“How To Heal Our Racial Divide” with Derwin Gray
Show Notes:
Today we are joined by Dr. Derwin Gray, Lead Pastor and Co-Founder of Transformation Church in Indian Land, South Carolina. Dr. Gray played professional football in the NFL following his graduation from Brigham Young University in 1993. After his NFL career, Dr. Gray graduated magna cum laude from Southern Evangelical Seminary with a Master of Divinity degree. He received an honorary doctorate from Southern Evangelical Seminary in 2015, and in 2018 he earned his Doctor of ministry in the New Testament in Context at Northern Seminary. He is also the author of several books, including his most recent, How to Heal Our Racial Divide.
Dr. Gray and his wife Vicki began Transformation Church in 2010 with the prayer that 700 people would show up. Their first service had 701 people in attendance. Transformation Church is a multiethnic, multigenerational, mission-shaped community that God completely, ourselves correctly, and our neighbors compassionately.
Resources:
Transcript:
Derwin Gray 00:00
Holy Spirit, I pray that you would take this moment to exalt Christ to the glory of the Father. And I pray that, as we have conversation, people running technology, that we would allow you to minister to us, then minister through us. Put the demonic world on notice that Christ is indeed risen, and he's risen in his people to love each other across the manmade demonic barriers of ethnicity and class and culture and politics. Continue to build your Church in Jesus' name. Amen.
Eddie Rester 00:39 Amen. I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly 00:41
I'm Chris McAlilly. Welcome to The Weight.
Eddie Rester 00:43
The prayer that you heard at the beginning of the episode today is a prayer that Dr. Derwin Gray prayed for us before we began recording. Dr. Gray is an amazing force for the good work of the Gospel in the United States. He is the co-founder and lead pastor of Transformation Church, it's a multi-ethnic, multi-general, mission-shaped church located near Charlotte, North Carolina. He's a former NFL player, married, adult children, and has a passion for seeing reconciliation in the church and in our culture.
Chris McAlilly 01:19
In the evangelical American church, specifically, there's been this whole conversation around Critical Race Theory, the place of the conversation of race and faith. Are we talking about race too much or too little? And Dr. Gray has an opinion about all of those things, and it's rooted in his study of the Bible. He's a deeply formed biblical preacher. And he goes back into the Bible, in a book called "How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation," what it's all about. And so you get in the book, and in the conversation, this deeply biblical vision, and then also some practical steps about how you can live it out.
Eddie Rester 02:03
He brings out some things I think when we read the Scripture, I said in the episode, we flatten scripture a lot, and we miss out on the full contours of what's really going on, what's happening, what's worrying in the background. We read to see what sometimes we want, or what we need out of Scripture. And we miss how just frightening it was that Jesus began to draw together all these people who had never been drawn together before. It was, for people on the outside, disturbing; for people on the inside of the church, the Body of Christ, it was confusing, what was happening.
Chris McAlilly 02:40
We talk about the NFL We talk about what it is to be the church, who Jesus is as king. And ultimately, what I think I'll take away from this conversation is the passion that I hear in Dr. Gray's voice. I'm kind of excited about it.
Eddie Rester 02:58 Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 02:59
As he lays down both challenges for the church and for the world. I think you're going to enjoy being on the journey today.
Eddie Rester 03:07
So we'll let you get right to it. I hope you'll share this episode. Like it. Write us a review. Let us know and let others know what this episode speaks to you.
Eddie Rester 03:18
[INTRO] Life can be heavy. We carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast to create space for all of that.
Chris McAlilly 03:32
We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen. It's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]
Chris McAlilly 03:47
We're here today with Pastor Derwin Gray. Pastor Gray, we are so grateful to be with you today.
Derwin Gray 03:54
Thank you so much. It's an honor to be with y'all as well. Thank you for having me.
Chris McAlilly 04:00
We've checked out some of your work that's come out, including a recent book, "How to Heal the Racial Divide," and we want to get into that, but I wanted to begin with someone who is a hero of yours. But... What's going on Eddie?
Eddie Rester 04:11
You didn't let me talk to Derwin at all.
Chris McAlilly 04:18 I'm sorry, man.
Eddie Rester 04:19 I'm just gonna...
Chris McAlilly 04:20 Jump in, dude.
Eddie Rester 04:21
We're so thankful. Last night I was talking to my wife and pointing out how many things we have in common.
Derwin Gray 04:30 Yeah.
Eddie Rester 04:31
We're Gen-X. We're pastors and we've both spent a lot of time on the football field. A lot of time on the football field. So.
