Aaron RossSpeakers:
Aaron Ross
Antipas Harris
Aaron Ross
Welcome to Everyday Theology, where we don’t tell you what to believe, or why to believe it, but rather explore our Christian beliefs and why they matter for us in relation to God, to creation and to others. My name is Aaron Ross.
With me for Everyday Theology, I get the real pleasure to have Dr. Antipas Harris, who is the president of TD Jakes Divinity School, and also an author of a recently released book that we’re going to talk about today. So Antipas, thank you so much for being with me today.
Antipas Harris
Aaron is a delight to be here. Thanks for having me on your podcast.
Aaron Ross
Yeah, of course. And if you wouldn’t mind, letting our listeners know a little bit about you and just giving a little bit of your story.
Antipas Harris
Well, Antipas Harris, I grew up in Manchester, Georgia, and deep south, family, Pentecostal. Dad’s Pentecostal church planter, mom. They had eight children, I’m the second oldest yeah. And so I grew up in church all the time, went to private school, my dad started at the church started out with some learning challenges and speech impediment. And the Lord really made things better for me and ended up long story short, now I have written nine books and speak all the time. So I guess he, the Lord, turned that whole thing around.
Aaron Ross
That’s incredible. Honestly, I’m just trying to finish a PhD. And I can’t imagine running that many books. So now, your newest book, which is the one that we want to talk about today is really provocative in the title, which is why I’ve kind of held off on saying it. And but it really is the question that I think, I think it’s so important. And I know, so many people do think it’s so important. But the question is, Is Christianity a White Man’s Religion? And so if you wouldn’t mind maybe telling us why you got to the place of even asking this question to write a book about it. And as hard as it may be the quick, simple answer to is it or is it not?
Antipas Harris
Great, great questions. Well, first of all, the question is not mine, I see the book as an urban apologetic. I was teaching a course, graduate course on leadership at university, actually Regent University in Virginia Beach, where I used to be a tenured professor. And a student, young student about twenty=two one of the youngest in the class, raised his hand and asked me, What do you say to your friends, when they tell you that they’re leaving the faith? Because Christianity is really just a white man’s religion? And I was taken aback by the question. The question is one that was prominent during the civil rights era. And the 1950s 1960s, Malcolm X made that discussion very prominent during those days. So I knew it as a historical question during the Civil Rights Movement, but I did not know it as a question for today. The student raised the question as one that was vibrant on the streets, and even in the church. So not only was he did a discussion erupted in the class about the question, and many of the students chimed in and shared how people either don’t come to the faith or leaving the faith because of this question. And it led me down a road of discovery and research being the scholar that I am I wanted to know how prominent it is this question. How, and I learned a lot about it. It’s a literal question among people of color. Millennials, young millennials, in particular, and it is a metaphorical question for for for white millennials. You know, Christianity is for them and not us kind of a thing. So the second part of your question, which was you asking, Is it or is it not? It depends on I think the answer is yes and no. I think that what I want to do with the book is, is revisit scripture to understand the origins of Christianity to understand what it was intended to be. And if the question is was it intended to be? The answer is absolutely resounding no. But historically, the way that the faith has been used to sanction race oriented oppression. It has been used in a way to lift up one group over another and in that sense, we can deny that Christianity Or at least an expression of Christianity in the West did sponsor colonization and racism.
Aaron Ross
Yeah. Now, short answer aside, which is great. Now we have to dive into the weeds to start, what do you mean? And this may get into a little bit of what some people call race theory and everything, but what do you mean when you say, is it white? Christianity? Can you define that for our listeners? So they understand kind of where that question is now coming from almost going back to the beginning?
