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.
Soong-Chan 0:00
The underlying narrative that drives in both dysfunctional parties is American exceptionalism. And so that is really antithetical to the gospel. The belief that a single nation in this day and age can be the chosen nation, when the scriptures only testify to Israel as the chosen nation. And that, you know, arguably is for that time period within the Scriptures. There is actually zero indication, zero idea that America, the United States of America, is the exceptional chosen nation of God. But again, these narratives have played itself out in so many ways that it doesn't matter what party you belong to the idea of American exceptionalism is going to find its way into the rhetoric.
Seth 1:02
Hi everybody, welcome back to the show. This is episode 105. That's an insane number. Welcome to the show I'm glad that you're here. I want to quickly make an appeal to your support of the show the holidays are coming, consider supporting the show you can do that one of a handful of ways the free cheap, easy way. It's just rate and review the show on iTunes; algorithms run the entire world. Facebook, Google, email, show your computer and what happens when you turn on the blinker, all algorithms, and so one way that you can help other people find shows like this one, is just hit pause, go to rate and review. Click at amount of stars really your choice anywhere from one to five, but then type some comments there. Like say something about the show. What do you like what do you hate? I would greatly appreciate it that is one simple and easy way to support the show. The other two ways are really easy so you can either support the show on Patreon and there are multiple levels there. You can start at $1 a month. Go up to crazy amounts if you want to. And I won't stop you. But that is the way that the show continues to be a show. So as Can I Say This At Church grows, it just cost more money which is insane and thus far because of supporters on Patreon that has been able to happen. And I am so thankful, so very thankful, for each and every single one of you. And so, I would like to count a few more of you among there and so I would ask consider supporting the show either at patreon.com/CanISayThisAtChurch or go into your show notes and partner with a new service called Glow. And it works slightly different for a different reason and a different purpose. And then again, as the holidays are approaching there is a store at Can I Say This At Church store, some fun things in there, but if there's something that you're like, Yeah, I would, I would rock that. Click that hit the button ships everywhere on the planet. Let me know what to think of it. So some caveats for today's conversation. I spoke with Professor soon genre who co wrote a book with Mark Charles.
The book is deeply gripping entirely for me, I think abrasive is the correct word, and worth every single moment that it took to read it, and I may reread it again. And so that book is called Unsettling Truths, which is about the ongoing dehumanizing legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. So I'll hit pause there, way back in like February of 2018. I talked with Mark about the Doctrine of Discovery. And so I would maybe hit pause right now and go back and listen to that one. That's going to give you some context. And I tell you why, Mark, because he's running for President was unable to join the show. Even though I tried my best to make it work. We just couldn't do it with three different schedules. And so I have Professor Soong-Chan Rah, you're going to hear us talking on an old school telephone, and so the audio quality is slightly less than what we normally have, but the content is fantastic. It's challenging, it's needed. So here we go. conversation about unsettling Truth America, the church trauma, so many different topics with Professor Soong-Chan Rah.
Seth 4:43
Professor Soong-Chan Rah, so there's like seven or eight people that have been on the show twice. There's even fewer number that have on the show more than twice and so I'm excited to welcome you back to the show! Yours is one of my favorite episodes on American exceptionalism because I think it's a timely message. Regardless of the year, sadly enough that we did back in the day, and I think a lot of what we talked about there will shed some light on, on what we'll talk about today on unsettling truths in America as we break that apart again, but I'm really looking forward to the conversation and welcome back to the show.
Soong-Chan 5:20
Very glad to be back here and to be back on.
Seth 5:22
You and another past guest of the show, Mark Charles, wrote a book called Unsettling Truths, which then has a large subtitle, the ongoing dehumanizing legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. And so I want to preface for those listening. I normally have the guests say a bit about themselves and kind of their upbringing, but we've done that already in the prior episode, and so we won't waste those 10 minutes. We'll use those a little bit more wisely today. But it is important, I think, as a framework for the conversation and so those that are listening should probably go back and hear that, but real quickly. What do you mean when you say unsettling truths?
Soong-Chan 6:01
Yeah, you know, as you probably know, many of the book titles go under multiple transition and changes and originally the working title and we were working through the book itself, the title was truth be told. And part of the reason we never went with that title as good for the books by that same title, so it was a little redundant.
But the idea, the central theme of that was, what is what are some truths out there that are truth that is out there in our history, and especially around our stories around kind of American identity in American politics, that we in the American church that we just tend not to talk about. And so essentially, that obviously, on both titles was the idea of a truth that needed to be told, truth and need to be revealed, and a truth that had not been told. Whether it's in our history books, whether it's in our churches or in our kind of ministry context, and certainly within kind of American Christian circles. These are truths that have not been told. Now the play on word, it's our editor Al really deserves a lot of credit for putting this together, the idea of settling, you know, the whole idea of settler colonialism that this nation was invaded or this landmass was invaded by European colonialist who were settler colonialists. And so they came into settle land that was not theirs. They weren't discovers of the land as well, you know, as the book tries to unpack that they were settlers of the land, and kind of interlopers in the land. And so the idea of unsettling is kind of a play on words there as well as talking about settler colonialism, and shuttling that needs to occur and also these truths to be told.
