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.
Danté Stewart 0:00
When we are talking about the church doing what seems to be right in moral, you know, it is a tall task to ask for, you know, at every point in history, we would say that the church has been critical, you know, for transformation. But also the church has been integral to these aspects of terror. There is no slavery and a history of racial subjugation without the theological justification of believing that black people are chattel—your property. You know, there is no, in some sense, you know, wealth gap or incarceration rate without these ideas of politics, and punishment, and morality, much rooted in these kinds of ideas of divine nature. There is nobody shooting somebody and beating somebody up that's trans and gay, without the religious idea of whose body is worthy of love and whose body is worthy of death and condemnation. You know, there's always this religious theological justification. And so the church, we must be honest about that. And we must allow other people to see our stories and allow other people to tell our stories for us. And try as best we can, you know, to tell some type of better stories, and become the answers to the problems, many times, that we created and protected and gave justification for.
Seth Price 1:44
Everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm Seth. This is the podcast. I'm sitting here. A six year old is staring at me. Let's see. Anyway, that's life, right, trying to record an intro. Be all professional, with an audience. Anyhow, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. Today. I welcome to the show, Dante Stewart. He wrote a book called shouting in the fire. It's very hard book to read. At least it was for me. And you'll hear a bit of that inner woven throughout the episode. Now, a couple of disclaimers as you listen to this one, he had his newborn child with him. And because of that, I've edited some things out just for privacy. I felt like that was what I'd want someone to do for me. But you will still hear the baby in the background a little bit here and there. And that's okay. Not a big deal. Anyhow, let's do this. Yes, anyway, man, welcome to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. I'm excited to talk to you. And yeah, wonderful. Thank you for having me. But there will be probably people like me that haven't read your book, because it isn't out yet. That want to know a little about you. And so when you try to explain, like, what and who you are, what is that?
Danté Stewart 3:13
Yeah, sure. I'm a writer and a minister. And that's, that's kind of two of the main roles that I'm in right now. And I guess two main kind of vocational roles, and a student, you know, and trying to somehow find a way to do as best I can, and all three of those areas, or whatnot, not just exclusively, one of those areas. Because I feel like in some sense, I mean, all three of those areas, both writer, minister and student is just reflects so much of where I come from. Yeah. And where I'm going what I'm trying to become every single day.
Seth Price 3:52
Yeah, which do you prefer to be writer, Minister, students?
Danté Stewart 3:56
Oh, I love them. No lie, I hang a lie. Because like, I talked to my friends, my former teammates and things like that. And, you know, we always, in some sense, kind of looking back in the past and thinking about where we're at right now, you know, six, seven years removed from football and from school and things like that. And some of us have played in NFL, some of us, you know, going into business, some of us have, you know, going into real estate, some have gone into starting their own businesses, their own gyms and things like that. And I'm the one out the bunch, who's the writer. A lot of them, many of them have gone into ministry as well. So we talk kind of, you know, about dreams and dreaming and things like that. As I say, you know, I'm living a dream there's nothing you know, there's there's I mean, all three of those roles are so integral to how I understand myself more such self conception as and as it relates to what I'm trying to become, you know, and so yeah, I don't think I don't think That would be who I was without all three of those because they represent three kind of various experiences of the world and even of myself and they teach me so much so, yeah, but I really like to write I love to write.
Seth Price 5:11
I didn't Google your career in South Carolina. What exactly did you play on the football team?
Danté Stewart 5:18
Cool. I like it that way. Yeah. It's cool. It's cool. I played cornerback. Okay. Yes, I played defensive back. You know, football pretty good.
Seth Price 5:28
Well, I'm from West Texas played ball all throughout high school. Okay. Yes, I play corner. Yeah, but yeah, Friday, you know, you don't miss a Friday. You can miss Sunday in my Southern Baptist church, but you don't mess Friday?
Danté Stewart 5:39
Yeah. Especially in Texas. No,
Seth Price 5:43
yo, yeah, you get out of wills and that type of stuff. You know?
Danté Stewart 5:47
Yeah. Yeah, for, you know, I always wanted to look at like Texas football, because I don't I don't even recall any of my teammates, man from Texas. We just never recruited, like, they were always like Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina. That's a different, you know, and then, you know, up north, in some areas further as we went, you know, Louisiana, and things like that. I mean, we had spurts of like California and from different places, but I don't remember. I mean, maybe some guys being from Texas, but yeah,
Seth Price 6:18
it's a different animal.
Danté Stewart 6:21
Texas. Oh, no, no, I think I think I think sfootball Because I don't I mean, I would consider Texas the south. But I mean, like the as far as like the East Coast. Got some good, good football. Oh, Vietnam.
