Episode 64: Drew G. I. Hart & Jarrod McKenna - Creative Resistance & the Joy of Nonviolence
In this episode of Faith for Normal People, Pete and Jared sit down with Drew G. I. Hart and Jarrod McKenna to talk about rethinking power and nonviolence. Through practices inspired by Anabaptism, the Black church, and the teachings of Jesus, Drew and Jarrod explore how Christians can contribute to social change through their own nonviolent resistance as individuals and communities.
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: Shaped by Suffering with Alexiana Fry
Books: Making it Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism in the Black Church by Drew G.I. Hart
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
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Jared: You are listening to Faith for Normal people, the only other God-ordained podcast on the internet.
Pete: I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
Pete: Hey folks, quick announcement for you before we get into today’s episode. Our September class is called “Shaped by Suffering: How Trauma Impacts the Bible and Its Readers” and it’s taught by Alexiana Fry. Now, trauma isn’t just a buzzword. It’s woven into our bodies, our histories, and the systems that we live in. And it’s also woven into the Bible. Stories of war, exile, oppression, and grief reflect deep wounds that shaped entire communities, and they still shape how we read the Bible today.
This class will introduce you to trauma-informed interpretation, a way of approaching scripture that takes seriously both the pain in the text and the pain we bring as readers, and will explore questions like, what even is trauma, and how is it misunderstood? How does being trauma-informed change the way we view the Bible? And why does this lens matter for both the past and the present?
The live class and Q-&-A is happening on Saturday, September 27th from noon to 1:30 p.m., with an exclusive Q-&-A session for SoNP members right after. As always, the class is pay-what-you-can until the class ends, and then it will cost $25. To learn more and sign up, head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/trauma. See you then.
Today on Faith for Normal People, we're talking about non-violence with Drew Hart and Jarrod McKenna.
Jared: Yes, the Reverend Dr. Drew G.I. Hart is an associate professor of theology at Messiah University where he directs the Thriving Together Congregation for Racial Justice program, and he's the author of several books, including the newly released Making it Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism and the Black Church.
Pete: Jarrod McKenna is the founding national director of Australia's largest Christian Justice advocacy organization, Common Grace. He has over 20 years experience both in pastoral ministry and on the leading edge of climate, justice, refugee rights, and social change.
Jared: Together, they co-host the Inverse podcast, which is why we had them on together, which explores themes of justice, faith, and social change.
Pete: And don't forget to stay tuned at the end of the episode for Quiet Time where we will reflect on the conversation.
Jared: Alright folks, let's jump in.
Jarrod: I think if we start with redefining power rather than redefining love, uh, at a place that actually reframes everything.
Drew: A vision of Shalom really is, I think, the most meaningful way in which we can cast the vision for the presence of justice and then begin to creatively imagine, what would that look like in my own neighborhood?
Pete: Jarrod and Drew, welcome to the podcast. It's good to have you both on at the same time.
Jarrod: Thanks, bud.
Drew: It's a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to it.
Pete: Are you? Are you though? Are you?
Drew: Well, it's questionable since you know, I know you're planning to roast me for my book events. I don't know, you know.
Pete: That's right. This is, this is a warmup for the roast of your book event and, and next month. That's right. Well, me and
Drew: That's right. Well, me and Jarrod were thinking that we could start up, start up some, uh, of our own material just to make sure that you felt at home as well.
Pete: That's good. Okay, great.
Jared: That's good. Okay, well that's perfect 'cause we wanna talk to you about non-violence.
Well, uh, but yeah, in all seriousness, I mean, you're the work you guys do around activism and nonviolence, it can feel very, um, abstract on one sense, in one sense, and also overwhelming, I think, for people, um, on the other hand. And so maybe we can start with just, you each have your own context and your faith expressing itself through these activities and, and ways of being in the world probably take on a different flavor, but it's kind of rooted in a similar theological, um, and social perspective.
So can you each maybe talk about what does nonviolence look like and feel like and, uh, show up as in each of your contexts?
Drew: I feel like Jared is actually the nonviolent action guru, but um, but I guess I'll warm 'em up a little bit, uh, for me. Um, what does that mean and look like? You know, it's interesting.
I think, um, it's two things. One, it's trying, it's trying to figure out how, for me, to embody and practice the teachings of Jesus, right? So when he talks about loving one's enemies and, um, you know, blessed are the peacemakers, trying to figure out like what does that mean and what does that look like? For me, the most meaningful way that I have begun to imagine and embody that in my own life has been looking at the black church practices, especially in the fifties and sixties.
Um, a lot of my work, nobody should be surprised that a lot of my work, um, has talked about King. Um, certainly others as well. But King has certainly played an enormous role because he's helped me think about the Jesus story, how that's looked in terms of like on the grounds rubber hits the road is, uh, for me and my community has looked a lot, it's been deeply involved in, uh, grassroots community organizing work.
So you, you all are from Pennsylvania, so like Power Interfaith is an enormous multi-faith organizing, uh, organization in Pennsylvania that has had a lot of impact. And one of the things that I've been involved in is working towards, uh, fair funding for public education.
Because in Pennsylvania in particular, it's especially racist. It's racist all throughout our country, but we've got our own special ways of being racist in terms of how funds, state funds are being distributed throughout the state. And so collaborating at the grassroots level with my neighbors, with my friends, with folks across the state.
Um, using collective power to try to bring change. Uh, it is incremental change, right? I mean, we've been fighting this particular issue for about a decade, um, but we've actually seen significant progress, um, unfolding. And I think, you know, we're on the verge of seeing more and more equity in the funding for public education.
So that's one example for me is just that grassroots community organizing kind of method of, uh, instead of merely just trying to use concentrated coercive power to dominate others. Right. That's kind of the model that I think many conservative Christians that don't have an imagination for anything outside of like fascist authoritarian rule, um, the grass-
I think what's powerful and beautiful about the nonviolent practice of community organizing is it's about sharing power and it's collective power, and it's redistributing power to people who often don't feel like they have any agency that feel they don't have any voice, um, and they're able to link arms and actually make a difference and, and influence, uh, what's happening in the public square and what's happening in their communities and the laws and policies that are really impactful at, on the day-to-day level in terms of what people are experiencing.