Seth 7:44
I like a good play on words. And I'm really sad that I didn't realize that before you said it. Although now that you say it it is self evident, because in the back of my mind, the last time that I heard about this text was from Mark, and he I think he kept calling it truth be told and every time that we would email back and forth as well, either way the history of our country. Once you get past the you know MacLaughlin, Hill approved literature for eighth grade history class is crazy.
So I want to begin with your right towards the beginning of the book you talk about and and if it's all right, I'd like to quote a few places I actually don't remember when the book is out. But by the time the book is out, I won't be I won't be plagiarizing this. So, there's a part where you all talk about the power of metaphors. And you talk about George Lakoff and assert that metaphors, you know, are a particular form of communication, and they impact the formation of social reality, and the institutions that function in that society. And so, I want you to break those two apart. So what do we mean when we mean like a social metaphor, impacting social reality? Like, what does that actually mean for someone not engaged in that type of thought process?
Soong-Chan 8:59
Sure. So I've tried to engage how social reality comes into being and what is the social reality the cultural you that we live in? And there's significant work on this and sociology circle is probably the, the landmark work was by Peter Berger and Thomas Luqman when they talk about three different factors that form social reality. And one of the key factors and the language I use is a little bit different from burger and local language, but Berglund loves and called internalization, I use the word narratives. And narratives are the stories the metaphor and the imagination that gets the embedded or embodied or internalized within our society, and within the individuals, that we play out over and over and over and over and over again.
And so I use the example that systems and structures might actually come and go at times like a system the structure of slavery, and then once lately as an institution is broken down, its replaced by another institution, in this case Jim Crow. And then even when Jim Crow was torn down, it's replaced by another institution, The New Jim Crow. So you have three systems that are operating, essentially the same way they are oppressive towards people, particularly African Americans.
So you have the systems that you thought you were overcoming, you thought you were tearing down, you thought you were breaking down. But what you didn't deal with were the narratives that were fueling these systems. And so what I point out is that we can keep tearing down these systems that don't deal with the fuel that drove the systems in the first place that identifies narratives, you're going to end up rebuilding the system and reworking the system over and over again.
And so how our narratives form is the question that's being asked you in this chapter, narratives are formed through the social imagination, narrative form and how, how is imagination imagination is formed through metaphors to embodied experience. And so that, to me was a very interesting concept, of course, and other kind of communication experiences have been dealing with, which is we don't always operate out of self interest. We sometimes operate out of embodied experiences and emotions and feelings that become a part of our narrative, imagination, and worldview. And so sometimes it's it goes beyond rationality, sometimes it goes beyond kind of human logic, because it has become so embedded and embodied in who we are, to some extent explains what I call the “Trump Evangelical effect”. Which is that certain narratives that become so embedded within the Evangelical circles, that it was very hard to even escape some of the logic, some of the rationality, because these emotions have been so deeply embedded.
So part of the questions we're asking is, what are these narratives? What are these embedded American metaphors and embodying experiences that have shaped our Christianity and you can trace the history of the Doctrine of Discovery to show how profoundly this dysfunctional imagination of the Doctrine of Discovery, which essentially white supremacy or European supremacy, how that has lived its way out in American society and American Christianity.
Seth 12:22
One of the questions I'm always asking myself is if I'm calling and I often call on this podcast, for growth and for the church to grow and be more prophetic, like do just do it better. If you can't, like, be more Christ like, but at the risk of becoming the next institution that then takes that power that you vote, you know, that you've you've taken as you as you grow, and become the next institution that oppresses and so I don't want to mix metaphors and I may be mixing a metaphor, but I want to drill down a bit to what you were talking about there with that Trump. What did you call it Trump evangelicalism now it's not what you said, right? Maybe that is what you said. What do you mean by life? As you talked about the logic of that, like, what do you mean the logic of that?
Soong-Chan 13:11
Sure. So if you look at, for example, the history of evangelicalism, and this is actually not in the book it's in some of my more recent academic work, and hopefully this will be published in my next book about evangelicalism. A book about African American evangelicalism and the way African American evangelicalism was rejected by the larger general movement. And what I’m looking at there is the way the definition of evangelicalism has changed. So that's what I mean by systems and structures come and go. What define, what was the boundaries around it and delicate Christianity. And earlier on its history, if you go back and I'm talking about American evangelicalism and its unique iterations, you go back to you know, the reformed evangelical movement that you can trace all the way back to Jonathan Edwards and say, that was theological driven. It wasn't theology that somebody agrees with somebody say it's, you know, it's not exactly what I believe in. But it was a theological boundary. It was around Reformed theology. It was around human depravity and God's grace. And you know, these are very key theological markers.
And then you see this in kind of a neo-evangelical movement, and you can see it in fundamentalism. And so even if you may not agree with every little point, that's a theological definition of evangelicalism was at least a theological discussion. But these systems and structures come and go. And what happened was that new systems began to be formed that was not necessarily theological in nature but more social, political and cultural in nature. And so in the 70s, when you see the rise of evangelicalism in kind of the social cultural arena, you see much more politicized and evangelicalism, you see the emergence of the “religious right”. You see kind of the time of conservative politics with conservative theology. You see, kind of Republican, religious right base for evangelicalism being the base of that group.
