A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast
Welcome to A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast, the podcast where we respond to your questions and comments on issues of faith, social justice and church life. Don't be afraid to write in and ask your question because if it matters to you, it matters to us and it just might be a matter of faith. Whether it be faith in God, faith in others or faith in yourself. We are brought to you by the Office of Faith-Based Investing & Corporate Engagement, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, and Unbound: An Interactive Journal on Christian Social Justice for the Presbyterian Church (USA). Submit questions to faithpodcast@pcusa.org. LISTENING GUIDES FOUND IN PODCAST SHOW NOTES.
A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast
Racialized Capitalism and Technology w/ Jonathan Tran
This week we discuss recent laws blurring the lines between church and state, and a little sports. #EndChristianNationalism
Question of the Week
What does success and legacy mean in the church and faith context?
Special Guest: (23:00)
Dr. Jonathan Tran, Associate Dean for Faculty in the Honors College and Professor of Theology in Great Texts, Baylor University
Guest Question:
You have talked a lot about racialized capitalism. How do you see technology as a potential tool to help change systems and overcome barriers racialized capitalism creates? Of course, technology can also perpetuate inequality through things like lack of access. Further, we see communities that have been locked out of traditional finance systems like banks turning to alternative finance options such as cryptocurrency, which while accessible is also risky. What are your thoughts on this and how do you see the church playing a role in all of this, if any?
Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism
For Listening Guides, click here!
Got a question for us? Send them to faithpodcast@pcusa.org!
A Matter of Faith website
Well , hello everyone and welcome again to a matter of Faith, the Presby podcast, the podcast, Roy , we respond to your questions around faith, justice, and church life. Don't forget to write in and send us your question because
Speaker 2:It matters to you and it matters to us, and it just might be a matter of faith . Y'all. And Simon, it's good to see you.
Speaker 1:It's good to see you too, Lee , as always. And folks, if you're not interested in our introductory conversation, news, catch up and discussion, feel free to just check out the timestamp , uh, to be able to skip to our conversation with Dr. Jonathan Tran. So we hope that you enjoy that conversation. But if you do wanna stick around, which I hope you do, because I mean, yeah , Lee and I are here. It's a good time. We
Speaker 2:Are. And it's a good time and it's a great time. I got my drink again. <laugh> not, not like alcoholic drink. I don't , that's too early for that. But is this your team ? My little, my my , um, my Japanese plum drink.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:It's like a new routine I have for the podcast, so kind of wakes me up. I was talking to Simon earlier and I was like, my motivation is down. I don't know what's up. I actually do know what's up. But <laugh>, it's like, it's a struggle. I don't know what's going on. I think I'm really tired. I think I'm , my brain is, I think I just have like, I think I'm just burned out. Maybe
Speaker 1:Church life, church work, burnout. I don't know what you're talking about, Lee .
Speaker 2:Yeah . What kind of crap is that? <laugh>? But yeah, I am , it's, it's always good to see you. And this always brightens up my day though, so. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh , likewise. Yeah. Same here. Even when we have to, when we're talking about things that are kind of disheartening, like some of the things in the news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of things that are happening and you know, just when we press record and we saw that Tina Turner died and that's a big deal y'all. And she is an icon and someone who, you know, I grew up listening to, even though she started way before I was born. But we always grew up listening to her. And, you know, I remember watching that movie about her life and yeah, she was just iconic and that's really sad. And also, lots of stuff is happening all over the country. I mean, election stuff is starting already. Simon people are announcing their candidacies for president and it's starting and I'm not looking forward to it whatsoever. That's right.
Speaker 1:This is also the time to announce , um, Cato Dune 2024
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Yeah. Right. That is one job I will never, ever do.
Speaker 1:No, same way too much. I
Speaker 2:Think I have too many things that people might find me out <laugh> <laugh> . Oh . But, but yeah, that is , that's happening. And then there's, what we really wanna focus in on is these laws that are happening in Texas and all over the country that kind of blurred the lines between church and state. And we are podcasts about fate and about church, but we also are not big proponents of blurring that line. And we are definitely not proponents of Christian nationalism, which is kind of what we're seeing right now in Texas who just recently tried to put forth a bill about having the 10 commandments in the public school system. There is also over 1600 bills around the country in Louisiana and Missouri, Idaho, Kentucky, about school prayer and all of those things that are happening. And, you know, I, I really can't get behind it. I just really can't. And that's coming from someone who works in the church, who is a believer in Christ. And for me, that is my belief and that is my faith . And also, you know, there are people in this country with a multitude of different faiths and a multitude of different traditions. That's what makes this country wonderful and the diversity within it. And I don't think religion needs to be within our politics. I really don't. So I think it's very dangerous. I think theocracies can be very dangerous. And this is kind of what we're looking at specifically in conjunction with the conversation we had not that long ago about the decline in the church, which is interesting that people in the government want to have these laws based off of a specific type of Christianity. When Christianity within and of itself is on the decline, which I think is probably a response for that. Would you think, Simon?