Seth Price 6:33
Oh, definitely. Everybody.
Danté Stewart 6:34
I know everybody talks about?
Seth Price 6:38
No. So here's what I mean by I mean, different animals, like I grew up. And the stadiums were like holding 60,000 people for high school football. What? Yeah, maybe it's 45. No, I'm sure doesn't do that. It might be 45. I might be wrong. It's 40. Somewhere between 45 and 60. So like when I say it's a different animal, like, I was literally at a UVA game over the weekend. And I was like, I wonder how many people sit here and I'm like, Oh, this is less than homecoming. So like, like, like to go from being good in Texas football to then playing it at really most colleges. It's like, Oh, I see you like so it's not intimidating is what I mean, it's a different animal. Because if you're from a big city, you know, then you walk in, you're like, Oh, cool. Here we go. Let's go. I've had this many people booing me before, or yell before me. Anyway, not why I brought you on. So you wrote a book. And I referenced for, before I hit the record button on the video that like, I stopped halfway through halfway through. And normally, normally don't say I, I will read every word of every book before I talked to it to an author. And I tried three times to read through your book. In each time, I got about 48% in and I only know the percentage, not the page number, because that's how the Kindle app works. And so I don't actually know how many pages I am in. And I just got froak so frustrated at a book that's interwoven with like theology and autobiography. And like how, how I never I understand that stuff exists now. But I never remember seeing it when I should have seen it. You know what I mean? So can you talk to me a bit about like the book, why it exists? And like, why you felt the need to sit down and because there's some stories in there that I'm like, man, like, like, like, even like I was saying about the story earlier today. We were watching not today. Last night, we were watching a show my wife and there was some kids that pulled over and they got shot out and I'm like I just read about that in a book. You talking about like a story in the book, like you're pulled over and some wrong with the car, some dude, Yellin And then just shots fired, like for what I just pulled over for a minute, just needed a minute, but look at the, you know, so why, why did you feel the need to like, kind of go into the book?
Danté Stewart 8:57
Yeah, I think first of all, for First, thank you for having me on with you. Appreciate that. So I think for me, you know, writing is oftentimes, you know, many times for many of us is where we make sense of kind of what happened. I'm not really trying to at least in the tradition of writing, I'm thinking not really trying to find answers, per se, but trying to explore things that happened to kind of understand them a little bit better, trying to understand, you know, many of the things that, you know, we went through and things like that. So for me, I felt that, like, there was a uniqueness about, you know, the type of book I wanted to create, particularly, you know, writing a memoir, you know, and thinking about memoir as the genre because we think about, you know, my book is very much you know, Christian, it's a very it's very much a Christian book is very much interwoven with theology and theory and critical reasoning. Question on life and faith in church and society and things like that. But I knew that the book that I wanted to write, I couldn't write it as what we are familiar with in the Christian genre, particularly regarding like, books, that's for pastors and ministry leaders and things like that. And so I wanted to first and foremost write a, a creatively crafted book, that was honest, that was vulnerable, that was creative, that was compelling. That was rigorous and ruthless. and whatnot, that was very particular about my own experiences, and things like that, like, I feel like a lot of Christian books, almost makes our faith in ourselves, the heroes of the story. And as much as we, you know, omit as much as we like to say, you know, there's only one hero, there's that colloquialism, you know, there's only one hero to the store, and that's Jesus. But I think the type of writing that many of us have learned and do, you know, doesn't is I want to call it dishonest, but I don't even know if that's the right word that might be, you know, not in a sense of like, is lying, that type of literature is lying, but it doesn't just tell a human story. It's a very triumphal narrative, that must have winners in the end, that must, you know, have answers in the end that must have application in the end, that must sustain incoherent frameworks, our experience of faith and our experience of God, and things like that, and our experience of the world. And I just felt like, you know, that's just not the type of book I wanted to write, I wanted to write a book that was incredibly black. That was, you know, meaningfully Christian. And did both of those things in very creative in creative ways. That woven narrative and really good storytelling. So yeah,
