The Worst Song on the Album

Krispin and DL interview Peter Choi about DC Talk’s song “Colored People.”

Peter Choi is the Director of the Center for Faith and Justice, and he’s a historian with a focus on evangelicalism in eighteenth-century North America.

During our conversation, Peter recommends Delores Williams, Shoki Coe, James Cone, and Cole Arthur Riley. He also mentions Henry McNeil Turner. 

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TRANSCRIPT

Danielle:  Today, I'm so excited because we're talking to Peter Choi, who's one of my favorite people on the planet, and I met Peter when I was a part of the Faith and Justice Network Fellowship year. I always get the names wrong, but I was a part of a year long fellowship program with the Faith and Justice Network.

I met Peter Choi there who was one of the leaders and just one of the coolest, smartest, kindest theological thinkers, I've been privileged to meet and we got to do a podcast together last year before I had a mental breakdown and had to take a break from that. Um, but Peter, like I, first of all, I'm so happy you're here.

I'll let you say hi now.

Peter: Hi. It's good to see you guys. I'm glad to be with two of my favorite people as well. I've been looking forward to this.

Danielle: And, and Krispin asked you to talk about one of the worst songs on this album. But I wondered if you could, like, tell people a little bit about your writing and what some of your writing has centered on, and maybe, you know, they'll get a a sense for where this conversation's going to go.

Peter: Yeah, sure. So my, I guess my formal area of specialization, if I could call it that, is 18th century American religious history. And, in particular I look at,the origins of early evangelicalism. Also I am, you know, an ordained Christian minister working with the Faith and Justice network.

And a big part of my work is trying to make connections between that history and, um, the ways in which evangelical Christianity shows up in the world. So it may sound like an arcane topic, but I think there's a lot of a lot of relevance and connections to be drawn.

Krispin: Our podcast is looking at the 1980s and ‘90’s and asking “how did, how did we get here? And you're just like, let's just go back a couple centuries earlier and ask, how did we get here?”

Danielle: we're doing the same exact work

Peter: it’s all connected though. We're all doing history

Danielle: I wanna go back to one thing you said and I coming out of white evangelicalism, it's been hard for me sometimes I'm like, I feel like I'm overblowing how evangelical theology shapes culture, you know? Because I was raised in it to be a culture shaper in a specific way, you know, to be a missionary, to be a colonizer or whatever. But now I just got a phone call with somebody in Canada about like apocalyptic thinking in society and how much that stems to Christian thought and Christian teaching on it. And so even you saying like you studying this kind of theology in the 1800’s -- it truly does impact us. Right? And I don't think it's a bad thing to bring that up and to discuss that. And so I just, I love the work you're doing. I do think it has residents, even for our silly little podcast, but I wondered like, set the scene.

What was the nineties like for you? Were you listening to DC talk? Like, give us a little picture.

Peter: Yeah. Okay. So, um, in the nineties, I. in college and part of I grew up in, in a Korean American church, which was, uh, mostly evangelical, I would say, influenced heavily by white evangelical. Theology and culture. And I was involved in my undergrad years in a campus ministry called Inner Varsity Christian Fellowship. And so that, that was my world. And I was listening to some Christian music, not DC talk, but you know, uh, jars of Clay, rich Mullens,

Danielle: you, you're a Jars of Clay boy. I get it. Okay.

Peter: So I was in that, I was in that, um, in that orbit. . Um, and, uh, yeah.

Danielle: you missed out on DC talk. Now, had you heard of the album Jesus Freak?

Peter: Oh yeah. It was all over the place. Right? So I'm sure I've heard the songs too. I heard the songs back then. Um, but you know, for a historian, I have a really bad memory, so I don't , I don't really remember.

Danielle: Maybe instead of saying as a historian it was not of interest to you, therefore you do not think about it all that much, you know?

Peter: a nice way of putting it.

Danielle: Yeah.

Krispin: Yeah. Re-listening to the song cuz I do think that especially the song Colored People, I think was probably a hard one to miss, um, in, you know, if you're a part of Evangelical Circles, re-listening to it, what were your first sort of impressions?

Peter: Yeah. So I mean, it's the benefit of hindsight, right? So I'll say these are not the kinds of thoughts that would've occurred to me even if I was listening carefully in the nineties. Um, but let's see. I think the first thing that stands out is, um, the, the word colored, it seems a little odd, uh, especially for the nineties,

Krispin: Mm.