Speaker 1:I would, I do think so.
Speaker 2:So it's just very interesting and very scary. And so if you know of any work being done in your local context about, you know, dismantling Christian nationalism, there's also a great organization called America , Americans, United for Separation of Church and State that is kind of watching these bills or other, like even church-based ones that deal with this. So get involved. It's, it's not a good thing that's happening, I think if you wanna believe what you wanna believe, but you shouldn't legislate people to believe that either. So watch out, y'all.
Speaker 1:Watch out.
Speaker 2:That's all I have for the news.
Speaker 1:All right , well I've got an interesting update as well. This is gonna lead into a question that , uh, someone wrote in. If folks aren't aware, we are in the N B A playoffs right now. Yes. We're going to sports. I know everyone's surprised. I wasn't aware. <laugh>, we are in the, okay , so for you Lee , we are in the N B A playoffs and earlier this week , uh, the Denver Nuggets eliminated the LA Lakers from the playoffs. So Denver will be going into the N B A finals. We are still waiting to see what happens with the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. But the reason I'm bringing this up is because the LA Lakers, which also have LeBron James, big n b A star mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I know who that is. Yeah. Uh, the Lakers were swept. And that was always one of the big things. Oh, well LeBron shouldn't get swept in a playoff round. Like, don't get swept. And what that means is that you , your team loses the first three games and then it ends there because your team's eliminated. There's all this conversation around, oh, well if he's the, the goat or the greatest of all time, or one of the best of all time, you can't get swept. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think we need to rethink for ourselves, whether it's in sports or faith or in our own communities, what does it mean to be the best and what does legacy mean? Oh God . And think that , oh God, <laugh> . And I think that, yeah. And I think that that's an important question because for example, in this sports analogy, right, people are saying, oh, LeBron can't be the best because he got swept. He's been swept three times in the playoffs in his N B A career. Which is interesting because Michael Jordan has also been swept twice during his playoff career. And so it's like, what are we comparing here and what does it mean to be the best? Because I also think that what happens is when we start having this greatest of all time conversation, again, whether in sports or other aspects of our lives, we inherently start narrowing the definition of what success means. Yeah. I'm not convinced that's always a good idea. I think you should win some championships. Cause I do think that's important. But at the same time, you could be a really good player. There are many great players that never e never that never won a championship. Some that maybe didn't advance to the , say the finals or the championship game a whole lot. But they are definitely in the conversation for being really good players. But there's aspects of success that we don't talk about. For example, I would say maybe if you wanna have legacy, it's also about when you lose and you learn from it and you get back up, that's a part of being an example and being a role model. And I honestly think that we see that in the faith community too. Sometimes we think that, oh, we have to be the best at this, we have to be the most progressive at this. It's like, no, maybe we just need to be able to take it on the chin when we're not right about something. Or when things don't go our way, get back up and keep trying. Yeah . Even if we are not gonna see the finals for a while, or we may never get there, but we're not ever gonna stop trying to get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that kind of, I think that kind of mentality, it's hard. I mean, we were just talking about like a lot of the work that we do, we probably will never see like the impact of it and, and all those things. And I think it's interesting in the church when we talk about legacy or we talk about success or being the best, I've never really, I don't know, I think setting it up that way is also very problematic. I mean, it sets it up in a competitiveness, which in sports of course is kind of like, you have to compete because for one, you're getting paid to play and you're probably getting paid to win even though people still get paid even though they lose. But I do think specifically within the faith context, I think some folk can be kind of competitive. And when it becomes a, a kind of, I need to be the best or I need to have success, what does success even mean in a context of faith where we're trying to like dismantle capitalism and we're trying to dismantle white supremacy, which competitiveness and successfulness in like the way in which we kind of think about are all encompassed in those things. And so I think, I think for me it's almost like a reframing of what that even means. And when it comes to a legacy legacies, I think in many ways are always, they're always defined by who is telling what the legacy is, if that makes sense. So legacies are defined by whoever is impacted by your legacy, whether it be whatever that means. And the church has all kinds of legacies in it. And the people within the church have all kinds of legacies that I don't think are always the full story. And I think that that is something that we do to people in the public eye. And we narrow , we're very narrow minded of how people are, even though we may see them as these wonderful people. We're all human and there are probably things in people's lives that aren't so good. They're not, there's things in my life that aren't so good, you know? And I've never been shy about saying that. Like I've always been tried to be an open book because that's just, I don't wanna paint a persona that I'm like a perfect person or like this absolutely terrible person. So it's like, I think, I think the church could learn a lot from that. It's the authenticity part of it, which I think within and of itself is a legacy to leave because I've seen so many actors, actors meaning people who are put on, on facades to kinda leave a legacy that isn't necessarily true. So I think that there's like a , a thing within the church because the church is full of ego. I think that that is no different than a basketball team or actors, celebrities, people on tv. The church is full of egos just as much as any of those places are, if not more. I would say. I think it is something that, yeah, we all need to talk about what is being the best and what is success. It's hard to use those capitalistic terms for, for a , for a faith tradition , tradition that we are saying we're trying to dismantle all those things. But it may be that we're still kind of comparing ourselves and what that means and, and all those things. So it's stuff that I try to do
