Shake the Dust

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This week, Sy and Jonathan discuss the importance of practicing emotional health for individuals and communities engaged in the work of justice and liberation. They talk about how burying emotions can perpetuate systems of oppression, how emotionally healthy communities confront injustice, how to engage your feelings when dealing with people who disagree with you on fundamental issues, and a whole lot more. 

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show and subscribe to get our newsletter and other paid content at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts:  

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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 Suzie Lahoud. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode. 

Transcript

Jonathan Walton: I know that for myself, particularly around issues of injustice, I was much more concerned with how I was going to be perceived as an activist, or perceived as a leader, or perceived as a Christian than I was about my actual life with God. So my life with God was oriented around getting the right directions.

The stories that I would know from scripture are, were marked by people who did things wrong. I think there's a powerful invitation for people who desire to follow Jesus and decolonize their faith to stop trying to perform Christianity and to live a life with God that is genuine with ourselves, genuine with our neighbors, and genuinely resistant to the patterns and structures of the day. Which would, Romans 12, “Do not be conformed to the patterns of the world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

[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, a podcast of KTF Press. My name is Sy Hoekstra. I am here with Jonathan Walton. And... just Jonathan Walton this week. Suzie will be back next week, never fear. This week, Jonathan and I are going to be talking about emotional health and its importance to justice work, to discipleship, and to liberation of communities.

We're going to kind of get into how systems of oppression, systems of colonialism rely on the suppression of emotions. We're going to get into how communities who practice emotional health together have an easier time talking about controversial issues. We're going to talk about how dealing with people who disagree with you on fundamental things can be done in an emotionally healthy way. And a whole lot more… It's going to be a good conversation.

But before we get started, as always, remember if you like this podcast, you can support it by going to KTFPress.com and becoming a subscriber- a monthly or annual subscriber. You can get a free month of that subscription by going to KTFPress.com/freemonth. And that gets you our weekly newsletter with resources for discipleship and political education as you leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God. It gets you bonus episodes to this show, and some writing from us. It also helps support the free version of this show and our future book projects. It also, you know, we never bring this up, but it also helps with things like transcribing this show to make sure that it's accessible for everybody, which is something that Suzie handles, which we really appreciate and something that our subscriber’s money supports.

Also, by the way, speaking of the book project that the subscribers are helping support, keep an eye on this podcast feed next week. You're going to get not just our regular episode, but a little something extra. We're going to be able to tell you some really exciting news about stuff that we're doing.

Also, please follow us on social media @KTFPress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And tell your friends about us. Write into the show at [email protected] with any questions that you have. We have gotten a couple of questions. We really appreciate it, and we're going to answer some of them on a reflection episode that we're going to be doing in two weeks as our season finale. So we're very much looking forward to that.

Okay. So Jonathan, let's just start with the first basic question, which is when we're talking about emotional health and justice work, why? Why do we need to do this? This is something that a lot of organizers and a lot of churches do not talk about. So why are we talking about it?

Jonathan Walton: I think we're talking about it because when we refuse to recognize our emotions, when we recognize our emotions but then downplay or diminish or dismiss them, I think we're actually crushing an essential part of the image of God being reflected in us. And that is our anger, our frustration, our sadness, our jealousy, our core desires for things to be different than what they are, or to celebrate the things that are reflective of what God intended. So I actually think that the reason that we need to talk about it, talk about it more and then begin to engage and understand in a more deep and profound way, is because when we dismiss, diminish, or otherwise just get rid of our emotions, what we're actually doing is missing a part of the image of God in ourselves that we then can't even reflect or accentuate or call out in other people.

Sy Hoekstra: It’s also then something that you are just excluding from your discipleship and your movement toward God in any way. If you're dismissing or diminishing it’s like you don't have emotions or they're not important, then yeah, just by definition you're leaving that out of your spiritual direction.

Jonathan Walton: Right, and I mean, fortunately or unfortunately, that's the… stripping people and individuals and systems of their emotional lives allows for control. It allows for some sort of cohesion and manipulation that gets helpful for systems and structures that abuse and oppress to have emotions not be a thing. Because I can't acknowledge pain, I can’t acknowledge abuse, can’t acknowledge mistrust, can’t acknowledge confusion. Like we need to be objective and engage in a way that is harmonious. Usually just harmonious for people in power and not those who are actually experiencing pain. But yeah, there's all kinds of unhelpful things like you said, when emotions are stripped out of our discipleship and formation.

Sy Hoekstra: Which is why so many people push back when there are just calls for unity in the face of discord and oppression and harm, right? Is because the unity that a lot of people are calling for is actually just like submission to the same old people and “Stop complaining, and stop telling us how you are hurt and how you are sad and all of that.”

Jonathan Walton: Yes, because to acknowledge that someone else has feelings, I then have to engage with my own emotions. That's why the commandment or invitation by God to mourn with those who mourn is really difficult. Because then we have to actually mourn our own stuff. So for example, a conversation around race. I remember the first time Priscilla told me, she was like, “Jonathan, you need to figure out what it means to be Black for the sake of our children and the sake of like, just that would be exceptionally helpful.” She actually just said it, like we were in the kitchen one day… because it's an essential thing to her for me to know those things. But I didn't want to engage with the emotions around what it would mean to do that. And so most people don't want to talk about race and conflict like other things, because we don't want to actually deal with our emotions. So I think unlocking the emotional stuff is actually the key to discipleship around these foundational, foundational topics.

Sy Hoekstra: Can I ask you to go like one level deeper on that story and get a tiny bit more personal, just for the sake of having an example for people?

Jonathan Walton: Yeah.

Sy Hoekstra: What were the emotions that you were trying to avoid?

Jonathan Walton: Oh, for sure. I have, it was really, really difficult for me before Maia was born- my first, my oldest daughter was born. And before I was… I was really, not confronted, but lovingly confronted by my brother and my sister-in-law, who were like, “Jonathan, when are you going to tell Maia that she's Black?” And I did not have any concrete things for me to hold onto post Trayvon Martin being killed that did not associate being Black with being in pain and being afraid and be like… I was like, “How can I tell this child that I love deeply about this yoke that she has to bear?”

Now, Blackness and the Black experience in America on this side of the Atlantic and all of those things, is much, much, much deeper and more beautiful and more profound and more amazing and more wonderful, and all of those things than slavery and oppression. But slavery and oppression were all that I could conjure in the moment to share. And that's very different now, but what I didn't want to deal with at that time, was the pain. And that is not just a lack of knowledge of history about Nat Turner and Maya Angelou and James Baldwin. Like it is… I don't have the emotional strength and emotional formation to deal with pain and struggle and lament. And now that I've been working on that, I can invite my daughter into something that is much more profound and robust.

Sy Hoekstra: And a bit context for people who haven't paid attention to every single detail about our personal lives that we've said on the podcast. You're talking about your Chinese and Korean American wife and your mixed race daughter. That’s why these are questions.

Jonathan Walton: Yes. That is why these are essential questions, yeah.

Sy Hoekstra: So then, just to make things crystal clear for everyone- Jonathan, had you not done that, had you not engaged in that deeper way and been able to talk to Maia about a tradition of which she can be proud of and engage with in a nuanced and complex way, basically what happens is Blackness gets diminished within your family, which then supports the system. That's what, I'm just trying to connect this back to what we said before. Like the idea, basically by you not engaging in your own personal emotional health, racism is perpetuated within your own family.

Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely. Right. Right. And then, so then my daughter does not actually get the formation necessary for her to know God, know herself, and know her neighbor. She doesn't get it. And so she ends up with an ethnic identity seesaw, where she just like swings back and forth because she's going to get hit by things the way that I was. Like oh, Blackness only comes up when you need to worry about getting stopped by the police. It doesn't come up as we explain the food that we eat, and the way that we pray, and the conversations that we have, and the music we listen to, and the family that we see. It needs to be much more of a meal on a table that she can imbibe and receive as good, as opposed to this pendulum that swings back and forth where Blackness only comes up when her Blackness is a problem.

Sy Hoekstra: Ethic identity seesaw. That's a phrase, that's a good poet phrase.

Jonathan Walton: [Laughs] The image in my head was like, “I'm Black, and then I'm Chinese. And I'm Black, and I'm Korean. And I’m Black.” And it doesn't have to be that way [laughs] you know? Inherently unstable.

Sy Hoekstra: You’re right. Inherently unstable, not holistic, not like an integrated person. Yeah.

So one example from my world, from like the disability community, I think, that we run into all the time is disability rights people are constantly trying to encourage disabled people to be self-advocates. Meaning to stand up for yourself, to tell people what you need and to try and fight for yourself to get it in all kinds of different scenarios. In the workplace, and in school, and in just dealing with the benefits system that so many disabled people have to deal with. And so the way that emotional health comes into this is one of the things that disabled people are constantly told is that you're a burden, right? That you're difficult. You are causing trouble. You're rocking the boat, whatever.

And so, if you are somebody whose reaction to that, like me, is you just become sad and you become someone who says, “No, I'm going to be reliable at all turns, and I'm going to ask as little of people as possible,” basically so that I can counter the stereotype and show them that they're wrong. And instead of just dealing with the fact that I'm sad about the fact that it's hard to ask for accommodations as a disabled person, implicitly in all that is I'm listening to them. I'm agreeing with them. I'm saying, “Yes, I am too much of a burden and I shouldn't be asking you for all of this.” And then I stop asking for things, right?

If you agree with it, if you listen, if you think of yourself as a burden, if instead of dealing with the sadness, you’re just trying not to be a burden, then what happens is, you stop asking for things. You stop asking for the accommodations to which you are legally and morally entitled. You stop rocking the boat. You end up excluding yourself from things. Or not excluding yourself, but participating in the exclusion of yourself from things because you didn't ask for what you needed, because it's too hard, and the emotional weight of it is too much. And I do not in any way, and you don't either, I know, mean to shame people who haven't done this, because both of us are hyper aware of how incredibly difficult it is to engage in these things.

It's just like, we're just saying that's just how it works. And that's the importance of engaging in emotional health and discipleship around your emotions, because even though it is extremely hard and I don't mean to judge or shame anyone who hasn't done it, it is incredibly important.

Jonathan Walton: Just to press into that a little bit, that is a, that self-removal to the corner, it’s a coping mechanism, right? Because we don't want to deal with the rejection. We don't want to deal with the dismissal. So the layers about that, it's like emotional health is not just like our emotions, but then it's the emotions about our emotions and then assigning those emotions value or judgment as good or bad. So I can feel anger, and then I get frustrated that I'm quote unquote, “always angry.” And then I think that it's bad to be an angry Black person. And so therefore I'm going to work really, really hard to not be seen this way. So I've got to actually do like three layers of work to deal with the reality that I'm actually angry about a Black person getting killed by the police.

Sy Hoekstra: Right. To get back to the original thing, takes moving through so many layers specifically because you were not able at the time to just say, “I am angry.”

Jonathan Walton:  Yeah, exactly.

Sy Hoekstra: That idea of trying to avoid how you're seen instead of dealing with the emotions, that immediately took me back to me as a kid. I have, the technology has changed, so they're not as big as they used to be- I used to have very, very big, extremely thick glasses. And I never wanted to wear them. I would have them in my pocket all the time as a kid, and people- parents and teachers and whoever, “Why aren't you wearing your glasses, why aren’t you wearing your glasses?” It’s because I don't want to be seen as someone who needs glasses. That's the answer. So my glasses were just sitting in my pocket all the time. That is my…. instead of just saying, “I'm sad that I am someone that people exclude and marginalize for some…” Obviously I would not have had that language when I was like six. But take your glasses out of your pocket and put them on your face, is what I’m saying.

Jonathan Walton:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.

[Laughter]

Sy Hoekstra: You had some specific thoughts about ways that groups of people who have discipled themselves around this, around these issues will be able to engage better in issues of justice together. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Jonathan Walton: Mother Teresa’s quote about doing small things with great love. I think putting that into context, one of the small things that we can do with great love is listening and affirming the emotions of the people around us and ourselves. Because when we have people who do small things with great love, and they have the emotional awareness to go along with that, we can experience a deeper level of love and acceptance that actually shows us what it's like to be loved by Jesus. And so I, when I turned 30, I had surgery on both feet and both ankles. And so my good friend, Courtney Wong, came over to help out because my daughter was six months old and we just needed help because I was in bed.

She was vacuuming our bedroom and picking up my clothes, and she looked at me and she said, “Jonathan, does this make you uncomfortable?” So she's acknowledging an emotion that I am not even aware that she can sense, but she affirmed it. She said, “You know, it's okay to feel uncomfortable, but I'm really glad that you can rely on us and we can help you.” So I was able to receive the thing that she was doing for me, and also accept myself in that moment and go deep, and say, “You know what, I can actually receive this as love and not just like a violation or like, or I'm inconveniencing her in some way.” I could make all these assumptions about what she might be feeling, but she acknowledged or called out my emotion that she was sensing and then was able to share how she was actually feeling. And that gave me peace and I went to sleep, and, after taking Percocet, right?

[Laughter]

Jonathan Walton: But it was a…

Sy Hoekstra: So a combination of the peace and the Percocet put you to sleep.

Jonathan Walton: The peace and… the two Ps, yes. The peace and the Percocet. But I was able to receive what she was doing and rest.

Sy Hoekstra: So that's a great story. I know Courtney too and she's awesome. I… how does having communities that are able to love each other like that with emotional health in mind then affect when those communities run into controversial and difficult issues surrounding justice?

Jonathan Walton: So the way that this can manifest itself in community when there's like racial conflict or tension, or just some other systemic issue is, when Eric Garner was killed, I was supposed to go to Bible study that night at our pastor’s apartment. And I could not bring myself to go to Bible study when there's people suffering in the street, and I needed to be in the street, but I didn't know that. And I was afraid of being rejected. I didn't want to argue with these people that police brutality was a gospel issue and Christians should be on the streets. So I just left. I didn't even engage with it. But I had a wife who desired to be an ally with me, and was willing to press me to say, “Jonathan, why don't you just ask us to come?”

And this is an example of like the, what we talked about before, where like, I don't want to be a problem, so I'm just going to remove myself to protect myself from the potential rejection, protect myself from the potential dismissal. But because we're pursuing emotional health as a church and me and my wife are pursuing an emotionally healthy marriage where our emotions are part of our formation in Jesus, I was then able, a year and a half later, when I think when Terence Crutcher was killed I believe, I was able to ask five friends to come march with me. Like I was the only Black person in this group, but they were willing to march with me, and I was able to ask them to do that.

And that was terrifying for me, and Priscilla literally held my hand through that whole experience of like, “Jonathan, you can ask these people to come with you, and if they don't come with you, that doesn't mean that you are not valuable. That doesn't mean that you aren't essential to the community. It just, it means they're not there where you are or that they're just not available, they have something else to do.” But I don't have to assign value to my humanity based on the emotions that I have about what these people can or cannot do, or are willing or not willing to do.

Sy Hoekstra: So then multiply that by a whole church congregation. If you have people who are willing to ask people to join them in whatever it is that they're grieving, that they're trying to deal with it, that they're trying to fight, who all understand that rejection, while it can mean that the person is rejecting you as a person, that you don't have to personally take it in that way. Or meaning you don't have to listen to them. You don't have to listen to the rejection, right? And then you have the opportunity within that community to try and change those dynamics. Again, it's always going to be hard to deal with people who are rejecting you as a person, which sometimes they are. Sometimes people will say, “I don't want to march with you,” it's because they do not understand, they do not care. They're actually happy with whatever you are mourning, and that can be a real thing.

Jonathan Walton: It’s much easier to deal with a copperhead that is out than it is to assume that every drawer in your house has a copperhead in it.

Sy Hoekstra: This is such a country example [laughs].

Jonathan Walton: I know. But this is a very real example. So one time when I was a kid, we brought this table in the house from the shed outside. And there was a copperhead in the drawer. And so when we turned the table over, it just fell out into the floor. And we killed it, but it was one of those things where I could, then I could just walk around assuming every single drawer had a copperhead in it, and that's not true. I just needed to check.

Sy Hoekstra: We should tell people that a copperhead is a poisonous snake, because there's gotta be somebody who doesn’t know [laughs].

Jonathan Walton: Oh yes, I’m so sorry. So a copperhead is a type of poisonous snake common in the rural South of the United States. But the reality of like, when a community can actually pull that stuff into the open, then you can deal with it. And I think people, like I remember having a conversation with someone, and again, I had grown and done some work and she had voted for Donald Trump without very much thought. And so she said to me, “Oh yeah, I voted for Donald Trump.” And then she said… from the look on my face, I didn't say anything, she goes, “I guess I didn't think about what that would mean to other people.” And then she said, “Hmm, I probably need to think about that.” And then I said, “Yes, you do.” And then we went about our day, you know? But I didn't try to condemn her with like this argument that I learned on Twitter or from graduate school. I just said, I just went, “Hmm, you didn't think about that, like you sit with that for a second.”

Because I think often what people like myself do, is we see an opening like that, and we say, “Let me teach this person as much as possible in this moment.” And that's just not, it's not helpful every time. We make doors where there are no doors all the time to try and have these conversations. And a lot of the times we need to allow Jesus to deal with people so that we can work with God to do it. Because if we, if someone can be convinced that Black lives matter, they can be convinced that they don't. I think there's actually revelatory, Christ-centered Jesus work that happens when someone recognizes that every person is made in the image of God.

Sy Hoekstra: Which again, doesn't mean don't learn the arguments. It doesn’t mean don’t make the arguments publicly. It doesn't mean that sometimes getting in the argument is beneficial. It just means when you're operating with some sense of your own emotions and how they work and other people's emotions and how they work and how they can be submitted to Jesus, it’s going to create a level of nuance in you when you're dealing with other people that you would not otherwise have.

Jonathan Walton: Right. And a foundation of emotionally healthy communication is that it's honest, it's respectful, and it's timely. And some people are just not able to communicate around a conflict honestly. And I don't think we're communicating around conflict honestly or around an issue honestly if we're not able to acknowledge our emotions. It might be true, but it might not be honest from where we're coming from. You know what I mean? Similarly, it's really difficult to understand the timeliness of something when we're not able to hear and see the other person. And so often the people that are sitting across from us become the idea that they have as opposed to a person made in the image of God, an individual with thoughts and opinions that are different from ours, you know?

When people or individuals become their ideas solely, when we reduce someone to the idea that they hold, we dehumanize them. And that, again, we cannot have emotionally healthy conversations when we're not honest, respectful, or timely. And reducing someone to just their ideas and what they believe is a disrespectful thing. Because you're minimizing, like we're not flat people. We're not arguments on pieces of paper. We embody so much more than that.

Sy Hoekstra: It's a disrespectful thing and it is also, again, what oppressive systems do, right?

Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes.

Sy Hoekstra: Reducing someone down to just their ideology, what they think, what they believe, and using that as the basis to oppress or harm them in some way.

So let's talk for a second then, not so much about like when people are questioning you or your humanity or what you believe or what you're fighting for, but when people are questioning their faith or trying to deconstruct and all of the emotions that are behind that. Right now, for people who don't know, “deconstruction” is a word that gets applied to kind of a wide swath of things that are happening in the church in the United States in particular. I think there was just a surge of people questioning their faith or the politics of their faith or the truth of their faith, a whole lot of things, after Donald Trump was elected and after kind of the support for him became so kind of obvious and insidious throughout the country from Christians. A lot of people have been walking away from their faith or their politics or their specific theology within their faith, or there's just a whole lot of people questioning. And one of the labels that gets applied to all of that questioning is deconstruction.

Right now, in particular, there are a whole lot of people who are, to the more conservative end of Christianity, who are trying to kind of codify deconstruction as a bad thing [laughs]. Who are trying to point out, who are basically kind of, there's a bit of a backlash to it now, like trying to stop people from questioning things. Trying to argue that their motivations are bad or that they're inevitably going to end up all as atheists, or something like… So anyways, there's a lot of, I think, emotional, unacknowledged emotional health questions that go into dealing with someone who is questioning their faith or their politics, right. We could just be talking about trying to leave colonized faith too.

So Jonathan, what are your thoughts around that?

Jonathan Walton: Colonization is- I think we've said this before on many podcasts and other people have said it- it's a complete and thorough process. It governs every phase of your life. And I think that, because with decolonization, if we remove it from a political systemic level and what it is in America, it usually gets, in the United States, it usually gets applied into individuals. It's “I'm going to decolonize my faith.” What that means to the people around us is that they're normal because their interrelation to us is going to be disrupted. I think that conflict, because we don't live in differentiated relationships most of the time, it becomes very… deconstruction or decolonization becomes a threat to the quote unquote “norms of our lives”.

Sy Hoekstra: What's a differentiating relationship?

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. So if I am not differentiated from my wife, I am then enmeshed with her. So enmeshment would be, we have to have the same thoughts. We have to have the same beliefs. We have to have the same values. We have to exercise in the same way. She's not allowed to be her own person. She's not allowed to be Priscilla who has her own thoughts, her own feelings, her own beliefs, independent of me. Independent of me and just as valuable. And colonization does that. Colonization says, “This is what's valuable. This is what's good. This is what's right. This is what's just. This is what's beautiful, and we're all going to think this way.”

Sy Hoekstra: And just as valuable, we should probably say, doesn't mean just as correct.

Jonathan Walton: Right. Exactly.

[Laughter]

Sy Hoekstra: I think the reason that that's important to say, is I think that's what a lot of people think about deconstruction and emotional health and all that stuff is like, “Oh, you're just going to say that nobody needs to have any views on anything.” [Laughs]

Jonathan Walton: Right, right. You’re throwing out absolute truth and objective… all those things, and that's not true.

Sy Hoekstra: Exactly. Right. That is nearly always a bogeyman.

Jonathan Walton: Right. Exactly. But it gets people afraid, which pushes us back into whatever system or structure was already at work. And so I had a conversation with someone and he said, you know, white male, mid-30s, suburbs of New Jersey background, lives in Pennsylvania now. And he goes, “I just can't bring up conversations about race with my mom.” And I said, “Oh, are you differentiated from your mom, or are you enmeshed with your mom?” And he goes, “Oh, well, I guess I'm enmeshed with her.” Because the mom doesn't actually fear having the conversations about race, it's actually more traumatic to think about being separated from her son and thinking differently from her kid.

Sy Hoekstra: Because in her own family, that's how it works. If you disagree on political things, you're out.

Jonathan Walton: Yes, and that may have happened to her uncle. He disagreed with her father and then they don't talk anymore. They only talk at Thanksgiving around things that don't matter, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we fear that type of estrangement. And so then we don't actually do the work of conflict, which, people suffer because of that. Because we don't actually enter into the destruction of systems and structures that oppress and violate, because we're afraid of offending that uncle or being disowned by our parents or whatever those things are.

And that's where I think, forgive me for going out on a limb here, but like when Jesus says to hate our parents, and to hate the things of this world, I don't think he's saying to hate these people and disown them and all that stuff. But compared to how much we love God and love our neighbors and love the things of God, we're going to hate these things. So there's an invitation, I think, to love the things of God and reject the things of the world. When we reject systems and structures that abuse, violate, oppress, and marginalize; we are loving God.

Sy Hoekstra: And it's going to come off to a lot of people as hating them. They're going to think that you hate them. So I think then what you're saying is, partially at least, is when you're talking about how you think about somebody who's questioning something that seems, feels fundamental to you, you can't do that from a distance. The way that you just talked about how this person interacts with his mother is deeply tied up in his and his mom's relationship and their relationship to the rest of their family and the community around them.

So I think what that means is, people now who are trying to sort of collectively diagnose what's happening in the minds and hearts of people who are deconstructing their faith, or really anybody who's doubting their faith as part of like a movement, something that's happening en masse, you can't do that. You're inherently on a fool's errand trying to say, “Here's what's happening to all of them in their minds and in their hearts.” It's ridiculous. It cannot happen. You can, look, people can analyze social trends and you can come up with reasons that movements happen and all that, but you can never say, “People who deconstruct, people who do this are doing, are just doing X, Y and Z. They just feel this way. They just think this way, and if they would stop doing X, Y or Z, then they would sort of come back to what makes me comfortable.” You need to stop if you're doing that and think about yourself and your own emotions and where those thoughts and those… why those words are coming out of your mouth, frankly, is something that you have to deal with. Not something that they have to deal with.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Part of how colonization works is you have to classify and over-generalize at all times, as quickly as possible. Like there's, “Oh, women do this. Men do this.” The reality is, that's not true. That dynamism, I think, is actually more beautiful and more robust, but it's uncontrollable in a society. You actually have to approach every person as an individual, and have to engage with each person as though they have values and opinions and stuff like that. And stop trying to put our boxes of prejudice and proclivities and assumptions and the last eight podcasts we listened to and three YouTube clips, and say, “Oh, well, every Black person is going to behave this way, because I heard this.”

And I think that is all in a pursuit to make me feel comfortable in a world that is changing. And as long as we're trying to control someone, we cannot love them. All that to say, going back a little bit, the reason that pursuing emotional health is important to decolonizing your faith, our faith, is because it is very, very difficult to love our neighbors well, love God well, love ourselves well, if we're not willing and able to engage with systems and structures in an honest, sincere, respectful way with ourselves and with other people. We can't do that without pursuing the emotional health and having the internal fortitude to engage for the long term.

Sy Hoekstra: And I think we should probably emphasize, that doesn't mean ignoring real trends in the world. Like I can say, “I have experienced, or lots of other disabled people have experienced able-bodied people reacting to our beliefs or our experiences in X way, it happens all the time.” And when I see it again happen, I can say, “Okay, this is part of a larger trend, and here's how I deal with this trend when it comes up.” This doesn't preclude you acknowledging realities of patterns around you in society, right?

Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes, yes.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. We're talking about how you deal with individual people that you're talking to. Individual groups, like people who have, because everybody has their context. That's kind of, I think that's what we're saying. And the ways that people find their ways into those patterns and into those behaviors are incredibly complex and nuanced. And to be able to engage with that complexity and that nuance, instead of engaging with them as part of a monolith, even when you are engaging with a monolith that is like someone who is harming you because of a system that harms you, you still have to engage with them, you don't have to. You can engage with them as individuals if you are approaching it having really discipled yourself around emotional health.

Jonathan Walton: Right. So being in relationship with Sy, does not give me license to treat every disabled person like Sy. What it should do is say, oh, cultivate in me a posture of empathy, so I'm able to ask similar questions that I was able to grow and then ask Sy. I'm able to listen and engage with each person, not just blanket this community of people as like the next Sybren that I'm talking to. You know what I'm saying?

Sy Hoekstra: [Laughs] The next… I don't know if we've ever said this- Sybren is my full name- on this podcast.

Jonathan Walton: Oh yeah.

Sy Hoekstra: So one other point with anybody who's questioning something that you think of as fundamental. If you're talking about somebody who behaves towards you in like a prejudiced or oppressive way, or somebody who's questioning their faith or becoming what you perceive as to be like to the left of you or whatever. One thing, Jonathan, that you've said that I think is really important, is that the main question that you should be asking to try and individualize that person, to try and understand them better, is to ask yourself, like primarily, “How did they get to where they are?” and not ask yourself primarily, “How is what they think wrong and how can I get them to what I believe to be right?”

Which, again, does not preclude saying that they are wrong and trying to get them to where you think to be right. What it does is, if your primary posture towards that person is “How did they get to where they are?” then you're going to seek to understand them as an individual. And that's going to just lead to infinitely more fruitful interactions that respect them as a person, that respect you as a person, and that are going to humanize the conversation you're having, instead of engaging in that categorization you were just talking about, which is so essential to oppression.

Jonathan Walton: So as we're talking about engaging with people on an individual level and understanding and not being ignorant of stereotypes and statistics and things like that, but not letting them define the person sitting in front of us, I think part of pursuing emotional health is judging and understanding what you have capacity for and what kind of relationship you want to pursue with the person that's in front of you. So with this guy that I was talking about before with his mom, he knows he wants to keep a relationship with his mom. These are not necessarily skills that you're going to exercise on a deep level with a troll on Twitter, or a comment section on Facebook.

What we're talking about is, is really trying to pursue a deep offline and online community of people that can move forward together. And I think oftentimes what happens when we're trying to have these conversations, is we're trying to be classified as someone who is good. Like, “I did a good thing, and therefore I'm a good person. I treat this person good. Like good on me.” As opposed to, “How can I live with God in such a way that when people encounter me online or in real life, they feel and receive that they are a person made in the image of God, regardless of how they treat me?”

And I know that for myself, I have been, particularly around issues of injustice, I was much more concerned with how I was going to be perceived as an activist or perceived as a leader or perceived as a Christian than I was about my actual life with God. So my life with God was oriented around getting the right directions, so I would be perceived as the right way, doing the right thing and be a quote unquote “good disciple.” And so the stories that I would know from scripture were marked by people who did things wrong. So like Moses shouldn't have killed the Egyptian, shouldn't have gotten angry and hit the rock, didn't get into the Promised Land. I don't want, I want to get in, so let me not be Moses in that way. Okay, Peter was hot-headed and didn't know how to control himself, and was like always impulsive. Can't be that person. As opposed to looking at the sheer number of yeses, and the pursuit that these people had of God through and in Christ, when we talk about the New Testament, right?

So I think there's a powerful invitation for people who desire to follow Jesus and decolonize their faith and deconstruct their faith and have it be rebuilt and given back to us by the power of the Holy Spirit through the resurrection of Jesus and the love of God; is like to stop trying to perform Christianity and this activism nature that is cool right now and has been cool at different points, and to live a life with God that is genuine with ourselves, genuine with our neighbors, and genuinely resistant to the patterns and structures of the day. Which is what Romans 12, I think, really embodies, where it's like, “Do not be conformed to the patterns of the world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. For this is how we know what God's good and perfect will is.” There's something transformative about wrestling with God that then renews our minds, that then allow us to resist the patterns of the world.

Sy Hoekstra: So I think a couple of things in response to that. One is, it's in, I think it's in 2 Peter, where he talks about the process of sanctification as being like becoming basically more and more useful to the Kingdom of God, as opposed to, it has… at no point does anybody mention sanctification as becoming a good enough person. Reaching a bar where you have been, you get a certificate now. You're a good Christian, or you're a good enough activist or whatever. Congratulations you're done. It is a constant, ongoing process, and it's just a question of the type of person that you're turning into. Which is why, I think, this emotional health stuff is so incredibly beneficial to sanctification, because sanctification is not about learning the correct things or behaving correctly. It is about the type of person that you are becoming, and how much closer you are growing to God.

The other thing for those of us who are trying to move toward and fight for justice in one way or another, I think a lot of people get frustrated with people who don't want to do that sort of thing. Like more conservative people who are trying to tell you to stop, trying to attack you as emotionally unhealthy. Basically saying like, I think this is a way that people who are involved in justice work get distracted from emotional health, is that people who want to maintain the status quo, just arguing that you have some emotional problem that you need to deal with. And if you were just kind of more sensible or more stable or more together in one way or another, you would not be so difficult. You wouldn't rock the boat so much, you wouldn't be agitating so much.

Jonathan Walton: Or people would believe you and be what you want them to be if you were just more stable and not as argumentative and angry.

Sy Hoekstra: Yes, exactly. Right. If you were less emotional than, this kind of fake acting like they want what you want. “Yeah, but I just want you to be a little bit more calm about it,” or whatever. Like trying to moderate you in that way. And I think that actually does stop a lot of people who are trying to agitate for justice from engaging in self-examination about your own emotional health. Like that's a real impediment. Like, “I don't want to do what those people who are fighting me who want to maintain the status quo are saying I need to do.”

But I think what we're saying is that both of us, and a lot of people that we know, have actually found that like in bringing your emotions and your psychological and mental health and everything under the discipleship of Jesus, has actually like put us in a place where we can do these kinds of things for a much longer period of time. And I don't, and having nothing to do with how many people we're going to convince, having nothing to do with whether anyone is happy or not with where we end up when we are emotionally healthy, forget all that. It's just, it's a matter of discipleship and endurance.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, and imagine if like, oh my gosh. Imagine if Jesus had taken everybody's advice on how to convince people that what he was doing was good. Something that happens when we engage with our emotions in a healthy way and use them as signals for what we value and what we hold dear, what we think is beautiful and things like that, is we don't become our emotions. And so something about a baby is when they have sadness or when they have anger, it consumes them. If you take something from a child that they want, a tantrum can ensue. They will throw themselves into the floor, like flail, yell. There's nothing else to be done, except addressing that thing. They become the rage, the anger, the pain, the sadness that's happening.

If we are more mature, then what we are able to do is not become our emotions. We feel them, interrogate them, figure out what the narratives are, right size them so that we can then respond as Jesus would. So when we have, when we are angry, I think a healthier way to deal and engage with people who are angry, is to hear and receive their anger and then pursue proximity to that person so that you're able to love them and to hear what the other narratives are, and do that work yourself. If the relationship that you desire calls for that and there's space and safety to do that.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I think just before we end, we should also emphasize that this is an always ongoing process. Like anything else in discipleship and sanctification and all that, Jonathan and I are going to screw up and contradict everything that we just said within the next like 10 minutes I'm sure.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Walton: Yeah.

Sy Hoekstra: It is something that you get better at over time, and just like I was saying before, there's no point where you get a certificate that says you're emotionally healthy and you're done now.

