Rohadi 0:00 Season 7, that's it. Another season has wrapped. I'm your host Rohadi, coming at you from Treaty 7 territory in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, leave a rating somewhere, lift up this podcast glad you're here, Episode 51 featuring pastor author Jonny Rashid. This is a in depth conversation. Johnny is a writer and a pastor. We both have written for the same publisher in Herald press. My book when we belong came out about a month after his book Jesus picks aside. Although we only spend about half of our conversation around the book, and not even specifically the book, we talk about the important topics that Johnny has included in a much needed book. I know right off the hop that some of the top best selling books are ones that teach Christians to just sit on the fence. And I think I mentioned it, sitting your ass on the fence get you nowhere. In fact, it preserves status quo when harvest loads on the margins. Jesus followers do something very different. And so learn more in this episode. The first half talks about the experience of brown bodies. So the brown experience that is vast and wide. But Johnny and I share something in common in our complexion. So his experience as Arab American, with Rutan from Egypt, but he was born in the United States that plays into his faith formation, and what it means to become conscious of the lived experience within systemic oppression. We then switch gears into liberation. Talk about leadership in the church, what it means to lead change in the church congregation seeking justice yet inevitably pushback. Talk about what it means to centre those on the margins to find the firming voices so you don't run out of steam that this episode is just packed full of God's faithfulness and how God works to encounter those on the margins. Once again, we talk about paying attention to your body to talk about what it means to take political stance as Christians and not to just merely side with the oppressor, but to stand up on the side standswhere Jesus stands. Enough at this faux diversity! Enough with bipartisanship. We're here to pick up with Jesus, not the sanitised version, but the one who liberates. Let's roll. Jonny 2:55 Thanks so much for having me on the show. I'm Jonny I use he/him pronouns Jonny Rashid, I'm so glad to be here. Rohadi 3:02 Jonny, you have published a book. I think it is a fantastic book. And one of the reasons I think it's fantastic as I've just this massive fan of any person of colour, minister of colour, who goes against the obvious grain. And when I look at the the categories for my own book on Amazon, or wherever, the one book that is always at the dang top man, is this. It's an Andy Stanley book. I think, you know what you're talking about? Jonny 3:39 He is selling his book? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Not. It's called Not in it to win it. Rohadi 3:43 Choosing sides sidelines, the church don't buy that book. I don't think that's particularly helpful. But it is an apt representation. Its popularity of where contemporary Christianity is at when it comes to engaging into the political sphere, but just just the neighbourhood in the city, and reflects what the heck was going on. So we're going to talk about your book, which people should be buying instead, because yours should be at the top of the Amazon rankings. Not Andy Stanley. Jonny 4:16 Yeah, totally. That'd be awesome. I don't think I'll be the end. But check out my book. Y'all Rohadi 4:21 know, I'm gonna talk about why it's interesting. I don't even know who Andy Stanley is. You know, I've heard about him. Does he have a TV show? I don't know. Don't care. Johnny, do you have a TV show? Jonny 4:34 No, I don't have a podcast and I have a Instagram devoted to the food. I cook. That's it. So you have a Twitter Rohadi 4:39 though, to give yourself some credit? Jonny 4:42 Too much. I'm too much on Twitter, to be honest. Rohadi 4:44 I don't know. Maybe you're just right. You don't want to be you don't want to be lukewarm than someone right about that. Jonny 4:52 That's right. That's right. Rohadi 4:55 Yes. Okay. Well, I want to talk He's the listeners with aspects of your book because it wraps around your story. Jesus takes a side, embracing the political demands of the gospel. You start your book out with your story. Before we launch into that, I will would like to invite you to situate yourself for the listeners and reflect and share with us what where you are situated land wise, the traditional lands you are on. And the city you call home now, Jonny 5:37 I am on traditional land ala not paid lands in what is now known as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. Rohadi 5:47 I've been to Philly once. Jonny 5:49 Oh, yeah. best city in the world, as far as I'm concerned. Rohadi 5:52 How long have you been in Philly? Jonny 5:54 almost 15 years, 15 years? I think two is maybe even longer. 16 to 17 years actually. Rohadi 6:03 So draw us into a brief story of coming to America. Jonny 6:11 Well, I mean, I wasn't born in I was born in the United States. But my parents immigrated from Egypt to the US and I talked a lot about our the politics of our body, the politics of our lived experience, embodied politics. And my parents immigrated from a predominantly Muslim country, Egypt like 90%, Muslim, 10%, Coptic, just a little bit of angelical are Protestant. And they immigrated to the US and found solidarity with other Christians. As an end, they were no longer part of the religious minority, they were part of the religious majority. And that, because they were looking for a Christian nation, they allied with what they thought was the party of faith of their faith, which opposed is a Muslim regimes Muslim countries, which were their common enemy. And so they became rather politically conservative, right? It'd be common, I think, in many ways for children of immigrants. But for me, my lived experience was formed by the fact my political lived experience