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And the work that I do. Right.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that you mentioned who is impacted by the success. And I think there's also this question of success at what cost?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1:I was watching , uh, an interview with Michael Jordan, and he was reflecting on his relationships with teammates. And you could tell based on the interview and just the w the emotion in his eyes, he like gave it all up for six for for winning, right? Yeah . For championships and victories. And you can tell that now in reflecting on it, he may not have cha , he may not go back and change anything that he did, but he realizes now the impact of the way he treated people because he didn't always treat people the best cuz he was doing whatever it took to get them to play their best. Whether that meant being their best friend or being absolutely mean to them. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And being just as savage to his teammates as to his opponents. And you can see it in his eyes that he has some, I would say at least a little bit of remorse about that. I don't know if he would go back and change it, but you can tell that it does sit with him now that it, it's almost like you can tell it is lonely at the top. Now, to be fair, he is also very financially successful and one of the most decorated basketball players ever. But again, success at what cost. Yeah , I think that's a good question for us to be thinking about. I also think it's interesting when we try to have greatest of all time conversations because I'm, that also implies that we want to be compared to someone or something else. Right . As opposed to just standing on our own for, you know, based on what we did. Yeah. Or what it's worth. Yeah. We don't always need to be compared to other things.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think that's healthy. I mean, I, I I really don't think it's healthy because I did it, you know , I did it a lot as I , when I was younger and I'm still young and I'm still learning not to, and it's with the age of social media and all these things and with like my body image stuff, all those things, I see a difference as I'm getting older. But as I'm also doing the work of kind of being myself in my, my own self and kind of proving to myself and working on myself enough to be authentic in who I am and, and, and kind of shedding those comparisons and how we should look and, and all those things. And I think for me, I have seen the church it that having, having not doing that work, the church can bring that out of somebody and it's not a good thing. I think the church is one of those places that's like an incubator for like insecurity and if you're, and it just brings it out because especially if you're in like a congregation where you're with people or if you're in the public eye or you know, you're doing this hard work and you might see other people making more progress and other people not. And, and then it just becomes a game. And for me, that's not what it is. Like this stuff that we call faith is not a game. It's not a game to me. Cuz I don't, I don't, there ain't gonna be a winner. I mean, there's not gonna be a winner. So it's, it's one of those things to where how do you, how do you live into this life because you have to do it authentically or else you are gonna set yourself up looking back on it and being like, why did I, why was I like that to that person? Or like, why did I hold onto that person so long and not let it go? Because I think that's something else that we often do because of that insecurity. So yeah, I, it's hard for me to like, take kind of the things like the best and who is the best in this context, but I see it all the time in the church though. I really do. And I think a lot of ministers, they perpetuate it and a lot of people that work in the church perpetuate it. Like that's, you see it everywhere. And I think that, we don't wanna say that, but it's true. <laugh>. I I know a lot of competitive people in the church. I really do.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And even if we think back, not even that long ago, to the more evangelical roots of even our own denomination, the Presbyterian church USA and some of the more reformed Christian, Protestant, Christian faiths, there was, and I would argue still is a bit of a mindset of how many butts do we have in seats. I mean, that was the whole point of sending missionaries, places to go and convert folks. It's like, we need numbers, we need numbers,
Speaker 2:Right . Well , we're still playing the number game just different . We're still playing place
Speaker 1:<laugh> , right? Yeah. Now we're just playing the number game in a different way. And arguably I would say we, we've talked about this before, we have to change our mindset about what success looks like in in the 21st century. In Yeah. In this time, in the age of social media, where is it likes? Is it follows? Is it engagement? Is it butts in seats? Is it dollars given? What does any of that mean? Yeah . Or is it just about the number of people that walk around feeling like they're a part of something? And you may never be able to quantify that.