Antipas Harris
Well, first of all, I think that the question is sort of a framing of a concern. And it’s a framing within urban America, you know, Christianity is the white man’s religion. I think the deeper analysis, though, is that Western society during the 1500s and 1600s, in particular, started employing ideological frameworks that were really about greed and imperialism. You know, thinking about Portugal at the moment, how Portugal sought to be the next superpower after Rome. And one way they thought they could become the superpower is through ships, guns and God. So at that time, they of course, in the 1400s, ships were made bigger and was seeking to you know, sail around the world. We talked about 1492 when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And he was looking for India, because they had this discovered ways to create ships that can travel long distance. Right. So it was in the 1400s. Of course, that was mostly Spain, but Portugal wanted to advance and compete with expeditions. And, of course, merchants were seeking ways to, to grow the economy during those days. And so the king of Portugal, Alfonso the Fifth got papers from the pope at the time, who told him that he had been affirmed to go into Africa, and to save the black pagans, or the black Gentiles. So they use a faith to go into Africa, and they came up with a narrative that demean the people of color. And that I’ll save a long drawn out history and talk a little bit more about it in the book, but they used at least two narratives that were false narratives of false consciousness. One was that blacks were descendants of Ham, and Ham was curse. So they have the curse, and the other was blacks or descendants of Cain. And Cain was cursed. So blacks are cursed, it depends on where in Africa, you, you know, and who it was, who went how they told the story. And the one about the curse of Cain was, of course, predominant in Angola. And that’s where Portugal went, that’s why Angolans speak Portuguese today. And they they took those, and they were the first to sell slaves to Great Britain, who then brought them to New York and down to Virginia. So when we talk about 1619 and slavery, the start of slavery 1619 those folks came from, primarily Angola. And that was because the Portuguese sold, they went in and pretty much raped the country and sold some to Europe. And they so and they took some to Brazil, where the Portuguese were colonizing. So that’s that, of course, as I just explained, was the start of subjugating people of African descent to a version of Christianity, that deemed them cursed. And that was how the nation the world the new world was started. And that was in 1619. Now once once we get to 1776, the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence, the country had to rethink Okay, so what do we do with the slaves? Right? We independent of Great Britain, and they saw the slaves as a hot commodity to help build the country but they didn’t say that human beings, right. So chattel slavery got worse in the 1800s. So all of this was done in the name of God and and thats what the book is trying to get it.
Aaron Ross
And what would you say? You know, given that history and given the kind of way in which religion kind of was used as a backbone for so much evil, what holdovers do you still see happening in which people are asking that question? Is this really just for white people?
Antipas Harris
Well, the issue here is that history matters. And for long, this history has not been part of mainstream American and world history. And in the information age of technology, this generation is reading more than previous generations, because they have more coming at him. Some of it is is credible, and some of it is not. Some of it’s conspiracy, and some of it is actual history. And so they’re discovering a lot of history that has been held from them, and it and they’re trying to figure out what to do with it, especially in light of contemporary challenges. So then they’re making these connections, and is strange to me today, as you know, is September 11. And we say things like, we will never forget what happened at 911. You know, [we caan] not forget, because that is history. But we also are not going to forget what happened in 1619. You know, it’s like, okay, you forget all of them what we did as a country, to a whole group of people who are citizens of this nation, but we’re not going to forget what the terrorists did. We shouldn’t forget any of it, because all of it was defining moments. And so for people of color now, trying to understand how do we get to the point where you know, most recently, an officer will put his knee on somebody’s neck and not even regard the life? I mean, what is this this guy? I mean, we got Freddie Gray, we got Trayvon Martin, we got all these cases, how are we? How does this make sense? So people trying to make sense of current crisis are making connections and discovering a history of this type of oppression and disregard for black life.
Aaron Ross
And I feel like, you know, me personally, being white and growing up in the deep south as well, just a little bit more south in North Florida. Whenever someone hears this like, and it’s because it’s the culture by which that I was raised, right, that you hear a question like this, the immediate response I feel of so many people is just to reject the question altogether. And how do you think we can overcome some of that to actually find and listen to what we need to be hearing and what we need to be seeing? So we can be better people of Christ?
