Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
David Intro 0:00
To break through this comfort, this installation that we have built, and we protect with walls, that's Disneyland version of life, that is not real. And even with the radio, we have Christian radio, we don't want the outside world to get in. So it is hard to feel I feel bad bringing people closer to the star, but then here's what the deal is. We were created in such a way we were designed, intricately our DNA was designed in such a way where we do not have fulfillment of life, we did not put ourselves in close proximity with sorrow. Because you know what they call my king. They called him the man of sorrows, that was acquainted with grief. And there's not a grief that exceeds this grief. There's a lot of grief in the world. But this grief, this idea of someone taking someone else's child and selling them for sex, to sex tourists from around the world, five times 10 times 15 times a day, that's sorrowful. And I get to sit with those working girls. I know their name, they know their story. I know their dreams that they have. I know the names of the sisters, I know about the fact that I used to work in or the simplicity of the country life and that sorrowful and I feel like I've lost myself, I feel like I'm broken. But then I realized-no Jesus hung out with working girls. One washed his feet with her hair and sweet perfume.
Everybody like said, What are you doing Lord? Why are you letting her waste her money that way? What are you doing hanging out with people like that? And I realize am a person like that. I'm broken. So, as Bono says, when we draw close to those who are poor, and those who are oppressed, the exiled, we draw close to the king himself. I think really Jesus says that.
Seth 1:53
Welcome back to the show, the Can I Say This At Church podcast, you're listening to a song. It is something more than a song or an album. And it's something more than an album. And I don't mean like your wedding song or the song when you met your significant other. I mean, like a song that is written with a heart that you hear something transcendent, and that it speaks to you in a way that is a different version of holy that when you hear the song you hear the heart and the ministry and the work of Jesus.
That is basically what today's episode is. Today's show is going to be heavier than well, I say heavier, a lot of the shows are heavy. But most people I feel like in America are not aware I know I wasn't; that the sex, trade, slavery, trade. trafficking of humans is a huge thing that still happens today. The way that our church and that our country and that we as people interact with the world, commoditizes, the world. The way that we choose to spend our time and our money and our eyes and divert our attention commoditizes our world. And what do we do about that? It's a question I don't have the answer to a did however, get to speak with David Zach, the lead singer for Remedy Drive. He partners with the Exodus Road, which is a ministry dedicating to breaking that cycle to going undercover. And trying to help those that have been sold into trafficking, trying to help them find the light at the end of the tunnel. Prepare yourselves for a conversation that is beautiful, and heartbreaking at the same time.
Seth 3:50
David, thank you so much for joining the Can I Say This At Church podcast and thinking of that name, I can't think of a bigger topic than what we're going to talk about today and stuff that we don't talk about in church more so than, you know, justice and lament and sex trafficking, and some of the work that you and your band are doing. Thank you for making the time to come on to the program, and appreciate you being here.
David 4:14
I'm glad to be here, when I saw that the title of your podcast, when you used our song a while back, I was like, "Man, this would be a perfect podcast talk about what we do.
Seth 4:23
Yeah, I agree. There's a lot…I've come to find out there are a lot of things that nobody wants to talk about in church, and some of them are theological, his speaking in tongues or whatever, running up and down the aisles or streamers or intercessory prayer, or it does politics doesn't matter. So I wanted to start a bit. So I followed your music for years I went to liberty and your music, especially some of your your band's earlier work was on repeat there at you know, 90.1 the Light at Liberty. And so tell us a little bit about you. What would you want listeners of the show to know about you and about Remedy Drive.