So what you're seeing is these systems are being replaced and new systems are taking its place. And so Trump Evangelicalism is another system that takes over from the previous system. So you had a system called the religious right and the religious right had certain boundaries. It wasn't necessarily theological it was socio-political. It was about prayer in schools, it was about, you know, opposition to same sex marriage, it was about anti-abortion. These are all, you know, markers of what defined a evangelical in the 80s and 90s and 2000s particularly. What was interesting about the Trump Evangelicals is that a lot of those things didn't really matter anymore. Prayer in school, nobody talked about that for decades. If you remember, I don't think people do but in the lead up to the 2016 election, when the Republican Party had their debates; I think it was about the seventh or eighth debate that finally talked about abortion. And so what was the driving system that drove evangelicals to Trump? Well, a lot of it was anti immigration, a lot of it was anti Obama, a lot of it was anti-Muslim. There was a kind of a new system, and people are just kind of still bought into the system.
So what do you see is that systems come and go. But the underlying narrative that drives these systems continue along their merry way. And these metaphors become so embedded, that we actually act in contradiction to ourselves. We actually act in contradiction to what we claim is our value system, and it's what we’ve been talking about is how can we support the factors around this president, you know? The lies and manipulation affairs, I mean, you name it, he's done it in terms of what is not a Christian behavior. And as we've also talked about in the media and other places, the Evangelical support has unwavered. I mean, it has been rock solid, it's the base out of which he will go into the 2020 election.
And so new systems kept taking the place. But the underlying narratives that fueled these systems have actually never been confronted. So this is a little bit outside of the scope of the book. But what I learned before is that what you're seeing is, no matter what the system is, if you don't deal with the underlying narrative, these systems will keep playing itself out in new forms or in different forms. And we'll lose ourselves in the process. Which I think is clearly happening with the Trump Evangelical movement.
We've lost ourselves. We've lost who we are as an American Christian community. So what you end up having is the narrative of American exceptionalism, the narrative of white supremacy, these narratives go along their merry way. And we keep saying, oh, “we're changing the system over the years” “Oh, we've got you know, we're trying to do different things.”
No. Actually, we're not. We really haven't changed all that much because the nature has not been dealt with. And that's what the book is trying to address in saying, What are these embedded narratives? There's so many of them, but the Doctrine of Discovery, which again, is a reflection of kind of a white exceptionalism-white supremacy, that narrative has held in American history all throughout; and then it goes back, you know, predates American history.
But the sense of American exceptionalism and a sense of kind of white supremacy has been a narrative that has been deeply embedded in our kind of worldview and in our kind of narrative worldview.
Seth 18:30
Well, that was my next question. Actually, I have a follow up question and then I will get back to the question on the Doctrine of Discovery. I often hear, and I want to make sure I phrase this correctly because I 100% agree with you, especially your talk about Trump evangelicalism, I genuinely think it is damaging the church and possibly irreparably. And for those who listen to the show. I don't really talk about politics a lot, but I'm I'm happy to say that like I think it is genuinely damaging, I'll use a bad church words. the “testimony” of the faith for lack of a better way to say it. But do you feel like often the inverse of that coin so if Trump is the tail side, the head side would be the exact opposite, is equally damaging at times? Because I feel like we always pick on whoever's in power and then we forget to talk about (the other side). Do you think that or no?
Soong-Chan 19:21
Well, that's one of the things that we kind of address in the book that, you know, it's not a political party issue. It's not necessarily a left/right democrat/republican issue, because American exceptionalism, this kind of sense of white superiority or white centrality and is actually evident on both sides, both sides of the aisle, you know, you have a different angle on American exceptionalism, but its exceptionalism In either case. So you know, this is actually more Mark’s line, but you know, I stand behind it as well. That's what you had in 2016. The election was Trump saying, Let's make America great by going back to certain time periods. And Hillary saying America is already great. And you saw that at the convention, the speeches that were given at the convention, the Republicans say we got to bring greatness back. We got to bring American exceptionalism back. And the Democrats saying no American exception is already in place. Now, I might be more in agreement with the Democrats view because of, you know, other parts of the platform. But the idea that American greatness can come from its diversity. Whereas the other side, you might say, no, they're actually seeing American exceptionalism in kind of a white American, you know, identity, and so on that love, I may be more sympathetic to the Democratic perspective.
But the underlying narrative that drives in both dysfunctional parties is American exception. And so that is really antithetical to the gospel. The belief that a single nation in this day and age can be the chosen nation, when the Scriptures only testify to Israel as the chosen nation, and that you know, arguably is for that time period within the Scriptures. There is actually zero indication, zero idea that America, the United States of America is the exceptional, chosen nation of God. But again, these narratives have played itself out in so many ways that it doesn't matter what party you belong to the idea of American exceptionalism is going to find its way into the rhetoric.