Antipas Harris
We have to be humble and try them. One of the things I tried to do in the book without firm the question, you got to understand the question and where it’s coming from. And usually people of color have a question, the larger majority just quashes the question because black life hasn’t mattered in this country since 1619. So of course, black questions don’t matter. And they’re always politicized and considered liberal. That’s just a way of dismissing concerns that people have in their real life experience. And so one of the challenges we have is we do have a society that does not care about a marginalized people in the questions and concerns they have. There are people who want to drive the narrative, and that has always been the case. And that’s why people want to shut down the question, but one of the things I want to do in the book is say, hey, somebody has a question. Let’s attend to the question. Try to understand it. Don’t rush to conclusions. Maybe you have new insight, but at least understand where the question is coming from.
Aaron Ross
Now in, in asking the question, if I can ask you, what are some of the things that you found within writing of this book and within the historical research, that as you see today, what you see happening in the church world specifically toward trying to deal with Christianity, that the church has been woefully and sometimes even willfully, ignorant of, that we need to actually be awoken, you know, to?
Antipas Harris
Well, I think one of the things that we need to do as a church is see our faith as the and what I mean by faith here is the biblical expression of the faith. As one that is concerned about the whole person. The way we have lived into the faith has been a sociological
identity, more then a Jesus identity, I think we more morphed into a socio historical identity. One that even especially in the evangelical expression of the faith, though, I hasten and she could be clear that in the 14, 15, 1600’s, that was mostly led by Catholicism that was before the Great Reformation. Now, however, a lot of the, you know, Catholicism has over time you tried to correct this history, but it’s still part of the history. Evangelicals, however, have adopted and adapted to a lot of those ideological frameworks and sustained this type of oppression theologically. So I think I mean, look at the what happened to the Southern Baptists, when they pulled out of the Baptists, they wanted to preserve slavery. When you think about again, John Wesley was an abolitionist and Wilberforce and when he was 88, just a few days before he died, to do away with this vile and most horrendous act of oppression called slavery and also in America, if you can. And by Frederick Douglass in the 1840s and 1850s. The Methodist Church had adapted to slavery and basically dismissed Frederick Douglass, who was a Methodist minister, and considered him a heretic for saying that slavery was wrong. I mean, this is a pattern where the Evangelical framework of the church and we taught them right in the middle of the Great Awakenings. You I’m talking even in Azusa Street started out as Frank Bartleman talks about erasing the color line in the blood. And by the time we got to 1920, we had splits Assemblies of God and Church of God, God is split along racial lines, you had UPC PAW split. I mean, it’s so now we were in the Protestant movement, and even in the spirit filled, evangelical world where they are adapting, and adopting ideas and adapting to culture, and rather than influencing it with a biblical expression of the fate. So this is a pandemic, this is a, we don’t just have COVID-19, we have 1619 pandemic in the church and the church has not sustained a, a witness against it. And so what happens, I think, is that we become apathetic to it, and just learn adjust to it. And our faith does not challenge social systems. And this is what W.E.B Dubois was trying to talk about when you talk about this sort of false consciousness and this idea in which belief systems make people feel good about themselves, but have not risen to the occasion of a prophetic utterance that challenges systems and structures. And so what we have now is a lot of people in these evangelical spirit filled Protestant world who are actually sustaining and perpetuating the problem, because they see that they’re planning to the problem rather than being a solution.
Aaron Ross
It’s interesting, you bring up the Great Awakening, because I feel like conversation that has been more prominent as of late as I’ve kind of seen it is, you know, what do we do with Jonathan Edwards? And this may be off topic here, but kind of what you said to spark that back in my head, that the church doesn’t even know what to do with its figures in the past, like Jonathan Edwards, who the church has looks towards for theology for some times, while they have this hideous and horrendous reality of being supporters of slavery,
Antipas Harris
Yeah. What do we do with them? I think, first of all, we need to acknowledge that they were racist. Yeah. And we have made people saints more than Jesus. And Jonathan Edwards was one who’s, you know, his Calvinist approach, you’re going back to john Calvin, his idea of the the the elite or the elected or the predestined ones, that way of thinking made its way into this racist ideology. And, and that was a problem. And first of all, we have to acknowledge that they were while they had some good, they had some evil that was really influencing systems and structures and affirming systems and structures that lift whiteness. as superior to black.