David 5:04
I grew up in Nebraska, I grew up in Christian culture, church culture. We were always indie (an indie band), I never really saw ourselves being a band that was played on the radio. But we did sign a record deal and that record deal and it's 10 years ago now is what you know, are some Daylight or song All Along, which is once people would know. I'm thankful for that. Because it put us in exposure to a lot of people and got us, you know to play it plays like Liberty. And we played a lot of churches and festivals and conferences. But at the same time, I never really felt like I belong at that world. And maybe it's part, I grew up in a really conservative Home Church network, where we weren't really even allowed to play rock and roll; and the rules and the regulations inside of our own church network, I thought was unique to just that. And then when I got outside and started touring the country, and I've been at probably more church than anybody can say they’ve been at. We're talking 200 shows a year sometimes; I'd be at different churches, sometimes 4, 5, 6 in a week, I realized that we all have our own weird views on different things; and that's really weird part of who I am, is that I observed that so often. And in that sense, maybe…maybe I haven't landed on on, you know, raising kids now, maybe I haven't landed on my own for sure thoughts on what the right way to do that? is,
Seth 6:37
Yeah, I can echo that. I've said it before, and much earlier conversations with people that it wasn't until I had kids that my faith became into question. Because when you think of God our Father or God our mother, whatever you want to call it, when you are a father or a mother, all those something in me broke open and the emotions change. And it impacts the way that I see things the filter that you have. Yeah, that was kind of that's kind of my story. How curious how do you end up playing rock and roll for a living? If you weren't really doing that as a child because I can tell you I can play a guitar. I have one right over there. I lead the worship at my church sometimes. I am not a guitar player, quote unquote, you use that as a as a way that I could make a living. So how does one come from we didn't really allowed to do this to now this is all I do.
David 7:25
Well, we were allowed to listen to Keith Greene, he was so he only real “rock music” we're allowed to listen to.
And I remember the first time my friend taught me how to bend a string, which we thought was you know, an evil, guitar string bending that scream it makes and it was just on acoustic guitar. My parents were cool and I think that was part of what? Looking back. It was one of the most clear parts of us saying why? Why this arbitrary rule against just this particular style of music? And it led me out of that that organization that we are part of. But I had learned piano, I didn't have a TV grown up, which was one of our rules. So that actually helped us become creative me, my brothers when we started a band, and we had a time to be creative. I'm trying to pass that on to my kids.
Seth 8:13
No, I agree I am, with the creative part, it's hard to limit that screen time. On the other side of the wall here I've got a set of drums for my son, and he actually comes to church with me each Sunday, at like 7:15-7:30 in the morning. He's there before most anyone else. He's there before the pastor, as the worship band comes together and he's getting better. Like he plays drums with us with a full band. And I love it. I love it. He actually is my small little metronome. Because it's a very simple, very, very simple beat and he does keep me on tempo. Your last two albums, or your band's last two albums, there is a ginormous shift. And I when I say that both Commodity and The North Star, I feel like I would never hear any of those songs on Klove, or Spirit FM. And so my question is, like, why this show what happened in your life that…that caused you to go “I can't sing this shrink wrapped version of the lady that needs this four minutes on the way to work”, like what changed in your life that broke that open for a change of lyrics or for a change of heart or was that always there?
David 9:18
Well, like I said, I was always kind of against industry against the commercializing of art. But I'm thankful for our time, like I said, but it came to a point, there was probably about 20 really specific moments of convergence. And I'll tell you a few of them.
One was Martin Luther King, Jr. would say to me, every year on on his day, I would listen to the last speech he made and he'd say
now is the time for us to develop kind of dangerous and unselfishness sure
and move me to the core of who I am. And also made me guilty about listening to the a&r and the marketing and the record label executives that keep on pushing the safe for the whole family we mindset on me, which flies in the face of the full Gospel, in the face of the honesty and the truth of what Jesus Christ proclaimed, which is freedom of the captives, liberty of the prisoners, goodness for poor people. ignoring all that to put out this shiny pop, it's going to rot your teeth eventually, I know it tastes good, but it's going to rot your teeth.
And then in 2012, you remember Coney the warlord? That would kidnap boys-forced them to fight, he would force their daughter to be child brides to generals. They'd be raped, the kids were forced into cannibalism and blood sacrifice and rituals, all this awful stuff. And I watched that video that morning with my daughter.
And she was five. And Eva says to me,
Dad, why not God protect those boys?
And I have never felt so helpless as a parent. But also, she put in words what…you can't say that a church…right?
Seth 10:58
Right.
David 11:00
She said it. She didn’t know you can't say that church. She said,
Dad, where's God? Why didn't he do something about this?
And so I wrote that, I wrote those lyrics.