Seth Price 12:00
yeah, at the beginning of the book, you tell a story about meeting another guy at the beginning of football. And he basically says that they tell you about all the running we're about to do. And I didn't realize it until the second time, I tried to read the book, that that is basically the whole story of the book is you're not fake, literally running, you're just figuratively, running, running from this running from that running from that, unless for some reason, you just didn't write it. And I missed it each time, like the miles that you ran. Well, you talk about running to a military base and back, but yeah, so can you name some of the things that you feel like you're running from, you know, as, as it relates to where you were at at the time, and kind of how that relates to maybe the story of other people, you know, as they read through the book? Yeah, I think,
Danté Stewart 12:49
as a great question, and that's very perceptive reading, um, uh, whatnot, because, I mean, running is a metaphor, that, that, that runs throughout my book, you know, no pun intended. You know, it's in a woven in my own story, you know, whether I found myself at home, or whether in church or with on the football field, or, you know, in different areas, you know, I ran and I think running for me, was, as I write, you know, it was a way to mask so much of the pain and the trauma and the confusion. And even the wounds, you know, and even my failures, that I think that I think, you know, I ran from and that was, that was hard. That was hard to write about. But I knew I had to write that type of book, if I was to find wholeness in my own story, but also, to help other people find wholeness as well, because I think once we can name, you know, once we can name what we're most afraid of, especially as it relates to our own emotional well being our own sense of identity, once we can name what we're most afraid of, then little by little, we can have courage to try and rewrite that story. So for me, running and not running was about learning how to learning to how to be courageous, again, and again, and again and again. And you know, in moments of the stories, you know, there were moments where I ran for myself where I ran from other people. And then there were also moments where I stopped running. What I started to face thing is when I stopped running and started to face things, then I think that's when I found my healing in my liberation. And so, yeah,
Seth Price 14:33
yeah. So I've envisioned different answers to this questions, and it's not really all that weighty. It's more just a curiosity. And it is in the few sentences before the question I actually want to ask so there's a part in there where you talk about you know, you're you're you're meeting new people, you're in like some big white mega church, and so we'll just call it we'll call it passion. Why not? Well, I'll pick on a big on passion, but like I think people know that church like that's the church that's on TV. That's the you know, that's that's what people think of when they think of evangelicalism, at least. I think most of the bulk of the country, that's what they think of, you know, the stuff that you hear on K love and the worship music that sounds like, you know, God's just a mighty God and doesn't actually ever sit with us when we struggle, even though the bulk of the Scripture is actually about limit, and brokenness, and that's okay. Um, so what are you exactly spray painting on trailers around in the neighborhood? Is it as a kid like you, right, that, you know, used to get yelled at for spray painting trailers in the neighborhood? Like, is that like, like people's trailers? Is that like, house trailers? Like, what is that? Like? What do you spray painting?
Danté Stewart 15:41
Yes, like back in the country? who is younger? Yeah, we we really just have black spray paint. And we just like spray paint because words. Yeah, spray paint gang signs, all right. Everything going around, just like finding something to do in the country bread this, like, you know, and then we got some painting and you know, we went around Fair
Seth Price 16:01
enough. I just mean, I'm like, what would you be like? Are you painting people's houses? Like, what do you
Danté Stewart 16:07
say? It's like dalgona? Sin and Grand Theft Auto Center? Going tagging places? Yeah, my street name. is rich.
Seth Price 16:21
Yeah. So you go on to say a few sentences. After that, you know, you were introduced to white Catholics, evangelicals, atheists, progressives, conservatives, and I camera what it says after that, but then what I wrote down, as you say, the thing I didn't realize was that realize was that both of our stories had already been told by this nation in ways that we could later that we would later have to reckon with, we were walking into scripts that had already been written, we were individuals, but we were also performers. What are those scripts? Not just for, for black people, but for the white people as well? Like, what are those scripts that you're referencing? What does that? Like? What are you saying?
