The Greatest Single Cause of Atheism

Krispin talks to Derrick Scott III about "What If I Stumble?" by DC Talk, and discuss "the single greatest cause of atheism in the world today."

Derrick Scott III is the creative producer at Studio Wesley. You can follow him on twitter and his work with Studio Wesley on instagram.

In the episode, Krispin mentions a Studio Wesley podcast titled, Queer Roots and Black Spirituality.

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TRANSCRIPT

Krispin: I am so excited to be here this morning with Derek Scott the third. Um, we have been friends for a little while now. He is, uh, at the opposite end of the country. I just said good morning and realize that it's afternoon. There you are in, uh, Florida?

Derrick: I'm in Jacksonville. Yeah. Jacksonville, Florida.

Krispin: Yes. Just double checking because I am so bad at geography.

I'm like, I'm pretty sure Jacksonville is in Florida, but it could be in Georgia.

Derrick: That's okay. Krispin, because literally every time we've interfaced, I've always been like, you're in Portland -- with like four question marks on the back end. So you're good my friend. You're good.

Krispin: Yeah, we've been connected for a little while and so I'm so excited to have Derek on to talk a bit about DC talk. Derek is the creative producer for Studio Wesley,  which is a ministry that I just absolutely love.I was just listening this last week to the podcast series that y'all produced called ….Queer Spirituality?

Derrick: Queer Roots and Black Spirituality. Yeah.

Krispin: And that is like the sort of voices that you're highlighting. And so yeah, I just love what y'all are doing, uh, and really glad to have you here. As creative producer for Studio Wesley, what does your daily life look like?

Derrick: There is no typical day. Every day is different, and partly Studio Wesley, uh, started in a United Methodist campus ministry called Campus, the City Wesley Foundation. and in the last several months we're, uh, sort of living a more independent life apart from the on the ground campus ministry.

We're still connected, but really going in our own direction now. And so right now, the day-to-day is figuring out what that means, and what we would produce. And, um, you know, right now we're, you know, really focused on content. Production for college-aged young adults, wherever they are. Uh, content that is, uh, liber and inclusive.

But also wanting to ask the question, is it possible, and we're not there yet, but can we cultivate community? Can we help develop leaders? Can we, um, I'll use this term, uh, make disciples of Jesus Christ, uh, via an online platform. And so we're exploring all of that, but we're still in like super beginning stages of doing a lot of that.

Krispin: Yeah. I'm gonna ask about your, uh, background with DC talk in just a minute, but what's your general background?

Derrick: so I grew up in a family of church people. We were in church almost every day. Four days of a week was kind of an easier week, but most weeks it was five to six. We opened church, closed the church, Sunday school teacher's meeting, prayer meeting, business meetings. There’s also an adult basic education class that my great-grandmother ran, uh, twice a week.

So it was just all this stuff that we did in our lives kind of centered around the church. It was a Black Baptist congregation. And that was the context that I grew up in and I loved it. It was everything for me -- it shaped me. And so no one in my family is shocked that, you know, few decades later, I'm still that guy. Everything I do is kind of centered around the church. It's a much more institutional, um, and, and, Yeah, have many layers now of what church is for me. But I, I grew up in this Black Baptist congregation with my family and then, uh, because of some relationships that I made in high school, uh, ended up joining a United Methodist congregation here in Jacksonville.

It was a church plant trying to do things differently. And this is, you know, the 90’s into the early 2000’s. A very attractional model, I'll use that term. But there were some things that kept us from really like being a megachurch. That's where like my adult years really were, spent my first years in campus ministry. So I've been in some kind of ministry related to college-aged young adults for 21 years now. Um, and nine of those years was spent at this local church. So that's its own story.