Jesus, where are you there far too young.
And I was kind of upset with the king of the universe, why you allow this to happen that and just that video, and the more I studied slavery, and the more I started writing lyrics, but then I went to my a&r guys, like, man, I think I have a role to play in this. I'm supposed to sing about this. And maybe I can offer my voice to the fight against slavery, in the fight against injustice and equality and child soldiers. And I can expose it, I can shine a light on it. So people that take action might be moved to take action. That's what I thought at the time I supposed to do. Then my marketing director looked me in the eye. And he said,
David, I am a whore, I need you to give me something I can sell.
Seth 11:45
Unhh, another thing you can't say a church.
David 11:48
Yeah. But you can say it behind the scenes that those guys that pedal out this positive pop, this positive, encouraging…that's the way they talk behind the scenes, these guys are about the dollar. At the end of the day, they're about the dollar. They're not about saying what needs to be said about impact and culture. They're about keeping people happy. And my a&r guy says to me, I say, I have this idea. And there were so many people that were excited about the idea to make a socially conscious, social justice oriented, rock and roll album that has worship elements. But my a&r guy says,
Hey, isn't worship singing? And, you know, social justice…that's this whole other thing,
what he said, which I think is the Christian music industry, I think is a result or its the other way around of Christian culture, and that is, hey, let's just tell people about Jesus all we care about Jesus. But we don't care about what Jesus cares about. And that's slaves. That's poverty. That's health care. That's, that's single mothers. That's refugees that's…
Seth 12:47
Yeah. Or the entire, the entire book of Luke can just if you want to, if you want to delve more into that. Just read Luke.
David 12:56
Yeah! Read Amos. Amos says, You know what, I hate your worship songs, they annoy my ears, your festivals and your conventions. I want nothing to do with them. I asked you for justice, oceans of justice. So shut up with your songs, shut up with your praying. I’m going to plug my ears when you pray until you do something about it, and so that's ringing in my ears, Isaiah 58, is ringing in my ears in Luke, when Jesus quotes Isaiah in the Gospel of Luke, it's just ringing in my ears. So that's a long answer..
Seth 13:22
Yeah, well, and for those that want to know what that paraphrase was, I'm pretty sure that's Amos 5:20 something through 25 or something like that. If you want to just pause now and go get your Bible and make sure that that's not being it. That's definitely in there. So, um, yeah.
David 13:38
And that’s what I have to like…I feel like I have to say that all the time was like, wait, I'm not the one saying this. Yeah, I'm quoting the Prophet.
Seth 13:45
I find in this happened even over the past weekend, when I say things like that, on social media, specifically, the trolls, for lack of a better word get so mad and like, well, that's not what the Old Testament said. I'm like, I know you keep quoting things to me from the Old Testament. But I would like to remind you, you have heard it said, but I say to you, I was like, so every time you say something, I'd like to briefly remind you, you have heard it said and now let's pay attention. Every time he says that let's pay attention and then they just get silent. Which is so infuriating, so frustrating, and humiliating, if I'm honest for someone that professes to be a Christian that people treat what was said that way?
Seth 15:05
Human trafficking, sex trafficking, slavery, justice, the the ministry that you're a part of, is the Exodus Road. And and I'll link to that in the notes for those listening if you want to go and support that ministry. And so in research for this, the numbers astounded me, I would assume, you know, in especially third world countries, that the number of people in slavery was not as high as what it was. And so not to bury the lead. It was like 45…40 something million people, which is insane. That's like the state of Texas, every person in the state of Texas. And that’s depressing. And so how have you and your band partnered with the exodus road? And what is that ministry kind of look like?
David 15:50
And for context, that number of 47 million people being enslaved in 2018 are impacted by slavery. 10 million people were enslaved and the transatlantic slave trade 200 years ago.
Seth 16:01
And that's the only one we normally talk about.
David 16:03
Yeah, so it's, it's not like we as humanity, are moving forward in this problem. We're losing ground. So like I said, we thought we were supposed to write songs, which we do. We have two albums, the North Star, which is named after Frederick Douglass’ newspaper, which was named after a star in the sky that the slaves would follow to find their way north at night.