Okay, we need, Everest is going to wake up from her nap soon, so Jonathan needs to go. Jonathan, thank you so much for sitting here and talking with me today and for being open and vulnerable as you always are.

And just a reminder, go to KTFPress.com, check that out, consider becoming a monthly or an annual subscriber. If you want a free month of the subscription, go to KTFPress.com/free month. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @KTFPress. Consider please telling somebody about us. Word of mouth is a great way to help the show. And write in to [email protected] to get us your questions. We're going to do, two episodes from now, a reflection episode at the end of the season.

Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam, and we will see you all next week!

Jonathan Walton: Thanks!

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Jonathan Walton: As like the next Sybren that I'm talking to, you know what I'm saying?

Sy Hoekstra: [Laughs] The next… But I don't know if we've ever said this, Sybren is my full name, on this podcast. They might've been like, “What on earth are you talking about?”

Jonathan Walton: What is a… what is a Sybren? [Laughs]

This week, the team discusses American imperialism overseas and the end of the war in Afghanistan. We talk about Americans’ naïveté regarding the United States’ capabilities and altruism, the colonialist mindset underlying much media commentary on the end of the war, how Christian nationalism contributes to the persecution of the Church abroad, how Jesus leads us in a different direction, and a lot more! 

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show and subscribe to get our newsletter and other paid content at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts:  

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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 Suzie Lahoud. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode. 

Transcript

Sy Hoekstra: There are tons of people, tons of people who went over to Afghanistan with America, fully believing that they were there to do good things in the interest of the Afghan people. They were excited about using American influence and power and money to better other people's lives. And Christians have a lot to do with this, right? With trying to take the societies that the Bible would consider to be Babylon, and make that Babylon into Zion. If you don't disentangle the two, you think you can go over there and use the tools of the empire for the good of the Kingdom of God.

Suzie Lahoud: And if you believe God is on your side, not only do we not recognize the naïveté, we call it faith.

[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, a podcast of KTF press. My name is Sy Hoekstra, here with Jonathan Walton and Suzie Lahoud as always. We are going to talk a little bit today about Afghanistan and America's exit from it, what we've been doing over the last 20 years there, and how the church in particular has affected what's going on there. How we think about what's going on there, and how that kind of reflects some things that we may need to correct in our discipleship a little bit. We are going to try very hard to stay in our lane during this conversation. We're not going to pretend to be experts on war or foreign policy or the logistics of evacuating people from a country or anything like that. We're going to be talking much more about the stuff with which we are familiar, and can hopefully have some helpful remarks on. Namely, our theology and how the church interacts with the politics of foreign policy and war and colonialism.

Before we get started though, remember if you like this podcast and you want to support it, the best way is to go to KTFPress.com and to sign up to be either a monthly or annual subscriber. If you want a free month at the beginning of that subscription, you can go to KTFPress.com/freemonth. I think you should… I personally think you should be able to remember that URL. If you want a free month of KTFPress.com, go to KTFPress.com/freemonth.

Now, that subscription gets you our weekly newsletter on resources to help you in political education and discipleship, as you leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God, it gets you writing from the three of us, and it gets you bonus episodes of this podcast. It also helps support the free version of this podcast, future book projects, which we will be able to announce something about fairly soon. Also remember, follow us on social media @KTFPress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Tell your friends about us, and you can write in with any questions that you have about anything that you hear on this show at [email protected]. If you want to be a part of the conversation and maybe get your question heard on an episode that we will probably be doing soon, because we are just a few episodes away from the end of our first season. So in a couple of weeks we will probably be doing an episode where we answer some questions from people, reflect a little bit more like we've done in the past.

Okay, so let's get started. So what we're going to talk about, is the United States has officially withdrawn the last of its troops from Afghanistan who have been there for 20 years basically, since not that long after 9/11. There was an extremely chaotic evacuation from Kabul, from the capital city. People go back and forth on whether or not that could have been avoided, again, we're not going to argue about that because that is not our area of expertise.

And then very quickly after the US left, the Taliban retook most of the country, and then just in the past few days has retaken the capital. We're recording this by the way on Monday, August 23rd. So, what I wanted to bring up, all three of us in turn are going to bring up a point and we're going to kind of discuss each other's thoughts as we go. What I wanted to bring up was this: there are so many people on both sides of the aisle, basically taking the exit of the troops as an opportunity to blame the other side for something or other. So there are a lot of Republicans blaming Biden for leaving at this time, blaming Biden and the Democrats for botching the evacuation. There are a lot of Democrats saying this is just the inevitable end of the forever war on terror that the Republicans started 20 years ago. I don't know, those are kind of two of the main talking points, but people are going back and forth on all of that.

And underlying so much of that commentary, is basically an assumption that the United States could have, if we had executed it properly, basically created a peaceful, stable society that operated in the interests of the Afghan people apart from the desires of the Taliban or others. So the assumption there that I want to talk about, is that America could have actually invested the enormous sums of money into not just fighting the Taliban, but actually empowering, like legitimately giving power to the Afghan people, such that their interests, not our interests, were met. Because ultimately if we go in there only looking at our own self-interests, then it was basically over the moment the Taliban were defeated, or at least were out of power, right? Because that's what we were there for. We were there to fight someone who had attacked us, and beyond that, as long as Afghanistan isn't bothering us, they are kind of like any other country in the world that doesn't have a stable government, or doesn't have enough money or medical care or political infrastructure or anything else. They're not ultimately… we're not ultimately interested in their wellbeing.

And that is the logic of colonialism. The logic of colonialism is that we are not just like richer people who have more wealth and more ability to be comfortable and less violent, but we are actually people who are fundamentally better than they are. We are in America's case, the best people in the world is our belief about ourselves, and that we can go in and by our mere presence and our directing them, by their submission to us, we can create a stable, peaceful society. And it doesn't matter whether or not we have used violence or selfishness in our pursuit of those goals. All of those things are the logic of colonialist Europe, right? Like our sort of inheritance, our intellectual inheritance.

I just think that a lot of people in their commentary now are assuming that that's not the case. That we haven't carried on in that tradition, and that we really were capable of creating a society in our own image that would just kind of, democracy, as the neocons were fond of saying 20 years ago, would sort of flower in the region as we were welcomed liberators, right? That's kind of my main thought. What do you guys think?

Jonathan Walton: I think your words were too kind.

Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Do tell.

Jonathan Walton: The reality from my perspective, George Bush, George W. Bush decided that the revenge for the 9/11 attacks was going to be the destruction of a country and a people to get one person so that he could claim a political victory and move forward. And then he created a moral case for invading the country by saying that we were going to liberate girls. And the reality was those girls were being violated and exploited on September the 10th, and he did not care about them. But on September 12th, all of a sudden they become this focus because what Biden said 20 years later, is that “It's no longer in our national interests.”

And the reality is that caring for vulnerable and marginalized people is never in the interest of the United States, unless it suits the political purposes of the people in power to retain that power, or exact revenge. Which is, exacting revenge is really just for political gain to keep power and to look like there was some sort of cohesive military revengeful response. I don't know if that was coherent at all.

Sy Hoekstra: No, it was. I would also add, by the way, in addition to not caring about the women and girls in Afghanistan on September 10th,a couple of decades before we were actually arming the Taliban.

Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely. Right.

Suzie Lahoud: To fight the Soviets.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, exactly. We wanted them to, it was part of our policy of containing communism.

Jonathan Walton: I think that white Europeans, by their mere presence, believe that it is God's providence for the people and the land that they are there. That is innate in a colonialist mindset, and it has not changed.

Sy Hoekstra: “We are the city on the hill,” was literally what George W. Bush said [laughs].

Jonathan Walton: Exactly [laughs]. So the mere presence of an American, we believe, makes the land and the people better, and that is like the fundamental lie. That the presence of a white person makes a place more valuable. The presence of a white person, the presence of wealth, the presence of power, proximity to colonial power makes people, makes land, makes resources, makes everything more valuable. And that is a cosmic, sinful, anti-Christian level of hypocrisy.

Sy Hoekstra: Suzie, what are your thoughts?

Suzie Lahoud: I feel like I just have to say, I'm struggling to put words to just thoughts and emotions around what's going on in Afghanistan right now, as I know a lot of folks are. And part of that is I just feel like it's a certain kind of privilege that you can go in and mess up a people’s society and nation and pull out with the kind of debacle that we've seen and then be able to just sit around and talk about it like it's dinner conversation. And the distance that we have as Americans from the violence that we create in places across the world, just really deeply disturbs me, and I think is something that, as you were saying at the outset of this episode Sy, needs to be called out.

Particularly in the church, because as Christians, we need to be close to the broken-hearted and to the marginalized and to those who are suffering. And we are in this, yeah, colonialist situation where we sit in our comfortable seat of empire and we don't hear the cries of the Afghan people. We're not there right now in the midst of the chaos at the Kabul airport as people are fleeing for their lives. So I think just first of all,I know this is an important conversation. It’s one I feel uncomfortable even having, because of the amount of privilege that comes with even being able to just sit and talk about these things from the safety of our own homes.

Sy Hoekstra: I appreciate you saying that. Jonathan and I just came in kind of hot because we're mad, and that is a very good reminder and I appreciate that.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah no, and I don't say that to call out you guys specifically.

Sy Hoekstra: Nevertheless, it applies to probably, definitely me and probably Jonathan.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, and because anger is easier than grief. But go ahead.

Sy Hoekstra: Right.

Suzie Lahoud: But even just in general, Sy you were talking about all the chatter we're hearing right now about Afghanistan, and the way it's been made into this partisan issue. And that to me is just the height of that kind of hypocrisy. That we then get to weaponize it in our own little political games that we play. And again, it's not affecting our lives, the war is not here. I know that there are folks, families of troops who were sent overseas, and that's a whole other conversation. But it doesn't affect us in the same way, and I think that's a problem. I think that's a problem that we're so distanced from it.

Going to your point, Sy, that- which I think is an important one- that you initially made about how all of this ties into American imperialism. And this is something you and Jonathan were talking about the other day when we were initially kind of having a conversation about Afghanistan and you both brought up this concept of the white man's burden that was so prominent in the heyday of the British Empire. And American exceptionalism is really just the contemporary manifestation of that. This idea, like you were saying, and like Jonathan was saying, that by us going in we're going to make things better. That recreating people in our own image is going to make them better. It should be so obvious that it's that same mechanism at work, that same lie, that same deception, that same racist philosophy, and it boggles the mind that so often we don't see that. We still believe in this idea that we are bettering the world by going out and doing these things.

Sy Hoekstra: Specifically, when I was thinking about the white man's burden, I was literally thinking of the poem, for those of you who don't know. That was like, for some reason, it was just like on repeat in my head the last week.

Jonathan Walton: Rudyard Kipling

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, Rudyard Kipling, who was a British imperialist. He wrote a poem to the United States when we occupied the Philippines, which is something that a lot of Americans tend to forget about. But after the Spanish War, we took control of the Philippines. We paid Spain for it as part of the treaty when we got it, and we occupied it for a couple of decades, basically until the Japanese invaded in World War II.

And he wrote this ridiculous poem about the white man's burden and how you take up this colonialist project for the good of other people, and you sacrifice and they are ungrateful. And they judge you even though you've done nothing but a selfless deed. And then he said, exactly what I heard in several places on social media and in the mainstream media, which is that the moment that you think that your project, your grand glorious colonialist project is finished, then basically the laziness of the heathens that have been subject to you will turn all of your efforts to nothing and they will squander it. Which is exactly what we've been saying about the Afghan people for the past week or whatnot.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah.

Jonathan Walton: Right.

Sy Hoekstra: A lot of people have been saying, right? Like they didn't fight for their own country, how long can we be there and babysit these people while they fail to do what we came there to help them do? And you know, that's the way, if you think of it that way, which is the colonialist way of thinking about it, instead of, what did we do to this region that created the instability? That created the poverty and the famine and the fear and the distrust and the corruption, and how unrealistic were our goals going into it, or how prideful, were we? Those aren't the questions. You blame the people who have been the victims of us and the Taliban and the Soviets and whoever, for decades and blame the whole situation on them. So yeah, I guess Kipling was in my head last week, which is never pleasant.

Suzie, you had a point about Christian nationalism that you wanted to make.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. So another thing other than these, again this sort of partisan mudslinging that we've seen over Afghanistan. Some of that kind of chatter that I've seen is Christians expressing concern- and a lot of times it is actually the conservative, sort of far-right Christians- over the persecution of the underground church in Afghanistan. And certainly we need to be standing with our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan right now. We need to be praying. But what's disturbing to me, is that I find that oftentimes it's the folks who are most vocal about the persecution of the Christian Church that are most prone to espouse the kinds of Christian nationalist rhetoric and ideas that we saw on January 6th.

I want to make that connection because I don't think that folks who are in the Christian nationalist camp, who fall within that camp, realize that when we consciously tie together religion and empire in that way, when we're expressing these ideas- that America is a Christian nation, and wrapping that up in this shroud of patriotism and militarism and these ideas about the American way of life. When we do that, we're actually contributing to the persecution of the church overseas, specifically churches like the one in Afghanistan. When you go into a place like Afghanistan and you say that you're bringing Christ, particularly as an American missionary, what folks see is that you're bringing… and I'm going to use the phrase again that was so prominent within the British Empire, this idea of a “civilizing mission.” This idea that you're going to recreate people in your own image, to make them more like you. To make them better citizens of your foreign empire as an occupying force. And so then you get entangled with this idea of conquering an empire, and rather than trying to disentangle the message of Christ from that, you're actually reinforcing that.

So we see this in really clear cultural ways with American Christians that go over and we go and we bring our Super Bowl parties and our white picket fences, and again, our undying support of the US military. And what do folks see when they see that? Do they really see Christ in us? Do they really see Jesus of Nazareth, or do they see our Americanness? What do they understand about heaven? Do they understand heaven to be eternity with God in his presence worshiping him forever? Or do they understand heaven to be America?

 Something that happens a lot of times in contexts like Afghanistan and other places, is you have folks who join the church, profess faith in Christ, and then they really, really want to get to the United States. And American Christian missionaries are like, “Well, I mean, that's not our job. That’s not why we're here.” And I think will judge their faith accordingly, that they're not serious enough about their faith that they're not willing to stay and be persecuted for it. But really, I think we create that.

Sy Hoekstra: So you started by saying that that was tied, that that kind of Christian nationalism, that kind of missionary work is tied to the persecution of the church overseas. How does that work?

Suzie Lahoud: People in Afghanistan also have access a lot of times to television, satellite TV, and they see these images that are coming… again, I'll go back to January 6. They saw those same banners waving in the name of Christ at the time of the insurrection. They saw that violence being played out in the name of Christ. And the Afghan people certainly have been victims of the kind of violence that comes out of the United States in the name of God and country. So that endangers the church because then anyone… and this is actively what the Taliban are saying, folks who then choose to follow Christ are seen as traitors, are seen as being complicit in the American occupation. Are seen as being complicit in America's imperial project in Afghanistan.

Sy Hoekstra: And are seen as potentially violent.

Suzie Lahoud: I don't know that I would actually make that connection explicitly. I don't think it's that they're seen as violent, but they are seen as being proximate to the violence, if that makes sense. They're seen as being enablers because rather than resisting it, they're sort of welcoming it and becoming a part of it. Yeah. So I don't think it's that they're seen as being explicitly violent in the sense that they're afraid that they're going to pick up guns and form Christian Afghan militias.

Jonathan Walton: So Suzie, to ask a clarifying question, it sounds like what you're saying is that, if someone from Afghanistan decided to follow the brown man from Palestine, or what is now Palestine, that would be a very different threat and conversation among people from there, than a person deciding to follow the Jesus of America. Because the Jesus of America is a threat in a whole different way.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah no, that's a good way of clarifying it. And I think I should also… you know, we always try to keep these conversations as nuanced as possible, and essentially all religious minorities are in danger in Afghanistan right now. And yeah, the Taliban have been going after, and will continue to go after anyone who falls outside their brand of what they consider to be orthodoxy. But then also part of the problem we reinforce through only caring about the Christians who are going to be persecuted. This is something we talked about in our episode with Wissam al-Saliby. Christians in America right now are all up in arms and concerned for the persecution of the Christian Church. We're not talking about the Hazara people. We're not talking about the Sikhs and the Hindus in Afghanistan who are also going to be hunted down and killed.

And again, that just reinforces this idea that we care about them because they've become one of us. They've become citizens of our empire. And again, I know it's complex. Like you think of folks who have chosen to follow Jesus as brothers and sisters in Christ. And so there is a significant bond there, I don't mean to deny that. But as we've spoken about at other times on this podcast, everyone is created in the image of God. And how does it look when we only care for our own?

Sy Hoekstra: For anybody who's at all still unclear about how this works and you're familiar with American politics, really just think of how we've treated Muslims in America for the last 20 years. It's the same thing, right? Somebody attacked us, we associated them with the one billion Muslims on planet earth and decided that they were all kind of the same. And then we started persecuting Muslims in our own country, whether that was… we, Jonathan and I are in New York where the NYPD for years carried out a massive surveillance campaign on just random, innocent Muslims in New York City, surveilling mosques, surveilling religious leaders’ homes. The military was arresting and torturing innocent people around the world who were Muslims, like had nothing whatsoever to do with Al-Qaeda, right? We had people in America who were attacked, who were killed.

Jonathan Walton: Right, in New York City.

Sy Hoekstra: In New York City, and to bring in the other people that Suzie was just talking about in Afghanistan, some of them were not Muslims. Some of them were just people that we perceive as Muslims, like Sikhs or Hindus or whoever. Before we go thinking that this is like a foreign concept, it is very easy to associate people who you consider “others” with something bad that some very tiny fraction of that group has done, and then harm those people as a result. Even though before you said this Suzie, about connecting Christian nationalism in this, I never… I don't think I ever had that thought, it's something that I then realized pretty quickly, should have been something that we expect. We've done this, why wouldn't they?

Jonathan Walton: What I was stuck on as Suzie was talking, was the, where I am sitting in this dialogue. And the reality is I'm sitting in New York City, in a house, climate controlled, under the threat of no violence or persecution, at least at this moment. And just the reality, the guilt, shame, fear, obligation, anger, and wanting praise for ourselves are no reasons that are enduring to seek justice. So if I want to get rid of my guilt, eventually seeking justice is going to stop. Shame is going to stop. Obligation's going to stop. Like I can do enough things, get angry enough or whatever, and it'll go away. And the reality is I can get angry and seethe and vent on a podcast and nothing will change, but I will feel better for having said something.

And so I'm wondering, as Suzie is talking, what it looks like not to see the access and resources and privilege, privilege being things that I have that God gave me that didn't do anything to get, leveraging those things, stewarding those things on behalf of those who are not paying taxes in the United States and are not able to donate to organizations. That are not able to organize on social media and in real life. And then to engage in the grief of it, because if I'm actually grieving, then I'm able to see and identify these people as my human family.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. I agree Jonathan, that dehumanization is so real. And I think actually, as we talk about this, you're helping me process through part of what's so upsetting to me about hearing folks just be able to sit around and talk about these things and that it's that… So, we did a bonus episode at one point on how we commodify other people's trauma, and how dehumanizing that is. And I think that's when it becomes upsetting to me, is when I feel like we're consuming these horrific stories that are coming out of Afghanistan. We're consuming the horror, and I think there are times… You know, I'm not going to deny that there aren't folks who are doing that because they genuinely care and are genuinely distraught. And are really on their knees in prayer for the nation of Afghanistan, on behalf of the Afghan people. I'm not going to deny that that doesn't exist, and I'm grateful for that.

What's upsetting is when yeah, it becomes a dehumanizing narrative. That they're just, that the Afghan people are at best playing a sort of, not even supporting role. They're like extras in a film that's all about the United States, and all about our history. And even if we're criticizing the US, that comes through sometimes. Whether we're the hero or the anti-hero in the story, somehow it all revolves around us. We're not at the center of every single story. We're not at the center of the story at all. It's not about us.

And we need to recognize that and just be able to stand in solidarity with the Afghan people. And I agree Jonathan, yeah, a little less conversation, a little more action. If that means getting on your knees and really just urgently praying over the situation, any way that you can give. God bless folks who are actively taking part in the efforts to evacuate those who are most vulnerable right now. I just went off on a huge tangent, I didn't mean to go off on.

But one additional point that I think is important to me made is, the dehumanization of the Afghan people within US foreign policy and how policy decisions are made. And one thing that I've learned over the past few years is that part of the calculus for US policymakers when they're making decisions like, “Do we invade Afghanistan?” “Do we pull out?” The sort of equation they're supposed to use, is you weigh values and interests. And the problem with that is that interests outweigh values every single time, and the values are only relevant when they serve and support the self-interest of the United States. And this goes directly to your point Jonathan, that the United States, the US government didn't seem to care all that much about what was going on in Afghanistan on September 10th. It was after the Twin Towers fell, that all of a sudden folks are all up in arms over the treatment of women and girls by the Taliban. Which again, like that's real, but we only seem to feel like it was our problem when it's best served us to go in and intervene.

Sy Hoekstra: So it sounds like you're saying instead of it really being like interests and values considered as separate entities, a lot of times it’s interests, whatever they are, are put in the terms of our values.

Jonathan Walton: Right. Yes.

Sy Hoekstra: They are translated to the American public in values, but it's kind of a lawyerly way of appealing to those values. Regardless of what the interests are, we have our goals that we want to accomplish in our own self-interest, but we just tell ourselves and the public and the world that they reflect our values.

Suzie Lahoud: I think so, which is hypocritical at best. And also that's not to say that there aren't policymakers and lawmakers who don't genuinely care about these issues, but the fact that them caring doesn't lead to any sort of concrete action until it's in our best interest. I don't mean to say that the concern for marginalized and oppressed people is always disingenuous. I'm not going to judge every single person who espouses those ideas. I'm just saying, yeah, again, why doesn't it lead to what is expressed as a moral imperative- why didn't that moral imperative exist before?

Sy Hoekstra: I think that's a good point to make, is there are tons of people, tons of people who went over to Afghanistan with America, fully believing that they were there to do good things in the interest of the Afghan people. They were excited about using American influence and power and money to better other people's lives. People who went over there, policymakers who sent them over there, voters who supported the Bush administration, like all of that is real. But I think what we are saying here, is that believing that that was going to happen, stems a little bit from our, I think naïveté about what America is actually going to do when it goes somewhere.

And Christians have a lot to do with this, right? With Christian nationalism, or just even not, it doesn't have to be like modern Christian nationalism; colonialist Christians have been doing this for centuries. Trying to take the societies that Jonathan has correctly identified before on our podcast, as what the Bible would consider to be Babylon- the people going around conquering and harming other people and trying to shape them in their own image and doing it with violence and arrogance and pride- and make that Babylon into Zion. Like that's what our religion has been doing for forever. And if you don't disentangle the two, you think you can go over there and use the tools of the empire for the good of the Kingdom of God.

Suzie Lahoud: Well, and if you believe that God is on your side, asa quote unquote “Christian nation” then not only do we not recognize the naïveté, we call it faith.

Jonathan Walton: Yes. Child-like faith.

Suzie Lahoud: We go over there believing, yeah, we go over there believing that everything's going to turn out okay. We are going over with the best intentions, with our armies anointed by the Lord to bless people, and we think everything's going to turn out fine because God is on our side, God bless America. And then fast forward, 20 years later we have this.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Suzie, that is an incredibly powerful point. I could not agree more.

Jonathan, you had something to say about the way that we ask, “What do we do with these people?” when we go over and we invade or insert ourselves into the affairs of other countries. Can you talk a little bit about that, and that'll be where we close at.

Jonathan Walton: So, there’s some really, really good journalism happening about what's happening right now. The piece that struck me the most is in our newsletter, which was William Barber's piece, I think is the antithesis of what Suzie was talking about. Not Suzie was talking about, what Suzie asserted about people who conflate white supremacy, racism and imperialism with the gospel, is that a missionary kid can show up and preach a quote unquote “gospel devoid of context,” devoid of historical knowledge, devoid of the narrative that's happening. And then when someone raises their hand or runs to the altar and says they've decided to follow Jesus, they can frame that under it was them who did it. Their showing up did that. So the gospel becomes, again, we talked about this before this, individualized event, whereas what William Barber pulls the gospel into, and many theologians like him, we pull the gospel into an “Our Father, and our Savior, the savior of all creation,” as opposed to “My dad, who takes care of my world, and redeems me.”

So all of this conversation, I feel like we're asking the same question that the original colonizers were asking of Pope Nicholas V with the first papal bull, where it was like, “What do we do with these people that we want something from, or have done something to us?” We want to take what they have. We want to commit violence against them. We want revenge. We want something. And so we need to figure out a way to baptize what we're going to do. So “What do we do with them?” is, I think, the question. And it's always been the question. When the Spanish were leaving… had children out of rape and abuse and violence in South America, they would say, “What do we do with these kids? Because they can't be Spanish. We can't take them back.” What do we do with a kid like Frederick Douglas who's the product of rape? Like, “Oh, he's half Black.” Like Harriet Tubman. They’re half Black. What do we call them? What do we do with these people who are not white, who are not straight, who are not men, who are not wealthy, who are not quote unquote “Christian”? What do we do with these people?

Jesus shows us what we do with them. We love them because everybody is them to God. Everybody. Ephesians 3 says, “Once you were enemies, now I call you friends.” Every single one of us to God was them at one point. But he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. And that is what I would hope that we would be able to do, which is why it's infuriating when Biden stands up and says, “Well, these people don't love their people enough. Don't love their country. Don't love…” That is infuriating. So you're going to say to a mom who's literally tossing her baby to a soldier, she doesn't love her country enough to fight. She doesn't love freedom enough to raise her kids differently. And this is every narrative of white supremacy and American exceptionalism that says, “What do we do with these people who ain’t like us, who we don’t understand?” So I feel like there's a fundamental violation of the image of God, individual and corporate, that's happening, and it is…

Sy Hoekstra: …heartbreaking.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Yeah, it sucks. It really, really sucks.

Sy Hoekstra: And I think… first of all thank you, Jonathan.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that’s all.

Sy Hoekstra: Both of you, but both of you have been very open and generous with your emotional energy today. I think so often… not so often, always, our answer to that question is, “Not much.” Is what you were saying before. I do not fundamentally see Obama's and Biden's instincts to leave Iraq and Afghanistan because the mission there, the people there were no longer serving our interests, as that fundamentally different from the instincts of the neocons and the Bush people who wanted to go in there in the first place, in that respect in particular. Like, “What do we do with these people?” The answer is we control them to the extent that controlling them supports our interests, and then we leave and they deal with the fallout.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, and this is an American problem across the aisle, across the board. We’re calling everybody out on this one.

Sy Hoekstra: And we've brought this up before, but in the foreign policy section of our anthology that we published last year, Jesse Wheeler wrote about this, I think, really well. His essay was called “Bad Theology Kills.” One of the things he said that we, I think the three of us come back to a lot, is that from the perspective of the people who live in the areas where we have been conducting our wars for the last 20 years, a Republican drone and a Democratic drone don't look any different. So I think your point is well taken.

Suzie Lahoud: Just another thought that… and this is a little bit tangential to our conversation, but another I think kind of bigger picture comment that just came to mind while, Jonathan, you were talking. And I think it's so important, the point that you made about how we need to embrace this collective, communal vision of the Kingdom and try to be discipled out of our individualistic, self-interested, selfish ways. So one danger with deconstruction without decolonization, is that we end up maintaining that focus on self. So it's still “How has religion hurt me? How has this portrayal of the gospel hurt me? How has the church hurt me? How has toxic theology hurt me?” And we need to be asking those questions not just individually, but corporately. “How have these things hurt us? How have they hurt the world that, as Jonathan so powerfully just expressed, the world that God loves and that Christ died for?” And that can be a more difficult question to ask and more uncomfortable to ask, because it does point to our complicity in these systems. So that means that even as Christians who are trying to critique these things, we also need to repent of these things. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We're part of this too.

Sy Hoekstra: And I think we're going to end it there. There isn't… we could try and find a hopeful note or something to end on, but that's just not the reality of the situation right now. And so I think we're going to conclude there. All three of us are praying for what's going on over there, and we're praying for everybody as we process through all of this. And we just wish everyone the grace and peace of Jesus and that's what we have right now.

So, thank you so much for listening to us through this. I know that a lot of you will be praying with us about this, and we appreciate that as well. So just thanks for being here with us this week.

Our theme song, as always, is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam, and we will see everybody next week.

If you do want a tiny bit of something that will make you smile, I suggest you do not hit stop until the end of this podcast. I can promise you that much at least.

We will see you next week.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Jonathan Walton: And what I think we have to be able to do, which is…

Maia: What bow can’t be tied?

Jonathan Walton: What did you say?

Maia: What bow can’t be tied? It’s a joke.

Jonathan Walton: What bow can't be tied? Is that what you're saying? I am not sure what bow cannot be tied. Can you tell me?

Maia: A rainbow.

[laughter]

Maia: But it’s not a bow.

Jonathan Walton: Thank you. Thank you.

Sy Hoekstra: [laughing] Apropos of nothing, Maia just walks in, slays her dad with a joke and leaves.

Jonathan Walton: Okay. Maia, Maia, I have to talk right now, Maia, but I appreciate you sharing your joke with me. Okay?

Sy Hoekstra: Uncle Sy thought it was hilarious.

Jonathan Walton: Uncle Sy and Suzie āyí laughed like really good.

Suzie Lahoud: It’s a great joke.

Jonathan Walton: Thank you, Maia.

This week is Sy and Jonathan’s interview with Keli Young, a lawyer and community organizer in New York City. We talked about what it looks like for those most affected by oppressive systems to lead movements for change, what it actually means to defund or abolish the police, redefining the idea of public safety, how our language can dehumanize people, what keeps Keli going in her difficult work, and a lot more. This really is an important one if you want to understand a frequently misunderstood perspective, instead of listening to the often inaccurate characterizations of pundits and critics.  

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show and subscribe to get our newsletter and other paid content at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts: 

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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.  

Shake the Dust is produced and edited by Sy Hoekstra, and transcription is managed by Suzie Lahoud. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode. 

Transcript

Keli Young: You know, a lot of the times, we're operating from a place of lack and a place of struggle. And it's like, “Well, I have to make sure I'm good. I have to make sure my kids are good. I don't have time to think about what could be. Like that's never going to happen.” And I think talking about defunding the police and talking about abolition is radical just in the imagining of it.

[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. I'm here with Sy Hoekstra and Suzie Lahoud.

Sy Hoekstra: Our guest this week is Keli Young. Keli is a Black Christian lawyer, community organizer, and Brooklyn native working toward Black liberation. After graduating from NYU Law, she worked in local and national criminal justice policy for five years, and she currently works as the Civil Rights Campaign Coordinator at Voices of Community Activists & Leaders, New York or VOCAL- NY.

Keli is committed to living out her faith and advocating for justice. We talked to her about what it looks like for those most effected by oppressive systems to lead movements for change, what it actually means to defund or abolish the police, redefining the idea of public safety, how our language can dehumanize people, what keeps Keli going in her difficult work, and a whole lot more

Suzie, wasn't able to make this one, but Jonathan and I talked to Keli on a dark and stormy night in New York. You're going to hear a little bit of thunder and rain. It's a really great conversation and I think you're all going to love it.

Suzie Lahoud: As a reminder, if you like this show, the best way you can support us is by going to KTFPress.com and subscribing. That gets you our weekly newsletter- curating resources to help you in discipleship and political education as you seek to leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God, bonus episodes of this show, and writing from the three of us. It also supports this show and other projects we're working on, like future books. And, you can now get a free month of that subscription by going to KTFPress.com/freemonth. Again, that's KTFPress.com/freemonth. Also, remember to hit the subscribe or follow button on your podcast player; follow us @KTFPress on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter; and tell your friends about us.

Jonathan Walton: Now that that's out of the way, let's get to it.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Sy Hoekstra: Keli Young, thank you so much for joining us on Shake the Dust today. We're really happy to have you here.

Keli Young: Thank you for having me.

Sy Hoekstra: So first of all, can you just explain what exactly it is that VOCAL does, and what your role is there?

Keli Young: Yeah. So VOCAL- NY began over 20 years ago as the New York AIDS Housing Network, and really doing advocacy around access to medication for people with HIV, and making sure that they had access to housing and the resources that they needed in order to effectively take these drugs and survive. Then we grew up out of that to bring in a lot of the other intersecting issues that face who was mostly directly impacted by HIV/AIDS, which were Black and brown low-income people. So that included the war on drugs, homelessness, and the mass incarceration crisis.

So we grew from New York City to include chapters in Albany and Westchester and Rochester and Syracuse and Buffalo. So all throughout the state of New York. And we're really grounded in the principles of traditional community-based organizing and Black-led social movements for racial justice. And the central premise where I work, is that the people who are directly impacted by these issues are the ones who should be leading the fight. My role at VOCAL, I am the civil rights campaign coordinator. So my job is really taking cues from our members and our leaders who are directly impacted by mass incarceration. So that could mean that they themselves have gone to jail or prison, that they have loved ones who have been in jail or prison, or who have been brutalized by the police, or have just had contact with our carceral system. So that can look a lot of different ways.