Aaron Ross
Yeah. And I feel like that’s, that’s always a question that has, or not always, it’s really been a recent question of this struggle between cancel culture, and what do you do? Right? Like, what’s the what’s the ground? And I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that, but especially as it relates to some of those figures that we should call out as racists and should say, they have evil. They might have helpful theology, but they also had some evil theology. And we need to call that out. How do we do that intention, as followers of Christ?
Antipas Harris
Well, I think first of all, we just assumed that canceled culture is an anti biblical, anti theological concept. That’s again, because certain American ideas have declared canceled culture as something that should not be a part of the conversation. Why can’t we cancel culture? If it’s racist, if it’s vile? Why shouldn’t we just assume that that’s a bad thing? I’m not sure. But I think that’s one. Two I think that when it comes to Black Lives Matter, we can immediately try to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because people look at the organization that has some stances about trans sexuality, or, in more so has to do with advocating for a better life and well being as human beings than anything else. But the idea that they would mention trans, and mention some other types of, you know, lifestyles that perhaps evangelical spiritual people don’t agree with. They want to throw the whole thing out as if they created, Black Lives Matter, they actually have an organization that’s carrying the mantra, but they didn’t, is not about them. What make this connection work, the point is that when it comes to that, when it comes to John Wesley, not john Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and others like that, who lifted up slavery, and didn’t do anything about it. We want to hold on to what they did was good and not talk about what they did was bad. When it comes to the social movements, we want to hold up something bad, and let that destroy what’s good. And that’s what I’m saying. That’s the way pervasive whiteness as a has worked in this society, it is control the conversation and determine what is right and what is wrong, even when is blatantly contradicting itself.
Aaron Ross
Yeah. And and that’s, I’m glad you brought that up, because that was kind of as soon as you were talking about that, you know, it hit my own head. I said, Yeah, that’s exactly what’s happening, right, the demonization of a certain group with a failure of recognition, the evil in our own groups right? Now to to maybe just kind of help along, when when you make that connection of kind of this is a problem of whiteness, and I’m gonna be framing it the exact same way you did. So correct me if I need correction in my framing, but to say it’s a problem of whiteness, you know, why would you say it that way? And how can you help explain that to someone who may not understand the concept of whiteness,
Antipas Harris
alright, so the like, the language of whiteness is not meant to attack white people. And that’s part of what we’re struggling to do is try to explain something that’s not attacking individuals, because all white people don’t fit into this framework, any more than all black people fit into whatever other kind of framework that we think about. So this is not a personal discussion. It is a societal and a structural question, historically, this country was framed, that if you have one drop of black, you are black, and you deserve to be in the black corner, which says that if you don’t have it, you are white and white, by virtue of being white is what the society was built upon. Right? And yeah, conditions of white, right, because you couldn’t be Jewish, or you couldn’t be at one point, Italian or Polish, you know, but those expressions of Western culture actually have earned the right to be quote unquote, white at some point in history. The blacks never could, by virtue of being black, they could never earn the right to be white. So that’s a meta narrative of this country. That’s a fact. It’s not an opinion it’s not a conspiracy. That’s history. So when we talk about whiteness, we’re talking about ideology that comes from this superior the white superiority, that frame the structures of our society. So there is a pervasive whiteness in that way. That sometimes I mean, we can look at the way systems play out. You can be white growing up in the ghetto. But as soon as you leave that national culture, that’s who you are, but you can actually enter into mainstream society and decide to do something different with your life. And your ghettoness is never really exposed. But if you up who have never been from the ghetto, I’m from the rural community, I have to earn the right not to be hood. You because there’s an assumption that by virtue of being black, there’s certain things. So that’s just the way society is loosely structured. And then you get Hispanics who come in, they have to almost fall into one of those categories, black or white. And it depends on whether their skin is white, whether they can earn the right to be white, or if their skin is dark skin, whether they’re going to be black no matter what. And so when people say things like Barack Obama, where his dad came from Kenya, his mom was white, he’s not really African American, he entered into the black experience, because he was equally black as he is white. But when it walks down the street, he’s not a white guy. Okay. You know, yeah. So my point here is that we are living within structures that we didn’t individually create. But so when we say whiteness, we’re talking about structures that we did not create, with, we’re trying to explain a description, that is very difficult to explain. If an individual says, Well, that’s not my experience, but that’s the narrative of the country.