Seth 16:29
I didn’t know that.
David 16:30
So it's, some of the melodies would talk about how to find it from the from the Big Dipper to the Little Dipper. There's the there's the North Star. Which is brilliant that they use songs to sing about the North Star in Frederick Douglass, the abolitionists that ran away that said,
I prayed for 20 years and didn't get an answer till I used my feet.
He had that newspaper that abolitionist newspaper commodity being the one before I got that lyric idea from my marketing director and essentially responded, I'm not a commodity.
You know, I don't want to be shrink wrapped.
And I use some of that anger against that industry and industry in general to tell the story of people enslaved. So that's one thing we do we tell the story. And we help fund the exodus road, our fan base has raised a third of a million dollars so far in donations and in kind donations. We also recruit people at our concerts, one guy that saw us play down here in the south. He had been formerly a special forces of the military.
He had been shot out of a helicopter in Afghanistan and broke his back. But he's healthy enough to do good work, but but he can't be in the Special Forces anymore because of the back injury. So he just donated two years of his life going overseas, donated his time raised his own funds, and he was on the front lines with the road.
And then I also spent a lot of time myself doing undercover work in Latin America, in Southeast Asia, spying on mafias, and crime syndicates and cartels make their living off of selling these girls. And my goal is that that investigative work, that undercover work, we go into brothels, we go into red light districts, we follow pedophiles, we tail them we find out where they live, we find out where they're doing business, we try to build cases against clubs, all for the hopes of rescuing these girls and boys, but also taking down the organizations and disrupting their their profit.
Seth 18:30
Is it…I don't want to sound jaded but from what I've not, not from what I've read, but from what I can think it would…it would almost seem like a whack a mole kind of thing. Is it that? Or is there actual progress happening? Or do you just shut one down hopefully, and then another one pop up and take its place just like a power vacuum?
David 18:45
Well, I feel the same way about it as I do sometimes when I'm more cynical is when I'm on my mind, I don't get done, mow my lawn. Without thinking you know what, I'm going to have to come out here and do this again. Because these weeds are going to grow right back up.
Seth 19:05
But it doesn't mean you don't mow the lawn,
David 19:07
It doesn't mean I don't do it! And the work itself is obedience. And we do it to the best ability. We know it's the wrong strategy to just go in and kidnap a girl out of slavery because another girl is going to have to be get kidnapped in her place. Or we know we're not going to purchase these people's freedom from the mafia, because that's funding slavery. So it's not like we're not doing it strategically. Our goal is to take down these crime syndicates and to send a message to other crimes syndicates in the area that even when the whole world looks away, somebody's looking out, somebody's watching, you can no longer operate with impunity. And as a result of that, we have seen the average age of girls on the street and certain communities go up quite a bit.
Because they know it's more dangerous. And it's getting more expensive, too sell miners. And as with anything else, are we going to feed everybody? Are we going to end malaria man, you know, another disease will just pop up in this place, will we really be able to get enough clean water, I think some of these things are we are going to be able to accomplish? But as much as that is a goal we're supposed to do it just because we're supposed to do it.
These are the things that the King of the universe cares about. He's going to end slavery when he returns. And someday when slavery is but a mere memory, they're going to look back and they're going to remember the day when the righteous people rose up out of indifference.
Seth 20:35
You actually wrote something similar to that in one of your blog posts, I wrote it down because I wanted to make sure I said it, or at least got your thoughts on it. And so you wrote
someday when slavery is a distant memory, and they'll talk about the day when the righteous rose from indifference and maybe these songs will be remembered as having contributed to the resistance.
And you go on to say
we need to reduce the melodies of our hearts to the lowest common denominator, our youth exploited, our songs exploited, our tears exploited.
And so when you say, you know, our youth exploited, our songs exploited our tears exploited. What do you mean by that, specifically?
David 21:08
In that I was talking about kind of my angst and my disappointment, where I felt exploited, I felt commoditized I felt, I felt like a mere product to be bought and sold by industry. And I think not just music industry, I think we all feel that a certain way, whether it's, you know, whatever it is, sometimes we, you know, corporations can take advantage of us. So everybody feels the sting of that.