Peter: I was told I didn't have to do homework, so I didn't, I didn't look at the history, the etymology of the word colored in American history, but my sense just off the top of my head is I don't think that's a word that was being used very much in the nineties and maybe even then, uh, already had some, some negative connotations, right? It strikes me. Maybe in the 1960s or seventies because there was sort of this painful, pejorative connotation to colored that that was being, uh, that was being phased out. So I'm not sure that that would be a really interesting question. I don't know if they've talked about this, why, why colored? That was the one of the first things that stood.

Krispin: Well, that is something that DC talk did in the nineties. In their earlier album, they had a song called, we're Just, that Went, we're just two honks and a Negro. And so I think there's something there about trying to, um,

Peter: yeah.

Danielle: reclaim this language, but I don't know if you know this Peter, but, uh, the three people in DC Talk, there's two white guys and black men. They all met at Liberty University. You know, so they're coming from a place where race is obviously a huge part of the history and sort of the undescribed. But I was telling Crispin, like the music itself, I kind of like the words are a little.

Peter: mm-hmm.

Danielle: Mish mashy sometimes, and you could read a lot of different things into it, but just take a step back and say, is this like them trying to reclaim the [00:07:00] word colored?

Like what is happening? Like is it desensitizing white listeners to that term and, and putting it to this music where, where I didn't have a second thought singing along to this, you know, when. 12 years old. Like, that's really weird, is the nicest way to say that. I wanna use some harsher language here. I agree. I cannot get over the name of the song and like, I think there's a reason. No, nobody's trying to reclaim the word colored. Um, except DC talk in 1995. And why, why

Peter: I think it'd be really interesting to see if they received any pushback in the nineties. The the song came out in 1995. So at that point were, was anyone asking questions, raising eyebrows? And if not, it might be  a reflection ofthe culture at large, at least sort of white evangelical culture at large.

Danielle: yes. Right? Yes.

Krispin: To kind of place them -- like they got famous going on Billy Graham Crusades and touring with Michael W. Smith. So that gives you like a picture of the space that they were in. Probably not a space where they were going to get a lot of pushback on using that term.

Danielle: and, and we can't go into it, but I've already said this before, somebody can write a dissertation on how DC talk engages with the work of Dr. King throughout their music, like throughout all their albums. It's very fascinating. So they do try and talk about some race stuff, but it never goes over well. I mean, it's always, you know, through the sort of like white evangelical lens and yet they were sort of applauded for being actually talking about it, which I'm like, oh no,

Peter: Well that's the other

Krispin: gonna talk about,

Peter: Yeah, and I guess we're gonna get into the, to the rest of the lyrics, but that's the other sort of general sense, um, that I was struck by is there's no sense of history or connection to the history of black theology. So I think it's interesting that you mentioned, Martin Luther King Jr. But also for several decades…By the nineties, James Cone had been writing about black theology, Black liberation theology. Womanist Theology was a, was, um, flourishing in this time, in fact, in the Faith and Justice Network. In the coming month, we're gonna read a piece by Dolores Williams, um, a piece that she wrote in 1993, wrestling with what it means to be a womanist and not a feminist.

And so there were these amazing resources that would've. Um, around in the nineties, but it seems like there's no, there's no awareness of that really rich tradition to draw on.

Krispin: Probably not a lot of exposure to that at Liberty University.

Peter: Oh yeah. Exactly.

Danielle: I mean, this is the wild thing about white evangelical listen, right? Is because DC talk could say like, we're pushing the boundaries for liberty. By being an interracial band. Literally that was it. And so they're seen as progressive. They're seen as like, they actually talk about race a little bit. Um, and, but you're pointing out like there was so much richness to be mined. And, and that's something that, you know, people like myself -- we, we weren't raised with that knowledge. We truly thought, no, this is it. You know, Dr. King, I guess. But nobody else. And so I think that's such a great point you already made is like the complete absence of other streams that don't match up with Liberty University, basically. Mm-hmm. Maybe I'm saying Liberty too much because it's also like Christian record producers and Christian bookstores and Christian publishing and Christian marketing, but they're all white and, um, you know, connected to this.