Seth 21:25
So I want to give a bit of context. So the Doctrine of Discovery is something for you know, I've talked about with Mark in the past, although well before this book was written, although I think he was working on it. And the last time I talked to them, he just published a long form blog piece about Abraham Lincoln, February of 2018, I think is when he published it somewhere around there. So that's kind of where he was when I spoke with him. So I don't want to spend a lot of time on that because we talked about that in depth, you know, with the papal bulls and that type of stuff, in that episode. But I do want to focus a bit on Christian Empire and the term Christendom because the way that you'll talk about that term Christendom when I talked or thought about Christendom, I've always thought of like the body of believers, like all of the Christians, the church could also be the Christendom. But that's not really the way that y'all approach Christendom here. Can you kind of go back in time, millennia ago, and kind of break apart for listeners where the Church hitched its wagon and wedding ring to Empire?
Soong-Chan 22:26
Yeah, so the idea of Christians and I mean, you're going to get, you're right, there's going to be kind of multiple uses of this term to actually one of the more intriguing uses by Philip Jenkins and his book, The next Christendom, and he's using that term the way you described it, which is the whole of Christianity, the whole of Christendom. But remember, you know, the word “dom” there at the end of Christian is “kingdom”, you know, dominion. And so the idea of that word even kind of the root word where Christendom would be kind of the amalgamation of Christianity and Kingdom/Empire.
And so that's where we point out that, where did that intersection or blending or bleeding together of church and state of Christianity and Empire; where did that begin to happen? And most obviously point towards Constantine, you know you have centuries of oppression of the church by the state, the Roman Empire is brutally in it’s oppression and persecution of the church. Then you get a highly political move, but you know, this is all this is arguable but yet a highly political move by a Roman Emperor by the name of Constantine, who kind of declares, you know, he's a Christian now and the Roman Empire is now a Christian state, and he's going to go out and conquer under the banner of Christendom. And that is where many point to this kind of conflation of church and state is conflation of Christianity and empire.
In our book with Mark and I work to (towards) is that that was not a Christian move, it was not a move of the Holy Spirit of God. This is a Satanic move in some sense that there's conflation of church and state, this kind of seeking of empire by the church. And the example that we give is of the city as the church historian who is talking about the martyrdom of the church. But then when Constantine is kind of emerging into power, he kind of hitches the churches wagon to Constantine power, and sees Constantine is kind of saving the church out of its persecution. Which is kind of interesting, because that shouldn't be the role of the state that should be the role of Jesus. You know, to save the church and so you're seeing kind of early on the buying into the narrative that a state could save the church; or the state will help the church. When actually throughout most of its early history, the church was surviving by identifying itself over and against the state. And so what you see in the rise of Constantine and the Holy Roman Empire and the way that, that the Roman Empire kind of under the Edict of Milan and under Constantine embraces this idea of a “Christian nation”, and that narrative becomes embedded in kind of Western society, and it becomes a part of the storyline for Western culture.
What's interesting to me is where that line, and obviously, we try to trace that line through to the doctrine of discovery, so that this mindset of believing that a state could be, in some sense, an expression of the church or vice versa, and that there's kind of this blurring of the lines between the church and the state allows for the Pope to say to the state, in this case, to Spain and Portugal, you are now the agents of God, your destruction, your enslavement, your genocide even is now as agents of God.
And so that becomes one of the most dysfunctional expressions of Christendom. But it doesn't just happen in the 15th century with the Doctrine of Discovery. It traces all the way back to Constantine and the emergence of the idea of a Christendom, a Christian Kingdom here on Earth.
Seth 26:47
So I don't quite understand this is something that I've I don't think I've ever asked out loud, is the early church and from what I understand, was an entire they were more focused on you know, the way quote The way of self sacrificial love like martyr just just an entirely different version of the church and what we have today and something I think, hopefully one day we can be called back to. How did it…how…how did it get conscripted? Because I can't see. I mean, people have always been or at least they are now so quickly to brand people as heretics. So how did something like that become the status quo? Because I feel like there should have been a large church body. And this is me with no historical learning at all on this. I felt like there should have been a large cry of the church saying, “No, no, no Constantine”, and “no, no, no, Augustine, we don't do this; this is not what we do”. Was there not that? And if so, how was it kind of quelled?
Soong-Chan 27:50
Yeah, I mean, you can see that throughout history I mean, you know, the I can look at it from two angles. I can look at God's sovereignty in that through it all God does retain a remnant. God is never unfaithful in His sustaining of the church. And even if there is this kind of a “falling out” by the church in then falling into the temptation, you know, ironically, it is the exact temptation that Jesus’ was positioned from faith in the scriptures. But it's kind of falling into the temptation. God is still faithful to retain a remnant of sorts. And you know, there's actually a wonderful book by Vince Bantu that's coming out soon that talks about the history of the global church that goes all the way back to the 1st Century. So, if you can, have Vince on the show to talk about his new book where he talks about how African Christianity and non Western Christianity and how there was a remnant of faithfulness there as well. And so, you know, on that kind of big picture level, we can always say, God is faithful to continue to sustain and to and to continue to work to his church and the Protestant Reformation is a reflection of that. The non Western European church is a reflection of that.