So anyway, that's, I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but that's certainly one of the ways that I get involved.
Jared: Yeah. But before I move to Jarrod, I I, maybe we can even take it one step further because you used phrases that I think, you know, that faith for normal people, and I think a lot of our listeners are not only kind of normal people in the sense of, of understanding these concepts, but also come from a more conservative background where it was like top down, coercive, this is how, I mean, it probably wouldn't have articulated it that way, but very top down instead of distributed power.
So can you just say more concretely, like, community organizing is what, and how does it allow for that power distribution to look different than maybe what people are used to?
Drew: Yeah, I mean, I think what many of us are used to is thinking about power in terms of positions and concentrated formal power, right?
So in a local church, you think, uh, who's got the power? It's the pastor, right? The reverend or whatever. Um, in the US we think about the formal channels and structures of our society. So who's got the power, the president has the power, Congress has the power. Um, and that leaves people feeling very powerless in, in everyday society.
And so, uh, if you aren't a part of these structures and institutions, you can often feel like my voice doesn't matter. There's a lot of folks, I certainly in my own neighborhood that I live in, who don't vote because they think there, it doesn't matter what we do. Right? The, the lobbyists and the donors and all these things, uh, they're gonna create the platforms and it doesn't matter who I vote for because the same things are gonna play out regardless.
Um, so that's the powerless side that I think that people are experiencing. And to be fair, as people have voted on the ground, especially in my neighborhood, like they have not seen a difference even with Democrats running anything like they, it doesn't reach down to that neighborhood level in terms of the impact.
So how community organizing works differently is that it is inviting people to link arms, um, and kind of invest in collective power. It's our shared power together. Uh, one of the examples that many times we use in the community organizing space is like, uh, you start small. And so usually the example is like a stop sign, right?
You need a stop sign at the corner. Um, and so people get together and they talk about what's been happening in their neighborhood, and then they. Uh, do some analysis of, you know, what could actually make the difference. There's a stop sign. They do some power mapping to realize who has the decision making power to actually change and implement and put that in place.
And then collectively they organize and build a broad base that can actually put actual pressure on this individual to actually make a change. Um, and so it is a grassroots, it's a bottom up power, right? It's not a top down power, it's a bottom up power, um, that really gives agency and allows people to realize that they can actually influence the things that are happening on the ground.
Um, and as they do that, it kind of builds confidence, um, that there's a lot of other ways that we can actually impact what's going on in our world. And so then we begin to tackle bigger and bigger things. And next thing you know, we're tackling statewide issues like public funding for education because we realize that black and brown neighborhoods and school districts are disproportionately being, um, underfunded and white school districts are being overfunded.
And so what do we have to do? We've gotta go statewide and have people tell their stories, have children tell their stories of what it's been like in their schools, and have parents tell their experience of what it is, um, to navigate these school districts, um, and the challenges, and expose the gaps that exist and the inconsistencies.
Because most people wanna pretend like we live in an equal society and everything's fair. And yet we know that at the end of the day, people do not. You in the, in the U.S., I dunno if it's like this in Australia, but certainly in the US um, people will say good neighborhood and a bad neighborhood, and it's almost always directly or at least strongly connected to school districts and funding and opportunities.
So everyone knows that these things are there, but no one's willing to touch it, talk about it, or make any difference. And the people that are impacted most, um, again, often feel like they don't have a voice. So community organizing is that channel or that opportunity to give not just voice, but to, or to express the agency and power that people actually have without dominating and coercively harming others in the process.
Jarrod: That, that was fantastic, right? I, I wish that guy had a new book coming out. I, I wish I could collaborate with him on the regular. That was amazing. Um, in, in terms of, I'm not sure what nonviolence is, but I've been seeking to experiment with it for some time.
Uh, one way that might be helpful for people is to think about the tradition of nonviolence as a way of naming that power that is deeper than the harm we've experienced. And if we can be honest with ourselves, the harm that we're involved with, and that's deeply personal. Uh, but it's also about our social realities. Um, Desmond Tutu, who, um, is one of my biggest influences, who I actually got the privilege to meet, um, uh, before he passed, he used the language of nonviolence as a force more powerful.
And I love that. I think if you've ever been in a situation where, uh, you have responded, not with a passivity that allows somebody to, um, stampede your dignity, but nor have you mirrored, uh, their aggression and their lack of self-worth in taking away the worth of another. You've experienced with, um, this, this tradition that's often referred to in social change circles as non-violence.
It, it's what Jesus talks about when he talks about, um, uh, don't be like the Gentiles who Lord power over others, not so with you. It's experimenting with this not so kind of power. So the stuff, um, Pete and Jared, that when people Google and they find pictures of, you know, um, uh, a large chain around my neck on the gates of our equivalent to the White House here in Australia with sparks flying off as police cut us off or hanging, um, four stories in the air above the foreign minister's office, um, or, um, uh, sneaking into a, um, uh, a refugee detention center in Papua New Guinea, or these are the kind of things that people often associate, like the, the nonviolent direct action.
But Gandhi would insist that nonviolence is, um, everything Drew has just been spelling out. In fact, the majority of the nonviolent work is not just, um, being on the front lines and the direct action, but is the, um, constructive program of actually Dorothy Day uses the language of, um, building a new world in world in the shell of the old.
And it's, it's this vision of, um, what, what people often in Christian circles, even conservative Christian circles, even American conservative Christian circles, would use the language of love and it's this experience of love, uh, be it in worship or in small community, and realizing that this can be, um, a vision of, um, uh, dignity restoring, uh, that restructures, um, our, our very societies. Non-violence is the tradition of experimenting with that kind of power.
Jared: You mentioned, um, love, and I think that it's a pretty, it's a very elastic term, right? Everyone does use it, right? Um, so, but you, we've also been talking about power and I'm curious if you can talk about that relationship, because I think for me, that's my, my march out of more conservative evangelicalism and into more Anabaptist spaces has led me to restrict what I mean by love, insofar as its defined relative to power.