And all of the work is aimed towards ending mass incarceration. So that happens in a lot of different ways and on a lot of different levels of government. So it could be at the city level, working with city council members around our budget. We’re trying to defund the police and other carceral institutions. That could be on the state level, working towards parole justice for people who have been in prison for decades, or people who have aged out of crime, and just making sure that there are avenues for people actually to be released from prison.

Sy Hoekstra: Can I ask just for clarification, I think I know what you mean by this, but when you say, “aged out of crime” what do you mean by that?

Keli Young: Yeah, so there’s a ton of research to show that the older we get, the less likely we are to engage in criminalized behavior. So one of the bills that we are pushing is the Elder Parole bill, and that's on the state level, and it's just creating meaningful opportunities for release for people who have been in prison. I don't want to get the numbers wrong, but just for a number of years, and folks, and they would have been over 55 at this point now.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. That makes sense.

Jonathan Walton: So thank you again for being with us Keli, and for breaking all of that down. What is the importance to you of being part of a movement that's led directly by people affected by the systems you're trying to change? That was something I noticed that was special about VOCAL. Could you talk about that?

Keli Young: Yeah, and I agree that it is special. So I'll kind of start from the beginning, I guess. So I've always wanted to be a lawyer. I've always wanted to advocate on behalf of people who are silenced by systems. Then I think very quickly out of law school, I heard about the term “movement lawyering.” And I'm certain it existed before, and it's just something that I'd heard about. Law for Black Lives defines it as taking direction from directly impacted communities and from organizers, as opposed to imposing our leadership or expertise as legal advocates. And I think the first time I heard that, it really resonated with me and spoke to the tension that I was feeling in the work that I was doing before I came to VOCAL.

Which was policy work around criminal justice reform, but it wasn't… we didn't take our cues from people who were directly impacted. So it was hard for me to kind of grapple with who are we actually helping if we're not talking to the people who've lived this out. If we're not taking our cues from the people who are experts on how the system fails. And I think VOCAL is very intentional about making sure that our leaders are central and at the forefront of all of the decisions that we make. So for me on a day to day, that's… one of our leaders reached out and said, we're having a vigil and parole justice rally, can we bring people out? And my answer is yes, because I take the cues from my leaders. They tell me what they think is important. They tell me where they want us to show up and I coordinate that. But really, I'm taking the cues from them when they say, “We really want to work around qualified immunity, because our loved ones are being brutalized in jails and prisons.” Then that's what we do.

Then also it's, just for practical reasons, people who have used drugs are going to be the experts on how to prevent overdose. People who have been in jails and prisons are going to be the experts on how to make those systems more humane or abolish them altogether. People who have been homeless are going to be the best housing advocates. It just, we rely heavily on the expertise that our members have because of what their lived experiences are.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. It seems like such a simple idea, but it is something that is really not intuitive within the policy world.

Jonathan Walton: Right. Not intuitive and actively resisted.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.

Keli Young: No, it's true. I mean, there's a lot of ego among attorneys. And even the way I thought about the kind of lawyer I wanted to be was one where I'm front and center. I'm making the arguments. I’m telling my client what the best strategy is and things like that, just because that's how you, that’s what you're taught a lawyer is. And a lot of times that kind of lawyering is harmful for individuals and for communities, because it's not centered on what the client actually needs all the time or what is, what communities need all the time.

Sy Hoekstra: Okay, so you mentioned movement lawyering. And when I was in law school, I learned about this as well. It sounded intuitive, it made sense to me in terms of like the idea is, you take your cues from the people, like you said, who are affected by the systems, and people even go so far as to advocate like you should live among those people. You should do your best to try and experience the world the way that they experience it. You should try and have the same challenges, to a certain degree, or at least live where people are, and.. And in like a practical way, it made a lot of sense.

It was kind of like, yeah, the lawyers who serve people who are being oppressed by oppressive systems, should basically have the same relationship to those people that the rich lawyers who are serving rich people have, right? Like they're living the same lives, they're experiencing the same things. They have the cultural understanding of their clients, they’re et cetera, et cetera.

Keli Young: Yeah, I definitely agree with being, and I'm going to quote Bryan Stevenson, who I love…

Sy Hoekstra: Proximate.

Keli Young: Exactly. With being proximate. I do not, though, believe in manufacturing struggle.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.

Jonathan Walton: Yes, that’s a fair distinction.

Keli Young: I don't think that you need to be like, “I'm going to live on the streets to see what homelessness is like.” I would not advocate for that at all. Because then I kind of think what also happens is like, so you're not listening to people who are homeless tell you what it's like to be homeless. And even in doing that, there's still privilege in being able to say like, “I'm going to try out this thing and see how it is so that I can advocate better for the people who don't have a choice but to live this way.” Yeah. So I would not do it that way.

Yeah, and I don't know what the answer is to that. I do think that there is a level where people do need to give up privileges. I don't… I just think it lacks sincerity if it's like I'm only doing this to see how the most directly impacted among us is.

Sy Hoekstra: Or so I can be a leader who's done my progressive due diligence, and now I can like, I don't have to have as much guilt about the fact that I’m still acting from a place of incredible privilege.

Keli Young: Yeah, I think in that regard, it's like you don't belong in the forefront. Just move. Let the person who has experienced those things be in front. And you can be a resource, you can use your privilege to give people platforms, but you don't, you already have acknowledged that that's not the space you should be occupying, because it's not your lived experience.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, I think that’s a good point of integrity and is definitely like a tension that you just can't escape when you're in an elite institution like a law school, where so many of the people who are trying to serve just don't come from the populations that they're serving. A lot of them don't anyways. So part of it then is really just like the difficulty for a lot of lawyers who come from, I think like wealthier backgrounds or whatever, for white lawyers, to just accept, you need to really, really be in the background on this, and like a lawyer who comes from the same population as you're trying to serve is actually going to be doing a better job for real reasons.

Not for whatever you think it is. Not for like affirmative action reasons or diversity reasons or whatever, but there are real expertise that you don't have. I think that was just something that I, I don't know, I ran into a lot in law school that was kind of hard for people to swallow.

Keli Young: Yeah, definitely. And I think even just in being a lawyer, there's some times where it's like we don’t… Like lawyers are not always necessary, and I think coming to terms with that is important.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Litigation isn’t always the answer.

Keli Young: Yeah. And it's like even for me, yes, I was born and raised in an overly policed community. So I have a lot of the same experiences as a lot of the people I work with in some regards. We can both say we come from the same community, we have a lot of shared cultural understandings. But I don't know what it is to be in prison. I don't know what it is to be homeless. There's still, even as a Black woman from a low-income community that was overly policed, there are times where I still need to be in the background. There's a lot of times when I need to be in the background. And I'm always blown away by our members and our leaders, because of, yes, they have the experience of being brutalized by these carceral systems, but there's also a power in being able to speak up out of that experience.

And then just like, just a brilliance and a knowledge about the system and how it works having been inside of it, and seeing those injustices. I think they can speak to the corruption and injustice and violations in a way that I never could. Like I'll never be able to do it the same way. And it's not like, “Oh, I need to go to prison to see what it's like.” It's like, “No, I need to sit down and let them talk.” Yeah, and so I think, I do think there's a level of humility that is required to actually effectuate the change that we want to see.

Jonathan Walton: So it sounds like what you were saying was that people need to own their identity, own their experiences, and own their privilege and not consume other people's experiences to create a new thing for them, right, for themselves? And I'm wondering, how does that look on a day-to-day basis, like when you're experiencing issues? If you're doing a case around mass incarceration or you're advocating for something around homelessness, how do you try to embody that in your everyday?

Keli Young: Yeah, that's a good question. So right now we are having meetings with the democratic nominees with city council, because they’re the people we're going to have to lean on when we want the police defunded. So we want to start early with building relationships and just seeing where we're aligned. So my role, or rather my fellow’s role, who has been amazing, and I'm sad she's going to leave for the summer, has been scheduling those calls, and my role is making the agenda. But then my leaders are the ones who are naming what the crises are. They're talking about what the problem is with homelessness. They're talking about what the problem is with mass incarceration and drug use, and just access to resources and the injustices that they're seeing in their communities and how their families are, or even themselves have being brutalized by the system. And what changes that they want to make, and what questions they have for these electives. And I think the way on a day-to-day basis I do the work, is I create the space, but the leaders and the members of VOCAL are the ones who occupy it. Who speak up out of their experiences.

And then even, like a lot of times with press, we'll be at events or we'll get requests. And it's hard and it's something that I'm still trying to get better at. Because sometimes it's easier to just say, “Okay, I'm going to answer the question for the journalist and move on, and check that off.” But those are opportunities for me to then lean on my leaders and say, “Hey, we got this request. Do you want to talk to this journalist? Do you want to be interviewed for this story?” And it takes more work, because then it's like, okay, we got to talk, we got to prep. We got to do these things, I have to make sure that they feel comfortable. But I think that that's the role. Where it's like, I could just be the person who always talks to the press. I could do that, but I wouldn't be doing my job. Because my job is about developing the political power of people who are most directly impacted. And doing that is handing off media requests and press requests to the leaders and letting them be the ones who are quoted in those stories and letting them be the ones who are really the experts in the field, because they are.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that honestly sounds like the proper application of their voice, where it's like, quote, unquote “be a voice for the voiceless.” You just like hand the mic to the people that nobody will listen to.

Keli Young: Yeah, no, exactly.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that’s great.

Keli Young: It's happened where it's like, I was… we had a protest commemorating the one year since George Floyd was murdered by police. And there was a ton of reporters there and they were like, “Can we talk to you?” And then it's literally me turning around, looking for one of my leaders and be like, “Talk to this person.” And that's it.

Jonathan Walton: That's awesome.

Sy Hoekstra: Okay. So a couple of times now, switching gears a little bit, you've mentioned abolition, you've mentioned defunding. Can we just define these terms for people? Because there is so much misinformation out there.

Jonathan Walton: Yes.

Sy Hoekstra:  And I… we talked briefly before we did the episode on foster care a few weeks ago, and I brought up abolition a little bit and just telling the very basic fact that it's not about literally just getting rid of any sort of system for, in that case, child safety or child protection, but it's about radically transforming and rebuilding more life-affirming systems. But how do you define it? How do you think about it, or how does VOCAL New York think about it?

Keli Young: Yeah. So, well, one, I will say I don’t know if VOCAL New York would say that it's like an abolitionist organization. So I’ll just say that. But I do think that it's important and it's even important for a lot of our members and our leaders to make the distinction between knowing what we mean when we say defund, and then what abolition is. So the call to defund the police, which it is like a catchphrase. It's a hashtag and it requires a lot of unpacking. But really, it is a call to divest from harmful institutions. So that can be the police, that can be the district attorney. That can be Department of Corrections. And then always within the call for defunding, and a lot of times in conversation a narrative is lost, is the reinvestment in communities of the resources that they need.

That's housing, that's access to health and mental health resources. That’s access to jobs. That's access to clean spaces. It’s access, it’s space to grow and thrive. So I think that's what we mean when we say defund. It is not about the removal of these institutions overnight. But for VOCAL though, it is calling for the immediate removal of police from homelessness, substance use, and behavioral mental health responses. We just believe, and I think the data bears this out, that our city's response to… and that's police response, that's court response, that's corrections response to homelessness, substance use, and behavioral mental health crises is just ineffective to say the least. And then at times it's deadly. It’s just, it's deadly and there's no, it's not a space that these actors should be occupying and it's not a long-term solution. It's not like, “Oh yeah, we want to dismantle policing and it's going to take years.” Yes. But the removal of them from these instances needs to happen immediately.

So like, I think defund is, it's not the same as abolition, but it is on the track to abolition. So by removing police from these spaces where they are ineffective or harmful, and by investing in communities, I think it will show over time that these systems are not necessary. These systems are not effective, these systems do not make us safe. And it makes the argument for abolition, which is the complete removal of policing as we know it. Of corrections as we know it. So I think defund is a necessary first step on the way to complete abolition of these carceral systems that are rooted in white supremacy and capitalism. Oh, I will also say, I think people panic when we talk about abolition and it's like, “Well, what are we going to have? What's going to keep us safe? What happens when this bad thing happens?” Where like people are like, “Well, what if I get shot?” It's like, you're going to need a doctor. You're going to get health care. You're going to need sick leave. You're going to need infrastructure in place to make sure you can heal. The harm has already been done. Police are not going to help you in this situation.

So I think, and yeah, I think there's, and I think you said this before, Sy: there's a thinking around abolition that we're talking about taking things away and like, we're not going to have anything. But I think on the contrary, abolition is about having everything. It's about, it's like an invitation to imagine how our communities could be without these oppressive systems. Like what does it look like to have everything we need? What does it look like for everyone in our community to be housed, to have access to resources? And that's not, I don't think that's something that we've ever seen. And a lot of the times we're operating from a place of lack and a place of struggle.

And it's like, well, I have to make sure I'm good. I have to make sure my kids are good. I don't have time to think about what could be. That's never going to happen. And I think talking about defunding the police and talking about abolition is radical just in the imagining of it. And it's hard. And I will name that it is difficult just because we've been trained to think of safety in the same breath that we think of policing, and kind of like divorcing that is a lot of the work that I'm doing.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Something that a lot of abolitionists point out rather frequently, is that the vast majority of crimes that are reported to the police have already happened, and the vast majority of those crimes do not get solved. Most of the time, what you're doing when you're calling 911, is putting the fact that something happened to you like in a filing cabinet somewhere in a police station, that is like the sum total of what's happening. So yeah, there's just so much room to re-imagine, even just from that one fact. And I'm not… Obviously, there are things that happen that police do in some ways solve, and people are asking you to reimagine. You the listener, to reimagine, I don't know how, like the ways that we go about solving those things and the collateral consequences of the ways that we do it now, and how those things can change, and, I just very much appreciate you laying that out for us.

Keli Young: Definitely. And I do think though that, I think on the far, far left where it's, “Just get rid of the police altogether and it’s fine.” I think there is a need to grapple with the fact that there is harm. And even when we defund the police and get rid of harmful systems altogether, there's still going to be harm. Like we are people, we hurt each other, that’s what we do. And so I think there's a need, even in conversations about defunding the police and abolition, to name that, you know, there's harm, but we want to address it in a way that does not cause more harm. And think through ways to do that.

What do we do when we don't have the option of throwing someone away? What do we do when we have to keep someone in community? How do we handle that? And I definitely, I’m not trying to say that I have all the answers to that, but I do think that is something… and it's going to look different in different communities, but I will say it's something that, at least in a lot of low-income, Black and brown communities, that happens. And it just happens organically when you build community with people. Like growing up in Brownsville, you had people who routinely had mental health crises, and you knew who those people were and you knew like, okay, they're having a moment. I'm going to call this person because I know that that person can handle it, and we're just going to leave them.

You just, you know how people need to be cared for because they're your community members. You know that if there’s, something bad happened, you know who the person is to call. You know, whether or not that's the guy at the bodega who you know is going to call your grandmother, and your grandmother is going to come like there… We have been keeping ourselves safe for a very long time, and I don't think we've been naming that as public safety. You know, I would go to school, I would have to take the train and it's like, people would report to my mom when they saw me get on the train and when they saw me go in the building. And it’s like that is public safety and that’s something that we've been doing, and we know instinctively how to keep ourselves safe. So I think a lot of it is unlearning this idea that we need to be policed by people outside of ourselves, who are outside of our communities. [Jonathan sighs deeply. Keli laughs].

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Something that, as you’re talking, that stands out to me is this: I think the statistic is that only 21 percent of Americans actually interact with the police every year, okay? So when you're talking about public safety, we're talking about a population of people that wants to be safe from other people. That’s what it seems like to me. So I know that's a, it sounds to me like a broad assumption, but if 80 percent of the population does not interact with the police on a regular basis annually, and that could be years of not  interacting with the police, then there's a perception of safety. And then like safety from what? Right.

So I'm wondering, particularly as Eric Adams is a presumptive nominee for mayor. I'm so sorry. I feel like I just threw water on here. As public safety becomes something that is more prominent and talked about, in the real, imagined, or felt crisis of violence in the United States, what is VOCAL’s response? How do you respond to someone that says, “I'm afraid of X, and I think the police are going to help me?”

Keli Young: Yeah, that's a big question.

Jonathan Walton: I’ve been sitting here quiet for a while trying to formulate it. But anyway…

[laughter]

Keli Young: So a lot of answers. One, one of the things that we noticed in our most recent budget fight trying to defund the police, is that there is an overwhelming lack of community buy-in and alignment around what we mean when we say defund the police and invest in communities. So a lot of the work that we're doing now, is around having those conversations with people and getting to the root of like what do you mean when you say public safety? What actually makes you feel safe? And then, and recognizing… because I think what needs to happen, there needs to be a level of trust where the 80 percent of people who don't interact with the police, trust the 20 percent of people who do. And who are saying, “Yeah, no, they don't keep us safe.” If anything, they cause us harm. And I think… because there's a real disconnect and it will only require trust, and I think it goes back to what we were saying, where it's like, this is not your lived experience. It will never be your lived experience. So the only option you have if you're actually trying to achieve a greater end, is to trust the people who are directly impacted when they say, “Police don't keep us safe, and these are the things that we need to keep us safe.”

One of the ways we're trying to do that, is like with deep canvassing and it's something that we're hoping to roll out in the fall, where we have those conversations. Where it’s like, what has your interactions with police officers been? Because for a lot of people, even within the 20 percent of people who do interact with the police, a lot of, there's a lot of times where those interactions are requested. Like people are calling for the police. They're like, “This thing happened and I need you to come.” Whereas like in communities where I grew up, they were an occupying force. Nobody called for them. They were just there all the time. Even I'm in Crown Heights now, and I'll walk in the park and they're literally in their vans in the park, like just driving around the park. And it's like, no one is asking for you to be there. You're not here because I asked you to. You're not here to be in community with me to make me feel safe. Or at least that is not how I'm perceiving it.

So I think what's needed is conversations around what actually makes us feel safe. Because even in Brownfield there are… and I think a lot of it is generational, because even talking to my parents sometimes, there are huge disconnects. Where it’s like, “You don't mean like ‘abolish the police.’ Like cuz we still need the police.” Which is baffling to me sometimes. But policing looked different when my parents were growing up. There was community policing, and you knew who the officers were and they lived in the community. And so it was a sense of, and in that way it created a sense of safety.

But I think creating a space where people can speak up out of what their experiences have been with police. Because sometimes they’re going to be like, “Oh yeah, the police officer came because I was locked out and they helped me." And then you can be like, “Well, did that person need to have a gun?” Or you can be like, “Oh yeah, this person was experiencing a crisis, and the cop came and talked to them and helped them.” And it's like, “Okay, well, did that person need to have a gun?” Because, at the bottom line, we're not saying that things won't happen, but does the person who responds to it need to respond with violence?

Sy Hoekstra: And a license to kill people who make them feel nervous.

Keli Young: Yeah. And I think just having the conversation. And that's hard because there's a lot of things where people get upset, people shut down and it's like, “I don't want to defund. I don't want to talk about it.” Or on the flip side, like from my perspective, I could get frustrated with somebody and be like, “You just don't get it, I'm not going to listen to you. You don't understand.” But I think there needs to be a willingness on all the sides to just listen. And then, I don’t know, in a very real way, we're operating against like evil forces that want there to be people who are policed. So I think that's like the top layer over all the work that I'm doing is like, yes, we can agitate communities into action and to fighting against this, but there are still people in positions of power who benefit from the status quo. And so grappling with that is its own… I don't know what word to use, but yeah.

[laughter]

Sy Hoekstra: Do you not know what word to use because we told you you can't swear on the podcast?

Keli Young: [laughs]

Jonathan Walton: Basically. So you’ve share a lot of heavy things with us, that you deal with every day. From growing up where you grew up, to actively working against systems and structures that occupied your neighborhood. What's your motivation for doing this kind of work, and how do you maintain the energy and the hope to do it?

Keli Young: Yeah. I mean, the energy, I don't always maintain that [laughs]. But I think the motivation, really is like I want to be free. I want to be able to just be, and I can't, because there are systems in place that is just dead set on the control and devastation of people who look like me. So a lot of it is selfish. It's like, I want everyone to be free so that I can be free. And I think that that should be everyone’s reason for doing justice work, really. Because you see that like all of our liberation is just tied up in each other. I want to be able to get to the other side of imagining a world where we all have the resources that we need to thrive.

I grew up… I don't, yeah, I don't have another answer. I don't know what other work I would be doing [laughs]. I'm trying to think. I'm like, if I wasn't doing this kind of work, like there was no other lawyer I wanted to be.

Sy Hoekstra: That's, I can attest to that. That was the last bullet with Keli. There was literally nothing else she wanted to do.

[laughter]

Jonathan Walton: That's all right.

Keli Young: And I think a lot of it is like being raised where I was raised. And I will say, Brownsville is a beautiful place. I think people are like, “Ooh, you was raised in this neighborhood and it was terrible.” And it's like Brownsville is great, the people who live there are great. If government structures invested in Brownsville the way they invest in other communities, it would be even greater. And so I think being raised there and being raised in a Black church where faith and activism went hand in hand, kind of just developed my worldview really. And my understanding of my faith and who Jesus was. Jesus is an abolitionist, guys.

Jonathan Walton: Amen. Absolutely.

Sy Hoekstra: Please elaborate.

Keli Young: Like he came to dismantle institutions of oppression. That was his whole jam. He was fighting for freedom. He was like, “These are the people I'm aligned with.” And those people were homeless people. Jesus was homeless. He was a refugee. He was a criminal. Like that's his identity and that's the identity of people he brought alongside him. So I think a huge part of faith is advocacy. So I think, and growing up for me, it was regular to just see elected officials and candidates come into the church and talk about how they were going to fight for communities, and then we would be loud if they weren't. If they didn't like hold true to those promises.

So I think, yeah, my faith and my advocacy have always been intertwined in a way where I think I'm grateful for the space I'm in now, because I think there're just more opportunities for me to kind of talk about them both at the same time, which is cool and wasn't happening before. So I'm always excited, like Sy, even when you asked me to do this I'm like, “Yes, I want to talk about justice because I think that's all that Jesus was talking about.” And he was murdered for it. And I think that that is what happens all the time in this country, and in all countries where people are fighting for people. So I think, and I think that was on purpose.

I think Jesus could have been born into any family. He could have built an actual church and a place and had a house and just was like, “People come to me,” kind of thing. And that's not what he was. He was born into poverty. He was a refugee. He was homeless, he was wrongfully convicted, he was executed. And that's not, none of it is glamorous, none of it is cute. He came for a certain kind of people, to say, “I want you to be whole.” I think my orientation of justice is about making people whole. I think that's what defunding the police is about. It’s like, take away these things that devastate communities and make them whole. That's what motivates me.

And I think if, I don't think if like God and the Christ that I'm following, I don't think if that wasn't my foundation, that I would be able to just like dive head first into this work the way that I do, because it is terrible, and it is traumatizing. Even to hear… there's like the things that I experienced growing up in the spaces that I did, but listening to the experiences of VOCAL members and VOCAL leaders day in and day out. Like it'll just be a casual conversation, and they're talking about how their loved one is brutalized again in prison. And it is devastating, and I think victory is promised. So I think that is what keeps me going. We have to win. There is no other option.

Jonathan Walton: Amen.

Sy Hoekstra: I realized I was nodding a lot while you were saying all those things.

Keli Young: Oh, good. Good. I can't see you. I'm like, “Are they listening?”

Sy Hoekstra: Well, not only can you not see me, but the listeners also. Like that is just utterly pointless to be sitting here nodding.

[laughter]

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Verbalize your nodding.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, for real. Start saying the word “nod” as I do it.

Keli, I'm so happy you were here. This is great. This is exactly what I knew it would be.

Keli Young: Yay!

Sy Hoekstra: I knew you would be fantastic and passionate and a delight to talk to. Where can people follow you and is there anything that you would like to plug?

Keli Young: Yeah. One of the things I want to encourage people to do is, literally to watch their mouths. Language is life, and it informs how we view ourselves and how we view others. And one of the things that we are very adamant about at VOCAL is always using people-centered language across all of the issues. And it's something where it does require a lot of grace because we're not always going to get it right. But I think if you approach it with a level of intention, it has the power to really transform the world. Like calling people who are incarcerated, people who are incarcerated instead of prisoners or inmates, has the effect of one, making you remember that they are human, and then letting them know that you also think that they're human. Calling people who use drugs, people who use drugs instead of addicts, reminds you that they are people first. And even when we're talking about public safety, there… de Blasio was constantly talking about wanting to clean up the streets so that tourists will want to come back.

Sy Hoekstra: Because the people who are there are dirt.

Keli Young: Exactly. It’s like, so, what?! Yeah, and I think it requires a level of consciousness and a critical mind to hear what is being said when people talk about cleaning up the streets. Or even like for people who use drugs, where it’s like, oh, like talking about dirty needles. Or saying, “Oh, this person is clean because they're not using drugs,” suggests that people who do use drugs are not clean. Or like having someone's blood on a needle makes it dirty. It's like, it's a used syringe and this person is using drugs. The connotations that our language has, I think perpetuates a lot of the stigma and allows for a lot of the harmful policies to continue.

Because it's a lot harder to legislate for harmful policies when you are using people first language. Where you have to actually reckon with the humanity of the people who will be impacted by these policies. And I think it starts, it can start at home, just making sure what you're saying is in full recognition of the humanity of the people you're talking about.

Jonathan Walton: Amen.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. That’s a very good practical step. I appreciate that very much for the listeners. Is there anything from VOCAL- NY or anywhere else that you want people to check out?

Keli Young: If folks are interested in learning more or actually being boots on the ground with us, you can follow VOCAL-NY @VOCALNewYork on Twitter.

Sy Hoekstra: So they'll actually, you can actually get like volunteer opportunities and stuff from that?

Keli Young: Yeah. And if you're interested in organizing opportunities with VOCAL New York, you can visit us at Vocal-ny.org, and click Contact Us.

Sy Hoekstra: Awesome, Keli Young, thank you so much for being here. We were so happy to have you.

Keli Young: This was amazing, thank you for having me.

Jonathan Walton: Thank you.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Jonathan Walton: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Shake the Dust. Please make sure to subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com, and don't forget, you get a free month of that subscription by going to KTFPress.com/freemonth. That's KTFPress.com/freemonth. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @KTFPress, subscribe to or follow this podcast in your favorite podcast player, and write in to us at [email protected] with any questions you may have about anything that you've heard.

Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam. And we will see you next week!

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Keli Young: Ooh, sorry that was lightening [loud rumbling noise]. Whoa, that’s not lightening. It sounds like there’s thunder coming… Sorry!

Sy Hoekstra: That was so loud!

Keli Young: I saw the lightening flash and I was like, “Oh, okay…”

Jonathan Walton: Could make our podcast sound epic.

Keli Young: Right?

Jonathan Walton: You don’t have to cut it out. Just try putting thunder in there.

Keli Young: God is cosigning. That’s what that is. Absolutely.

Jonathan Walton: Criminalized behavior. [Jonathan makes crashing noise. Keli laughs]. Amazing.

This week is an interview with Shadia Qubti, a Palestinian peace activist who now studies indigenous theology in Canada. We talk to Shadia about her decision to move across the world and study in such a different tradition from her own, how indigenous theology is changing her thinking and Christian practice, the dualism of Western theology, the inadequacy of Western theology to address intractable social problems, patriarchy in the Palestinian church, and a lot more. 

Mentioned during the Episode: 

“18 Arab Female Theologians and Christian Leaders You Should Know About” by Grace Al-Zoughbi Arteen and Graham Joseph Hill 

Shadia’s podcast, Women behind the Wall

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show, sign up for our free mailing list, and subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts:

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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.  

Shake the Dust is produced and edited by Sy Hoekstra, and transcription is managed by Suzie Lahoud. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode. 

Transcript

Shadia Qubti: But it's also partly like the theology, you know, if God calls you to do something and you keep at it, you will succeed. You will conquer your Goliath, right. I would say it's American exceptionalism. It's not really theology.

[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, a podcast of KTF Press. My name is Sy Hoekstra here with Jonathan Walton and Suzie Lahoud.

Jonathan Walton: Today, we have an interview with Shadia Qubti. She has worked in peacebuilding and advocacy initiatives for 15 years through local and international organizations in Palestine and Israel. As a Palestinian Christian, she is particularly focused on amplifying the voices and perspectives of women and other minorities.

Born and raised in Nazareth, she studied international relations and English language at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, conflict resolution and non-violent action at Trinity Dublin College in Ireland, and she is currently pursuing a degree in interreligious and indigenous studies at Vancouver School of Theology in Canada.

Today, we talk with her about her decision to study indigenous theology, how indigenous theology is changing her thinking and practice as a Palestinian Christian, the dualism of Western theology, the inadequacy of Western theology to address intractable social problems, patriarchy in the Palestinian church, and so much more.

Sy Hoekstra: One more quick thing on this interview, Shadia’s audio is not the best. It's our fault, not hers, but the episode is totally listenable. She says a lot of great things, so we wanted to bring you the episode. But just so you know, I just wanted to flag that.

Suzie Lahoud: As a reminder, if you like this show, the best way you can support us is by going to KTFPress.com and subscribing. That gets you our weekly newsletter, curating resources to help you in discipleship and political education as you seek to leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God, bonus episodes of this show, and writing from the three of us. It also supports this show and other projects we're working on like future books. And you can now get a free month of that subscription by going to KTFPress.com/free month. Again, that's KTFPress.com/free month.

Also, remember to hit the subscribe or follow button on your podcast player. Follow us @KTFPress on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And tell your friends about us.

If you have any questions about anything you've heard on the show, please feel free to write to us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you. And we might answer your question on a future episode.

Sy Hoekstra: All right, now that that's out of the way, here is our interview with Shadia Qubti.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Suzie Lahoud: Shadia Qubti, thank you so much for joining us on Shake the Dust today. We're just so excited to have you.

Shadia Qubti: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be with you and really to have a conversation today.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, well, we've definitely been looking forward to this conversation and have been following some of your work. And just to launch right in and give folks a little bit of a sense of your background and what you're doing right now, you're studying with indigenous theologians at the Vancouver School of Theology as part of your own attempt to figure out what it means to be a Palestinian Christian. Can you explain why you would travel so far and study in such a different tradition for that purpose?

Shadia Qubti: Well yeah, excellent question. There are several ways I was trying to kind of think about this and how to say it, because each one of us is on a journey, and we meet people and things happen that kind of take us on our path. I think for me, part of the opportunities I had was to travel a lot with my work. So in some sense, everyone says it, like the world is so small, and it's very true that if you get to travel and you get to go to different places around the world, it shrinks that distance. And it was actually in one of those conferences that I went to, part of kind of my work with the Christian community, I met an indigenous leader, and it was this forum that has a conversation between theologians from the Global South and the Global North.

And it was just kind of hearing the experience of different indigenous theologians from the South primarily that resonates a lot with our context as Palestinians. And that kind of intrigued me. I'll be honest, I didn't know... I mean, you know, most of my familiarity with indigenous North American context is from the movies, from Hollywood culture. So I didn't know much, and part of this intrigue-ness was to kind of come and see what it is and to kind of, in a sense, like date indigenous theology to see kind of, what can we, what is our shared language? What can I learn from this context, and how can I take it and self-reflect my context?

And you know, just some of the traditions. So in this conference, this indigenous leader was praying over another person, and he used the ritual of using the feather and burning sage. And I just found that was fascinating, because when you go to different Christian conferences, especially if you're from an evangelical context, it's kind of like going to the airport. They're all the same. Like it's all kind of the same setting. We have these similar worship, similar, I dare to say rituals or liturgy. And seeing something different, seeing someone express their faith differently just really raised my curiosity a lot. So that's kind of one aspect why I'm kind of doing this.

But I think also, I've been working a lot, in the context of the Christian community we talk about Israel, Palestine, and social justice. And to be very honest with you, sometimes it's exhausting. I mean, this work is very exhausting. You burn out because you are one person hitting this huge, huge, huge wall, and you can get tired. And for me, it was time to kind of just say, “Okay I'm doing the same thing and expecting different results. Maybe it's time I just took this time to say, ‘Okay, I’m intentionally creating a distance because I want to see things differently. I want to try to see things differently.’” So it's this kind of shifting or trying to see things from different entry points, so maybe to get revitalized, to get inspired. To keep that oomph to keep going, because working for the Palestinian issue sometimes can be very, very hard.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. Wow. Thank you for your vulnerability in sharing that. Just to go back to a point that you made about these Christian conferences, even global Christian conferences that you attend. We recently had Kyle Howard on our podcast, and he talked about how… specifically he was talking about white evangelical seminaries in the United States, but just about how without realizing it, a lot of times what's being taught, or pretty much all the time what's being taught, is white theology, but they don't realize that. And it's just sort of packaged as “This is theology. This is how you study God, and learn about God, and worship God.” And I think it's so helpful how you unmask that we do have rituals that we practice. We wouldn't call them that, but those are culturally based things and those things need to be decolonized and we need to be able to find and appreciate, and even take part in other forms of expression of learning about God and being in his presence. Yeah, so I appreciate the way that you sort of unmasked that.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So following up with that, what are some of the indigenous traditions and practices that you hope to bring to the fore as a Palestinian theologian, as you decolonize your own theology and bring in some indigenous practices, what are some you’re hoping to integrate?