And what I'm trying to do by referencing that and saying, hey, how does that feeling? Imagine if that was actually not just a metaphor, but actually your life. The fact that someone can take ownership of someone else, you know, when I signed a record deal, I decided when my image of my likeness,
Seth 21:50
Somebody owns the master, to your face.
David 21:52
Yeah, someone faster than my face.
But think of think of…think of how that would actually be an then. And then to know that nobody's coming, nobody's looking.
And then idea of legacy has been, that is what my wife said, when I met with Matt, Matt Parker from Exodus Road, I said, Man, I want to join you. And I get home at 2am that night, and Ana was like, No way, what are you talking about. And as Matt talks to the next day, at breakfast, Anna says David will join you this will be our legacy. And I think of the prophet Daniel that says,
Those who turn many to righteous will shine like the stars forever.
And that longing to be recognized have a king say well done. And that longing for luminosity in the next life, I want to wake that up and people because I know that's the way we're built, were built like CS Lewis says, with that weight of glory that's longing for the for define recognition, which comes with some sort of luminosity.
And so I wrote the blog you quoted a long time ago. But then I wrote a lyric off of it. It says,
and when we're gone and ages to come, the sages will, write. So raged the bearers of the light. So which the few with all our mighty gets the terrors of the night with no sight of view from the depths to the heights.
I don't know what it is. But I just, I just want to be part of that number. I'm going to get to meet Harriet Tubman, and William Wilberforce and Moses and Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. and I'm going to be able to say, hey, look at this little bit that I did in the same field, in the same arena of justice that you were in; and I think there's going to be something special about that.
Seth 24:40
Knowing what I know about myself, I don't see how you don't get broken, going undercover seeing these women looking across, or I assume it's not just women, I assume maybe it's also men, boys as well. I don't know. It has to be. I don't see how you don't just get broken. And when I hear your last two albums, and specifically the North Star. All I hear is emotion. And I find myself when I'm listening to it, I sometimes have to pull off of the road, specifically with Redemption Song. And I, I didn't even know until a few weeks ago that that was a remake of Bob Marley. Because I googled the lyrics, just so I could write them down. And then Bob Marley came up before you and I was like, This can't be Bob Marley, and it was. How do you take all that emotion and all of that sadness and brokenness of what these children are going through, and distill that into a song because I think songs have a way to transcend something that is beyond our brains and beyond our hearts, almost something that's primal. That is…well I don't know what the word is something more than human.
David 25:48
I feel bad for some of my other friends that don't have music, or some sort of art as an outlet that do this kind of work. Because these songs literally happen. You know, I'm writing, I wrote, “take me to the king's kingdom, tell me what it looks like” I wrote that melody and lyrics just came out when I was on a rainy drive riding a motorcycle in Southeast Asia.
I just had that longing, I just need to see something beautiful. Because I'm broken. And you say, I don't know how you don't get broken?
No, I am a broken person. I am not happy. I am not content to live in a world with 40 million slaves and more refugees than at a time in human history. And I sow in the field of apathy, and that also makes me pretty sorrowful. I'm going to try to rescue people from out church culture, which sometimes unfortunately, is, pews full of apathy looking the other way, as we live in our religious garments, when there's a man bleeding on the side of the road that Jesus talked about from the road from Jericho, and to Jerusalem.
And all of that makes me sorrowful. But here's what I tell people. And I feel bad because I'm recruiting people into this sorrow with me. I'm forcing people like yourselves to have to turn off the road because the emotion is overwhelming. But to break through this comfort, this insulation that we have built, and we protect with walls, this Disneyland version of life, that is not real. And even with the radio, the Christian radio, we don't want the outside world to get in. So it is hard; I feel bad bringing people closer to the sorrow. But then here's what the deal is. We were created in such a way we were designed, intricately our DNA, was designed in such a way where we do not have fulfillment of life if we do not put ourselves in close proximity with sorrow, because you know what they call my king. They called him the man of sorrows, that was acquainted with grief. And there's not a grief that exceeds this grief.