So can you say more about how those forces are at play? Because I think that's one thing in the spaces that I've inhabited in more conservative evangelicalism. It is, love is not about giving up power at all. It's about just redirecting it to helping more people. Um, but that often doesn't lead to the kind of reformation or, uh, you know, transformation that we're looking for in these spaces.
Jarrod: Yeah. If, if I could maybe go a step further. I think if we start with redefining power rather than redefining love, um, we start at a place that actually reframes everything. So I think of, um, when, uh, one of your great poets, Wendell Berry, talks about practice resurrection. Um, I think it's Wendell's talking about power and it's, it's a different form of power.
It's not power over, but it's this power with, and this power within, it's, it's passages where, um, like in Philippians 2 where Paul, um, or 3 where Paul talks about, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. And we're like, whoa. What's, what's the connection there?
Like how, how do you connect and what kind of sufferings? Is this a suffering which is merely a passive acceptance of the things, uh, the way things are? Well, it doesn't make any sense to, like Saul, Paul's actual lived practice. And if we start with, um, power being defined as, um, uh, that which actually returns agency not as coercion, and that coercion, um, all forms of authoritarianism is actually a form of weakness.
Um, then we're actually closer to what the social sciences, like a Gene Sharp talks about, that people power is moving from the triangle where you think those at the top have all the power, but actually what is the, what they've got is the coercive force and those on the bottom, if they choose to actually face the consequences of challenging that coercion and, and very real consequences, uh, you're seeing it, um, in your nation at the moment.
Um, uh, imprisonment, uh, people, uh, being deported, um, death even. But if you face those consequences, then you have a form of power which actually, um, restores dignity and is not about, um, uh, games of, uh, manipulation and coercion, but instead of a different type of community. And really in Jesus's teachings and his practice, I mean, it's surprising in the synoptics.
Jesus doesn't talk about love a whole heap, but he does talk about taking up our cross. And I think that is, um, when redeemed from a passive understanding of accepting fate and instead, um, contextualized into the reality of like was, um, you know, uh, Daniel Berrigan would put it, if you're gonna follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.
Like if it's actually recontextualized as, as you are going to face the consequences of, um, embodying this kind of love, then we step into something that is creative. It's transformative. It demands something of us that is deeper than the shallow competition games and asks us to return to something. And that's why I think, um, the role of spirituality, um, the, the role of personal transformation can't be extracted away or separated from the work of social change.
Pete: Drew, actually, let me, let me um, bring you into this a little bit. You have, uh, a term that I think you made up, and I've never heard it before, but, uh, Anablacktivism And that, which, which, um, brings together, I think your two contexts for thinking about nonviolence. Could you explain that?
Drew: Yeah. So, you know, um, as a good Black Baptist preacher, not that I am anymore, but um, uh, you gotta have some, some play on words and throw random words together.
And so, uh, the idea of Anablacktivism is Anabaptism, black church, black theology and activism. That's the kind of merge of those three. And it is in many ways, um, what brought me and Jarrod together is that synergy, um, that creative space that, um, we have lots of other influences beyond that, but that's certainly brought, um, brought us together.
And for me personally, I, so I grew up, I'm a child of the black church. Um, that's all I knew until adulthood when I went off to college. Um, and then I experienced white conservative evangelicalism among most of my peers. Not all my peers, but most of them were, um, and realized something was terribly wrong.
Um, and something was terribly wrong with the ways in which, uh, folks were conceiving of their relationship to the nation and to militarism, um, to violence. Um, their apathy relates to white supremacy and racism. And, and so I knew something was wrong. And I was hungry for answers. And I was grateful honestly, that I was a biblical studies major at Messiah.
Um, 'cause they forced me to ask all kind of questions. Um, and they also introduced me to Anabaptism for the very first time. Um, and so after I graduated, I actually was at a, uh, Harrisburg Brethren Christ Church is an Anabaptist congregation in the city, kind of urban ministry kind of stuff going on there.
Um, and I began to see some of the power of community, uh, that's actually trying to live this out in their own local situation. Uh, and one of the things that I really began to take that was significant from that was just the emphasis of taking Jesus seriously in one's own life. Obviously that's a generic phrase that a lot of people can apply and can mean a lot of different things.
Right. But certainly I knew what Anabapaptists meant by that in terms of the birth life teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus. And particularly in relationship to what we've been talking about, nonviolence and peacemaking, uh, in their social witness in those particular ways. So the Anabaptist thing was seeping into me, though I did not call myself an Anabaptist at all. Um, that whole time that I was there.
Then I moved back to Philly, went back to my home church, black evangelical congregation, and when I was back for the first time, I started realizing like I had changed some. And so I began to, for the first time, call myself an Anabaptist, um, in black church circles, um, as just a way of honoring and the very thing that I did not wanna identify with while I was there.
Like I had changed enough and began to connect with other Anabaptists in Philly. Mostly Mennonites, but a broad variety of Anabaptists there. And all of a sudden I got exposed to a wide range of Anabaptisms.
That didn't look like, just like what I knew in Central PA. Right. Um, I'm talking about like, you know, north Philly, um, community where like a third of the congregants are returning citizens from prison.
I'm talking about, uh, uh, you know, up in North Philly, uh, Northeast Philly, uh, community development stuff that's really beautiful happening up that way. I'm thinking about, you know, uh, West Philly and Germantown, Philly, you know, the inclusive spaces. And West Philly was also engaged in, uh, community organizing with Power Interfaith.
South Philly, you know, the largest Anabaptist congregation in the city. Indonesian community, right? Or largely Indonesian. And I was like, wait a minute, this is Anabaptism too, right? Uh, and it wasn't that I wasn't familiar, 'cause in Harrisburg we do have some multiracial Anabaptist congregations, but this was opening the door in a different kind of way, and it gave me permission, um, especially once I found out there were like churches in Philly that were like third, fourth generation, black Mennonite congregations.
