use the mouse much, right? It's just like a ton of keyboard shortcuts and different keyboard commands, and then you have a computer voice just like jabbering away in your ear.  That's true on my phone too. Like all iPhones and Android phones nowadays come with like a built-in screen reader. There are several different screen readers you can use on a Windows, on a kind of PC, which is what I use. So basically what that means is I'm able to use any website or any program that is built in an accessible way, just like anybody else, but you can also, if you're like … I'm not a web designer, I'm not a programmer, but people who make computer programs, people who build websites can build them in such a way that screen readers, the programs that blind people use don't have access to all of the information or the functions that are contained within the website or the program.  So coders and programmers, software developers, everybody now who just makes anything on a computer have sort of become like really key to accessibility in a way that was maybe not predictable, or not, that's not true, blind people saw it coming a long way off, but to most people it was not predictable 30, 40 years ago. So yeah, basically a programmer can build a website in the same way that an architect can build a building without a ramp. A programmer can build a building without a digital ramp for a blind person to have access to it. That's kind of the metaphor or the simile a lot of people use because it's a familiar one for a lot of people.  So then on top of all that, I just have a million different ways that I go about doing everyday things. Some of them I figured out on my own, some of them I learned from other blind people. Blind people actually have like, in the US there are a few different schools you can go to and like if you, either if you're young and you want to get trained on how to do everything, or if you become blind later in life, you can go and spend like six months or a year or whatever, just learning how to live as a blind person from other blind people. I never actually, I didn't do that, but it's quite advanced. People have figured stuff out, you know?  And if you're somebody… this is kind of why people don't like these, put a blindfold on and walk around and try out being a blind person to like gain empathy, or like spend a day rolling around in a wheelchair and see how you, what you learn about the world. Because when you do that you're kind of, all you're learning is how disorienting it is when you like vary the, like the first day that you become blind and you have no idea how to actually do anything. That's like, that is not my experience at all. You're really, you're not learning much of anything about my life if that's what you're doing. Yeah. Because the ways that we cope with the world are thoughtful, like we've thought about them a lot, we've shared them with each other, we know how to do a whole lot of things that would just never occur…  Like between me and my sighted wife, I do the vast majority of the cooking in our household. Most people would be like if you just put a blindfold on their face and say, “Go cook me dinner,” would be like, “No, I can't do that. I'm going to get on the phone and order pizza,” you know [laughs]? Anyways, that's a long-winded answer to that question that you asked [laughs].  Jonathan Walton: Okay. Well, I have two or three things to say to that. One, as someone who has tried to build bridges like that, I literally have blind-folded 50 people. Sy Hoekstra: Yes. And we've talked about that.  Jonathan Walton: And we've talked about that, right, and like how that's unhelpful, right? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: Like, I think owning, just confessing that, and then having that conversation with you is something that's helpful because, even for me as someone who's in a subordinated group, like I'm a Black person in America, right? I'm not fluent in all things, reconciliation, shalom, and justice, right? And so there's places to learn and grow. So along with that, like you, as you were talking you gave a lot of different, like vague modifiers, right? So you were like a lot of, or people do or whatever. So most of the information that I know about being blind prior to meeting you and getting to know you is through media, right? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: So watching Ray Charles like fry chicken in Ray, or like … Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Jamie Foxx. Jonathan Walton: Or yeah, Jamie Foxx fry chicken actually. It wasn't Ray Charles [laughs]. Or even Christine Ha who won the third season of MasterChef as a blind chef. Right? Sy Hoekstra: Oh, yeah. Jonathan Walton: Like when you say a million little things that you do in your household and little things that you you've learned, or even talking about a school for the blind, like can you explain a little bit about like what that dynamic every day is like? I know I speak for myself and it may speak to other people when the way that blind people are portrayed is always needing help. Like I'm standing on the street, it's courteous for me to say, “Hey, do you need help?” If I am in the store and there's someone looking for something or trying to find something, it's like, oh, I should ask this person for help. Are things like that helpful, or is it like you've actually navigated the world, and there are other ways that we can be helpful? So could you describe that everyday stuff? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Interesting. So I guess the first thing I'll say is, actually blind people and most disabled people, the preference is that you do not ask to help. The preference is don't provide help unless asked. So for blind people, what blind people sometimes say is, if you don't think that I know that you're there, then maybe like cough or take a couple of steps or something just to let somebody who only has audio cues know that you're around in case they want to ask for help, but that's it, actually. Because, the problem is that the … you know what, let me tell a story. There was one time I was coming out of the subway and I was coming home. I had like gone to the doctor or something.  I was coming home from work, but a different route than I normally came home. So I get home on a different subway stop than I'm normally used to. I walk out of the turnstiles and there was like half a second where I go, “Oh man, I don't know what's going on here,” because I had just forgotten that I was in a different subway station. I was on like commuter autopilot, just like everybody else. You know? So I stand there for like, maybe, probably like one second while I'm realizing, “Oh, okay. That's the direction that I have to go.” In that like one second, somebody comes up to me and asks basically if I'm lost and I need help getting somewhere.  I politely say, “No, no, it's fine. I just forgot where I was going for a second. I know where I …” and they moved on. So what happened was I turned left, and at this particular station, you make a left when you come out of the turnstiles and then you have to turn a right again to go up the stairs. And I forgot that I had to turn right again. So what I did was I walked toward the wall with my white cane and then my white cane tapped the wall that was there. Then I go in my head, “Oh, right. I have to turn right and go up these stairs.” So then I turned right to go up the stairs. And this woman who's watching me then says to me, like in front of a lot of people and quite loudly, “You shouldn't have refused that man's help. You wouldn't have gotten lost.”  Like she says effectively, you were too stubborn, you were unwilling to accept help, and that's why you're all confused and disoriented now. Now, the thing is, to my mind, what I have just done was a perfectly successful navigation of this subway stop. That's what the cane … the cane is for that purpose. The cane is for me to like collect information from my surroundings. And if it taps a wall and informs me of a fact that there's a wall in front of me that I forgot about because I have to turn to get to these stairs because I'm in a different subway station, then the cane has done its job and I have successfully navigated the subway station, right? Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: This woman though looks at me and thinks that I am a stubborn, ungrateful, blundering failure. So just the chasm of difference between how I saw what happened and how she saw what happened is why we don't want people to ask us for help. It's because the fact of the matter is people have no idea when we need help and when we don't. So when I, but when I was commuting, it was rare that I would get to work and back in a day without somebody asking a question like, “Where are you going, sir?” Or like, “Do you need a seat on the subway, sir?” or whatever. Which I absolutely do not. I'm blind, my legs are fine. Right?  [laughter] Asking some question like that, that reminds me that people have no idea what my life is like, they have no sense of when I need help and when I don't, and they're like, they mostly think that I am in great need of help to do the simplest tasks. Like when somebody asked me, “Sir, do you know where you're going?” when I'm walking down the street or like, “Can I help you?” or whatever, it's like, you have seen me in the morning, I was a lawyer, wearing a suit, carrying a briefcase, walking from the subway to the courthouses, just like eight million other lawyers in New York City that morning, and you looked at me with my cane and you think that I'm incapable of getting to work.  That I need your help to … So it's just like the problem is it becomes so demeaning and such a reminder of how isolated you are and how much people just don't understand you. So it's not just that it's unhelpful, it's like actively degrading psychologically. Jonathan Walton: I can feel the emotional weight of what you're saying, but what I noticed was that, instead of saying I, you said you. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Towards the end, I started saying. Yeah, yeah. Jonathan Walton: Towards the end. And I think for me, like when I talk about things are really difficult, to lessen the emotional weight of it or to distance myself from it a little bit, I will say, you.  Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, that's what I was doing. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So I think saying, “I …” I think if you say I, we hear you, we get you, we feel you, and thank you for entering into that with us. Sy Hoekstra: No, that makes sense, and that's a good emotional health reminder. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So like, as you were sharing that, something that struck me is that I assume that I know what's best for the people around me, and I don't. Again, thank you for sharing those stories. I think they just do an enormous amount of orientation for us, or for me as a sighted person to be able to enter in to your world, that is a real world, not a less world, but a different world that I need to be oriented to so that I can learn and grow and understand what your life is like. Now, can you explain a little bit of what the social model of disability is and why that's important? Because I think we've talked a lot about your individual life, but what are some social implications for, yeah, about what that looks like? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, totally. So the social model of disability is kind of the preferred way of looking at disability from a theoretical standpoint for the disability rights community. It's, I say theoretical standpoint, that sounds loftier than it is. It's just, it's kind of the way that disabled people think about themselves and their disabilities, as opposed to how … It's actually mostly contrasted with how doctors  think about disabilities. So it's usually the social model versus the medical model of disability. So the medical model is how a lot of people think of a disability, it's something to be cured or fixed or worked on, basically through therapy, through medicine, through whatever it is. Basically it's a deficit.  The social model of disability mostly focuses on how the society around a disabled person creates their disability. So basically the question is if you see somebody in a wheelchair at the bottom of a set of stairs and there's no ramp, do you think the problem is the wheelchair user's legs or the stairs, right? So the medical model says the problem is the person's legs and we need to try and fix them through physical therapy or whatever. The social model says the person who screwed up here is the architect. And that's true with like my, with what I was talking about earlier, with like coders and programmers and everything. I am perfectly capable of navigating a website as a blind person with my screen reader that I have, that I know how to use. The only reason I'm not able to do it is if you made your website inaccessible. Jonathan Walton: Right. This person did not build it for you. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, exactly. So it's the… and there are a million different ways that you can think about that, right? Like so many disabled people have to, are literally forced by government policies to remain in poverty because there's only so much SSDI money that you can store up in your savings account before you have too much money and they disqualify you from getting the benefits anymore. Like there's all kinds of stuff like that where you, the disability is created by this society, not by your body. So that's not to deny that I can't see. Obviously I can't see. What it is, what you're trying to do is focus on what is caused by a lack of vision versus what is caused by a society that is not built for a blind person. Jonathan Walton: That's a super helpful distinction. Can you talk a little bit about, how can white disabled people make it too ideological or take things too far?  Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So, okay, so this, Jonathan's not asking that question out of nowhere, this is in the outline we created. It's interesting though. So some people can actually do, I mean, especially like in the West, especially among white disability advocates, it can be taken kind of a little bit too far, made a little bit too abstract I think. Meaning, there's a lot of good, positive disability, community building and pride, and people who are like, “I love being disabled. I love being a part of this community. We have our own community, we have our own customs and traditions and art and media and whatever, and it's great, and I love it.  And I would not, if somebody offered me a pill tomorrow to be completely cured, I would not take it.” On top of that, offering me the pill in the first place is like as offensive as saying, “Hey Jonathan, I have a cure for all the racism you face. Here's a pill to turn you white.” Jonathan Walton: Oh God [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Right [laughs]. So the reason that I think that it can be taken like that's kind of an extreme and kind of comes from a place of privilege, and I have to emphasize that this is my view. There are people who would vehemently disagree with me on everything I'm about to say. So what that means is like people will advocate for things that I think are important. Like there are a lot of organizations out there that are not trying to do like good advocacy work to help actual living disabled people. What they're trying to do is find cures for various disability. So you're just pumping money into finding cures and not to helping people who actually have the disability. And like it is, it is true. It is absolutely true that it is a very short road from there to eugenics. It is a very short road from thinking about disability from the medical model. Thinking about it from something to be cured or gotten rid of, to thinking like, how do we get rid of disabled people? Historically we've in the United States, in Nazi Germany, all over the place, we have done a ton of horrific things in the name of that way of thinking, in the name of the medical model slash eugenics. But my problem is that if you live in an affluent society, or you have a lot of privilege for one reason or another, saying that you are fine the way that you are and that you would never change can sort of become a way of flaunting privilege.  Because the fact of the matter is that not everybody in your own society or not everybody in the developing world has access to the same assisted technology that you do. Or can avail themselves of the same disability rights protections under the law that you have, or something like that. So I, this is a complicated thing for me to talk about because I absolutely understand where all of those people are coming from, but I am here when I'm saying this, taking some cues especially from like disabled people of color who I've read, who have kind of like pushed back a little bit on how much, on how readily white, disabled people are kind of willing to abstract the idea of having disability pride or the social model of disability to the point where real life circumstances of people who have multiple marginalizations are not really taken into account as much. So that's I guess kind of the caveat that I will put on everything I said, right? But obviously, I'm a hundred percent for people saying, correcting the assumptions of many able-bodied people that like, disability equals brokenness and we just need to fix it, and we don't need to focus on how the world is not built for you and all that sort of thing. It can just be taken to I think a sort of extreme that I always kind of felt a little bit uncomfortable with, but I was, I've been able to articulate or think about it better, I think specifically from following the cues of disabled BIPOC. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Now, it sounds like what you're saying in a lot of ways is that disabled people are not a monolith. We can't make broad generalizations about disabled people because we had a conversation or listened to a podcast with a blind person on it being interviewed by a zealous person of color. Like it doesn't, just because I listened to a podcast or watched a documentary, doesn't give us the entire perspective on disability. So that's really helpful for you to point out and remind, and particularly for me it's really helpful because I tend to do that. I want to be right in an argument, I want to make the best points and have the best conversations and appear like the great guy who's empathizing and understanding all the time. And the reality is the more that I learn, the more I don't know, and the more questions I should have. So thanks for opening that up. Something else I'm wondering about is like, how have you experienced disability in the church? Particularly folks who want to pray for healing all the time. Let's be real. Now, we ain't got nothing against Pentecostals here. Sy you're married to a Pentecostal. [laughter] So can you like explain a little bit about what that is like, and how you've experienced that in the church?  Sy Hoekstra: So basically if you spend any time in communities of disabled people, you will find very quickly Christians are not a very well-liked group in a lot, for a couple reasons. But actually the main one, is that basically every disabled person has had the experience of Christians trying to heal them. Whether it's somebody coming up to you on the street, this has happened to me many times. I've had a woman one time just walk up to me and tell her that God told me that I was going to be able to see within the next six months. That was like four years ago [laughs]. People say stuff like that all the time, ask me to pray for healing.  And it leads to kind of suspicion too, like anytime anybody asks to pray for me, I'm kind of like, “Oh, here we go,” you know? Instead of it being like, “Oh great, someone wants to do the ministry of prayer in my life,” it's just sort of, it leads to apprehension. Anytime anybody asks to pray for me, especially if I don't know them, it is an anxiety-inducing experience. There are genuinely a ton of disabled people who are not Christians because of this. Like who have left the church, who were in the church who left it because they were objects for people, right? That you were objectified insofar as people wanted to see you healed.  People wanted to see you healed for the sake of affirming their understanding of how God works. Those are not the people that I'm going to count on to be by my side when I'm advocating for like, to make the world a more accessible place. Those are the people who want to get rid of disability. It's almost like turning God into like this cosmic doctor. It's like theologizing the medical model of disability. Like you are here to be cured, you're not here to be loved and supported. Jonathan Walton: The idea that you exist as an object also feels like an externalization of how we see ourselves too. Right? Like we cannot accept ourselves, therefore we cannot accept you. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, and you can't accept yourselves based on standards of productivity or physical attractiveness or whatever. Like to all of those standards, disability is like one of the greatest offenses. Jonathan Walton: Right. Like your presence would be offensive to God. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.  Jonathan Walton: Which is just monumentally false. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. And there are… if you're not, if you are someone who believes that God will heal disabilities if he is asked, then implicitly if you are a Christian and you're still a disabled person, there's something wrong with you. You don't have enough faith, you don't have enough devotion. You haven't spent enough time praying, you don't care enough about healing yourself. You're not devoted enough to God, you're sinning in some way, whatever. Which is effectively the question that the disciples asked Jesus in John chapter 9, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” And Jesus says, “No, neither this man or his parents sinned, rather this happens so that the work of God could be displayed in his life.”  All that's going to happen here is that God's miraculous work is going to be displayed. In that particular instance, the man is healed. And the reason, by the way, the reason that I don't get mad at Jesus's healing ministry or his declarations that the kingdom coming is partially indicated by disabled people being healed, he says that to John the Baptist. The reason that I don't mind that so much, is because of what I said before, because he is alleviating people of difficulties they have in like extreme poverty and oppression for which I have absolutely no context, like no basis to understand. Like I'm not sitting there going, like, why isn't this blind man proud enough of his blindness or whatever.  That's just like, I have no basis to ask those kinds of questions. I don't think when people are under kind of that, in circumstances that are that different than mine. So anyways, the framework of like a disabled person in church needs to be healed through prayer is just problematic in a whole bunch of different ways. So I mentioned that because that's one of the main ways that ableism shows up in church, and it's one, it's probably the primary way that almost any disabled person, Christian or not, is familiar with. But other things that I've had just from going to church, like I hear pastors all the time talking about passages in the Bible that have lots of implications for disabled people or talking about disabilities in the Bible and having just no context, no idea what they're talking about.  They don't know anything about the social model of disability. They don't know anything about the lives of people with disabilities. They don't know how we think or move or interact or anything. So it just, it becomes so drenched in ignorance that it's hard to listen to. Then there's just like a lot of everyday small things in the operation of the church that don't … Like, I cannot tell you how many times I've had to tell greeters at a church that I can't do anything with this printed bulletin that you're trying to hand to me [laughs]. Like, this is a piece of garbage you're trying to give me as far as I'm concerned. Jonathan Walton: Even as you have a cane? Sy Hoekstra: Oh, absolutely.  Jonathan Walton: Oh Lord have mercy, Jesus. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. All the time. And it's just like what … you're trying to welcome people and make them feel like they belong in a church and the moment they walk in you, or the moment I walk in and you're doing something to me that is immediately alienating because it makes it very clear that you just have no idea how my life works. Or like there are very, very few churches that have like ASL translation. So there aren't any deaf people in most churches. There are very few churches that really know how to properly care for, I don't know, autistic children or kids with Down's Syndrome. So you don't get a lot of those families coming to those churches because they don't feel like, they literally don't feel like their children are safe there, you know?  So there are just so many things to think about in the way that the church operates, and that's, by the way, that was one of the reasons that we had Lamar Hardwick on the show. His book and his ministry and so much of the stuff that he does is helping churches to try and really do the kind of day-to-day functioning stuff that helps them be more welcoming places. Jonathan Walton: So something, as you were talking about that passage in John that stood out to me was, when Jesus says, “God will be glorified through this man's life,” he may not just be talking about his healing. Because I think that because our version of Christianity is so focused on transformation and production, that it's almost like my life before following Jesus must have been terrible, when no, I experienced good and beautiful things before I decided to follow Jesus too. It wasn't like a total waste. I wasn't like a blob of … but thinking about that creates a much fuller picture of humanity interacting with Jesus across time, as opposed to just interacting with a human as an encounter. I got to think about a little bit. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Absolutely. Everest is agreeing with a lot of the things that we're saying, it sounds like in the background. [laughs] Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So, Sy, you've talked a lot about how your disability affects you, your life, your relationships. Can you talk a little bit about internalized ableism?  Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So there are definitely some people who want to be able-bodied. I don't think that's how I personally ever took it in, but the way that I would take ableism in meaning the way that I would sort of emotionally react to it when I was younger, was to think that in order to overcome it, I have to be exceptional. Like there are a lot of disabled people who engage in effectively, respectability politics, like the equivalent of black respectability politics. Like I want to be a credit to my disability almost, you know? So I would just constantly think that I had to be exceptional in order to overcome everybody's expectations of me, which they always made abundantly clear. Jonathan Walton: Right. You are the representative for all blind people, therefore you need to be Daredevil.  