Danté Stewart 16:56
Yeah, so that's when, you know, I'm thinking sociologically that, you know, we are, we are individuals, but we also a part of history and history, you know, as Baldwin was, say, as James Bond would say, lives in us. And so when I'm thinking about the scripts, it really grew out of my reading of Richard Hughes, incredible book, myths that America lives by white supremacy and distorted stories that give us meaning. And Richard Hughes, talks about myths, and that myths are not just fiction, which they are. But myths are, you know, those powerful stories that lie at the heart of how we name, see and act within the world. And when you talk about America, and even the kind of religious script is social strip, the razor sharp, the sexual shirt script, the gendered script, the class script, all these scripts, all these stories about what is right, what is more, what is normal, what is good, what is true, what's beautiful, what's to be desired. So many of these scripts centered on what white people thought what white people believe, to matter how white people worship How, how white people make it, how white people do church and things like that. And so the script was that at the heart of the faith in the country, is the perseveration into protection. And the prominence of a certain type of white racial dominance of the social order, the cultural order and a religious order. And so I'm thinking in systems thinking, so in many fields of study, particularly in the fields of study regarding law, and society, and philosophy and sociology, we have to think also, we're not just individuals, but we are individuals who inhabit a history that is inherited. So the New Yorker has this beautiful Hey, see, the Demeter, I think, is the Atlantic actually. So the Atlantic has this really beautiful, beautiful, beautiful series that they're running right now and title inheritance. And if anybody got a chance to check that series out, it's just an amazing, amazing series that particularly thinks about what black people inherit in this country, particularly the the ways in which we learn how to make the world as black feminists, there's Terry on Williamson, right? That that, that the way black people make the world is as much a starting point as any other place that we're talking about in the realm of epistemology and what we know and how we come to know white ways of thinking that's bound to where many of us in those churches found ourselves in which are named to be white social space, has visions and values that they that they believe to be right and that we should all accept and we cannot name because it's the given. It's the I'm given given, yeah. or whatnot. And so it's just like playing sports. You know, I'm an individual, but once I put on a jersey, I'm a part of the story and a history larger than me. And when I step on the field, I step into that story. And in some sense, we want to make sure that story ends with us winning in the end, whatnot. So it's just like life. Football teaches us so much about life, that if we think about this jersey, what is normal, that's just we just put it on and take it off. And we're surrounded by the colors, and we're immersed in this world. Yeah. It would be representative of this idea, these ideas, whiteness, and the ways in which, you know, white people have thought about the world. And so many of us when we go to white college campuses, white churches, oftentimes, you know, we are because we're in this social space, we're caught up in rhythms, we're caught up in ways of seeing the world, you know, that's just based on social and communal relationships. And that insert in turn changes us and changes how we see the world. Yeah. And it reinforces these narratives, or what Richard Hughes would call these stories that give us meaning it reinforces, you know, what people believe about God, what belief people believe about patriotism, what people believe about the world. And so, you know, that's the script, you know, that I think we inherited, that's fundamental to the ideas and notions of purity and morality that so surround our country and our religion. And that's the narratives that I wanted to deconstruct, in a sense of not saying that everything that my book is centered on decrescendos narrow because my book is not my book is not written to white people. It's right written to help white people become better humans, or less racist, or more, more better Christians. My book is particularly written to us as black folks so that we may be seen as fire protected and loved. And so for me, a part of kind of deconstructing that narrative and rewriting that narrative, or retelling that story was about doing what Elizabeth Alexander and her beautiful work inside of the black interior was trying to do. And that is this idea of looking again, at our black lives, looking again, you know, at our stories, looking again, at our humanity, and realizing that we do not just die, but we live and when we live we make something of the world that we live in.
Seth Price 22:20
I have that book. I haven't read it. So book of poetry, right? This guy's a black. Yeah, with the orange face on it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, bro, bro, you got I haven't read it. A friend of mine, a friend of mine recommended it. And it's a friend that I trust. And he's like, Dude, you got to read it. And I said, Okay, and so I bought it and just I haven't read it yet. It's it's over there
Danté Stewart 22:40
by this book. I swear by this book. And I quoted I think to Well, I think I quoted twice, but also quote her, her. Her I quote her
Seth Price 22:50
went to her website, because she's apparently like, done some work with Michelle Obama. She's done a bunch of She's amazing. And I was like, How have I never heard of her?
Danté Stewart 22:58
Yeah, you should get this today have her essay from the New Yorker called the Trayvon generation, um, is one of the last essays in this writing on black life from the New Yorker. So it's called the matter of black lives. I was trying to read it, her her essay, the Trayvon generation, is absolutely stunning. In the black interior, it changed the way I wrote the book. And I think this is, this is why I think there's a certain type of uniqueness about what I was trying to do. And what I felt like I accomplished is that like, you know, I wasn't even trying to make us as black folk heroes in the story. I just wanted to write as honest as possible, centering us and I like to say, okay, what can we learn from us? What can be gained? or what not? How can we look into the interior part of our lives, and scope out the beauty and the love, the joy, the failure, everything that can be exploring in our lives? And what can we gain? And what can what can be gleaned from
Seth Price 23:59
it? So I'm curious, your take on this, because you talked about myths. One of my favorite quotes is from Joseph Campbell. I don't know if you've read any of his stuff, or at all. Do you know the hero's journey? Is that a thing that you know what that is? I'll have to grab your email, I'll send you some stuff. It's, it's if I'm going to overgeneralize it. It's a narrative of like, every pivotal moment in in in usually narrative, and so he takes it from like stories and legends and myths. And so there's like a person that answers a call. They leave here we go. So I do Lord of the Rings. So like, have you seen Lord of the Rings? You know, talking about Lord of the Rings? Yeah. Loader? Yeah. So he answers a call, takes on a big challenge finds divine intervention. So that's going to be Gandalf. It changes who he is, he has to cross in this case, a literal metaphorical bridge where you know, says You shall not pass he ends up becoming change has to answer the call to do so. Something really important that's going to be life altering, and then ultimately does that it breaks him or changes him, and then that person returns home a changed being than the person that so it's just like an endless loop. And that's a way overgeneralization. So, the book that that's in is called the hero with 1000 faces is actually pretty, I like it. But one of my favorite quotes about myth is he says, myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism. And you know how reliable that is? Which, yeah, anyway, I
Danté Stewart 25:32
don't know if I agree with it, but it's just a good quote.