Shadia Qubti: I think again, for me, it's kind of still this ongoing process of learning and being willing to kind of try to learn a lot, at the same time self-reflect. And I just want to say, just a few points before kind of answering, because even when we say indigenous traditions, there is an assumption which is very true, is that it's very diverse and it's very varied. And within Canada alone, there's more than 600 different indigenous groups that have their own rituals and traditions. And also, as an international student here in Canada right now, we have to also acknowledge that I am benefiting from a history, a painful history that indigenous people here have suffered from settler colonial nation-state.

And many of us come to US and to Canada as Palestinians, or coming from the Middle East, we're here to seek a better life because we come from war-torn countries. But we also come to a context that has its own history of wars and wrongdoings. And part of trying to say, like we have to be also, be attentive that part of our pursuit for a better life should also extend to our neighbors where we are here. So be proactive and mindful to behaviors, policies, and decisions that are hindering the survival and existence of those on the margin in this context here. And I think that's part of these indigenous tradition and practices that I’m kind of learning as I go.

In a sense, yes, we come from a very painful, I come from a very painful context, but there's also other people who come from a painful context. Can I make room for, am I able to kind of listen and learn from them and have this shared experience of struggles? And really a lot of the writing, a lot of the commonality with indigenous conflicts here is about that theology of struggle or theology of resistance. Because in many ways, there are a lot of similar experiences of being colonized, treated in a way that is inferior to the dominant culture. But also there is… and I think indigenous context here, which I'm really fascinated by, is the, how the worldview, you know. How the understanding of things is different.

I'll give you an example, this idea of how we, as those who grew up evangelical, how we understand the word “spirituality,” and how an indigenous person understands the word “spirituality.” And that, look at that relationship with the land that's so important. Even if you look at something like food, if you notice, Palestinian culture is so centered about food, it's also part of our, it's part of our hospitality, it's part of our meeting together. And I've noticed a lot of time when Palestinians travel to different cultures and they’re eating their food, the point of comparison is always their mothers’ food. “That’s not good. It's not as good as my mom's cooking.” Of course it isn’t going to be as good. There's this pride in our food.

But really a lot of our dishes, and that can be true for a lot of other Middle Eastern cultures, it comes from an ancestral knowledge and connection to the land, that we have acquired and passed on to generation and generation. I mean, it's nothing… I don't think our parents or even we, use a lot of cookbooks to cook our food. It's usually the family that teaches us or the auntie that comes and kind of shows us how to do it. Because it's not just about the ingredient, it's how your particular family combines the ratios. But that’s all really, in some sense, there is a spiritual element in that, that we kind of don't look at because we have this… we’re influenced by the Western understanding of separation between mind and body, soul and the body.

So our spirituality is confined to this understanding that spirituality has to do with our thoughts. With what we're thinking. Very, very seldom do we look at what is our body? What are we bringing with us to church? What am I bringing, what am I eating? What am I consuming myself with? That's also part of who I am. That's part of my spirituality and connection to God. And so, just looking at kind of our symbols, whether it's the olive tree and the different foods. Palestinian food is primarily vegetarian, because this knowledge of which plants to eat, when to eat them, how to eat them, there's something very rich there.

I mean, and I think another example to look at this in connection to the land, is if you look at embroidery, Palestinian embroidery- tatriz. And in indigenous context, there is a similar tradition called regalia, that these are dresses that are usually worn in ceremonies in indigenous cultures, but it's the same concept that's these dresses are made, they're made by the person who's wearing them or it's passed on from generation to generation. But if you look at the history of tatriz, it's a storytelling that's very, that’s passed on from matriarchal ancestry, that tells the story of our ancestors, of a time and place that happened. And they were just sharing, they were narrating their stories based on what was around them, whether it's a bird or it's a cypress tree, or it's, you know, different elements in the dress told their stories and even how they were made. And at one point, everything was made from natural resources, from plants and insects.

So again, this ancestral knowledge that's passed on, and we kind of keep it in a very disconnected from our spirituality. And it just made me start thinking as I was learning from the indigenous context, I mean, our weddings now everyone wears white dresses. That wasn't necessarily the case. But even in our churches, all of us go to church and we dress kind of in Western attires. We don't wear our traditional gowns anymore. But even at the conferences, I think there's only one or two conferences that I attended that actually had the Palestinian tradition or a traditional dress. Usually, those we wear them in graduations. Sometimes the gowns have embroidery on them, but why have we disconnected our culture from anything that we consider spiritual? Just looking at the Canadian indigenous context and reflecting on my context, these are some of the things that I'm trying to kind of grapple with and understand.

Sy Hoekstra: Can I ask going back to something you said before…

Shadia Qubti: Yeah.

Sy Hoekstra: You mentioned that you came to study indigenous theology, in part because of a certain amount of, I don't know, exhaustion associated with some of the issues that come up consistently when you're doing theology and doing your kind of work in Palestine. But then my first thought was, well, you're moving to a context and learning from people who have just as many issues of justice and pain in their context. And I mean, you mentioned that immediately thereafter. So is there something about dealing with the difficulties that other people are facing, or learning from people who have been in a different context that is sort of less exhausting? Or how… is that actually easier for you to handle in some way? Does that question make sense?

Shadia Qubti: Yeah, no, excellent question. I mean, again, I also went to school, I have another degree in Ireland. And the Irish context as well, which was what fascinated me to kind of go and study in Ireland was also their context and their conflict and to kind of learn from that, because I think I'm not trying to distance myself. I want to kind of keep digging and keep trying to figure out how to keep going, you know? How do we keep advocating and fighting for equality and justice as Palestinians? And I think there's much to learn from others, because we're not the only ones, again, who are doing it in a sense. And the context here, it's… well, it depends on how you view history. It's a long, prolonged history. A very painful history. And I think having that ability to look at it and see and understand the struggle. Yeah, there is something there that helps. There is power there I think. There is a lot of comfort in that journey to keep going at things and to explore them in order to understand yourself better.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. It’s not escapism for you. You're trying to dig deeper and push further.

Shadia Qubti: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sy Hoekstra: So you talk about a little bit about the differences between liberation theology and post-colonial theology and indigenous theology. So can you help us understand kind of the distinction between those things and also how they overlap and intersect?

Shadia Qubti: Sure. I mean, let’s start, I think, if you think about what do we consider, in theology, what do we consider to be the source of, what tells us about God? In the academia, there's like four sources agreed upon. Christian faith was revealed by scripture, illuminated by tradition, brought to life in personal experience, and confirmed by reason. So there’s four elements that kind of tell us more about God. And religious experience, it’s about whose experienced it, but it also reflects a certain class, race, ethnicity, and gender. So, and we know like academia, including theology, usually those who had these positions of telling us what is theology, was a specific group of people, mainly white, mainly men, dictating what theology is and what it's not.

And so liberation theology kind of started that burst of this bubble, to say that it's not really just that particular class in a group that can understand stuff, but it's actually coming from the poor and oppressed. They are the ones who do theology. And it's constantly kind of challenging the theory and the practice, the gap between them. I mean again, the distinctions of, I was trying to really trying to figure out like, what comes first, but that's the whole idea. These types of theologies, they burst the bubble and they flatten the hierarchy. They're like, no, there's no hierarchy. Like everyone…. anyone's experience, whatever class, race, ethnic group they come from, that's their… that's, they can, they have a different understanding of God and we need to elevate that.

So indigenous theology looks at the ethnocentric, the colonization. The colonized is the one to speak and the one to kind of elevate their voices. So post-colonial, it looks at the power relations. White dominant systems and how these kind of inform ideologies. Again, the other is at the center. It's not the powerful, it's the colonized or it’s the disempowered. And I think this whole process of, you know what I'm saying, like how to deconstruct. Like I want to, I'm constantly deconstructing what I know, or my theologies, which means to critique it, to challenge it, and sometimes to reject things. So, and I try to reconstruct it, reconstruct some theologies where you reconsider, you create, you build.

This is the whole like prophetic imagination. That's really what theology is about, is how do you understand God, and it gives you that space to kind of express where God is in your specific context in your specific time. And I think, think about it. Again, like the language that we use, look at our worship music, some of our… I mean, again, I say I'm an evangelical. And evangelicals pride themselves that they have no liturgy, but that's a liturgy. If you have no liturgy, that's already setting a liturgy. What are our traditions and rituals? And then if you want to decolonize theology, like you mentioned Suzie, is like the dominant culture of Western Christianity. What are aspects of our theology that kind of maintain that imbalance, or that status dominance of Western Christianity?

And so the indigenous theology, again, like my question, what does it mean to be a Palestinian Christian? What is our image of God? What does mission look like for us? So it's kind of just these processes that are ongoing all the time. You kind of try to create and deconstruct and deconstruct as you go.

Jonathan Walton: Along with that, I know you've overlaid these great definitions and you've given some specific examples about how this has informed your theology and your orthopraxy. So I'm wondering if you could name some specific ways that the things you're learning have reformed and refashioned your theology and how you hope to live out your faith as a Palestinian theologian.

Shadia Qubti: Yeah. I think the… I can think, I can give you two examples. When I moved here, which was not long time ago, this is my second year here. I actually got more and more interested in gardening. And back home I dabbled in it. I didn't really, my dad loves to do gardening. I think with the deconstruction of connection to the land of what we are practicing or trying to, when I do my garden, for me, it's become kind of this spiritual time. It's time to reflect, because it's not always, God doesn't necessarily speak to us in the big things, sometimes it's in the small things.

Again, being attentive like that as Palestinians, we used to be agrarian culture. And so agrarian culture, this ancestral knowledge that we know the plants, and we have this relationship with the land that's also, that respects the land in a sense. And we are in a context that people are trying to subdue us and subdue the land. And so where do we stand in this? So for me, gardening, taking in that practice, it's part of that. It’s connected to this process. Because there's something to be learned about putting a seed and this anticipation, and there's a space that you don't know what's going to happen, when it's going to open up, you try your best to make sure the soil is good, it's sunny, it's not moist. But there is a point where you just wait and something happens and the seed opens and it starts growing.

So there's something very… there's a lot to learn from that. And I think for me, it's opened up a lot of conversation with my dad. Like what's the best way, where do I put the cucumbers, like sun direction, or tomatoes? But it's kind of keeping that tradition, even though I'm away, I'm far, so far from home, but to keep these traditions and then learning from that process and seeing it all connect together, it's kind of strengthening my understanding of what does it mean to be connected to the land and how these practices are part of our… you know, it's a part of our embodied experience as beings.

Another example, it's really reconsidering like what is the relationship between our knowledge and power? Like how do we know what we know and what are the sources of these, of our knowledge? Because even our understanding of God, many times it's impacted by this dualistic worldview, a Western worldview of like body, there’s one hand, mind. So we have this, this is spiritual, and this is earthly. When we have these distinctions, inadvertently we're rejecting, many times the message is reject the earthly, embrace the spiritual. And so growing up, having a personal relationship with God and focusing on your salvation and the salvation of others, in a way, its also indirect message was, don't care about things that are happening around you, the most important thing is spiritual salvation.

And it's really, as a Palestinian, you grew up in a context and all of a sudden you've become the enemy, you've become demonized and perceived as God's enemy because your presence is hindering the second coming of Christ. And you're like, how is that spiritual? What happened to the dualistic worldview of like, don't concern yourself with things that are in the material world? So there's these dissonances that have been created between what you are taught and what is being done about it. And then you have to go back to kind of, why is that the case? Then let's go back.

And so again, these kind of processes that you try to pinpoint. And sometimes, interesting, like I'm saying the disembodied and the embodied elements of our being, but it's a lot of time where all of that- academia, it's science, right, it's all about the thought, the mind, and what we think and how we say what we think and expressing it. And that is one aspect, but it's not everything. There's also the experience of our bodies, our ancestry, what we bring with us as well as we journey together.

Sy Hoekstra: It sounds like a little bit, what you're saying is that the evangelical way of making that distinction, or the Western way of making that distinction between spirit and body was done selectively, right? There were, sometimes. Yeah. Right. So I think what you're saying is, or at least a part of what you're saying, is that indigenous theology kind of eliminates the ability to make that distinction selectively by eliminating the distinction entirely. Is that right?

Shadia Qubti: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because yeah, indigenous understanding is like, everything is connected, right? We're interconnected. It’s not really this dual separation. But absolutely, yeah. I am trying to say that this dualistic worldview should be rejected. I do reject it. But it's also like, what do you do then? What's the alternative? How do we rebuild something else that's different that can replace that? But sometimes it's to critique and to challenge is also part of that, and it takes time to replace it with something else.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I think probably related to that, you have talked about how your upbringing in evangelical tradition, gave you some kind of Western ways of thinking and practicing your faith, that made it really difficult to fruitfully interact with kind of these seemingly intractable global problems like war or poverty or hunger. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Shadia Qubti: Sure. Yeah. I think a lot of the… on one hand, yes, I was brought up Baptist evangelical. From that perspective, I mean, I did have, I do feel like my upbringing in terms of understanding God and who God is came from that tradition, and it was very powerful and life-changing for me. But at the same time also, yes, there were also other things that were not life-changing, they were challenging, and kind of pinpointing what they are.

So when I, my choice to work in peacemaking, to try to be active, because I was, I believe that as Christians, we are supposed to, we are agents, we become ambassadors of our faith and it's part of our calling, is to be at peace with those around us and to kind of take my faith seriously. And so in that sense when I… my career was really working in parachurch organizations and trying to kind of promote this. What does peace, what does God's shalom look like? I think part of it is maybe, it's also maybe I was naïve, a bit young, but it's also partly like the theology that you are brought up, that if God calls you to do something and you keep at it, you will succeed. You will conquer your Goliath, right? But I think this is, trying to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian context, even in the church, to try to say guys, “We are, Ephesians 2, break the wall of partition. We need to be one, we need to be united. It doesn’t matter if our ethnicities are at war. Our calling is to be, we are brothers and sisters of Christ.”

But at the same time, it's the same group that comes and says, “No, God destined us to be enemies. Go read your Bible.” Or “Arabs, or peace will never happen here. We actually need war because that's when God comes back.” And so you have these, again, these contradictions to things that you thought that we're supposed to be peacemakers, what’s wrong about… Like why is it so bad to try to have peace? Like, why do we want destruction? Is that why God created humans so that they can be destroyed? There are these, all of these questions that come up. And in the end, I think they just make things or show you how complicated and the different layers to try to address an intractable problem.

Israel, Palestine, it has so many layers. It's so entrenched. To think that because I want to do peace, because I'm doing God's work it's going to be solved, it's somewhat like a, that's what I would say it's American exceptionalism, it’s not really theology. So this impact of the understanding. The same thing with poverty. Poverty… it’s something that the church here in Vancouver tries to address. Even though this is North America, there's availability of food. In British Columbia before COVID, one out of eight households were insecure. After COVID, it's gone up to one out of seven.

Sy Hoekstra: Food insecure?

Shadia Qubti: Food insecure. So a lot of churches, what they do is they offer food programs. So they open their facilities to try to give people to come and have food. Now, I can also say, well, they've been doing it for 20, 30 plus years, poverty is still here. If anything, it's gotten worse. Does that mean the church shouldn't continue doing food programs? No, but it also means that maybe one track is food program, but we really need to also look at the root causes, try to understand the context a bit more, and try to kind of work on different layers and different sectors to try to kind of address the problem together.

All that to say that, issues that are intractable, we have to also acknowledge, and I think part of my process is also to acknowledge that we cannot rely on the outcome to continue or not to continue doing what we're doing. But I think in many times, theology kind of doesn’t prepare us for this reality. And we think, another example, evangelism in the classical evangelical view, is that only Christ will save the world. In practice, what that meant was, we need to evangelize everyone so that… because once everyone is a Christian, there'll be no problems in the world. Or something from that perspective.

And that's completely, that's completely not necessarily the full picture.Because even as someone who tries to do reconciliation, even within the church we couldn't agree. We couldn't get our theologies to kind of converse with one another. So what does that mean? So how do we then approach and how do we then engage in social justice knowing that? I think a lot of the work starts with our theology.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I've been thinking a lot recently, and I hear this, and what you're saying, I think, is that when you have a theology that is a lot about strength and victory and the inevitability of your success; when you have that American exceptionalism instead of theology, you, I think, end up actually being like quite weak. It's sort of counter-intuitive, but like a theology of strength and victory, I think, makes a lot of people unable to handle difficult problems and things that are intractable like you're talking about. It creates a lot of despondency in Christians and in a lot of Western Christians and just when you expect to win all the time and you don't, you face problems that are just because the world is broken and you're not going to fix them anytime soon, it makes it, I don’t know, incredibly difficult to do the kind of good that God wants us to do amidst suffering.

Shadia Qubti: Yeah.

Suzie Lahoud: So Shadia, you also have thoughts on people who are on the margins in the Palestinian context, particularly women. How do you think Palestinian theology can challenge systems of patriarchy?

Shadia Qubti: Yeah. I mean, as a Palestinian myself, I grew up in the church. I then continued to work in parachurch organizations, but it's still faith-based. And so my leadership, my ability to be a leader was through the parachurch organization. But you also, as you kind of grow in leadership and you have opportunities, you kind of see that there are less, there are not as many women on the tables as men. And the conversation and the discussion about why are, how can we bring more women in the table, is always there. But many times, you reach this point, well, we don't have enough women, or we don't know how to bring more women to the conversation.

And so for me, I was always kind of being like, “No, you need to invite women. You need to advocate for women and to have them to be here.” What I realized here when I came here and I was kind of, again, introduced to indigenous culture, it just kind of highlighted that actually patriarchy is also a Western Christian problem. It's not really just because I'm very Middle Eastern and we’re patriarchal. It’s a problem of the church. Because in Canadian indigenous cultures, some of them are matriarchal, and actually it’s the church that made them patriarchal or tried to enforce patriarchal structures on them. And for me I was like, “Oh wow, I never thought about that.”

It just changes my perspective because I think the gender, the fight for gender equality is kind of influenced more by secular Western society. How do we then challenge and keep the question about why are women not in the conversation and how do we bring more women to the conversation? And it's a lens that I always have with me, it's not just about gender. It's any kind of… in any setting, in any meeting, I'm not just looking at who is in the conversation, but also who's not. And I think it's something as a minority, you kind of always just develop that lens. And it's good. It’s good always to have it and to keep that in mind.

Because even if you think about it, can you think of a Palestinian woman that has spoken, I mean, not just necessarily in the church, but also outside of the church? How many women can you name who’ve spoken on these particular issues? And then you have to ask then, if not many, why? What is the reason? And many times when Palestinians are invited to conferences, this imbalance is enabled by the organizers because they want the Palestinians to come, but they also need to be aware that again, our experiences differ to have kind of a platform to speak and to have a platform to share what it's like to be a Palestinian mother, a grandmother, sister, young person, has a different challenge than an equivalent male.

I think, how can Palestinian Christians challenge patriarchy? I think it starts by telling our stories and making sure we have a place at the table to be heard and to advocate for issues that are affecting also our lives as well as the society in general.

Sy Hoekstra: So then is it not so much the theology as we might understand it, but it's more when you talk about the, like a way that Palestinian theology can help challenge patriarchy, you're talking more about what you've been talking about with indigenous or liberation theology of people being able to tell their stories and having room to say them in the church, speak with their experiences and that being the kind of theological approach outside of how like a Western person might understand what theology is.

Shadia Qubti: Yeah. Yeah, because again, like, right. If patriarchy is a Christian or global church issue, those who will challenge it, is those on the margins within that system. So if it's patriarchy, then it's women. So it starts with women speaking up, getting more platformed to be able to challenge the system, to identify what needs to be challenged and to kind of say this power structure needs to be deconstructed. And I think in many ways in the West, feminist theology, as well as in the Americas with mujarista theology, they’ve started to kind of unpack that. But in the Middle East, we haven't yet kind of developed what that looks like.

In addition for that, I want to kind of mention, there are quite a few Palestinian and Arab theologians out there. You just have to be intentional in looking for them. How academia also is, academia in general is very biased or kind of unequal to women. If you look at the process of citation, the more citations you have, the more publishing you have. But, I don't know if you know the book of Caroline Criado Perez, she wrote a book called Invisible Women, and she kind of did all this data and looked at how the data is biased in a world that's designed for men. So she kind of said studies have shown that women are systematically cited less than men. Another study shows that men usually self-cite 70 percent more than women, and women tend to cite each other more than men do. So there's kind of this publication gap that kind of just keeps moving on.

And it's true. Like when someone speaks and you want to try to refer others, you kind of either tend to keep it in your circle. What's around you and who you know. And in the same way, I want to do that as well. I want to cite other women and kind of guide us to some other names that are Palestinians who are working in theology and not necessarily just regarding patriarchy, but in general. That they're there and they're working, they're just not necessarily in the forefront of the public discourse.

Sy Hoekstra: Could I… I have sort of a two-part question. One is, could you give us a couple of examples of Arab women theologians that our listeners might not know about? But then our listeners are also obviously mostly English speaking, so they would have to be people who are publishing in English.

Shadia Qubti: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and this is the thing, I mean, I also want to point out that most of the theology written, even like Palestinian theology and indigenous theology, you enter a system that's set. You want to engage in a current system. And so most of theology, and if you think about it as well, like if you want to be a good theologian, you don't necessarily go to the holy land where things… where God spoke to humanity, no. You go to where that… you go to the West, most likely that's where they’re theology students, because in a sense, that’s where you get that acknowledgement, and you get the learning.

And so again, most of the Palestinian writers and theologians, they do engage in that academic setting. So most of their writing is in English. Actually very few do writing in Arabic, and that's the challenge is actually to write more in Arabic than in English. But again, because you're also engaged and you want to become a theologian and you want to engage and influence the current discourse on Israel, Palestine, or other theological matters. So language is also, plays a lot in it.

So some names just to give you some, Grace Al-Zoughbi Arteen, she's originally from Bethlehem, currently in the UK. And she kind of, one of her publications was, she listed 18 female theologians and Christian leaders you should know that are Arab.

Sy Hoekstra: Oh, great. Well then let's link to that article. If you want to, if you could send it to us, then we will have that article linked in the show notes then.

Shadia Qubti: Absolutely.

Suzie Lahoud: Shadia, one thing, since you brought up feminist theology, one thing you also mentioned in sort of the lead up to this conversation in the exchange that the four of us were having, you mentioned how feminist theology in some ways has itself also been sort of colonized, and so a lot of female theologians prefer to frame things within the lens of womanist theology. Could you explain the distinction between the two and what that difference looks like, how that framing is different?

Shadia Qubti: Absolutely. Yeah. So if we go back, you remember when I said there's like four sources of theology and personal experience usually came from white men. And in the same way, same thing with feminism, is that when it started, it was a specific class of women, like white women were writing about feminist issues. That's why there's a lot of hesitation to use this term, because of its, because of the dominance of that specific people group that dominated the conversation. So there is usually the preference is to do womanist, which has to do a lot with more Black theological experience, as well as mujarista, which is more or less the South American experience of women. Look forward to see what that looks, like what words we can use in the Middle Eastern context.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. Well, Shadia, thank you so much for your time, for joining us today. Where can folks follow you, and is there anything else that you would like to plug, any other resources that you would like to point our listeners towards?

Shadia Qubti: I must admit, I'm not as active on social media as before. They can reach out to me on Facebook. And I want to just plug in the podcasts that me and two friends did together. It's called Women Behind the Wall. And again, the idea of the podcast was to offer an entry point, a different entry point to talk about Israel, Palestine. And so the idea was to record and play stories of Palestinian women and how they intersect their gender and faith and the conflict. And they're short stories, 30 minutes. The website is built in a way to help kind of any terms that are said in the story to kind of help unpack what that means. And so, yeah, it's womenbehindthewall.com.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. And I should say we actually referenced your podcast. I don't think we knew how to like tweet at you when it happened, but we referenced it in one of our first newsletters. Yeah.

Shadia Qubti: Oh, wow.

Sy Hoekstra: That’s right. Yeah.

Suzie Lahoud: Just because we were just so impressed by that resource, so yeah, definitely happy to include it in this episode and in the show notes so folks can access it. I agree that, just highly recommended it.

Thank you so much again. It's just been such a privilege to have you on today.

Shadia Qubti: Oh, thank you for having me. As someone who's tried to do a podcast, really, you guys do great work and I thank you so much for this opportunity really.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for listening. Please remember to check out KTFPress.com and consider subscribing. And remember that you can get a free month of our subscription at KTFPress.com/freemonth. Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @KTFPress. Hit subscribe or follow in your podcast player. And please do tell your friends and family about us. It is so helpful and we really appreciate it.

Our theme song, as always, is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam. And we will see you all next week!

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, so following up with that, as you've been learning and growing, what are some of the… [Baby Everest cooing in the background]

Sy Hoekstra: Oh, Jonathan, can you…

Jonathan Walton: Oh, sorry. Sorry, can you… She's totally there. Sorry.

[Sy laughs]

Jonathan Walton: I was trying to talk fast. [Suzie laughs] What are some of the indigenous traditions and practices… [Baby Everest coos]

Today’s episode is part two of our conversation with Kyle J. Howard (see last week’s episode for part one). We talk to him about how speaking publicly about his disabilities both helps people and comes with a price, how to maintain energy and hope in justice work with healthy priorities and boundaries, the helpful roles allies can play, how white people can avoid centering themselves, his understanding of his role in the Church as an outsider prophet, and a lot more.  

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show, sign up for our free mailing list, and subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts:

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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.  

Shake the Dust is produced and edited by Sy Hoekstra, and transcription is managed by Suzie Lahoud. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode.

Transcript 

Kyle Howard: Part of leading means being well-informed. And when, for most white people, when it comes to leading, there is a great deal of informed-ness that needs to happen. So I'll give you a prime example: there's been times where people would reach out to me and are like, “Hey, I want you to teach on this subject matter,” right. And I think that that also happens when it comes to white people within these conversations where they're not specialists in this field, but they feel, “Hey, I have a platform. I have a space. So I'll go ahead and speak on this.” Where what, I think, often what leading looks like is having the humility to acknowledge, “Hey, I'm not a specialist in this. Let me refer you to people who are.”

[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. I'm here with Sy Hoekstra and Suzie Lahoud.

Sy Hoekstra: Today is the second half of our interview with Kyle J. Howard. If you missed the first half, it was last week's episode. I suggest you go back and listen to it now. But Kyle is a theologian, preacher, and trauma-informed soul care provider, specializing in working with people who have experienced spiritual and racial abuse. Today, we talk to him about how speaking publicly about his disability both helps people and comes at a price, how to maintain energy and hope in justice work with healthy priorities and boundaries, the helpful roles that allies can play, how white people can avoid centering themselves, his understanding of his role in the church as an outsider prophet, and a whole lot more.

Also, a quick note: you're going to hear me ask a question, and then say a couple of smaller things, and then I'm going to vanish for the rest of the episode; because I had some connection issues during this interview. So just FYI.

Suzie Lahoud:  As a reminder, if you like the show, the best way you can support us is by going to KTFPress.com and subscribing. That gets you our weekly newsletter, curating resources to help you in discipleship and political education as you seek to leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God, bonus episodes of this show, and writing from the three of us. It also supports this show and other projects we're working on, like future books. And you can now get a free month of that subscription by going to KTFPress.com/freemonth. Again, that's KTFPress.com/freemonth.

Also, remember to hit the subscribe or follow button on your podcast player; follow us @KTFPress on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter; and tell your friends about us.

If you have any questions about anything you've heard on the show, please feel free to write to us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you. And we might answer your question on a future episode

Jonathan Walton: Now that that's out of the way, let's get to it. Here's Kyle Howard, part two.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Sy Hoekstra: All right. So here's the question that's maybe most personal and the one I was most nervous about, so feel free to answer this however you like. So we had… I don't know if you're familiar with Lamar Hardwick, we had him on a couple of months ago. He's an autistic pastor and he talks about, he talked to us about the ways in which Black disabled people's behavior is frequently misinterpreted because it's often seen through racist lenses. So he specifically spoke about people who are autistic getting diagnosed later in life oftentimes, because the behaviors that are just symptoms of autism are interpreted as just Black or brown men misbehaving, and so the diagnoses end up coming later.

You have been quite public about the fact that you have bipolar disorder and chronic pain. You are quite transparent on Twitter and you're online a lot, like your life is very public. And we wanted to know if you have seen this. If you have seen the ways that your disabilities manifest in your life misinterpreted by people who follow your work.

Kyle Howard: I have not seen it necessarily misinterpreted by people who follow my work. I have seen it weaponized against those who despise my work. So to flesh that out a little bit more, and maybe… this is if I'm grasping your question properly. But what I would say is that, so I have been, I regret versus not regret maybe 50/50 when it comes to expressing those things publicly. Ultimately, I don't regret it, because at the end of the day, by me expressing those things publicly, I've had numerous conversations with people who reached out to me through social media who were having suicidal ideations, who were deeply struggling with a desire to live, who would not have, who didn't… who saw me as someone who was safe to communicate with when they didn't see anyone else, because I was willing to publicly share those things. And so if one life could be saved by me being public about my own personal struggles, then it's been well worth it. And at this point, it's been more than just one life. So I’m eternally grateful for the platform I have, and for the transparency that I shared, because it has saved lives.

But it has come at a cost, because again, not people that are supportive of my work who follow my… so I guess, it depends on how you mean “follow my work,” because I literally, and I learned this recently, I have entire Facebook groups devoted to hating me. I have hate fan clubs. And so I used to think that hate mail just came from like individuals. I now know that there's actually hate fan clubs of people who come together just to hate to me and talk about how much they hate me. So, in one sense, you could say they follow my work, but in another sense I would say that they don't really follow my work, they stalk my work. But what I would say is that, those people will see me share these kinds of things, and they will interpret it as being weak, as me being… as a weakness or me being overly vulnerable. And so they'll take that and they’ll run with it and they'll say all kinds of things.

When I got pulled over by the police recently, I remember tweeting, I tweeted out a thread about what was happening, and I had numerous DMs that came in… and I was sharing with people that I was having basically like fighting off having a panic attack due to my own PTS from police brutality in the past. And I received DMs of people mocking me and saying all kinds of horrible things about that. And so there was a dynamic of me sharing that, allowed some to pray, some to have greater understandings, and then it allowed other people to weaponize that as a way of discrediting.

I remember I shared, when the George Floyd verdict was announced, I shared a screenshot of my raw emotions in that moment. And many people who follow my work was like, “Thank you for this rawness, for this transparency,” and everything else. But then there was other people who took a screenshot of that moment of raw emotion and they began plastering it in articles and blog posts and everything else saying, “Oh, look at this. This dude is fake, he's just faking tears.” You know, so everything else. And so I think, so white supremacists and racists will always weaponize Black challenges, struggles, vulnerabilities as a way, weaponize them against the Black community and against those Black people themselves.

But I do also think that there is a place for that kind of vulnerability actually giving people a window into unique challenges and struggles that actually build camaraderie, support, transparency, openness, healing, and all those other kinds of things as well. And so it's hard for me in the inside to kind of parse the benefit versus the negative. I just kind of take it daily. When I have certain behind the scenes conversations with people who are struggling, to me it's like, okay, this is worth it. I'm thankful for this, that I'm able to have these conversations.

But then there's the other side of me, where it's kind of like you fight against the reality of it's like, of public perception, I guess. Where the public perception being like… let me think about how to say this. I'm thankful for the amount of followers I have on Twitter, and I have no idea how it got up so high. But I don't write, or I don't tweet for them. My Twitter is for survivors. My Twitter is for people who are barely holding onto life. Those are the people that I'm tweeting to and wanting to let them know that, “Hey, I understand, I'm there for you, I support you, I know what you're going through.” And so that's my base, and if out of the almost 40,000 followers, I have a hundred survivors who fit that mold, then I'm only talking to a hundred people, that's who it's for.  

Even when I talk about racial trauma, I'm talking to white people who want to grow in their knowledge and understanding and abounding in love, and I'm talking to Black people who have experienced racial trauma. If out of the 40,000 people who follow me, only a hundred fit into that mold, then I'm fine just talking to that a hundred. Does that make sense? And so for me, what I would say, is that the audience in which I am speaking to, I don't think that they take advantage of that. I don't think that, I don't see the negative there, because I think that they're being helped. But within the broader audience, I think that there's all, there's absolutely a dynamic of people weaponizing disabilities or struggles or vulnerabilities or even Black trauma against Black people as a way to discredit them. That absolutely happens, and it's something that happens on a regular daily basis that I just kind of have to press past.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. So responding and maybe kind of expanding on that a little bit: you spend a lot of your days talking about and dealing with difficult and deeply painful subjects, and you have received a significant amount of racist backlash like you just shared, these hate groups and all of that, for the work that you do, both personally and publicly, so how do you cope with that, how do you stay hopeful? How do you continue in the face of all of that?

Kyle Howard: Yeah, that's an excellent question. So, a couple of things. One is that, so my Twitter is, my social media is largely my reflections in real-time. And what I mean by that is that, so if I'm tweeting about something about, say about racism, white supremacy, spiritual abuse, or this, that, and the other, one way to look at it is that, “Hey, Kyle just is sitting here, just tweeting random thoughts that he has to basically trigger folk, or make people angry, or this and the other.” Which I think some people have that kind of perception. If I'm tweeting about something like that, it's because I've just finished getting off the phone, talking with somebody who through tears was sharing their experience, and I'm sharing a reflection about something that has happened in real-time.