I was like, oh, I have permission to do all kinds of stuff with this thing and to reinterpret it for myself. So Anablacktivism was me then trying to. Russell and Mary together, the black church, black theology, womanist theology, the black prophetic tradition of the black church with Anabaptism, peacemaking, and what I call often a sliver of that, which is the radical discipleship wing of Anabaptism itself as well.
How to put these two things in conversation, creatively, with dissonance, with tension. All of that in ways that I think are creative, but actually invite us to be both responsive. Like the anti-Christendom orientation of Anabaptism, I think is really important for especially conversations around Christian nationalism today.
I think the black churches anti-racist pushback against, you know, the impacts of the, the influences of the doctrine of discovery are really, really important today. And the conversations that the two bring together around liberation and peacemaking are really significant for us, thinking about how to pursue a faithful social witness, a credible, faithful social witness in our present time today.
So yeah, Anablacktivism is a creative joining of those things. There's the hybridity, um, and attention and creativity of those Christian streams that have actually gone back many decades, right? I mean, in fact, centuries, honestly.
There's folks going back under slavery who are living at that intersection. But, um, somebody that's been influential to both me and Jarrod, um, is Vincent Harding, who during the Civil Rights Movement writes, here's this black man who's joins the Mennonite Church and is trying to bring together, as he's participating in the Civil Rights movement, he's also, um, got a foot in the Mennonite world and trying to tease out the benefits of each and embody them in his own way, uh, through his own social practice.
So, yeah.
Jared: I wanna maybe try to articulate something I've been thinking more about in, in these spaces, and that is the language sometimes and, and I, I've been hearing it amongst folks that I encounter where I, I don't know how to say it any other way than maybe being a little more blunt than I want to be, but it feels like they're sort of like, turned off by some of the language because it feels so “anti” things.
It is like, yeah, it's anti-racist, which it's, it's good that we're against these things, but it feels very much like we're against things. We're anti-racist, anti doctrine of discovery. Resistance is resisting something. Yeah. So what's, what's the vision though, on the, on the flip side of that coin where we're not anti stuff all the time, but we're for stuff.
How would you articulate it in, in, in maybe the flip side of that coin?
Drew: Yeah, so what I kind of, and this is some of what I get into as I move through the book, is a vision of two things. One is, and they're really interrelated, but it's, um, a vision of Shalom really is I think the most meaningful way in which, uh, we can cast a vision for the presence of justice, the presence of peace and joy and security and flourishing, right?
And then begin to creatively imagine what would that look like in my own neighborhood, right? And so I think for me, um, it's talking about Shalom and it's talking about beloved community, right? Language again, that emerged out of the Civil Rights.
It's become really important for the black church. Um, giving, receiving, and sharing love. Inclusion, welcome, embrace, right? Um, where everyone has dignity, where everyone belongs, where everyone can thrive, right? Like, what does it mean to actually embody and practice that, um, in the local setting. And then have a vision for that vision, vision for common good for the, so that those that have their backs against the wall also have a place so that they can thrive and flourish as well?
So, yeah, I think that we have to, we do need to, uh reckon with the stories that shape us, that bring us to where we are, right? And so that's why, like, I don't think we can not wrestle with Christendom and the doctrine of discovery and colonial conquest and white supremacy, but then we do have to have a constructive vision that we're kind of working towards and inviting people to imagine for themselves what flourishing and thriving might look like in our neighborhoods together.
Jared: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jarrod, what about, what about you? Is that similar for you, or does it take a different flavor in terms of how it looks on the positive side?
Jarrod: Yeah.You know, um, and maybe part of it is the different cultural settings, right? Right. Like, um, uh, your, um, reality just south of Canada and north of Mexico, uh, is, is we admire how incredibly serious and sincere you take yourselves all the time.
Um, us Aussies, because we're colonizers, uh, colonized or convicts, we have a different kind of like, um, we make fun of ourselves. We're far more self-deprecating, and so we need things to actually, um, be kind of larrikin, like a, a kind of playful subversiveness. Say, uh, and so, uh, uh, from my cultural context, it's clear that the New Testament is doing that kind of like, um, trolling all the time.
We call Jesus Lord in the setting where Caesar is called Lord, we talk about, um, euaggélion uh, the good news, uh, uh, term that the Roman Empire uses for a message about an executed Messiah, like at the center of is, is a kind of anti, but it's not anti as in directly against it's anti as in we're slightly offside.
Like it's, it's not so much we're tackling it head-on as we are tripping it and laughing about our complicit in it, as we do something else with it. So I would encourage people that part of- I mean, 'cause, uh, often conservatives want to say that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world, and they're not wrong.
But the details they often leave out historically is that Christendom is the biggest persecutor of Christians in world history. And so these two realities are also true. You, you've got the reality of alternative Christianities from below in the context of Christendom and what is it to, to not, um, even in terms of our own transformation, uh, uh, Protestants, we're so good at “this time, we're gonna create the church” or “finally this time we've got it right” instead of what it is to, to own our own traditions and what is problematic in our own traditions. I was interviewed by the BBC in, um, Belfast, uh, maybe five years ago now.
And, uh, because my family on my dad's side, my dad migrated in the seventies, um, uh, Irish Catholic, and they said, would you identify as Protestant or Catholic? And what I said to them is that in my early twenties, I would've said neither. I, I don't want anything to do with either. I just want to follow Jesus.
And what I said to them is like, approaching my forties, I would now say both, and not just the good stuff, but the stuff we need to own the, the stuff that is horrific, because I'm complicit in all of that. And I, I want to see that transformed. And so my encouragement in approaching some of these things that some of the anti that we need is like an owning that this is a part of us. And this is what Drew's work so well does in, um, in terms of challenging white, uh, supremacy.
And if you're in a community setting where you want somebody to teach it, Drew is like a master at facilitating that. But my encouragement to people is, um, the, the anti needs to come with a smirk. It needs to come with a smile. It needs to come with humility, and it needs to come with a sense of like, this is my work. I'm a part of this problem. And then we can enter into what my mate, James Allison calls the joy of repentance.