Seth Price 25:34
I like it. Yes. It sounds good. Yeah. Sounds Um, well, to he talks about myths being truths that are that are hard to tell in any other way. Like the underlying truth behind the actual historical accuracy. Anyway. So there is where's it at? Let me find that in your book. Hold on. Yeah. So there's a part. And this is about as far as I made it each time. So there's a part in here where you say, I read Cohn and other black theologians. And it was used the word that we learned in school or revelation, Faith did not start in the books and words of those long gone it started at the place of the black body, a place both of divine and destructive revelation. Can you break apart what destructive revelation is?
Danté Stewart 26:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so that came really out of my reading of tunnel has the coats incredible book Between the World and Me, where he has that in the early part of the book kind of early midway through the first chapter, where he says, the black body in America, that we perceive America as the handiwork of God, as the place of God and whatnot. I'm loosely kind of quoting copes. But the black body in America is one of the clearest examples that this country is the work of men. And so when I think about the destructive reality revelation, I'm not talking about of ourselves, I'm thinking particularly about Imani Perry, she writes this beautiful, beautiful essay, entitled, racism is bad, blackness is not. And so for me, that's kind of destructive reality is the estimation that the country has toward our black lives. And we think about, if you think about the way we enter this country, you know, we entered it, as chattel, or as to do Hartman say, you know, I to live in a time of slavery. And what I mean, is this, is that, that, that we're still dealing with the crisis of citizenship, what citizens matter, what citizens don't, who, who's worth it, who's not, whose stories are value, whose stories are not, whose stories must be told and changed and altered, versus whose stories are accepted as factual and true, and should be centered. And so did you shock the revelation is in some senses, Baldwin, I love I love, love, love letter from a region of my mind. And Baldwin, he uses beautiful, beautiful language to talk about, you know, the wages of sin. He says that the wages the same is on every street corner. And then he started naming things. And so like, you know, the world that we have inherited, and the things and the ways that it make us the what it does to us, is that destructive revelation, but I believe that the most important part is the divine revelation. And just like, and I was doing some, some, some some theological thinking right there, particularly, you know, as we talking about traditions of biblical criticism, you know, and thinking about, you know, how we understand the Bible and biblical interpretation and, and I wanted to take seriously that many of these inherited sacred stories are inherited stories of people's lives. So when you start naming people, those people their stories, what their lives portrayed for good or for ill represented a certain type of divine story that was passed on to another person. And so for me, I wanted to take seriously that the lives of black people were divine revelation as well that our literature represented a certain divine revelation of how we named the world, how we saw the world, how we acted within the world, how we thought about our faith, how we thought about society, and embodiment and things like that. And so, yeah, that's that's probably the beginnings of the way I would think about that question.
Seth Price 29:36
Yeah. What? What are you now so you deconstructed from Pentecostalism? You became reformed, which scares the hell out of me. I can't Yeah, that's what I was raised. And and then yeah, what are you now?
Danté Stewart 29:52
Yeah, so like, I'm, I'm on staff. I'm on pastoral staff at a progressive Baptist Church. I'm part of the progressive national bench, okay, uh, whatnot. So I'm very much steel, Pentecostal in orientation. You know, as far as denomination, I'm not Pentecostal. But as far as orientation, I'm very much been accosted in steel, you know, it still tie to, in some sense, in some ways, to many of my upbringing, much of my upbringing. So, you know, I'm not, you know, in some sense, like, I didn't, you know, it wasn't like, you know, for me, like, you know, I'm, like, in some sense, like, took on a new name, you know, in some senses, as much as I felt like, for me, my journey and some people, that's their journey, you know, we have to honor that, as people, we have to, you know, even if it is where it kind of gets kind of messy for us, you know, even as we think about stories in the Hebrew Bible, you know, and stories in the Christian scriptures, I'll never forget this story that you know, that the disciples came with Jesus, and they came another person casting out a devil, a demon in Jesus name, the writer of that text did not give us any social, cultural or religious marker, that we can, in some sense, name that person, or name, their community or name, where they're from, or even in the Hebrew Bible, where we see, you know, lovers of God, or whatnot, people who love God, lovers of God, but they're not a part of, you know, the quote, unquote, religious community that's preserving this story, this particular story, in this particular time, in this particular way. And so for me, you know, I'm not I used to be this type of person, that's like, you know, when I was in those spaces, I used to be just a person that was very stickler about, you know, how people believe what they believe, and things like that, you know, and then, you know, when people be like, you know, in some sense, you know, well, all that matters. Well, I don't know, I just, I'm just not of that persuasion anymore. Yeah. Uh, whatnot. And I'm not of somebody who even cares, certain cares, particularly about doctrinal purity, or denomination of purity, or even religious community purity. But I do think that we should creatively try and build something better than we do, that we, that we inherited, as it relates to our social and faith lives and the type of world we're living in. So that works for some people. But for me, you know, I felt like I needed to go back to the black church, but I wanted to go back to a particular type of black church, particularly progressive black church, that that were, like questions of, you know, where, like, this kind of war warring faith or feel like, you know, like this, like the whole idea of like, I feel like there's something voyeuristic about talking about the holiness of God, or like, or these kind of what people would be like big God or heavy theology. Like there's a certain type of warrior rhythm that like evades the honest tension of living. And I didn't want to, I didn't want to have to think, you know, in some sense, in terms of, you know, what is someone doctrinal stance, I wanted to be standing in the world. Yeah, who I was and work with something better.