Speaker 2:No, you'll never. And it's all about the quality. That's for me, I think that the church has relied on the quantity and still continues to do so then the quality of what is happening. And we saw it in the Crusades where violence was, I mean, wars are being fought in ways to win people over to Christ, forcing people baptism, like forcing people to convert. When it came to like all this, like that was the birth of Christian nationalism, it's been around for centuries and now we're seeing it in ways that like, people are forcing people to be something because it's claiming people. It's not God claiming anybody because I believe that's already done. We have no control over that. And I think that that is one of the ways that we have been, we've gotten to where we're all right now, is that we focused on how do we manipulate , how do we manipulate to get the numbers? The church has really fallen victim to its own game. And we're seeing that now. You , you just see it when you, it's just also not good marketing. You never, you never substitute quality for quantity. And I think that that is something that we are now learning that it just isn't su successful if that's what we're gonna call it. Because for me, numbers and success being a person of fate, I could care less. That's not success to me. I, there are times where you, you see in ministry this what it means to be in ministry and what quote , whatever success means to you. But those are in the stories that you are in relationship with people and what happens in moments of like joy and what happens in moments of trauma where people can find ways to get out of that. And for me , I could care less about how many views are on Facebook, how many likes are on Facebook. I really don't care if, if at the end of the day someone feels unwelcome, even in working with the church, going to church, even mentioning the word church, that's a problem. And the number game doesn't fix that. It really doesn't. And so I hope we can find different language and I hope we can find different models because capitalistic models and models that we have always done are just not helpful. It's not helpful at all. And it doesn't mean anything in fate. The spirit's gonna do what it's gonna do and we just have to ride along with it, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think especially in the age of social media, it's so easy to associate success with clout as well. Yeah. And when you start going down that route one, it's a slippery slope, but also clout to what end clout for what. Yeah . Yeah. Just to have it, is it to get people to move? Is it to mobilize people to do something or not do something right . Because again, clout can be used positively or negatively. You could be supporting one cause for justice and trying to cancel someone the next minute <laugh> or getting canceled the next minute. Who knows.
Speaker 2:That's true. You never know. Yeah. Um ,
Speaker 1:Well folks, why don't you write in and let us know what you think about success and legacy in the Christian context and the Christian faith. Let us know what you think at Faith podcast at P C U S a.org and we hope that you'll be enjoying our conversation with Dr. Jonathan Tran, the associate dean for faculty in the honors college and professor of theology in great texts at Baylor University. And , uh, we'll be talking about racialized capitalism and the use of technology as a way to maybe potentially help improve things like access to resources or access to, to finance or capital. So it's a really good conversation. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Dr. Jonathan Tran.
Speaker 2:Well, joining us on the podcast today is a very special guest. We have Dr. Jonathan Tran, who is the associate dean for faculty and the honors college and professor of Theology in great texts at Baylor University joining us. Dr. Tran, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us.
Speaker 3:It's a privilege and an honor to be with you all .
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm really grateful that we're able to have you with us to think through the relationship between technology and church and access for communities of color and just this very, sort of in this complex world that we live in. And so we have a question that reads, you have talked a lot about racialized capitalism and , uh, you have a book Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism , uh, which we have a link to in the show notes. And we wanted to ask, how do you see technology as a potential tool to help change systems and overcome barriers that racialized capitalism creates? Of course, technology can also perpetuate inequality through things like lack of access, and we also see communities that have been locked out of traditional finance systems like banks turning to alternative finance options such as cryptocurrency, which while accessible is also risky. So what are your thoughts on this and how do you see the church playing a role in all of this, if any?