And so in some sense, everything that I share is a true story. It’s the reflections of something that I have just dealt with or am dealing with. And so yeah, I do, I tweet pretty regularly throughout the day, because I'm also counseling regularly throughout the day, and I'm sharing those real-time reflections and those… So every thread, so like recently I did a thread on union with Christ and spiritual trauma. That thread was the result of me just finishing soul care of helping someone who was struggling in profound ways come to find freedom and joy and union with Christ. And so I'm taking that, and then I'm saying, “Hey, this person was helped with the one-on-one, let me share this, again with my survivor audience, in hopes that this will encourage them.” Because again, that's who I'm speaking to largely, helping them to deconstruct and rebuild.

When I'm not counseling and when I'm not tweeting out reflections based upon my counseling, so that's like work time. Twitter is work for me. When I'm not doing that, I rarely think about race issues. I rarely think about trauma and abuse issues. I'm playing with my kids, I’m maybe playing some video games. I’m maybe hanging out with my wife. I’m maybe doing something related to theology and teaching and Bible preaching or this, that, and the other.

So a lot of people think that Twitter is my life. And even though I've said, even on that, that this is specifically for, my Twitter is primarily targeted talking about spiritual trauma and racial trauma. Even though that's just a fraction of my comprehensive work, that's what I've devoted Twitter to being about. It’s really just the social media that be mad toxic. My life is very not toxic. I'm very selective with friends, I'm very selective with relationships. I'm very selective with those things, and so everything is kind of, stays on social media.

Now, with that being said, I ain't going to lie, a lot of that stuff hurts. I am still human. I try to avoid the comment sections as much as possible, but I still, occasionally some still gets through and it's kind of like, wow. And when you take those things and you also take in the dynamics of trauma, because again, I got into the work that I'm doing as a survivor of spiritual abuse. And so it’s very regular that I am second guessing myself, in the sense of, if someone is saying that, “Oh, you're divisive, you're dividing the church.” Well, that was language that was used, weaponized against my family, and specifically against me for years. I was told that I was being divisive just for existing. And so when I hear that kind of language, it is triggering. I do have to think, “Am I being divisive? Am I an enemy of the church? Am I in Jesus?”

So though I still struggle with those kinds of thoughts and those kinds of things, I just have people behind me, like my wife, I have some close friends in ministry who are constantly supportive and encouraging to me and keeping my mind rooted in truths about who I am in Christ. And so what I would say is that I think the main thing that I do is that I, in one sense I don't, I take the work seriously, but I don't take myself too seriously. And that again, when I'm doing the work, when I'm sharing, that's great. When I'm out of that, and then people are like criticizing and everything else, my primary question is, have I been faithful? Have I told the truth, and did I do it in a way that wasn't mean-spirited or… maybe direct, maybe blunt, but was I lacking love? Was I being abrasive in the way that I shared that? And if I can say that, no, I wasn't, then I'm good. Anything else anybody else says to me is nothing compared to what I deserve given my past, and so I just rest in the righteousness of Christ.

And then finally, a last thought on that would be that, I think one of the ways that it most tangibly impacts me, is like I'm writing a book right now on spiritual trauma. But it's really hard to write a book about spiritual trauma when you're doing spiritual trauma care at the same time. There's a reason why people don't write books until they retire, I'm learning that as I go, because by the time I'm done with my day and it's like sit down and time to write the book, I'm like, “Man, I don't want to. >et me go play Spiderman or something. I do not want to write on trauma right now.” So I do struggle with kind of, with balancing out those kinds of things, and self-care and everything else. That is a challenge, and so I definitely haven't mastered that dynamic.

But I think the main thing for me is compartmentalizing, where I have the work that I do with my boots on. Twitter is largely not play time for me, it's largely work. It's me doing what I do privately with a public audience, but I have a very targeted audience. My targeted audience are survivors, trying to give them language for what they've experienced or what they're trying to navigate through. Because my target audience, I guess, is so narrow, I kind of have tunnel vision. And I think that tunnel vision serves me in being able to keep the main thing the main thing, which is for me, which is being a resource for survivors.

Yeah, I hope that's helpful. I feel like that was maybe one of the questions I danced around the most, but there's so many layers to that.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. No, it was real, and seriously, just so much respect for the intentionality and the integrity of the work that you're doing.

Jonathan Walton: Absolutely. I mean, I’m taking notes on multiple levels, like myself as a husband, myself as a leader, myself as a teammate. It's like there's a significant contribution that you're making via social media, but then also just, I imagine that's also reflected in the lives of your patients, and prayerfully an outflow of what's happening in your family. So I'm really grateful for yeah, you sharing your life with us.

Are there ways that you have helped people deal with the constant engagement that's necessary to decolonize around race, class, and gender? So, for example, I literally am having conversations with my wife about how I don't want to colonize her or more intimately, turn her into me. Right? I don't want her to think like me, act like me, do like me, so she can satisfy my needs and become what I imagine her to be. I want her to flourish as God has called and called her. And so that is at the forefront of my mind in our conversations, and that requires me reflecting on it each day. It might require a prayer that I pray on the hours, right? It's like there's necessary engagement for that to become a regular part of my life.

In our emotionally healthy activist curriculum, we call it moving from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence, where it becomes just a normal part of what we do. And so that's the type of engagement I'm talking about. But it can be exhausting.

Kyle Howard: Yeah. So what I would say is a couple of things. So for one, it can absolutely be exhausting. And I think that there is a, what I like to call- and this isn't original with me by any stretch- but what I call concentric circles of priorities. And what I mean by that, you know, a concentric circle is what happens when you throw a pebble into a lake. You get like a small circle, then a bigger circle, then a bigger circle, then a bigger circle. And when we think about concentric circles as it relates to priorities, you have priorities that are most centralized to you, that need to be primary, and then you have other circles that are less, that need to be less prioritized than the closest circle. Does that make sense?

And so with that being said, I think there are too many people engaged in too many concentric circles. And what I mean by that is, there are people who do specialized work in these fields, someone like myself, who has to be invested to a certain degree. But for every one person like me, there are thousands of people who I think may be overly invested in these kinds of conversations, because they're not equipped nor called to basically constantly be trying to convince people that they, to love them, constantly trying to convince people that they are worthy of equality and of the imago dei that God has made them with.

There’s just so many things in which people were like engaging or fighting, or maybe even on Facebook where they're having to post videos about the most recent police shooting or something like that. And one of the things that I've said, is that if you're ever at the moment where you feel like you have to defend or justify your humanity, you are in an abusive relationship or toxic relationship. And so if you feel like with your Facebook friends, that you have to prove the validity of your humanity by posting these videos of police officers killing unarmed Black people, you have toxic relationships that you need to unfriend. Or same thing can apply to a church.

Now, when you're talking about a marriage, that's one of your most closest, concentric circles, right? And so there's a lot of energy that I think that people are pouring out on social media that should be invested within their actual relationships, which can include canceling some relationships, does that make sense? Where there’re some relationships that are mad toxic, so you need to cut them out, so that you can devote that energy towards where it’s most needed.

So like someone like you, so say you're in an interracial marriage and it’s been exhausting, it's exhausting for you to engage these kinds of things. One of the questions that I would have for you, if you say, so if we were doing counseling, one of the questions I would ask of you is, “Lay out for me all the ways in which you are engaging the current issues of racial strife within the church and the world.” And we would lay all those out. And my hunch would be that the only way you're engaging is not with your wife. That there are other ways in which you're engaging, in which you're invested, in which you're involved in that's also taking energy. And so the issue is likely not that engaging these things with your wife is exhausting, but the issue may be by the time that you get to your wife to engage these things, you're exhausted. Does that make sense?

Jonathan Walton: I mean, yeah, absolutely.

Kyle Howard: And so I think that, so what I would say to people, is that there needs to be a… and sorry to use you as an example in real-time.

Jonathan Walton: Hey, it's all right. If it's true, it's true. The balm is actually for me. So it’s all right.

Kyle Howard: Okay. So what I would tell people, is that they should… there’s a healthy exercise, would be for people to write down all the different ways in which they're invested in these kinds of conversations. And then as they write them down to begin working through what should be the, what should prioritize my time, whether it be personal relationships with a spouse, with family, with friends, then eventually you get to social media, which is a very broad circle in my opinion. But look through all those things and then invest your energy in a wise way, because we all have energy capital, meaning that we all have a certain amount of energy and that's all we get for a day.

And what you don't want to happen, is that you're expending that energy in unnecessary ways, so that when you get to the point of having to engage with it in a necessary way, you don't have the energy to do so faithfully. And so what I would say, is that if you prioritize the ways in which you invest in these kinds of things, and then from there I think what a lot of people will find is that they actually have more energy than they think they have, but the problem is, is the way in which that energy is being directed. And most people, as I said before, don't have to be engaged in all these concentric circles that specialists have to be engaged with.

Let me put it another way. I don't think most Black people… I think that white people should be leading the way in these conversations. I think it's trash that survivors often have to lead conversations about abuse. I think that advocates for survivors should have to be leading those conversations. It should never be that the victims of marginalization or oppression are having to lead the way. That should be the work and job of allies who are leading the way. Now, I think that when it comes to leading in these kinds of conversations, I do believe that more or less, white people need to be stepping up and taking the reins from this, so that minorities specifically don't have to constantly be leading the way in the sense of trying to change white people.

Again, I think that there's a space for specialists to be teaching to… So people like me, we teach. People like me, I teach white people. I help white people process through challenges, this, that, and the other. That shouldn't be the job of every single minority. You only got so much energy in the day. Allow people like me to invest our energy in doing things like that. You all should be investing your energy in going where it's necessary. And then beyond that, go fall like in a meadow somewhere. Don’t feel like you have to take on that kind of burden. And when you do take on that burden, you actually are leaving, relieving white people of a burden that they should be carrying and should have been carrying for the past several hundred years.

And so I do think that even within what I'm saying, that there is a dynamic where the majority culture really should be taking on more of these concentric circles than minorities. Let me take a step back. Romans 12:1-2. God's will is good, acceptable and perfect. If his will is good, acceptable and perfect, that means there's no contradiction, there's no compromise that has to be done for God's will to be met. I think that many white people can take on more than they're taking on, as it relates to trying to heal the chasms that exist regarding racial disunity. Does that make sense? Am I making sense or do I sound like I’m…?

Jonathan Walton: No, I mean, you just consolidated like eight years’ worth of therapy in the last like four minutes. Yeah. I think you're right that there isn't a contradiction, because everybody has a place at the table, we just have to find that place at the table and eat what we’re supposed to eat. And the things that you’re saying about energy being directed, how those concentric circles work themselves out in our everyday lives, is absolutely true. I think for me, because I am a specialist in leading these workshops pre-COVID there's a sense of lostness now that I don't lead in those spaces. Because of how we responded to the pandemic and the nature of the work that I do leading groups from all over the world that come to New York and traveling and things like that.

So it’s, yeah. I'm going to be processing on that. Yeah. I just really appreciate you going in on me, and that’s totally fine. I also hope that that is helpful for people.

Suzie Lahoud: I'll be, so Jonathan was so great in just being really vulnerable in that moment. And so for me, it's a question of, as a racially assigned white woman, there's always this dance that I feel like I'm doing inwardly of, do I belong in these spaces, do I not belong in these spaces? I feel like so much of my job is just to kind of listen right now and try to learn as much as I can. And yet also I have folks like Jonathan and Sy in my life, who also encourage me to have a voice at times. And so you saying that just now, that you feel like it actually is the job of white people to prioritize some of these, as you put them, concentric circles, and to help white people figure out how to do better in these areas. How do we do that in a way that doesn't end up then centering ourselves in a way that just continues to reinforce our own white supremacy?

Kyle Howard: Yeah, absolutely. I would say that that is… so a couple of things. One, I think that part of leading means being well-informed. And when it, for most white people, when it comes to leading, there is a great deal of informed-ness that needs to happen. And so, some of that has to do with when it comes to… so I'll give you a prime example. So this is something that I see often, that happens even within my circles. There's been times where people reach out to me and are like, “Hey, I want you to teach on this subject matter.” And I have two options. It's like, I could either teach on this subject matter that I'm not a specialist in, or I can refer to someone who is a specialist in that.

And this is a really tricky thing when it comes to the way that the whole evangelical machine kind of works, because a lot of people will just accept speaking engagements maybe because they need the money or whatever it is, even though they're not a specialist in something. This happens a lot with minorities. A minority is not a specialist, but they’re being asked, so they'll be like, “Yeah, okay. I'll speak on this.” And I think that that also happens when it comes to white people within these conversations, where they're not specialists in this field, but they feel, “Hey, so I have a platform. I have a space. So I'll go ahead and speak on this.”

Where what, I think, often what leading looks like, is having the humility to acknowledge, “Hey, I'm not a specialist in this, but let me refer you to people who are.” And so the same way when it comes to professional courtesy, I think that requires people who aren't specialists in a field to be like, “Hey, I could speak on this, but I know somebody who may be better for you, let me connect you with them.” I think for many white people as they seek in leading this conversation, what I mean by leading the conversation, I don't mean that means they should take charge in regards to like teaching and everything else. What that could mean is that they take the initiative to read well, to inform themselves well, so that they can effectively refer other people to Black voices who are worth listening to. Does that make sense?

Suzie Lahoud: That makes so much sense. Yeah.

Kyle Howard: Or leading the way being not necessarily… again, leading a ministry or leading a teaching on this, but maybe that means using their financial resources to support Black ministries or tables that are being built by BIPOC Christians, who they believe are doing good work, supporting them. And so by leading the way, I'm not necessarily talking about in the sense of leading the way in the sense of power, as much as I'm talking about leading the way in the sense of initiative. Of taking initiative, whether that initiative is supporting through resources, is supporting through referring voices that are worth listening to, to just essentially taking on the helm of initiative.

Rather than Black people, always having, or minorities, always having to be the ones who are initiating, who are guiding, who are basically doing all the work. Raising the funds, writing the books, having the conversations, referring the people. The list just goes on and on and on and on, where I think that white people can be more effective if they are speaking to their own people. That racist uncle, you can recommend Jemar Tisby’s book, The Color of Compromise. You know what I’m getting at? Or the person who's like, who says, oh, that racism no longer exists, you can refer to them the book by Kendi on Stamped From the Beginning.

So there are things that white people can do, even within their own concentric circles, that can move the conversation forward as they take initiative, rather than just simply passing the baton onto Black people to have to deal with all the drama. Does that make sense?

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kyle Howard: Yeah. So having a book study, where you’re like, “Hey, let's read this book together and talk about it.” Rather than, “Hey, why don't you read this book and email Kyle about your concerns?” Does that make sense? Where, I love you all, but I'm not trying to have all those emails coming in. I'm going to ignore most of them. But you guys can have conversations where if they press, you can deal with the hypersensitivity, you can deal with the rage or this, that, and the other, rather than having to let Black people deal with it, or other minorities deal with it. Does that make sense?

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, absolutely.

Kyle Howard: So when I talk about leading the way, I'm not speaking about power dynamics, as much as I'm talking about initiative, which I think is a super important distinction there. And it's a great question, because I think the default is to think, “Okay, so is this, how do I do this without wielding my power in a way that centers myself?” Well, by removing power from the equation. Or even more than that, by being willing to use your power to empower other voices. You see, because that's the Christian way in which, that's the way that Christ used power. Christ used power to empower others who lacked power, while abusive power structures use power to empower the powerful.

And so one of the ways, if you want to wield power, that includes social power or racialized power, in a way that is Christological or Christ-centered, it looks like using your power to empower other people who lack power in that space. And so that would look like taking initiative to refer and grant voice to minority people to speak, rather than you trying to appropriate spaces, and you be the one who is centered in that space to speak. Does that make sense?

Suzie Lahoud: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's so good. Thank you.

Kyle Howard: If you guys don’t mind, I want to hear another question from Suzie, just because I want to, I've talked, answered a lot of questions, and I love to hear questions from my sisters, and I also want to think about sisters listening. So if you have another question for me, Suzie, I would love to take at least one more from you.

Suzie Lahoud: Oh man, Kyle. Thank you. Can I just ask you, do you feel like… I mean, so you're doing this as a theologian, as someone who is trauma-informed, but also, I just feel like you have a prophetic gift. Have you ever felt that way? Have you had people say that to you before? That there's also just, I feel, like an anointing on the way that you speak into people's lives.

Kyle Howard: Well, thank you for that. So when… so really quick story. When I was converted, I had a radical conversion experience. I might get a little bit charismatic with you guys, so I hope you don't mind. And I don't scare you enough to hang up on me.

Suzie Lahoud: I describe myself as a closet charismatic. So yeah, just bring it all out in the open.

Kyle Howard: Okay, good. So maybe this will bring you out of the closet. So when I got converted, it was a radical conversion experience. I had no biblical background whatsoever. Never read the Bible, never been to church. I went to church like, I think, once before. But I was an atheist who believed in God enough to know that I hated him. So I had no kind of… I was a secularist, essentially. And when I was converted, it was a radical conversion experience where I essentially dared God to show himself to me, and God obliged and showed himself to me, or revealed himself to me. I did have a visual, a physical vision of God. Well, Christ.

But in that, I received… I was converted, and in my conversion experience, I also received what I believe is a calling to pastor and use a prophetic gift. Now, at the time, I didn’t know what prophecy was, I didn’t know what a pastor was or anything of that nature. But it was very clear to me that whatever, however I served the church, that the Lord wanted me to serve it within a prophetic and pastoral capacity. And so, when I hear that… so I have heard people say that. When I do hear that, there is kind of a confirmation aspect of that, because that call came, well, I've been a believer for almost 20 years now.

And so when people, when I hear people say, even refer to me as a pastor, because I'm not a pastor, and I don't know if I ever will be just based upon all that I've gone through in the church context. But when I hear people say that, “Hey, you shepherd us from afar,” or something like that, there's a confirmation dynamic to that, where it's like, wow, that is the Lord’s call on my life being answered. And when I hear people say you have a prophetic gift, I feel similarly in that kind of way, where it's like, there's a confirmation dynamic to that based upon how I felt the Lord called me and my conversion. And so yeah, so that's encouraging to hear.

At the same time, that comes with some trepidation, because Isaiah was sawed in half with a wooden saw and Jeremiah was stoned to death. And there seems to be a tendency of God's people slaughtering his prophets, you know? And so there's a dynamic where it's kind of like, not only that, but the work of being, having a prophetic voice at least in scripture, seems to mean that you're going to be profoundly lonely throughout your life. And so what I would say is that there's kind of a confirmation, because I feel like my wife and I both have, our lives are as such where they feel like they kind of fall within the vein of being prophetic, if that makes sense. Does that make sense?

So what I'm saying is that I have experienced that level of… prophetic isolation, being attacked, being lonely in the sense of ministry relationships and all those kinds of things, especially when you talk about things like spiritual abuse. Yeah. So yeah. There's kind of a double-edged sword there, where it's kind of like, yes, confirmation, praise God. I feel like I'm walking within my calling if that's the vibe that I'm giving people. But then at the same time, it's kind of like, yeah, but that call also comes with some cost, and if I am serving effectively, then that cost is going to be more further realized, and up to this point, that cost has kind of sucked. So, yeah. So I kind of have a kind of a love-hate relationship with that calling, but I do believe it's something that God has called me to be.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, that’s real. No, and that's just so evident, and it strikes me too- again, I have a lot of questions, but for the sake of time, I won't go into all of them- but just so much of what you shared, it strikes me, and the same with your Twitter feed and spaces that you share these things. I haven't heard these things before. Some of these things. A lot of these things, actually. And I'm wondering why is that? And I wonder if part of it is just having the courage to say them. One, having the insight to recognize these dynamics, but two, having the courage to actually speak what you see. Yeah. Again, thank you.

Kyle Howard: Yeah. Thank you. I do think that it plays a role, because one of the things that I've really struggled with, especially recently, was with my final degree at Southern Seminary. That was… oh my God! That was hard. In 2016, so I finished my associate’s in like a year and a half, and was magna cum laude, you know, everything breezed by. Then I did my bachelor’s, magna cum laude, everything breezed by. I did it in a couple of years. And then I started my master’s. And when I started my master’s, I was going through pretty easily, and then 2015, 2016 hit, and it was about two years. I didn't even come on campus, it was so hostile, because I spoke about Eric Garner being murdered, choked to death by police officers.

And again, I've shared this story before. I had several seminary friends reach out to me and say, “Hey, I thought you’re one of us, why are you talking about these things?” And the atmosphere just became so toxic that for two years I didn't even go on campus. I lived right across the street, but I took online courses. And then it was a couple more years after being forced out of our church due to spiritual abuse, that I just, I couldn't even open a textbook without it being triggering. And so finally in 2020, with only a couple of classes left, I decided that I'd finished my master's, but there was a lot of regret regarding doing my seminary at Southern. Not only because of the direction of the institution and of its president in regards to endorsing Trump and everything else, but it was just like, man, I’ve wasted so many years.

And it was my wife who was super encouraging in that time, just telling me like, “No, you didn't waste your time. You've been in this space in such a way, but you’re an outsider now. And so you're able to assess things as a Black Christian theologian who has a master in white theology. You're able to pinpoint and assess things that those who are in it are like fish in water.” And so it may seem like it was a loss or a waste of time, a loss of time, but there is a very real reality, where I would not be able to do what I do now in regards to serving saints who've experienced spiritual abuse or racial trauma, if it wasn't for, not only my experiences in that space, but in being so invested in historical theology, which is the development of theological systems and ideas, if it wasn't for that space.

I wouldn't have such a, be able to assess those things the way that I'm able to assess. And so coming to that realization was super comforting for me, because in some sense, it redeemed those years and redeemed that time, in the sense of being able to say, well, I wouldn't be what I'm doing now, and I wouldn't be able to help people in the ways that I'm helping them now, if I didn't invest those years in mastering these theological systems and being able to be as an outsider, look in and say, “This is what's happening here.”

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean, this has been like a rich conversation, and I'm wondering two things. One, if you could tell us again, where people can follow you and things like that. And then we're going to pull Suzie out of that Bapta-Pentecostal closet, and just, if she'd be willing to just pray a blessing over you, that there would be more as you've poured out so much here tonight.

Kyle Howard: If she's comfortable, I'll be more than… I would embrace that and rejoice in that.

So you can find me… so I primarily, I'm primarily on Twitter. My Twitter handle is @KyleJamesHoward. I also have a website that's being revamped right now, at kylejhoward.com. And within the next couple weeks, I'll be launching two podcasts. The first one is called Coram Deo. It's actually been around for a while, but I'm relaunching it, and that just deals with like practical theology stuff. And then my other podcast is going to be called Soul Care. And that podcast is essentially going to be dealing with Christian counseling soul care issues from a Black cultural perspective, from a Black theological and cultural perspective. So essentially, it's going to be trans-cultural soul care or trans-cultural counseling. That's going to be what that podcast is devoted to. And so that should be launching in the next week or two.

Then, if I could, finally, my primary work right now, is providing free soul care services for minorities who have experienced spiritual or racial trauma in the church, but lack the funds to be able to pay for it. I cover the cost of their soul care through patron support, so I have patrons who give monthly support that covers the cost so that I'm able to provide care for them for free without making my family go hungry in the process.

Jonathan Walton: I hope that this blessing that Suzie is going to pray with would just be multiplied as we close out tonight's conversation.

Kyle Howard: Absolutely.

Suzie Lahoud: All right, let's pray.

Heavenly father, we worship you as the God of our whole being, as the God of our body, mind, and soul, and as the God who sees us and the God who knows us. And Father, we thank you for the insights that you've gifted Kyle with, Lord. For the ways that you've given him this incredible ability to see into people's souls and to walk with them through the deepest, darkest places and experiences that they've been through. And God, we just continue to pray your anointing on his ministry, that you'd continue to give him that clear vision and sense of calling to the communities that he's serving. God, we ask that you would continue to provide him with the rest that he needs physically, emotionally, and spiritually, the refreshment that he needs.

Bless his family, bless his time with his wife and his kids. Bless his wife in her calling and anointing, and with the prophetic voice that you've given her, Lord. And God, we thank you for this platform or multiple platforms that you've blessed him with, Lord. God, we pray that you would continue to speak to every single person that comes into contact with his work through Twitter and through podcasts and through his writing and on blogs and this book he's working on. God, we just pray that your Spirit would continue to pervade every aspect of his ministry, Lord. And thank you for this conversation, God, and the privilege of diving into these things.

And God, we just pray that it would be a fragrant offering to you, Lord. That you would continue to use it to reach people's hearts and souls and minds, and to bring about your transformation for the sake of your Kingdom. In Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.

Jonathan Walton: Amen.

Kyle Howard: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Jonathan Walton: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Shake the Dust. Please make sure to subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com, and don't forget you get a free month with that subscription by going to KTFPress.com/freemonth. That's KTFPress.com/freemonth. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @KTFPress. Subscribe to or follow this podcast in your favorite podcast player. And write in to us at [email protected] with any questions you may have about anything that you've heard.

Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam, and we will see you next week!

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Jonathan Walton: I can't tell a joke. What's a joke?

Suzie Lahoud: That's what I said. Sy told me to tell a joke and I said, “I can't tell jokes.”

Jonathan Walton: Oh [Jonathan chuckles. Suzie laughs.], Maia knows lots of jokes.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, I need you to tell a Maia level joke, please.

Jonathan Walton: What do you, what do you call cows, what do you call cows that protest?

Sy Hoekstra: What?

Jonathan Walton: A moo-vement. [Sy plays a rimshot noise]

Suzie Lahoud: Ha ha ha! I love it cuz it’s a joke and it’s woke.

Sy Hoekstra: It’s a woke joke.

Suzie Lahoud: It’s a woke joke.

Sy Hoekstra: I mean, the joke itself isn't particularly woke. I guess…

Suzie Lahoud: I mean, as a white girl who just grew up with, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” I feel like it’s…

Sy Hoekstra: Why did the chicken cross the road, Suzie?

Suzie Lahoud: To get to the other side… [Sy plays a rimshot noise]

Jonathan Walton: Hey, what do you call a duck that sells pills?

Sy Hoekstra: Oh… a quack! [Sy plays a rimshot noise]

Jonathan Walton: Yes!

Suzie Lahoud: Ohhh!! That's a good one. That’s a good joke.

Jonathan Walton: I literally just made that up.

Sy Hoekstra: Wait, you made up a joke and then I predicted the answer?

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, just now.

Sy Hoekstra: I'm pretty proud of myself.

This week, we have the first half of a two-part interview with Kyle J. Howard, a theologian, preacher, and counselor to people who have experienced spiritual and racial trauma. We talk to him about what spiritual and racial trauma are exactly, his approach to counseling in a Christian context, the devastating effects of incompetent or uninformed counseling in many churches, how and why he talks about race in interracial couples counseling, his experience as a Black man going to a white seminary, how white supremacy plays itself out in the deconstruction movement, and a lot more! 

Article referenced in the conversation: When Churches Colonize Femininity

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show, sign up for our free mailing list, and subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts: 

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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.  

Shake the Dust is produced and edited by Sy Hoekstra. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode. 

Transcript

Kyle Howard: And this is one of the reasons why spiritual trauma is so devastating. And I would argue that it's one of the most comprehensively devastating forms of trauma, is because it occurs within the most sacred of spaces. Spiritual trauma is the result of entrusting someone with your soul, opening the door to your soul for them so that they can care for it, and then throwing a grenade in it.

[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, a podcast of KTF Press. My name is Sy Hoekstra, here alone again, doing this intro for you all. We just have some scheduling difficulties, people are in different places. I am coming to you from Canada because the border is open again to people who are married to Canadians like me, and I haven't seen my in-laws in a year and a half. But enough about me. What are we doing today? Well, we have another two-part conversation with you. This one is an interview with Kyle J. Howard. For those of you who don't know Kyle, he is a theologian, preacher and trauma-informed soul care provider, specializing in counseling people with spiritual and racial trauma.

Don't worry, he will explain what all of that means in the interview. He has a bachelor's in biblical counseling, and a master's in historical theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And today you will hear us talk to him about his approach to counseling people with spiritual and racial trauma, the devastating effects of incompetent and uninformed counseling in many churches, the racial dynamics of interracial marriage counseling, his experience as a Black man in a white seminary, how white supremacy can play itself out in the deconstruction movement, and a whole lot more. This is a really good conversation that you should definitely listen to. There's also an article of Kyle's that we mentioned a couple of times throughout the interview. There's a link to that in the show notes, in case you want to read it.

Okay. As always, the best way to support this show and this company, is to go to KTFPress.com and consider becoming a monthly or an annual subscriber. That gets you our newsletter, bonus episodes of this show, writing from the three of us, and it also helps support future book projects, as well as this, the free episodes of this show that we're doing every week. If you can't do that, then please do subscribe or follow this podcast wherever you're listening, leave us a rating and review, and follow us at KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. All those things are really important and we really appreciate them.

Okay, I'm going to get out of your way now. So here is the first half of our interview with Kyle Howard.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Jonathan Walton: Kyle Howard, thank you so much for taking the time to be present with us today, especially after just a long day of emergencies. We just really, really appreciate you taking the time to be with us.

Kyle Howard: It's my privilege. Thank you for having me.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And so, we're going to jump right into it. Just like at the top of your Twitter page, you lay out a great definition of spiritual racial trauma. You've got a number of clients that have been hurt by the church. And so can you just briefly define for us, what's racial trauma, what's spiritual trauma, and how do you talk, and can you talk about your approach to counseling people out of that?

Kyle Howard: Yeah, absolutely. So first off, when I think about trauma, one of the ways that I've defined trauma in very, I guess you say in layman terms or simplistic terms, is the idea that trauma is like haunting pain. When you think about a haunting, you typically think about a ghost that has taken up residence in a location. If you watch scary movies, like Ghostbusters or something like that, the ghost has taken up residence, somebody moves in and what happens? That ghost basically terrorizes them. It constantly is knocking things over, letting them know that, “Hey, I've taken up residence, you're not welcome here.”

And trauma is like a haunting pain. It's not pain that simply happens in one moment and then goes away, but rather, it's pain that haunts an individual throughout their life. And when we talk about pain, I'm not talking about like a stubbed toe. I'm talking about a kind of experience or kind of pain that permeates a person's entire being. It affects, it devastates even, their entire constitution. Spiritual, emotional, psychological, even physiological dimensions of who they are. And so we're talking about a form of catastrophic pain that is so severe, so profound, that it doesn't just simply last a moment, but it haunts an individual throughout their life.

And in one sense, all trauma is spiritual trauma, because we are holistic people. We are both body and spirit. Some people like to break that down into a trichotomy of mind, body and soul, or mind, body, and spirit. But because we are that, we’re not just simply physical and we're not just simply spiritual, but we are both, there is no aspect of pain, whether it be spiritual or physical, that doesn't impact the other aspect of who we are. And so any kind of physical trauma or physiological trauma or psychological trauma or emotional trauma is going to have spiritual impact. Likewise, any kind of trauma that impacts someone primarily spiritually, is going to have physiological impacts, whether the… Again, so trauma is always comprehensive.

But when we speak about spiritual trauma, at least in the kind of context that you're mentioning it in, what I am talking about, is primarily the kind of trauma that is in many ways, has as its foundation, some kind of spiritual reality, or some kind of spiritual devastation. And so it's the kind of trauma that in some sense, its genesis is not say physical abuse outside of the church that simply overflows into spiritual pain, but rather it's a pain that finds its genesis within some kind of spiritual dimensions or spiritual experience or impact, that may as well, again, overflow in other things.

Same thing when it comes to racial trauma. What we're talking about, is the kind of physiological, psychological, spiritual, and emotional haunting pain that finds its roots within racialized experiences. And so we're talking about trauma as it relates to some kind of racialized pain, if you would. Or some kind of pain that is the result of living within a racialized society. And specifically, those who primarily experience that kind of pain, are those who are racialized within a racialized society. And so racial trauma is addressing specifically the kind of trauma that is unique to people who live in a racialized society and are experiencing profound haunting pain as a result of living under racializations. I hope that makes sense.  

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. It really does. Thank you so much for packing so much into that big definition. So, I really appreciate it. Can you talk about your approach to counseling people out of it? Like you’ve laid out that definition, how do you enter into it, and how do you invite people to liberation?

Kyle Howard: Yeah, absolutely. So I would hold to the view as I mentioned before, and I stress this because I think that often the church has failed here. I think that the primary posture of the church when it comes to counseling or soul care, has been kind of a Gnosticism light. And when I say a Gnosticism light, what I mean by that, is that when you think about Gnosticism, the ancient heresy, or ancient ideology of Gnosticism, which the early church fought against, it was this idea that there was some form of secret knowledge and the secret knowledge had to do with the spiritual realm.

And in that, the spiritual realm was seen as something that was sacred, something that was holy, while the physical realm, was something that was seen as being negative and something that was unhealthy or not good. And so the goal of Gnosticism was for people to excel and rise within spiritual awareness and spiritual identity and ultimately leave their physical realm apart. And so again, Jesus was seen as being just simply a spiritual entity rather than being both the Son of God incarnate.