It, it's like a, a joyful leaving behind that which is not true, which is brittle, which is false, and relaxing into something that is deeper, more expansive, more beautiful, and truly transformative.
Jared: Yeah. Well, I, well, the only thing I was gonna say, I think is really important as a, as a, maybe a, a footnote to that is I think sometimes it can feel like it is a way to draw a line between us versus them. And what you're saying, I'm hearing Jarrod, which I think is a huge relief. It actually, I can like, feel my shoulders actually drop when you say that is, oh, that's a way to transgress the us versus them, if I realize that I'm also still a part of it.
Even though verbally, mentally I'm against it. Bodily, historically, physically, I'm still complicit in it. It erases that line of us versus them. It's like, well, I'm, this isn't about me being self-righteous and being able to point at you and say, that's wrong, and therefore I'm good.
And so just the way you're talking about, I think really helps break down some of those barriers that I think can exacerbate the problem rather than actually create solutions.
Drew: You know, one of the things it makes, when Jarrod was talking, one of the things that I do that maybe reflects that, kinda, like, teasing and playfulness.
So like, I know Anaba too well, no, black man probably should know white Anabaptist as much as I do. Um, and so like, I know like how to like, tease them a little bit around their own story and how they tell their own story. Right? So one of the things that I, I've loved to do, and I do in the book as well, is like, I joke about how Anabaptists tell church history, right?
Like, oh, early church, right? And there they're persecuted and you know, and then Constantine comes, right? And so you have the. the Constantinian church and you have, you know, the persecuted church. And so it's all about power dynamics. And then they skip over medieval history 'cause they don't know it at all.
And they jump to reformation and, and it's about the Magisterial Reformation and it's the Radical Reformation and the Anabaptists, right, they're at the bottom and they're being persecuted. And so it's all about the power dynamics and they're exposing it. And so you have all these ways of pointing the finger at all the Christendom churches, right?
And then all of a sudden, once they get to North America, it's like shoefly pie and last names and church splits and things. And I'm like, wait, where'd all the, where'd all the power analysis go? Right? And it's like, I'm like, well, maybe some of it's 'cause white Anabaptists are assimilating into rights, white culture and practice and things like that.
And so they're not even naming the ways that they're also perpetuating some of these realities as well. And we're silent in the midst of indigenous, uh, uh, displacement and slavery and things like that. I can say that both as an insider outsider, right. Playful, tease them a little bit, but also invite them.
It's at that moment that I say, maybe you haven't been a Peace Church yet, but you can become a Shalom church. That's an, an invitation into something even greater. Right. But it's a reckoning with their history and inviting them to something more than what they've been so far in North America.
Jarrod: My, my shorthand for that is sometimes that until we accept that Johnson and Chan and Rodriguez, uh, as Anabaptist names as Gingrich and Yoder, we haven't yet taken seriously what the, the origin of the Radical Reformation is actually about.
Pete: Mm-hmm. And, you know, the, the, um, I, I, I really am encouraged by it, and I, I like hearing the, the breaking down of the, the, the polarities of us versus them, which is so natural, I think, to all of us.
And, um, that's, you know, I think we, it doesn't take a brainiac to connect that to violence. When you see others as the other, you can be violent towards them. I guess the, the thing that I keep struggling with, and I, I don't know what to do about this, but the fact is that people like polarization, people like violence.
You know, it doesn't have to be physical violence, but there are many forms of violence, right? And, and I just, I don't know, can you guys fix that in the next few minutes? I just, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't, I mean, I have all sorts of theories about people and it, it goes beyond sinfulness. That's, I mean, I, that's, that's utterly useless category for me for trying to understand these human dynamics.
But is it fear? Is it, you know, uh, is it evolutionary? Is it something just we, we like violence, we like tribalism?
Jarrod: Uh, I think we can talk about it in the abstract. Um, I don't know what spirituality means unless it means action. So to take it really practically, something that I do and um. Uh, I, I would do this with high school students asked to, uh, come in and teach on the history of social transformation before we move to let's plan a nonviolent action.
So it might be about, in Australia, we wear school uniforms in all our schools, and it might, you might have found out that your school uniform was made in a sweatshop in Indonesia. And, um, the students, I first asked them to any means necessary. And in fact, let's make violence, our modus operandi, let's plan a violent action.
And we break them up into small groups. And you see, you see the teachers kind of stress in the corner of the rooms, like what's going on. But students are like, we're gonna, um, kidnap the tuck shop lady, uh, the lunch lady. Uh, we're gonna lock her in the uniform shop. Um, uh, we're gonna set fire to all school exams.
We're gonna, um, burn the computers, so all the grades- and kids just come up with all this kind of creative stuff. And the thing that I love, Pete, is that the kids, they start to laugh. They get creative, their eyes go wide. Like there, there's this sense of, um. This is the kind of non-violence I'm into, and I'm being serious.
This is the kind of non-violence I'm into. We've got to engage our shadows, we've got to actually work with that stuff. And there's certain creativity. And then we go through what are the consequences? What would actually lead to, um, does this bring about transformation? And watching these kids actually set out, as they talk about all these different things and they share their ideas. What are the consequences that, uh, there are of these actions?
It's like, well, somebody might be hurt. The lunch lady, uh, might get killed. Um, uh, we might go to jail. Um, uh, our uniforms won't change and then we dare them. What if you were to take that creativity and that sense of excitement? That sense of where the, the passion actually bubbled up from, and then use something that actually heals instead of harms?
When we engage that, we find that nonviolence isn't a legalistic must-do that is placed on top of, um, already moralizing society, which often silences activists and kills creativity. It actually is a way of engaging all that stuff in ourselves that we wish that no one else would see, but in reality is there, that we're not separate from anybody else.
We're all caught up in these systems and when we engage like that, I think we take seriously how Jesus teaches what he taught and who's in his company. It's, it's no coincidence that there are both tax collectors and zealots in Jesus's disciples. And until we start to like, be credible to those who, um, uh, are coming from those parts of our society in this new project, our nonviolence won't be- and some people are like, I don't like the term non-violence. I get it. And what we're clearly talking about is not non-dash-violence, it's this word, um, one word nonviolence. And it's a, and maybe it's a well to use terms that might be a bit wanky for some, but are important for me.