Derwin Gray 04:39 Let's go.
Chris McAlilly 04:39
He's been preparing for, like, three or four days here.
Eddie Rester 04:42
Yeah, you were played football and I marched in the band. So a lot of time together on the football field.
Derwin Gray 04:49
Yes. And let me say this too, particularly in high school and in college football. The band is a vital part, a necessity, to that experience.
Eddie Rester 05:04 Thank you.
Derwin Gray 05:05
So as a player, I really appreciated what the band did. And what people don't know is you guys worked as hard as we did. When we were in training camp, you guys were doing your marching in the school parking lot. And I mean, if you got to carry like a big ol tuba, I mean, and the drums. I mean, that's serious work.
Chris McAlilly 05:31
So let's be honest, Eddie wasn't playing the tuba.
Derwin Gray 05:35
I put some respect on your name, because that's challenging. So, I appreciate it.
Eddie Rester 05:39
I finally feel validated. Thank you. Thank you. Now we can start the serious stuff.
Chris McAlilly 05:46
All right, so coming back to Dr. Perkins. So Dr. John Perkins, you know, kind of towards the end of the book that you've recently written, you talk about meeting him in seminary. I also encountered him when I was in seminary. And maybe for folks who don't know his name, I wonder if you could talk about the impact of Dr. Perkins's ministry and his presence on the way you think about what you do.
Derwin Gray 06:15
Yeah, you know, so I'm going to come out and just be a little prophetic here. We haven't warmed up a whole bunch, but I'm going to dive in. And I'm going to make this statement that if the church in America would have followed John Perkins in his understanding of the Gospel, the church in America would be stronger, more evangelistic, more discipleship-oriented. Ethnic reconciliation would be normative. Feeding the hungry would be normative. Clothing, the naked would be normative. Empowering the poor would be normative. Speaking truth to power would be normative.
Derwin Gray 06:54
Dr. John Perkins is a modern day Apostle Paul. He embodies what the Gospel is. And for those
of you who don't know, he was born in Mississippi. His family was bootleggers. They were in cahoots with the town sheriff who was corrupt. He watched some incredibly difficult and hard things. He knows racism, up close and personal. His brother Clyde, after fighting and World War Two against racist Nazi Germans in Germany, comes home to America to racists in Mississippi, was shot and killed by a police officer. Dr. Perkins decided he's done with Mississippi, he's going to move out West. He settles into LA, Pasadena area, and through his son going to a summer Bible kind of thing, taught him the song that Jesus loves the children, all the children of the world, the black, the white, the yellow, the brown, and the white, you know, and from that, this faith emerges and he gets a glimpse of Jesus's glory and the holistic nature of his gospel. And he went back to the place that he said he would never go back to.
Derwin Gray 08:14
And that's what Moses did. Moses went back. And he went back. And this man has had a profound ministry. And to this day, I do not understand why he is not the model and the beacon of what ministry is. And I have a couple ideas. Number one is the devil. He doesn't want the fullness of the ministry that John Perkins taught. Number two, I believe, and specifically, that majority culture Christianity within white evangelicalism has tied itself to some of the structures that support and lean towards its betterment but not to the betterment of everybody else, that his word was disruptive. I find a lot of my things that I say, Dr. Perkins said 60 years ago.
Derwin Gray 09:10
And so I wrote my doctoral thesis in honor of him and I wanted to include him in chapter 11 of my book because we need to be refreshed with him, and I stand on the shoulders of Dr. Perkins. So does Tony Evans and so does so many more--the Bryan Lorittses, the Albert Tates, so many of us stand in his legacy. And I believe he's a modern day Apostle Paul. And I'm hoping that my book will give people a greater glimpse of how epic the Gospel is. The Gospel is not simply a trip to heaven when we die. The Gospel not only forgives our sins, but it creates a family with different colored skins, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, as we love each other, we image forth God's glory to the world. And so I honored Dr. Perkins, and I'm grateful for him.
Chris McAlilly 10:07
One of the stories that you recount in that chapter is a conversation you guys had over dinner. And I just wanted to read kind of what he said to you as you recount it. "'Pastor, when those white police officers were terrorizing me,' when he was beaten and arrested at Tougaloo college, 'I saw them as less than human. I saw them as maggots. If I'd had a nuclear grenade, I would have detonated it and killed them and me. They filled me with hate.' But he told me, 'Then I realized I was a bigot, too. But I knew as a Christian, I cannot hate these men. I must love. I must preach a Gospel strong enough to heal this madness and hatred.'" It's a powerful statement from Dr. Perkins.