Krispin: So that kind of gives like a, a bit of a background,and I wonder if there's anything like, be like thinking about the past 10 years, so you were at that congregation. What's your faith journey been like this the

Derrick: Yeah. So, um, yeah, by, by the time I'm, uh, becoming an adult, I'm having a ton of questions about what it means to be a Christian, and I'm not quite convinced that there's this one way to be a Christian. I don't know what to do with that thought. I don't know how to articulate it any other way. And so I'm, I'm exploring Pentecostalism and I'm exploring Calvinism, and eventually I'm gonna dabble a little bit into Catholicism and, and, and then I'm gonna actually be exposed to a, the United Methodist tradition and I'm just trying to figure out what to do with all of these streams that seem to work for certain people but don't work for other people. And also trying to figure out what to do with mine. At the time, I'm a closeted gay man. I'm a black man in a predominantly white church that for the most part, are really good to me and I want to name that, that the people at this congregation were quite good to me.

But I do know that if I would bring up something related to race it, it never ended well. it. Either I had to concede something or, uh, could you say I conceded . Cause I just didn't have the energy and the language to really speak into that kind of conversation in that space. Um, there's politics that get wrapped up in there.

And this thing in me that says that these people I'm going to church with, that I'm doing life with, they seem to be really successful. They seem to have lots of opportunity and there seem to be legacy of, of that too, right? Like that they've got grandparents and great grandparents and, while I've got like a really strong family legacy of really hardworking individuals who've, who have accomplishments, it just doesn't look like.

These white people have experienced and what their story is, and so I began to think something must be wrong with me, us. And so I began to really lean into and embrace, um, what we would call a white evangelicalism. In the midst of having lots of struggles with that, but just trying to silence all of that.

And that really is where I was, uh, for most of my twenties. As I was transitioning into my thirties, things begin to really shift, uh, a great deal.

Krispin: Yeah. And so you were talking about embracing white evangelicalism. Was that when you made an acquaintance with DC Talk?

Derrick: DC talk was not a thing in the world that I grew up in. I remember the first time I saw anything by DC talk. It was in a youth choir at this church that I was a part of this, this United Methodist congregation. And I was a vocal major in high school, which is how I got to this church.

And so I'm in youth choir. I'm looking at this sheet music and I'm, you know, listening to the actual DC talk song. I don't remember the DC talk song we were actually listening to. I listen to the actual song and the way that it's been notated in the sheet music, and I'm like, these two things are not the same.

Like this, this sheet music is very tame in comparison to what DC talk was, and that, that was my first experience. And then, you know, at some point, I think I said to somebody, “oh yeah, I don't know anything about DC talk.” And just the shock of, uh, “it's like there's a black guy in DC talk, Why don't you know about DC talk?”

“All black people in the US don't know each other.” That's a joke. They knew that. They knew that. Not all black people, they knew that. But, um, I was given, uh, the Supernatural CD when I graduated from college. And I know we're, I know this series is more on Jesus Freak, but Supernatural is really what opened up the world of DC Talk to me. I played that CD in my dorm room my first year of undergrad, which was horrible. I mean, just Derek's wosrst life, that first year of undergrad on every level you can imagine. But I played that Supernatural CD. In some respects it did kind of carry me through that season of undergrad, but I can tell you like, I don't know where that CD is now.

As things would progress, I would lose whatever happened to me and whatever comfort it gave me that first year of undergrad that was. It could not fight all of the stuff that I was wrestling with and finding myself, finding my place in the church and figuring out what I believed in comparison, or alongside what other folks believed. So that, that for me was kind of the entrance into DC talk. And then obviously it comes up along the way as a cultural and culturally Christian phenomenon going forward. But that was my kind of my introduction. We would do these special worship nights where we would do, you know, less worshipy songs, less Hillsong, uh, kind of tunes and, and use these songs like everybody might really jam to.