Maybe it's, it's an apophatic spirituality, a way of naming that it's not simply violence, it's actually this other force more powerful. And as we step into that mystery and start to experiment with this power, we find that the spirit is moving. And suddenly, um, this stuff that I wanted to reject in my own story, in my own past, forget who I was five minutes ago, that becomes the compost for something beautiful to grow.
And we find ourselves laughing at ourselves and inviting others in because it's not an ego trip of this time, we finally got it right. But it's this joyful confession of something more beautiful that's transformed. It's, it looks much more like, um, alcoholics anonymous than it does self-help purification process.
Jared: That's good. That reminds me of, well, I'm gonna kind of reframe it in terms of what I'm hearing. The language that I, I connect with, it's disrupting, but it's disrupting hate and harm and systems of oppression. And so it is, it's tapping into that impulse of, of disruption, but it's doing it with creativity.
So there's a creative resistance element to it. And my, my favorite story, I'm sure you guys know 'cause it's probably kind of cliche at this point, but, the first time it finally clicked to me, I think it had to be kind of extreme in this way, was the story of the, um, this group of people who decided to be to clown the KKK rally.
Right? And they like pretended that they didn't hear these chants of white power. They kept mishearing it. And so they would hear white flour. And so it'd be all these clowns at this KKK rally, and they'd be throwing flour, like white flour out everywhere and or, and they said, oh, it's not, it's not white flour.
Oh, it's white showers. And it was like these clowns coming out and these, like these self-made shower curtains and that kind of creative disruption that it just sort of confuses the organizing of hate and harm in this creative and disruptive way. 'Cause to your point, I think it's like how do we tap into this impulse of, I don't know, the, the 12-year-old boy impulse to, like, be disruptive and do that, do those actions for good and for uh, justice and for love.
But I think it always, to your point, and maybe it is cultural, Jarrod, like we take it so seriously and in some ways it's like we are, we're kind of shamed if we make light of it. It is like, I just know some of the circles I run and if I make light of anything that is, uh, to, to this group of people or to a certain community, super deadly serious, then there is like a, a shaming effect rather than what I think could be a more opening, no, there's less ego, I think involved in what you're describing.
Jarrod: And yet, Jared, if, if you, if you spent any time in America, and I lived there for a period and have visited there for 20 plus years, um. Uh, there are pockets of American society, like the Black Church, where a sense of humor is actually about, um, a, a place of belonging and acceptance and welcoming.
This is true of First Nations people, right, across North America as well. There is this, um, trickster playfulness, which not only features in mythology, it's, it's right across their societies. Um, uh, but like you spend any time in, um, you know, places like Minnesota, but also in the sense like, humor is important to Americans and sometimes it's the encouragement to take those parts of our culture, which we don't associate with the mainstream and realize that these are gifts if they're reinhabited humbly, um, and with permission and sensitivity to be welcomed in on these realities.
That can transform how we see ourselves. So if America does do that in this current moment, there's a chance that America as a democracy can be a future reality.
But I'm honestly incredibly concerned for your, if you don't,
Pete: Well that's a great note to end on.
Jared: Honest. Well, I, I was gonna go the other way and say, you know, maybe we can end with, with Drew, like speaking about to that point, you know, what is your, what's your hope as we look to the future here in in America, in in, in our particular context for being able to organize at that level and have that organizing, like you said, there's neighborhoods and I think a lot of people feel probably more and more on the left and the right that it's like, well, this, the process is broken.
It doesn't really matter what I do. And it feels pretty hopeless. And I think that's becoming more and more prevalent because we don't have communities. There is a breakdown where everyone's sort of isolated, it feels like, or alienated from these communities that if we could collectively get together, could feel some power back in, in, in agency.
But what's the, what's the hope? Like where do you, where do you start from? Because it feels like a very complex system where there is a lot of incentive not to fix what's broken.
Drew: Yeah. And honestly, like often when people ask me, I'm like there, in terms of our context, there's not a lot of hope. And, and if we're very honest, like, the future can go in a lot of different ways. And, and there's been times in which our nation has deepened and in, and entrenched in really horrific ways. Um, that has been, yeah, horrific. So I don't, in terms of, like, how things are gonna play out, um, my, I often say black and native Americans in America know better than anyone else, the wisdom of the Hebrew scriptures, right?
Uh, that's the, the wicked prosper, right? Like that, and I don't say that in like some, like that fatalistic sense, but I do think that is a dynamic that we have to grapple with. And we've gotta kind of move through that, if we're going to kind of find our way through something else. And I, for me, like what is, if I'll use the word hope, hopeful is how I see my neighbors showing up when we're organizing, right?
Like what is hopeful is when I see in Allison Hill, that's the movement for immigrant leaders in Pennsylvania, like organizing around, you know, issues related to those vulnerable immigrants in our own community. Our it's, it's the on the ground embodied practices that I think from below from the underside are the most meaningful things that can happen right now.
Both as a spaces of relief from, uh, refusal to just participate or go along with the direction that the empire is moving in, but also that these are vehicles that actually can produce change if people get excited and see the credible way in which that they can impact our society. So, yeah. I think for me it's that grassroots from below activity of actual people showing up, collaborating, valuing each other, and for honestly, the coalitions that, that are formed in the midst of it.
Because I know like after this past election, there were a lot of black folks who were like, we're done, we're done with everybody else. Right. Um, and I feel like I, I want it deep down inside. I get it. Like I feel that I know what, what they're, but also like that's the end of us if we just, if we can’t connect across our differences, share stories grow and kind of expand and become more fully human in the process of getting to know each other's struggles, if we're not actually leaning into that and then showing up for each other, this empire will crush all of us.