Aaron Ross
Yeah. And it seems, and I think that kind of goes back to, you know, Dubois and a double consciousness, right, that reality that while we all have some kind of double consciousness in different spaces, it’s not at all the same as it comes to race in the way that it is played out. And, and everything within the United States, right? I think the hard part for so many people and I and I could be wrong with this is more anecdotal, and it in and of itself, but when people hear terms like whiteness, or white Christianity, or anything that kind of uses that terminology, I so many people, so many white people take that immediately as an attack. And rather than to take it as what you’re saying, the structural things that we have to learn and listen from, right? Why do you Why do you suppose that may be, in all of your work on it,
Antipas Harris
For some is a new conversation. I’m just like, it wasn’t in my textbooks growing up about the black experience, it also was not in white people’s textbooks. So to have to bring it up. Now, immediately, many times have many layers to it. One, many whites hear a conversation like that immediately think about their own struggles. And I want to affirm anybody who struggles, this is not sort of a marathon on who struggled or whose pain is that is a more difficult pain. You know, you can’t compare pain. And and pain is not something that is reserved for one group of people. So I want to make that clear. But let’s also I don’t even say but period. Do not compare pain, period. Yeah,
that’s not the discussion that we’re in at the moment. This discussion that we’re in at the moment is one is pain that has been inflicted by the narrative of this country, that has disproportionately affecting a whole group of people. And I’m speaking on a whole group of people. And I can even say in my own story, I have some moments of privilege. But that’s not the point. The point is that the narrative of the country lays on the shoulders of a group of people and that needs to change. That’s one. Secondly, I like to say that when you live in a distressed reality, where you’re always conscious of being black, right, or I would use a frame blackness, right and saying, we talk. I’m always conscious of my blackness. And you’re always feeling to some degree, less than or, as if you have to prove something. You don’t quite understand when white people are offended, because you say something about whiteness, because it’s like, well, my goodness, I lived in an offended reality all my life and have a conversation offends you. Why are you so fragile? Because, I mean, since the start, yeah, every time I walk in, I’ve face offense every time you know. I’ve even had to I have two doctor degrees. I’ve had classes where I had to with white people I had to it would be black was impediment. And my my degree was even as strong as the other guys degree in their mind, even if I went to stronger schools, because there’s just an assumption that blackness is inferior. And I’m not saying every single white person feels that way. Meta narrative of this country, the system, the education system is revealed that the justice system revealed that in every other system in society reveals that and there’s empirical evidence that that’s the case policing is done differently among blacks. And yeah, so so I’m like, this is an offended reality we have to live with into talk about it is offensive to whites. I just find that just very interesting.