And DC talk usually was on the list, some DC talk songs. So yes, we ended up doing Jesus Freak and In the Light, what we used to for the Halloween season - of course we wouldn't do a Halloween party, so in the college ministry that I led, we had thia tradition. We would do a black light party, um, where the band wouldn't do worship.We'd do these really cool songs and this, one of the songs we always sang was In the Light because of the Black Light Party. Like, so they, I have these connections and stuff, but they always like get inserted in part because me as a worship leader and that's where I was at time as far and also as a ministry leader, it just wasn't in me to just bring them to the table, like naturally. Somebody else always had to be like, “we need to sing this song.” Colored People came up once and I think I, I end up being out of town and so I couldn't sing it at church and I wasn't upset about it. But I mean, these, these songs did definitely come up. And so I have these interactions, but they're not like deeply tied to my journey. And so it's, but it's, so, therefore it's interesting cuz they always came up in these, in these spaces.

Krispin: Right. Well, I love that cuz it's, you've been in white evangelicalism, so you can, like, you have a little bit of distance from these songs, but we can talk about what, what the heck do we think was going on?

Derrick: Yeah. Yeah.

Krispin: Right. And so today we're gonna talk about, uh, What If I Stumble. . And I think a lot of folks, um, think about that as a song about grace. Like, you know, “what if I sin, what if I stumble?” But if you actually dig into the lyrics, it's a lot about like my witness to the world, right? And it starts off with that quote from Brennan Manning. If y'all didn't know, that's the person that says that at the beginning. “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. This is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” So there's this idea of. We're saying one thing and we're doing another, and that's what the world finds unbelievable. I wonder, what do you think the unbelieving world finds unbelievable. Do you think that's true or…?

Derrick: All due respect to Brennan, I wanna know what his definition of atheist. I want to know what his definition of the world is - the unbelieving world, because my experience of evangelicalism is simplistic and innocent, and it's a, it's a way of seeing the world that doesn't do well with complexity.

I wanna know what they mean by that. There isn't this like one type of, there isn't this one type of agnostic. There's this one type of spiritual, not religious, and that gets really hard for the worldview of evangelicalism. So I like right off the top, and I listened to this song a bunch of times and it was every time I was like, Bro, are you sure they're even paying attention to us?

Like, like, I don't know if they know who we are. Like they don't care. like, and so like the first thing for me in this question about the unbelieving world is this assumption that we know who they are and they know who we are. That we've, and we usually, we Christians, we American Christians usually walk into the room.

Assuming we know everything about all the people in the room, that we know what their pains are, what their needs are, and what is the thing God wants to say to them. And I'm like, “No. No, we don't.” So totally takes us off for interviewing, but it, that's where I start. Like, I don't know if we actually know who we're talking.

But then as I was listening to the song, you know, I did get this sense of like one of the DC talk guys like on stage doing their thing. And I might've actually been in the video and I might've seen the video like ages ago and just don't remember. So if I'm taking something from the video all credit and, you know, due respect.

But I got this sense of like, one of the easy talk guys on stage, like wrestling with some stuff that, you know, probably looked at some website before the concert or he and his girlfriend had a moment before they left for tour, and she called and said, “call me” right before the concert, And is like, “You know, it's been a, it's been a few weeks, you know, like, you know…” And so he is like, has all this inside of him and it's looking out at this audience of youth because you took the youth group to the DC talk concert. Right. And he's like, do they see it in, like, do you, do they see that I'm not actually a perfect, perfect Christian?

Yes. That's usually what the, what the first sort of line of things were, right? Like the first conversation about holiness. And you know, just going back again to these ideas, that Brennan Mannon quote, and what the unbelieving world finds unbelievable. This thought that it's because, and again, you know what Brennan says, like we profess Jesus with our mouths, but our lives say something different.

I agree with him, but I just don't think it's what, (maybe Brennan thought this too, but I don't think it's what we're all taking from it), like my experience. Okay, so back up. I spend a ton of time in the craft beer scene here in Jacksonville because I've been working at a craft brewery for nine years, um, pouring beer part-time.

And so I spend a lot of time, some of my closest people are people that I sit down and drink craft beer with, and so the things that my friends find unbelievable about Christ. is that we talk about a God of love and been, are really good at not loving people. like we've just mastered this ability to be really harmful to people by and large. And that's not just the evangelical piece of it, from Catholic priests abusing young, young children to the coverup of those, you know, malicious crimes to the way that the main line has just been this white, good old boy organization that has propped up a certain type, certain types of governments over the years, like across the board.

