Colored Commentary
A colorful Gospel-centered conversation on Race and Culture. Powered by his biblical reconciliation organization Threaded, Markus and his friend Antwuan provide a space where you can peek into multiethnic, passionate, authentic and potentially challenging conversations around race in Christianity and culture.
Colored Commentary
The Charlie Kirk Episode: War or Peace?
After the Charlie Kirk murder, the nation seems to be in an uproar, with each day escalating more than the day before. What happens next for us? What happens next for the church? Markus and Antwuan discuss the church's role in responding to Charlie Kirk's death, and the Christians' responsibility in an explosive and divided political environment.
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What's up, what's up, what's up? How are we doing out there, Colored Commentary Family? This is Colored Commentary. Colorful conversations by colorful people about Christianity, culture, and race. I'm your host, Marcus Lloyd. And with me as always is also the host, Mr. Grant Grantuine Malone.
SPEAKER_06:Yo, what's up, everybody? Yes, I'm uh I'm growing my long beard. I changed my look. Actually, I'm not gonna grow. Although I have I have thought about it. I've thought about um a different facial.
SPEAKER_02:Can you can you grow a beard? I can. Oh, you can? I've never I've never seen anything close.
SPEAKER_06:It's an odd fact that I didn't actually start growing the rest of this like facial hair. If you're on the video, I'm pointing to where it will be like right here.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um until like 29 or 30 is like it wasn't coming in.
SPEAKER_06:I I didn't have to right, I didn't shave my cheeks. Um for any of my 20s, okay. Neither set of cheeks were shaved. Okay, good. But um, and then right around 30, I did. So I that's right. So interesting. So yeah, but it's starting to grow, it grows out now. I have to shave it more often than uh used to.
SPEAKER_03:You should try it. I just want to see in November. What is it? The no-shave November. I think you should try. I want to just see what this beard does. I want to see.
SPEAKER_06:You know, I got a life rule of uh maintenance-free. I hear that's possible.
SPEAKER_03:Well, then a beard is not what you want. That's why it's it's only for November, though. It's just it's just to try it so we can see. You know, we have obviously a pepper. She's always talking about beards are men's makeup, right? It's how you kind of contour your face and make things. I was, I think we were in a session the other day. I was like, I think I'm gonna shave off the goatee. She's like, no, right, because everybody, because my face apparently is that offensive. The last time I did it, everybody was really offended.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't wonder. They were so offended when they saw the naked chin come into a meeting. They were like, What is this? Put something on those, uh, on that naked chin that you got.
SPEAKER_06:We don't need something on that.
SPEAKER_03:Look, I almost shaved it off the other day. I was just, you know, me. Like, I I'll I'll change a look and it will be like, Yeah, you've changed, you've got all kinds of legitimate. I will go, I will, I will wake up in the morning and be like, I'm cutting these dreads off.
SPEAKER_06:Somehow it feels right. I mean, or it feels, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's all right. It's all right. Yeah, uh man, but good, good to be here. Uh, today uh is I'm glad we're kind of starting off with a little left or right, because today is actually dealing with some stuff that's just been crazy. Yeah. Um, anybody who's been watching right now in this conversation uh and in our world, um, can't help but get into the conversation, the ever-growing conversation around uh the murder of Charlie Kirk. Uh so I I'm I I understand like this already, like being saying names uh on here and um bringing the conversation in is already just a weird feeling because it feels like you can't even talk about this conversation.
SPEAKER_06:It's so explosive right now. And I mean, I know of and you probably do too, several pastors who are working through conversations from their congregation um because they addressed or didn't address or addressed uh in a way that you know didn't appease everyone on the Sunday afterwards. And of course, the news media uh cycle is all over the place.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_06:Um, there's been so much development in the story and the murder of the the murder suspect, right? And what does it all mean? And what does it mean for our culture? What does it mean for Christianity and the church? Uh who am I gonna follow? What church I'm gonna belong to? Like it's it's just so much conversation um that's going on um after after Charlie Carker. I'm not quite sure whether it's uh purely him or if he's just the final um straw in a series of things. Okay um it's probably that's probably a little bit of both in some ways for some people, but it's so interesting though.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna say this, and this is going to be completely I'm gonna say probably really offensive, but I'm really like everything we're gonna say today is gonna be really no no we're gonna we're gonna try. No, I'm gonna just try, but here's what here's what's interesting to me, right? Like the particularly in the way people responded on the Sunday morning. You already mentioned, like, we just went through a Sunday morning. I saw people on TikTok who are like tic-tac, tick tock. I saw some people on TikTok, and uh, and they were talking about their pastor didn't mention Charlie Kurt's name, and they're like, So, as you know, I'm looking for another church. I also ran into folks just who I knew that like it if you if you did mention it, then I'm looking for another church. It reminded me, I know it's not the same. So do not please do not respond to this particular trigger.
SPEAKER_06:I think you're about to say the same thing that people have been saying.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly, which you've probably seen. It's a lot like what happened with George Floyd. Yeah, it's it's it's the same thing, it's it's what happened in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_06:The anti, yeah, yeah, it's this it's almost the anti-George Floyd in the sense that it's bringing up the opposite the opposite either the opposite conversation or the yeah, the opposite, the yes, the energies have changed something.
SPEAKER_03:In the and kind of even in the liberal and conservative idea, right? And even that conversation, because we did it, you know, we were around when that conversation was going on, yeah, and we saw that in the in the early moments, the early moments of that murder, right? That that both sides came together around this is a horrific act, right? This is a horrific thing that we saw. And then within you know, 48 hours or whatever it is, all the cycle started, and it became immediately like, oh, we had unity for just a minute around human life, and then we had to turn it into and politicize it to our benefit, right? It's like who's the who can get to the fat who can get to the political politicization, politic, politicization, yeah, interpret and interpretation interpretation around a political idea. How how quickly can we get there after these stories? And so when it happened with Charlie Kirk, I was like, I know, I know it's coming, and and it and it did not take long.
