#40: Where the Gospel Meets Racial Reconciliation Pt. 2

#40: Where the Gospel Meets Racial Reconciliation Part 2

Note: The Love Thy Neighborhood podcast is made for the ear, and not the eye. We would encourage you to listen to the audio for the full emotional emphasis of this episode. The following transcription may contain errors. Please refer to the audio before quoting any content from this episode. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Well, here we are. The end of another podcast season.

RACHEL SZABO: We made it.

JESSE EUBANKS: We did it. Sort of — well we’ll see. Let’s see if we can make it across this finish line.

RACHEL SZABO: We are making it now. (laughter)

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. Right, right.

RACHEL SZABO: Y’know, we have told a lot of stories in this podcast.

JESSE EUBANKS: We have. We have told a lot of stories. For this episode, I actually think that we should not tell a new story.

RACHEL SZABO: What do you mean?

JESSE EUBANKS: I think we should actually revisit an old story and see what’s happening with those people now.

RACHEL SZABO: Ohhh, yeah, like, one of those, like, TV specials of, like, ‘Child stars — where are they now?’ 

JESSE EUBANKS (laughs): Sort of. Something like that.

RACHEL SZABO: Okay, yeah. Uh, did you have a particular story in mind that you wanna do?

JESSE EUBANKS: I do. I actually think that we should go all the way back to our first episode across the train tracks to a neighborhood called Shelby Park and a church called Sojourn Church Midtown.

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JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Every episode we hear stories of social action and Christian community.

JESSE EUBANKS: Today’s episode is where the gospel meets racial reconciliation part two. So we’re actually heading back to the story that started this podcast to see how Sojourn Church Midtown has grown in reconciliation and diversity.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Now, if you haven’t heard that first story yet, that first episode, I would say go back and listen to that first because we’re gonna do a short recap of that story in this episode but it’s better if you hear the whole thing in detail first.

JESSE EUBANKS: Much like before, we’re gonna hear from longtime members, new members, members that are white, members that are minorities, to see what Sojourn Church Midtown has been doing to grow in diversity and how people have responded to it. Welcome to our corner of the urban universe.

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MIKE COSPER SERMON CLIP: And here’s the thing. Racism isn’t just politically incorrect — it’s sin. Racism deceives us and we think we’ve conquered it, but it persists in our hearts and it persists in our culture.

JESSE EUBANKS: So this is a clip from Mike Cosper. At the time, he was a pastor at Sojourn Church Midtown. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and that was a church that started just as a small Bible study to be a place for people who were burnt out on church, didn’t feel welcome in church. And it started out pretty homogenous. Y’know, Jesse, you were actually a part of the church in those early days. Can you kind of describe what it was like?

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, y’know, when I started at Sojourn, I was just 20 years old, and in the early days, most of us were 20 years old — black T-shirts, Converse, rock-and-roll music.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and also everyone was ethnically white.

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh yeah, overwhelmingly. We started out in an eclectic, mostly white neighborhood, and then we moved into a blue collar, mostly white neighborhood. 

RACHEL SZABO: Right. But then when the church moved across the train tracks to more of a 50/50 black and white neighborhood, they really had to start thinking about diversity because they wanted to reflect the neighborhood they were in.

JESSE EUBANKS: Right, and, y’know, these conversations about diversity between white folks and African Americans — they have to talk about things in our country’s history — things about slavery and Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement — which is why Mike Cosper brought it up in his sermon. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and that sermon was really the beginning of a larger journey for the church to become more ethnically diverse.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, which is a vision that the Lord has always had for his people. One of the places in Scripture where we see God establishing his people as a nation is in the Exodus story. 

RACHEL SZABO: Right. God miraculously frees his people from the Egyptians with plagues and wonders and ultimately with the death of all their firstborn children. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Exodus 12 tells us — ‘The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. A mixed multitude also went up with them.’

RACHEL SZABO: Other translations say, ‘an ethnically diverse crowd went up with them.’

JESSE EUBANKS: So from their start as a nation, God’s people included those of different ethnicities, and he would put specific laws in place to protect them. 

RACHEL SZABO: And, y’know, of course, that’s the way the story ends too. In Revelation, where we see all ethnicities, all people groups — they’re worshiping God together.

JESSE EUBANKS: And that’s the vision that Sojourn Church Midtown was striving for. That’s the story that we told in episode one of our podcast. So the question is — what has that looked like over the last four years since we first told their story? And to find out, I actually sat down with the final voice that we listened to in that episode — Pastor Jamaal Williams.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: My name is Jamaal Williams, and I am the lead pastor of Sojourn Midtown. The last time we talked, I was the co-pastor, and then I transitioned in the beginning of 2017 to be the lead pastor. And since then, the Lord has done a great work.