Peter: Well that's the other thing that strikes me about this time period is, um, when you are immersed in such a white world, just the fact of having a relationship with someone, um, a cross-cultural relationship right, would've, uh, uh, been a, a significant thing. And so the bar was set really low.

Danielle: Mm-hmm.

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Danielle: Yeah. And if you're gonna talk about race at this time, it seems like what you have to say is, all of us are humans. And you know, I'm curious about your take, Peter. Do you feel like this is a song about colorblindness or not? Because to me it does sort of match up to. Lke the color of your skin doesn't really mean much to me. Like it's beautiful, but like we're all humans underneath. And I think we've all seen the damage of that kind of long-term thinking because it causes. Especially white people like myself to therefore minimize the stories of people who say, “actually, no, actually, I've been oppressed and marginalized because of my skin color.” Um, what's your sense of how this kind of fits into the color blind craze?

Peter: Yeah. There is a sense in which the, the, all the colors kind of blend together and uh, and maybe that's part of the reason for using the word “colored” is to say, Hey, like, let's acknowledge this, but at the same time, let's claim a higher truth. And the higher truth is that we stand above this because, um, you know, because of our understanding of theology that says we're all made in the image of God.

But, but I remember as an Asian American, person in the nineties, uh, Working through racial reconciliation theology, puzzling over how it is that I was supposed to show up, right? Because this wasn't necessarily my history. And so, um, that was hard. And I think that there's something about, uh, looking or looking past the, um, the very specific experiences, the very concrete experiences of oppression that black people experienced.That when you, when you bypass that makes it easier. It makes for more comfortable conversations and it's, it's definitely a quicker route talking about peace and harmony and, and, um, and God's beloved community, but you haven't, we haven't really had the opportunity to do the hard work of ferreting out, um, the really harmful histories that are very much part of our pa of our present.

Krispin: Yeah, I think it'd be great to just jump into the chorus cuz I feel like we're, we're talking about this. “We're colored people and we live in a tainted place. We're colored people and they call us the human race.” I think it's worth adding, um, the reading, the whole chorus. “We've got a history so full of mistakes and we are colored people who depend on a holy grace.” Just looking at that, um, there's a few things going on there. I wonder if you could just hearing that kind of where your mind goes.

Peter: Yeah. Well, one, I mean, okay, here's a new thought that I'm getting, just listening to this now again. When they say we're colored people, you're saying these are two white men and a and a black man saying together we're colored people.

And so even there, right, if they're on the stage singing the song together, there's this sense of… all of us are colored and therefore none of our distinctive particularities, right? Um, but in the nineties and even today, like we just know looking at people and uh, and getting to know them, that based on colorism is a very real thing in our world. People are judged based on the color of their skin. Now, we don't have to like that, but we can't turn a blind eye to that. So that seems. That seems odd to say we're all colored, um, trying to level the playing field, which may be a, a good motivation, but they're, you're glossing over lots of. details. And then this, this notion of we live in a tainted place.

Um, this sort of theological glossing over, uh, the reality of sin and brokenness, um, which I think sometimes has the ironic effect of treating a hierarchy of, of brokenness or sin taintedness. So there is a sense in, I think, white Christian theology, especially white evangelical theology, that we're all sinful. But there's different levels of sinfulness, right? So we are at least civilized, sinful. And there are other cultures which are uncivilized, right? They're, they're heathen, sinful. They're barbaric, sinful. They're even demonic sinful. And so these hierarchies exist and, um, I think it's, it's, uh, it's really important to, to acknowledge it or to recognize that. So yeah, this, this tendency to, to gloss over or to try to put everyone on, on a level, level playing field without working through. How it is that people have been on very different, um, levels of these hierarchies. Human created hierarchies is, is deeply problematic.

Krispin: It's interesting that you said like human created. Yes. Because when it says we live in a tainted place, there's no actor in that. It is, it is. Everything is messed up. Yeah. Everyone is messed up.

Danielle: What do you think about your research? Would you sum it up as well, we live in a tainted place. No, that's not how you as a historian would sum up. Right,

Peter: right? Well, I mean, I mean this is the problem with the passive voices. You remove, um, you remove human agency, right? There's no subject in that sentence.

Who did the tainting? How did this come about?

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Danielle: that's the central question of this song that is unspoken.