Aaron Ross
Yeah, I think on my own journey, right, and trying to learn and be better and process this, one of the things that I made a, I tried to make a mental shift in my own head was that when I immediately would hear something, and and immediately be offended, I, I’ve made it purposeful in my own sense to go, why am I offended by this? And does that offense actually show that there’s something wrong with me? To put myself in that kind of position? And I’m by no means perfect, right? But it’s, it’s an attempt to try and say, right, like, there are things that I need to learn that I primarily just, I’m in built, I’m ingrained to push back against certain things rather than actually open myself up to listen and to go, what is someone else’s experience? How did their How does it experience real? Even if I’m taught that it isn’t? And how do I how do I accept that and help? And I think, I think for so many people, when they hear the term whiteness, like you were saying, it’s just immediate, it’s, it’s offensive, and they’re not used to being offended. In in that reality. Now, and you can, you can clearly tell me, I’m wrong on anything, because I’m open to that. But my next question really would kind of go to if we’re talking about the church, what do you see as the future of the church in order to say, to be able to answer that question is, is Christianity the white man’s religion? How do we get to a place where we can just say, no?
Antipas Harris
Well, I think
we can’t, our history has defined the expression of the faith. All of our history defines who we are as individuals and as society. I think that in order to get to the place where we can ultimately say, No, it’s not, it’s how it is being played out in society. Right now, I think that Christianity continues to be played out as a racialized reality. Partly because we haven’t faced that this country has never paused and lamented slavery, Jim Crow, black codes, you know, is still arguing that there is no systemic racism at the highest level in the country. I mean, I can’t expect that this narrative is going to change when, when there is a insisting power structure that refuses to listen and admit, what is blatantly obvious, both by experience narrative history, and empirical science. So I don’t know that we’ll ever get there if if we can’t, I mean, the president recently, you know, doesn’t want there to be a race consciousness. Which is taught. I mean, that’s denying history. And that’s offensive to black people. But what black people’s offense and pain has never mattered.
Aaron Ross
Right?
Antipas Harris
Yeah. As whether white pain matters, there is no no regard to black pain in this country, all the way down to a band aid you go to the store is you don’t get a black band aid you get a white when the cover a white skin because that’s the expectation is white pain is the only pain that is human and matters.
Aaron Ross
It’s it’s honestly, it’s crazy in my head, the fact that you just said this thing about band aids. You know, I’ve never thought that before. Right? I’ve never experienced a reality where I wasn’t able to get a band aid that matched the color of my skin without even thinking about it. Right? It just, it was just there that was always there. Other than when I was a kid, and it was you know, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, cars or whatever it was right? And I think that’s the kind of thing sometimes that like just ticks. Right? Right, that that’s something that, that black Americans, or just black people in general have had to experience that I’ve never once taken the time to go, where can I find a band aid that matches my own skin?
Antipas Harris
Yeah. And it was created, those band aids were created to be a color that was closest to white skin so that when there is a wound, you don’t look silly walking around with this other color, you know, till you get closer to the skin to heal, because we attending to white pain. Black people, you got to go get a white band aid, because we have anything for you. You know, haircare in the store, here’s your little black corner over here called the ethnic, you know, visitors in this country, and you got to go over here to your little corner. So that’s the that’s in business, but it plays itself out of in, in, in education. Education is McGraw, for example, one of the publishers for educational curriculum, when they did those focus groups to try to figure out what to include in the books that tended to the voices in Texas and California, with a few black people who are in those circles, and they come up with curriculum that doesn’t care about Juneteenth, or care by know the race, the race massacre, the Tulsa race riots, which by the way, was not citizen on citizen that won’t white people on black people. That was American government bombing black people’s community. Would the police riots that Riot of black communities, so that stuff doesn’t get into the discussions? You know, we only got to hear a minority view that rules the whole. And so now what we have, even with Black Lives Matter, are the small groups going around videoing the few people who are who have looting and rioting going on to paint a negative picture of the whole thing. And that’s painful, because we know that the Boogaloo Boys and, and and offshoots of the KKK. And those groups, there are people on the ground who know by firsthand know firsthand, eye witnesses, that these groups are going in infiltrate and start in a lot of these fires. And of course, the community sees the fire and the looting, and many of them naively get sucked into it. And there’s a picture they want to get that picture because that’s what we want to show look like black people turn up their own communities. And that’s not that’s not really true. in in the in the truest sense. Now, did you catch somebody right in there, nobody can control what individual do. But the movement itself is not about that. But that’s again, trying to double down on a narrative that demonizes blackness and lifts whiteness as the savior of society.