JESSE EUBANKS: So one thing that Jamaal was particularly excited about was the diversity now reflected in the staff because the last time that we actually talked with him there were only two ethnic minorities on staff.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: Right now on staff, we have about 20 people. And out of that 20, eight of them are not from majority culture. So you have, uh, we have African-American, we have Asian, we have Latino.

JESSE EUBANKS: And this growing diversity was not only happening on the staff — it was also happening in the congregation.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: We don’t have specific statistics or anything like that, but pre-COVID, we were starting to see a, a big bloom throughout our congregation, starting to have more visitors that were African-American, uh, Latino, Asian, and other ethnic persuasions.

JESSE EUBANKS: But Jamaal was very quick to point out that this growth and this change, this diversity — it’s actually been pretty difficult.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: The move into becoming more multicultural, it has — overall, it’s just been hard.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so here’s the thing — in the last four years Sojourn Midtown has gone through several significant changes, and I think that laying out a timeline of those events would be helpful. So, in 2014, Mike Cosper preached his sermon that we talked about in episode one about race and racism. 2016, Jamaal came on staff at Sojourn Midtown. In 2017, there was an unexpected change in leadership and Sojourn’s lead pastor transitioned out of the church, which suddenly made Jamaal go from being a co-pastor to being the lead pastor. Also in 2017, they hired a lead worship pastor who is Latino. In 2018, a worship pastor left, and it wasn’t on the best of terms. In 2019, they adjusted their service times. They went from having four services each Sunday to just three.

RACHEL SZABO: Wow, so basically, a lot of transitions happening in a very short period of time.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I mean, if you look at these last several years, I mean, just constant change, and a lot of these changes had to do with staff and leadership. And when you change staff and leadership so much, it begins to change the dynamic and the culture of the church.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, but like some of the things you mentioned, like, it didn’t sound like they were necessarily tied to trying to be more diverse.

JESSE EUBANKS: No, but between the efforts to try to be more diverse and then these other changes in leadership, all of a sudden the church is just changing left and right — the stage looks different, the preacher sounds different, the music sounds different. The reality is that shortly after we told Sojourn’s story in the first episode of the podcast — y’know, the celebration of Jamaal coming on staff and people catching this vision for diversity — Midtown actually became a pretty difficult place to be.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and, y’know, it became especially difficult actually for those who were long-time members.

LB O’NAN: Just so much had happened, and being there was really, really hard.

RACHEL SZABO: This is LB O’Nan, and she and her husband Alex have been part of Midtown from the beginning. 

LB O’NAN: It was the first official public service that you play drums —

ALEX O’NAN: At the first official public service.

LB O’NAN: At the first official public service. 

ALEX O’NAN: Yeah.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, we actually played that service together, Alex and I did. So Alex is actually also a part of Murphy DX. They do all of our theme music and commercial music for our podcast, so our listeners have actually heard a lot from him.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, that’s right. So, now, Alex and LB — they’re both white. But Alex had attended a Historically Black College, and LB had grown up in the heart of Mississippi — which, Mississippi has the highest percentage of African Americans of any state. So they both had at least, y’know, an awareness of diversity before it started to be talked about at Midtown. So then when it was initially brought up, they were actually pretty excited. 

LB O’NAN: Once we were led to start thinking more about diversity, my heart immediately resounded, ‘Yes, this is good.’

RACHEL SZABO: But not everyone saw it that way because people began to leave — abruptly at first, and then more slowly. And some of it was tied to the race conversation, but I do wanna be clear here that people weren’t leaving because they were racist or against diversity. People were leaving because the culture at Sojourn Midtown was changing. Y’know, if you’re striving to be a multi-ethnic church, then by nature that means things will have to change. And so of course, the church didn’t look the same as it did, y’know, even just five years ago and certainly not 15 or 20 years ago when many of these people had joined. 

LB O’NAN: It was not a comfortable place to be. It wasn’t, you know, and I understand people not sticking around because it’s hard.

RACHEL SZABO: Many of their friends ended up leaving, and not just, like, friends that they, y’know, saw on Sunday and said hi to — like, these were people that they had done life with. They had raised kids together, they had all grown together, they were like a family to each other. And now, a lot of them were gone. And every week, Alex and LB would recognize fewer and fewer faces. But, for them, they didn’t really see going as a choice that was on the table.