Sy Hoekstra: Well, actually, no, it wasn't so much that I … It was actually more selfish than that, honestly. Jonathan Walton: Oh, okay. Sy Hoekstra: It was like, they think little of me because of who I am, so I need to work extra hard to win their approval. It wasn't even anything about like me being a representative. It was just me getting the brunt of what they think about other blind people, which then what does that make you, what does that make me do? Trying to say “you” there again to separate myself from it. What does that make me do is, want to distance myself from other disabled people. I'm not like them. I'm one of the good ones, right? Like it's an entirely familiar dynamic to black people, right? Jonathan Walton: sounds familiar. Right. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, unfortunately. So that made me, yeah, it made me distance myself from other disabled people. It made me want to win everyone's approval by being incredible at various things. Like when I was in school, I just wanted to get really good grades and make sure that everybody knew how smart I was. I want to be like really, really good at my job in whatever job I'm in. I want to be impressive all the time because that's how I combat everyone expecting less of me. There's this constant dynamic where if I fail, I think what's going to happen is people are going to attribute my failure to my being blind, like I just don't have the capacity to accomplish whatever I was supposed to accomplish.  So I want people to know, because it is better for people to think of you as capable of doing something, but you fail for some reason as opposed to them thinking of you as being utterly incapable of doing whatever it is. That's, I don't know, for me, and I think for most people, but I think for me in particular, that's a like important distinction. So the way to do that is, you prove how capable you are all the time in everything you do. But the kind of more sinister way that that affects my relationship with God, there's a lot of pride bound up in that. You want to constantly be showing how good you are to separate yourself from other people who are like you, is pride.  It may be like, I don't know, more understandable pride than some other people's pride or whatever, but it's still pride. So what that did to me spiritually is, I was not all that much of a fan of the work of Jesus to be perfectly frank. My whole life people would say Jesus was incarnated as a person and died for your sins and was resurrected and is building this kingdom or whatever it is. I knew instinctively and I did not articulate this for, until like a couple of years ago. The thing that I liked about Jesus's work was that like he lifted up people who were, who society considered less than. Because I think I recognize to some degree that that's me, right? Jesus is lifting me up.  He's saying that I don't count less than other people because of my disability. That I am valuable just like everybody else. But if everybody is valuable, then what, at least when it comes to like human value, no one's special. You know what I mean? Nobody is a stand out. Nobody can be a credit to their disability. Nobody can be exceptional. And I didn't like that. I still to this day have trouble resonating sometimes with the fact of forgiveness. The fact of Jesus's kingdom being for everyone regardless of anything, because I want to be exceptional, and he doesn't let me, which like I said, that would be healing.  That would help me accept who I am, accept my limitations, understand that God is going to lift me up despite what other people might think are my limitations, when they're not really, and it would heal my relationship with other disabled people. It would heal my relationship with God, like letting me accept his gift and everything. And I just, I resisted instinctively because I want to be exceptional. Jonathan Walton: Oh man. Sy, you've said a lot of things to me that are very helpful and also very practical. Like don't walk up on a blind person on the street and ask them if they need help. If they needed help they'd ask for it, right? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: Like there are levels of intersectionality that allow marginalized communities to empathize with one another, but also I shouldn't assume that I know everything about what it's like to be disabled because I'm a Black person. There are different levels of, I still need to practice the humility and ask questions and not make the generalizations about blind folks or disabled people that I hate that people make about me. So if there was something that you want to reiterate or something that you want to bring up for the first time just like, this is what would be really helpful for sighted people to see for, to do for folks who are visually impaired or have some type of blindness. Like what's just the thing you want us to know? Sy Hoekstra: I think, you know what I'm going to do actually? I'm only on Twitter, I'm not on the other socials. What I'm going to do, is I'm going to make a list. There are lists of people on Twitter that you can follow, or maybe I'll find somebody else's. It'll be in the show notes, whatever it is. It'll just be a bunch of people who are good to follow and listen to and click on the links that they tweet and learn from them. Because what I think would be super helpful is if people spent more time listening to things like this. Just listening to people talking about their lives, talking about the political issues that they care about, talking about their relationships, about their faith, and just understanding more, right? Like there's just such an incredible lack of awareness of knowledge. So I will have a list of people to just follow. And now my instinct is to give you like a whole syllabus. Obviously we already told you about Disability and the Church, the book by Lamar Hardwick. I'll have a link to that in the show notes too. I'll probably give you a link to The Disabled God by Nancy Eiesland as well, which is really good. We talked a little bit about that in the podcast with Dr. Hardwick. We obviously have that podcast that you can go back and listen to for just more conversation around these subjects. I just want people to learn more, for the purpose of making it easier to love people, right? Like you cannot love people you don't understand, whose lives you're not familiar with. I don't know, I think that would be huge and just make things a lot easier for a lot of people. I think it would be great if there were more people in churches speaking up about ways that the church is inaccessible, whether that's literally getting in the front door, getting into the sanctuary, having somewhere to sit. Whether that's people saying, “Everybody stand up for the reading of God's word,” just changing that to, “Stand, if you're able.” Whether that's considering getting an ASL translator and broadcasting it far and wide that you have one, because like I don't know, there's just so many different things that you can do to make the body of Christ and the Word of God, more accessible to people on an everyday basis that we're just not doing. Yeah. I want people to be familiar with my life and our lives as disabled people and familiar with how to advocate for us. I also want you to do what I have made an attempt to do and what we have tried to do at KTF Press, which is listen to marginalized people as much as possible. So the list that I'll send out will be probably primarily disabled women of color, but there will be lots of perspectives represented obviously. I just, I think it's important to listen to people who have the most to tell you about the things with which you are least familiar, and those are going to be the most marginalized people. Jonathan Walton: So Sy, thank you so much for giving us just a window into the world of what your life is like. Thank you to our subscribers. Please make sure to rate and review. And I think this is an episode that you should share with a friend [Jonathan's daughter Everest interrupts and says “bye”], get them to subscribe for the free month and then have a conversation about what it would look like to better serve the disabled community. [Everest makes noises in the background] Everest just blew you a kiss. [laughter] So special thanks to Jon Guerra who provided our amazing theme music, Jacqueline Tam for our wonderful podcast art and thanks to you and see you next month. Sy Hoekstra: That's right. See you then. Thanks. [The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.] Jonathan Walton: She has these two beads and I didn't want to take them away from her because she would melt down, but I also don't want her to eat them. No, don't eat it. Give it to me. She's holding her hands out to me with both her fists clenched with a big smile on her face, because that's what I did to her earlier. I put it in one hand to see if she would like hit my fist and open it up, but she has two beads in both hands. She doesn't understand the game. [laughter]  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com