was formed by the fact that I was an ethnic minority. So I wasn't, I didn't grow up as a religious minority. I grew up as an ethnic minority in the US. And so when it came to things like 911, the war on terror, my politics was formed because of how Middle Easterners how Arabs were treated. And that formed my politics. And so my father and I, specifically when it came to our politics, disagreed right in that moment, because he supported wars against Muslim countries because he felt oppressed by them. Whereas I felt oppressed by the military and the xenophobia and the hysteria around Arabs in the US during 911. And during the war on terror. Rohadi 8:02 That's a powerful juxtaposition that I don't think what's certainly white folks are contemporary culture appreciates how first gen second gen can collide in their understandings in the ways we see the world. I'm reading a book right now gets a couple of years old, written by Canadian jerk journalists named Kamal Elston lately, and he wrote Brown, what being brown in the world today means to everyone it curiously Brown in Canada usually means South Asian, Southeast Asian, because we have such a small Latin population here that if you're Brown, that's the reference whereas it's very different in the US. However, in his book, he he is lumping in the middle brown experience, you are not afforded the privilege as a white NUS. And you also are not subjected to all of the force of anti blackness you're in a weird middle, describe or share the story of how and you started to allude to how the your your ethnicity, and I would assume that as well, your brownness your your complexion, your skin colour was an aspect that other you especially in communities, church communities that you thought could be safe. Was there ever like an alert moment where you're like, wait a minute, 911 was was one. What was the formative experience for you? Jonny 9:44 Well, not I mean, definitely 911 You know, I grew up I mean, oh, boy, I mean, I grew up with a racialized experience that I didn't even understand why was I ashamed that my mother spoke with an accent why was I ashamed? We had PB and J and Peterbread. had a not Wonderbread? Why was I ashamed of my heritage? Did everybody feel like this was just as normal? Why was I trying to assimilate to whiteness? Why was I just Just what was happening to I didn't understand that I was experiencing genuine racism when I was younger. Yeah. 911 brought some of that to consciousness. But so to just my experience, as a Christian, you know, my convictions. What's interesting to me in my life is that my convictions have often, my intellectual convictions have often preceded my emote with the lived experience expressed in my emotions. And so I was opposed to the war on Iraq, not knowing that, strictly speaking, I was opposed to it, because they were bombing Arabs. And later on, I realised, oh, the reason that you were so hot against it was because it was personal. Yeah. You know, as we moved our church to becoming LGBT affirming, and I spearheaded that effort. I learned, oh, you're, you care about this issue, because you're a sexual minority, because you're queer. And I learned that about myself. So I discovered the micro aggressions and the oppression that I felt after I developed convictions against them. So really fascinating for me to observe that and this is true of my life in general, that my thoughts are often ahead of my feelings. And so I think faster than I feel in many ways. And so, as I learned about racism in the world, as I learned about my experience, as a brown person, as a racial minority, I began to look back on my life and see the moments of oppression that I faced, as a child and adolescence as a teenager, in college, and then even eventually, in the very church that I pastor, I learned that here was where the racism was. So that was really formative for me. And helped me understand, you know, Rohadi 11:59 I really appreciate you sharing, you use the word consciousness. Because the brown experience in your reflecting very much my own as well. I remember sharing and speaking with a number of black friends, and for many of them, being alert to their blackness, and how that stands in opposition to whiteness is something that is ingrained, it's almost in the blood, that you are alert and aware from birth, of how you are being racialized. Whereas those who are in the middle brown bodies, Asian bodies, there is a consciousness that you have to walk through, like you're not necessarily alert to the ways you're subjugated. Jonny 12:50 Mm hmm. Totally. It takes a long time to become aware of it and vulnerability. You know, I know a lot of people of colour that don't want to confront the racism. They don't want to confront the challenges there for sure it's in I don't blame them, it's hard to do it. Rohadi 13:08 Do you continue then to navigate that juxtaposition in your own family of more conservative political leanings, and then more, we'll just put it on the spectrum or more liberal or left leaning. Jonny 13:21 My family is very conservative, and they're not conscious of the racism that they faced. I see it, they don't see it. A lot of my cousins want to keep themselves from it. But of course, there's a few black sheep that don't exactly fit in. And we have our own little cohort. But to be honest with you, in general among evangelical Egyptians, Evan Jellicle Syrians, yeah, it's largely conservative still. I think some of that is just rooted in the hostility towards Muslims just want to name that. But there's also just things such as homophobia says things such as sexism that inform our general demeanour, you know. And, of course, they're going to talk about things like abortion, they're going to say, oh, yeah, we care about justice. We care about keeping people alive. We care about fighting the forces of death, which is what I think informs our anti oppression politics. But they'll say, yeah, that's why we advocate against