There's a lot of grief in the world but this grief, this idea of someone taking someone else's child and selling them for sex to sex tourists from around the world, five times 10 times 15 times a day, that's sorrowful. And I get to sit with those working girls. I know their name. They know their stories. I know their dreams that they had one. I know the names of their sisters, I know about the factory they used to work in and of the simplicity of the country life.
And that is sorrowful and I feel like I've locked myself, I feel like I'm broken. But then I realized no Jesus hung out with working girls. One washed his feet with her hair and sweet perfume. Everybody like said “What are you doing, Lord? Why are you letting her waste your money that way? What are you doing hanging out with people like that.”
And I realize I am a person like that. I'm broken. And as Bono says,
when we draw close to those who are poor, and those who are oppressed in exile, we draw close to the king himself.
I mean, really, Jesus says that.
Seth 28:52
When you're there, and you're learning the stories of these girls. Do you think there's any inkling that they know that you you're not going to abuse them or take advantage of that you're there to help them? Is there anything you think that they ever pick up on? They're like, no, there's something different about this guy. He's here to help me. I don't know why I know this, but something in him makes it and I know, he's here to help me. Do you like that ever happens or no?
David 29:18
I'm an artist. And I'm an optimist. You know, so I would like to think that somehow our spirits communicate that whether or not it's conscious, but for sure there's a there might be a safety to me that she doesn't sense from, you know, some 250 pounds 70 year old 60 year old Russian dude, that's that's her other option, right. And I do the job, I do it with kindness, I'm, I'm kind I'm tender, I'm compassionate. I'm not handsy the I'm not pushy, I'm not. But at the same time, you have to be to pretend that you're interested in buying this other human being.
And something that I like to do is I learned her language, I learned to say you are beautiful. And when I tell you that when I say goodbye, sometimes there's also a sense of rejection. Because she's under this impression that when I leave there, I'm out to find some girl that's prettier, or more attractive. And she's not gonna meet her quota. And I, you know, you know, hope, you know, maybe maybe I'd be a better option with the one of these other guys. So there might be disappointment, that she's not going to make the money she needed to make for her handlers to pay off her debt, whatever the situation is. So I said, You're beautiful. And when I say that, I mean, you are valuable.
You are a daughter of the king. You know, you are priceless. And I hope that that almost spoken as a prayer over her with somebody something that she's been in proximity with the king of the universe, if if she's in proximity with someone like us, right? And I don't know how that works. And I'm not a theologian, but maybe that moment will count when she meets him face to face. She's like, “I recognize you for some reason!” And he says, That's because I was with you in that brothel that night that brown hair guy with messy hair came in.
Seth 31:16
I want to ask a few specifics about a couple of the songs on the North Star. Not every songs deals with with with slavery. Well, it doesn't away slavery in a different way, but not necessarily sex trafficking. And so Warlike, specifically, and then Sanctuary, even though they're not put back and forth together. Yeah. When I listen to war, like, it makes it where I can't watch the news anymore. In a good way, like I hear everything that CNN or Fox News or some pastors or some members of the church will say, you know, no, we need to do this. We need to bomb Syria, we need to do this. And then I hear that song. And there's a part of it. That's like, No, no, no, no, you're doing this wrong. And, and when I hear it, for some reason, I think of two different movies.
So I think of that scene and Wonder Woman where humans have been throwing stuff, or shooting stuff, at everybody since humans could walk. And then the same thing in my son and I just watched Thor Ragnarock, the same thing there were, you know, the goddess of death, is talking about how they conquered the entire universe. And it's just war upon war upon war upon war and then to book in that was sanctuary. Those two are almost entire opposites. One is no, I'm here to give you everything. And the other is, because I destroyed you. So can you talk a bit about those two separate songs?
David 32:40
Well, Warlike began with a conversation I had with some Congolese refugees in Nashville, in my home. And they were talking to me about Colton, which is a mineral, the mined out of the country that we use in our electronics and our cell phones. And I look back history that country, similar to you mentioned, Wonder Woman, the God of War Ares, personified in King Leopold, this Welsh, you know, from Belgium, a king that thinks he can go own Congo, she can own the whole land. And at soccer, I met a guy from Cameroon, three days ago, you can imagine me at soccer, on the soccer field with a bunch of with bunch of khaki, shorted, suburban parents, you know, I just connect with the Congolese dad, and he talks about French colonialism.