You’ve heard us talking about reverse dieting many times.  The reason for this is because we know that this is one of the most critical steps in the process of achieving your fitness goals. Dieting is stress on the body, and you cannot stay in that state forever. Have you found yourself losing weight and not being able to keep it off? Your body is an intelligent machine and will do what it has to do to keep you alive; skipping this vital step on your journey could be why you are having such a hard time. In this episode, Kelsey details how and why a reverse diet is such a crucial part of your journey. This audio is from a KTF zoom team meeting. Don’t forget to hit that Subscribe button and leave a review. As always, thanks for sharing your time with us and listening to this episode of Self Love Sit Downs. God Bless. Contact us at selflovesitdowns@gmail.comInstagram:Kelsey @kelsey_teddiArmando @mandofarias05 Facebook Groups:Kelsey Teddi Fitness As always, Self Love Starts with YOU!

Listen to the KTFP Boys talk about the origin of the KTF brand --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ktfministries/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ktfministries/support

No segundo bloco do nosso podcast #28, Gabriel Sawaf, João Guilherme Rodrigues e João Heim falam sobre os grandes campeões do final de semana nas três principais categorias nacionais. Primeiro, conversamos sobre o título de Ricardo Maurício na Stock Car e o que marcou a decisão da grande modalidade brasileira. Depois, o domínio da KTF e a conquista de Pietro RImbano da Stock Light. Por fim, Beto Monteiro e o seu bicampeonato na Copa Truck. Tudo isso com comentários de Gustavo Frigotto, que acompanhou tudo de dentro do Autódromo de Interlagos. Para concluir, destacamos também o título de Augusto Farfus no IGTC, na África do Sul. Ouça, comente suas opiniões, críticas, sugestões e não deixe de compartilhar com seus amigos! Agora temos um grupo do WhatsApp. Caso queira participar, mande seu números nas nossas redes sociais que te adicionamos lá! Siga as nossas redes sociais: Twitter - @zonadeultrapass/Instagram @zonadeultrapassagem Apresentadores: @gabrielsawaf/@joaoguilhermesr/@Joaoheim/@gustavofrigotto.86