We the church has been harmful. And so my non-Christian friends, my non-believing friends, my friends who are outside of the church, whatever word we wanna put there, the thing they find unbelievable is that we talk about a God of love and we're so bad at loving people. That's the part they find unbelievable.

But I don't know if particularly the evangelical perspective can fully take that in because then it requires the evangelical world to question its own innocence, and it requires the evangelical world to recognize that they're, the world might be more complex than they're willing to acknowledge.

Krispin: and I think that when this came out in 95, you know, they talked about, you know, “will I make fools of us all?”… Christians had been made fools by these televangelists that had like fallen, right? So these were like nationally known Christian leaders that said one thing and did another. But I, I think when you're talking about Christians being good at harming people, it's not like, oh, I meant to do this and I did this instead.

It's like, no, actually, the thing that I intended to do that I say that my theology allows me to do is the thing that is harmful. It's not like a double mindedness. It is like, or a deceptiveness. It's like, no, actually, This is what I think is right, and this is what I'm gonna do, [00:19:00] and it ends at harming people.

Derrick: And it's that inability to recognize that there is a lot of distance between intent and impact and that we are still responsible for impact, even if the intent was very different. Um, I think that's some of why. You know, you, we saw these televangelist fall in the nineties and instead of thinking about the difference between intent and impact, we just said I'll just go in and do that. “My intent's gonna be better. My intent's gonna be more integrous. My intent's gonna be more supported, more, more grounded in scripture, more focused on the gospel.” Like, it's always sort of like, there's nothing wrong with our intent. We are innocent. It's not us. And I guess have a lot of thoughts, more thoughts on this that I really realized I did, but I still get hung up. Just how hard it is. When I think about the SBC scandal and just how long it took their denomination to just own up. There were pastors in their ranks that were committing sin, and how quickly it's always, they're, they're able to sort of point it out outside of their ranks, like, but when it's like, “no, it couldn't be, it couldn't be. It could not be us. It couldn't be.” But it was. But again, I think that it requires them…I don't think this is where you start talking about like holiness. Like holiness for a lot of people is I think, a hard concept to wrestle with because they would have to wrestle with their own humanity. The ways in which, not only the ways at which we live life as if God did not exist, act as if God had nothing to say.

But even the ways that our lives just don't line up with the narrative that we've been given.

Krispin: There is this tension in the song like, “will I be holy in order to show others Jesus or will I compromise?” Right? Um, and it's this very, uh, like purity focused like pie. This was sort of what I grew up hearing in church, if you don't cheat on your wife, if you're honest, if you're a hard worker, if you keep your lawn looking nice, then people will be like, oh, like God must be real because this is a Christian.

And, um, I think that really is so different than the conversations that I'm, that I continually run into now. How Christians are treating immigrants or how Christians are treating queer people or whate like these things where actually it's like

Derrick: Mm-hmm.

Krispin: it has nothing to do with your personal piety and it's actually your theology that is rotten.

Derrick: I, I, I think that there's something about the theology, obviously, and there's something about this assumption that [00:22:00] everybody needs the same things. That there is this one narrative that everybody, so everybody needs to live in a house with a mom and a dad. Some kids a nice manicured lawn. We go to church on Sundays and we go to soccer during, you know, and, and like, But a can't be everybody's life.

Like it can't be everybody's life. And this inability to just acknowledge that maybe God's best for me as a Black gay man. is to live as a Black gay man, a proud Black man who's out and figure out what it means to live in this world as a queer person, maybe that is God's best for me, but. That, that's harder, right?

Like that's more than one script. It's more than one image. And this is where Yeah, like the, the, the script of white evangelicalism just embeds itself in, in their evangelicalism, in their mission and in their, what they're hoping to witness, they're witnessing to a very specific picture.