And so, you know, on that level, we can continue to say God's sovereign rule over the church. Do we call them into question? I don't think we should. And then on the other level, this may be points to what we see in Acts chapter 2, that the Holy Spirit does truly fall upon all the people. It does not just fall on Peter, it doesn't just fall on the apostles, and the 12. It falls on all the people, all the believers that have gathered. And so I do believe that maybe that's one of the way God sustains that there is a faithful remnant that is oftentimes what is what we would see people on the grassroots people in their local churches. And that's kind of my hope, even to the present reality that even as we're seeing this, what I would argue some kind of stupidity around these really dysfunctional narratives that play in American society. We still have the faithful remnant of the local churches, we still have those that are having conversations like this.
We still have, you know, students in seminary that I’m privileged to work with, who understand that this is not the way the church should be. The question is, do we just get power, do these kind of folks see something wrong here? Just get more power? Or do we seek new communities and new expressions of the faith, or we did the old expressions of faith maybe, but create communities and create expressions that demonstrate that the meta narratives are dysfunctional and causing so much pain are not new narratives.
So we create narratives or we express the old narratives, the true narrative. And I think God, in His faithfulness ,always has that remnant that continues to try to seek out a faithful witness. And it should not always be the loudest voice in the room, you know, because it became a loud voice and it would become, it would get caught up in the same system again, and it will be as simple as the old system because it will get it into the trap narrative of, you know, a person who can speak for everybody, you know, key leaders and can do all the thinking for us. So in some sense, the fact that we don't have an anti-Trump in the Christian community or anti-Franklin Graham was Robert Jeffries in the Christian community, that might actually be a good thing that there is no one or two voices, who are like superstars. Who are getting a national public audience. Maybe that's not a bad thing that we actually, are hopefully, the remnant that are living this out in their local church in ways that provide a counter narrative to what is the dominant narrative in power.
Seth 32:10
There's a part of your book, and I wrote it down, although I don't quite…I usually write down page numbers, and so I can't find it—I've been searching a little bit off and on. You talk a bit about, like myself perception emerges and by proxy, the church that I'm a part of, because I'm going to bring my lens as a person to my church from a dysfunctional theology. And then I also think that y'all argue that you know, that dysfunctional theology was brought here as a European mindset. And so what do you mean by dysfunctional theology?
Soong-Chan 32:48
You know, that influence comes from my doctoral work with Willie Jennings, who was my doctoral advisor at Duke is now at Yale. And you know, in his book, Christian Imagination, he talks about-he actually uses the phrase diseased imagination, and I'm just kind of riffing on that concept. And it goes back to the idea that, how does our social reality, how does their worldview, how do our narratives get formed? It comes out of our imagination, but my imagination, let's say making stuff up, you know, kind of fairy tales and things, imagination in this context, theological imagination, social imagination, is the possibility of the way the world can be…the way you organize thoughts and ideas around the world. So it isvery much about narratives, worldview, even metaphors come into play here.
And so the idea is that if we have a diseased imagination, and we externalize that diseased imagination that comes from our messed up metaphors are messed up meta narratives, then we're going to end up forming dysfunctional, diseased, theological framework and theological imagination. That's where the baseline of that definition comes from. That…is there a place where we have formed our theology and shaped our theological categories and our theological discourse, and emerged out of a disease imagination emerged out of dysfunctional metaphors emerged out of shameful tendencies. And that's a very important question, as I think for any theologian and historian, academic, or pastor, to say, “I don't have it, all right. And so therefore, there are times when my imagination, my theology, my social reality is going to have some sinful aspects to them”. And so one of the questions asked is, well, let's identify, let's identify the places where the theology has gone off the rails, let's identify the places where our theology comes out of a diseased imagination, rather than out of the Scriptures.
And that's one of the things we're pointing out that the Doctrine of Discovery at its time was considered good theology. And obviously, in retrospect, we look back and say, “Whoa, where did it Where did that come from?” But I'm asking you the question, well, how does that dysfunction theology gets replayed over and over and over and over and over again. And so we can look back and say, Discovery Oh, that's terrible! But I'm saying that the narrative that drove the Doctrine of Discovery, the imagination that drove this dysfunctional theological framework of the Doctrine of Discovery is still playing out in our churches today. It's still playing out in American society today.
So I think, you know, as an academic, as pastors, as church leaders, one of the most important things we can ask is, where are the places our theology is broken? Where are the places of theology is not quite coming from the place of Scripture, but it's actually coming from a diseased imagination? I think I might have said this in the last podcast but it’s good to reiterate here about, to me, the distinction, and this isn’t in this book it is in my previous writing. The distinction is between truth pursue and truth possess. What something like the doctrine of discovery does and what kind of the rigid barriers we have around our theology does is help us, or make us assume, or allows us to assume that we own the truth-that we possess the truth. And if I look at history, every time a person says, I own the truth, or I possess the truth, it's led to tyranny.
Joseph Stalin owned the truth. Adolf Hitler owned the truth. Andrew Jackson owned the truth. That's why it's interesting when a political leaders says I know what's best. I know what to do. That kind of ownership of truth. “I alone know how to fix this.” That always scares me.