Derwin Gray 10:51
It is, and when you listen to that statement, it is saturated and soaked in a holistic understanding of the Gospel. And over the last seven to eight years, as I've looked at majority culture, evangelicalism, it's the very opposite of this. It's cultural wars. It's fighting everybody else. It's let's create this boogeyman called CRT so we actually don't have to deal with these issues. Let's make everybody afraid. It's brawling. It's fighting. It's dehumanizing. It's un-Jesus. And so Dr. Perkins, when he was sharing the story, like they were hitting him on the hands with, like, this instrument that had a steel ball at the end. And they were they were hitting him in his groin. And so this is how you heal our racial divide is through the power of the Gospel that says the cycle of violence and hatred only is defeated by a cycle of love and grace and compassion. It's very cruciform. We have too many people that want to be on top instead of people that want to be on a cross.
Eddie Rester 12:17
Well, one of the things that you write so powerfully about in the book is that scripture points us to that new story. The scripture points us away from a story of power to a story of the cruciformed life, and one of the things I love about the book is that you lay out this beautiful Gospel, scriptural basis for how we heal the racial divide, and then walk us into some practical steps, how that's lived out. For you, what are some of the--one of the quotes in the book is, "Many of my white siblings in Christ that join us from homogenous churches are surprised, caught off guard, and uncomfortable with how much the Bible talks about race." Where are some of those surprising yet critical moments that you would point to, where the Bible really begins to talk about race and this larger understanding of the gospel?
Derwin Gray 13:17
Yeah, I would say, Genesis chapter 12. When God tells Abraham, "I'm going to give you a family made up of all the genome of all the families of the earth." And so right at Genesis 12, God is telling Abraham, "I'm gonna give you this multicolored, multicultural family." And then as you read throughout, let's just look at the Old Testament. So Abraham was a pagan, and through him, the nation of Israel comes into being. The nation of Israel were slaves in Egypt. So that's two ethnic groups. And then you had to deal with the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Perizzites, and then you had to deal with the Babylonians, and then the oppressive Romans.
Derwin Gray 14:04
And there's a reason why in the New Testament, when Jesus is talking about what does it look like to love your neighbor as you love yourself, he shares the story of the Samaritans. He says there's a good Samaritan. There was a 700 year ethnic feud between Jews and Samaritan. There's no such thing as a good Samaritan. But Jesus shows what love is. When Jesus feeds 5000 people on one side of the Sea of Galilee and 4000 on the other side, one side was Jew, the other side was Gentile. And when Jesus tells his disciples, "Go make disciples of all nations," think about how difficult that would have been for Jewish people who had experienced persecution, hatred, death, threats of violence and oppression from Gentile nations. Like, go love the people and introduce them to me--the people who've oppressed you, who've hurt you, who sinned against you.
Derwin Gray 14:59
And then when you look at the letters of Paul, and let's just think about Paul and Peter in Galatia. We find this in... Or they were in Antioch and it's in Galatians, Chapter 2:11 through 22. Paul confronts Peter because he gets up from the table eating with Gentiles, because he was afraid of criticism from the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. Fear is contagious, but so was courage. We need more modern-day Apostle Pauls, who understand the blood of Jesus justifies us, the blood of Jesus reconciles us unto God, and to each other, and we must guard the unity that Christ has secured through his blood. We must guard the unity that the Spirit, the bond of peace, seals us with.
Derwin Gray 15:56
And frankly, the only reason we're still having this conversation to this magnitude is because so much Christian preaching and teaching in America is individualistic. And it's a very, very small gospel. It's me, Jesus, and my personal relationship. Even my spiritual disciplines are for me, alone. And we've missed out on the grandeur, grandeur and the beauty of God not only saves me, but he saves me to put me into a we, which is God's multicolored family. And this family together is the body of Christ. And so when you see a white Christian, a Black Christian, an Asian Christian, a Latino Christian, when you see an Indigenous Christian, you're seeing the body of Christ. We are the people of God.
Eddie Rester 16:46
One of the things that someone pointed out to me years and years ago, is that in the New Testament, when you see the word "you," we all assume singular, that Paul and even sometimes when Jesus speaks, he's speaking to a one-person "you" and this is where Southerners get it right. Something like 87% of all of the "you" in Paul's letters actually is plural. It's "y'all." It's "y'all." They weren't speaking to me. They were trying to create something that was so radical and different than had ever existed in the world before. And we missed that. It just slides right by us that these people would be in the room together that had never been in the room together. What is it about the gospel in your mind that reconciles people? Why was Jesus able to draw these people together in a way that was so radical and ridiculous in a lot of ways, then and now?