Krispin: Yes. That is that.

Peter: It just happened. Yeah, right? Yeah.

Danielle: Oh, and we all need to repent equally. Peter.

Krispin: Well, that's the other thing is that, that you talked about sin, right, and, and whitewashing sin, which a lot of evangelicals are critical of. Like, we don't want to white whitewash whitewashed. You can't just call sin a mistake. It is, you know, something you do against God.

It, you know, whatever it is. But it, so it struck, really stood out to me that. Chose to use the word mistakes. We, we've got a history full, full of

Danielle: So full of mistakes

Peter: Mistakes were made.

Krispin: grace

Danielle: heal it. Yeah.

Krispin: Yeah.

Peter: right? Yeah. Mistakes were made, but we, but we don't know who made it. We don't know how it came about. We’re just doing our best. All of us are doing our best, uh, with a really bad situation that we inherited. Yeah.

Danielle: That is like my childhood religious indoctrination in a nutshell, if I can be perfectly honest, like that was it,

Peter: Yeah.

Krispin: Hmm.

Danielle: and I think the long term violence of that kind of theology. Is really devastating to think about.

Peter: Yeah. Because what you're really saying there is, Hey, can you cut us some slack? Like, we're doing our best. It's not, it's not our fault that we live in this world. you just, yeah. Can you just give us a break? Um,

Danielle: It turns into white people singing, “We're colored people.”

Peter: Yeah.

Danielle: and we all need God's grace.

Peter: right,

Danielle: You know, with some of the mistakes that have been made, I'm like, this is so messed. It's so deeply messed up.

Krispin: Well, and so you were talking about you lived through the nineties. As an adult, we did not. We were children.

Danielle: I was a teen. Okay. the baby of this conversation, Chris, but.

Krispin: Yes, that's true. But yeah, I wondered, especially bringing your own racial identity into this experience of the nineties and racial reconciliation being an emphasis in some spaces. Um, I think that this really parallels, this album came out in 95 and it was in the 90’s that Promise Keepers, uh, and I think announced that, um, racial reconciliation was one of their. And so I think there's some parallels there to kind of understand what was going on in white Evangelicalism at that time. But yeah, I'm really curious to, he, to hear from you as we are looking at this idea of like, well, this just happened and everybody, um, you know, everyone needs God's grace. I wonder what that was like for you, if those were the messages you heard and what that was like for you to hear those message.

Peter: It was absolutely the message I heard. Um, and this vision of a multicultural church family of God working through racial reconciliation, which happened by the way, to gloss over, um, centuries of racialized sin and trauma. Right. But the thing that I remember about this is there was so much aspirational whiteness. Now we wouldn't have had this language back then, but there was so much aspirational whiteness for people of color for me as an Asian-American for, for black Christians. There was this sense because, I mean, let's be honest, when people were talking about multicultural churches, they were basically talking about people of color coming into white churches and organizations and basically following and submitting to the leadership of white male leaders. And what you get in a situation like that is you have young people like me thinking I wanna be like that white male leader. and the way that I'm going to get there is by listening to all of their sermons, um, trying to act like them, be like them, model myself after them.

And so there was a lot of cultural erasure and um, trying to be somebody that we were not in situation like that. The status quo really gets preserved, right? Or all of us participate to avoid the passive voice. All of us end up participating in the preservation of that status quo. And, and it's really harmful. You know, looking back on it, it's really sad.

Krispin: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's exactly what I felt like thinking about this. Like, Hey, we want racial reconciliation and we're gonna do it, and here's what it looks like and it doesn't, it doesn't look like actual racial healing at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Danielle: And I think the problem does stem from like the fundamental lack of engagement with what we're talking about, which is the history of Christianity and, you know, racialized trauma right.

In the United States and, and how it's, it's truly the backbone of our nation. I don't know if you feel like talking about that at all, Peter, but you know, for people like myself, I feel like being a part of the Faith and Justice network and, and being under like the scholarship you are writing yourself and the ones that you, uh, are telling people like, Hey, maybe read this.

It's been such a wonderful course corrective to me growing up, you know, firmly in Scott White Evangelicalism. So I wonder if you could just say a few things to people.

Danielle: like how important is race when we are thinking about Christianity in America?