And the agreements, the French leaders set up with dictators, so that the dictators own the resources and then give it to the French companies and other international corporations. And that spirit of Ares finding its way through to our foreign policy over the years, our need for oil at all costs our need for minerals and uranium, once again, back to Congo, those conversations. Not that I have answers, I'm just really sad that we're so warlike. I hate it. Because it's not just killing people in the act of war. It's displacing people. And I'm bothered that religious people, and especially specifically the white evangelical movement, gets caught up and become war advocates and propping up Warhawks because of the way sometimes people read prophetic scripture and they look the other way. You meet Palestinians at festivals like I do I meet Christians from Palestine and they they they're just like why are American Christians so mean to us? Why do you not care about human rights? They just care about these other thing but not about human rights.
And that disappoints me, and then moves me to Sanctuary where I take the voice of multiple refugees. I take the poem that's written on our Statue of Liberty, and I take another poem called Home is the Mouth of the sShark, but by a refugee. And why would anybody run from their home unless home is going to kill them? It's not her fault. It's not his fault. It's not a child's fault that her dad puts her on a raft going across the Aegean Sea and she dies. You know, and we go to Syria, like you mentioned, last week, we spend, we spend 250 million, was it something like that! Think of how many Syrian people we could have helped. But instead, the evangelical movement helped make sure that we only brought 11 Syrians to America so far in 2018…11!
Beautiful people, smart people!
So the idea that people from countries like Syria, Uganda or Cameroon, or Haiti have less value to bring to our culture than someone from Norway, what an awful idea. But that is the idea that's been dominant in white supremacy and colonialism, when we go and take from all these countries to our benefit. And the people that suffer the most are the people that have to run from our bombs, or bombs that we sold to countries and dictators that we propped up. And I just don't think that as a Christian, I should have any part in wanting that.
Seth 36:32
Yeah, I agree. And I also think that it's horrible lip service to say, we won't let these children and their families run away from an awful situation to a country that actually can support them and protect them if we wanted to. Because you're from this country but as soon as someone else poisons those children, then we've got to protect those children. But as long as they stay within their walls, don't come over here, stay on your side of the line, which is that's not Jesus. It's not. It's not Jesus.
David 37:03
And I reference because people when it comes to DACA, recipients and people from Mexico, or people from Latin American, South America and Central America, I was in Latin America with the Exodus Road, and I see a great need. There's violence but what is that violence coming from?
Why are people facing violence from drug lords? Is it because there's a demand for cocaine? Where's that demand coming from? It's coming from our suburbs, our businessmen, our Wall Street executives. And if there wasn't that demand cocaine, that violence wouldn't exist, because these gangs would not need to be propped up in order to meet that demand for the American population needs those drugs. So they're going to create those drugs. .
Seth 38:49
The most impactful song on the album to me is Sunlight on Her Face, and so I want to end with that. And then for those listening, I would like to play a piece of that after we're done with this conversation. So please hang out after the credits to hear that.
Can you talk to me a bit about the story of Sunlight on Her Face, because I especially like the way that you ended with verse three. And you referenced it earlier, you know, alabaster box, woman at the well. Just a bunch of people that children, prostitutes, slaves, women specifically have such a bigger part of the gospel in the ministry than most evangelicals would give them. And so can you talk a bit about the story of sunlight on her face, where that came from?
David 39:31
I've met girls that are being sold for prostitution, from all over the world. I've met girls in Latin America, from Latin America. I've met girls from Latin America, in Southeast Asia, girls from Uganda, or Kenya, on the streets of Southeast Asia. And they all have the same look in their eyes. They're stuck in this job, somebody is controlling them. Someone's profiting off them through some fraud, or coercion, or manipulation. And yet, a lot of times I see this resilience, this defiance in her eyes, and that moved me and I started to write.