SPEAKER_06:Um, yeah, so yeah, it it's it's an interesting, it's interesting to watch, you know.
SPEAKER_03:When I think we've joked around about this, um, or I don't know, not about this subject here, just not this subject, but this thing I'm gonna say next.
SPEAKER_06:Like, like uh, or maybe it wasn't a joke, but I've I've I've considered myself the unpopular popular kid and what I've what what I've said when I was in high school, right? And what that meant was that uh I was never in anyone's one circle, yeah. But I could I was always outside those circles, but I could be in any of these circles, like I could go sit with whoever jucks or the music people that whatever. And I could be there and it it wasn't a problem, but I wasn't that that wasn't my people, yeah. And what that when I was in high school, what it afforded me an ability to do is to watch is the people watching thing, yeah, you to watch group dynamics happen um in front of you, and you know, it's a really it for me was really interesting, um, kind of human experiment or uh observation. And this feels like that for me a little bit. Like I'm I I I don't believe I wouldn't say that I'm in I'm not in the liberal camp, I'm not fully in the conservative camp. Um the way people, the way Christian, even the word Christian, has been utilized in society, uh, as it's been attached to various ideas and ideologies. I I'm a very particular type of Christian, you know, and so I'm really careful with with saying I'm in the Christian camp according to social definition. All right. I would say I'm a Christ follower, I would say that I'm a Christian in that sense. Um but it's interesting in church and all that, right? Um, white, black, I'm not white, but uh black, so the race conversation, like it's interesting watching the cafeteria of groups, okay, right, respond and and how um how group thinky we still we still are because part of my revelation, maybe observation better in high school was man, people just sometimes move in groups. You know what's the funniest thing? This is funny to me, actually, true. Like ha ha or yeah, it is a little ha ha because one of the things that my parents and your parents probably said the same thing to you too. Say if everybody jumps off a cliff, don't you jump up? Yep, right? Right, we if you are of a certain age, you have heard or said something in that arena, yes, and maybe said it to your own kids, right? Like if everyone listen, yeah, if everyone is jumping off a cliff, that doesn't mean you have to. That's right, but what we experience, even in a response to Charlie Kirk, yeah, is corporate cliff jumping.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, which write that down. That's uh I'm putting it down immediately.
SPEAKER_06:Whichever group you're in, everyone's jumping off a cliff, uh-huh, and you feel like you should too. Why? And that there's something wrong if you don't, if you don't, and there's something wrong with them if they don't, right? And so I I lament uh I the murder of Charlie Kirk is lamentable because it's a life that's precious that should not have been taken, and it is uh uh certainly not uh and then certainly not taken in a murder, uh you know, but life is precious anyway, but even the horrific way that it happened, right, the public way that it happened, the gruesome way that it that we all watched it, those who chose to look at it, like that is uh uh that is worth lament, and it is worth taking a moment uh to reflect about, which takes me to number two, which is to say, what does the there's there's the murder, and it's what does the murder mean? Yeah, and it's it's question number two is where I think all this issue is okay. What does the murder actually mean? And there's different cliff jumpers who are choosing different answers to what it means, what this means and what we should do about it, you know. I feel like that's where we are, and and that would be fine in a way, but if the church was in the midst of it and div and divided about it.
SPEAKER_03:And uh if the church w wasn't in the midst of it, is that what you said?
SPEAKER_06:That would be okay if the church wasn't, yeah. I'm sorry. If the church wasn't in the midst of it, uh thanks for the correction, and and um and divided about it, and divided about it. But as it turns out, there's a set of cliffs inside the church of America, and there's groups at those cliffs, right? And we're we're participating in the same sort of group think there, and it's creating this division. And the world is going to be the worse for that division in the church. Right. I think that's where that's where I'm at.
SPEAKER_03:I I think I think you're absolutely right. I think going into the conversation about the the unity in the in the space is is is uh is very on brand, if you will, for us, right? Like we're we're constantly wanting to engage in the unity conversation and recognize that uh the power of the church being unified across these things, or the power of the recognition of that there's there's really one, it's hard for me to say there's really just one camp to cliff dive off of or cliff jump off of. But I think that that's part of what submitting your life to this work, submitting your life to Christ is the ultimate cliff jump, right? Where you go, this is the cliff I'm jumping off of, and I'm leaving the other things behind. But for whatever reason, in our American context, about church particularly, we we don't see um a kind of uh uniformity or not uniformity, unity in in Christ as uh as something that is easy to find. Um even though we may all say that that's what we're trying to do, that we're actually trying to follow Christ in our in our uh tribal cliff jumping.
SPEAKER_06:And that's what makes it hard.
SPEAKER_03:And that's what's super hard because it all it everybody's got a everybody has got a great story about it, a great line, a great I'm not I'm gonna I'm being I'm being charitable. Everybody's got a great explanation of why the way that they're thinking about this and the way they want their church to talk about this and the way they want to talk about it is a God thing. And so the question becomes how do you even decipher like what is the actual God thing in the midst of it? Yeah, how do you start like so? For this, I mean, here's uh the start. Everybody is made in the image of God. Okay, I mean that's we can all agree with that. That's what I'm hoping that we can start with. Is like that we're all made that there's none who are greater and none who are less than. I would say I I I would say sometimes the messages that are out there, even by the people who were mourning and lamenting, may say things that sound different than that.