I think for me, um, inviting people to, to cross those boundaries, to see each other, to hold each other's stories as sacred. I know for me, like one of the things that I am very committed to, I've been doing it in every single one of my books, and hopefully maybe it'll just continue to increase, but like talking about not just black folks’ experience under white supremacy, but Native American experience under, which is not always, like, our communities have not always linked arms in that kind of way.
And I think for us to understand our society and what we're going through, black and Native Americans need to hear each other's stories and be changed by each other. And then other people need to join in and have the kind of the veil pulled back in terms of how we see and understand the world. So I think that for me is what is most hopeful.
It's the embodied practice, and the not allowing empire to have the last word on who we are and how we live in the communities that we, what we practice on the grounds, um, under the nose of Caesar, so to speak.
Jared: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really powerful and it, it makes me think of, uh, just the other day there was, I mentioned something online and uh, you know, someone basically said, I don't, we don't, we don't need that kind of talk.
It was about forgiving our enemies and it was sort of like, no, we, we need to, like, stand up, And offline, I was not offline, but kind of in the messages, I was able to say like, listen, this is a core value for me as a Choctaw, and I was able to kind of recount like, how many treaties we like set up and how many times they were violated.
But over and over our chief was like, we have letters and letters of chiefs saying we hit, we harbor no ill will. This is not about ill will. And so I just, it's a very powerful thing to say in the midst of all this, how do we not lose our core values and how do we keep extending forgiveness and at the end of the day, like not lose ourselves, that when we look into the abyss, the abyss doesn't stare back at us.
And that's, I think, a really just powerful way to end that even when it feels hopeless, we can stand in resistance in a way that we as a people can feel, uh, proud of. And that we have, we have done our best to look good on wood, to your point, Jarrod, and that sometimes as a people that that has to be enough and can be enough.
So, yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for jumping on and, and exploring something I think that I know Pete, we, we, I think respect and admire the way you can articulate these things. And it's an area that both of us, I think are just, uh, un undereducated in, in terms of how to navigate and how to talk about.
Um, I think we kind of engage in it, in, in our own ways, but just aren't able to, like, put our arms around how to talk about it.
Pete: So this is gonna help a lot of people.
Thank you both for being here.
Jarrod: As a way of encouragement, can I just encourage everyone how much fun this is?
It is, it's not easy and, and it's not without grief and lament, but this work is, is fun. It's what it is to be really human. And I, I loved what you said Jared, about, I don't think it's new to us. My conviction, it's not new to any, every single person has had an experience where they've been able to respond with dignity instead of passivity or merely mirroring back, um, what they're up against.
And if we can actually become conscious of that on a daily basis, and then learn the traditions who have been doing that. One of my greatest joys in life is being invited into the black church tradition in the U.S., um, to, to stand behind that sacred desk at Trinity United Church of Christ on the south side of Chicago at the invitation of Otis Moss III.
Traditions are in your backyard, North Americans, my encouragement is go and find the places. Learn from the pastors who are parts of Christianity that are actually on the underside of Christendom and humbly learn because the rest of the world we're looking to you, we're learning from you. We love these traditions.
Let them be yours as well. Let this be what Christianity could be for America.
Jared: And now for Quiet Time.
Pete: With Pete and Jared.
Jared: Alright, so let's talk about this episode with, yes, with Drew and Jarrod. There were two of 'em. So we have to have the Quiet Time so we can talk more. We took up so much of the air time.
It's so annoying.
Pete: It's so annoying. Geez. Um, we can’t pontificate. We usually do. That's ridiculous.
Jared: No. One of the things I, I want just start off with, which I'm so grateful for and I don't want to sound ranty at all. I think one of my pet peeves of of late is how progressive Christians who were talking about really good stuff like social justice.
It's always in such a self-serious, dare I say, self-important. I mean, I get, I know it's important saying it. I feel like I'm in, get trouble. Trouble can everyone. But it can be. But just the like, it was so refreshing. I realize I'd never heard someone in this context talk about the work being fun. And it just was very refreshing to me.
It'd be like, yes, this, can we engage the creativity and great, engage the imagination? It just reminded me of when I was a kid and people would talk about heaven and everyone talked about like, it was so great, but they would describe it as like a place where we just sing hymns all day. And I'm like, oh, I'm sus I'm supposed to think this is great? Sounds terrible!
But I've just gotta gotta- and that's where it's like, I don't know, I'm maybe more cynical, but I'm like, if we want people to engage in this work, we have to make it.
Pete: Well, part of it, Jared, is I think, you know, there's a lot of like, but souls are at stake eternally and things like that.
And, and I understand that, but um, to have something be not is whimsical the right word? But sort of like playful. Playful in a, in a, in a, in a good adult kind of way. And not, you know, worry too much about winning arguments all the time.
Jared: Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think, I think humor and fun can be powerful.
Pete: Yes. They move people
Jared: And I think that's what maybe sometimes is, is missing.
Pete: That's why comedians are like the best prophets.
Jared: Exactly. So I just think that was a nice element, that joy and that fun. But, you know, this is Faith for Normal People, but we can't help but let it bleed a little bit into the Bible.
The Bible, I guess. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe say you were just talking a little bit before we hit record here on, you talk, you, you immediately 'cause you’re Pete Enns and your brain goes to Bible. Kind of tying it into that.
Pete: Yeah, I mean, and not to like rehash everything, you know that I always talk about the same old thing.
It, this is just a reminder of how important it is to, to, to both engage the scriptural tradition, but also realize when we need to go beyond it in certain ways. And, and I say that because there is, you, you can, you can make a great, let's say, quote, biblical worldview argument for violence, right?
'Cause it's all over the place. And, you know, my opinion is that, uh, the, the Israelites imagined the creator in ways that made sense to them culturally. And, and, and, you know, the oldest biblical texts are of Yahweh as warrior. Look at Exodus 15, for example. It's one of the older, um, Hebrew texts that we have.
And so I, I, I just wanna say, and that's the New Testament, doesn't really get off the hook too much. Um, there's some violence there. Revelation's pretty violent.
Jared: There's, but there's at least, and I think it's important. In the New Testament though, there's, there is more. We see it in the later Hebrew Bible And into the New Testament, there is more counter testimony.