But then I was in a conversation with my friends, Sudhir and Sudhir from India. And he does a lot of work in locked brothels. And he's talking to me about how some of the girls in these locked brothels. They've been there for days at a time. And they're not allowed out and they're forced to sleep like they're forced to be raped by like 15 to 20 customers a day, sometimes more. And Sudhir is looking at me, and we're on the top of this, I'll never forget around the top of this building in Southeast Asia, the sheets are blown in the wind, because they're doing the laundry on top of that building and Sudhir
some of these girls and haven't seen the sunlight on their face for days.
And then I think of, you know, there was one time in particular, this guy comes up to me after concert and says to me, he's like, man, “I really like what you're doing for those girls, but I really wish someone would share Jesus with them”. Just the way he said it, I was like, I was like, What do you mean, man, he's like, cuz cuz something much worse is going to happen to her if someone doesn't share Jesus with her, like, who's going to be something worse than raping her 15 times a day, man‽ And just the way he said it, I thought, you know what she is going to meet Jesus. And sometimes when I walk out of a place with one of these girls, she’ll pray to Buddha. And so I just imagine, in that lyric, Jesus Christ, the Creator of the Heaven and the Earth, intercepting that prayer.
And like I said earlier, he's going to meet her, and he's gonna tell her about him. Just like that girl that washed his feet with sweet perfume, just like Rahab on the wall with the spies in the lineage of Jesus Christ, he has something special for these girls in his heart. And I want you to, and I want people to hear that they have that same special thing in their heart for these girls that are forced and tricked and manipulated into this…this awful trip. And I had to have this belief and hope and pray for them that they will meet him in that same way. And they'll have the same experiences with him someday.
Seth 42:10
Yeah, absolutely.
David 42:12
In this life, or in the passage between this life and the next, and I don't know how that works.
Seth 42:16
You alluded to it earlier. And so not everyone either has the ability or the gifts to be able to do what you do to support this ministry. And so, in closing, how can people help support the Exodus Road and ministries like it, and become involved in a way that is beyond lip service that is beyond insufficient thoughts and prayers, beyond platitudes? And so how, how would you direct people to engage in something that I don't know many things that could be more important than all of these millions of people that drastically need help? And so how would you have people get involved?
David 42:56
Well, financially is a big help, you can, you can put an investigator in the field for one evening for $35 a month, which is cool, because then you're part of what that guy's doing. You can buy spy gear, a girl ran a five K in stiletto high heels and raised hundreds of dollars and also raised awareness. She was carried across the finish line by by somebody because her feet were bleeding. All sorts of cool things.
If you go to remedydrive.com I give a bunch of examples of different ways people have gotten involved.
If you text remedy to 51555. You'll get ideas and ways to contribute. But you'll also get updates on your phone every time somebody rescued, which is the best text to get ever.
Seth 43:41
Yeah, that would be you know what… I'm doing that? Yeah, what a better way to have a great day, or at least a more fulfilling day. I don't think having a great day should be the reason that you do that. But I don't know what could be more fulfilling than than popping that up and seeing that.
David 43:57
So, yeah, it's fulfilling.
Seth 43:58
Yeah. Well, David, thank you again, so much. I I envy your ministry and and I am praying for you, and I hope others are as well. Keep doing what you're doing, man.
David 44:10
Thanks. Thanks for having me on the show.
Seth Outro 44:13
I can't think of a harder topic to talk about or prepare for all the theology, all of the race everything else that I have spoken about with many other people, I can't think of a harder topic that I have prayed as much for or about than the conversation that you just heard with David. As I said, with Daniel Hills interview, people bear the image of Christ. And if we believe that it matters, to how we live, what we do and how we treat people.
Before we end, thank you to the Patreon supporters. Thank you to those that have rated the show on iTunes and if you haven't, please go and do so it cost you no money and it helps the show so much. I want to leave you with what we just heard about the story of sunlight on her face, tops of roofs. want you to picture a poor girl being repeatedly used in a way that humans aren't built to be used. And just keep that in your mind. Keep Christ in your mind as you listen to this last song from Remedy Drive’s most recent album Northstar entitled sunlight on her face. I hope it speaks to you in the same way you spoke to me.
Music 45:56