Derwin Gray 17:51
Yeah, because the Gospel is the good news. That through Jesus's sinless life, his atoning, sacrificial, substitutionary death on the cross, and his resurrection, his exultation as Lord and the sending of the spirit, was to create this beautiful family that God promised Abraham. This family is known by many names: Church, the Body of Christ, the house of God, the living temple. And so I believe it is a dark, demonic spirit that continues to lead pastors to focus more on the individuality instead of understanding that what God does for the individual, it's so that we can be a part of the corporate family. So much of Christian preaching is really self-help talk, or incredible legalism, or it's utterly politically partisan.
Derwin Gray 18:48
And what I'm trying to do, as a New Testament scholars, is take people back to the first century soil of the early church where Jesus and Paul and the apostles walked. And I want to show people that when we go back to the heart of it, we see this incredible picture of a father that is desperately in love with his wayward children, so much so that he sent his Son so that he can have more sons and daughters to bring about his kingdom to Earth.
Derwin Gray 19:23
And so when people read this book, this is what I think is going to happen. When Christians read this book, they're going to call their pastors to teach and preach better, because once they read this book, they're not going to read the Bible the same. They are not going to see scripture the same. And so what I want to say is this: not only do you get all of the individual treasure, but you get a family.
Derwin Gray 19:51
So at our church, at Transformation Church, you know, people go "Well, you guys are just into race." No. We're into Jesus. And because we're into Jesus over 12 years, over 7,000 people have come to faith, and we've baptized a myriad of people. We believe that the Gospel reconciles us vertically and horizontally. The Gospel makes a cross. It is impossible to say you love God without loving people. That's First John 4:20.
Derwin Gray 20:22
And so I think a lot of pastors, particularly white pastors, are afraid. After George Floyd, I had white pastors of small churches, white pastors of big churches, who after they preached on racial reconciliation through the Gospel, thousands of people left. I had one pastor who lost a million dollars in budget in six months, because people left. And the reason why many people left is they feel like it's a bait-and-switch. Like, "Pastor, you've never talked about this before. Why are you talking about it now?"
Derwin Gray 20:56
But also, there's this incredible political idolatry, where there are some people, particularly on the religious right, who think that Jesus has the American flag draped around him, and that Christian nationalism is the gospel. It's idolatry, and it's not. And then on the progressive left, they've tried to hijack Jesus. They want to have Jesus with all of his social dimensions, but without his vertical dimension. So what I'm saying is, we need vertical and horizontal, because he is the cross. He is the uniter. And so I want people in the pews, I wrote this book for them to read it and say, "Hey, Pastor, you need to read this book, because we're learning some things that can transform not only our lives personally, but the Church."
Chris McAlilly 21:47
There's an echo, especially in the first half of the book that I see in a book that we read last year, and a guy that we talked to last year, Esau McCauley who wrote the book "Reading While Black," and in that book, it kind of was more of a scholarly kind of take, and it seemed like it was a way of validating Dr. McCauley's experience in the Black church, in the COGIC church, and kind of Southern Black Christian circles, with the depth of biblical scholarship.
Chris McAlilly 22:20
And what I see you doing in the first half of this book, in "The Bible in Color," is really laying in the plane, as a preacher and a biblical scholar for people in the pews and in the congregation, laying it out as you would preach, you know, day after day, week after week, so that division really takes heart or takes hold of people's hearts. Talk about kind of, you know, the larger... One of the things I've heard that Esau talks about is just how important it is to read the Bible with people who don't look like you, who don't think like you, that come from different backgrounds. There are a number of scholars of color that factor in the background of this book. Just kind of talk about the larger project that you're thinking about, as you think about reengaging the Biblical text today in America.
Derwin Gray 23:11
Yeah, so right now, I would imagine that there's some people who are going, "Well, let's push back. No, we just need to read the Bible as-is." And Amen to that. But also recognize that when you read the Bible as-is, you're reading it from your cultural context as well. And so do I. That's why it's important to read it from various cultural contexts. And let's even think about the Biblical authors themselves. Right? And so when you look at Moses, Moses grew up in the luxury of privilege in Pharaoh's house, right? So he has a perspective that God is working through. You look at Jeremiah, you look at Isaiah, you look at all the prophets, they have a different context in which God speaks through.