ALEX O’NAN: So we never considered leaving an option. I think rolling with the punches was just part of the way that we saw being a part of a community. There weren’t, like, levels or bars that the church had to meet in order to keep us around. 

LB O’NAN: Yeah. We never had a conversation where we were like, ‘Are we gonna stay or are we gonna go?’ Like, this was our home. We were committed. 

RACHEL SZABO: But here’s the thing. Y’know, regardless of the situation — whether it’s a death or someone moving away or your friends no longer being at church — loss is always hard. 

LB O’NAN: And I would walk in every Sunday and I would walk into the sanctuary and I would just cry through nearly the whole service. And, um, I’m not much of a crier, like I don’t cry, but it just felt like a sad place to me. It grieved me to walk in and notice there were less and less familiar faces. I think what was sad to me is that I grabbed hold of the vision of Sojourn and was like, ‘Yes, this is beautiful and good,’ and it made me sad that maybe other people weren’t seeing what I was seeing as beautiful and good.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, y’know, I’m a founding member. Sojourn’s been a part of my life for 21 years, and, y’know, everything that Alex and LB are saying is completely my experience. My wife and I would have to kind of muster up strength to go to church on Sundays, and we would literally say like, ‘Okay, it’s time to go to the funeral’ because every Sunday was like, ‘What face is gonna be gone? What long-time, deep friendship are we not going to see on a regular basis?’ And this place that’s supposed to feel like home, that’s, y’know, supposed to be like family — it’s our brothers and our sisters in Christ — suddenly it’s not feeling like that anymore. You know, and I get it. I mean I’ve talked to a lot of white folks at Midtown who have talked about how just it’s hard. It’s hard to let go of preferences — whether it’s music preferences or preaching style or personalities — and to learn to adjust, y’know, to a new way of doing things.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and well, that isn’t something that just, y’know, white folks feel. For black and brown folks, y’know, they’re also having to adjust during this time.

ANGELICA SANTIAGO: I always tell people that me moving to Louisville really heightened my awareness of my brownness.

RACHEL SZABO: So this is Angelica Santiago. She began attending Midtown in 2018. And her ethnicity is mixed, but she mostly identifies with Latino culture.

ANGELICA SANTIAGO: You know, in some ways I like to call myself a multicultural Chica because I’m actually — uh, my mom is Irish, German, and Italian, my dad is full Puerto Rican, but I present very Latina forward. (laughs) So yeah, there’s a lot kind of going on here. 

RACHEL SZABO: And for Angelica, coming to Midtown in some ways actually didn’t feel like a move forward, but a step backward in diversity.

ANGELICA SANTIAGO: I came from Northern New Jersey — which, if you know anything about Northern New Jersey, New York area, the diversity is an all-time high — so I’ve grown up around a lot of diversity. Um, so coming to Midtown, coming to Louisville, there definitely was a shift there in seeing, uh, not a lot of, yeah, not as much diversity that I might’ve grown up with. 

RACHEL SZABO: And so for her, church was also an environment that could sometimes feel uncomfortable and not like home.

ANGELICA SANTIAGO: I don’t think that there was this emphasis as much of establishing who I was by the color of my skin in some ways. It was never really a thing that I had to pronounce to people. But then in coming to Louisville, coming to Midtown, in some ways I started to see how my brownness affected who I was and how I was perceived.

RACHEL SZABO: Like it was sort of a new thing for Angelica to have part of her identity attached to the color of her skin or attached to just little things about her culture.

ANGELICA SANTIAGO: I mean, in some ways they’re kind of silly, right? In more of like the ways that I wear hoop earrings, and, like, all the time, but that’s kind of, I don’t know, a lot of people in my Puerto Rican side of the family, that’s how we grew up. We wore hoop earrings. Um, and, even the way, you know, like, the way that I speak is just different. I’ve had to be told to, to slow down a lot (laughs) or, you know, just, they, they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re not from here.’ And so just little things like that.

RACHEL SZABO: And the truth is, y’know, she also feels the pull to just leave. 

ANGELICA SANTIAGO: When I go home, it’s such a breath of fresh air where people know how I talk, people know how I act, they know the things that I say. Y’know, like, there’s a, there’s a common language there that doesn’t need to be explained. It’s just understood. And I think that in some ways here — you know, not to say that I’m always walking on eggshells — but I think that there is a part of exhaustion when it comes to, ‘Oh, did what I just say, do they understand the fullness of that?’ or ‘Did that, did that come off wrong?’ I feel like there’s just like a constant questioning in some ways, which definitely can get tiring at times for sure.