No matter who the Democrat, Republican, obviously, our current president says that over and over again, in my wisdom, I can figure this out. I'm the one that knows how to do this. That kind of language always scares me. Yeah, yeah, that's right, because I know what I'm doing. So that kind of the truth possessed, I don't think is really the way we should be doing theology. Truth pursuit, on the other hand, to me makes more sense. It's the idea that we were trying to get to the truth. Now, none of us own the truth. Because if we did we would be God. That was the kind of basic sin of Genesis 2 wasn’t it? The assumption that Adam and Eve could own the truth and possess it in their food that they ate. I mean, you know, that was a that's, that's a very, very basic premise of original sin. And so the idea that you can own that truth, and that nobody else, can actually, you know, call you out on that. That's a very dysfunctional theology. But the fact that you can pursue the truth and go after truth, that to me feels more like what the Scripture seems to testify to. And so the Doctrine of Discovery was a dysfunctional, theological, framework, imagination, that was an owned truth theology, and that was very dysfunctional. One of the questions to ask is, what are the assumptions of possessed truth that you own the truth that is playing itself out over and over again now to the point that it leads to a dysfunctional theology?
Seth 37:56
Trying to find I have a question (I found the quote). There is a part of the book on dysfunctional theology and the impact of it. And the bed that that is made of, you know, taking a theological Doctrine of Discovery and then amplifying that to an empire and then just basically killing people because that's I'll use a lyric from one of my favorite songs from Propaganda, which is, you know,
that's my land, I licked it
you know, like, like a second or third grade mentality. I don't know if you've heard that song or not. The lyric is something about blah, blah, blah, we have a we have a destiny to manifest because that's my land. And in your land, you're now trespassing or something like that. I'm, I'm not a real artist, and it's very good song. If I can find it. I'll send it to you. It's a very good song.
Soong-Chan 38:41
Okay.
Seth 38:42
However, there is a quote about from Richard Pratt, and then just for context, yeah, he is the one that basically created the Indian Boarding Schools to what did you say save the man destroy the savage or something like that? I don't think I'm saying that quite right. But sadly there's a quote that I literally got confused on and so I'm hoping you can help me make some sense of it. So, one of you says Dietrich Bonhoeffer examines this approach to sin in creation and fall. Bonhoeffer posits
that man's limit is in the middle of his existence, not the edge. The limit, which we look for on the edge is the limit of his condition of his technology of his possibilities. The limit in the middle is the limit of his reality of his true existence.
I read that about 20 times. I don't know what means..can you tell me what that means?
Soong-Chan 39:38
(Laughter)
Sure, I mean, I had to throw Bonhoeffer in there somewhere. So you know, I thought it was going to be fun because as as you probably know, Bonhoeffer is used by everyone differently. So someone like Eric Metaxas can make Bonhoeffer whatever he wants him to be kind of a right wing, you know, fascist and others take Bonhoeffer in different ways. I, my teacher of Bonhoeffer was actually Jay Carter, at Duke, and he said that he went to Dallas Theological Seminary, very fundamentalist conservative school, Southern Methodist University, which was a more mainline liberal school and then he went to UVA. So three graduate degrees. And all three of them love Bonhoeffer. All three schools love Bonhoeffer and all three use Bonhoeffer very differently.
So I'll preface my remarks by actually saying, you know, when we talk about Bonhoeffer, you have to give a lot of latitude for where people are gonna go, people going to go to lot of different directions. Where I take that quote, is to understand because that's the context of again, but the context of the book is creation and fall. It's about the fall of Adam and Eve and fall of humanity. And that the great sin that Adam and Eve committed was not actually you know, kind of disobeying God in that God said no and we're disobeying God, in kind of maybe the most mundane sense of the word or even the act itself of eating something that was forbidden. It was the attempt by Adam and Eve to transgress and go across the limits that God had set in their humanity, right. And so, God as God, sets a limit for humanity. Human beings in their hubris, in their pride, in their sinful nature, what becomes the sinful nature says, I will not staying within those boundaries, I will move beyond the limits.
And so humanity was created to exist within the limit. And this is again, my interpretation of Bonhoeffer here, and the act of taking that fruit, the forbidden fruit, was to transgress and move beyond that limit. And so what dysfunctional theology does is it transgress the limits. God did not put humanity here on Earth, to act like gods over other people. To say in that or out of the image of God to say, “I alone have it, I possess it. You people over there and Africa, you people over there in North America, the natives, you don't have it.”
That's the ultimate act of transgressing the limit, where you take a gift of God, the image of God, and now you own that. And now you operate out of that…you transgress the limit of it. (Yet) God gave you the image of God, God created you in his image, for a purpose, not to lord it over others, not to say I have it others don’t. But to actually live in community, actually, to love one another as you know, as those who are made in the image of God as care for one another as those were made in the image of God. And so what Bonhoeffer is pointing towards is the opposite of that idea of the Doctrine of Discovery. The dysfunctional expression of a human being, clearly transgressing the limits, to say, “I own the truth. I own the image of God, and therefore I can act in this way towards another person”. Bonhoeffer would say he were transgressing the limits.