Aaron Ross
Yeah, to the point where we have people who are thinking of one person in general, that I won’t say their name, but has a large following, that when confronted about their statement that Jesus was white double down on the reality that Jesus was white. And this is the person who wrote, you know, the book that so many Christians look towards for talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And it’s weird, and it’s frustrating to see people doubling down on these realities simply because they’re offended, or because like you just said, We demonize whole groups on a few bad actors in one space. But if we go to policing, we won’t demonize all of policing because of a few bad actors. Because that that doesn’t, that doesn’t fit the narrative, right, that doesn’t fit the power control and the structure. So protests, bad couple people are looting and rioting. Police are good. There’s just a couple bad people in the police and we’ll get we’ll get rid of them eventually.
Antipas Harris
Well protesting
is bad, as long as it’s black people doing it, but as long as the white people are going down to the Michigan Governor’s Mansion, with those big guns and all that and demanding to open up the state in the middle of a pandemic that was supported all the way up to the White House. When black people are doing something. Again, the discussion here is about how blackness is demonized. And this is why people in urban communities, they don’t feel an allegiance to a local religion like they did back in, you know, when Christianity was sort of the cultural thing to do. So they don’t mind raising questions. And counter attacking by attacking religion as expressed by these in America. So, you know, the question is the responsibility of the people who perpetuating the white man’s religion.
Aaron Ross
Now we heard about and you talked about the need for a prophetic voice to change systems. And one of the things that one of the systems I think about is the system that we find in the church itself, the actual institution of the church in America. And we have our own systems, right. In what ways do you envision or do you see as going to be helpful and again, crafting a narrative where we don’t just attach whiteness to Christianity, that, that churches, you know, if a pastor’s listening, who’s a white pastor, predominantly white church, like, what what do we do? What do you what are some practical realities of kind of moving forward in this in this time to be better for our black brothers and sisters?
Antipas Harris
Well, I think part of it is listening and trying to understand and trying to understand it means doesn’t just try to understand the worst that’s coming out of my mouth kind of a thing. But rather trying to understand how we really have had two different realities in this country. And because this is collective experience, right? So there is there has we have lived a black America and a white America. And I don’t mean every white person. And I don’t mean every black person, I think there are black people who have had an experience that has been akin to a privileged white experience. And I think there are many, but there are some white people who have had experiences that are very akin to the black experience. I mean, that’s the sloppiness of this whole thing, right? That there are there are people who get on both sides. But they’re still getting on two different sides. They still framed as white and black. Even if some blacks get on the white side, and some whites get on the black side it still is a black and white framework. Oh, yeah. And and and, and that framework has disproportionately oppressed the black community because the systems were created for the white side, not for the black side. And we have been fighting to be included. When we need to fight to disband the two sides. We want to be included with the white people. No, we need to abandon the two. And be one thing together. We are Americans. I mean, we still have is he white, I’m dating this guy, I’m dating this crazy, is he white or black. you know depending on the name, you know, and it’s like, why does it matter, we’re all Americans, we still have this bifurcated reality and churches, everything you know, and you can’t be citizens of the same nation, and be united and be divided at the same time.
Aaron Ross
And I’m going to kind of assume here within that conversation, we’re talking about kind of those racial divides without what may be considered sometimes white washing, or kind of getting rid of ethnicity, right? Or culture, but actually highlighting those things at the same time.