RACHEL SZABO: So actually in talking with Angelica, I kinda realized that, y’know, I have a tendency to think, ‘Oh, it’s time to talk about diversity? Like, all the minorities already know everything about that and they know what to do and it’s just me and the white people that are confused and having a hard time.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Right, right.

RACHEL SZABO: But actually realizing, like, no, like, everyone is adjusting, everyone is learning, everyone is trying to figure out how to do this thing.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah because across the board, y’know, we give up a lot of preferences when we’re pursuing diversity. And that’s just hard, like it’s hard to give up preferences, it’s hard to compromise. Basically we have to throw out our defaults. Y’know, we all have these certain defaults that we prefer and things that we do and suddenly we are bringing them all to the forefront and we’re like trying to work through them together so that we can stay in community with each other.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so that’s where Sojourn Midtown has been over the last several years, but let’s fast forward now to 2020. I mean, what does the move toward ethnic reconciliation look like today? Because the conversation about reconciliation — it was not just happening at Sojourn Church Midtown. It was happening everywhere in America in 2020. 

NEWS CLIPS (AHMAUD ARBERY, GEORGE FLOYD, BREONNA TAYLOR): The murder of Ahmaud Arbery… Protestors in the streets to demand justice for George Floyd, unarmed, handcuffed…

JESSE EUBANKS: We saw turmoil and unrest throughout our country because issues of race were once again in the national spotlight, and Jamaal and the other leaders felt that as a church they could not stay silent, especially being pastors in the city where the Breonna Taylor shooting took place. So in summer 2020, they decided to roll out a six-week sermon series called The Gospel, Race And Justice. 

ROBINSON FRANCOIS: Jamaal said, ‘We’re doing this. We’re, we’re gonna do this Gospel, Race and Justice series.’ And I kind of cringed for a second.

JESSE EUBANKS: We’ll be right back.

COMMERCIAL 

JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: And I’m Rachel Szabo. Today’s episode is where the gospel meets racial reconciliation part two.

JESSE EUBANKS: We’re continuing the story of Sojourn Church Midtown, a church that is actively pursuing diversity and a multicultural congregation. And in response to what was happening in summer 2020, regarding the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police, Sojourn Church leadership decided that it was something that they needed to address from the pulpit. 

RACHEL SZABO: Which, honestly, it’s something they’ve done before. I mean, that was kind of what our whole first episode centered around was they did a sermon on racism, and as we saw, like, it didn’t actually go super well. So I’m wondering, like, what makes them think that this is gonna be any different?

JESSE EUBANKS: Well, for one thing — timing. Y’know, Jamaal actually told me that this was a series that he had been wanting to do since he first came to Midtown.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: It was almost five years in the making, and it’s because we would try to prepare things and we would want to come at different angles and the more we prayed, timing just wasn’t right.

JESSE EUBANKS: But now, y’know, being in Louisville where the Breonna Taylor shooting took place, y’know, being a church trying to address issues of race and diversity, they decided this was the time.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: Louisville literally was, um, on fire because of the, uh, egregious killing of Breonna Taylor, and after just praying and seeking the Lord, I felt the Lord saying, ‘Hey, now’s the time to step all the way into it.’

RACHEL SZABO: Okay, sure, yeah. The timing seems good, but, y’know, not everyone on staff was super gung-ho about the idea.

ROBINSON FRANCOIS: So I, I remember one particular week I come into the office and Jamaal said, ‘We’re doing this. We’re, we’re gonna do this Gospel, Race and Justice series.’ And I kind of cringed for a second. I was like, ‘Whoa, okay.’

RACHEL SZABO: So this is Robinson Francois. He is African American, and actually he serves as Jamaal’s assistant. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah well, I probably would have cringed too if that idea were put in front of me.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, it seems like a logical response. Like, this is such a lightning rod topic, and with it being all over the news and all over social media at the time, Robinson wasn’t sure if this was the right move.

ROBINSON FRANCOIS: It really just came down to, ‘How are people gonna interpret this?’ Right? And I say that because as this thing was going on, right, it’s also being politicized. When people think ‘the gospel and race,’ right, they’re thinking critical race theory. ‘Oh, they’re just wanting to promote social justice. They’re wanting to do these things.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I relate to a lot of what he’s saying here. Y’know, if you bring up issues of race, people, y’know, especially conservatives, they get very concerned that you are going liberal and that you are going to corrupt the gospel. Y’know, he’s talking about things like critical race theory, and, y’know, you hear terms like Marxism thrown around — and like those are really big ideas, bigger than we’re gonna explore in this episode — but the general idea is that people are worried you’re bringing unorthodox ideas into the Christian faith that are going to corrupt the gospel and hurt people. So if you talk about race from the pulpit, you are talking about something that is ungodly.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, but as Robinson later learned, this series wasn’t gonna be about politics and all that kind of stuff. Everything was gonna be based straight out of the Bible. 