Seth 43:17
I want to end with at least with maybe this one. And if we have time for one more, but there is there are two chapters at the end. And they both deal with trauma. One is the trauma inflicted, and then the other is the trauma-the PTSD is a result of the bombshell of that trauma. And the way I read PTSD, and that what I'm hearing there is the ultimate ramifications for my children. So this trauma is affecting me, but that PTSD is going to affect the next generation. And I know based from your story, from when we spoke last as well as Mark, like you both had trauma related to race and all those tensions. And so how does trauma fit into this Doctrine of Discovery and the church, and then what do we do with that? Because I think when the church has the mirror pointed back at it, I don't know how to fix it. Like I don't know what to do. I even if I can admit that, even if we could all tomorrow admit what needed to be fixed the systematic part of the institution is not built to run on that diesel fuel were built to run on kerosene, or whatever. So how does drama relate to this?
Soong-Chan 44:30
You know, what I'm hoping with those two chapters, and Mark might have a different opinion on this, what I'm hoping is that a psychologist, researcher, a PhD in psychology, will take that chapter and really run with it. There is another interesting book that's coming out Sheila Rowe, I did the foreword for her book, and she's a licensed psychiatrist who looks at the issue of race through the lens of trauma. It's brilliant. I would really strongly suggest that book as well.
But the idea of trauma and the role of trauma especially in kind of racialized history is…two things that I wanted to point out. And that is 1: the role of trauma in a complex way that is generational. I think we talked about the last time that, you know, there's actually now, kind of clinical studies done, on the way trauma plays itself out multi-generationaly. There's a book called a Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. And slavery has had a traumatic impact multiple generations later. And it was actually a clinical study that was done recently about kind of multi generational impact of the Holocaust, that grandchildren, the Holocaust survivors or Holocaust victims are still experiencing the trauma from you know, two or three generations back.
By the way, this is interesting, but the the Amazon TV show Transparent, which is supposed to be about kind of the transgender community. It actually, in the final season, really, there's some religion stuff with Judaism and you see in kind of children of a virtual grandparents of the Holocaust, who are in their 30s, feel the effect of the Holocaust three generations down. So I mean, you know, you don't want to watch it for kind of the trans story it’s really interesting-some of the religious motifs that come along, especially on Judaism, and a third generational impact of Holocaust on a third generation of Jewish survivors.
So, you know, what it's shown is that stress and trauma, like genocide and Holocaust, don't just have one generation of impact but have multiple generational impacts. So could slavery have that impact? The genocide of native boarding schools? Certainly, we've seen that in kind of the Khmer Rouge massacre, where survivors and their children and grandchildren of the Cambodian massacre are still feeling the effects of it and certainly the Holocaust as well. So I think that's something to consider of kind of this generational, multi, kind of social systemic narrative based type of change. So this goes against the idea that, you know, racism is just the a personal thing, it's an individual thing. No, it's not just only a structural systemic thing, it could have generational effect and trauma could have a generational effect.
But the other part that was really kind of interesting for Mark and I to kind of work through and I'm hoping that a trained psychiatrist or PhD in psychiatry could maybe pick up on this idea of the victimizer is also suffering PTSD. And this was a little more anecdotal. There is some emerging research on this. I believe it's coming out of Brigham Young University and there's a couple of other places where there is an emerging research but it's not comprehensive yet.
So you know, there's others who can kind of pick up on this, of the idea that the victim as also experiences trauma. Now, anecdotally, what you see is that sometimes it's the drone operators that have PTSD. You know, they just dropped the bomb on some unknown village somewhere, and they leave that bunker shell shocked. Now, they never experienced physical trauma, they never actually will physically harmed by what was going on, they were the ones that actually got the bomb. [Yet} They still feel the trauma. So could it be that the victimizers could also feel a trauma. And so talking about is an entire nation that has been traumatized, an entire nation that has been profoundly wounded both victims and victimizers.
And that's where you know, practices like lament are so critical because lament, clearly the Scripture lament is one of the ways that Israel deals with trauma, that lamentation is the…is this incredible lament experience after the most traumatic experience that Israel could experience the fall of Jerusalem. And so I would love for others to kind of pick up on those two chapters and go a little further with it because I believe, you know, we kind of, you know, kind of scratched the surface on that issue. But I do believe that there is a profound trauma and people are acting out of trauma, and even the victimizers are acting out of trauma. And so what they're seeing is a traumatized nation that has different ways of experiencing trauma, the victim versus the victimizer, but it's still trauma nonetheless.
Seth 49:07
Those two chapters. I really liked them a lot. It was new information for me. And yeah, I don't I don't know where I sit with it yet, but I hadn't really considered that. And honestly, Professor, I thought about it more than America because it's not just America that has really wronged and treated indigenous tribes. very poorly. I mean, New Zealand, Australia, like it's not just America like it is a worldwide trauma. And that's just a powder keg, of of Oh yeah, of things, but I'm not qualified to have that conversation. But that's what it made me think of as…andn really, part of that is because I've started to have listeners from New Zealand in recent years and they've asked me about it and I’m like, you know, I don't know anything about that, but that sounds really familiar. You know, with what I'm used to.