And so, when it comes to counseling and soul care, there's often an overemphasis on the spiritual needs, at the expense of the physical needs that are necessary when it comes to actual comprehensive care. And so again, the church will often prioritize, again, what they'll call soul care or biblical counseling and people submitting, helping people submit to the Word of God. However you want to phrase it, but they will do it at the expense of the various psychological, physiological, emotional needs that a person has in order to have comprehensive flourishing. And so my role as a soul care provider, as someone who also believes that we best serve people when we remain in our lane and excel in the lane that we are in, my role is to help people process through, especially during the trauma dynamics, is helping people process through the complex dynamics of trauma in a way that is spiritually healthy. In a way that that is in some sense, a balm to the soul and allows them to heal spiritually.

But I also fully recognize the need for comprehensive care. And so the most ideal situation is for someone to be receiving mental health care, as well as spiritual health care so that they are getting comprehensive care for their own personal human flourishing. And so what I do in my realm, in my world, is again, I often partner with clinical therapists or licensed counselors, and we work together in a partnership to make sure that someone's getting comprehensive care. I will care for the spiritual dimensions of who they are and helping them process things as it relates to faith, and as it relates to spirituality, while, again, a clinical therapist will help them process things related to psychological flourishing. And as a trauma-informed soul care provider, my goal is to provide that care in a way that doesn't hinder, it does not hinder their psychological care, but rather aids it, and rather comes alongside it, for that, again, for that comprehensive flourishing.

Sy Hoekstra: Could you, just because I think some people have either maybe never heard the term, or have heard it but don't know what it means. Could you just explain, “trauma-informed,” what that means?

Kyle Howard: Yeah. It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. When I'm using the term, trauma-informed, what I mean is that, a person who has heavily invested in becoming aware of the dynamics of trauma. Let me take a step back, say, have become comprehensively aware of the various dynamics related to trauma and the needs that come with it. And not only that, but also navigating the dynamics of trauma in a way that is actually healthy and productive, rather than compounding that trauma.

So for example, I often… most of the counselees that I deal with now, are people who have been counseled by biblical counselors in the church. But the lack of being trauma-informed has led these counselors or pastors to engage with these people in ways that actually compounds the trauma or compounds the pain. Whether it's somebody who say is clinically depressed, who ends up coming away from counseling even more clinically depressed, because they were told by their pastor or a counselor that they just need to stop complaining and just need to repent for being depressed. You know, all the different things that could be said.

Someone who's trauma-informed, is going to understand the complexity of depression, or the complexity involved in dynamics of anxiety. And instead of relegating everything over to just being some just sin issues or spiritual issues, they're going to recognize that complexity and seek to navigate care in a way where they're not compounding the anxiety, compounding the depression, or compounding the trauma. And so again, being trauma-informed to me speaks to both being informed about the complex dynamics of trauma, as well as being informed of how best to navigate spaces where there is trauma present, in a way that actually leads to greater health and flourishing, rather than leading to greater pain.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. That's so helpful how you unpack that and explain that, Kyle. And it just reminds me, I shared on one of our previous episodes about a childhood trauma that I experienced. And I'm so grateful that after that happened, I had a Christian therapist who worked with me, and actually took me through EMDR. And at the time we called it tapping therapy, but Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. And I'm so grateful that she had the wisdom to both have it be informed, it was a process that was very much informed by our shared faith, but at the same time she was taking advantage of clinical approaches to PTSD in children. And just incorporating that, I think, was so important to my ability to process through what I had experienced as a child. So that's so fantastic, all that you bring to that.

And just switching gears a little bit to another aspect of your work that we definitely want to touch on in this podcast, you also do couples counseling and you have written before about your specific approach to counseling interracial marriages, that takes seriously the racial dimension of a marriage. And coincidentally, all three of us are in interracial marriages.

Kyle Howard: Yeah. Well, it's all four of us, because my wife is Vietnamese. So it's all four of us [laughs].

Sy Hoekstra: That's right. Yeah.

Suzie Lahoud: Perfect! Yeah. So could you just talk us through, explain your approach to talking with couples about their racial differences, and is there something in particular that interracial couples don't expect going into their marriages?

Kyle Howard: Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. All of these have actually been great questions, which is always my favorite kind of podcast interviews, when good questions are being asked. I’ve had awkward interviews [laughs]. But so, when it comes… so let me do this. Let me give you an illustration, and then I’ll build from that illustration, okay? So a while back I did counseling, I was kind of thrust into a counseling situation where someone who I knew, they were a friend, but it was more of a casual friend, kind of reached out to me to let me know that they were getting a divorce. They were an interracial couple and he reached out to me to let me know he was getting a divorce. And I reached back and said, “Hey, I know we don't know each other too well, but interracial marriage counseling is something that I specialize in. Do you guys want to talk? If there's any hope, I'm happy to walk alongside you guys.”

And now, they’d spent tons of money, they'd been to numerous therapists and counselors and biblical counselors and pastors, all trying to work through things, and none of it was helpful. I'm talking like seven years of counseling and therapy and none of it was helpful. All of it actually just made things worse. And by God's grace, I don't know why, but after all that they'd been through, they decided that they'd go ahead and try one more time. So they met with me and we began talking and trying to process through things. And within one hour, there was so much progress made, that it ultimately led to hope and them wanting to do, you know, meet more.

But this is what happened. So the spouse was from Central America, and the man was white. And in counseling, one of the things that kept coming up was that they would have communication problems. And whenever they would try to communicate, if one of them was offended and he tried to communicate, it would always just go further downhill. And so they would go to counseling, and at the end of the counseling, they always, the counselors always came to the same conclusion. The problem was that the spouse just wouldn't submit to her husband. That if she wasn't, if she didn't have this fiery personality, if she wasn't so… characteristically, she's very animated, very like, has that fiery energy and everything else. That that was the problem. And if she would curb that, basically, if she would whitewash her cultural expressions, then they wouldn't have these issues. And he was like, “Yo, I know I'm the problem. When it comes to… I know I'm the problem when it comes to communication, I just don't know why I'm the problem. So when I go to these counselors, and they keep telling me my wife's the problem, I know it’s off.”

But within counseling, what ended up coming out was a couple of things. One, was that because English was her second language, when he would say, make comments, like use euphemisms and use illustration and certain words, she took everything literally, while he was speaking in categories that were more figurative in speech. And so, because she was interpreting everything literally whenever he spoke, she would actually be insulted by things he said, not realizing that he was actually complimenting her or trying to affirm her and then vice versa was happening. And so, and then furthermore after that, it was more dynamics related to just again communication, where when she would get super animated, super energized, he would, because he was somewhat of a calm and collected and kind of more chill kind of dude, he would assume that she was being aggressive, that she was angry. And really, she’s like, “No, I'm not angry, I’m just being passionate.”

So long story short, several years of counseling this sister, had to deal with people saying that she's a problem, and that her cultural expressions are a problem. And that she needed to whitewash herself in order to make her marriage successful. And he was being told that whiteness is right, and that essentially that he should have married a white woman, and the reason why he's having all these problems in his marriage is because he didn't marry a woman who’s white. And so there was a colonizing of the actual marital relation that was happening in that, which within just an hour of time of someone who was culturally aware about the way in which different cultural communities communicate, was able to basically break through that and show, “Hey, this is some of the primary issues that you’re having.”

And so I say that as an illustration to say that one of the things that often happens within an interracial manager counseling, is that the people who are doing the counseling don't understand the nuances and the uniqueness of various cultural expressions, and they all have a box, and they try to put people into these boxes. And typically, because most white training centers, when it comes to clinical therapy, or churches, say white evangelical churches, they're all grounded on white principles and white ideologies or paradigms. And so the box that they try to fit everyone into is a white box, a cultural box. And so when it comes to interracial marriage counseling from my approach, it's a culturally aware approach of recognizing the various different cultural dynamics, the different cultural expressions and helping married couples come to appreciate and even champion those cultural differences, rather than seeing them as obstacles.

And I think one of the things that interracial marriage couples do is that they, when they go… they take on a colorblind approach to marriage, where it's kind of like, “We're going to leave our culture at the door, and we're going to become just, and then, and get married.” Well, what often happens, especially if you're talking about white and then something else, is that whiteness becomes the paradigm of the marriage, where the other culture has to leave their culture at the door and they have to acquiesce. So they have to conform to white cultural paradigms, and then that's just considered normal. And so instead of interracial marriage couples being able and willing to see the beauty and glory in all the different cultural expressions and diversity and all those kinds of things, and out of difference, find unity out of the differences, or even in the midst of difference, still see the beauty of those differences and find unity in the beauty of their diversity, they end up trying to suck out all the differences and then thinking that, “Okay, this means that there's racial harmony or ethnic harmony within our marriage.” When really all they did was just cleanse it of any kind of diversity or ethnic expression.

And so I think one of the biggest challenges that a lot of couples have, is they don't know how to faithfully embrace one another’s cultural expressions and those kinds of things, and maybe even be scared of them at times. And so they try to bypass them and say, basically “Our love is stronger than our ethnic diversity, and so we’re just going to cling to love.” And so it's kind of a romanticized thing, and I would say that within my soul care when it comes to interracial marriage, what I try to do is I help couples. If there's already damage that's been done, then it's a matter of restorative work of helping people kind of heal those diversity wounds, and then after that, helping them to look at each other's diversity, see that as something that's worthy of glory and beauty and something that should be championed, and basically become a transcultural marriage rather than simply an interracial marriage. There's a radical difference between an interracial marriage, which just means two different ethnicities who are married, versus a transcultural marriage, where you have two people from different cultures coming together as one, and in that unity, you see that cultural diversity, which I think glorifies God because it represents the church.

Suzie Lahoud: Wow, and if I could just ask a follow-up question. Where have you been able to find good resources for that? Or do you feel like you've kind of had to just…

Sy Hoekstra: …make your own resources?

[laughter]

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, exactly. Because I'll be honest with you, when my husband and I first got married, and this continues to this day, I feel like it's hard for me to find good books on marriage, that I don't feel like are just written from that perspective of like you said, the status quo being subtly like the white model paradigm.

Kyle Howard: Honestly, I've had to, I've had to more or less create my own resources, my own kind of curriculums, my own kind of work, because kind of as you said, there is a severe lack regarding these things. Even within the secular arena there's a severe lack. Because the secular arena takes on largely a colorblind approach to these things as well. And as a biblical theologian, my views on these things are deeply rooted in scripture. I mean, the apostle Paul talks about how marriage is supposed to reflect Christ and the church. And I think that a transcultural marriage does reflect that in a profound way, just like a healthy transcultural church would. And so I think that, so I root these things within my biblical theology. My biblical and historical theology.

And so but I also received my degrees from a white evangelical institution where none of these things are talked about. Not even trauma isn't even talked about. And so I've had to do a lot of work on my end, in regards to the study of history, the study of racial history, the study of sociology. Just all these different fields in order to kind of bring that all together in a way that kind of weds biblical and historical and systematic theology towards practical care and flourishing, and marital flourishing, and kind of bring all that together myself. I wish there was more resources, but that goes with all of my work. When it comes to spiritual trauma, when it comes to racial trauma especially, though there are more secular resources on that front. But by and large, especially as a biblical theologian, there's been a lot of building from the ground up [laughs].

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I read something of yours once Kyle, where you talked about counseling that you were doing, I think with a white man and a Black woman, where you sat down and you asked the white man point blank, who he thought was more feminine, Beyoncé or Taylor swift I think were your examples [laughs].

Kyle Howard: Yeah. There's an article that I wrote, “When the Church Colonizes Femininity.” Yeah [laughs].

Sy Hoekstra: I was like, “Wow, he's going in. This is no joke. This is a serious thing that he's doing.” So I appreciate the directness with which you're attacking those idols and those realities.

Actually, you just talked about what I wanted to ask you about next, which was, that you got your MDiv from a white seminary. And you've said that working as a Black man in a white seminary, you had to basically do enough studying where you could have earned two separate degrees. Why is that? What do you mean by that exactly?

Kyle Howard: Yeah. So within a white evangelical institution, we are… the goal, so like, so I have an MA in theology, historical theology was my concentration. But when it comes to a Masters of Divinity, an MA, a PhD within those spaces, the goal of that is ultimately to master white theology. White, western theology. There's no engagement with the Black church tradition. There's no engagement with the Korean church tradition or various Hispanic church traditions or Asian church traditions. You're mastering white, western theology, whether we’re talking about the reformers, whether we're talking about even the patristics for that matter. My field was North African patristics with again, North Africa, but even then most of those men are whitewashed despite being from Africa.

And so, there’s a whitewashing of theology and then a whitewashing in regards to theological formulations within those spaces. And so what ends up happening if you're a minority, a couple of things happen. One, if you fully commit to just that space, then when you get out of it, you’re inept to minister in any other space other than white spaces. And if you're going to minister in white spaces, there's going to be a required assimilation take place. And so what I have seen is, I have seen minority men and women, but mostly men, who go to seminary. They master the work there. They get their degrees. And they can't get, they don't get any ministry positions within white church spaces because they’re minorities, and they’re maybe even unassimilated minorities for the most part. And then they, but they try to go back into their own communities and they're not welcome there either because their theology has basically been baptized in whiteness. And so they're not trusted or accepted within those spaces, and they're not really trusted and respected within other spaces as well. And so they basically find themselves in the awkward situation of not being able to find a job or find employment without compromise.

And so for an unassimilated minority who does a degree at a white institution, if they want to be able to serve in spaces beyond white spaces, there is a necessity for them to compound their workload with work from other spaces. And so like for me, for example, if I wanted to be able to minister in any space, then I did not just have to master white theology, but I had to be able to master global theology. I needed to be able to study, I needed to study the church abroad. I needed to be able to study Latin theology, Black theology, Native American indigenous theologies just across that spectrum.

And so there's at minimum, twice as much work, maybe even more, that goes into studying and seeking to master other perspectives and other writings beyond what you're expected to do for your degree program, if you're going to actually have a robust theological framework beyond being basically assimilated into just simply white theology. And it's not just me. I've talked to a decent amount of minority seminarians who come out of white evangelical spaces, who find themselves in the same boat where it's like, “Yo, when I was done doing my reading and writing my papers for my class, I then had to open up books written by Black theologians or other theologians in order so that I could apply what I just learned from this white theology, I could filter that in to how would this apply to my own cultural context.”

If I could take a step back real quick, because there is a very interesting intersection here between what I just said about the seminary culture and ministry and interracial marriage culture. And it's a very tough line to walk that is easy to get in trouble if I fall off on either side, but I still want to address it [laughs]. But so like that article that I wrote, “When the Church Colonizes Femininity,” that you mentioned, it’s on my website. In that article, I talk about how there's a paradigm of what is a godly woman. And the paradigm basically looks like a white, southern antebellum woman that most minorities don't measure up to, and also even there are white women who don't measure up to that. This whole concept of this gentle, meek, soft-spoken, you know, all those kinds of things. There's plenty of white women out there that don't match that as well, who are more outgoing and all those kinds of things.

But what ends up happening in seminaries and in ministry, especially within white evangelical spaces, is that minority men are expected to marry or pursue and marry women that fit that mode. And when they do, and them pursuing that becomes a barometer to test their own godliness and their own faithfulness. So, not only are women being forced to conform, but men are forced to marry specific women who fit a certain kind of paradigm. One of the most difficult, one of the most challenging… difficult is maybe not the word. The most challenging or tragic even counseling dynamics that I have been to, been involved with, is helping interracial married couples. And now get this, let me see if I can say this in a clear way: the husband is a minority, Black or brown minority, and they pursued their white wife primarily because she fit the paradigm that they would need in order to be accepted into ministry in that space. And as they begin decolonizing their faith and deconstructing their own toxicity of their faith and everything else, even as a couple, they come to terms with the fact that though they love each other, that the foundations for their relationship was him trying to… was him pursuing her, because by having her, he would be seen as safe.

And you can see this often when you think about even white evangelical culture, there's a reason why most of the men who are, most of the Black men who have platforms within that space have white wives. They’re not typically Black men married to Black women or Black men married to other women of color. And so doing soul care and interracial marriage counseling in a situation of trying to heal the wound of a wife who has to process that, that her husband pursued her for those reasons, and he trying to pursue the fact that he pursued his wife for those kinds of reasons, and now they're married. And, you know, all the different complexity with that, I'm sure that that is extremely challenging.

And so as much as I say I'm all for interracial marriage, I'm the byproduct of interracial Black and white marriage. My grandfather and, paternal grandfather and grandmother got married before Loving, and so they traveled south of Kentucky. They would have both been lynched. And so I'm thankful for interracial marriage. What I'm not thankful for, is when interracial marriage is weaponized. When sisters in Christ, white sisters in Christ are used as a test to determine the safety of a Black man for ministry. Does that make sense? Are you guys tracking with me?

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.

Suzie Lahoud: Oh Yeah.

Kyle Howard: Is what I'm saying making sense, or do I sound like I'm tripping [laughs]?

Sy Hoekstra: No. I can totally see a situation where you have a woman who doesn't fit the paradigm of the gentle, meek, and mild white woman, that being seen as a problem. Like you, like the patriarchal understanding of how marriage is supposed to work, I can see the man being blamed for not having his wife under control if she's not like that. Right?

Kyle Howard: Yeah. 100 percent. Yeah. And so, and of course the people who are also impacted by this, are the minority women in the church who are sitting there like, “Yo, we're never going to get married as long as we're in this culture and in this space, because we are seen, either we are exoticized by white men, or by other minority men, pursuing us would actually be a mark against them if they desire ministry, because we don't fit that paradigm.”

It gets messy fast, but my main point of that, is that when it comes to interracial marriage counseling, especially within white evangelical spaces, even when it comes to counseling leaders and all those… it gets messy so fast because of how much racializations play a role, but everyone wants to deny that they're actually playing any kind of role whatsoever. And so instead of actually being able to engage in care and help and process these things so that we can actually have some form of ethnic harmony as we navigate all these different things, no one wants to talk about the things, and all it is doing is hurting people and causing greater devastation down the road when it comes to things like marriage counseling, and other things like that.

Jonathan Walton: So like I, my wife is Chinese and Korean, and one of the most… I felt insulted when she said this, but she goes, “Jonathan, like you…” Me and my brother, my brother is a theologian. We drive whiteness like a stick shift. Like we know how to shift in the South and code switch, and use all the tools to get people to do what we want them to do, because we've been like that since we were children. And he said, “Jonathan.” Priscilla said, “Jonathan, you need to stop trying to make me like you.” Right?

And I said to her, “You mean like I'm cultured in this western way, and I'm trying to westernize you. I'm trying to colonize you?” And she said, “Well, yeah.” And I was like… Yeah, well, we don't curse on this podcast. But I was like… And so then I started to unpack this reality of like, if I don't decolonize my own soul, I'm going to do that to my wife and children.

Kyle Howard: One hundred percent. Yeah.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And so something I'm wondering is, is there a place or places where you were like, “Okay, my marriage is colonized, I need to decolonize it.”?

Kyle Howard: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah that's… Yeah, absolutely [laughs]. I didn't mean to jump on that so quickly with the, “Oh my God, yes.”

[laughter]

But, so here's the thing, okay? This speaks to everything that we're talking. Especially counseling and soul care. In my opinion, and this is one of the reasons why spiritual trauma is so devastating, and I would argue that it's one of the most comprehensively devastating forms of trauma, is because it occurs within the most sacred of spaces. Spiritual trauma is the result of entrusting someone with your soul, opening the door to your soul for them, so that they can care for it, and them throwing a grenade in it, and blowing it up. And so you have… I’m by no means seeking to undermine or downplay the dynamics or the devastation of physical abuse and all these other kinds of things. As I mentioned before, physical abuse is spiritual abuse. It has spiritual impact.

But when it comes to the dynamics that happen like in a church or in a sacred setting or a sacred space, that's why the kind of abuse that happens when it comes to like say domestic abuse or parental abuse and all those kinds of things, is because there is a deeper intimate trust factor that's being betrayed in these kinds of things. So in counseling, one of the reasons why it's so devastating when counselors or pastors get it wrong, are not trauma-informed, are not culturally aware, is because they are betraying sacred space when they fail there. Because the counseling context is a very, very intimate space. The counseling room is a very, very intimate space. It's you and another person and maybe you and another person, and say an accountability partner, and you guys are meeting, and you're talking about things that are very, very deep to that individual. And again, they're opening their soul to you. And so you got to treat that like sacred space.

Marriage is another one of those things. It's one of the most intimate relationships, a marriage. And the kind of conversations, the kind of relational dynamics that happen in a marriage, all the trust guards are essentially brought down and that other person, that spouse has in many ways full access to every part of you. And so if that level of sacred trust is betrayed through a member of that relationship using that sacred trust, intentionally or unintentionally, to essentially conform their spouse into an image of themselves, that is a profound betrayal. If there is a cleansing of cultural identity in marriage and an attempt to refashion cultural identity after that spouse’s own likeness, whether it be say, whiteness, then that can be profoundly devastating.

And so I would say that I think that it is within sacred spaces where the most devastating expressions of colonization actually occur. Whether we’re talking about the sacredness of a church space, whether we're talking about the sacredness of a marital space, or something of that nature. And so I think that that's one of the reasons why these are conversations that have to happen, and why there's a need for soul care within these kind of conversations, because when they go bad, they go really, really bad. The kind of, the devastation that they can cause can be catastrophic in many ways. In many ways, almost beyond repair. Now, as a Christian theologian, I believe Jesus is risen from the dead, so there's always hope for restoration and reconciliation. But there can be some profound devastation when these things are not understood and a spouse uses the sacredness of marital trust, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to colonize their wife or vice versa. Again, a wife could do it to her husband as well.

Jonathan Walton: Lord have mercy Jesus! One of the things that we also talk about a lot, and we've pressed, we've leaned into this a little bit, about leaving colonized faith. And you made a point specifically to people who grew up in white church contexts, that leaving conservative white churches for white mainline churches can be a form of white supremacy. So could you unpack a little bit of that?

Kyle Howard: Yeah. Well, the reason for that is, what often happens is you do have… and this happens within the whole deconstructing your faith movement that's happening right now, which in some ways, mad respect. I do that as part of my work is helping people deconstruct and rebuild. But within that movement, there are white liberals, white progressives who have kind of co-opted it, and are using it as a form of, their own form of colonization. And I get this all the time. I can't tell you how many times that there's been white liberals who've reached out to me as friends, and been like super supportive, “We love the work you're doing, thank you so much, yada, yada, yada.”

And then the moment I say something they disagree with, but is within accord with the Black church tradition, I become an enemy and the language becomes verbally abusive. But again, what ends up happening, is you have white conservativism or white fundamentalism. And then you have white liberalism, which is basically the fruits of German liberalism which included higher criticism, questioning the authority of scripture and the efficacy or sufficiency of scripture and all those kinds of things. White German liberalism comes to the West, comes to America, and then you've got kind of a white, progressive Christianity, and then even white liberal Christianity. And then over here, you have the white fundamentalists and you have white people who will just bounce from one to the other.

So they, in some sense, if you say that conservativism, think about the spectrum here. White conservativism, or white fundamentalism is California. Alright? And then you have German Liberalism is Washington DC. Okay? They will fly over the Black church tradition, the Hispanic church tradition, indigenous church traditions, various Asian church traditions, all the way over to DC, and they won't even look at anything else. So they go from one to the other because their paradigm for effectiveness or for truth or for anything that is valid, has to be white.

They can't learn from Black or brown, from BIPOC. It has to, they can only submit themselves to whiteness and white ideologies, it's just a matter of whether or not they're going to be on the right side of that spectrum or the left side of the spectrum. And so they’re still staying within the realm of white supremacy, even though they're talking about decolonizing or deconstructing. The only difference is that they've gone from again, white fundamentalism to white liberalism. And so what I would say, and even experientially, is that I encountered just as much racism and attempts at theological colonization from white progressives and white liberals, as I did from white evangelicals and white fundamentalists.

I don't have an experiential difference between the two as it relates to me. And in conversations that I've had with other minorities, they would basically echo what I just said. To which my response would be, I think that white Christians who are seeking to deconstruct and maybe rebuild, they should be willing to humble themselves and actually seek to learn from various church cultures that aren't rooted in whiteness and be willing to learn from them and not have to be centered in the conversation or lead the conversation. Same thing is happening when it comes to ethnic reconciliation conversations.

Ethnic reconciliation movement in the church was doomed to fail the moment that white leaders who knew absolutely nothing about ethnic reconciliation decided that they must be the ones to lead the way. And so when all these churches, instead of bringing in people, instead of looking to the Black church tradition, studying the Black church tradition or other traditions, they said, “Hey, we're going to be an ethnic reconciliation movement, and we're going to write the books, and we're going to be the ones who do the conferences. And we're going to be the ones to lead the way in ethnic reconciliation and ethnic unity, despite the fact that we were the ones that were pro Jim Crowand our ancestors were those who were pro slavery.”

It made no sense, it required profound audacity, and the fruit of it now, is this whole critical race theory crisis in the midst of a rampant up-ticking in white nationalism. And so I think at the end of the day, which, if there was ever to be any kind of movement or any kind of change, it would require the white church to actually humbly submit to learning from other church traditions. But again, what you ultimately end up having is white people just bouncing from different whites expressions of faith.

Sy Hoekstra: I appreciate that. There was a tweet thread you wrote on that maybe like four or five years ago, which was the moment I hit the follow button on your account.

Kyle Howard: Oh, wow, you’re old school. You’re MVP yo! 

Sy Hoekstra: I only found it because Jonathan retweeted it.

Kyle Howard: Well, I’m thankful that I haven't lost you all yet. Thanks for not blocking me yet.

[laughter]

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for listening. You can follow Kyle on Twitter @KyleJamesHoward. You can also go to his website, Kylejhoward.com. And on that website, there is a link that says, Support, and I think you should all very much consider clicking it and helping Kyle out a little bit. The counseling that he does, he provides largely for free to his clients, and he relies on donations from people like you. So please do consider that. Again, it's Kylejhoward.com. Do not type WWW. It won't work if you do that. I tried it. Kylejhoward.com. Also, please consider going to KTFpress.com and becoming a monthly or annual subscriber. We really appreciate it if you would. Follow us @KTFPress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam, and we will see you next week.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Jonathan Walton: Welcome to Shake the Dust, a podcast of KTF Press.

Sy Hoekstra: Oh no, wait. Sorry, Jonathan, you don’t have to do the whole intro. You can just… [laughs]

Jonathan Walton: Oh, dang it. You're right. We just covered that. Kyle Har… oh my gosh, I'm going to mess up your name. Kyle Howard, thank you so much…

Kyle Howard: I can't deal with non-professionals. I got to go. No, I'm just kidding…

[laughter]

This week is part two of the hosts’ conversation reflecting on what we have been hearing from our guests. Today, we cover how and why to think about perspectives not represented at the tables where we find ourselves sitting, the overemphasis on certainty and control in colonized faith, why suffering is a greater theological problem in white churches, how power and security detract from faith in Jesus, and a lot more. 

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show, sign up for our free mailing list, and subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts: 

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.      

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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.  

Shake the Dust is produced and edited by Sy Hoekstra, and transcribed by Suzie Lahoud with help from Descript. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode. 

Transcript

Jonathan Walton: God's answer to Job is, “I am God and you are not.” And I think to myself, “Why isn't it the most comforting thing for God's response to our suffering to be, ‘I am God’?” The more money I have, the more stuff I know, and the more I learn, the less that answer is satisfactory for me. And I don't like that.

[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, a podcast of KTF press. My name is Sy Hoekstra. I am here with nobody. It's just me giving you a little intro. We have part two of our little reflection conversation that we've been doing today, another kind of mini episode. The three of us, the hosts, have been taking a little bit of time to pause and reflect on some of the just amazing things that we've been hearing from some of our guests. And just giving everyone some time to meditate, think about, reflect on, digest some of those things before we continue on with our show, and this is the second half of that conversation.

So before we get started, just a real quick reminder, if you like this show and you want to support it, ktfpress.com is the place to go. Set up a monthly or an annual subscription. We'd really appreciate it. Follow us @KTFPress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Subscribe and follow this podcast, wherever you're listening. Leave us a rating and review. All those things are really helpful. We really appreciate it.

When we paused this conversation, Suzie was in the middle of talking about two of the main points that she's been thinking a lot about since we started this show and now she's going to get into her second point. So I will drop you back into that conversation now. Thank you so much for listening. Here is Suzie.

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Suzie Lahoud: The second thing that's really stuck with me is our conversation, it's from our conversation with Chuck Armstrong. And Pastor Chuck, he's a phenomenal communicator and did such a beautiful job of modeling real vulnerability and authenticity in our conversation with him in a way that I just so deeply appreciated. And within that, he allowed us to really press him on some things. And honestly, what ended up sticking with me the most, it was actually a comment that Jonathan made in response to our conversation around his discussions with his family around politics and racial justice and those types of things. And Jonathan, you said, you know, “This question of, when we talk about, you know, ‘Why are you or aren't you talking to your family about these things?’ For me, that's a visceral question. That's a visceral response of ‘Why won't you fight for me?’”

And what it clarified for me was something that I had sort of suspected and kind of sensed prior to that conversation, but it really solidified, was that every conversation that I have, every table that I sit at, every time I'm in the room, I need to be cognizant of those who are not at the table with me, those who are not in the room with me. And I need to be able to hear their voices and see their pain. And I don't want to say, “speak on their behalf” because, you know, I don't believe in this idea of being a voice for the voiceless. People have voices, but people don't always have a seat at the table. People aren't always welcomed into certain spaces. And so every space that you enter, that's an opportunity and that's a privilege that you have.

And again, that's something I've carried with me into, you know, church discussions on committees that I've sat on or conversations with my family. Like Jonathan said, so much of this happens across the kitchen table. And it's just been so helpful for me to remember that fact, because I think that's the difference between trying to say things because you're just seeking to virtue signal or be politically correct, or, you know, I know there's a lot of talk around cancel culture. Maybe you're partaking in that in some way. And I think there's a difference between that and really genuinely trying to think, you know, “If this person were sitting here at the table with me, what would they say? Or what would they want to hear? What needs to be said?” And then it helps me speak from a genuine place of conviction that, you know, hopefully is not coming from a place of just judgment, but is really just trying to bring that voice out. Yeah. That's something- I think I said this in the episode and I'll say it again- it was a good word of accountability, I think, for people like me.

Sy Hoekstra: And it's a, yeah, it's a good point, I think, to remember that the point that Jonathan made is a very good one for some people who are asking the question of people, “Why aren't you defending me?” or whatever, but it's also for, basically, for white people, the question is one that, like the emotions of the person asking the question doesn't really matter. It's still a point of, you do actually need to do this because you have the access. And it's a strategic point about trying to change how our relationships with the other work, and hopefully changing some people's minds in the process.

Suzie Lahoud: Well, and I should say too, it's something that Sandra Maria Van Opstal touched on in our conversation with her in a very just strategic, practical way too.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So one, thanks for the affirmation. I appreciate that. To what Sy just said about it being incumbent upon white people to do that, the person that came up for me when I was saying that was actually a friend of mine who is non-binary. And I was thinking about, I did an interview with a contentious group of men.

Suzie Lahoud: That's quite a description!

Jonathan Walton: I'm trying to be kind. But they wanted me to say something that I refused to say, and finally, I just said straight up, I said, “I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the queer person that's going to find this video or find this podcast. And they need to know that God loves them. They need to know that. I'm not going to sit on your podcast and then stand on the side of the straight white males. I'm not going to do that. Because you're going to talk to me and you're never going to talk to them. You're never going to bring them on a podcast. The only, the only value that this queer person has in front of you is as a potential convert. That's it. Like you want them to quote unquote “change” so that then they can tell their story and you can be comfortable.” That is, that's what I said.

I think they just dropped it after that. But I said, “I'm not, I can't, I'm not gonna do that,” right, “so that you feel good about me and my theology, and so that you feel comfortable promoting my book because I condemned, you know, homosexuality on your podcast.” I think it's true that we can do violence with the words that we say. And I think it's true that we can bless people with the words that we say. And so to go back to Reverend Van Opstal, the reality is, we have to make more space at the table. And when we do that, I think we are more reflective of who Jesus really is and what he came to do.

Sy Hoekstra: Okay, so here are a couple of mine then. I think the first one for me is Irene Cho talking on our show about open-ended questions. Okay, so she had a whole spiel that you can go back and listen to if you want, but I will summarize here, about how you repeatedly see in the gospels people asking Jesus some close-ended question. They want a specific answer about a specific issue. And he completely refuses to answer their question. So instead of giving them an answer, he gives them an open-ended question in response. Meaning, he's not looking for a specific “yes” or “no” answer, a specific answer to a doctrinal question or whatever, which is a lot of times what they're getting at. And he asks them a question that is designed to make them think about their idols, their hearts, that, whatever. And again, actually, Jonathan, something you said at one point on the show is that Jesus asks us very specific questions. Like he doesn't call us, he didn't call people in the gospels to like, “Here's a bunch of doctrine I want you to assent to,” or even like, “I want you to sit here with me and pray the sinner's prayer.” Like he asks the rich man, “Will you sell everything you have to the poor?” you know. Or he asks people, you know, “Will you leave this business that you're in” or something like that, “and follow me instead?” So I think those ideas that both of you put forward got me thinking a lot about certainty and the role of certainty in a faith that seeks to consolidate power and make sure you understand who's in the in-group and the out-group.