Derwin Gray 24:00
You look at the twelve. You look at Jesus's disciples, right? I mean, you had, oh my gosh, you had a zealot, you had fishermen, you had all types of people. When you look at Paul, Paul was a diaspora Jew from Tarsus, which was the Mediterranean intellectual capital of the world. His sidekick, Barnabas was a Hellenistic Jew from Cyprus. And you had people from Africa. And so we need, all of us, to see all of the text.
Derwin Gray 24:33
And what happens is, for example, when I was working on my Master's especially, if a Black theologian wrote a book, it's Black Theology. If a Latino wrote a book on theology, it's Latin theology. But if a white man wrote a book on theology, it's theology.
Chris McAlilly 24:54 Theology.
Eddie Rester 24:54 Theology.
Derwin Gray 24:56
And so that's the normalization of majority culture. Here's what a lot of people don't know about the early church. In Acts chapter eight, Philip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch, and he goes down to Ethiopia or Cush, one of those two, but the Gospel was in Africa. The oldest churches in the world are Ethiopian. All the first great theologians of the church were African. Athanasius, is nickname was the Black Dwarf, because he was a short, Black African, and his opponents would make fun of him because he was short and Black. Augustine, African. Tertullian, African. And the list goes on and on and on. And so God is used, like... Slavers did not bring Christianity to Africans. Christianity was already influencing Africa. Much of Northern Africa was following Jesus, while much of Europe was still worshipping Thor and Odin.
Eddie Rester 26:01
I think that speaks to the seduction of flattening the Gospel. And even sometimes when we say, "I just want to read the Bible," what we're really doing is you're just flattening it down, so that we can see and receive something that speaks to where we are, instead of calling us into the kingdom that God is leading us to.
Eddie Rester 26:27
One of the things in fact, that is echoing in my mind as you're talking about the Gospel coming out of Africa and all of these different cultures that are involved in the New Testament, is you talk about colorblind theology, sometimes people say, "Well, I'm just colorblind." And you talk about how that is actually damaging us in our attempts to heal the racial divide. Can you say a little bit about that?
Derwin Gray 26:57
Yeah, let me give you a story. So I was actually working on"How to Heal Our Racial Divide." It was a year and a half or so ago. I was in a coffee shop. I love to write in a coffee shop. And an older white gentleman looked at me and we smiled, and we acknowledge each other. He says, "Hey, what are you doing?" I said, "Well, I'm working on my newest book. It's called "How to Heal Our Racial Divide." And he goes, "Is there a racial divide in America? Because I don't see color." And I instinctively said, "Why don't you see color? Our God has made me this beautiful cocoa chocolaty color with my culture. He's made you the color and culture you are. Our God is a creative genius. Let's look at the colorfulness of His creation." And when we say "I don't see color," we're muting God's creative genius. And when we mute God's creative genius, we're the ones who miss out on his beauty.
Derwin Gray 27:58
And I said, "When you say you don't see color, you're saying that you don't value the image of God in me." I know the sentimentalism that white folks say, but I've never heard another white person say to another white person, "I don't see color." So it's a good sentimental statement, but it's really bad theology, because if you don't see my color, you don't see me. And God made me this color, this culture. Number two, if you don't see color, it acts as like a spiritual sleeping aid, to go, "Well, I don't see color; therefore, things that happen to people of a different ethnicity and color don't really happen because I don't see color. We're all quote, unquote, equal." Ontologically, all of humanity is made in the image of God. But practically, human beings don't treat each other the way God sees us. So we don't want to be colorblind. We actually want to be color blessed.
Derwin Gray 29:00
And color blessing means your color, your culture, when it's redeemed, I can celebrate your ethnicity. God doesn't obliterate our ethnicity. He redeems us so that we can celebrate it. And when we bring all of our differences together in the body of Christ, it's beautiful. For example, my hand is different from my foot. They're different, but they're part of the same body. And in First Corinthians 12, we love to quote that passage, but in First Corinthians 12:27, I believe, Paul says, you know, there is Jew and Greek, there's Jew and Gentile, free and slave, meaning economic, socio-economic difference, that there's diversity in the body. And so my hand and my foot are equally important, as equally beautiful.
Derwin Gray 29:49
I'm asking us to have a deeper Gospel ecclesiology. I'm saying no to self-help, populist preaching that makes people feel good, but they devour themselves throughout the week because we don't have the Gospel strength to do it. And so we want to be color blessed.