Krispin: Um, so I wonder for you, when I think about this, this idea of  - you know, Brennan Manning's quote is kind of getting at this idea of like, we are this light, we're this representation of Jesus. And um, if people could really see that without us messing it up, then people would be drawn to belief. And I wonder, looking at Gen Z - what are they seeing in the church and is it drawing them or not? And why or why not?

Derrick: I think that Gen Z is seeing a church, one that cares more about itself than the rest of the world, cares more about its own institutions, keeping its own lights on. These are things, these are important, it's just the prioritization of it so that that's one thing.

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Derrick: They see people that they can't be honest with. They, they can't, they can't tell their truth. The moment you even say that term, there's somebody that hears it as like, well, “Jesus is truth. The scriptures are truth.” Like, this is what I'm saying. Like this need for us to be right. This need for us to always have the, the, um, the moral high ground in a conversation.

That's just not how connection works. We have, we have been so focused on being right, that's where this song and, and that question, “What if I stumble?” like, who cares if you stumble? The church actually cares more if you stumble than the world outside the church. And so I, I know in many, in, in many cases, at least in my context, um, Gen Z looks at a church that.

That is more concerned about itself. It looks at the church and sees it more concerned about its own existence and is not concerned about what the rest of the world needs and is not interested in actually having authentic, which is just another way of staying honest, authentic relationships with people to see where that goes. So one more point about this. I'll be your friend. with the intent of you coming to Jesus at some point.

Krispin: Yeah, it's really interesting, um, to think about the message of the song is Don't compromise and. And what, what happens when you don't compromise ? What and what happens to your faith witness when you don't compromise? If you're like, I don't wanna learn about critical race theory - that's compromising. Or like, I'm gonna hold this biblical literalist like view of the Bible, right? Like that actually, it's. it's painfully paradoxical. The message of this song is like, don't compromise, you know, stay the path. And actually it seems like the people that we see, like “stay the path,” that path of white evangelicalism. And I don't want to like put you on the spot, but when we first started talking about this, you were reflecting on the, the people in the communities that were really into this album and where they are now.

Derrick: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, some of it, you know, when you step out of the narrative, when you say, actually not like all of these people. It, it does get this reaction, particularly with white evangelicals - cuz either then that white evangelical listening to you has to say, gosh. And I guess that means I have to acknowledge that my kid is queer and I, I can't create an environment that silences that part of them, or I gotta get this other person outta here. I gotta excommunicate this other person cuz it's gonna disrupt this narrative that we're trying to hold onto. And I think that's what the compromise thing does. It's the compromise thing. This moment that forces particularly white evangelicals to question their own innocence and simplicity. And, and, and they've gotta decide what to do.

Am I gonna really let myself be questioned, let my life be questioned? Oh gosh, I don't, I don't want to be seen as a compromising. Um, so I don't know if I can go, I don't have the energy, I don't have the strength. And this is good over here. So we're just gonna stop talking to that. We're gonna stop hanging out with that family.

This pastor's talking about anti-racism and if we really lean into anti-racism, then I gotta talk about my racist grandmother and the ways that she used to talk about people and, you know, like all of this stuff that they're just not, it's a, it's a, and it's a, it's a, it's hard to, to have your own innocence questioned externally.

It’s difficult. Do you know this from your work? It is difficult for someone to have to come face to face with the fact that their own innocence is not real. And so I think about the folks that I used to go to church with. Um, most of them have doubled down. God loved them when I came out two and a half years ago, uh, it almost, it, it almost happened overnight.

The change in our relationship. But I got it. If they…and some of them have had, have done this in in private right. If they truly believe that I can be an out gay man and still be deeply in love with Jesus and effective in my witness. It challenges some of their own choices and viewpoints, and that could disrupt the whole thing easier. There's a scripture that sounds like this easier to let one person get excommunicated. then for the whole nation to have to do this deeper work.

Krispin: Yeah. I mean, so it's, it is changing from like, if we change the title of this song from, What if I Stumble? It's like, what if I've been stumbling all along?