ROBINSON FRANCOIS: And as he began to kind of tell me the game plan and the other individuals who would be involved and kind of what they had outlined, that’s when I began to see the potential of what they were doing. And I was like, ‘Man, this is so needed. This is definitely what the church needs.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so I think it would be helpful to give a quick synopsis of what was going to be in this Gospel, Race and Justice sermon series. So, here we go. So there would be six sermons altogether. Three of Midtown’s pastors would rotate preaching them. Two of those pastors are black, one of those pastors is white. Okay, so, the first sermon would simply be about the gospel, race, and justice and how those three things are interconnected.

SERMON CLIP: We are going to address this issue holistically…

JESSE EUBANKS: The second sermon would actually take an in-depth dive into the power of the gospel itself.

SERMON CLIP: Reconciled to God, vertical, reconciled horizontally to one another…

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so the third sermon is where things might start to get a little more sticky because that sermon is the one where they would address the gospel and social structures.

SERMON CLIP: The Hellinists are speaking or murmuring or complaining against the Hebrews…

JESSE EUBANKS: Then, treading carefully, the fourth one would actually address the gospel and privilege.

SERMON CLIP: Benefits or social advantages that we receive without earning them. All of us have that at some level…

JESSE EUBANKS: And then finally, the last two would be about the gospel and generosity and then the gospel and hope.

SERMON CLIP: John sees this picture of millions of people worshiping Jesus, realizing that he alone is worthy…

RACHEL SZABO: Okay, but so there’s still kinda some controversial topics embedded there that I hear.

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh, yeah, that’s fair. There is some controversial topics there. But with the current events at the time and also with so much flying back and forth on social media, y’know, the leadership saw this as the best move for the church to unify them.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: We wanted it to be an introductory series that also got to some very deep heart issues all at once. 

RACHEL SZABO: Okay so, here’s the thing. Y’know, as I was reporting on this, I kept thinking in my mind, like, ‘This is just a repeat. They’re doing the same thing that they did all those years ago with that sermon on racism that we talked about in episode one. This is not gonna go well.’ So, y’know, I asked Robinson — ‘What kind of feedback did you all get as you were going through this series?’ 

ROBINSON FRANCOIS: So part of my role is kind of also filtering through Jamaal’s emails, and I remember even through that six week span really not receiving any emails of people being outraged or frustrated. We received a lot of positive feedback. Um, I was shocked.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I wanna be honest, I am also shocked.

RACHEL SZABO: As am I.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, but I guess really that’s a testament to Sojourn Midtown’s growth and maturity of being in a space to be able to handle these kind of conversations.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, sure. But, here’s the thing. Just because they didn’t get any angry or negative emails about it doesn’t mean that everyone in the congregation loved it.  

KAREY ALLEN: I thought that every sermon was basically gonna be just an indictment on white privilege and how white people are just bad. 

RACHEL SZABO: So this is a woman named Karey Allen. And like Alex and LB O’Nan, she’s been part of Sojourn for almost 18 years. Also, because of Covid, she is mostly now just a stay-at-home mom with her one-year-old son, who you can hear in the background. And, y’know, Karey wasn’t necessarily angry or thought that they shouldn’t be addressing race. But for her, it was more of a fatigue — y’know, ‘Why do we have to talk about this again?’

KAREY ALLEN: As the sermon series was announced, I was like, ‘Oh, I just can’t deal with it.’ And so I just kind of put it off and put it off.

RACHEL SZABO: But remember, you know, all of this is happening at the same time as the Breonna Taylor case, which of course was right here in Louisville, and so of course Karey had friends who were discussing it on social media. But as someone who is white, Karey didn’t know where she fit in all of that.

KAREY ALLEN: You’re seeing all these posts from people who you know who are like, ‘Don’t ask your friends questions, don’t do this, don’t do that. Um, you have no place in this conversation.’ You know, and it just felt like — I just felt helpless.

RACHEL SZABO: So what she’s referring to were social media posts that were going around at the time that said things like, y’know, ‘Don’t ask your black friends how they’re doing, don’t ask your black friends for advice as a white person, don’t ask your black friends how they’re feeling right now because they’re tired.’ But then she’s also seeing posts that are like, ‘You need to care about this issue, you need to be for racial reconciliation and justice.’ And so she’s like, ‘Okay, I’m supposed to care about it, but also I can’t ask too many questions, and I don’t know what to do then.’ And on top of that, Karey also didn’t know if she was onboard with all the language that they were gonna use in the sermon series.

