Lecrae, Grammy award-winning rapper is used to people trying to box him in—as if they could box in a man who lives to tell the truth. In this episode of The Disrupters, Esau McCaulley and Lecrae discuss what it takes to break out of a predetermined box, the backlash the hip-hop artist faced for speaking out about the black experience in Evangelicalism, and his perspective on what it means to deconstruct his faith. Lecrae's latest album is Restoration.

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The world is different on the other side of a pandemic. The same kinds people who were ignored are now in the center of the conversation.

The question is: when people are ready to listen, what do you have to say?

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For African American Christians in the evangelical church, cognitive dissonance is a way of life. As African Americans approach cultural change, there’s a long-standing tension between working within mainstream institutions, seeking to provide insight and challenge whenever possible, and then finding their work most effective outside of those institutions.

That’s where Jemar Tisby finds himself: “I want to be very careful about where I place my voice.”

In this final episode of The Disruptors, a conversation between Esau McCaulley, an African-American professor at a majority white institution, and Jemar Tisby, founder and president of The Witness and author of The Color of Compromise, illuminates the dissonance. More importantly, this conversation clearly demonstrates how this tension serves as an ever-present reminder that the racial struggles we face in the American church flow from historical struggles.

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Despite the fact that the protection of those who are sexually exploited and abused in the church is of utmost importance, the issue continues to exist because of its very nature. Uncomfortable and unwilling to engage a topic that demands so much introspection of the church, many turn their gaze elsewhere.

Ruth Everhart, author of The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct, wants us to grapple with the reality on the ground and our role in confronting it. We all have a part to play to make the church a safer space for people.

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Immigration hasn’t always been as controversial as it is now. In the past, churches seemed to agree that any opportunity to bring the gospel to the foreigner would be welcomed. But in the last several years, Jenny Yang has found herself in the midst of a great transition.

So, how has Yang, the Senior Vice President of Advocacy & Policy at World Relief and author of Welcoming the Stranger, coped with the church’s moral whiplash? By focusing on reassessing assumptions. “I'm hopeful despite all of this,” says Yang, “because my sense is that this is perhaps a season that's giving us, as a church, time to reflect on what we really believe about the role of the church, not just in ministry but [also in] political engagement.”

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For 25 years, Sheila Wise Rowe has counseled trauma and abuse survivors. Many of Rowe’s counselees struggle under the weight of history. For those who suffer from racial trauma, history is not an abstract concept; it’s re-lived with every racial slight or microaggression.

We often choose to remember the good things in our past. We celebrate moments that make us happy, give us purpose, or lift our country up. It can be too easy for those in power to forget the darker moments, like when human beings were exploited for the sake of our country’s best interest. But not everyone has the ability to forget. For Sheila Wise Rowe and those she counsels that memory is in their bones.

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Within certain Christian communities, there’s tremendous pressure to fit within a box, to stay within your lane. Jasmine Holmes, a black Christian mother and author of Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope, has faced that pressure since she was young. 

But through it all, Jasmine fought to make her faith her own. She learned to embrace her identity without falling into pre-written narratives. And she discovered the deep, genuine joy and pain of motherhood in the face of personal upheaval.

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At one point, N.T. Wright found himself standing before a sea change. He was guesting on TV talk shows and publishing bestsellers. All in an effort to address what he saw as a disparity between beliefs about Scripture and what Scripture actually says. 

Wright has never thought of himself as disruptive, but he admits that others have. He's also happy to disturb the overly comfortable mindset that has come with “shallow readings, which haven’t always been accurate.” 

“If my work disturbs them,” Wright says, “then Hallelujah.” 

His willingness to disturb, however, is secondary to his determination to get Scripture right at all costs and to renew an interest in a book that has become stale to many. His scholarship on Paul, in particular, has both ruffled feathers and awakened a new spiritual passion in many. 

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Growing up, Carmen Joy Imes had no idea she’d one day be in an academic setting, lecturing on Old Testament to rooms full of men. Raised in an environment that was skeptical of women teachers, Imes deviated from expectations when she embraced her roles in both the home and classroom.

Carmen Imes’s mastery of the Old Testament more than justifies this incidental rebellion. Her love for the subject is evident, and her familiarity with it is undeniable. While her presence may make some uncomfortable, her unapologetic passion combined with her emphasis on the Old Testament’s place in Christian theology deeply influence her students and their scholarship.

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Was it nature or nurture that led Dominique DuBois Gilliard to write Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores? Probably both. From his years in the historical black church to his personal encounters with police, Gilliard seemed fated to sound the alarm about the issue of mass incarceration. However, he would soon learn that the best way to gain an audience was with steady, measured allusion to what is. 

Dominique DuBois Gilliard’s goal isn’t to force others to understand the depths of his trauma but rather to ensure no one else has to experience it. And for Gilliard, the only way that happens is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

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