Derrick: Mm-hmm.

Krispin: and how difficult that is to look at.

Derrick: Yes. And the truth is we all do, to me, one of the biggest shifts from my theology. really came at this point when I, um, particularly looked at the genesis creation narratives, where what I actually saw was a desire on the part of God to be in relationship with Adam and Eve, not to even expose them to the right and the wrong.

That's because I feel like the focus on the right and the wrong is where relationships break down. But it's the connection It, it's the walking with God in the cool of the day. That, for me, became really core and I just realized that most of my evangelical friends are more concerned with being right than with being, than being in relationship. They'll be in relationship as long as they feel like they're right and you're right. But the moment that they're not sure of your, your rightness or your posture challenges, their rightness, the, the, the relationship falls apart.

And, and I mourn that again, it's why I don't have a relationship with most of the folks I used to go to church with. I also mourn that for them, that we can't be friends on a journey together. Um, and so I hear that song. What if I stumble? And the thing that seems to be at stake for the writer, the thing that's at stake is their relationships.That came along because they were on a platform or they had a message or people were coming to them. . But if I stumble, if I'm found to be a compromiser, ultimately I lose all of these people that I love, which is counter to this one line that actually doesn't fit in the song Jesus love never goes away.

Something, I forgot what the actual line was like, but it's like Jesus, this love never goes away. And yet we know that if you stumble, the church's love goes. If you compromise the church's love goes away. So that's just right. There is our example of why that way of, of doing, doing church, living out faith, that witness does not match the witness of Jesus, the way of Jesus.

Because in the church, if you stumble, the church's love goes away. That is the testimony of everybody whose story did not match the primary narrative that they were being given.

Krispin: It reminds you. That children's song, be Careful Little Eye is what you see for the father up above is looking down in love. So be careful Little eye is what you see. It's sort of this like threat  and then it's like, but God loves you but like you gotta be really careful and you gotta walk a careful line and it's this like dual, like you said, there's this standard, right?

Like and the pressure. And you can feel the pressure in the song. And there is talk about grace. And the grace is, the grace talk is not enough to overcome the

Derrick: Because the grace part is not the primary, the the primary idea, the grace part, is this afterthought. It's this sort of footnote and mirror detail. The, the real, the real story is we need you to not stumble. We need you to not question, we need you to not adopt another worldview. We need you to, because if you don't, all of these people are gonna suffer because of that.

And again, it's this pressure to not tell the truth about your own life. Even if you, I would say that even if you still buy into the narrative, did everybody needs the same thing? Did everybody's lives look the same? This inability to tell the truth about our own lives and to know that when we do that, we'll still be embraced and, and brought close, that that inability really has broken the church's ability.

That mentality has broken the church's ability to really draw in people who are quote unquote atheist, quote unquote, non-believing unchurched because there is no example that says, in fact, the only examples we've got is if you do stumble, then get up in front of the church and do this public repentance,  which then leads to shame.

And there's just very few people who are like, yes, please let me add more shame to my bucket. You know, like, oh man. Part of me is using so many words because I mourned. I mourn this because I, I know that if we could let go of this need, [00:35:00] one to protect our own innocence. Two, to be able to live in a more complex world where there isn't one story, there isn't. Everybody needs the same thing. Gosh, I think that we would actually be in relationship with people. and we would find the work of witness and mission and, and evangelism to be so life-giving that everybody would be wanting to do it.

Derrick: I wish that Evangelism and Witness was the way that we deepened friendships with people outside of our circles.

Only God can save. Yes, we can tell our story about the way God has saved us, but only God said, and so evangelism witnessed mission and so, yeah, then you're not worried about, I mean, because this is where, again, back to the brewery, there might have been one or two times that I had one too many. One or two times. And that was just cuz I didn't eat y'all, I wasn't paying attention to my water intake.

Krispin: Hey, I'm not reporting you to anyone.