Seth Price 33:18
Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask maybe one or two more questions. And, and, and also want to say, for those listening, there is a lot in the book that I'm just uncomfortable asking about, because it's so deeply personal stories, and some of them seem slightly traumatic. And also people should read the book and buy it. I know, you said you didn't write it necessarily for white people. But I know I gained better context for some things from from looking at it and reading it. I'll also say I like what your thoughts are on the Baptist Church there are on the church overall. But um, yeah, I happen to be cooperative Baptist. And one of my favorite parts about Baptist is priesthood of all believers. So you do what you want to do. I'm gonna do what I want to do and just be just, hey, just stop, stop. Hey, Stop, just stop.
Danté Stewart 34:07
I mean, because on a real if you read church history, that's just the reality of the story that we're walking into talk about what Chris Yeah, is that dare I always say, you know, there is no such thing as a singular Christianity. There. There's, there's multiple and multivariate traditions of Christian faith, even this year, even even this year, even to this day. Yeah, we're some look more like Jesus, some live less, some, some are more healthy, some are less healthy, some prioritize certain things, other prioritize other things based on historical social critical circumstances. You know, what, what I think our job is to do is, you know, stay be rooted wherever we're rooted but also critically, you know, examining where we're rooted. Why also, you know, trying to tell a better story with those within our tradition and Those outside of our tradition. Yeah, yes. You know, just think that's a better way.
Seth Price 35:04
Yeah. So final three questions. One is related to something you say in the book, the other two, and this is the risk of having a minister on a preacher on his you may preach, and that's fine, feel free to preach
Danté Stewart 35:16
my brain in my brain. So that's fine. I can't, I can't,
Seth Price 35:19
that's fine. So you write in here. And I think that this is important for the for the country that we happen to live in, you know, slightly below Canada and above Mexico, is you write in here, you learn to see that there's a connection to the body of Jesus being beat in front of his people in public by authorities, being crucified by the state in the experience of black bodies being assaulted and terrorized every day in America, which is true, if you're listening and you disagree. I don't, I don't know why you're still listening. He did not stand with the assaulters. But with the abuse, Jesus didn't stand with the state or religious authorities. And then you go on to talk about dignity and resistance and power and justice and love. What does the church do with that? Like, what, what I mean, I mean, you're holding your daughter, Mike, my son will literally come in, the dogs are gonna start barking here in a minute from school, like, the way that we treat one another. And the apathy that comes from it can't be what the church is, at least that's not what I want to be a part of. So what do we do with that?