SPEAKER_06:Agree, right? And that's what's that's maybe maybe accidentally, maybe accidentally, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because we'll we'll yeah, um go ahead. Well, I would just I just that's I think that's where people struggle, is like we all want to we we agree that all people are made in the image of God. But I think if you're in one particular camp and you get one set of of uh uh videos on your Instagram and TikTok uh and you uh about Charlie Kirk, you're going to hear a person who sounds like they don't believe that everybody is made in the equal image of God. That's the message basically that some lives matter more than others. And nothing else, that some lives are more inferior than others, right? Like they're not quite as good or they don't line up as well, or they have some pathology about them in the ways that they are constructed and do things that make them less than. Uh, and so again, if you're if you're getting one line of of your of the the algorithm sending you that, that's what you're hearing. So then when you see something happen to this child, to this child made in the image of God, it's hard for you then to find the ability to mourn because you've you've you've taken in these other these other uh things that this person has said.
SPEAKER_06:I still So in this example, the person would see the person as less.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, the person would say, Oh, because you thought of other people less, I can now think of you less. Right. I'm modeling your own thinking for you.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And I just think that that is that's the that's the wrong. I mean, that's that is if you again Christ follower. I don't know how other people think about it. Some people are eye for an eye, whatever, but if you're a Christ follower, that's not that's not the way it works, right? So if you've submitted to Christ and you're saying I'm trying to figure this out from a Christian standpoint, that is not true. I don't care what the person has said that that's that doesn't change what God has said about them, right? Right. So that's a place that we should be able to agree and start from.
SPEAKER_06:We we should be able to, but there's this pesky, there's this pesky uh extra uh requirement on our value statement that we allow to come in. It is American sensibility, ethnic sensibility, uh ideological sensibilities, all those things add extra sauce to people's lives in our heads. So the meat, the meat is yes, made the child of God, but then yeah, yeah, it's almost like the made the child of God is the is the minimum, yeah, not the whole.
SPEAKER_03:Not the whole.
SPEAKER_06:Okay, so we we can all start with children.
SPEAKER_03:It's the protein.
SPEAKER_06:Everybody gets the protein in the everybody gets the same 10 points for being a child of God, but then you get the way it seems like we behave. Yeah, well, if you agree with me politically, I'll sprinkle a couple more on your life. Uh if you happen to have the same skin color as me, I'll sprinkle. Uh, if we are in the same social class, I'll sprinkle, you know. Um, do you like the cowboys?
SPEAKER_03:You know, like you could take my sprinkle off immediately. You don't need that.
SPEAKER_06:No, they don't. The point is, like, we start to bring in these value, why we say sprinkles, I'm about to say seasonings, I don't know, man. Whatever. Yeah, but we start bringing we bring these other things, and next thing you know, you have a hierarchy of value in society, and now you're living and walking things through with this hierarchy, and the scripture is neutralizing that hierarchy on the regular Christ is constantly calling us to the point that you just made that that your value is because you've made an image of God, and I believe your value is uh set by that, and it's set by your life was worth dying for by Christ. Right, those things have happened, and nothing can undo those. So, so those, yeah, those things write the price of your value, nothing else can shape that, shape that. Um, all this other stuff is ancillary to value now, you know, and uh to the value of life. So when someone like Charlie Kirk gets murdered, whether you agree with him and he had a lot of value to the way that you do things or not, as believers, it's gotta be that we lament the loss of precious life bought for by the blood of Christ and image by the Father, uh and by the well, not just father, but by God, by the by the whole the wholeness of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and now so it goes to that point I think you were talking about even earlier, right? That there is this next piece that also requires, I think, some lament, is that we do sprinkle. Yes, you know what I mean. Like that's I think that's what's hard too. Like, I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking about people who are listening right now, maybe who've heard it before, and like there's still they're still not sold. It's still not quite an it's if I get you, it's too simple, it's too soft, it's too soft, you're not you're not going after because this dude said this, or because of that, and you're like, Yes, but here's what's it's we should also be lamenting the fact that our division, our rhetoric, and our sprinkling, if you will, created a scenario where somebody plotted a murder on someone that they didn't even know. They didn't know this cat personally, they had only heard his rhetoric, they disagreed, they put the sprinkle on of what's valuable and hierarchical, they planned out a murder and did it. Right. Can we lament that too? That our political environment has gotten to the point where people are planning murders on people because of what they say, right?
SPEAKER_06:And and that's where the next question I said earlier, I said there's the there's the issue of the murder itself that you got to deal with, and that's kind of what we're talking about right now. And then it's what the what the murder means. Yeah, and for me, while there's a lot of Christian voices who would say the this murder means that the Christian voice is under attack.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_06:That's what it means to some people. That's not what it means to me. Um what this murder means is this is the state to the point of dread. This is the state of our politics. That we have politics that we have gotten to a place where um where dissenting opinions can lead to murder.
SPEAKER_03:Now it doesn't always lead to murder, but it can lead not with a gun, but it can lead to Jesus' version of murder, hate and all that.
SPEAKER_06:But it can lead to murder. And I think what this, what Charlie Kerr's death should be doing, and this is my opinion, what it should be doing from an American from an American point of view, as American citizens, I'm speaking as American citizens, not as kingdom citizens at this moment, not as Christ centered, but as American citizens at the moment. What it should tell us is, hey, it's a kind of harbinger of things to come. This is this is something that if we're gonna this is a this is a feature of the moment we're in. And it's kind of a uh a flair that says, hey, this is who we're becoming. Now, the irony of what I'm trying to tell you is what should what should be happening to us, we should be saying, whoa, we have created I I use greenhouses a lot in the church where I'm teaching about uh a space that is facilitating an outcome, facilitating growth, and greenhouses do that, right? Yeah, but we have built a greenhouse where murder is regular, right? And the the the thing growing in our greenhouse is death, right? And and so how do we get here? And I think what it would be encouraging, but it's not happening, is this look back to say we've got to figure out how to disagree and hold these these conversations without producing murderous greenhouses. But the irony of that is it's actually creating more energy for more death. The energy that's coming out of the conversation, whether it's righteous anger or not, is war. We need to fight more. We need to, we need, we need to, we need to pick up, we need to pick up more weapons, right? And so um it's it's it's disheartening for me, uh, the way that I see it, that what should be a warning sign that says, hey, things have gotten too far, is more like a launch pad that says we need to do more of this. And it feels like that's where society is going. And the unfortunate thing for me in the midst of all that is some of the voices that are calling for more war, yeah, for more fight, yeah, are those who would call themselves Christians. Yeah, those people. And it's irrelevant for me in a in a moment like this, it's irrelevant in some ways for me to say rather I agree with your sentiment about what you feel about what Kirk believes. Um that's his name, Kirk.