Derrick: Thank you. But you know why I drank too much? Because I was having the best conversation with some friends and I was not gonna get up. And yes, there was a thought in the back of my mind, what if some Christian saw me and was like, Derek, I saw that you had more than two drinks. And then I'd be like, you're right. And the ABV on those drinks were really high

Krispin: no, I think that's exactly, it is like the, that's kind of the message of the song is like, I gotta keep up this image. If I'm going to, if I'm gonna show Jesus to the world, and first of all, it just doesn't work for authentic relationships. And secondly, like you said, like people aren't paying that much attention.

I think they, I think that the unbelieving world to use Manning's term is they care about, like are you trying to use political power to be able to discriminate against queer folks? Like are you, like, are you caring for the earth or are you like on the front lines of like trashing the environment?

Like I think those are like, those are the conversations that come up with me. Like when I mention that I'm a Christian, like I have to give like a lot of caveats and I think something that is, I'll just be honest and say like something that I've realized about white evangelicalism is the things that are unique about white evangelicalism are oppressive in nature. Like the, like caring for the poor. Which the, you know, they say like, oh, we need to care for the poor to like show that, you know, to show God's love. And I'm like, I actually know a lot of people that are not Christians that are doing a better job at this. But what's unique about you is is things like trying to keep your tax exempt status while being able to discriminate against queer people or your particular politics on immigration.

Right? Like that is, like, that's not, that's unique about you and not in a good way, right? Like even a desire to take care of the poor, just not in my backyard.

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Derrick: and again, I think some of it is all of this is reductionist, right? But I, I hear your point about the uniqueness of white evangelicalism are the places in the moments that they are most opressive. I think it's in part because white evangelicalism can barely name. that they could be oppressive. It would [name that historically Catholicism has been oppressive. It would name the certain political structures that are oppressive, but can white Evangelicalism actually name out loud? Clearly we, we can do, we can. We have been, here are the groups we've harmed historically, here are the groups we're still harming.

And I, and for me it's this cuz if I have to actually acknowledge that we are an oppressive system, that we have oppressive tendencies, that the impact of our witness has been oppressive to very specific people. We have to challenge the simplicity that we're good. we're good. And that's why everybody should be like us , because we're good.

And also it's protective. If we acknowledge that we are not all good, then what do we do with that?

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Derrick: I just want so much, for the American church so much more. I really love the church. The church is what shaped me, and the church has given me a direct path to the holy that I call Jesus. And that has, it has saved me, you know, in some respects from myself, but from my own self-rejection. And I have been given such a beautiful gift, both in what the church has given me and what the church allows me to do.

I want to give that to other people, but I realize that until the church is willing to be honest about itself, individually and collectively. We're never gonna get there. We're never going to be seen as the kind of institution, the kind of space, the kind of people that the world can look to and know that they are loved.

And if our desire is to continue to be seen as right and infallible. It doesn't matter if we, if we stumble, it doesn't matter. As long as we are the way we continue to be, people are not gonna see us as a place where they can receive love and forgiveness and restoration.

Krispin: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to. So last question. What, what's it like to be right here? What's it like for you to be right here where you can see with clear eyes about the, just the oppressive, traumatic, violent legacy of the church in, in the us and. also, it's part of your daily life and it is something that you love.

Where do you go from there?

Derrick: Um,

I seek to live as honestly as I can in front of people. not interested in debating. I'm not interested in arguing. I'm deeply interested in listening. I'm so interested in holding space, but I’m not here to be…I'm not trying to tear the thing down. I just want the thing to be better. I know that it can, and I get to live in spaces where it is getting better. With that said, I have to be honest cuz that's what you do. It's hard for me. to hold space for people who have hurt me, and I want to get better at that. I want to get better at holding space. Not, not so they can hurt me again. No, no, not, we aren't doing that.

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Derrick: But I know that most of the people that have hurt me, there's like two that I can't say this about, but most of the people that have hurt me didn't mean to. So let's be better , but we can't, you know, it's hard.