Hi guys, Merry Christmas! Be Kind to one another and to yourself! KTF ! Dunc xx

Episode 49 we are joined by KTF as we talk on Gucci VS Jeezy, the Dutchavelli cancelled scandal, new music from Megan Thee Stallion, Loski, Scribz Riley, Meek Mill & Pa Saileu. @rapsouluk

Deep House Music! Shouts to WLLP! KTF!

DISCO FUNKY PRESSURE !!! Felt in an upbeat mood when I woke up! Big Ups to Chris Harris in NYC! KTF xx

Shouts out to all my friends! KTF xx

Dr. Snuggles and friends return for episode 85 of your guide to the truly astonishing world of softcore films, and the world’s number one podcast on that subject! Once again, we are joined by Matt from Movie Melt and Songs on Trial for another fan favourite drunkcasting episode. Except Matt isn’t drinking this time (the Australians bravely attempt to make up for this by getting drunk enough to sing Bond themes at one point). One thing Matt really loves is the mermaid films directed by Perry Tong, so we check out one of the more highly regarded entries, Mermaid's Quest: Search For the King of the Nile. Disappointingly, there are no mermaids, in the sense that all characters in this film are walking around on those...whad'ya call 'em?...oh - feet. But there is topless scuba diving! Also this episode: songs both from the movie musical you’re assuming we played songs from, songs about having sex with mermaids, a mermaid erotic audio story, general drunkcasting idiocy, and a whole lot of clips of Miss Brat Dom because we recorded an episode of Patreon bonus cast In Search of the Perfect Podcast moments before this show. Plus, the life and career of Perry Tong! Not only did he write and direct 17 mermaid films in about four years, he was also an author and producer, and a band manager in the ‘60s. These days, you can find him behind the counter at Pop’s Safari Room Cigars & Fine Wines and KTF & Collectibles in Fort Worth, Texas! Please support our Patreon, if you can! Hey, why not call us on our hotline? (724) 246-4669! Or email us: mail@getsoftpodcast.com Check out the other Compañeros Radio Network shows: Movie Melt Songs on Trial Heavy Leather Horror Show In Search of the Perfect Podcast

Hi guys! I did quite a few live recordings on Pressure Radio this weekend, but I chose this one to release for now, I hope you enjoy it! Of course it has loads of your old favourites on it, so I hope you enjoy listening back to the mix as much I enjoyed recording and playing my records for you live! Love to all of you! STAY SAFE ! KTF! *Tracklisting will be up sometime next year lol :)

After many months, finally Keep the Faith! returns to the airwaves each and every Saturday Morning bringing you the Quality! Much LOVE to my subscribers, my friends and all the crew. Return of the VIBE indeed! KTF! xox

Playlist: 1. The Doors - Hello, I Love You (Remastered) 2. Talking Heads - Thank You For Sending Me An Angel 3. Tim Burgess - I Got This 4. Belle and Sebastian - The Blues Are Still Blue 5. Camera... An archive of a live broadcast on Radio23.org

1 - Iray minitra monja 2 - Fahadiovan'ny tanana sy ny ati-vava 3 - Manaiky aho 4 - Inona no mahatonga ny zatovo ho tia andrankandrana 5 - Tsy mampianatra ny fiakohofana amin(ny zavaboary ny Genesisy;

Playlist: 1. Modest Mouse - Float On 2. Grandaddy - Now It's On 3. Teenage Fanclub - Take The Long Way Round (Remastered) 4. The Afternoons - Gonna Stay Together 5. Lavinia Blackwall - Troublemakers 6. Wild Nothing - Dizziness 7. Electric Light Orchestra - So Fine 8. Your Twenties - Caught Wheel 9. Juniore - Adolescent 10. Pip Blom - Daddy Issues 11. Public Practice - Compromised 12. XTC - The Rhythm 13. The Fall - Fit And Working Again 14. R.E.M. - Can't Get There From Here 15. Love - The Daily Planet 16. Harry Nilsson - Jump Into The Fire 17. The Doobie Brothers - China Grove 18. James Gang - Funk 48 19. Here Lies Man - Summon Fire 20. Ty Segall - Gotta Get Up 21. Damaged Bug - Sold America 22. Mark Lanegan - Bleed All Over 23. Warm Digits - Everyone Nervous (feat. Rozi Plain) 24. World Of Twist - Speed Wine 25. Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World (7'' Version) 26. The Magnetic Fields - Kraftwerk In A Blackout 27. Sparks - One For The Ages 28. Tim Burgess - Empathy For The Devil 29. The Cure - Boys Don't Cry 30. X-Men - Talk 31. The Flaming Lips - Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere 32. L7 ft. Joan Jett - Fake Friends 33. Lucidvox - Knife (Нож) 34. The Runaways - Queens of Noise 35. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Rubbernecker 36. Trembling Bells - To See You Again 37. Little Richard - Can't Believe You Wanna Leave Image: '90, Kiltimagh Podomatic: soulshenanigans Facebook: /soulshenanigans Twitter: @soulshenanigans iTunes: soulshenanigans Mix cloud: soulshenanigans

Playlist: 1. The Stranglers - Golden Brown 2. The Doors - My Eyes Have Seen You (Remastered) 3. Cornershop - Highly Amplified 4. Super Furry Animals - Play It Cool (2017 Remastered Version) 5. White Denim - I Don't Understand Rock and Roll 6. Seazoo - The Pleasure 7. Spinning Coin - Feel You More Than World Right Now 8. The Dentists - She Dazzled Me With Basil 9. Sorry - Perfect 10. Porridge Radio - Give/Take 11. Goldfrapp - Koko 12. Depeche Mode - Dreaming Of Me 13. The Human League - Open Your Heart 14. Kraftwerk - Computer Love (Edit) 15. Ghostpoet - Off Peak Dreams 16. Stereolab - Come And Play In The Milky Night 17. Air - All I Need 18. Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - Some Velvet Morning 19. Shannon Lay - Something On Your Mind 20. Ron Sexsmith - Spring Of The Following Year 21. Sharon Van Etten - Every Time the Sun Comes Up 22. BC Camplight - I Only Drink When I'm Drunk 23. Brett Newski - Grow Your Garden 24. Frank Zappa - Why Don'tcha Do Me Right? 25. One Of Hours - Two Heads For 35 Cents 26. The Small Faces - Understanding 27. Erma Franklin - Gotta Find Me A Lover 28. Harold Burrage - I'll Take One 29. The Fascinations - Girls Are Out To Get You 30. The Sharonettes - Papa Oom Mow Mow 31. Checkerboard Squares - Double Cookin 32. John Fred - Boogie Children 33. Johnny Burnette - Honey Hush 34. Janis Martin - Bang Bang 35. The Mor-Loks - What My Baby Wants 36. The Music Machine - Talk Talk 37. Sugar Shack - Sunshine Of Your Love 38. The Poets - Locked in A Room 39. Charlie Fawn - Blue Skies 40. Mustard - Good Time Coming 41. The Lovely Eggs - This Decision 42. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Reducer 43. AC/DC - It's A Long Way To The Top 44. David Bowie - V-2 Schneider (2017 Remastered Version) Image: Kiltimagh, 1988 - Paddy's Day Crowd Podomatic: soulshenanigans Facebook: /soulshenanigans Twitter: @soulshenanigans iTunes: soulshenanigans Mix cloud: soulshenanigans