Krispin: Before you jump into that, sorry. These two lines, perhaps other than the title, the two most cringeworthy lines fit into this. The lines say ignorance has wronged some races in vengeance is the Lord's, and I'm, I think as, as Danielle's asking this question of you as a historian, you know, another one of these moments where you as a historian would never be so vague as to say, well, some races were harmed. Like, we're not gonna say which ones.

But some of them were, I wonder.

Danielle: and vengence is the Lord, so please don't ever try and, uh, you know, demand justice yourself.

Mm-hmm. if you're one of the marginalized and oppressed people groups, you

Peter: Yeah. Well, let's unpack that whole sentence because it says ignorance has wronged some races. Like, what's the subject there? The subject that the acting agent is ignorance. It's not, it's not, you know, human, uh, it's not white, uh, enslavers. It's not colonizers. It's uh, it's ignorance. It's this very abstract, um, subject. . Uh, and so what happens is the people who are both perpetrators and beneficiaries of this kind of, uh, supremacist thinking, um, are off the hook.

Right, because it's ignorance.

Krispin: Hmm. They're also victims of ignorance, if I'm getting that right? Yeah. Yeah, right. Ignorance is the actor that's hurting everybody.

Peter: Mm-hmm.Yes. And so, yeah, I think there's, there's so much, uh, bypassing of really important, uh, matters of, uh, of injustice here. So I, I mean, the thought that came to my mind as I was listening to both of you is, um, how violent some of the, um, experiences, many of the experiences of people of color.

Have been how traumatizing it's been. And so, uh, again, just because we're gonna be talking about Dolores Williams piece, she talks about how much, you know, in, in trying to be a black female academic, how much, um, the language of academia, like for instance, she talks about the word argument. And if you're a scholar or an aspiring scholar, you know that it's really important to have a crystal presentation of your argument or your thesis statement, and she just talks about how that's such a, a violent laden term when she thinks of the word violent of, of the word argument. She thinks of the people who were beaten up and killed in her, in her experience of growing up. And so to overcome that and to try to become a person who can present clear arguments is a hard thing, and you have to navigate.

The trauma of your past and really painful memories, and so that. really hard. So how do you do that? How do you, how do you do that work together? How do we do that work together and how do each of us show up for that work with each of our, um, pasts and responsibilities? Uh, I think that's really hard, but the.

Difficulty of this needs to be acknowledged. I remember, um, for many years working alongside of a colleague, a white male colleague who whenever we came and we taught together some of these courses and, and whenever we came to these difficult topics of race, one of his knee jerk responses was to talk about nonviolence and the importance of nonviolence. And theoretically I get where he was coming from, but both in myself as a person of color, but amongst students who were people of color, there was always sort, sort of this discomfort and pushback against that desire to center and to begin with nonviolent and uh, and I think that's a problem right now.

Theoretically, if you ask me, well, Peter, do you have a problem with nonviolence? No, absolutely. But what does it mean to have these hard conversations where violence is already present? The effects of violence are already present and there are people in the room who are trying to, to, to survive and to reckon with, to do business with that history that is very much present, even with us today.

And so, um, I think a willingness to, to face hard questions, to do the work, to roll up our sleeves and to, and to face discomfort is, um, is so critically important.

Krispin: Hmm. Yeah. I mean, it just w when you're talking about your colleague, it's like that line that says Vengeance is the Lord’s. It's like real quick -- don't get mad, don't get upset. Like you “have to stay calm…you have to be able to present your argument in this.” You know, logical, unemotional way in response to this violence and trauma that's been done

Peter: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Danielle: I'm just trying to think like, has DC talk ever said something like “vengeance is the Lord’s” in response to anything else? It's like, no, it's just this vague, like we have some histories full of mistakes, you know? And when it comes to race, that's where we just can't even [00:29:00] begin to think of a way forward except singing shitty songs like this one. Sorry to swear. Uh, Peter, do you think ignorance was the main perpetrator, do you think ignorance is to blame for specifically, you know, the song, I think we're talking about violence against black people, you know? Uh, do you think ignorance is what we should blame? Were harmed. Yeah.

Peter: that's, that's a really good leading question and I'm happy to follow and say, no, it's not right. Ignorance is not the reason. It's so not the reason. It was greed. And so there, there are economic dimensions to this, but there's also pride, like spiritual pride is such a huge component of this.