And then, which took me to the book of Job. And Job, I think it's interesting to me that Job was one of the first books that a lot of scholars think was written. Like it was one of the first pieces of scripture actually written down and, you know, that the story is Job and his misguided friends just trying to figure out why all these terrible things are happening to Job over and over again. And it's just like endless wrestling until at the end, God says, “Where were you when I created the heavens and the earth?” and Job never gets an answer to why the bad things that happened to him happened to him. And then good things happen to him and the book ends. And that's it. And it's kind of like, it's, you know, all these attempts to control your prosperity, to control the circumstances around you, and to understand things clearly and to, in a lot of ways, play God in that way and not embrace, again, your own limitations, is something that Jesus, I think, in asking those open-ended questions, or in, you know, not letting people get away with just saying, “I checked all the boxes and followed all the rules. So what else do I need to do? I'm good now, right Jesus?” Like, that's what he says to the rich man, right? I think he's just gonna, it's just this wall that you're going to keep hitting. He's never going to let you be in full control of yourself, your circumstances. He's never going to let you have complete certainty over why everything happens. He's not going to let you make complete sense of your life.

And we just resist that so hard and in so many ways. And, I don't know, I just love how much, I don't know, how good Irene was at articulating that and how, not just how good she was at articulating it, but how joyful that makes her. Like she embraces the mystery so wholeheartedly. She embraces the lack of understanding and says like, “Oh, this is actually a way in which I can become more mature in my spirituality, more mature in my faith. I can get closer to God. I can embrace God more fully because I'm not trying to create that certainty for myself. And I don't have that idol of certainty.” And that's, it's just, that's something that is really, really hard for people who have been trained in their theology by people who have spent centuries doing some pretty horrific things to hold on to power and to hold onto the ability to define and hold on to the ability to control.

And now, because you've taken a couple of deep breaths while I've been talking, Jonathan, [Jonathan and Suzie laugh] I'm gonna let you say what it is that you have to say.

Jonathan Walton: Yo man! Listen, it boggles my mind, when I got to Columbia people asking questions like, “Why do we suffer?” Because that was never a question growing up for me. It just wasn't a question. And so as you were talking, I'm thinking about Job. Like God's answer to Job is, “I am God and you are not.” And I think to myself, “Why isn't it the most comforting thing for God's response to our suffering to be, ‘I am God’?” The more money I have, the more stuff I know, and the more I learn and all that stuff, the less that answer is satisfactory for me. And I don't like that.

Sy Hoekstra: The less God's answer is satisfactory for you?

Jonathan Walton: The less God's answer to Job is satisfactory for me.

Sy Hoekstra: Please elaborate.

Jonathan Walton: Okay. So, when I was 15 years-old, when I was 16 years-old, I got thrown off a motorcycle. And they said it looked like an angel put me back on the bike. It fish-tailed and like stopped in front of a concrete wall about 40 feet in front of me…

Sy Hoekstra: You leaped over an intersection, specifically.

Jonathan Walton: Yes. I leaped over an intersection.

Sy Hoekstra: By accident. Came off the bike in midair and then was, got back on the bike somehow.

Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes. There's a whole, there's a big thing. It changed my life, right.

Sy Hoekstra: And then, sorry, can I finish this story? Then you got off the bike, sat down, and wrote a poem. [Jonathan and Sy laugh]

Suzie Lahoud: That is the most Jonathan Walton story ever.

Sy Hoekstra: Yup.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, it is. No, that’s literally what happened. That is, that is exactly what happened.

Suzie Lahoud: Oh my gosh.

Sy Hoekstra: It’s a very good poem.

Jonathan Walton: It's, it's probably the best one [laughs] but yeah, so it changed my life. But in that poem, those words were satisfying for me when I was 16, or 15 and 16.

Sy Hoekstra: And what specifically, what was satisfying? Or like, what did you say? What was satisfying?

Jonathan Walton: So the poem basically says, I'm saved by his grace, right. So the end of the, now I'm going to have to like do the thing on this podcast or something...

Sy Hoekstra: You're going to have to do some lines of poetry for us, Jonathan.

Suzie Lahoud: Do it!

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, so it goes like,

“We're all people pebbles tossed into a pool

Every ripple I create, in turn a ripple you

So in unison we ripple in a type of ripple rhythm

But we need to ripple in a way that benefits our livin’”

And then it goes into like, so accidents happen, right. And we can trust God because he will take care of all these things. And it's actually just about his Kingdom. Like that's what it's about. And if I can trust him, I can trust his Kingdom. And whether I suffer or whether I don't suffer, that doesn't change God. It doesn't change him. But the more that I thought that I could exert control over the circumstances in this world… So, for example, that I could change that sex trafficking is happening in Northern Uganda, that I could change that child soldiers are being taken from their mothers and fathers and boarding schools. That I could change that. The more that I believed that I could do because of my education, because of money, because of connections; the more that God would be God over all these things became a less satisfying answer. And that to me is scary because then it makes sense when Jesus says, like, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man in the Kingdom of God.” Why would I want that? I have a spa and a hot tub and a really nice house and a person who cleans it for me and like all these different things. So why would I want heaven?

Sy Hoekstra: And I think I know, you're not saying that like somebody who's gone through a lot of suffering and is wondering why is just like a fool who doesn't understand, you know what I'm saying?

Jonathan Walton: No, no. That’s not what I’m saying.

Sy Hoekstra: And I know you're not saying that. But what you are saying is, and what I, well, what I'm saying is… [all laugh]

Jonathan Walton: Cuz I just said what I was trying to say [all laugh].

Sy Hoekstra: I'm trying to borrow your authority. That's what you're not saying. And I, but I think the thing that we are, that I'm trying to, that I would like to point out here, is that the question of, “Why do we suffer? Why do bad things happen?” is more relevant to a society where a lot fewer bad things happen.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah.

Sy Hoekstra: So if you grow up, and you're in power, and you have security, and sometimes, just because life is life, it gets taken away from you in various ways, big or small, that is extremely disorienting. But, if you grew up in the Black church in Virginia,

Jonathan Walton: Right.

Sy Hoekstra: “Why do we suffer?” is like less of an important question, right? I don't mean to speak to the Black church in Virginia, but...

Jonathan Walton: No, no. It's, it's true. I mean, the bigger question is usually “When is Jesus coming?” That's the big question.

Sy Hoekstra: Right. When is Jesus coming? When is Jesus, in whom we have faith, coming? How is he walking through this with us?

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. Cause you haven't lived with this illusion of security and control.

Sy Hoekstra: And plenty of people, who, you know, are in very difficult circumstances obviously still lament, obviously still question God. But it's just, it is in a different context. It is. And it's in a context of understanding better the ways in which God has been faithful and will continue to be faithful, but like, whatever you’re going through in the moment is really hard in that moment, or really hard for a very long period of time. It's just, yeah, it's coming from a very different place, that sort of lamentation and that sort of questioning.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. I loved, just to go off of that, I loved that Irene referenced that passage in Job, and I love that you brought that up again now, Sy. And I have to say, that was one, kind of the passage I sort of clung to at a certain point during my time in Lebanon, because I feel like this question kept coming up for me with the conflict in Syria, of you know, “How can God allow all of this?” and sitting with families and hearing their stories and not really knowing what to say and not wanting to fall into that cliché of, “Everything happens for a reason,” and “God works all things for good” and not feeling like that was the answer. And so that passage that you just talked about, where God shows up and says at the end, “Where were you when I formed the foundations of the earth?” and just resting in the mystery and magnitude of God, that was really the only place that I could land at that point.

Sy Hoekstra: There's similar themes, I think, in the piece that you wrote for our book too.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. Right. And because it was written around that same time. I wrote that piece when I was actually still in Lebanon.

Jonathan Walton: As we're talking, I don't know if this is relevant, you can cut it if it's not, but me and Nathan, me and my brother were sitting down with Diamond and my wife- so Diamond's Nathan's wife; Priscilla is my wife- and we were talking about expectations about life with God. They asked us, do we believe that things should work out, like they're going to work out? And me and Nathan said at the exact same time, “Well, no. Why would we believe that?” And I wonder, like fundamentally, when we examine what the Christian life is about and what the result of the Christian life is, and then what Jesus actually promises to people, and then how that promise gets framed downstream of colonization, downstream of capitalism, mixed with colonization, and then downstream of like Protestant ethic, which reigns in the United States,

Sy Hoekstra: The Protestant work ethic

Jonathan Walton: The Protestant work ethic, yes. I'm just like, what have I been given and how can I give it up so I can get back to what Jesus said he wanted to give in the first place? Because all of the stuff we're talking about- this whole decolonization, deconstruction, all that stuff- I feel like what I'm trying to do even throughout our conversation and dialogues is to parse through the nonsense so I can get to the King's table and sit and eat at Jesus's feet.

Sy Hoekstra: Okay. So, there's so much that we didn't talk about too, in all of these other episodes of these incredible guests that we have had. And I, you know, we will continue to do episodes like these every now and then. We also didn't, like, we've gotten some questions from you all, but we did not get to incorporate them this time. We will continue, like I said, to process things. We'll continue to incorporate things that people ask us into these episodes. So please do continue to send us questions and we haven't gotten any voice memos yet, but I would like to be able to play someone's question on a show. Maybe we don't. That's fine. People are shy. I understand. But you can send any of that stuff to [email protected].

Again, the most, and you know, important to us, the best way that you can support this show and the work that we do on our blog and the future book projects that we're working on is by going to ktfpress.com and signing up as a subscriber. If you can't do that, please do at least sign up for the free mailing list. Follow us on social media @KTFPress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Subscribe or follow the podcast on whatever, wherever you're listening. You know, rate and review us, do all of that stuff. It's actually helpful. I know you hear that all the time from us and probably from other podcasts, but it really does help, which is why everybody asks you to do it. So if you have a couple of minutes and you appreciate what we do, please do go and do those things.

Okay, like I said, we'll be doing more of these processing episodes in future. We're going to do probably a little bit more talking amongst the three of us in future. We'll still have plenty of great guests. We have some ones that I'm very excited about coming up and, yeah, that's all. We're going to end there.

Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam.

Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next week!

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Sy Hoekstra: And he completely refuses to answer their question. Excuse me. Hang on…

Jonathan Walton: Yup.

Sy Hoekstra: Had to burp. Excuse me. [Suzie and Jonathan laugh]

Suzie Lahoud: [laughing] Please may that be the blooper! Burp break.

We’re doing something a little different this week. The hosts are pausing to share some of the ways that the incredible things we have learned from our guests over the last few months have affected us, made us think, and changed our discipleship. This is a shorter episode, part one of a two-part conversation. It’s a rich, personal discussion about what changes in our churches, our theology, our sense of freedom, and our thinking about topics as varying as pregnancy and racism when we take seriously the perspective of women and disabled people.  

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show, sign up for our free mailing list, and subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts  

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.    

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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.  

Shake the Dust is produced and edited by Sy Hoekstra, and transcribed by Suzie Lahoud with help from Descript. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode.

Transcript 

Suzie Lahoud: You know, I had a conversation with Sy after we had that discussion with Dr. Hardwick and he was saying, “You know, pregnancy is actually considered, legally, it's considered a disability.” If I'm honest, prior to that podcast episode, Sy, if you had said that to me, some of my sort of feminist inclinations would have been like, “No, it's not,” because something in me had to change in the way that I view disability. That you saying that is not telling me that I am less than or…

Sy Hoekstra: No, I’m saying, “Welcome to the club.”

Suzie Lahoud: You know, I'm like, “Well, if I'm in the club with Sy and Dr. Hardwick, you know, I'm in good company.” I don't need to try to hide this and pretend that this isn't happening. I can embrace that and, yeah, be liberated in that.

[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, a podcast of KTF Press. My name is Sy Hoekstra, here with Jonathan Walton and Suzie Lahoud. And we, today, are going to do a little bit of processing. This is something we're going to do every now and then, periodically. We’re not sure exactly how often. Don't worry, we're not going to make you have listened to all of our podcasts in order to understand what we're talking about today, but we are going to kind of be going through some of the things that we've been learning and stopping to think about how all of the people that we've been interviewing, the things- the great things that they've been saying, kind of fit into our framework of leaving colonized faith for the Kingdom of God.

And this is something, you know, a lot of podcasts do this. They usually, they typically do it like a little bit further in, I think, than we are right now. But the reason we want to do this right now is because, you know, like we said in the intro episode, we don't want to be just kind of churning out content all the time for the sake of being churning out content every week. We want to be, you know, taking time to sort of chew on what we're learning and really sit with it and meditate with it and not just kind of move on to the next thing.

Just remember, if you like this show, the best way to support us is to go to ktfpress.com and subscribe and to be like a monthly or an annual subscriber. We would really appreciate it. It helps support this show in a lot of ways. It helps support our future book projects that we have planned. And it gets you a weekly newsletter. It gets you bonus episodes of this show. And it gets you writing from the three of us. And, if you haven't checked out the blog yet, we would really, really appreciate it if you did.

So just as a quick reminder, we're, you know, the kind of framework under which we're doing all of this stuff, like we always say, is “leaving colonized faith to the Kingdom of God.” And, you know, we talked in our intro episode about what we mean by that- the idea of faith, the idea of Christianity developed in, you know, colonial Europe and the United States over the past few hundred years that is designed to sort of both like maintain and uphold, you know, these idolatries of power and prosperity and security that kind of developed within that context to both accommodate them and uphold them, I should say. So that's kind of our framework.

And I want to open it up to both of you now and just ask, give me a thing or two, something that you have heard from one of our guests that you found particularly important or that impacted you in a particular way. And give me a sense of how you've been thinking about it, how it's been affecting your faith or your spirituality.

Jonathan Walton: So basically, the two biggest things, I think, that have stuck out to me- without going on at length about every single guest…

Sy Hoekstra: Because we could!

Jonathan Walton: Because we could. Two things that struck me: the first one was the conversation with Reverend Dr. Lamar Hardwick, who talked about the propensity for me to- I'll say me cause I don't want to speak for everybody- to make heaven my type of heaven, so heaven would be comfortable for me. And something that I think he introduced in the podcast was this idea that Jesus was still wounded when he visited Thomas, and this was Jesus resurrected, this was Jesus after the Father had raised him from the dead. And I thought to myself, “Okay, well, what would that mean for me?” And if I am accepted on that side of heaven, perhaps I need to work to accept the limitations that I have on this side of heaven. The humanity, my humanity, is not an evil thing. So what stood out to me is, the way that my body works, the way that my body is, the limitations that I have, the stuff that makes me me, could still be good on the other side of heaven. And so every limit I think is a limit, everything that I might judge or think that needs to be fixed, that God accepts me and I am good enough. That's something that I've been wrestling with ever since that conversation.

Sy Hoekstra: Can you give us like a little snapshot of how you've been wrestling with that personally?

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So I think two things: one, just the idea of people not being healed is something that I think I've- having, you know, lost my mom, and lost my father-in-law, and lost like aunts and other people who passed away- I think, like my aunt has a chronic illness because of a stroke, and thinking about her being in this condition and she is trying to bend herself to fit in a world that's not made for her, when Jesus seems to bend the Kingdom of God to work for people like her. And I just wish we could do that more. And to be honest, like I, you know, our church, ever since I read his book and, you know, he talked about when the pandemic hit, all of a sudden we had resources for everybody who's sick and shut in, right. And like, I literally said to our church plant- like, it's a new church- and I said, “Look,” you know, “there are people that this was better for. Like, can we do that?” And in a church plant it’s all play. Like if you bring up a problem, you need to bring up a solution. And I don't, I don't have the capacity to create a solution right now. I take care of two kids full-time and work full-time and take… and I'm like,

Sy Hoekstra: And do this.

Jonathan Walton: And do this. And I'm like, I advocated for something, and then couldn't follow through because of my own, just limitations. And I've cut out what I can cut out, or what I think I should cut out at this point. And I'm like, “Okay, I have to lament that our church doesn't have capacity to do that right now.” And so, yeah, that's a big place for me. And then, I think, I've had insecurities about my own body since I got made fun of as a teenager. And so trying to see my body as good. When I look in the mirror that I, that God is satisfied with me, yeah, has been a struggle. And I'm not saying that anything is, you know, objectively wrong with Reverend Dr. Hardwick at all. It's just, when he talked, it illuminated something different for me.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. You're not saying he's wrong, but you're working with the reality that a lot of society says he’s wrong.

Jonathan Walton: Yes, exactly.

Sy Hoekstra: And his perspective from that. Yeah. I, there's so much tied up in disability and body image that's a, there are a lot of, we didn't get into this in the episode, but there are a lot of stereotypes around like, not- I don't know if stereotypes is the right word- but a lot of people think about disabled people as kind of non-sexual beings and like not attractive beings, you know, just because you're, in a lot of ways, unable to fulfill the ideals of what either men or women should be. It's both, frankly. We talked with Kristin Du Mez about- remember I talked with her about how, like impossible it is for me to be the kind of man that a lot of society, a lot of the church, a lot of Christian leaders want me to be. And so that just leads to a lot of, just complications when it comes to romance, frankly.

Jonathan Walton: So the second thing that stands out to me is Professor Kristin Du Mez’s book and the conversation with her. The thing that I just keep rolling around in my brain is, “What the heck was I taking in as a college student?” Like the period of time that she was mentioning, I was 18 years-old. I had just left Virginia and was in New York. And like the first book that I got…

Sy Hoekstra: You mean like the mid- 2000s, kind of?

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. So I graduated in ’04. From ‘04 to ‘08 I was in college and like, yeah, the first book that I got from my best friend was John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life. I did not read that book, but I got it. I read like the first few pages of it and I was like, “This, this is not for me.” But I did read, like from cover to cover because of my Bible study, I read Wild at Heart. And I had questions, but I didn't question it. And I did not question its impact.

And I think I mentioned this before in another conversation, that I had a conversation with someone who is male, who was wrestling with what it would look like to follow Jesus around his sexuality. And he said, you know, his parents wanted a girl. And they dressed him up as a girl and they gave him a dress and they did all of these things and he was so angry.

And we were walking down the street and he said to me, “Jonathan, you know, you're the epitome of what it means to be a man. And I'm just not that.” And he had, we didn't know each other. Like we'd probably known each other for three or four months. And I said to him, I said, “You know, what you think of me as a man is shaped by the media in your country. Like I'm not what you're imagining.”

Sy Hoekstra: He wasn't from the US?

Jonathan Walton: He wasn’t. He was from Singapore. And I said, “You know,” I said, “just because I have on a durag and timbs,”at the time, “but I'm not what you've seen on television at all. Like, yes, there are things I know how to do because I am from a rural area. But none of these things make me a man.” But there was nothing that I could say that could tell him any differently, because we've just read this book in our Bible study that told him what manhood was.

And so those two conversations, I think. And all of them have to do with my physical body and how I'm perceived, both of those things, and how I relate to other people and relate to God in the most intimate way. Like, the body I inhabit every day. And so those, yeah, those things were really, really impactful and I'm still thinking about them.

Suzie Lahoud: That just makes me think, Jonathan, that’s such a great insight that both of the things that sort of ended up being most impactful to you are related to your body and how you relate to it. And that just makes me think how much our sense of our embodiment and our experience of that is wrapped up in this idea of decolonization of our faith. Because colonization is about commodification of the human body. And so, you know, being able to reclaim that idea that, you know, when God created us, he said, “It is good.” And moving away from that false dichotomy of body and soul, and soul is good and body is bad. And, you know, that crept in through philosophy and all of that, and getting back to a fuller picture of our humanity and being able to embrace that and reclaim that and be liberated physically and spiritually and emotionally.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So another thing Dr. Hardwick said, remember, was that part of our colonial economy here related to slave labor, right, was about the most valuable people having bodies that could produce the most, right. And when he- like not valuable in an abstract sense, like how much, but I mean, literally, how much money someone would pay to own that person, right. We broke it down to that level and yeah, it is, it's not, I think, a coincidence that we in this society way overvalue how much you can produce and, or like how healthy and good you look; how many utilitarian things you can do because you grew up on a farm, Jonathan. Stuff like that is overvalued.

I think sometimes there's like a lot of progressive-y sort of language about, you know, embodiment and like understanding your body and being more comfortable in your body and listening to what your body's telling you. And I think sometimes that can seem a little abstract for people, but like, this is the connection here, is like, we feel so much shame related to like the physical bodies that we sit here in. And so much of that is related to the idols of power and security and economic prosperity from our colonialist history. So I think it's, it does not surprise me that that's one of the things that stands out to both of you a lot.

And it doesn't, it's like something that when you, I think, when you start thinking about the world from the perspective of disabled people, or doing theology from like, by disabled people, it is often quite freeing. And I think it's just a good example that you two are kind of living out in real life of how thinking about the perspective of people on the margins, people who Jesus cares about most, is freeing, right. Like how he frees those people, frees everybody. And I'm not saying that I don't think it's not liberatory or whatever to me, I'm just saying that that was, the stuff that he was saying wasn't as new to me as it was to you.

Suzie Lahoud: Maybe it's not revelatory to you.

Sy Hoekstra: Revelatory. That's the word. Yeah.

Suzie Lahoud: Cause you've had to grapple with these things long before we did.

Sy Hoekstra: But I find reading and talking to people like him to be just incredibly refreshing. And like I said in the show, I think, often very healing because it's, you know, other people affirming the stuff that I kind of deal with on a regular basis and think about on a regular basis.

Suzie, how bout you?

Suzie Lahoud: I mean, to be honest, two kind of conversations or points have stuck out to me since we started this podcast. And actually, one of them was also from the conversation with Reverend Dr. Lamar Hardwick. I hope that's okay. This episode may just end up being about…

Sy Hoekstra: No shade at any of our other guests!

Suzie Lahoud: No! And that's the thing. We've had so many phenomenal conversations and I just feel so privileged, but I think part of it is just how these interactions end up intersecting with where we're at in our own lives. And for me, if you've been listening to this show, I shared a couple times about the fact that I'm pregnant. I'm expecting my second child. I hope that's not overshare to some people, but I think it's important to understand and to look at how these ideas are contextualized as women. How our theology is contextualized as women in our everyday experiences. And, you know, being pregnant and having a baby, that's such a powerful, spiritual experience. And it can be a really powerful time in terms of the way that you see and experience God. And part of that is because it kind of brings you to your breaking point in a lot of ways. It forces you to press up against your limitations as a human being. But also it's incredible that you're doing that as you're being a part of this process that you really have no control over of having new life brought into the world. And so it's really this kind of miraculous time where I almost feel like, it's almost like heaven opens up in a way to have this miracle happen.

And so all that to say, the day that we, and I'm going to get real personal here, and content warning for those of you who have had difficult experiences in your pregnancies, the day before we were supposed to record with Dr. Hardwick, I thought I was having a miscarriage. The night before. And so it ended up being this really traumatic 24 hours. And this was late in my pregnancy. I was about to start my second trimester. So it's just kind of one of those things that you, obviously no woman, no mother wants to go through that. No couple wants to go through that. And Sy and Jonathan were incredibly supportive and understanding. And, but I got some good news the next morning that actually everything, it looked like, as far as we knew, was going to be okay. It hadn't gone in the direction we thought it was going to go. And so I came back from the hospital and hopped on the podcast…

Sy Hoekstra: Literally.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, like right after walking through the door. And it was, just like Sy said, it was so healing for me. Because I realized what I had really been hitting up against was the fear of my humanity that he talks about, and just hitting up against my limitations as a physical being and things that are just completely outside of my control. Because, you know, in that moment, when you think you're losing a child, it's just, all you can do is release because there's nothing you can do.

And so I think I've still been kind of coming back to that daily, as I'm still, you know, more tired than I normally would be, and feel that, you know, dealing with some brain fog and lack of acuity, and feeling maybe not quite myself, but remembering that that's okay. And that God not only embraces me in that, but there can actually be celebration in that. There can be a blessing in that. And even, you know, I had a conversation with Sy after we had that experience with Dr. Hardwick, or that discussion with Dr. Hardwick, and he was saying, “You know, pregnancy is actually considered, legally, it's considered a disability.” And it was interesting because, if I'm honest, prior to that podcast episode, Sy, if you had said that to me, inwardly I think some of my sort of feminist inclinations would have been like, “No, it's not. Don't call it a disability.” Because something in me had to change in the way that I viewed disability. That you saying that is not telling me that I am less than. Or that I, you know, have something that I need to overcome to be worth as much, or to be able to, like you said, produce as much.

Sy Hoekstra: Right. No, I'm saying, “Welcome to the club. It's very nice in here. Come join us.”

Suzie Lahoud: Exactly. And that was so freeing. And yeah, I think part of that was I'd found that community. I'm, you know, I'm like, “Well, if I'm in the club with Sy and Dr. Hardwick, you know, I'm in good company.” I don't need to try to hide this and pretend that this isn't happening and pretend that I, you know… I function differently now. I can embrace that and yeah, be liberated in that. So that was really, really powerful for me and continues to be, like I said, something that I've been holding on to.

Sy Hoekstra: Okay. So Suzie, the really interesting point that I think that brings up- and this is again, very closely tied to colonialism- is patriarchy and racism and homophobia and ageism, like, whatever you want to think about, all of them are basically an accusation- not only, or not fundamentally- but involve an accusation that a whole class of people are disabled, right. So like, women are incapable of dealing with their emotions, right. Or are just fundamentally less rational. Like that's just, all that is saying is women are disabled. Black people are incapable of handling emotions, but in different ways, right. Become violent, are lazy. Like again, those are accusations of disability. Homosexuality was actually a diagnosable disability in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual [of Mental Disorders] for a couple of versions of it.

So I just think being able to say both that, like all those things are untrue about people. Like they’re not, it is not true that that entire class of people is disabled, but like the step further than that, like that, where you, I think you have to get to, if you're fully embracing the Kingdom of God would be to say, “But even if they were, that would not justify anything that we do to those people,” right.

It isn't true. Like I want to be accurate, obviously. But I also, the accusation that you are, that is, that's what it is, it's an accusation that you're less than, because you're disabled. That's what, that's what racism is, you know. Or it, in some ways, obviously racism is more than that. You know, misogyny is more than that. But that's what it includes. So I just wanted to put that out there because I think that's kind of, it's just another way of stating what I think you just said you realized through that conversation.

Suzie Lahoud: Wow. Yeah. And that’s such a profound point too, Sy, because it's, what you're pointing out is it's an accusation based on a lie. So you need to not only call out the accusation, you need to get to the root lie.

Sy Hoekstra: Yep.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, because again, also going back to our conversation with Professor Du Mez, which, I mean, I'll be honest. I could talk about that one all day long. I'm still processing that one. I mean, even this idea of, you know, telling men that certain behaviors or certain inclinations are inferior because they're too feminine. So that's, one, an accusation- that they're less of a man. But two, it's based on a lie that women are less than; that to bear any similarities to a female is an insult to your humanity.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, it’s playing off that fear.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. And so I think, yeah, that's such a profound point that, you know, as we try to excavate our faith from these untruths and from these idolatries, we need to not only be able to recognize the accusation, but we need to be able to get past that to the lie at the root of that accusation. What is it that makes that accusation sting? And is that based on biblical truth or not? Is that based on how God sees us and sees humanity, or not?

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in briefly, then fades out.] 

Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for joining us today, everybody, for part one of this two-part conversation that we have split up into these mini episodes, just to give people some time to reflect and chew on a little bit of the things that we've been learning. We appreciate you being with us.

Please remember, if you can, go and check out ktfpress.com and consider subscribing. We really appreciate it. Also, if you can't do that, take a look at the free mailing list. Sign up for that also at ktfpress.com. Follow us on social media @KTFPress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Subscribe or follow this podcast on whatever app you're using. Give us a rating and review. We really appreciate anything that you can do. All those things are actually quite helpful to us.

Our theme song, as always, is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Jacqueline Tam.

And we will see you all next week!

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]  

Jonathan Walton: Maya was playing that game in elementary school where you write, you know, a word and then you do, like hers was “laugh,” so it’s L-A-U-F, and then you move your fingers through the paper, and you pick a number. And it's eight. And inside the eight is a question, right. And Maya…

Sy Hoekstra: Hey Jonathan…

Jonathan Walton: Yes?

Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan, is it you or Maya who doesn't know how to spell the word “laugh”?

Jonathan Walton: Oh, what did I say? L-A-U… Did I say L-A-U-F? What did I say?

Sy Hoekstra: [laughing] Yeah, that’s what you said.

Jonathan Walton: [busts out laughing]

Suzie Lahoud: [in a faux British accent] LAUF.

Jonathan Walton: [in a faux British accent] LAUFTER. LAUFING.

Suzie Lahoud: Laufing. That’s a very Winnie the Pooh spelling.

[Content warning for discussions of physical and sexual abuse] This week, the team is talking about foster care, how child protective cases work, the racism and other problems in the system, misconceptions Christians have about that system, and how we can reimagine a better way of reducing harm to families by taking seriously the perspective of affected parents. Since Sy worked in family court as a public defender, he is effectively our guest today. He gives us some insight into a small but growing movement to transform the way we think about child and family safety, a perspective many Christians need but do not hear.  

Resources mentioned during the episode: 

* Sy’s article about the case of Ma’Khia Bryant 

* The Movement for Family Power

* The Parent Legislative Action Network

* Shattered Bonds by Dorothy Roberts 

* Repeal ASFA

Additional resources: 

* Mother Jones article – “Do We Need to Abolish Child Protective Services?”

* The Marshall Project and the Atlantic article – “When the Misdiagnosis is Child Abuse”

* The NBC News and Wondery Podcast Series – Do No Harm

Shake the Dust is a podcast of KTF Press. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Find transcripts of this show, sign up for our free mailing list, and subscribe to our blog at KTFPress.com. 

Hosts: 

Jonathan Walton – follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.     

Suzie Lahoud – follow her 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.  

Shake the Dust is produced and edited by Sy Hoekstra, and transcribed by Suzie Lahoud with help from Descript. 

Questions about anything you heard on the show? Write to [email protected] and we may answer your question on a future episode.

Transcript 

Sy Hoekstra: You know, you ask me why do I defend people who have done terrible things? So, you know, I've already talked about how most of the people involved in the system are not doing that, but there are those cases. And I did represent people who did those things. And it’s because Jesus does that, and that's what he did on the cross for everyone. For everyone, no matter how bad the thing was that they did, he stands up and defends you as someone who has dignity, and someone who is worth fighting for. That doesn't preclude there being consequences for something that somebody did wrong. But what it does mean is that the question, I think, from the perspective of someone who has been formed by scripture and formed by Jesus should not even enter your mind.

[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. I'm here with Suzie Lahoud and Sy Hoekstra.

Today, our guest is actually Sy. We're going to be having a conversation about the foster care system, how it interacts with systems of oppression and violence, and what Jesus has to say about it, and how we can enter into good work with him.

So Sy, can you tell us a little bit about the foster care system and how you got involved?

Sy Hoekstra: Oh, why thank you, Jonathan. Yes, I can. [Jonathan chuckles] So I was a public defender in the child welfare system for a couple of years. So what that means is, when a case is brought against a parent for neglect or abuse, there are a few different attorneys involved in any given court case. It's a little bit chaotic sometimes. But there's the attorney who is for the government. There's the attorney who represents the children; sometimes multiple attorneys for the children. And then there are the attorneys who are actually defending the parents. So you are, you know, a public defender kind of in the same way that, you know, you have public defenders in criminal court except, the big asterisk is that it's not a constitutional right and it's not provided in necessarily the same way that public defenders are provided in criminal court.

So, like in New York, you have these kind of newer, innovative organizations. The one that I worked for was called the Center for Family Representation. It was the first one in the country, actually, to be like an institutional provider of public defense and, meaning an organization where all the attorneys are there being assigned to whatever cases come in, sharing knowledge, sharing expertise. There are now four of them in New York City, and then there are like a few more around the country.

But the norm is that you just get assigned an attorney by somebody from a panel. So it's just someone who the court is paying by the hour. They typically have way too many cases. And a lot of places, they are not experts in family law. Like they also do all kinds of other family court and criminal court cases. And in general, they are not people who are there to kind of fight to change the system a lot. There are obviously some good ones who I've interacted with plenty of myself, but many of them, just frankly, are not very good attorneys.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah, so as you're painting that picture, I think theoretically, we have an image of what the foster care system might look like: children are in trouble. Foster care happens so that people are liberated from imminent threats of danger, right. But like, for the majority of us who will never interact with the foster care system, what does that actually look like?

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. So, I mean, that's a good point, right. I think the system is one that people just have a lot of faith in, right. That people just want to think that the government is keeping children safe. That's what CPS does. And we just don't need to think about it that much. The problem is, the reason that you don't have to think about it that much is because it doesn't interact with you if you have any amount of money or if you're white, right.

The vast majority, like it's hugely disproportionate, it’s not the majority, but it’s hugely disproportionately affecting people who are Black and indigenous and then overwhelmingly people who are poor. Like nobody of any means has any real interaction with the system. I mean, it occasionally happens when there are like instances of flagrant, massive child abuse in, you know, some rich person's home, but that is definitely not the norm.

So like I said, if you go to family court and you look at the cases that are coming in, they are overwhelmingly poor people. They're way disproportionately Black and indigenous people, and some other people of color as well, but the brunt of the disproportionality is on Black and indigenous families.