Danté Stewart 36:23
I mean, I'm so limited answering that question. I'm just not a type of person that like, you know, I'm a writer, I'm a writer, you know. And so, I just think sometimes the best of writing is the type of writing or thinking, that doesn't necessarily wonder about like the answers, or what do we do? You know, I never forget reading. Octavia Butler, in essence magazine, it was entitled, a few rules for predicting the future. And I think I think, you know, given our history, and the years, particularly the last two years of our lives, collectively, many people are wondering, What will our futures, particularly individually, you know, what, what our futures look like? And collectively, what will our future look like in the singular? And she tells a story of a student coming up to her and asking her, you know, hey, so I was reading your book of the parables parable of the sower and parable, the town? You know, is it that bad? The way you talk about it? You know, as many people would say, your literature was a certain type of apocalyptic genre, you know, it, it dealt with, you know, society, in I think, I think, Eddie Glaude talked about this with Baldwin in his book begin again, in the after times, or whatnot. And so, student x isn't that bad. And, you know, Tavia Butler say, you know, I didn't create your problems, or whatnot, you know, I just let the problems that we already know exists. I looked at them 30 years later. And I told the story of the way they turned into full fledged disasters. And then the student answer, what do we do? What's the answer? Then? She said, there is no answer. There are multitude of answers. And you can become one, if you so choose. And I think and I think that that story is instructive for us is that oftentimes as the the the Catholic theologian, hammer now when we say that we always are in danger of looking for the final solution. And as a writer, I just don't, you know, what do the church do with that? I don't know. You know, I know what I'm trying to do with that I'm trying to, I'm trying to write better, I'm trying to allow that, to help me have a more whole and healthy theology. I'm trying to allow that and help me become a better neighbor, a better Christian, a better human being. I wanted to help me tell better stories. When I think about the story of Jesus, Jesus offered a certain type of touching, and being put back together again, giving the challenges of the world that he lived in. So how do I write about the challenges? How do I write about the things that are problems that's turning into disasters? That's, I guess that's a part of the equation that's a part of the solution. That's a part of becoming an answer is me being willing to tell the story of us and willing to tell the story of myself and implicate myself in ways that are honest, you know, but not not narcissistic? You know, I feel like there's a way to tell story where, like, you know, like, it's almost like, it's like what Imani were right in brief, where she, she talked about, you know, people like, like, like black, like black people dying is commodification. His social and culture. You know, think about George Floyd in 2020. Where many people take that moment, and it becomes social fun and financial and cultural capital. Yeah. Okay, let's, let's put out banners. And now we're going to get money for that and things like that. That's marketing and things like that, you know, people treat our bodies and our lives as they're simply just reducible to what white people think about us. And I just don't think that is the case. So I think, what should the church do with that? I don't know. I know what I'm doing with that. I know what Jesus did with that. And I know that when you're talking about the church doing what seems to be writing more rule, you know, is a tall task to ask for, you know, at every point in history, we would say that the church has been critical, you know, for for, for transformation. But, but also the church has been integral to these these aspects of terror. There is no, there is no, you know, slavery, and a history of subject racial subjugation, without the theological justification of believing that black people are chattel, your property, you know, there is no, in some sense, you know, wealth gap, or in costs or incarceration rate without these ideas of politics and punishment and morality, much rooted in these kind of ideas of divine nature, there is nobody shooting somebody and beating somebody up that's trans and gay, without the religious idea of what whose body is worthy of love, and whose body is worthy of death and condemnation. You know, there's always this religious theological justification. And so the church, we must be honest about that. And we must be allow other people to see our stories, and allow other people to tell our stories for us, and try as best we can, you know, to tell some type of better stories, and become an answer to the problems many times that we created and protected and gave and gave justification for and so as I think about black people, our bodies our flesh, you know, I want to say yes, racism, white supremacy ratio to racial subjugation, and the likes white social dominance, white political dominance, that inequalities in power dynamics, all of it is terrible, but our black lives, our humanity, is our gift, not our burden. Yeah. And I want to be very clear about that. You know, when, when I think about the cross and lynchin truth, I just don't think about death. I don't think about us dying. I think about us being alive. June, Jordan, the Pope would say, This is my gospel, I am black alive and looking back at you. And if that, if that ain't the good news. I don't know what is just like Jesus, on the third day, I am alive, looking back at you. And I truly believe that the glory of God, you know, as black people alive and in love, and getting better in this country also getting better as well. So
Seth Price 43:15
yeah, so last question. When you try to wrap words around, explaining God, what do you say to that? When I'm like, Hey, Dante, I need it. Like, what's like, who? What is why? Where whatever? What words do you give to
Danté Stewart 43:29
that? I tell people to read The Color Purple, the Alice Walker,
Seth Price 43:36
walk away, and walk away,
Danté Stewart 43:38