And so the extent to which you, white person shows up into a conversation like this and says, well, I am the beneficiary of a very rich theological tradition that despite all of its faults and shortcomings and you know, and all of us are sinful, fallen people, despite all of that, we've actually done a really good job constructing a system of theology that has answers for these kinds of questions. We're not owning up to the fact that the very theologians that you are reading and quoting and teaching from, were also slave owners and, and conquerors.

And so like what happens when you, when you gloss over all of those details? What happens when you say, you know, I was also thinking about the nineties and thinking…I don't know if you guys remember this song, Stephen Curtis Chapman had a song called Burn the Ships. You guys remember this?

Krispin: I do. Yes. I have told Danielle, I'm like, we have to talk about

Danielle: I don't, I don't have any memory of this song, but Crispin is kind of obsessed with this, so he'll be tracking with you on

Peter: Oh my goodness. Yeah. And I think this song came out in the early nineties, um, but it was a song celebrating the heroic feats of Cortez. Cortez who, who basically wiped out the Aztec Empire. But one of the things like Cortez did was like when he landed in America, and I think this was, this would've been in Mexico, the Aztec Empire.

He said, we're gonna burn the ships because any of you cowered who want to go back and not engaged in this, are not gonna have recourse, are not gonna be able to go back. Right. And then, and then Steven Curtis Chapman comes along and, and writes a book that set, that writes not a book, a song that says Burn the ships.

There's no turning back. Um, like what happens when you, when you celebrate that history and that theology? Oh my goodness, there's so much harm.

Krispin: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Because he's saying, he's saying This is what it's like to be a Christian . Like this is an analogy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of having faith and being a Christian that lives in, in courage and lives in, you know, victory and

Peter: to be a Jesus Freak.

Krispin: yeah,

Danielle: Exactly. To be a Jesus freak. I mean, Peter, we're not even getting into like the accompanying books and stuff that went with this album, but they're all revolve around stories of martyrs and they actually utilize stories of Christians from other ethnic and cultural backgrounds to sort of uphold this idea of what being a Jesus freak is like in the United States.

And it's really, really sad. To think about now, um, just the layers of continuing to like, exploit even Christians of color and their stories. And then to kind of subsume it under this, what you, you just, you said it so perfectly this, this. I just grew up with so much pride baked into my theological background, and I feel like I'm gonna spend the rest of my life untangling that.

And just this idea that it can be reclaimed, it can, you know, be used for good. And I think both Krispin and I, you know, for a long time now have been like, I do not think that is correct anymore. Um, which then puts you at odds with, with the entire system and machine, as you know, um, which is why I've become obsessed with historians.

It's just a fascinating counterculture to, um, why evangelical theologians, if I'm being perfectly honest, is, is to read historians. And I know you're a historian, you love historians, but do you think that's like a good, like if you're giving people advice who are listening to. and they're like, oh my God, what do I do next? Would you tell them to read his historian? I'm sorry I'm asking you all these leading questions, but I, they're also just questions I truly wanna know.

Peter: One of the best things, one of the best decisions I made in my life without even realizing it, was to go back and study history and not theology. Now I'll be honest and say when I was applying to grad school is I knew so little that I wasn't able, even able to discern the fact that I was applying to some programs that were in, uh, religious studies, departments of divinity.

Which were very different from, um, theology departments of seminaries, which were also very different from history departments of universities. Now, you know, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I had no idea. I had no discernment whatsoever. But one of the things I realized in the course of studying history, and I had a really good advisor. He would be horrified to hear me characterize it this way, but he kind of basically in a really nice way beat the theologian out of me because he saw he saw, he would, you know, like so many times I would make these moves, make these assertions and he would say, Peter, you have to. You have to show evidence, right? For your arguments and data and the events that you're drawing on are really important. And the words, and this is why it's important to go to the archives and to the archives themselves, are problematic because they enshrine the words of white men mostly. And so there are also tools of empire, but you have to go and you have to look, look at the sources, and listen to the voices of people on the ground There's something about about that turn that helped me to, to think beyond, because with theologians and my, my theologian friends get really upset when they hear me say this, but I think, and there are really good theologians that do a much better job at the craft of theology, but so much of theology is basically saying, what, this is what I believe about God. And my evidence is. Other people who have written about what they believe about God. And there's some, you know, there's some reasoning and argumentation, and they're stringing together different ideas. Again, my theologian friends are gonna be really angry with me for how I'm characterizing their craft and their scholarship, but they're stringing together ideas.