Also, the vast majority of cases are for neglect, not abuse. So, by the way, before we continue, I should probably put like a big old content warning on this episode, because we're going to be talking about, obviously, child abuse and domestic violence and other things will come up. So the vast majority of cases are not for serious physical or sexual abuse of children. They are for neglect. And neglect covers a whole, whole wide range of issues, most of which are just related to stressors of being poor. Which is why rich people don't get involved in the system, right. Because they literally just aren't facing the same things. They aren't facing the things that the state is going to interpret as neglect and accuse you of that.

So some examples, lots of people end up having cases because they don't have enough food in their houses, because they don't have stable housing, because their houses are dirty- they don't have time to clean them, literally. I mean, they, you know, it can't just be like there's some dust around, it has to be a little bit more intense than that. But those are some of the issues that people get cases for. Or you can get cases for things that are related to poverty, right. So you have mental health that the state says is putting your child at risk. You have some mental health condition that's putting the child at risk and you're not seeking treatment for it sufficiently. That's a cause of action for neglect. You can be a drug user, right. There are all kinds of things that are, may or may not be actually harming your child in any way, but the state will say they're putting your child at risk of harm and that in and of itself constitutes neglect.

Also, there's a lot of cultural misinterpretation that goes into these cases, right. And just kind of standards of middle-class, white child-rearing, right. So you heard a lot of those things, that there's not enough food; there's not enough, you know, there's not stable housing; that sort of thing. And then the answer- instead of being like, “We'll give the family money for food” or “Give the family stable housing,” right- the answer is often, “You just need a bunch of monitoring from the child welfare system.” And in a lot of cases, “You actually need to have your child taken away and put in a home that has food.” Which is way more expensive, by the way, than just buying a family food. So why I say that that's kind of a white, middle-class way of dealing with it is, you know, “We're going to put these children into environments that we're used to that make us comfortable” instead of allowing the families that are, that exist, to remain intact and provide them with the support that they need.

Then the other, like kind of big-header problems with the system is that it's way overtaxed and underfunded. Meaning every actor at every point in the system, including me, including the public defenders- all the lawyers, all the judges, all the caseworkers- are really, like really burdened with too much work. And so everybody kind of is like cynical or jaded or burns out or whatever. So, for example, when I was working, you know, I typically had 60 or 65 open cases at once as an attorney. You know, a lot of the caseworkers in New York City will be dealing with 10 to 15- or even more in some of the areas like the South Bronx that they really surveil really hard- at a given time, which is too many for them, for anyone to handle competently.

Suzie Lahoud: Wait, can I just, can I just pause you for a second, Sy, to emphasize that point. So not only does this system, not just penalize families who are living in poverty, but there are actual neighborhoods that are more closely surveilled by the system. So they're actively targeting these communities kind of almost just waiting for these things to happen.

Sy Hoekstra: Well, the reason… Yes, they are. But the reason is that they have made so many of the people who are involved in the lives of poor people mandatory reporters. Anybody who, anybody who works at a school, doctor, hospital, all those people are mandatory reporters, in anyone's life. But anyone who works in public housing, like everybody, everybody who is employed by the New York City Housing Authority is a mandatory reporter. I think that's right, at least the people who interact with families. I don't know about like random desk workers. Everybody at your school. You know, the cops are in your neighborhood at a higher rate, right. They are also obviously mandatory reporters. They work very closely with ACS, which is the child protective organization in New York City. So it just ends up being that so many people in your lives are reporters. Social workers, right. Social workers are all over the lives of poor people- all mandatory reporters.

Suzie Lahoud: So it's a higher percentage of folks who work in the public sector.

Sy Hoekstra: Who specifically work in the bureaucracies that deal with poor people, right. Like that's what it is. All the welfare agencies, right, like they're mandatory reporters. Like it's just, it's everywhere. So what that means is you get a higher number of cases. There are very, very few people watching the families on the Upper East Side, right. There are no cops in those schools. There are no, you know, all that kind of stuff.

So anyways, and by the way, the judges too have way too many cases. They're like constantly delaying things, constantly putting things off, you know. And again, a lot of people in the system are very well-intended. They want to help people. And they just can't because they have too much work to do. And you have too many, you have to be constantly triaging, like what cases you're giving attention to and why. And what that often means is, you're just dealing with emergencies all the time.

Suzie Lahoud: So Sy, just to get a little bit more into the nitty-gritty of how this system tends to flesh itself out in the lives of individuals, you shared from your side what it looks like as a public defender working in the system. Could you walk us through a little bit what an investigation and a case would look like and feel like from the perspective of a parent?

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Somebody files a report on you for some reason. You don't know who. You don't know what they said. There's a state central registry in New York. There's similar things all over the country, but somebody reports to the child abuse hotline or whatever your state has set up, that you have done something that they believe is neglect or abuse.

And then basically, as long as that report isn't kind of, prima facie, so ridiculous that no one would believe it, they go and investigate it. And that means that a CPS worker shows up and knocks on your door, and they're going to come in, and they're going to start asking you questions about everything. Like every, not just what they, whatever the report was, it doesn't matter. A school could have called in a report saying your kid has been absent from school too many days without an excuse. The CPS worker is going to walk in and start asking about whether or not you do drugs, or have domestic violence, or you have any mental health issues, or you hit your children. They are going to, this is true in New York City, they are going to strip search your child. If a school calls in a report for your kid not being in school, they will strip search your child to make sure that there are no bruises or marks. Whatever the report is. That's what happens every single time.

And this is true even if the report sometimes is completely absurd. Like I heard a story one time of a woman who was actually an attorney for children and a parent had gotten mad at her for taking a position opposite to the parent and the parent called ACS on her, like as a revenge call. And this caseworker just kept showing up at this woman's house, who had all these connections in ACS, she knows everybody to call, all that stuff. And this person just kept showing up and asking to strip search her kid. And she, like, I saw her at an event crying as she told everyone that she let the person do that because she just wanted to get it over with and get these people out of her life and stop harassing her.

Now there, when they ask you all those questions about all the different ways that you could potentially be harming your child, they do it by saying, “I'm here, I'm on your side. I'm your friend. We're here to help. We're just here to refer you, to provide services, so I'm just going to ask you some questions,” and then they start asking you about all these issues. And a lot of times what happens is, they then use anything you said as an admission against you in court. And they, you know, so then like a couple days later, a parent realizes that they've had a case filed against them and they get a petition and it's just all the stuff they said to the caseworker.

Suzie Lahoud: So are they, sorry, just to pause you again, are they read their Miranda rights before this conversation takes place?

Sy Hoekstra: No. And this is part of the thing is, you can shut the door on a CPS worker and never talk to them.

Suzie Lahoud: But do most folks know that?

Sy Hoekstra: No. And they're actually, in New York City right now, there is a bill that’s bouncing around City Council, trying to get like, basically Miranda rights, read to parents when caseworkers walk in. And ACS is actively resisting it saying that would lead to child endangerment- “We would not be able to do our jobs, and as a result, children would get hurt if parents knew their rights.” Like literally, that's what they're out there actually saying- “If the, you know, poor Black and brown people that we monitor knew their rights, we wouldn't be able to do our job.”

So once they file that case against you that has all those things that you said to them thinking that they were on your side or whatever, then a lot of parents come into court completely betrayed, right. The case gets filed saying, “Here's all the neglect provisions,” and either “We want to take the child away from the family temporarily,” or “We want to monitor the family, keep the children in the home, but monitor the family.” And then basically the parents at that point, most of them at least, feel completely betrayed. Like they have no, they have no faith in the system anymore, right. They have no trust in the people that they have to work with. And the people who went in and did the interview and filed the case against them, like that's the worker that they're going to have to continue working with. I mean, it is rare for a case to open and close within a year, because it takes so long for the case to be adjudicated or for ACS to get its act together and start putting in place the services that they want the parent to do.

So that's kind of the next step is the parents then, you know, ACS will decide, usually in a very cookie-cutter way, what the services are that they want the parents to engage in as a result of whatever the alleged neglect is. And the parent at that point, you know, nothing's been ordered by the court because no neglect has been proven, but the overwhelming incentive is to just do whatever services ACS wants you to do, even if you did not harm your child in any way, even if the allegations are untrue, right. Just because it will get you out of your case faster, it will get them out of your life faster. So it's just incredible, manipulative power that they wield.

You know, you proceed to a trial at some point where you, there's no jury, there's no reasonable doubt standard. It's just preponderance of the evidence, which means it's more likely than not, which basically means in almost any case, a judge can find some factors, something to say, “I interpret what I heard this way, and I make the finding…” You know, same as in criminal justice, a lot of the judges are former prosecutors, either of families or of children. A lot of them are, you know, prosecutors from the juvenile prosecution side of family court.

So, I mean, as you can imagine, the whole process is just overwhelming and bewildering to parents because they love their children. They want to take good care of their children. In some cases, they screwed up and did something wrong. In some cases, they did not at all. I mean, I'd say in the majority of my cases, they didn't actually do anything wrong, like really ethically wrong, to their children. They just have some struggles that they're dealing with. And the weird way that the system works is that they bring this adversarial case against you, and they try and get you to do services that way. Like they try and get you, they try and force you to do it in an adversarial process instead of in any sort of supportive way, or in a way that breeds, you know, kind of trust and confidence on behalf of the family.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah, well and it sounds like the way that parents potentially, and I realize it was unfair of me to ask you to describe how it feels to a parent. Obviously you haven't, you know, as a parent experienced this process, but that is still helpful to give a picture of what the process is like from the parents’ side. And it sounds like the atmosphere, psychologically, the way that a parent would experience it, doesn't feel like a situation where you're innocent until proven guilty. It sounds like the opposite. Like you come in and the assumption is that you've done something wrong and an action needs to be taken because of that.

Sy Hoekstra: No, right. Exactly. There's definitely, in theory, there's still a presumption of innocence or whatever, but in the meantime, your child is in foster care. So in addition to treating you as guilty from the start, basically, the system is also incredibly arbitrary, right. The legal standards are really vague for what constitutes neglect or for what constitutes, you know, sufficient circumstances for the government to be able to put your child in foster care.

And that kind of vagueness and that arbitrariness happens at every stage, right. So who's going to decide, who of those mandatory reporters is going to decide that they are required to report you. Some people will, some people won't, for the exact same behavior by the parents and the exact same thing that a kid said to them about what a parent did at home. You know, who's going to choose to file a case against you versus just closing your case. Who's going to choose to, like the, first of all, the social worker makes that decision and they bring it to the attorneys. Which attorneys are going to accept those cases. I mean, it was wild, when I was in Manhattan family court, there were just, you know, some attorneys that you knew were ones who were really filing happy, who loved to file cases, and some who really didn't, and would send workers away for stuff that was a waste of their time.

It can be very arbitrary in terms of the judges that you get, like who is going to be overseeing your case and what kinds of accusations they find to be most troubling. You know, literally, just some judges would think of some kinds of cases as more important than others. And you would have to counsel your clients based on that, should we go to trial or should we take the settlement or whatever, based on what you know about the judge and how much they, I don’t know, look down on parents that have allegedly committed “X” kind of neglect.

And so all of that arbitrariness invites in, as any sort of arbitrariness or vagueness in the law does, invites in all of people's personal prejudices, right. And so all of the anti-Blackness, all of the assumption of guilt that gets put on people who are involved in the system, all of that comes in just at every stage, and it produces these incredibly disproportionate numbers of families who are involved in the system who are not white. Like the four big defense agencies in New York City, 90% of their clients are not white. In New York City, right. And they're like, and they are taking, you know, the vast majority of the cases that come in. It's not going to touch you if you are a white person with any amount of money.

Jonathan Walton: So Sy, as I'm listening to you share, a lot of what is coming up for me is the similar narratives I've heard about the war on drugs, law and order policing. Can you share a little bit about those connections and where you see overlap?

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, so there is a ton of overlap between the law and order and the war on drugs history. So child welfare, in general, did not become anywhere near as punitive as it is today until Black people got involved in it; until it became something that oversaw Black people on a large scale. And that happened in the sixties because there was, along with the civil rights movement, there was a huge welfare rights movement where, especially a lot of Black women, organized to get Black people involved in welfare. Most aid for children was going to single white families, especially widows. Like that was kind of the archetype in the minds of the people creating the laws was, you know, white widows, poor women who had to deal with their children without their breadwinner around anymore.

And so when Black women very successfully organized in the sixties to say, “No, our families need to also be supported by the state. This can't be something discriminatory,” then, over the next couple of decades, is when you see the system become really punitive, when you see foster care expand enormously. So it's all, it is literally like, a parallel to mass incarceration is the expansion of foster care after the movement to end Jim Crow, right. So it is another kind of way of surveilling and controlling people and keeping them down that happens at that time. So the overwhelming pushback against reforms, kind of like in the mass incarceration situation, was also the crack epidemic, right. So it was all in the seventies and eighties. There were, I mean, in the early nineties, there were 46,000 children in foster care in New York City alone, right. Today it's like eight or nine. So that whole panic accompanied the expansion of foster care in the seventies and eighties.

The main difference is that the foster care system affects women, right. So, you know, the mass incarceration system overwhelmingly affects men. And so then, another way that those kinds of systems interact with each other is that the criminal justice system is also, you know, surveilling the same populations at the same time, and it's putting all of these things on people's records- arrests, or prosecutions, or convictions, or whatever- that then actually prevent people from being involved in the care of their family’s kids who are in foster care. So, meaning the system is not going to license you as a foster parent, or the ACS is not going to want to give you, if you are like the aunt or the uncle or the grandparents or whoever, the children if you have an arrest record, right. It's like kind of a lesser talked about collateral consequence of the over-criminalization of communities of color. So what that looks like is you will have like a whole network of people who want to take care of this child, but aren't allowed to by the state and they take them instead and put them with strangers. Which, by the way, is what happened to Ma’Khia Bryant. Like she had lots of family around, but she was in foster care anyways. And it was, part of it was because her grandmother couldn't get stable housing.

Suzie Lahoud: Which is also just bad policy because you're not addressing the root problem.

Sy Hoekstra: Not addressing root problems and causing massive trauma, right. Like removal from any family is traumatic. Like, period. It does not matter. Even if the family was actually abusive in some way- which again, most of the times they're not- then like, just being taken from your home, being taken from your stability, being taken from your family is wildly traumatic to kids. And in theory, judges are supposed to consider that when they take kids away. But in reality, if you can demonstrate to the satisfaction of a court that there is sort of imminent risk to a child's health or safety, they're going to be taken away. And just for people who don't know, Ma’Khia Bryant was the foster child in Ohio who was killed by police a couple of months ago, but I wrote about it for Red Letter Christians, and we'll link to that in the show notes, I guess.

Suzie Lahoud: So Sy, just to transition a little bit, obviously the tagline of our show is “leaving colonized faith for the Kingdom of God.” And so you've exposed a lot of racial prejudice, and prejudice against low-income families struggling with poverty, and ugliness in the child welfare system. So could you just talk us through generally, how have Christians tended to interact with the system, engage with the system? What's the general narrative in, particularly, you know, white evangelical churches?

Sy Hoekstra: I, you know what, it's interestingly actually not just white evangelical churches that do what I'm about to talk about. So a lot of, first of all, in a lot of places, the way that foster care works is, there are all these nonprofits that take government contracts to, you know, recruit and license foster parents, to put kids in homes, to monitor the homes, just to kind of administer the system on behalf of the government. And the government kind of oversees all that. A lot of those nonprofits are Christian organizations. So the interaction has been very unquestioning. And it's come from a very good place, right. It's this Christian desire to take care of children who need to be taken care of. Who could possibly argue with that, right?

But what they're actually participating in, as part of a broader system, is not, in general, something that those organizations are very intent on looking at or critiquing because they are part of the system. They're the ones actually administering this system of racial disparity and what ends up looking like oppression for a lot of families. And then there are a lot of Christians who are foster parents and, you know, again, incredibly laudable goals and the church lionizes, generally, foster parents for what they do. And I'm not saying that foster parents are bad people who do bad things, but I'm saying they're participating in a system that they, I think, need to be more educated about and need to be more educated about from, not the foster care agencies, not from the system itself, but from the actual parents who are involved in it. And, you know, a lot of foster parents, unfortunately, in my experience, and this is dealing with, you know, hundreds of foster parents, buy into the narrative of the system. That basically the parents are the enemies of the children, and they need to be reformed and kind of brought up to snuff, and that's sort of just how it goes.

And so they, as foster parents, are doing, you know, what sort of must be good work. And, a lot of times, because I take care of “X” amount of children, or I know someone who takes care of “X” amount of children and they do a great job, that means foster care is a great thing, I think is like a lot of how I've encountered talking to Christians about these issues.

When, you know, in reality, kids in foster care experience physical and sexual abuse at way higher rates than in the general population. Lots of foster parents are actually doing it for the money. And there are a lot of foster parents who say, “Well, I don't get that much money.” You're right. You don't. But there's a lot of people who, that's one of their sources of income and they treat the children terribly. Like I see this all the time. I've had kids taken out of foster homes because the parents were, you know, passed out drunk and the house caught on fire. I mean, you know, awful, awful things happen to kids in foster care. And a lot of times those things are a lot worse than anything that would have happened to them if they had stayed at home.

Suzie Lahoud: Or even been allowed to go to an extended family member, like you talked about earlier.

Sy Hoekstra: Right. Yes, exactly. And there's just this, you know, buying into that narrative that the parents are the danger, the families are the danger. And kind of, I don't know, weirdly ignoring the fact that a lot of times, teachers can be dangerous to kids. Camp counselors. You know, coaches. Family members who don't live in the home. Lots of people who are not in your home can be a danger to a child. And your parents can be the safe, loving place where you are protected and you are, you know, things are well.

But that's just not the narrative of the child welfare system for the families that they deal with, right. And the stories that the child welfare system tells, implicitly, are all about poor families, are all about BIPOC families, because that's who they're actually dealing with, right. They don't put it in those terms. Of course they don't. But those are the people that they're actually monitoring and surveilling. So that's who they're talking about.

Suzie Lahoud: Not only the stories, I've noticed in, from my limited interaction, I feel like a lot of the promotional content, if you look at it, a lot of times it's families of color, children of color, being placed in white homes. And that's kind of the, like that's the ideal picture that you want to paint.  

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. And so a lot of Christians, by the way, get into that system to adopt children, right. Like people come in and they say that they want to foster in order to adopt a child because that's, you know, adoption is obviously a great thing to do for a child who needs a family. But the fact is that a lot of kids who are in foster care have a family who loves them and who can actually take care of them. And you're participating in the system, and the purpose of the system of foster care is reunification of families. Like at least in theory, right. That's what the law says- that the system is supposed to be about reunifying parents and children after you kind of ameliorate whatever the problem is in the home. So saying you're going to foster to adopt is basically saying, “I'm walking in there to undermine the purpose of the system.” And there are some exceptions where you can participate in foster care programs where, you know, it's for children who legitimately have nowhere to go. But those are tiny, tiny minorities of the actual number of children in the foster care system.

And another kind of strange thing that a lot of Christians seem to think about foster care that I've noticed as I talk to parents about it, is that it has something to do with being pro-life. That like fostering children presents, or has some effect on, abortion, which is…

Suzie Lahoud: The two don't correlate.

Sy Hoekstra: They don't correlate. And I say this, the reason I’m saying this hesitantly is because there are some people who foster children because they are pro-life and they believe that they're helping. And those children were taken away from their families involuntarily. And there, you know, obviously, if you're someone who wants to adopt children, you have the option to voluntarily place your child in foster care. But, you know, most people would rather pick a private adoption agency so they can actually have full control over where their kid goes.

You know, when you're in, like the system itself, the foster care system is charged in every single state by the legislature with caring for kids who don’t have a family. So if you are someone who wants to put your child in foster care instead of having an abortion, you can do that, regardless of how many people are available to adopt the kid. You may be creating a home for a child, but you're not really having any effect at the point of the decision of whether or not to have an abortion. And I just bring that up because that's a specific way that Christians seem to think about foster care that does not really make a lot of sense, unfortunately.

Jonathan Walton: So Sy, keeping kind of this theme of it being, what you're talking about, the foster care system being interconnected with how we think about the poor, how we think about the unemployed, how we think about those caught up in the criminal justice system; one question that comes up is, how could you defend those people? What's your response when a question like that comes up?

Sy Hoekstra: So, yeah, I get this question a lot, especially when I was, you know, when I was still doing the job, is sort of, how can you do that? Like people who are neglecting or abusing children, like those are, basically, the worst people, right. So, you know, I've already talked about how, actually, most of the people involved in the system are not doing that, but there are those cases. You do actually get cases of severe physical and sexual abuse of children. And I did represent people who did those things; not just who were accused of doing those things, but who openly admitted in court that they did those things and where there was no real question. There was evidence about it and everything. I say that, because you can sometimes admit you did something in court for reasons other than you actually did that thing.

So I think there's a practical answer to why I did that, and then there's kind of a spiritual answer to why I did that. The practical answer is that just because somebody has done something wrong, doesn't mean they don't have- even something horribly wrong- doesn't mean that they don't have rights and dignity that need to be protected. Let's say you do admit to sexually abusing a child. You then, after that, they then have to decide what to do with you, right. What kind of programs you're going to go through. What kind of contact you're going to have with your children. What kind of opportunity, if any, you're going to have to reunite with your child at some time.

And there are rights involved in that. There are procedures involved in that. There are rules about evidence that are involved in that. There are all kinds of things that the government; and the attorney for the child; and, if I'm being perfectly honest, the judge are going to be perfectly happy to overlook once it has been proven that somebody did something really bad, right. The same way that it is- you see this all over the criminal justice system- everybody knows somebody’s been accused of murder, somebody's been convicted of murder, and then there are all these procedural or terrible errors or whatever that happened over the course of their case that come out later. Because, basically, once people had decided that they did it, they decided they were a bad person and they trampled all over their rights and they ended up in jail for way longer than they needed to be. Or they were falsely convicted of a crime or whatever. All those things happen and those people need, still need a defense.

And Christians, I think, should be some of the first people to do that because we are, in theory, supposed to be the least judgmental people. Like that's what we're called to be. We're called to be people, you know, like Bryan Stevenson says- Bryan Stevenson's a capital defense attorney. He was one of my professors at NYU in law school. And he's always saying, you know, “People are not the worst thing they’ve ever done.” And that is a biblical truth. People are not the worst thing they've ever done. They've been forgiven. And that's kind of the spiritual side of it, right. You know, you ask me, why do I defend these people who have done terrible things? And it’s because Jesus does that. It’s because the person who I claim that I'm following; that I claim that I'm worshiping; you know, whose disciple I say that I am; that's what he does. That's what he did on the cross for everyone. For everyone, no matter how bad the thing was that they did, he stands up and defends you as someone who has dignity and someone who is worth fighting for. You know, and that doesn't preclude there being consequences for something that somebody did wrong. But what it does mean, is that the question, I think, from the perspective of someone who has been formed by scripture and formed by Jesus, should not even enter your mind. Like, it should be something that we just understand is what we do as Christians, because it's what our King does.

Suzie Lahoud: I feel like too, Sy, it's important to add that, and I'll certainly let you speak to this from your experience, but also the, you know, the obvious sort of theological piece of solidarity with the oppressed. You mentioned a lot of the families that get dragged into these courts, a lot of the parents weren't even guilty of the things that they're accused of; or it was grossly exaggerated; or they were first themselves victims of systemic racism, systemic oppression, and injustice. I mean, I think the spiritual truths you spoke were so powerful and important, but I think also for our listeners to just have that perspective that also, there are parents who are having their kids taken away, who didn't necessarily even do anything.

Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. And I think actually to put some kind of practical flesh on the bones of that good point is that, you know, I talk in the Ma’Khia Bryant piece that I wrote about how the system sees the world in terms of perpetrator and victim. But like you said, a lot of people who are accused of being perpetrators were victims. And actually, the organization that I worked for, the Center for Family Representation, that organization was started by two attorneys who were, for a long time, attorneys for the children. And they just got sick of seeing their clients, the kids- who were seen as, you know, these angels in need of protection, when they were kids- grow up, get pregnant, have a child, and then become the defendant. And the whole system just flips on them, right. And then they're the bad guys, and their kids are the angels. And then their kids grow up, and then their kids are the bad guys, and, you know. And so you start to see like that aspect of it as an indicator of the fact that the actual purpose of the system is not really child protection. It's surveillance and control.

And so I think that's, I don't know, that's just one of the reasons that the things that you just said, Suzie, are practically important to people. They're not just principles, right. What the parents and the children involved in the system, more than anything else, need is for people to be involved in whatever system there is- and I'm not a big fan of the one that exists- but, to see them as full humans who are not just in a category of someone who is good or someone who is bad.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. Yeah. Cause it sounds like what you're describing and have been describing over the course of this conversation, Sy, is not only a severe lack of empathy for the parents, but almost an erasure of them as human beings. Just a complete dehumanization that they are monsters and they are completely effaced from the story.

Sy Hoekstra: The eraser of their individual identities actually even infiltrates the language that people use on a regular basis in the court. So like, all the time, you hear judges and caseworkers and attorneys, whoever, not even saying people's names. They just say like, “mom,” “dad,” “child.” They'll refer to someone, like a kid who was abused, as “target child.” Like they just, it's like the kids themselves, like the language in New York that you use that you're not even supposed to use, it's just the system. So it's not in the statute, it's just the way that the judges talk.

Suzie Lahoud: It's the culture that's developed around it.

Sy Hoekstra: Right. But like children are “remanded” to foster care. Like the same way that a criminal defendant is remanded to prison. And then children are “paroled” to their parents. Like they literally use, it's not even, it's literally not in the statutes. It's just that the, you know, when you're in family court, it's the same place that juvenile detention and, you know, juvenile delinquency cases happen. So you just use the language. The culture of criminalization is all around you all the time.

Suzie Lahoud: Gosh. Wow. And just to start to kind of wrap this conversation up, not that I want it to end, although I have to say, this has been a tough one. It's tough for me to listen to as a parent. It's tough for me to listen to as someone that previously part of my work with refugee populations was child protection and having an awareness of that. And I think this critique that you bring, this perspective you bring, is so important, Sy, and I'm so grateful for it. And so I want to give you an opportunity to share- just so people really understand what it is that you're really bringing to light here- first of all, what are you not saying? Because I want people to understand, you're not saying that you don't want children to be protected; that, you know, you don't want them to be in abusive situations or, sorry, you're not saying that you do want them to be in abusive situations. And I feel like that, hopefully people are hearing that part of the argument here is that this is not good for the kids either. These kids are being victimized and traumatized through this system. So if I could just give you the opportunity, Sy, to clarify again, what are you not saying here? And then, leading off of that, what should people do to engage in a more, not just productive way; how can we find shalom in this space that is so ugly and broken and violent?

Sy Hoekstra: I appreciate the question. It's always worth clarifying that I'm not saying that children who are abused, you know, don't need to be taken care of. We don't need to do anything about it. What I am saying is, we need to drastically reimagine how we do it. And Christians need to be involved in that reimagination because the current system is ridiculous and harmful and racist and oppressive.

What I'm arguing against is unnecessary destruction of families. Because that's what's happening, all over the place, all the time- unnecessary trauma, unnecessary pain. So I think, what I want Christians to do, I want Christians to be involved, but I want us to be living out our faith faithfully in the situation. So I want us to be educated on the system itself. A really good- if you want to like dive real deep- a really good book is called, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts. I just barely dipped my toe in the history of child welfare and how it's related to racism and mass incarceration and all of that. She goes into it in a lot of detail. Dorothy Roberts is fantastic. You can, there are organizations that you can follow, but the issue is, the movement to really radically change the system is pretty young, is pretty small, is pretty new. So you can go follow the Movement for Family Power. You absolutely should. You can go follow, if you're in New York City, there's the Parent Legislative Action Network. The Repeal ASFA Campaign- we didn't even get into the ways that federal policy under the Adoptions for Safe Families Act- I that's what it's called- anyways, ASFA is a huge problem in the system. You know, Repeal ASFA is a big deal. You can follow them on Twitter @RepealASFA.

But you're probably gonna have to do a little bit of research to find locally who is doing things about your city’s or your county's child welfare system, because it's all run on that level. It's all run at the county level or the city level, if you’re in New York. You know, if you're going to be in the system, if you're going to be foster parents, I want people who know what's happening. I want people who care about the ways that the system is hurting people, and who are actively trying to be people who are kind to and help parents. I don't know if knowing what I know about the system I could be a foster parent, but a lot of people are, and you can change your ways and you can be helpful and not buy into the nonsense that the system is going to tell you about who the parents are and what they deserve and don't deserve, and who the children in your care are and what they deserve and don't deserve.

Like I said, we'll link to that article I wrote about Ma’Khia Bryant. There are a lot of links in there that you can go read. I think I'll probably just put a couple of other links in the show notes, including some subjects that we didn't talk about because there are a whole lot of things that we didn't talk about. This has been a very big overview. The number and different kinds of injustices that go on in this system are just like infinite and people don't know about them, right. People have a sense about all the things that are happening in the criminal justice system that are, you know, like false convictions and bail and prosecutorial misconduct and racial disproportionality. We know about so many things in that system because there's been so much advocacy around it. But because this has been so young, people just need to learn.

I mentioned the Movement for Family Power. They have a monthly newsletter that has really interesting stuff in it. They're an explicitly abolitionist organization, by the way, which does not mean what a lot of people think it means. It doesn't mean just get rid of any system of caring for children that have been harmed, right. It means drastically reimagine and build systems that are fundamentally about the dignity of people and affirming lives and families and not surveilling and tearing them apart. It's really powerful stuff. They're a great organization. One of them is a former classmate of mine in law school.

I think it's, get educated about the system and get involved in the politics of it as a church, and not in a way that's solely coming from the perspective of foster parents. Like you have to understand how it affects all kinds of things. You know, churches run background checks on people who are gonna say, take care of their children. And sometimes you get a ding from the child welfare system when you do that, and understanding how you can actually look into the information that the system is providing you and understand it and know how often you get those dings and they mean literally nothing about the person. Like it's related to something that actually didn't happen, and even the child welfare system decided, like investigated, and found that nothing happened. That ding can still be in the system, right. So like, that system in itself is a whole nother issue that bars people from employment when literally they did nothing. It's horrible.

So anyways, there's just so much to learn about. There's so much to get involved with. But I think Christians can have the opportunity to genuinely be involved in the forefront of this organizing. And they are, by the way. Like there are individuals who are involved in organizations that are trying to fight, but I just think if we could learn to do things from the perspective of a parent, from, really Jesus's perspective, caring about everyone who is a victim of all kinds of harm. Not just the, you know, the children who are alleged to be the victims of harm, but actually all of the harm caused by the entire system. And we fought for change within it from that perspective, I think that would be something powerful.

Now, I'll be honest. I hesitate to tell people to go do that. I think, frankly, a lot of white Christians get involved in advocacy efforts and throw around a lot of money and throw around a lot of the prejudices and the ignorance that we have. And we can do a lot of damage that way. So that's why I'm saying go get educated and go, like genuinely submit yourself to the leadership of the people who have been affected by the system and the people who are already there doing the organizing.

Suzie Lahoud: Yeah. That's good stuff. Thanks so much again, Sy, for having this conversation and sharing from your experience and knowledge. Yeah, I hope that this is the beginning of a deeper journey for a lot of folks, including myself, of looking deeper into these things and seeking greater understanding and better ways to move forward.

Sy Hoekstra: Thanks to you too, for letting me do it genuinely, because I, this is obviously something that I'm very passionate about and something that I was kind of nervous to talk about because I want to do it justice. And I want to make sure that, you know, if people are willing to spend any amount of time listening to this subject that, you know, people hear things correctly. I'm happy, more than happy, by the way, to take questions. If you want to write to [email protected]. You can tweet at me @SyHoekstra. You can do whatever. I want to hear from people and engage with people on this subject in particular. So thanks, guys.

Jonathan Walton: Thank you so much for sharing candidly. For being honest and open and sincere, particularly as someone who advocated and desires to continue to advocate. And so something very much in process. We're just deeply grateful that you shared.

And so, as he's invited all of us to enter into that process with him, and so many who are now engaged in this burgeoning movement, please do feel free to follow Sy @SyHoekstra on Twitter. That’s S-Y-H-O-E-K-S-T-R-A. That’s @SyHoekstra on Twitter.

Sy Hoekstra: [chuckles] It’s worth spelling. It's a tough one.

Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Email us with your questions, comments, voice memos at [email protected].

Remember, if you liked this episode [Baby Everest in the background: “Yeah!” Jonathan laughs] and the work that we're doing, please do, Everest would love for you to subscribe to ktfpress.com; and to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram @KTFPress.

And, as always, our amazing theme music was done by Jon Guerra. The song is “Citizens.” And our wonderful podcast art is done by Jacqueline Tam.

Thank you so much, and we'll see you next week!

Sy Hoekstra: And I, we all hope that Everest will be there next week, too, in the background. Just making cute noises.

Jonathan Walton: Absolutely.

Sy Hoekstra: [chuckling] Bye, everybody!

Jonathan Walton: Bye!

[“Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades back in. Lyrics: “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.” Song fades out.]