Antipas Harris
Well, you got to highlight the realities, because there’s a historical reality. But we got to reach for a better future. dissolving what we have doesn’t mean forgetting where we came from. And so I think that part of it is that we often tell people that you know, if you listen to rap, I mean, the rap community. As you know, I saw Jay Z and Linkin Park one day doing something together. Miley Cyrus and I don’t know, when another rapper doing something together. And I said, Now, then figured out how to live in the same world and, and do stylistically, integrate different. You know, because music comes from a narrative identity and narrative identity, where we come from, we bring that together, then figure out how to integrate these worlds, but the church hasn’t, we still haven’t figured out how to work out how to do it together, if you go to when they say they have an integrated church, but they’re seeing all these hillsong music and black people have to enter into a whole different thing. And if Whites go to a black church, they got to learn how to sing the gospel the way because they they’ve entered a hole. We haven’t figured out how to integrate all that together. And I don’t mean individual churches, because there are some individual churches that are very often but I mean, I’m speaking as and, you know, society churches, overall, we’re still behind right. And I think we got to find ways to move a little bit more attentively toward a different type of society.
Aaron Ross
Now, a question out of that, because I know the fear that some people kind of hold intention there, which may be a good thing. But how do you do that also without cultural appropriation?
Antipas Harris
Well, it’s not about cultural appropriation because cultural appropriation is only a problem when one is essentially pretending or not fully understanding right? What I try to move toward is a society where we have an integrated cultural reality, the culture reality, only the culture appropriation is a bigger problem because we within a framework of two different worlds. We find a way to share and to learn and to grow together. It shouldn’t be two people in one nation got two different types of culture. I mean, if I walk up to you and I say, What’s up, Aaron, you say, Hey, what’s up, Antipas? Well, that whole notion of what’s up is a colloquialism that probably came out of a black community from shared it’s a shared colloquialism. And we have a lot of shared colloquialisms. But cultural appropriation is when we get to the point where it’s like, okay, so are you aware that we’re really living in two different worlds? And now you’re trying to pretend to be something that you’re not?
Aaron Ross
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, I think that’s a hard reality for some people to recognize that there’s a difference between those two things. Right. I think a lot of people who end up getting called out for cultural preparation for really doing it, they don’t see that that’s a different reality. That’s a different mindset.
Antipas Harris
Now, we’re coming to an end. It’s been really beautiful and helpful for me, I’ve learned so much. And so I thank you for that. If you wouldn’t mind, you know, is there any way that I know you’ve got some books, if you want to kind of shout out some of your books tell people how to connect with you where they can keep learning. I mean, beyond just the book that we’ve been talking about, and kind of the ideas coming from that book, but anything else that they can connect with and pick up of yours?
Most recent book is Is Christianity The White Man’s Religion published by IVP. The book is in stores everywhere. Also, you can get it on Amazon or anywhere books will still sold. And so please, I’d love for you to check it out and write a review on Goodreads or on Amazon. Also, my, I have two edited volumes that came out last we have three edited volumes that came out last year, two of which are called a series on the Holy Spirit in Social Justice. One focuses on the Scripture and Theology. The other one is History, Race and Culture. Then I have another edited volume called The Mighty Transformer. And so that’s available also on Amazon. I have a book called Unstoppable Success available on Amazon published by Hybridge Books, have one called Gifted Worshiper. So I have a devotional call Monday Morning Inspiration: How to Deal with Everyday Monday Morning Blues. So, so all those books I’ve been working on over the years, and hopefully you would check them out.
Aaron Ross
And yeah, and check out TD Jakes Divinity.
Antipas Harris
Yes, right. TD Jakes Divinity School, go to jakesdivinity.org. And check out the degree programs we have. We are really rocking rolling the Lord is favorite as we have a great diversity of folks in our school. We are fully accredited by virtue of our relationships with our partner institutions, which are Vanguard University, North Central University, and Portland Seminary. So we have degrees from a Bachelor of Arts in Theology, a Bachelor of Science in Church Leadership, a Bachelor of Science in Humanitarian Leadership, we have a Master of Arts in Theology and Master of Arts in Strategic Leadership and a Doctor of Ministry in Spirit-filled Leadership in Global African Diaspora, so we would love you to be a part of our JDS family.
Aaron Ross
Perfect. Well, hey, thank you again, so much for having this conversation with me and hopefully we’ll talk soon.