abortion. But when you look at the other policies and the other ideas that are paired with abortion politics in the US, you begin to understand that this is not about healthcare. It's not about keeping people alive. It's not about anything, it's really just a carrot. And then even then it brings tremendous harm. Rohadi 14:40 Its roots for that issue are rooted around the continuation of of preserving power and privilege, malformed power, power and privilege but absolutely, its roots are in white supremacy. I want to stick with this conversation around let's just talk to us right let's Dr. Brown Fox here, and maybe even brown leaders, because one of the aspects that I struggle with, as as a minister, in fact, is the mechanisms that I passed her well with other bipoc folks who are working against collective liberation for bipoc. People. Like some of the some of the folks who push back the most on my stuff of anti racism or anti racist disciple or justice, right, are bipoc people? What is your approach? Like? How is your approach? Or how are you informed when you navigate such waters? Jonny 15:44 Well, I think that I just need to keep expanding my circles, I think there's a lot of reason for white supremacy, to order people of colour, to actually say that what the forces that are seek to subvert white supremacy are actually bad. And so it's really great if the enemy can make would be opposition into allies. So I'm an Anabaptist. And so I think that's exactly what Constantine did to Christians. Christians oppose the Empire than constant who came around that all of a sudden, we became agents of the Empire we fought and Constantine's wars. And so if the new empire Empire, which is ordered by whiteness, which is ordered by patriarchy, which is ordered by neoliberalism, violence, can then subvert its opposition, then we're golden, you know, that, that the greatest, the greatest ally of oppressors are the oppressed, they can be the oppressed, that are in their ranks, right? Rohadi 16:47 Yeah. In then in what manner do you navigate relationally bringing it closer to home, folks who are in your spheres, who are embodying those qualities? Jonny 17:01 In many ways, I have to not directly confront them. I know that they're, they're tokenized as like, like, like, they're tokenized as the person that people of colour that don't actually the people of colour that, hey, this isn't representing all people of colour, look at this person that I talked to, you know, that's the argument that's big, always fine. So yeah, yeah. And they get tokenize for that reason. They are the they are the Ben Carson's so to speak, you know, they are the individuals that appear to be the people of colour that oppose anti racism, you know, there's a saying I like to use. It's a little bit, it's a little bit probably too cheeky, but I'll say it, bring it skin folk ain't always kinfolk. Okay. Okay. You know, and so some people sometimes up here to play the part, but they don't actually. And there's many problems that come with that, and so many, many problems that come with just leaning too hard on the fact that somebody is a person of colour, as opposed to wondering if they're in if they're in a liberation movement, if they're in an anti oppression movement, you know, we're looking for allies who are moved by the Spirit to oppose racism, not just people of colour in general, you know, discipleship is more complicated than just kind of the colour of your skin, right. And so that's the that's the point of view that I that I try to hold as best as I can. This is the quote, and I cannot say the quote that I was looking for, it's from Simone. De Bouvier. The oppressor would not be so strong, if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed. The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed. And so that's something we have to be conscious of. For sure. Rohadi 18:52 There's there's almost no, a level of missing each other when it comes to conversation or, or around topics of anti racism and that the embodiment of those of bipoc folks who are acting in these movements, more conservative or even white supremacist movements, is one of ironically, colorblindness, there's a sense of progression. Ironically, that if we want to move forward into whatever that liberation looks like, usually that is painted through a lens of capitalism. That's liberation when everyone can get a bigger slice of the money pie. But it embodies these attributes and qualities, erasing your identity. Totally, totally. You had alluded to before that part of your awake awareness and consciousness that is uniquely informed by your experience as a minister. So I wonder if we can take a step back. And let's just draw a quick story here of what it looked like for your journey into ministry. Jonny 20:15 I'll go back. So I joined Circle of Hope it's right during the war on terror when I was looking for Christians who were opposed to the war in Iraq, as opposed to the war on terror. And, and I found some I didn't know I could, I didn't know that existed, but here enough there to hear that there they were. I walked into the room and on the side of a computer monitor, there was a big bumper sticker that said, war in Iraq. No. And that felt good to me. I was like, Yeah, I can get down with these people. And so I joined this peace minded, Justice oriented group that helped me regain my faith. And I became a leader among us, and I was called into being an apprentice pastor. And I was called into doing so at a very young age, I was 23 years old. To be honest, I wish I had more education, I had more self awareness, I had more connection to who I was, because at that very impressionable age, I was very easy to determine the word I'm going to say I want to be careful with but it seems to fit the part I was, it was easy for me to be groomed. And so I was I became a son of the organisation trying to spread its DNA as far as it could go, go, I was down, it's helped me I cared about it. And