SPEAKER_01:Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Uh what he believes. My problem is Christ never calls us to war. Right. And our response can't be that we're gonna pick up our guns and fight each other and create more space for more for more war. And it feels like it feels like a lot of that is coming out of some of those who would call them some of the some of them I don't know if I would call those extreme, uh, but when I'm hearing that out of Christians' voices, um, that's a statement that has very little to do with your ideology and has a whole lot to do with your methodology for how you're going to get what you want done, done. It cannot be via the picking up of sores and guns, right?
SPEAKER_03:I'll go even further, right? Because I do I do think that there is an aspect of where you get to that that point of where you pick up swords and guns. But I think there's a long, there's a long trail that gets us there, right? Which is what I think we're being exposed to. Um, you know, I we we here in Dallas, right? We've got this uh um uh uh equal rights uh museum down here, and there's this room that's filled with all uh kind of stories of the multiple genocides that have happened throughout the um the the world. Uh I can't remember the the time frame it gives, but it's got you know it's got uh Rwanda, it's got uh Holocaust and so forth and so on. And um and it and it actually outlines um the stages um that happen before you get to this genocide. They of the the how is it possible that in a country that was 93% Christian um in Rwanda that all of a sudden in a particular month these tribes were turned against each other, Christians against Christians, and they killed almost a million people within a month. How is that possible? Well, one of the things that started with that is just dehumanization. You just dehumanize people, right? It becomes so much easier to kill somebody if you have named them something that is killable. Uh there are cockroaches, right? So they they that that's that was a a term used a lot in uh Rwandan uh before the genocide is if he was talking about cockroaches. Well, you don't mind. I you all grew up in Houston, you know what I'm saying? Like cockroaches were everywhere, they fly by and nobody has any problem stepping on a cockroach. They think that's what you're supposed to do. So if that's your mentality, then when you hear somebody talked about as a cockroach, it becomes easier. And over time, you're able to get to the point where you think it becomes easier for you to do that. Now it becomes it, it's not just about then dehumanization and then you all of a sudden you're ready to go and shoot somebody, right? It has to get there's something that Jesus understands about that he talks about in the Sermon on the Mount, this idea of you know, you have heard it said, you know, uh love your love your neighbor, hate your enemy, right? He's like, no, you not only you love your neighbor, but you love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. This is the alternate, this is the alternate the answer to a world where all where everybody ends up blind because they're an eye for an eye. This is the answer to that. Jesus is saying there's something that you are, when you decide to be a part and submit to this particular cliff jumper, if you will, group. What we do here is we actually de-escalate those things. We actually turn it on its head. So instead of moving towards this move of of allowing hate to come into your life, you move toward love. I I can't continue to remember uh um when I was uh I was reading uh Jesus and the disinherited uh Howard Thurman, uh, there's a great sort of story he tells in there, but he he says this thing about hatred. He said, Hey, hatred bears uh deadly and bitter fruit. It is blind and non-discriminating. True, it begins by exercising specific discrimination. This it does by centering upon the persons responsible for the situations which create the reaction of resentment, bitterness, and hatred. But once hatred is released, it cannot be confined to the offenders alone. It is difficult for hatred to be informed as to the object which it gets, uh which gets under, which it gets under its way. So hatred doesn't stop. You we start with this idea, I'm gonna hate this person, I'm gonna hate this group, but once we allow that hatred to come, the group is just the start. Hatred actually has a multiplying effect that it actually starts moving into other things around you. In fact, in Harwood Thurman in his book, he was talking about talking to a man one time who was white and he's black, and the man tells, he tells him, I'm teaching my kids not to hate Negroes. And not because he grew negroes need to are good, it's just because I know if I teach my son to hate anything, the hatred will cannot be controlled once it's set in motion. Right. And so I think that that's where we we've allowed ourselves to enter into this this communication about other people in ways that are hateful. We've allowed it. It's the same thing you saw at the beginning of all the good war of all the of all the world wars, right? The media, the most the time as soon as the the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and people were allowed to hate Japanese, then it became so easy to go now and drop atom bombs on them, right? Because the hatred started. And I think we've been in a season for uh oh probably the last 10 years or so where hatred is seven, eight fermented for easy, where hatred is allowed, even in the church. You are seeing these clips of pastors from their pulpits spewing hate about other individuals just because they're not a part of the clique, whether it be they're not a part of their liberal group or not a part of their conservative group. We have allowed hatred to be a part of our rhetoric in the church, and we have not listened to what Christ has engaged us with.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, I think that's very good. I mean, from a social point of view is dehumanization, right? And it's it's also true. This and what I'm gonna say too, so these aren't mutually exclusive, but in the in the in the church is demonization.