Derwin Gray 30:09
Like if I can give you an example, about, gosh, eight years ago now, maybe, I took a DNA test because my mother is very, very light skinned. My aunt has blond hair and hazel eyes. And I got the DNA test results back. And I found out that I am 23% European. And I was like, whoa. And my wife was like, "why is this bothering you?" I said, it's not bothering me. But as a person who comes from enslaved people for generations, I can only go back so far. Like, who were these other people. I don't know who my mom's biological dad is. He was probably half white, I would suppose. But it's interesting to have Nigerian in me, and all the other western coast of Africa. But then to have Scottish. I like to say that I'm a Black Scotsman and I wear a kilt when I preach, you know, like, and British, and all of these things. Like God is a creative genius. And our ethnic distinctions are not to be silenced. They're to be amplified, because we can then see the world in the totality of all of its beauty, through the eyes of Christ situated in all of us.
Chris McAlilly 31:34
Yeah, you know, there's several things that I am thinking about. But one of the things that I'm seeing is part of it is, what I see you doing is hearing the conversation among evangelicals in America, and the way in which Critical Race Theory has become a boogeyman. And you're saying, no, there is this deeply Biblical, early church vision that's very much rooted in the covenant that God made with Abraham, and the person of Jesus Christ, that gives birth to God's multi-ethnic family.
Derwin Gray 32:18 Yes.
Chris McAlilly 32:19
And one of the things at the heart of that is the way that you view Jesus. And you talk, there are two different dimensions of this, if you're going to have a color-blessed discipleship that you talk about. You talk a lot about Jesus as King, which I find interesting. And I wonder if you would talk about that. And you also talk about us having one blood, the red blood of Jesus flows through our veins. I wonder what, for you, it means for us to trust in the supremacy of Christ, as we practice a color-blessed discipleship.
Derwin Gray 32:53
Yeah, you know, first of all, Jesus as King is thoroughly, thoroughly early church, New Testament, and it has been thoroughly, thoroughly lost. I think in our desire to see people, quote, unquote, 'get saved,' to come to faith, we've packaged it in four spiritual laws. Four spiritual laws, you can use them, but that's not the totality of the Gospel. Soteriology how one gets regenerated is different than ecclesiology theology proper. Like, soteriology is not the fullness of the Gospel. God saves me so that I can be a part of this Church--ecclesiology. God sanctifies me so that I can be a part of this Church-- ecclesiology. God lives in me so that I can image forth His glory--theology proper. The Holy Spirit lives in me--pneumatology, right.
Derwin Gray 33:55
And so what we've done is we've made our faith very populous and very simplistic, and we're wondering why we can't make disciples. And so what I'm saying is, when the early church said, "Jesus is Lord," that was enough to get you killed. Because only Caesar was Lord. The Roman government, the Roman Empire, were perfectly fine with all of its citizens worshipping whoever they want, as long as Caesar is Lord. And when the Christian said "no, no, no." Pontius Pilate was right, that when Jesus hung on a cross, He put a sign that was supposed to mock him that said, "Here's the King of the Jews." Pontius Pilate was right, even though he didn't know it.
Derwin Gray 34:55
So when Jesus lives and dies and raises again, he's vindicating himself as Lord over the cosmos. Caesar's not Lord. Nobody in a White House or Kremlin is Lord. No manmade government is Lord. Jesus is Lord, seated the right hand of his Father, ruling and reigning and interceding for us, enfolding his plan that's going to bring in the new heavens and the new earth. And we are the new Exodus people, journeying to the new promised land, which is resurrection in all of the earth and all of creation.
Derwin Gray 35:37
I'm beckoning people to a deeper, richer, more bolder, more beautiful faith than simply, "Can I make it to the next week?" No, no, no--you can make it into eternity, because Jesus is King. And because Jesus is King, we bow our knee to him. And this really comes from Philippians 2, you know, 6-11, what's called the kenosis, the incarnation of Jesus, and we bow our knee and confess to him that he is Lord. And so, Lord, and understanding that Jesus is King, I believe, puts a greater emphasis on his grace. And here's why: We have a team, that whatever he requires, he is the requirement to accomplish it. If he's not Lord and King, what he's asking us to do, we can't do, but because he's Lord and King, he's the requirement to do it.
Eddie Rester 36:47
In that passage, in Philippians, it starts out with, "let the same mind be in you, that was in Christ Jesus," and then we get this pouring out of Christ Jesus. And, you know, part of my problem sometimes is I don't want to, I don't want to be poured out. I don't want to let go of things that I feel are important. I don't want, sometimes I don't wanna let go of my politics or my views or those kinds of things. And yet, the way to reconciliation is to follow the King.