then over time, I realised, let me keep listening to these people of colour these sexual minorities to see if our because I keep hearing from them. And I was just wondering as our organisation harming them. And it took a long time for me to develop my own, to develop my own sense, as a pastor at first you listen to protesters, dissenters in the church, and you try to quiet them down. And then I went to seminary, I developed a relationship with many other Christians across the country. And I learned Oh, the way Circle of Hope doesn't isn't just the way. And so I learned to ask questions about what we do listen to racialized minorities, sexual minorities, and change the church, I became my own. My I developed my own philosophy of ministry, as an individual, as I got these influences. And so I love the idea of joining ministry at a young age, I would recommend that people find mentors that will help them become the kind of pastors that they need to be, and not the pastor's that a narcissistic leader wants them to be. So be careful with that. And that kind of thing exists in both conservative and progressive spaces for sure. Rohadi 22:34 I want to transition then. Well, let me ask you this question. Yeah. As you became more alert to the voice is on the margins. At what point did you start to speak that truth within your context? And describe then because I would assume at some point as he became, as you started to share those voices that the pushback started to come? Jonny 23:07 Absolutely. At first, we were talking in circle about being anti racist. And it was an outward expression, it was important for us to push against racism in the world, and for the most part that was received well, but when you start seeing patterns of white supremacy in the world, and then you see them in your own family, in your own church, and you start asking questions, while prophet has never loved in his hometown, that's what Jesus said. And boy, is it true boy, is Rohadi 23:33 it true men, Jonny 23:34 you know, the violent gaslighting the abuse that I experienced in doing so was really tremendous. And thankfully, I'm working through it and God is good. And we're moving through to what is next. And that feels good to me. But that's where we are for sure. That's that's how I experienced it. You know, it's very hard to resist a very tight knit family. Our community is super tight, super close, super connected, they'll start asking questions and you'll you can quickly be ostracised. So that's something we're learning about. Rohadi 24:05 I feel like we compressed a long time frame into one short paragraph of your experience of bringing in or simply expressing your experience within your community context and running up against the wall. And like it that sound the way you just shared the story it makes it sound like that is a recent or short activity but that that can't be it sounds like this has been going on for a long time. How do you not run out of gas Jonny 24:40 The best thing to do for me is to listen is to ally with other people of colour other sexual minorities to from me that are not that that that have the same lived experience that keeps you in your brain it keeps you in your heart keeps you in your body so you're not gaslighted so you don't second guess yourself and it gives you energy it gives you capacity and gives you hope. You know, when we face despair as Christians, I really do believe we have to remember God's faithfulness. So even on a day like today when Roe v Wade is undone, let us remember when it when it was put into action, let us remember suffrage, let us remember the civil rights era, let us remember abolition, let us remember, the exodus of the Israelites remember God, God's faithfulness today. So the in the moment of despair, we don't succumb. So for me, it's about staying in community and staying connected to the history and the tradition. You know, I add to that, you know, with the way that we remember is through worship. We remember through prayer, partake in communion, remember God's faithfulness. Remember the salvation of Jesus right for me, that that that keeps me from being exhausted. But listen, I have enough dignity not to be trampled on. And so it is important for me to know when enough is enough to know, I've given this community my all and it's time for me to go, yeah, you can faithfully Leave, leave well, from organisations that don't feel like they're changing and moving, growing in the direction that is good for you and find other places. You're never stuck. Rohadi 26:17 How do you know when it's that time? And I asked that question, because when you're in predominantly white organisation, as a bipoc, leader, or a bipoc person, especially if you're one of the token minorities, I'm not saying that's, that's your situation, but you can stick around waiting for change and give up your body until there's nothing left and that community and space will pull and pull and keep taking, how do you know? Jonny 26:46 When when staying in is more painful than leave. When and pay attention to your body. Pay attention to the pain you have to. So when it's more painful to stay and leave is a nice statement. But what does it mean you have to pay attention to the pain you've experienced, you have to be conscious of the hurt. I don't feel it until my body screams back at me. Like I don't feel it until my blood pressure is up. I don't feel it until the tension there's tension in my back to my stomach hurts until my body is a key. Rohadi 27:23 So yes, and there's a delay. Jonny 27:25 I'm exhausted in the middle of the day like what is happening with me. It's best not to wait for that moment. But sometimes it's just what it is. But pay attention to what your friends are saying you know I have a lot of friends right now that are telling me take a break. Take a rest get away from the work to on a sabbatical. You're going through a lot you know for me they said you're the includes at the head of the pack just