Pete: Yes. Yes. And that's why the Bible is a mixed bag. Right. And part of the issue might be to realize the Bible's a mixed bag and you can't pick and choose. You sort of can. You might have to, and, and I can understand why people would react with violent rhetoric at times.
You know, I imagine ISIS, if they came to my town and started taking away the women and children and killing the men, I'm, I'm not so sure I wouldn't have violent rhetoric about that. Right. So it, this is not from a place of, of superiority. It's just a matter of understanding the biblical witness.
Um. It is, is not always the anchor that it should be. I think the gospel witness can be. But that's a different thing, gospel than the Bible. So people talk about a biblical worldview. You can always talk about a gospel worldview, which is itself complicated in debate, but it's just, it's just the, the, the Bible is sometimes, the more conservative we are, the Bible can really wind up being a legitimate theological problem for working through real life issues like violence.
Jared: Well, and not to get on my soapbox, I've been on lately, but I think part of the problem is, we're doing away with tradition. I, I think I can get frustrated when it's like, well, there are people we can stand on the shoulders of who have worked through this. This is the theological, not, it's not like we have 2000 years of people being like, well, I guess it's in the Bible. I guess violence is okay.
Pete: 2000 years of literalists or something.
Jared: Yeah. That we have from the early church.
People saying, well, we're gonna have to reinterpret this 'cause that's violent. And we know Christians aren't violent.
Pete: Yeah. Origen no way God's like this.
Jared: Exactly. We don't have to kind of start from scratch. It just, sometimes it feels like we gotta, it's like we are the ones who are enlightened and have come up with this, and now we have to come up with a, a methodology or framework for engaging the, it's like, no, we just did away with all that tradition and have forgotten it and maybe we could reengage it to learn.
Pete: Yeah. We're trapped in our own sort of anti traditionalist tradition. Yeah. Which goes back for some people to the Reformation. Not everybody, but for some so.
Jared: Because I just think you're, you're right. If you just go to bat for the Bible, but that's the whole point of tradition. Right, right, right.
It's being a Christian. And I think this is maybe even stating it more explicitly, being a Christian doesn't confine me to just what the Bible says. Right. That's, there is a theological tradition that we are engaging in often. We just don't know it. We are just picking it more willy-nilly.
Pete: And, and not to, uh, beat another horse to death again, but, you know, what is the Bible and what do we do with it?
And part of what we do with it is not ignore tradition. And, and how, and how things have been handled. You can disagree with tradition, but to be knowledgeable of things too. And just to ask ourselves, who else has maybe thought about this before, and might have words of wisdom and might be somebody who lived, you know, almost two millennia ago.
It might be someone who lived a hundred years ago. But there's a lot out there. People have, there is no, there's no question we face, especially in terms of something like violence that very smart people have not thought about. And, and to be simply to, to, to, um, just go to default, well, the Bible alone is what we, we should be looking at.
You soon find out that you need this tradition to sort of help you understand this stuff because a lot of the Bible's not particularly clear or it's morally difficult and all that.
Jared: Or ambiguous. Like it's a mixed bag.
Pete: It’s a mixed bag. Exactly. Right.
Jared: Well this is relevant to this episode too with Drew and Jarrod because Drew especially is drawing on the tradition reading the Bible through the lens of the civil rights movement.
That is a, a traditional lens. That, and in that, through that lens, the Bible is endorsing a nonviolent way of being in the world. Now is, are they doing a disservice or doing violence to the Bible by reading it that way? No. That is a legitimate tradition. Right? And they're reading the Bible through that lens and that's a valid way to do it, and I just think it helps with people.
Wrestling with how do we engage the Bible? It's like, well, you can be a lone ranger and try to figure this out and cobble together some ways to do it. Right. But, uh, maybe a helpful step is to see how other traditions are doing it.
Pete: And just one last point. Yeah. I mean, we don't have to develop this at all, but it's an observation.
I'm sure many of you can relate, but I, I guess it was, uh, Jarrod, when he talks about engaging our shadows and remembering that the us versus them is very complicated because you might have a part of them side of you that you're reacting against.
And I think to be aware so we respond, and not just react, you know, to, to me that's, that's, that's really just about becoming a more mature, balanced human being. To think, to think that way. And, and if, you know, if, if that can sow seeds of non-polarization or something like that, that would be, I just think the world could be a happier place.
Jared: Yeah. I think for me it's, maybe to come full circle with the joy and the fun of it. I appreciated that, that humility comes with a sense of self-deprecation. There is always the shadow. I'm, I am probably always part of the problem and so to not have that self-righteousness, but that, that whimsy about it.
That allows us to not be ashamed. But to be open to welcoming that shadow in and making it part of the whole process. Yep. Alright. Well we solved it. Solved it. Again, solved.
Pete: That was a great episode. And it makes you think, and that's why we have this processing period ourselves afterwards, so.
Jared: Yep. Alright, see folks. Bye-bye.
Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you wanna support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just wanna give a little money, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give.
Pete: And if you wanna support us and want an all access pass to our classes, a free podcast and a thoughtful community of people asking tough questions about the Bible and faith, you can become a member of our online community, the Society of Normal People at thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join.
Jared: And lastly, it goes a long way. If you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others about our show. In addition, you can let us know what you thought about the episode by emailing us at info@thebiblefornormalpeople.com.
Stephen: You've just made it through another episode of Faith for Normal People.
Don't forget you can catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for normal people, team.
[Blooper clip plays]
Pete: Jarrod you were fine. I'm just saying you're on earlier than Drew. 'cause we wanna get used to your accent before we interview you. Maybe it shouldn't be five feet away from you then Jarrod. I'm thinking that will help not, not to be, not to be judgmental or possibility.
Jared: When Pete is talking down to you about technology, you know you're on, you're bad, you're on the bottom rung.
Alright, are we good to go? Joel?
You didn't sound very confident. Okay. It was like a yes. I, I guess I'm ready. I don't know. Okay, whatever. Let's go.