But it's basically, you're referring to the authority of other people who had the audacity to think great thoughts about God. and you're not beholden to evidence, right? You're not beholden to facts on the ground and the way that things actually played out and happened. And so, um, I think that dealing with history now, there's problematic, um, elements there too. It's not like all historians are going to look at events of the past and have the exact same interpretation of those events, but at least there you're talking about concrete things. To some degree, um, and you're trying to work out interpretations and arguments based on evidence.

Krispin: Hmm mm-hmm.

Danielle: Oh, I love that. Oh yeah.

Krispin: We have one last piece that we gotta talk about.

Danielle: Oh, what?

Krispin: Which is, um, the, you know, there's, uh, DC talk solution, which is we've, we've got to come together. Aren't we all human after all?

Peter: yeah.

Danielle: And so,

Krispin: I wondered for, I'm laughing

Danielle: I was like, why are you giggling? Oh, okay. Okay.

Krispin: Because of Peter's face. Just like wincing at

Danielle: We just gotta come together.

Krispin: you know, 1995 when this came out, you talked a little bit about this, but what did that mean to the white evangelicals that were, you know, blasting this in their stereo?

Peter: Well, people just take so much pride in their interracial relationships. The fact that I, you know, as a white, as you know, a white person saying the fact that I have a black friend or an Asian. Or me as an Asian American person aspiring towards whiteness saying, oh, I have friends who are Black, or I have friends who are Indian, who are of different cultural backgrounds, and I'm doing the hard work. I'm rolling up my sleeves and trying to, um, to listen and open up my heart and, and be changed in the, in the course of these relationships. . Um, and then I think again, with the benefit of hindsight realizing we were all, you know, playing a game that did not, um, even come close to looking at, um, identifying and addressing, the deep-rooted problems. And so, yeah, like the coming together idea, I mean, this is why it's hard because like who, who could argue against coming. . Right? That's a, that's a really good thing. And so, uh, why are you going to be the curmudgeon, um, telling people that they shouldn't want to come together? They're at least saying the right things.

And so how could we not praise them? And so I think this is the difficulty of, um, rhetorical, uh, virtuous rhetorical presentations of these kinds of convictions that ring true, frankly. And so, and the reason this is hard, as everyone wants a solution, people are gonna ask me, what, what, Peter, what's your solution then? And I think we have to get comfortable with not having solutions. Maybe, maybe the best place to start is by not pontificating what we think ought to be the. Ought to be the answer. Um, and instead say, you know what? There's a lot of people in the world, and how about we start listening to some other voices?

Now that sounds like a very, you know, uh, unsatisfying cop out of an answer. But really, if you think about it, that's a really hard thing to do, right? To take time, to listen to read, to sit with uncomfortable ideas. To sit in mystery is really hard. I want answers. I want to have, you know, a three point plan for how I get to, you know, the next thing. But if our predicament is so catastrophic and so deeply embedded within our, the very fabric of our souls, then, um, to say, you know what? We may not have the solution for a while is not the worst.

Krispin: Hmm.

Danielle: I love that, Peter. I feel like, I mean, White Evangelicals, especi. Just cannot be out here saying, we know how to do anything when it comes to race or have any solutions. And I do think, um, you know, for me personally, like learning history is, is kind of like where I need to stay for a while. You've already mentioned a few people in our short chat. I feel like you are the one who introduced me to Willie James Jennings and the Christian Imagination, which is like a really, uh, it's a really hard book to read.

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Danielle: Because he's such a brilliant mind and it's, it's really deep stuff. But that was exactly the kind of book where it kinda lulled me in with this very Christian name, you know, the Christian imagination,

And then when you read it, you're like, this is about how diseased white Christian truly is at its core. And, and it was. A very important experience for me. I wondered if you had a few other names you might wanna throw out here just for people if they're like, I would like to start reading and I would like to start, um, taking ownership of my ignorance. Right. And, and saying, what can I, what can I do here?