getting smashed with the wind. If it turned back into the back fight of the back let someone else lead this flying the Yeah. So that's that's that's what I've been considering. Rohadi 28:02 So your your then athletes, your next book, you are in the season now of discerning what is next. Jonny 28:08 That's right. Rohadi 28:11 Well, brother, that's wise words of listening to your body. And I wish you all the grace and peace as you navigate what is. So that's hard, because community means relationships, but at the same time, you juxtapose that to the cost and traumas that you've incurred on your body. Absolutely. You've drawn so much wisdom, from your experience, ministering and beyond into your book here. And I want to now just engage with these pieces because I think contemporary Christianity, and by that I mean predominately white church traditions, there is a theme, and I have experienced it every time I go to guest preach, especially during the past 2,3,4 years. Or perhaps since Trump every time I'm coming through and we have conversations around the possibilities of taking a stand on something could be anything but usually if it's a stand on some matter of justice, like racism or anti racism, there's always a posture in return of whoa, whoa, slow down. Let's hear everybody out. As if there's some type of virtue in Christianity to sit your ass on the fence. Like, I don't see that verse. In fact, we are called to something distinctly different but acid Hang on the fence seems to be a virtue in these churches, what's going on? Jonny 30:05 I think we are uncomfortable making political stance. And I think that one of the reasons we are as one, when Christians have taken political stance, they have sided with the oppressor. So some people have a distaste for that in their mouth. They don't want to be political. And so they equate left and right. They don't know how to take a political stand, because what they've seen is embarrassment. They're afraid they're going to sound like Jerry Falwell, you know, Jerry Falwell, Jr. or Franklin Graham are one of these guys. And so they don't say anything. But I'm here to say that churches who don't want to take a stand, who value purple congregations who think they're doing the kingdom of God, because the diversity they hold is a political diversity, and not an actual bodily diversity. They're missing a point here, that kind of unity falls in the back of the oppressed. Oh, you know, if I your communion table, you have people who think it's okay for police to kill Black people, that it's okay to take away the rights of women and of LGBTQIA people, and that it's okay to deport immigrants. Yes. You can't have not just people that think it's wrong to kill Black people that think it's wrong to take away the rights of women and sexual minorities that think it's wrong to deport immigrants, not just different ideas, but rather, black people, queer people, women, immigrants, disabled people, we're talking about people's bodies, we're talking about their very humanity. Politics isn't abstract. Isn't abstract, too. minorities, it is lived, it is personal, we feel it's in our bodies, and what we're demanding. And what we're asking is just to see our humanity, we are people. We have pain that we've experienced. And we win, and we want to be in our churches. And if you insist on reducing our lived experience, to an idea, to critical race theory, to welke ism, to whatever you want to say, then you're missing the point. Politics isn't abstract, you know. And I found this out when Trump instituted the Muslim ban, and all of a sudden people that looked like me weren't allowed in the country just because they looked like me. And then I realised I was going to administer communion to our congregation. And I realised that I love feast and I realised, oh, I need Jesus to save me from this oppression. Now, there is no both sides. There is no third way. Yes, yeah, the way to follow God right now is to side with the oppressed. And there has been a lot of dialogue about why that's problematic. But to me, the kind of the kind of weight that falls on the shoulders of minorities in churches that don't want to advocate for them and give them their dignity is really tremendous. And it is death dealing to Rohadi 33:10 death dealing. Jonny 33:11 Absolutely, it's costly, it affects our bodies, and if Rohadi 33:15 you are not on the margins are incurring, that's systemic oppression, systemic being the results of the political decision making process. You don't know. In fact, it looks like every other day the dialogue piece let's take a step back because I want your voice again, it was it was hot man, you're coming through with your faux diversity. There is this sense that if we can just hold respectable dialogue around controversial issues, which in many, for some things are not controversial, but they're put on this polarised spectrum? That the dialogue in itself if you can merely hold the dialogue, you can feign then this faux diversity, totally come back to come back to this diversity piece. Because when we talk about bipoc folks talk about diversity we we think of diversity across all the different spectrums of ability of of neuro diversity of ethnicities, and so forth. And there's a is there a different diversity that's being celebrated within predominately white communities? Jonny 34:38 Say that all the time? Rohadi 34:39 Well, is there a different kind of when white congregations will use will drill it down to churches use the terms diversity? Are they celebrating them the sense of this pretend diversity of all we can hold diverse political opinions in the same place and hold that as a value? Jonny 34:58 Diversity furthers why supremacy when it doesn't increase the understanding of the perspectives of the minorities that make them diversity, political diversity results in the status quo. Oh, yeah. bipartisanship results in the status quo. You know. It takes, in some ways, extreme partisanship for