yamadaniさんをゲストに迎えて、都内のジョギングエチケット、ハセツネ、通勤ラン　などについて話しました。ご意見・ご感想はハッシュタグ #pbn100 までお願いします。 shownotes @yamadani For the RUSH's blog 緊急事態宣言 ハセツネ KTF トリプルクラウン 公益社団法人 東京都山岳連盟 Dakota Jonesのハセツネ参戦記 信越トレイル daniさんの通勤ラン 主観強度及ぼす影響 小原さんの通勤ラン nikeとNBのフェイスシールド

This week Joe, Jason, Scott, Harper and Marty break the boredom of the current times by talking greatest European moments.Get on it with a few beers and talk Celtic while this madenss endures in 2020. Hail Hail!! KTF!!

This week Joe, Jason, Scott, Harper and Marty break the boredom of the current times by talking greatest European moments.Get on it with a few beers and talk Celtic while this madenss endures in 2020. Hail Hail!! KTF!!

Playlist: 1. Pixies - Bone Machine 2. Thin Lizzy - Gonna Creep Up On You 3. The Boomtown Rats - Can't Stop 4. Holy Fuck - Deleters (feat. Angus Andrew) 5. LCD Soundsystem - Watch The Tapes 6. Cavern Of Anti-Matter - You're An Art Soul 7. Primal Scream - Shoot Speed / Kill Light 8. Brian Eno - Third Uncle 9. Gang Of Four - Natural's Not In It (Ladytron Remodel) 10. Toy - Energy 11. Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage - Depression! Despair! 12. Say Sue Me - I Just Wanna Dance 13. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Cars In Space 14. Ratboys - Look To 15. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Rockers To Swallow 16. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Bellbottoms 17. Minutemen - Corona 18. Jorge Ben - Mas Que Nada 19. Os Mutantes - Bat Macumba 20. Six Organs Of Admittance - The 101 21. T'Pau - Heart And Soul 22. The Orielles - Come Down On Jupiter 23. Andy Shauf - Try Again 24. Eddie The Wheel - #1 In My Book Kid 25. The Proper Ornaments - Broken Insect 26. King Krule - Comet Face 27. Close Lobsters - All Compasses Go Wild 28. Spinning Coin - Feel You More Than World Right Now 29. Fun Boy Three - We're Having All the Fun 30. XTC - Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me) 31. Altered Images - Dead Pop Stars 32. Peggy Sue - In Dreams 33. Ezra Furman - I'm Coming Clean 34. JARV IS... - Must I Evolve? Image: Coillte Gurrl, 1989 Podomatic: soulshenanigans Facebook: /soulshenanigans Twitter: @soulshenanigans iTunes: soulshenanigans Mix cloud: soulshenanigans

What is an online fitness coach? 2020 was a year for launching my dream business to help others feel their best! Kelsey Teddi Fitness was started to share my knowledge with individuals looking to live a healthier lifestyle. In this episode I discuss a little about what an online fitness coach is and what my program offers. This is just a scratch on the surface of what is included but the majority of this episode is a Q&A with my client, Nicole Lerma (@nikillakilla on Integra).Nicole has transformed her body, lifestyle, and way she approaches her fitness in just the 6 months of us working together. You get to hear some of her concerns before starting, some of her biggest take always, and a lot of our laughs! This is a great episode if you’ve ever wondered what coaching looks like or if you’ve ever considered investing in your health journey. Whether you plan to invest with myself or another coach, this is a great episode to get a look inside of what a coach to client relationship should look like. Life’s too short to take it too serious so we hope you enjoy this episode with some great info but also a lot of good times! What is an online fitness coach? A little look into Kelsey Teddi Fitness. (11:52) Q&A with Nicole- Question #1 Tell us a little about your fitness journey before working with KTF. (0:00) Q&A Question #2 What Questions concerns did you have at the start of your training? (24:09) Q&A Question #3 What was the most difficult part when training with Kelsey? (30:03) Q&A Question #4 What has been biggest take away since training with Kelsey? (31:49) Q&A Question #5 How has this changed you not just physically but in other areas of your life? (58:10) Q&A Question #6 What do you want to tell anyone who is thinking about hiring a coach?As always, thanks for sharing your time with us and listening to this episode of Self-Love Sit Downs. Contact us at: selflovesitdowns@gmail.com Instagram:Kelsey @ https://www.instagram.com/kelsey_teddi/ Armando @ https://www.instagram.com/mandofarias05/Nicole @ https://www.instagram.com/nikillakilla/As always Self Love Starts with YOU