Peter: Yeah. Um, let's see. The ones that come to mind are the ones that are, um, near me on my desk. So this book I have here, Cole Arthur Riley's this year Flesh where she does. Amazingly beautiful, um, historical work. I wanna say, like she's, she's actually a really historically minded writer. She's doing basically her, uh, family history, but she also has a wonderful chapter on memory and the importance of. Um, remembering. Um, I think that we just need to do more to learning from, uh, black Christianity and black theology because there is such, and here I'm just Martin Luther King Jr. Is great, but there is so much more, right?

I mean, do we realize, uh, for many of us, James Cone will be a leap. And black liberation theology. So James Cone is kind of famous or infamous, we're saying God is black, uh, in the mid, um, 20th century, late, uh, mid to late 20th century. But do we realize, and we, and we learned this from, um, our readings last month in the Faith and Justice Network, there was a man, an African American bishop Henry McNeil Turner, who in 1895 already addressing the National Baptist Convention, had the audacity to declare God as a negro. Okay, now,that term is outdated and we wouldn't use that term now, but back then, you know, that wasn't the most offensive part. Maybe that was, but for different reasons, right? Really offensive. A really powerful and offensive thing to say. And so do we realize. Um, that there's a rich history of resistance, of liberation is thinking of theologians, historians, pastors, regular people trying to reclaim the dignity of all persons. So I mentioned also Dolores Williams, who is a woman, a scholar.

I think there's just amazing resources out there. Shoki Coe, who's a theologian working in the context of Asia. In the, in the late 20th century. So many amazing thinkers that would be considered out of bounds for many white evangelicals, but so much to learn by submitting to them.

Krispin: Yeah.

Danielle: Yeah. Thanks Peter. And one more shout out to the Faith and Justice Network. We're literally, you can just be with a community of people reading these things and, uh, me and Krispin are both involved and we just love it so much.

Krispin: Yeah. Yeah. Peter and the team putting together, These readings that were like, yeah, I didn't know this existed.

Um, and so it's just been such a gift to have you lay out this curriculum and then be able to engage together as a community as we read.

Peter: Yeah,

Danielle: Yeah. I can't believe, Peter, we asked you to come on and talk. The hardest song to talk about on the album.

Peter: I didn't realize this. I didn't realize this was a hard song to talk about. So

Danielle: it's funny cuz there's obviously like really intense things to talk about with this album and we haven't really even gotten to the depths of like the martyr issue.

Again that is really intense. But this one just talking about white evangelicals and their approach to race is, is really fraught and really difficult and.

Krispin: um, mm-hmm.

Danielle: The way we were raised is just like, yeah, let's just keep singing about it. I'm sure it'll get better somehow. God's grace. And I'm like, oh, wow. That's not it.

Peter: Yeah. And I realize we we're winding down here, but maybe this is, maybe this is a good concluding note that when we talk about martyr theology, oftentimes it's the rank and file members who are called to be martyrs. And then usually at the people at the top, the leaders get to benefit from that martyr theology. And I think it's so important for us to be clear-eyed about what happens in these systems is there are just a few beneficiaries and so many people for whom it is a very costly. Exercise. And so I think the work that, you know, you are doing, that we're doing in the Faith and justice network, that people who are trying to deconstruct this really harmful and toxic theology, uh, it's really important work.

And I dare say, uh, it's life-saving work. And I really appreciate the ways that you have accompanied me in this journey. I'm really grateful to have friends like you challenging me and, um, inviting me to think about songs like this from our past that show us right how bad things were and still are

Danielle: Yeah.

Krispin: Mm-hmm.

Danielle: Oh, well, Peter, I'm gonna have to have you on to talk more about the martyr stuff. That's clear to me now.

Krispin: I was like we're gonna tuck that away and bring it out later.

Danielle: Definitely. Definitely.

Krispin: Thank you so much, Peter. Um, we really appreciate, um, connecting with you and, and like just being able to bring your experience and study to this.I told you to not do research before this because I know that if I asked you these questions, you would be like, all right, like, let me go to. Go to the textbooks, which I think just really speaks to your diligence and, um, really respect for wanting to, uh, speak of things clearly, um, as possible so that we have an, a vision of where we came from and a vision for where we might go in the future. So thank you so much.

Danielle: Thank you so much, Peter.

Peter: Thank you both. I really enjoyed the conversation.