reform to happen, for change to happen. And yes, in order to in order to accomplish progress, we really need to take the posture of elevating minority voices in our churches. You know, we were talking about their very dignity, you know, when you look at the incarceration rates for Latino and Black men that are disproportionately higher than their white counterparts, when you look at police killings, that are disproportionately higher for black men than they are for their white counterparts. When you look at the teen suicide rate of LGBTQIA people, you're talking about people's very life. pastors don't want to take a stand, because they're afraid of losing members. But I'm talking about losing lives money. No. Paul, in First Corinthians 12 describes the body of Christ, as made up of many parts, and Paul says, the members of the body that seem to be weaker, are indispensable. Those members of the body that we think less honourable, we close with greater honour, and are less respectable members, we treat with greater respect. The oppressed are the ones who are seen who seem weaker, who seem less honourable, and who seem less respectable. Paul says lift them up, and then, so that there is no dissension in the body. God has so arranged the body given the greater honour to the inferior member, there may be no dissension within the body. But the members have the same care for one another if one member suffers all suffer together with and if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it when we elevate voices of colour. When we listen to the oppressed, we honour everyone, when we suffer with the least of these, we suffer when at least one one of the least of these suffers, we all suffer with them. That's the kind of Christian unity that the church should be known for. We unite around the oppressed, we don't unite in spite of their oppression. Rohadi 37:24 Amen. We have the opposite problem in churches, I won't just paint a wide brush of white white churches. You you would share it earlier with as I was saying, Oh, it's uncomfortable to make a stand because folks, congregations in their mind might be thinking of the foul whales or so forth like that. But the opposite or the other end of the spectrum is folks want to be like the Falwell's. They want to be behind what they did Jesus and John Wayne, ideas of retaining power, the bipartisanship leading to status quo is a exercise into retaining and preserving institutional power for both sides and the marginalised folks. And so we're generating this notion that if you don't have the marginalised in your community, then you create a false narrative is my sense here, you know, fill in the blanks for me now, you create a false narrative around the fact you are, in fact, marginalised. You're being politically marginalised. We're being marginalised, because look at Roe versus Wade is still the law of the land, not anymore. And so you start to generate this engine, however unto power, versus unto centering or liberating those out the margins. Jonny 38:55 Totally, totally, totally. Rohadi 38:59 One of the aspects that just frustrates me is is an unwillingness to pick aside. And it's not a virtue for staying in finding middle ground as if Christians are sometimes somehow the referees of dialogue. Do you chalk that up to biblical illiteracy biblical literalism? Do you chalk that up to a problem of having the wrong picture of who Jesus is? Jonny 39:36 Well, Jesus was no stranger to controversy. He had no issue being polarising. Jesus was not concerned with politeness. Jesus had a message. He was clear about it. And he clearly took a side of the oppressed. He said, If you cause any of any of these little ones to stumble, it's better for you to have millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into the sea of Galilee, the judgement that awaits you. He said, If you walk into a town and they reject your message duster heels, it'll be better, better for Sodom and Gomorrah on judgement day than it will be for that town. Jesus had a strong polemic against people that are opposed to him in his way, he invited everybody in the parable of the banquet to the table. And when the wealthy when the married, when the people with the field and the Hawks were too busy to come, he found the destitute and they came, Jesus came to lower valley to lower hills and to raise the valleys to free the oppressed to free the captives. This is exactly what the gospel is. And it takes a lot of work to undo that. And so I do think it is biblically illiterate. And I do think it is missing the point of who Jesus is, when we try to find some middle road third way, I don't even know what we're saying anymore. You know, there was a time when white when the third way politics was defined as what Martin Luther King was doing, right? You have a nonviolent resistance, which is contrary to violent resistance. But these days, the movement of Black Lives Matter of movement that people call it critical race theory, the movement of people call woke, that is modelled after the nonviolent resistance of Martin Luther King, but instead of being seen as a third way, it is seen as a poll, a leftist progressive poll, and then we have this fascist poll, and we're supposed to find a third way I believe that okay, yeah, exactly. So, so, and then Martin Luther King is still used to sanitise. He is sanitised. And he's used to perpetuate the status quo. You know, he said that the riot is the voice of the unheard. And people speak about riots in a way that says like Martin Luther King wasn't for them or something like, you know, like, there's this sanitation that has standardisation that happens to him that undoes any usefulness of the third way idea would have nowadays the third way just means a moderate path nowadays, it means not being able to tell a member in your congregation, whether you're affirming or not, because you got to take him out to coffee, you know, Rohadi 42:14 geez, Jonny 42:16 you got to you