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_06:So dehumanization from the social point of view, hey, we get to we get to take you out because you are no longer good for society. That you're neutral, or actually you're a nuisance or negative to society. Yeah, we'll call you rats, we'll call you cockroaches, we'll call you vermin, we'll call you that. The church's version, the the quote unquote, the little uh, you know, the the the so-called church's version of that is demonization to say you are no longer good for the kingdom, in fact, you're neutral to the kingdom, or you are negative to the kingdom, and therefore you are our enemy, and we are supposed to vanquish demons, right? And so now you're using God's name as a demon, and you're using God's name as in vain for a campaign that he doesn't have his name on, and so as a result, you have in some churches a comfortability with hatred toward certain persons because they've been demonized, and in that language, it that's not a stretch, like that's the language that's being as you're hearing it. Yes, like you might hear that today if you tune in uh to any particular uh social media post or um news news uh report, is that we have moved to demonization, and it is the enemy getting bonus points when that happens because he doesn't have to continue if he can get the group to move in a certain way and create the pressure of the group again. If we can get everyone to jump off the same cliff, right? Like he doesn't have to push each one individually, they're gonna jump themselves, and it's just extra. And what I'm concerned about, um whether you believe it, it is almost there's a whole nother conversation to be had about whether you believe what Charlie Clark believed or aspounded to his ideologies and all that. I'm less concerned with that. My concern for the church is that we'd be careful careful about demonization, and we haven't even asked ourselves the question of what you just said and uh remind us about in the Sermon on the Mount. Pray for those who persecute you. Now, there are gonna be some people who say Charlie's Charlie Kirk's death was a persecution. You listening to this, you may agree with that, you may disagree with that. For those of you who agree with that, that it was a persecution. That it was a persecution. Jesus is challenging you to say, love those who persecute you. Bless the bless those who persecute you. Pray for those who despitefully use you in persecution. He that's what he his prescription for the response to the persecution is love and bless. Bless and pray. Now, um, so that's your that's your work.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:What he didn't say to the Roman, to the Jews who are under the Roman thumb, right? Because Jesus is not talking in a vacuum where he's not in a situation where injustice is happening, he's in a situation where there's some injustices that are happening. And he's saying this in the context of that. So it's not removed. It's his core audience has the same challenge that we have today to as we're dealing with different types of things. He's telling them that we have to, if you're in that space where that's where you are, you've got to allow Jesus to challenge you in that. What does it look like to love to heed the words of Jesus amidst this persecution? Now, um, the American and the jungle mentality and the biology, your body, yeah, your body who's fighting, yes, your flesh who is fighting for the survival of itself, that's right, will tell you that that is not the way of survival. And so the way to get forward is to use your power to dominate, yeah, or to destroy. And so we're gonna have to do that, and so your your flesh is pushing you in that way, and Jesus is saying no, the response to persecution, and not only does Jesus say it, but so does Paul say it, does Peter say it, and it's over and over in the new New Testament of how we respond um to these things. In fact, there's no place in the new I challenge anyone to tell me there's no place in the New Testament where Jesus says, you know what, the response to persecution is war or is fighting back.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I wrote a I wrote a chapter that they cut out. You did? Yeah, it was Mark Marcus.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, chapter of Marcus, Marcus one, otherwise, letter to the church of Marcus One, Marcus is one. Yeah, it's one you see. Yeah, it's like five limit. It's short, it's Jews, and it's literally like that's what I said in that yeah, just that line.
SPEAKER_06:Hey, when you're persecuted as believers, fight back. That's not what we see. We haven't seen that in we haven't seen it. You don't have to like that.
SPEAKER_03:You don't have to like it. But you have to understand that.
SPEAKER_06:But if you're gonna call yourself a Christian and you're gonna heed to what the scriptures say, which is what you're saying Charlie Kirk was doing, that's what you're saying he was doing, then for those of you who who hold to that, then you've got to hold yourself to the things that Jesus called you to, not to the American sensibility, not to the American cultural way of doing things, not to your flesh, not to your group. Right? It's gotta be what Christ calls you to, and and that's gotta challenge you. If it doesn't challenge you, then you cannot you should not put his name on your campaign.
SPEAKER_03:Get his name out your mouth. And here's what's so uh the fascinating piece to me is again, I I I love I love reading the Bible and continuing to see how it how it reads me and how it reads the situation of every generation as it comes in contact with it. The situation we're dealing with in America right now is not surprising. In fact, I would say it's it's typical.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:I would say it's typical. You can go back in history across generations, I don't know how long people think people have been on earth, whatever, and you will find everything we're expensive right now is typical. It's why I think again that you look at you, you look at you look at the the New Testament and what Jesus had to say, and you're like, why is it so short? Because he knew that there's just really a couple of situations that are gonna keep coming up over and over again in society. So I'm gonna give you, and I think the Sermon on the Mount is like the the place that you want to find, like, hey, you want to find out what's gonna be coming for you uh and what you need to do about it, what's gonna be typical in every situation, this is this is gonna speak to it. And let's just say war, civil war, uh battles inside of particular entities haven't. I mean, we can go, we don't you don't need I know people trying to take history books out, right? But if you if you crack open any historic book about the world, about the United States, you will find these kinds of internal struggles, whether they go to full civil war or not, you will find them. And Jesus's response is to try to create a people who will de-escalate that, right? Like that's our job in these moments when these typical things come where flesh takes over, is that we are the ones who are supposed to bring a counter narrative that is spirit-led, that is supernatural. We are supposed to bring the spirit of God in that place to de-escalate it.