Part of it's cuz we can't actually even talk about being better without talking about the ways that we did the harm. Right. So I'm, I, I, I'm trying to be a person who can hold space for individuals who hold white evangelical perspectives on the world, and I'm still on my journey with that, but I'm gonna continue to live as honestly as I can in the world because I do think that that is the way that we create relationships. And I do think that the work of mission and evangelism and witness is all about friendship. I want to be friends with as many people as possible, and they might be like, Derek's perspective on faith is interesting. Let me get some more in there. But ultimately, trying to live as honestly in front of the world as I can.

Krispin: You said something a minute ago that - I'm just dragging out this last question - but you said something really important, which was naming things. And I think that it's worth mentioning and I think that this, this is what a lot of people that focus on truth and reconciliation do is like, there, there like how can you hold the humanity and dignity of people that have harmed. but part of that being a healthy process is being able to name the systems. It doesn't mean, if I'm understanding you right, it doesn't mean going back into that, not gonna stay in the system. It's, it's like, no, I'm gonna name things as they are, and then individuals that have been a part of these systems, I'm gonna hold space for.

Derrick: Absolutely. I mean, even as you were talking there, I had this image of sitting down with DC Talk, and it's like, so tell me how you stumbled and just not saying anything for an hour and just let them know that they're safe to say how they stumbled, how they compromised. And I would, and I, I imagine one day this will probably happen with the people that have harmed me.

I look forward to the day that I get to hear them say in the midst of harming me, this is how they were harmed. Whether it was because they had to ignore the pain that I was experiencing or, I did something that provoked this and they didn't know what to do with that. That they were threatened, you know, their viewpoint, their worldview were threatened and this is what it did to them.

I really, I look forward to, I'm a United Methodist at heart, so I can just see the moving on towards perfection. The holy experience is like, we go get there, bro. Ee not there yet. We gonna get there and you gonna be able to hold space for their pain and all of, and, um, but no, we. there, there's, and this is why I probably should be more about burning the thing down. There is something wrong with our system because it produces, it produces harm.

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Derrick: Probably at the, at the base, the harm starts with the fact that followers of Jesus cannot be honest about their own lives. Because at the risk, losing the love of the church.

Krispin: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes so much sense. Well, thank you so much Derek. I just so appreciate you showing up and me asking you these difficult questions and I just really appreciate getting to hear your heart in this and um, and where you're at. And cuz we just, yeah, we need so many different people. Danielle and I always talk about, we just need to burn it down.

Derrick: It depends on the day.

Krispin: Yeah, But thank you so much. Um, is there anything, uh, that you want to plug before we finish? Um, you know, I always love Studio Wesley's work, but

Derrick: Yeah, and we're, we're in a, a new season for Studio Wesley, so be paying attention to the stuff we're producing. Um, you can follow us. Um, put in Studio Wesley and you'll probably come up with it. Um, there's some weird handles out there that I don't know by heart cuz I'm a 42 year old, late Gen Xer, um, asking too much of me culture. We're essentially just trying to serve college-aged young adults, wherever they are. And some of the content that we're producing related to mental health and wellness at the intersection of faith, I think folks will find helpful. You've really, uh, informed a lot of that work, Krispin, and we're grateful to you. I love the church , so I'll point people to the United Methodist Church. We're going through all kinds of drama right now though, so, um, give us some, give us some time to get our ish together, but yeah. Studio Wesley. Yeah.

Krispin: Yeah, you are. Well, I just want to, I just want to say you're, I know that you are, Like there are changes that are happening and that change does not happen without the blood, sweat, and tears of the people that are in on all the committees and the meetings and all those things. While still showing up with your own experience and your own, like aspects of your identity, right?

Sorry, I'm getting off on a tangent, but like, you know, it's communities and meetings, but it's also communities and meetings about things that are so personal. So I just want to give you so much credit for doing that important work in your denomination.

Derrick: it's an honor. It's an honor.

Krispin: So, yeah. All right. Thanks so much.

Derrick: Thanks brother. So good to be with you.