got to make sure that they're, you know, are you affirming, can I be blessed here in marriage and ministry and membership? Well, let's talk about that. Come out, have a cup of coffee. Now just answer the damn question. Rohadi 42:28 Yeah, state it be clear. These things are by design. The vilification of critical race theory by design the push on to abortion, and cancelling abortion by design. This sanitization of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King by design, oh, this is whiteness by design. I liked this. I liked this third way of of we have made the fence the third way we have made for many, middle of the road Christians who don't do much of anything. There has been a rewriting of the polls. I like that I like that rewriting of what the polls are. And then the middle ground the third way has become just hold the status quo intention maybe intention, but at very most, please hold the status quo. What's driving that? Like? Do you think that is a conscious attempt to retain privilege within predominately white denominations and churches? Jonny 43:49 motives are hard to judge. They're hard to know. My viewpoint is we have a lot of hesitation around change. We have a lot of importance about institutionalism. People don't want things to change. I think in general, they just don't want their life to change. They think that if we let all these new ideas in the gospel, we threatened Jesus will be threatened, the Gospels will be threatened. And so the resistance to new ideas that could be rooted in some other power, I think ultimately it is but the kind of evil you have to be to be conscious that your ideas are merely there to uphold your power and your privilege and your white supremacy. I don't assume most people are like that. I think they're misguided, and they need help along the way, you know, but if you're not willing to listen to the lived experiences of people of colour, and to other racial minorities, then you missed the point. You know, you're missing an opportunity to learn. Rohadi 44:43 Would it be accurate to as we reorient the sense of what the third way is, and we don't need to reinvent this as you stated plainly, there is a recapturing or reclamation perhaps of sorts of the work that black and brown bodies have already done. Like it's already out there, we have to reclaim or bring it back into the forefront. Would it be good to switch the metaphor of the sense of the third way isn't isn't as sitting on the fence. Rather, it is an active pursuit. The third way is the active pursuit of the Jesus who liberates. Jonny 45:19 It would be wonderful. If that were the case, I just think that we should follow the Jesus deliberates and let go of that term, which is not very helpful. I don't think there should be the third way specifically, like, let's follow the liberating God, the redeeming God and see where God takes us. Let's follow what it looks like the side of the oppressed, and see how that helps us engage politically, locally, at a state level, nationally, whatever country we're in, at times that will feel like we're being partisan. But if you think that Jesus taking aside means that you're supposed to just be a Democrat in the US, you missed the points, because the Democrats are not exemplars of moral leadership. No, they're inept on their own. And they showed their hypocrisy. And I write about this when they investigated the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. But they did not investigate the allegations against Joe Biden. And they just showed the hypocritical, that they're interested in political power, and that they're not interested in moral leadership. And so even if I happen to vote Democrat, actually, every election twice a year, every year since I was, for the 18 years that I've been eligible to vote, even though I've done that I feel no allegiance to a political party. And I have no sense of partisanship, rather than say third way I say, find the God who have breasts follow the God who, who of the oppressed. And then more than that, allow your prophetic imagination to stretch beyond the political constraints of this economy. You know, this political economy imagine a prophetic imagination, what would it look like to have a world without violence a world with peace, a world without police? Can we imagine new ways to keep our neighbourhoods safe? Can we imagine new ways to consume energy so that we aren't destroying our planet? You know, what are the things that we can do that are that are beyond the political constraints that help us imagine that's what Christians should have been doing, while also engaging as practically as we can in politics. Rohadi 47:13 So there is an engagement of politics here, and I appreciate how you're drawing, you're just stating in your book, this this pursuit like don't shy away from the notion of divorcing politics and Jesus, I think that there is a power to the notion that the Jesus way produces a picture or vision, in fact, of a better way of being. But then it is hard to get into that place. If your picture of Jesus at the get go is distorted. You have white Jesus, you're not going to like what is the catalyst then for so many congregations and they showed their cards, they always were showing their cards when Christian nationalism starts to emerge, anti vaccine pushes start to emerge, like what is the catalyst of formation for these Congress? Do they have hope? Jonny 48:10 is totally I mean, yes. I mean, I think you're absolutely right, that a distorted version of Jesus doesn't help us understand. It gets us off on the wrong foot, right? And so we have to figure out how do we form an image of God and an image of Jesus that helps us side of the oppressed? What does that look like? And I think ultimately, a very plain reading of the Bible helps us a plan understanding of what Jesus came to do. I would just start with the Gospel of Luke, and see what Jesus is saying in that gospel, and try to hold on as close as tight