SPEAKER_06:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And yet, what I'm seeing is that we are moving into the flesh piece. We are following the typical, we are typical. I have never wanted to be typical in my entire life. Basically, but but but this is a typical response to flesh and pain, is to respond with more flesh and pain. This is just like we were talking about in our nonviolence episode we did not too long ago. It's the same thing, right? This is the constant thing that we're gonna probably have to keep talking about because the church is still living in the space in which it's fighting for its own survival, it is fighting out of fear instead of fighting in faith. Right. And belief and violence is an option, violence is an option, and it shouldn't be in a fear mode so easily, yeah. In fear mode, and you've said this, Antoine, like and it's a hard thing to hear. Yeah, is that is that I'm gonna say it and you can correct me on this, right? This is not what you said, this is how I hear it. I I know it, I know we're we're Americans, and we believe to some extent, because we've been told and shown throughout the world, that our lives are super important, that the what we create, what we do, how we live, that our stuff, what we do every single day, when we open our eyes and we start doing whatever we do, it is so important, not just to our life, but to the world. Like the world needs me to be able to do what it's going to do. But here's what I'm gonna tell you is God does not need you. He loves you, he wants to use you, but he does not need you. In fact, your life sometimes will just be, he is he is not concerned with your earthly with how long you live on this earth because he's already thinking about eternity. Right. So your life on this earth is actually to be used for something for God, and what that may be is to be used um to experience pain, to demonstrate what it looks like for people who are under Christ to experience pain, uh, to to experience trial and to show other people what it looks like for people under Christ to experience trial, to experience hurt, to experience loss, loss of life, loss of loved ones. I mean, all kinds of things. It's not that God doesn't care and doesn't come in compassion and suffering along with you, but He is He is He is thinking eternally, He's not thinking in our mode. It's like I've said before, like I mean, think about the Israelites in in Egypt. 400 years, 400 years of slavery and crying out to God and nothing happened, and we get all of that in the scriptures, it's two sentences at the beginning of Exodus. They they multiplied and and grew in the land. That's literally like 400 years wrapped up. Imagine what 400 years looks like in our American existence. Like America wouldn't even if the 400 years is a deal and we are in the middle of a non-caring part or a non-a non-biblical story about the what God is doing in the world, and 400 years is a deal. America could could almost fit in twice in that way. Yeah, and and nothing we would have done would have made the ink, wouldn't had no ink in the Bible. Imagine that. And yet we cry and we shout and we kill and we murder about these things that may not even be a footnote in what God is trying to do across the existence. It's just yeah, it's crazy to me. But we will fight like we are the thing, and we are the ones God is using, and we are the only ones who can make it happen. Yeah, and I think if we if we bring that's that kind of ego to it, of course we're gonna be offended. Of course we're gonna be defensive when they when when someone says something or kills somebody who's a part of our team, of course.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I mean, there's so much to do with the the the self-importance of that you did the self-importance of the thing. No, no. Well, I mean it I mean it's a big one, it could open up this whole other this other can that we probably don't have time to get into, but um, yeah. I also think it's yeah, I think it's interesting. Okay, so we've talked about uh we've talked about those who feel like Charlie Kirk represented something Christian and that he got killed and it's a symbol of Christian persecution. And offer a challenge for how to respond to that. But not everybody thinks that way, right? Yeah, not everybody saw Charlie Kirk as someone who represented Christian values, and his death does not for everyone mean that he um that he was martyred for Christian. That he was martyred for Christianom. And there are Christians, people who call themselves Christians who um are trying to live devoted lives um in discipleship with Christ, who would say that. Um what would you say to those people? Like, like how how how should you know what's what's what have you seen as helpful or hurtful responses from those people, maybe in some of the things you saw, or in the ways that the those who don't think of him as a martyr and how they might be approaching the conversation right now?
SPEAKER_03:Um you know, uh I I think there is a kind of devaluation of of his life period as a human. Um I I I do think that there are here's what I would say too is um because I've been doing more research, I think, on Charlie Kirk, my algorithm has been sending me both of the the things now. So I get I get stuff that he says that I'm like, I actually can't disagree with that thing. That thing. But then the next sentence he says, Oh, I can totally disagree with that, right? But again, I think most of those folks uh are just hearing the thing that they would disagree with. I I am I just imagine that that people aren't um not not everyone is kind of monolithic in in the way that they that they think in a in a sense that they would that that would, particularly from a Christian standpoint, in this yeah, that it that would disagree with some of your simple sensibilities. Um I understand that there is a vessel problem, I think that's I wrestle with is like I hear it and it sounds like something I might say, but it's coming out of a vessel that's gonna say something that I would not say. And so that becomes something that's that's tense in our and we had this conversation at my dinner table the other day. It's really hard. Um, and that's where the cliffs have a certain correct, and that's where the cliff jumper piece is hard because you're like, doggone it. Like, if I didn't know better, I would say this guy sounded like a Christian right here. Yeah, but what I understand is that he's not a Christian because he said this over here, yeah. And and I think that humans are not are not easily described um and easily captured in in uh highlights and headlines. Yeah, I don't think they're easily captured that way. And I would imagine if people follow me around uh and just took certain things that I said um even on the show or walking around and they put it in you know in particular you know music behind it and put somebody talking over it, man, they could paint any kind of picture about me. I'm again, I'm not saying that that's what's happening. I'm just saying that we've got to be better about recognizing that that humans are flawed and they're gonna say things that are gonna be really great and aligned with God. But then like Paul says, it's like the thing that I the thing I I know I should do, I don't do, right? And the thing I shouldn't do, that is the thing I do. So it's it's just articulating this idea that nobody's perfect and nobody's saying um everything right, and nobody's and and grace has always been given to humanity. And and if we think about it Christianity, again, we talk about it in ideas, and again, it's this may not be the way everybody thinks about it, but what what it seems to be is that sin doesn't have hierarchy. Like it doesn't seem to have hierarchy. Like God is like any kind of sin, like you like you you cannot come in here with anything. I don't care if you're a murderer or if you just called your brother Raka, you know what I mean, or whatever. Like it doesn't matter. So even when I hear somebody say things, and I would say, Man, that is not the way God is saying it. And that feels like a sinful way of talking about things in people. I still gotta go, and and and God still, God still, Jesus still died for them. I need it, I needed to say that because he died for me.
SPEAKER_02:You gotta say it.
SPEAKER_03:Because he died for me for something even less than, yeah, if you will, or even more. Yeah, right. So equal.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Um, the um I get in trouble, I'm not trouble, but I uh it's always a bit shocking when um when I'm in a I've done some young adult um teachings, and every once in a while I'll say Jesus died for Hitler, yeah, yeah, that's and that Hitler could be saved if he just and and that's really hard for it's it's hard for people. I'm sweating, and for some reason, people think Antoine, does that mean you agree with Hitler? Like, no, all I said was the was that Hitler is part of the world in John 3 16, yeah. For God so loved the world that he gave it, he's part of that. He didn't he didn't anyone, he didn't whosoever. Yeah, he's he's in the whosoever, yeah. Um Charlie Kirk's in the whosoever.