Soong-Chan 50:03
So I was in Melbourne, I suppose the last year two years ago, there's this incredible conference where they're trying to bring in kind of Euro-Australian Christians with Indigenous tribes, and it was one of the most moving conferences I've ever been to. Where they really made an effort to affirm and lift up Indigenous Christian communities as leaders they were kind of central to almost all the conversations I was coming in as an outsider; but worship was led by Indigenous Aboriginal peoples. So, you know, I would love to see more of these kind of conversations occur. Certainly New Zealand, Australia, Canada, you know, we've seen these kinds of settler colonial impact, and you know, they are these common threads. So I know there is a scholar in Melbourne, Mark Brett, who has actually done some writing on the Doctrine of Discovery as well. So there's these themes carry through kind of any place where European settlers have displaced and, you know, genocide of Native communities, a lot of the same things are coming to New Zealand, Australia, Canada.
Seth 51:12
How do you spell his last name that Mark,
Soong-Chan 51:14
Brett - BRETT. And he's at the Melbourne University, (a) Biblical scholar who's done some great work on Doctrine of Discovery.
Seth 51:26
I love new voices. So I've written down all three of those names, although Vince’s is I still don't know how to say his last name either. But I get that from you in a minute. There is a lot in this book. And we literally barely scratched the surface, and we don't have any more time. And so I want to give you the last word like if I missed something that you want to make certain that people as they begin to engage with the book. If I missed something and all that you're like, no, as you read it, keep this in the back of your mind. That this is what you need to have sitting on your shoulder as you read through it. What would you say?
Soong-Chan 51:55
I mean, I would argue for the larger themes. I mean, there's a lot of information in there. A lot of content, a lot of kind of historical information that, you know, it's probably going to be new. But I will, I will keep the eye on the bigger theme around where did all of this comes from? How did this happen? And the dysfunctional imagination and narratives that are so deeply embedded, that they keep playing itself out over and over and over again. So, you know, we're going to have some conversations, and some people are going to have some like minutiae here and there. “Well, I don't interpret this as this way, I don't think you should look back on the history this way”.
That's fine.
What Mark and I are asking is these large narratives that have been so profoundly embedded in American society that keep playing themselves out, over and over again, how are they manifesting itself now? So that's what I would keep in the back of the mind. How are all of these storylines contributing to this very large, narrative, theological imagination, dysfunctional imagination, how did this all come to pass? And maybe begin to ask well…what does it mean to begin to dismantle that need to create counter narratives to speak against?
Seth 53:12
Plug the places I will plug Mark, so you can get ahold of Mark, since he's not here to speak for himself at wirelesshogan.com, I believe is where you can get everything related to Mark. But where do people go to engage with you a bit and to learn more about what you're doing, possibly grab some of those other texts that you were talking about?
Soong-Chan 53:32
Sure. You could also look up MarkCharles2020.
Seth 53:37
Dropped the ball. I'm sorry, Mark. (laughter both)
Soong-Chan 53:41
That's probably where he wants most people to go.
Soong-Chan 53:44
No, I'm not really a social media savvy guy, but @profrah on Twitter and I have a “face page face”. Facebook page that people can look up. I've maxed out on my friends, but I am trying to get a little more activity on the opinions that I'm working on, but I'm not very good at it. But Twitter and Facebook are the two places to kind of follow. And, you know, to be honest, I'm really not good at social media, mostly to keep up with my teenage kids. But I do post offender and every once in a while to Twitter and Facebook.
Seth 54:22
I like that “I'm not good at social media or the ‘face page’.” I like that makes me…makes me laught
Soong-Chan 54:29
(Laughter) pretty much summed it up for me.
Seth 54:33
(Still laughing) I very, very much appreciate you coming back on pleasure as always love to do it again. Let's plan it for another 18 months, that seems to be our cadence. So let's do that.
Soong-Chan 54:42
That sounds perfect. That sounds perfect.
Seth Outro 55:08
I have spent a lot of time since reading the book and since talking with Professor about considering social reality, and how those truths matter, I spent some time in DC with my son actually. And I just kept walking past and having conversations with people, random people about so many things and asking them questions about this book. And I will tell you that conversation is needed. This book I think is needed, but the conversation itself is needed because I think, and if I can ever get mark on, I think Mark says something all the time that we struggle to have conversations like this at length, because we don't have a shared history. We don't have a shared narrative.
Everybody's coming from thing from a different approach. And nobody quite hears each other. We air quotes here each other but we don't here. actually listen to each other. Because we don't come from shared memory will come from a shared mindset. So I think texts like this. And some of the texts that Professor Soong-Chan talked about at the end there are needed. I strongly encourage you to go out and grab this book. It is gripping. And I think it's needed. You can find the music in today's episode at the link for Can I Say This At Church, the Spotify playlist there, as well as the apple playlist and any other playlist that maybe someone has made as well as in the show notes.
I cannot wait to talk to you next week. I hope as we enter into the holiday season here in the West, that we treat each other kindly that we have conversations with our family and our friends at tables, and that we hear each other that we show compassion with one another, that we can maybe table the bickering and arguing and just love on one another. And if we can't speak without bickering, that maybe we just do something else we go outside and play. We tell stories about great grandma great grandpa we find a way to develop new communities in our families as we enter into the holiday season. Know that you're loved, you've been loved and that you were the Beloved of the Divine.
I'll talk with you next week.