as you can to the apparent message of the gospel, which is to liberate the oppressed. Rohadi 48:56 set the captives free That's right. This distorted Jesus is the one that produces an understanding of a Jesus who wasn't political Jonny 49:09 totally Jesus that didn't take a side Rohadi 49:11 and it produced this this this ethic within congregations. I take the road of and like I don't have enough spoons for this probably why so I don't know if it's the right road but what road do you take so that's the question my road when I engage in communities churches thought leaders who are embodying the picture of white Jesus I just ignore you like I won't have a conversation or diet like that's not for me like I think feels right. Yeah. Oh, dust my heels. Oh, where am I heard that before? Is your approach to, like, there's a sense of, of and this is distorted as well of Christian peacemaking is trying to find that middle ground again. At what point or can you even just say, no dust, dust my shoes? Y'all just go keep doing what you do. And I could totally ignore you. Jonny 50:20 Well, I mean, I think that there's such a big difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking. Making peace is a lot different than keeping peace. We cannot make peace with we cannot make peace with war, we cannot make peace with violence. We cannot love hatred, we cannot live with death. So Christians need to understand that we're advocating and advancing the Gospel of love, of hope of faith. We're advocate advancing the gospel of peace and love, and justice. These are the things that we need to do. And so I keep listening to the minorities among us and elevating their voices as high as we can. And I don't worry about the people that aren't quite there yet. They can get individual conversations, individual discipleship, but I'm certainly not going to centre them in our dialogue, who's going to be centred as who has been decentered? Rohadi 51:10 Is that a journey received special, peacemaking does not equal peacekeeping? Jonny 51:15 I don't know if it is, but I've said it. Yes. Rohadi 51:19 Put it on a sweater. That's a good one. A good one. Let's trail off then with the final question here. Your book produces a pathway for those to engage with the biblical Jesus to use that term. But of course, it's everybody's interpretation of Jesus. But you bring forward the marginalised Brown, Jesus lived in Palestine, who was under Roman occupation, in the process of being colonised, you bring forth the possibilities of wreck, reclaiming the old ways in many in many senses. Where does the hope lie in terms of reclaiming the vision for better for marginalised people? Where's that hope? And what is it look like in the in the pathway give us a glimpse, when it comes to returning to a story of liberation? Jonny 52:21 Well, let's keep remembering the story of the Exodus. Let's keep remembering our communion. Let's keep remembering one God has been faithful. And let's remember that God is transcendent, above the pain, the suffering and the despair of this world. And let us use the promise of salvation. To inform our imminent politics today, Jesus has saved the world and Jesus is present in the world. Jesus is transcendent, and imminent. And so as we imagine a new way to be a new way to follow a new way to imagine the whole world. Engage as practically as you can be as focused as you can, as local as you can, and try to do this work specifically, don't try don't be overwhelmed by all the information around you. Don't be overwhelmed by trying to figure everything out. Listen to experts, listen to trusted people around you. Don't feel like you have to have all the answers. You know, I and Philadelphia, I focus on affordable housing policy. And so I devote myself to that specific work, and then I listen to others when it comes to other matters as well. So that's one practical thing you can do. But don't ever get constrained by our political choices here, even if you practically participate in them. So yes, vote. But also, don't ever think that the options that we have politically are all we have. There's so much more and God can keep expanding our political imagination, and can keep disciplining us to have hope can keep discipline disciplining us disciplining us to cultivate our anger to let's do both. Rohadi 53:56 Do you have a practice perhaps, or a rhythm, to embody the imagination of the it's a constant imagination, like a constant reimagination of what is now for what can be in God's new creation? rhythms or ideas to cultivate that? Jonny 54:23 I would say one thing you can do is keep imagining. I want to hand just don't ever think of the world around you as unchangeable. Imagine a world where we don't use fossil fuels. Imagine a world where we don't have guns. Imagine the world where police aren't killing us to protect us. And then keep cultivating your imagination. Keep cultivating your counter consciousness, wonder what your foregone conclusions are, keep disciplining yourself to do that. So read the Bible, but also read poetry. read fiction, listen to children. Pay attention to who is imagining. Don't tempt him. Imagination. Don't tempt on hope. Stay idealistic. Hold on to your beliefs. Hold on to your ideals. Don't let grownups take them away from you believe in what feels impossible because what's impossible with mortals is possible with God. Yeah, if you want to keep up with me go to Jonnyrashid.com. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @jonnyRashid. You can follow food pasture on Instagram to see what I'm cooking. And then pay attention. I have a few articles that have just come out. One on Matthew 18. Violence in power loosing and binding, Matthew 1815 to 20 how it's been used to abuse people go to Earth and altered calm you can find that and then I have another one coming out in the leader magazine of the Mennonite publication as well so you can follow all those updates at jonnyrashid.com or on my Twitter, Instagram.