SPEAKER_03:Um praise God, I'm in the whosoever.
SPEAKER_06:And we and so is you so are you and I. So there is there is that grace that's extended um to all. There is uh I oh you talked about some of the challenges.
SPEAKER_03:One of the things that just I always I always say like this love has no loopholes, yeah, right? Like there's unfortunately, as much as it would be really great for us to to be able to go to Jesus and go, but what about this, right? We saw we've seen that in the scripture is commonly too, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:How many times should I know who is my neighbor, right? Who's my neighbor? All those things, yeah. Well, you know, the Gentile, can they really get the Spirit of God? They can just be in the room, right?
SPEAKER_03:We're the ones that are really spiritual, right? Yeah, is it time for us to make a kingdom of Israel right now, God? I know you're supposed to go make disciples of all nations, but can we make a nation to do it? He's like, Y'all need to be witnesses in every nation, you're not making a big one.
SPEAKER_06:We're gonna be ending again probably on this witnesses because we have hidden, we've hit them so many times. I know, but you got to, but with the well, it's a remind, it's got to be a reminder. There's a reason Jesus said it at the right before he left in a moment where violence is so ready to be used by a block of people who call themselves Christians. Um man, we have to be reminded. I have to assume that you're calling if you say you're a Christian, then I can't judge whether you are or are not. But what you have given me permission to do that's good as a Christian is to take the scriptures and put them in front of you. That's right. That's what you've done when you say you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_03:Wait, wait, wait, wait. Put the fullness of the scriptures, not not a scripture or a phrase, the contextualized fullness of the scriptures has got to be wrestled with, the meta-narrative, particularly and the mission, and we're supposed to wrestle with it.
SPEAKER_06:Like I just we are everybody's at different levels in their faith journey, and so and different pieces, so they're gonna convictions will move and shift as we grow in our spiritual formation. Yeah, but if you call yourself a Christian, so if the conservative party uh um block and uh and there are elements of the liberal party block that would say this is a Christian um um initiative, this is a yeah, this is a Christian-influenced viewpoint. Yeah, there you go. Right? Yeah, the liberal would probably say that Jesus says love the poor, love the immigrant, right? That these are these are these are not me saying this. This is a Christian influenced thing. I believe we should have this policy because the scriptures say this. There are people on the liberal who would say that, there are people who would say that on the conservative, whoever it is, right? Whatever you, wherever your deal is, if you call yourself a Christian, then the scriptures have to be put in front of you, all of them, as as as uh as has been said. And the scriptures don't allow us to respond the way that we've been responding. I do think that uh the people who feel um less connected, their Christianity feels less connected to Charlie's. Yeah, right. They would say he's not the sort of Christianity that I ascribe to. Those persons, um, I think those persons can be a good check. Like you, you know, for us, like um in Luke 4, the crowd is ready to throw the crowd, yeah, is ready to throw Jesus off the cliff. Not just one or two people, like they all firm it, the mob mentality. Like, yeah, our our our proclivity for mob work, for group think, for group stuff, and it's such easy the peer pressure, like we but it's this all this all feels like 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old stuff that we just haven't fully fully learned yet, right? And we're we we we don't know how we don't it for many people it's hard to just break from the group and and and live in a particular type of way, but so so sometimes these could be good checks. You're a pastor, and and it doesn't sound like that because if you're gonna demonize people, then anyone who disagrees with you is a demon that should be fought against, not a potential iron that could be sharpening you as an iron, right? I don't want your iron, and and I realize that can be tricky and difficult. You know, there are some pastors who I don't want to follow who I'm not gonna listen to, their theology I disagree with. Um, but a lot of this is not theology, it's like some of it is theology, but a lot of it is just ideology, it's uh political theory, uh, is economics, and some of those things are things that can be wrestled with, not demonized over. And uh, but that's not how we do it, you know. Um group think protects my own, and it protects me. It's a it's a is I would I make the case that it's a psychological, um subconscious me. I'm protecting me when I protect someone who looks like me. Yeah, and um, that's what I really love, and so it's a very ego self-driven way of engaging in policy and people work, uh, versus a kingdom mindset that says Christ is how I will choose to see the world, yeah, and I will see the Christ in certainly my brothers and sisters in Christ, right? Um, and even when we disagree, I'm gonna live and and and work through what it looks like to uh to live in that space.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I think as we as we kind of wrap up here, I think you said something that that sparked uh maybe I'm saying it for my own protection. Um, but uh you mentioned this this Luke 4 passage, which is you know, Jesus' sort of coming out party, if you will, for his ministry, right? He opens the scroll and he talks about it came to you know bring good news to the poor and sight to the blind, all those things. Uh and then of course, you what you're talking about is a crowd, they hear this and they're like, Finally, oh my gosh, this is the Messiah, right? And he's coming and he's going to do things for us, the Israelites, the Hebrews. He's gonna, yes, this is about us. And Jesus is like, Oh, I can hear you guys saying, like, oh, good, he's finally come to do something for us, but I just need to remind you, like, uh, I'm actually here for everybody, I'm not here just for you, just like you saw in the old testament with Elijah, right? Is that in Alicia? Like, I'm I I'm going to actually not just help my people, but I'm actually going to help the people who have persecuted you. And it was that that was the thing. That was the thing that launched them into I'm about to throw this dude off the side of a cliff. They were excited when they thought it was for them. When they thought it was he, when he was and when he was engaging in group dynamics and about the group.
SPEAKER_02:That's correct.