KAREY ALLEN: Especially like white privilege, like, you know, when I first heard about it, I bristled. I’m like, ‘I’m not privileged. I’m not just because of my skin.’ I mean, you know, I grew up in a house where, you know, we were a middle-class family, but we didn’t always know where our next meal was coming from.

RACHEL SZABO: But, y’know, rather than giving into her fear or frustration, Karey decided to listen to each of the sermons in the series and listen to them thoughtfully. And she’s glad she did because one of the pastors said something that for her was a complete game-changer.

KAREY ALLEN: I think he said, ‘Don’t live in guilt.’ He’s like, ‘White people don’t live in guilt.’ And I was like, that was my burst out into tears because I mean, like, that’s kind of how I feel like our society lately has been — ‘you are guilty because of the color of your skin’ —  which, you know, is, um, something that our black brothers and sisters have had to deal with most of their, you know, their entire existence. 

RACHEL SZABO: And this also helped affirm for Karey that she does have a place in this conversation and that her presence is needed.

KAREY ALLEN: I cannot bury my head in the sand, even though it’d be really nice to bury my head in the sand sometime. I cannot bury my head in the sand anymore with this situation.

RACHEL SZABO: I think a lot of white people can relate to what Karey is saying. I think she is speaking for a lot of white people and how they are thinking and feeling about this conversation.

JESSE EUBANKS: And the things that they’re wrestling with.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah.

JESSE EUBANKS: I think that she just articulates the tension. She’s trying to figure it out, like, ‘I want to be a part of the solution, I don’t want to be a part of the problem.’

RACHEL SZABO: What I hear from a lot from white folks is — ‘What do I do? Y’know, I wanna help, I wanna be a part of the solution, but I don’t know what to do.’ And I think even just asking yourself that question of — ‘What can I do?’ — y’know, is doing something in a sense. And also, if we’re gonna have this conversation, we’ve got to be okay with tension because the fact is not everyone’s going to agree with us. Y’know, some people left Sojourn Midtown after they did this series. Y’know, I contacted one person who left and they did not want to be interviewed, but they did send me this email that I can read you. It says, quote, ‘While I am very disappointed in the direction Sojourn and the Southern Baptist Convention have gone both politically and socially over the past few years, I’m not sure I have anything to say that hasn’t better been articulated by other critics of cultural Marxism. We pray for the pastors and members of Sojourn often, and we will always be thankful for our time there.’

JESSE EUBANKS: So he just used the term ‘cultural Marxism.’ You’ll also hear terms like ‘critical race theory’ or ‘identity politics,’ and these terms get brought up a lot anytime that a conversation on race is brought up, especially if the conversation is from an institution, like a church. The general concern is that, y’know, the church is going liberal, the church is forsaking the gospel, the church is destroying the unity of the church, uh, by trying to split us all into groups.

RACHEL SZABO: Which is not a far-fetched concern, like that can and honestly has happened before.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. I sympathize with, y’know, this person’s concerns. Here in our own LTN program with young adults, like, we’re really not under a threat of Christian nationalism with young adults in our program, but some of these secular ideas that wealth is bad, whiteness is bad, everything is seen in sort of these big categories — some of our interns do come in and they’re tempted towards those things and we have to correct those things. Uh, and so I understand the concern. I think though there are times where we start accusing people of things because we’re scared it’s present in that system or at that church when in reality it’s not. We’re just scared it could be, or we’re scared it’s heading that direction. The thing that distresses me in this is that, man, if every time that I bring up the issue of race I’m accused of just going liberal, how are we ever supposed to talk about race? Aren’t we supposed to be able to talk about this thing without throwing these big sociological terms at each other? So the bottom line is, like, this is hard work. Y’know, seeking reconciliation, seeking diversity, building a multi-ethnic church, like, it’s all complicated and hard work, but we do it because we believe that God has called the church towards this vision, but the other amazing thing is that along that journey towards building it we never know who’s gonna be impacted. 

DOTTIE SMITH: I did not realize that women of color did not have the right to vote until 1965. I graduated high school in ‘65. Why wasn’t that blaring on our radar?

JESSE EUBANKS: Stay with us.