Eddie Rester 37:22
I wonder, because we could, I think I could sit here and talk theology and scripture with you all day. But I wonder, I want to get to that second half of the book, where you begin to say, this is how this plays out for the body of Christ. This is how it plays out in discipleship. And what are a couple things that you would want to, you know, you'd want to entice people to read the book with, to say these are some things that are really critical if you're going to buy into Jesus is King, if you're going to buy into the New Testament presents us this multicultural picture of the church that isn't an odd thing, it is the thing. What is it that we need to be about? What can we begin to do, I guess?
Derwin Gray 38:09
Yeah. Wow. So I want you to picture yourself and everybody listening as a tree. And if the tree is tall but yet on the inside, it's brittle and broken, and the roots are shallow, when the storms come, the tree is going to be shattered and uprooted. In my humble perspective, I think that that's the majority of the American Church is... We look like these tall trees, but our roots are shallow, and it's rotting on the inside. And God is saying, "I want you to grow down deep into the soil of my love," which Paul says in Ephesians 3:16, "I want you to be rooted and grounded in love." And as we're rooted and grounded in love, we go deeper into the heart of God. And as a result, we grow higher up to God, and our branches spread out onto each other.
Derwin Gray 39:26
And so this idea of ethnic reconciliation is just one part of what it means to be a disciple. So not only will you grow in ethnic reconciliation, but you're going to grow in holiness across the board because you're going to get a glimpse of Jesus like never before. What I would say to entice people to buy the book is this: There is more to see in Jesus than you know. He is bigger, better, more beautiful and more life-giving than you can comprehend. And he wants to fill you to the fullness of his Father, by the Spirit, if you're willing. And one of the benefits of that is the horizons of your capacity to love will stretch into people and places that you never thought was possible, and you will become a good brother, a good sister, and a family of God that echoes throughout eternity.
Chris McAlilly 40:38
One of the things I think that's required to love, to become a good brother, good sister in the body is engaging in difficult conversations. That's one of the chapters that you kind of talked through. I wonder, you know, it factors in it, because there's this larger conversation happening in America, about America. And there's a larger conversation happening in the church about the relationship between the church and America. And you're doing some of that work in the chapter where you're talking about America as beautiful. But also, in order to really understand the story of the family that is America, that there's some dark secrets that need to be kind of fleshed out so that we can live in the light, in healing and repentance and reconciliation. Can you talk a little bit about kind of how to do those conversations well and faithfully in the body?
Derwin Gray 41:34
Yeah, yeah, you know, number one, for my white brothers and sisters, you're at a great disadvantage. And here's why: because growing up, you didn't have these conversations in a healthy way around your table. In an African American context, you have to talk about ethnicity, you have to talk about culture to be aware of because you have to survive. And so particularly as an African American pastor, my whole life has been studying and understanding the majority culture, and this has benefited me so much in my life.
Derwin Gray 42:18
Some of the most influential men in my life are white men: Coach DW Rutledge, Converse Texas high school football legend; Mike Sullivan, my secondary coach; LaVell Edwards, Hall of Fame coach at BYU. I mean, so many white people. Half my family's white. You know, my wife is a white girl from Montana. I love my mother-in-law. I love human beings. I love people. And I love people because God loves people. And so the art of love starts first, how do I learn to love? And then secondly, love says to listen.
Derwin Gray 43:03
You know, let me give you an example. So, in 2014, 15, or so 16 or so, Colin Kaepernick, in the NFL, lead NFL players in taking a knee at the National Anthem, not to protest the National Anthem, but to protest systemic injustice, police brutality, and racism. And by the way, even the NFL now is saying, there's systemic racial injustice in hiring Black coaches. The NFL has said that. So Colin Kaepernick, for speaking the truth, lost his NFL job. And let me speak on this. There's a few things I can speak about with expertise. Football is one of them. The nature of the quarterback position, you cannot tell me that there are 40 players on the planet that are a better quarterback than Colin Kaepernick is. He could have been a backup. Trust me. I know NFL.
Derwin Gray 43:58
So he lost his career for speaking the truth. But during that time, many of my white brothers and sisters would say, "This is just so disrespectful to our nation." And I would say, "Why?" And they would say, "Well, he's dishonouring the flag." I'm like, "Well, it's to protest what's happening and he's using his platform." "Well, he should be happy. He's making a million dollars. What does he have to complain about?" And I'm like, Okay, let's pause here. Those who have a voice use their voice for the voiceless. This is courageous, to risk your career to make an impact.