SPEAKER_03:Right. But when he decided, like, hey, I'm not actually jumping off the cliff with you. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna go help other people before they jump off cliffs. I know this this analogy is dying right now, especially since there's a cliff jump, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're not so we're not gonna use this analogy exactly.
SPEAKER_03:It completely fell apart. I get it. But the idea is I'm not here just for you, I'm not here just for our group, I'm here for every group. And that was that was so dangerous to them and so despicable that they went to murder instantly, instantly, like there was no this is why it's typical. Instantly, this is why it's typical.
SPEAKER_06:This is what the the this passage is so interesting to me because in a in what feels like a series of small moments, yeah. Yes, a biblical second. It's they didn't go home and confer and and and and and argue with each other about it. The entire room decided, what?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, verse 23 through 27 is Jesus explaining that he's here for other people. And 28 says, All the people in synagogue were furious when they heard this. They caught up, drove him out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff. They had to walk it out. It wasn't just that they beat him, like they hit him, they had to like get a group and they carried him, they had to walk for a minute with this anger.
SPEAKER_06:It's a mob. It's a mob. And you could go further and say, Wam, the the scripture he's reading is about the poor and the, but we're not doing that.
SPEAKER_03:No, we're not messing with all that.
SPEAKER_06:But but it's but it the instant, the instantness of it, right? Man, so that's where we are.
SPEAKER_03:And and I think what I think about with that, um, in that in that demonization and immediately going towards um, again, this is not necessarily about Jesus, but just this demonization. I'm reminded what Dr. Martin Luther King talks about in his in his uh even the the tenets of nonviolence, where he he tries to remind those who are in the midst of this strife and the and the battles that they're doing for justice and mercy and kindness and humbly with God, all those things, Micah 6, 8, that's you're doing it, that you have to remember you're dealing with a human being here. A human being that perhaps is being led by enemy forces, right? There's an enemy that is not the human, there is a much stronger enemy behind all of that, and that's who you that's who you take your vitriol toward. Not the human that may be in cahoots and being led by and being influenced by this enemy, like all of us have been, but you're actually going after the enemy itself. He says it's not that you're going after the person who's practicing injustice, but you're going after injustice itself. So when I think about Charlie Kirk, it's kind of my last thing I'm thinking about is like, yes, I mourn, I mourn the man, I mourn the the human that was created, I mourn the family that was destroyed, and the and the the repercussions of that for these kids and whatnot for forever, right? It's not the thing I don't mourn, the thing I that I can't, the thing I'm gonna constantly have to deal with though is the things that he said, those ideas are still around. And it it the the the negative ideas, the hate, if you will, if you said that there was hate speech or whatever, like any of those things, that hate is still here because there's still an enemy moving that work forward. It's not about Charlie Kirk, it's not about a human being, it's about the ideas and the concepts that are continuing to be pushed forward by the enemy through us, and I say us because we're all guilty of that. And so we have to start pointing, we have to stop doing what is the the adolescent thing, which is just pointing at the person and do some deep work and looking at the concepts behind and engaging that, even as you engage the person, yeah, constantly challenging the ideas without having to demonize them in the midst of their ideas.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, and I love that. And the the sort of final thought I have is again, I like you mourn the the death of uh Charlie Kirk and and and the impact it's having on his family. Um praying that God will be present in their next steps, that that the enemy doesn't take a hold of this bitterness and this grief that has been produced by this murder, and that the enemy doesn't it doesn't get a foothold here and suddenly is able to move things forward, maybe I'll I'll hold to no um move things forward in a negative way. Um, but then there's a second morning, and that second morning is the witness of the church for me. And as we, as the collective Christian voices in America respond to this, we have to be careful. Christ's view to us was to be witnesses to the rest of the world uh and to make disciples. And the witness is the thing that people are gonna see, right? And uh what are they seeing? When the Christian church is quote unquote persecuted or believe they're persecuted, how do we respond? Is it what Jesus would want us? Is that the sort of witness that we'd want to be? Um I am praying. I I I think it's safe for me to say this. I have been dissatisfied with the witness of the church for the last 10 years where it comes to politics. I feel like it has only caused us to cause Jesus to look less like who he really is, and it has been an uh a disinvitation to many people instead of an invitation. And um and this is another scenario where I think the church has an opportunity to uh live counterculturally, think counter-culturally, and I think all the energy is heading in the wrong direction, um, even if it's righteously so, right? The scripture doesn't even tell us the persecution, he doesn't say whether the persecution was right or wrong, it's just persecution, right? And and he tells us how to respond to it. So I'm not even getting into whether I agree or disagree with the energy. What I'm saying is how we're choosing respond isn't it? This is an important moment. And Christians are leading this country in one way or the other. We're either leading them to violence or we're leading them to peace, and that is a real thing. Christians right now have a voice in this country, and Christians, people who call themselves Christians, are leading us either into war or into peace. You know, and um, so it's a little bit of a struggle.
SPEAKER_03:I get it. I get it. Well, man, hey, good convo. And uh I don't know how everybody's hearing all of that, but uh I I hope you understand that this is this is kind of what we do here at Color Commentary. Uh we want to put on different lenses and try to look at the things that people are talking about in the areas of Christianity, culture, and race, and just trying to figure out how do we put God's name in the midst of this well. Um and it's a hard, it's a hard thing sometimes because there's hurts out there that that are real and there's real ways in which people have been impacted. And sometimes it can feel uh like it's it's kind of this Pollyanna kind of talk, you know what I mean? Like, uh, it's about the scriptures. But if we can't hold on to the truth of the scriptures, man, what are we holding on to? Uh, what power are we holding on to to try to help us maneuver through these situations and try to understand what we're seeing? And so that's why we hope, you know what I mean, as you maneuver through this world that you'll just kind of continue to put on these these different colored lenses that you'll be able to see through and practice the idea of kind of looking through what would what what does it look like from somebody else's perspective? Um and that's why as we continue to to engage with you, we tell you to stay colored.