COMMERCIAL 

JESSE EUBANKS: Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: Rachel Szabo. Today — where the gospel meets racial reconciliation part two.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so we’ve seen that working toward reconciliation isn’t always pretty, that it can create tension or even loss of relationships. So why do it? And to answer that, I’d like to tell you the story of a woman named Dottie Smith.

(PHONE RING)

DOTTIE SMITH: Hello, how are you? 

JESSE EUBANKS: So this is Dottie. Dottie is actually almost 70 years old. She’s white. She has volunteered on and off with us here at LTN. We actually met her as a volunteer back when some of us worked at a local homeless shelter. And because Dottie has been around LTN and because we’re all friends on social media, Dottie noticed that a lot of us on staff kept talking about race and then these things were going on in the broader culture about race, and Dottie decided instead of just taking our opinions as gospel truth that she would find whatever books on the subject she could find and she would educate herself.

DOTTIE SMITH: I have been amazed at different things I did not know.

JESSE EUBANKS: In particular, things that she didn’t know that related to our country’s history.

DOTTIE SMITH: I did not realize that women of color did not have the right to vote until 1965. I graduated high school in ‘65. Why wasn’t that blaring on our radar? Why wasn’t that in our current events? Why —  y’know, it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, how could I not have known that?’

JESSE EUBANKS: And it was in this place of Dottie trying to learn more when Sojourn Midtown did their Gospel, Race and Justice series. Now, here’s the thing — Dottie does not attend Midtown. She’s actually a member of another church entirely. But because this was during the height of Covid and Midtown was putting their services online, Dottie was able to find and listen to every single one. 

DOTTIE SMITH: I was convicted by most of it, and I was surprised by some of it. One of the first things I think that Pastor Williams had said was ethnicity was created before the fall. Well, we know that. I mean, any logical person that knows their Scripture and, and thinks knows that, but I didn’t really think, think about it. And then race came after the fall — or racism came after the fall, which makes it sin. 

JESSE EUBANKS: As I talked with Dottie and she described different things that she had learned regarding race in America, she had this demeanor of, like, having had the wool pulled over her eyes and only just now — at almost 70 years old — realizing it.

DOTTIE SMITH: And I think that’s where my aggravation and thirst to read more and to gain the true facts are now because I wasn’t taught it when I should’ve been taught it. I mean, yes, we were taught Jim Crow laws and so forth, and we were trying — but the emphasis wasn’t there.

JESSE EUBANKS: And Dottie finds herself in an interesting spot because she’s white and she’s elderly, and the truth is that not many in her peer group have had the same response that she’s had. 

DOTTIE SMITH: It’s apathy. It’s almost like, ‘Yeah, well, no, I didn’t know that either, but what’s the weather gonna be tomorrow?’ I mean, you know. (laughs) But I just wish people my age would be willing to listen.

JESSE EUBANKS: Y’know, Dottie’s an example of why we do the work that we do, why we’re talking about racial reconciliation all the time because we never know who’s going to hear it and be impacted by it and reconsider some things in their life. God has called us to build a multi-ethnic church, and that multi-ethnic church — it’s gonna be filled with unexpected friendships. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and actually, y’know, finding unexpected friendships is exactly what happened with Alex and LB O’Nan. So remember, when we last heard from the O’Nans, a lot of their friends were leaving. They were in a season of grief. They knew that they were committed, but in reality, their experience at church — it was just sad. But after a season of mourning, y’know, past friendships, they decided it’s time to move forward.

LB O’NAN: Okay, we’re here. I’m looking around. A lot of families have left. People that are my peers have left. It’s a lot of younger people, twenties. You know, I’m now one of the older people in the congregation. (laughs) So my mindset went to — ‘How can I serve my fellow church members? How can I be of service to them? How can I step in and love and lead?’ And I just decided we were going to become friends with people, new people. We were gonna get to know people. We were going to make new friendships.

ALEX O’NAN: Through just being intentional with the new folks, with the new faces. You know, the old faces were gone and those new — like you began to be familiar with the new faces, and so those were the people I feel like that we reached out to.

RACHEL SZABO: And now, y’know, through that intentional effort, Alex and LB now have many friends — and in fact many friends who don’t share their ethnicity or their culture but that they would consider family. Actually one of those friends is someone named Jonny Barahona. He is Latino and he has some family that lives in Florida, but he isn’t always able to go see them. 