read the god forbid, by Alice Walker, and I and then and then we're talking about God, or whatnot. But now, you know, I don't have many conversations like that, you know, in some sense, I just a part of me believes those conversations are futile. or whatnot, in a sense, you and I know we were wrapped up in spaces that it seemed my deck conversation exhausted. And I don't even think that God wants us to think about God is not concerned about whether we can give a teleological argument a cosmological argument for the existence of divine epistemology and our experience, in our experience, experience existential reality of anxiety is to say, I don't know if God wants us to use those cyber words in some sense, or whatnot. So, you know, I in my own life, you know, no lie, man, as I as I think about where I'm trying to think and find God. You know, right now, I do believe the glory of God as I think Iranians say, this is human beings alive. And I try and spot God. You know, when Jesus I try and spot God particularly in our lives, you know, when Jesus, you know, saying the kingdom of God is like, what's interesting about that those stories was is always something that we already knew on Earth. The kingdom of God is like Yeah, some we already know on Earth, and they use metaphors. And so for me, I'm trying to think about, okay, the kingdom of God is like reading, beloved, by Toni Morrison, sitting by yourself in your office, saying this year that your flesh love it. That for that is surprised the kingdom of God is like reading James Baldwin, letter from a region of my mind where he talks about that we thought, you know, I thought being a guy was about loving everybody, but oftentimes that stopped when you entered the church, isn't it the church door? You know, the kingdom of God is like reading. Toni Cade Bambara was two solid eaters. And Velma asking Velleman get next question. Are you sure you want to be well, sweetheart, because healing and wholeness is no trifling matter. The kingdom of God is like that, like somebody out on the streets, dancing, like Jada is rotting in front of the policeman during 2020. Protests in response to the murdering of George Floyd, the kingdom of God is like, people realizing that Breanna Taylor, and Tatiana Jefferson and many of the black women who are abused sexually, physically, emotionally, psychologically, must be heard and seen that is for me, you know, I want to find God I want to find you know, when Jesus asked that question, you know, Will, Will there'll be faith on earth when I come back finding faith on earth? You know, I don't, you know, I think I think in some sense, those narratives are connected, that, you know, whenever Jesus said, The kingdom of God has like, he always pointed to something we already knew on Earth. And I think, as Jesus said, that's why I want to find faith on Earth. And that's why I'm finding it right now and the sacredness of our black humanity, black stories, and the divine revelation that we can get from each Where do you
Seth Price 46:47
want people to go Dante they listen to this and again, I'm gonna link to the book because they should read the book because we we touched on like seven topics of 800 Topic book. So where do you want people to go you know, to follow you to interact by the book to do something else like what what should people do if they if they feel so let? Yeah,
Danté Stewart 47:09
I think I think I usually recommend books to people tell them to read um, I think everybody should read the Yellow House by Sarah Brown. It is probably one of the most beautifully black books that I have read in recent days. The Yellow House by Sarah Boone men we reaped BY JASMINE Ward, heavy by KSA lay men the Secret Lives of church ladies by dish Ophelia the prophets by Robert Jones you know, look bow waves by Jason Reynolds. I mean, just just just the gamut of black literature. You know, read it all know try and try and read to see we became by Enki James and the black interior by by Elizabeth Alexander. It no stop there going pick up a little devil in America by me for dual key. No, stop there. Go and look at black book by Matteo and I'm bound by Tirana and somebody's daughter by Ashley Ford. And and, and don't just stop there. Don't go go and read Donaire Moore's no ashes in the fire. And the ones who don't say they love you by Maurice ruff. And all these black stories where you don't ingest, digest them, sit with them. Read the classics. In Black live Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni Tony K. Nella Larsen. Jean Toomer read the classics, go back, and sit with that. And I think in some sense, there will be revelation of what I believe is the world that God desires, and what what God desires of our faith lives, particularly a certain type of honesty, certain type of love, certain type of vulnerability, a certain type of dreaming, what can be possible for us. And so if you want to keep up with me, just go to Twitter or Instagram, and my handles all the same is at Stuart Dante see all of them the same? I try and get back to everybody that I possibly can. But you know, life is picking up. Busy two kids. I got two kids, I'm in school and Mary, I'm in ministry. Yeah, I'm writing a lot. You know, I got my own personal life and working out and things like that. So I try and hit everybody back, but I'm giving you if I fail,
Seth Price 49:40
does your wife do what I do and say, Hey, I'm I need you to start saying no to a few things. You just keep saying Sure. Let's do it. Yeah,
Danté Stewart 49:46
definitely. Definitely. She is definitely the one that tells and she is. He's the one who knows like, Nah, you doing too much?
Seth Price 49:53
Yeah, I told him I do this. We're not gonna do that. I'm like, I'm gonna text him and say we're not gonna do that. We're not That's not me. I don't know what you're doing that night. But you're not doing that. Yeah. Yeah, man. Well don't say I really appreciate your time. And yeah, very much and thank you again for your words they are as powerful book, I am going to finish it. I had another issue with another book similar not to yours. But um, I read a book by called. Without Buddha, I could not be Christian by Paul Knitter. And I struggled with that book as well. I finished it a year later, I finally finished it. So yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's the way I read. I don't know. Anyhow, thank you so much for your time today, man, I really appreciate it.
Danté Stewart 50:40
No doubt, brother, you be blessed. You too.
Seth Price 50:47
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