Playlist: 1. Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down 2. The Libertines - Can't Stand Me Now 3. Supergrass - Mansize Rooster (2015 Remastered Version) 4. The Charlatans - White Shirt 5. Teenage Fanclub - I'm In Love 6. Lavinia Blackwall - Waiting For Tomorrow 7. Stereolab - Sudden Stars (EP Version) 8. Tame Impala - Lost In Yesterday 9. Wild Nothing - Sleight Of Hand 10. Blossoms - The Keeper 11. Saint Etienne - Spring 12. (Sandy) Alex G - Near 13. Tropical Fuck Storm - Who's My Eugene? 14. Warmduscher - Blood Load 15. Jehnny Beth - I'm The Man 16. Possum - I Am The Tiger 17. Magazine - Give Me Everything 18. Simple Minds - The Kick Inside Of Me 19. Bambara - Serafina 20. R.E.M. - Lightnin' Hopkins 21. Omni - Moat 22. The Young Knives - She's Attracted To (Radio Edit) 23. Gang Of Four - At Home He's A Tourist 24. The Kinks - Where Did My Spring Go (Mono) 25. Cheerleader - Non-stop 26. Clout - Substitute 27. Ride - I Don't Know Where It Comes From (Single Version) 28. Daughter - Fossa 29. Blackbird & Crow - Orphan's Lament 30. Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Bryce Dessner, Eighth Blackbird - New Partner 31. Ezra Furman - I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend 32. Khruangbin & Leon Bridges - Texas Sun 33. Brenda Lee - Is It True 34. Joe Dolan & The Drifters Showband - When You Say I Love You 35. The Realistics - If This Ain't Love (mono) 36. Tami Lynn - I'm Gonna Run Away From You (mono) Image: your DJ & local Koillte Krew, 2007 Podomatic: soulshenanigans Facebook: /soulshenanigans Twitter: @soulshenanigans iTunes: soulshenanigans Mix cloud: soulshenanigans

Welcome to Episode 55 of Good Will Hunters, with Nigel Spence, the outgoing-CEO of ChildFund Australia. This episode was recorded at the Pawa Liklik NGO Forum hosted by the Kokoda Track Foundation in October 2019. KTF launched the forum as a platform to discuss the challenges facing small and medium NGOs working in international development. Visit https://www.ktf.ngo to learn more about KTF and the forum. Nigel was one of the keynote speakers at the forum, and reflected on his time as ChildFund CEO, including the drive for innovation, collaboration and strengths-based approaches. I am interviewing Nigel in a few weeks, so I'd love for you to listen to this episode and send me some questions to ask him! He is a wealth of knowledge and insight, as you'll hear. Enjoy, Rachel and the GWH Team

Nesta edição, Gustavo Faldon e Erick Gabriel recebem a participação de Ruben Carrapatoso, campeão mundial de kart em 1998 superando Fernando Alonso e engenheiro da KTF na Stock Car. Carrapatoso acompanhou as corridas de Leclerc e Verstappen no kart e falou sobre os futuros campeões da F1.

Í Lestarklefanum eru þau Þorgeir Tryggvason, Hrönn Sveinsdóttir og Bryndís Loftsdóttir. Þetta verður áramótaþáttur með yfirferð á því sem helst stóð upp úr. Fjallað verður leikhús, bókmenntir, bíómyndir, tónlist, listahátíð og fleiri hápunkta sem voru á árinu. Stjórnandi þáttarins er Guðrún Sóley Gestsdóttir.

Welcome to Episode 1 of Good Will Hunters, with Dr. Genevieve Nelson. Today, we discuss the organisation Gen leads, the Kokoda Track Foundation, and the incredible impact the organisation has had on PNG. We talk state failure, achieving development goals, walking the Kokoda Track, training teachers in the most remote parts of the country, and why collaboration with the private sector can be a game-changer for civil society, plus loads more! 1:40 - PNG is not a failed state 2:50 - PNG and the MDGs/SDGs 6:00 - PNG’s natural resources and land ownership 7:08 - Australia’s legacy of camaraderie in PNG 10:07 - The evolution of KTF in PNG 12:20 - Poverty as a lack of basic services 14:52 - Development in the Kokoda Track catchment 18:00 - Challenges of collaboration in PNG 19:10 - Potential of tourism for development in PNG 21:40 - The life-changing experience of walking the Kokoda Track 22:53 - KTFs Archer Leadership Program 27:12 - Corporate partnerships - vital to success 28:38 - KTF’s Teach for Tomorrow Program - one of my favourite parts! 35:12 - Australia-PNG opportunities for private and civil collaboration 37:56 - KTF and Solar Buddy tackling energy poverty 40:32 - Non-traditional sources of aid 42:48 - The importance of Australian Aid to PNG 45:10 - Private sector has a ‘third seat' on the aid table Royalty Free Music by Bensound

Tonight Graham and the Rev take calls galore as we are they to the last 16 of the Champions League. It's a party late into the night as we toast the fantastic achievement by our bhoys. HH and KTF

piece by Outkast, excerpt from Crash's '08 concert all done to popular tunes

KTF 9/25/09 Crew Battles

KTF XVI pits crews against crews for the first ever TEAM competition! September 25th, 2009 10:30pm at the Lakeshore Theatre.

07 summed up. www.chicagodancecrash.com

The 2008 Season summed up. Special thanks to Brian for his patience. www.chicagodancecrash.com

Professionals or amateurs. Ballet or Breakers. Anyone wanting to have a good time, make some money, show off, or just make a fool out of themselves are invited to sign up and compete for any of Dance Crash's "Keeper of The Floor" Championships in 2009. Show's are March 27th, June 26th and September 27th leading up to our FINAL KTF EVER on December 13th. Cash prize for winner. Friends of competitors get VIP service including drink specials. Sign up at KTF@chicagodancecrash.com

Final day of preparation as staff and dancers take their allotted 3 hours to choreograph their number for round 1. www.chicagodancecrash.com

The word on the street as to how KTF XIII Staff vs. Dancers is gonna go down. December 5th, 2008. www.chicagodancecrash.com

The Company killed Outkast to a fancy crowd... warming up for this December's final '08 production. Come see it! www.chicagodancecrash.com

Producing Director Mark Hackman and Head Writer "The Asskicker" Mike Dice analyze each competitor for KTF XIII Staff v. Dancers www.chicagodancecrash.com

December 5th, 2008 10:30 Lakeshore Theatre Chicago, IL Chicago Dance Crash production staff battles against Chicago Dance Crash company dancers. This is how it started. www.chicagodancecrash.com

Round 2 of Chicago Dance Crash's first ever open-invitational KTF. Garrett Jones ended up winning the whole thing. www.chicagodancecrash.com

The final battle of the final show of the run that started KTF. If I remember right, Brian lost like 20 bucks about the two of them making it to the finals. www.chicagodancecrash.com