Derwin Gray 44:33
And then the next one would be, "Well, my great-grandfather fought in World War Two. And that's disrespectful to him. What do you say about that?" And I'll say, "Well, I'm thankful that your grandfather fought in World War Two. I love my country. I'm thankful for his service and all the military." And then I'll say but have you considered that 1.2 million Black GIs went and fought for America against Nazi Germans who were racist, won the war, only to come back home to racism in America. Colored-only water fountains, restaurants they couldn't go into. They couldn't even vote. You go die for a country but you can't vote for a country.
Derwin Gray 45:17
Jesse Owens couldn't even go through the front door of the hotel that they were honoring him for winning four gold medals and destroying Hitler's master race. And don't forget also 1.2 million Black GIs didn't get the GI Bill, which prevented them for losing trillions in economic advantage because the GI Bill is what helped start the modern-day suburban housing boom. Black people in our ancestors missed out on that, which created this incredible economic gap.
Derwin Gray 45:50
So to my white brothers and sisters, please understand this. More than just white people died and fought for liberty and justice for all. It was Native Americans who broke the German code that helped defeat them. And sadly, Japanese Americans were put in internment camps. This doesn't mean I don't love America. I love my country. Because I love my country, I don't want to see her repeat the same.
Derwin Gray 46:18
And then on another note, on January 6 2021, when the US Capitol was stormed, I saw a confederate flag in the US Capitol. The Confederacy was a four-year-old movement that wanted to keep Black people enslaved, that didn't want to be Americans. They're traitors. That flag is traitorous. It's evil. It's sinister. And it was in the US Capitol. My great-great-great grandfather Moses Davis fought for the Virginia Calvary 4th Regiment, Color Division against the Confederacy. When I see that American flag, I see my ancestors saying, "Slavery is wrong. And I'm willing to give my life for liberty and justice for all. I'm willing to give my life that the Constitution says we're all created equal and endowed by our Creator."
Derwin Gray 47:15
And so when you're the majority culture, don't think your life is what's normalized, or what's the center. It is not. God is the center, and his kingdom is what is normalized. And so we have to learn how to have these conversations, in love, and with patience. And lastly, to my white siblings in Christ, America is not your country alone, and your identity is not in America. When your identity is in America, criticisms of America offend you personally. But when your identity is in Christ, you can look back and say, "That was wrong. And I mourn with the damage it caused. I mourn for the fact that my ancestors' sin gave me advantages that I enjoy now. And I'm going to take my advantage, and I'm going to lift others up for the kingdom." Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, which means justice, for they will be satisfied.
Eddie Rester 48:19
Thank you so much for that word, and for calling us to be the body of Christ. One of the things that I hear in your work and in your passion is that if there's going to be healing and reconciliation in our country and around our world, it's not going to happen by accident. It's not going to happen because the secular people decided it was going to happen. It's going to occur because the body of Christ allows the Spirit, our King Jesus Christ to work in us and through us to draw us together.
Eddie Rester 48:52
One of the things again, this is a great book. It's a great resource for churches, for classes, for individuals. One of the things you say in the very first chapter, and if you get the book, what you need to know is at the end of every chapter, there are questions to help you think, there's a prayer, but the first chapter, I think it is, that you call people to read this book with someone else, preferably with someone of a different ethnicity, so that you can begin to have the hard, patient conversations that we need together.
Eddie Rester 49:27
Dr. Gray, thank you for your great time and your gift today and your gift to the church. We just appreciate you spending this time with us.
Derwin Gray 49:34
Well, thank you all so much, and it's an honor and it's a privilege. And I pray that... Let me finish with this challenge to the pastors, your people are not going to know this if you don't teach it, and you're gonna have to stand before a Holy God and say, "Lord, I chose not to learn," or "Lord I was afraid," or "Lord, I didn't care." And my hope and my privilege is that all of us as pastors can stand up before the Lord and say, "Lord, I did not shrink back from teaching theto whole counsel of God." And then to those who are not pastors, but who follow Jesus, you be the change that you want to see. Jesus has risen and he's risen in you.
Chris McAlilly 50:21
With that we would draw to a close. Thank you, Dr. Gray for your time.
Derwin Gray 50:28 Peace out.
Eddie Rester 50:28
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.
Chris McAlilly 50:36
If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]