ALEX O’NAN: Y’know, if he can’t go home, we have let him know that we want to be his family here if that serves him well. And so he’s come for Thanksgiving, he’s come for Christmas Eve, he’s come for Christmas Day. And it’s cool because he’ll get, y’know, he’ll get a FaceTime call from his grandma, they’ll just immediately be in their own world speaking Spanish, and we don’t know what the heck they’re talking about. But then he’ll realize it and he’ll sorta, like, translate what his grandma’s saying to him and then we’ll start talking to her and he’ll translate to her what we’re saying and then vice versa. So like those little things, those little moments, not only bring encouragement to us, but they also bring that sense of understanding different cultures in a very real way.

JESSE EUBANKS: Well, and here’s what’s cool about that too is that, uh, Jonny’s actually the other half of Murphy DX. They’re the ones that make all the music for our shows. So not only are Alex and Jonny friends, but they make music together, which is a passion for both of them.

ALEX O’NAN: And just — it has made Sojourn feel like home all over again. 

RACHEL SZABO: And even for Angelica, she said that it’s the relationships that help keep her going.

ANGELICA SANTIAGO: Because I’m not gonna lie — sometimes I’m like, ‘I could just go back to New Jersey, and this wouldn’t be so difficult.’ Um, but I think about individuals all the time. You know, whenever I get discouraged or I’m like, ‘Oh, this is just too much’ or ‘This is too tiring,’ I think about the individuals who do have that mission in mind and who have encouraged me, who have invested in me as well and who wanna see me thrive and also this vision thrive. Yeah, I think that it’s just making the choice of, of wanting to stay.

RACHEL SZABO: So in addition to their sermon series that they did, in the last few years Midtown has instituted what they call ‘diversity Sunday,’ which is where every few months the service will have Scripture read and songs sung in multiple languages. And they’ve also started Sojourn Latino, which is a ministry that translates their services and also many of their materials into Spanish to help reach the Hispanic community around them. 

JESSE EUBANKS: When God called his people out of Egypt, a diverse crowd went with them. As the people were experiencing God, they brought others along, including those who didn’t look like them. So — where do we go from here? We press forward. We develop endurance, remembering God’s desire and reality of having all types of people before his throne united as one family.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS: We’re not here to be cute. We’re not here to be fashionable. We’re here to make disciples and to be like Jesus, to have some dirt under our nails and to, to reach people with the gospel, so this isn’t a social club. 

LB O’NAN: You know, diversity is a trending topic right now, but it was God’s idea first. This is not us trying to be cool. This is us stepping into what the kingdom of God looks like.

JAMAAL WILLIAMS SERMON CLIP: And the kings of the earth will come to pay honor and homage to him. They will give gifts to him. It’s a beautiful picture, people from different nations who have been redeemed, those who are now ruling. Because they’ve been faithful over little, God is gonna make them ruler over much. They’re gonna bring all their ethnic spices, their ethnic music, their ethnic, uh, dishes, and they’re just gonna come and worship Jesus and all things will be made right. Live in light of that day…

LB O’NAN: If the end picture that we get in Revelation 7 is this picture of all people from all over the world worshiping Jesus together, then we’re heading in the right direction.

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JESSE EUBANKS: For even more resources on racial reconciliation — including Sojourn Midtown’s entire sermon series — or to hear past episodes of this podcast, visit our website at lovethyneighborhood.org/LTNpodcast.

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JESSE EUBANKS: Alright, well this is the end of season four, believe it or not. We are now 40 episodes in to our podcast. It has been a great season. We thank you so much for listening and going on this journey with us. We have a ton of different ideas cooking, and we’re about to make some decisions and pull some triggers on some of those projects. We are really excited to announce those to you. Make sure that you continue to stay subscribed to this podcast. We have some surprises coming. So — stay with us because we’ll be back later this year.

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JESSE EUBANKS: Special thanks to our interviewees for this episode — Jamaal Williams, Alex and LB O’Nan, Angelica Santiago, Robinson Francois, Karey Allen, and Dottie Smith.

RACHEL SZABO: Our senior producer and host is Jesse Eubanks.

JESSE EUBANKS: Our co-host today is Rachel Szabo, who is also our media director, producer, and our sitcom reenactment specialist.

RACHEL SZABO: Our media assistant and audio engineer is Anna Tran. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Music for today’s episode comes from Lee Rosevere, Podington Bear, and Blue Dot Sessions. Theme music and commercial music by Murphy DX.

RACHEL SZABO: Apply for your social justice internship supported by Christian community by visiting lovethyneighborhood.org. You can serve for a summer or for a year. You’ll grow in your faith and life skills. Again, learn more at lovethyneighborhood.org.

JESSE EUBANKS: Which of these was a neighbor to the man in need? The one who showed mercy. Jesus tells us, ‘Go, and do likewise.’