Speaker 3:Well, it's a large , um, great. And as you can imagine, anything that's large and great , uh, it's a complex answer. So I'll start with a few thoughts on a few different angles and then I look forward to the conversation. So to get a sense of how I would think about the question of technology and questions of equality , especially in the term under the terms of racial capitalism, let me first say what I mean by racial capitalism or what is often meant by racial capitalism. And then we can tackle the technology question. Uh , and you can , you can guess probably that the answer's gonna be mixed. That is racial capitalism, both , uh, continues and perpetuates inequality , uh, including inequality around issues of technology. But technology also unveils , uh, possibilities for , uh, freedom struggle in the midst of , uh, racial capitalist oppression. So, so racial capitalism is a way of thinking about race and racism that begins with structures and systems. And so it tries to push against what I call in my book, the Orthodox View of Race and Racism. So the orthodox view of racism is something like you have individuals, they have say prejudicial or racial beliefs or attitudes or thoughts from those thoughts or beliefs or attitudes, which exist largely in their minds as individuals from those, they sometimes lead to secondary behavioral or institutional realities. Um, but the primary site of the racism is in the individual racist mindset. Anti-racism then is about seeking out, identifying and then correcting racist beliefs, attitudes, ideas, et cetera. You can think of say the vast industry around diversity as one way of treating individual anti, I mean individual racist mindset with these kinds of anti-racist interventions. Again, in that story , whether race and racism reach the level of , um, structures and systems is a secondary issue. The primary issue is the individual racist in the account. Under racial capitalism, race and racism are always structural and systemic, and they have individual effects. It's really the relationship between those two that will bear out the the question of technology. So let me first say what I mean. So in the accounts I tried to present in the book, I try to say that the orthodox view is not only incorrect, it's convenient, it's incorrect , uh, woefully incorrect on how race and racism works. But then we ask the question, why would we tend to believe something that is not only incorrect but woefully? So, and my answer is, well, it's convenient to think that racism is really, say a series of bad actors somewhere out there. It certainly isn't me and certainly doesn't extend or expand to the range of institution structures and systems according to racial capitalism. It's always structures and systems. It begins with the basic observation that we live in a world of breath, breathtaking inequality facilitated by oppression, domination, exploitation, expropriation, so on and so forth. This is a worldwide phenomenon and it is , uh, age old . Where race comes into this story is that race is meant to naturalize or rationalize or justify what I call what I just called the breathtaking inequality. So rather than stepping back and asking as a society why we have this inequality and it's facilitated oppressions, exploitations, dominations, et cetera , we blame the victims. We blame the oppressed, the exploited we lay blames specific to their persons to who they are, something essential to them, something natural about them, something about their race. Once the race story , uh, enters in, then it justifies everything else. Instead of the question being about our institution structures, the systems, it becomes a problem of , of who they are. Uh, it is, as I described in the book, the ultimate gaslighting move. Uh, we we blame the oppressed for the oppressions that she faces and endures again. Uh, this makes it clear then the, that the orthodox convenience story , uh, it benefits and makes convenient the world we live in. The question I want us to ask is not whether racism is evil or destructive , uh, or historical. It's obviously those things I want to ask insofar as it is those things, evil, destructive, historical, why does it persist? And my answer is, it persists because it works. It facilitates the world we live in. Uh, it makes it the case that the world we live in not only is evil destructive has , um, lines back in dark history, but that it'll go on and on. The remedy I suggest is that then we need to think structurally, systemically, institutionally , uh, where the role of the individual is part of the equation, but not the whole equation. And rather, we wanna think about the relationship between institution structures and systems and individuals in complex sophisticated ways. That by the way, is one of the most important contributions that Christianity makes. Christian theology, especially its doctrines of creation, fallenness redemption, offer an impressively sophisticated, complex moral psychology that helps us understand the individual within the story of race and racism. Remember that the convenient story is convenient, partly because it's simplistic. The evil, like the sinner is always out there. It's just one part of an individual that can be excised out after being identified and maybe , um, called out and canceled and so on and so forth. Much, much more difficult to understand these things in the broad, in the broad spectrum of their operations and to try to understand what it does to the individual. So again, imagine a society where the racism has to be the case. What does that do to the individual? The individual is that subsumed way within a way of thinking and believing a set of attitudes that doesn't so much begin with prejudice or racial discrimination, but operates at a systemic level that then facilitates the individual's life in the world. It kind of moves her forward in the world. Um, as I said, racism persists because it works, it works for this individual , uh, say the sum total of all the individuals who benefit from an unequal society. That certainly includes me , uh, the , the , the , the individual benefits here precisely because she participates in the think . Um, so if I said racism works, clearly it doesn't work for everyone, that's somewhat the point, but it works for a whole lot of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a, I just have a a question about like also how the church, as the institution has also in , in many ways created these systems. I mean, I think about the doctrine of discovery that was signed by the church funded and, and all those things. And so I wonder also about, you know, how our Christian theology does kind of equip us in ways to kind of handle these things. But on the other side, the institutional part and that theology that I think is also has been created in a sense to perpetuate these systems. That's something I wrestle with all the time, being somebody who is within the institution and working within that, that it in and of itself is a part of this racial capitalism and has benefited it through land and the acquisition of land and the acquisition of money off the backs of black and brown folk. How do, and and I wonder as Christians, how do we also kind of wrestle in those ways with the fact that the church was a main player in all of these things as well?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that, that question is incredibly well put . I mean, there is no end to our wrestling with our participation in this. And as you say, it's origins in Christianity. So my book tries to do three things. One, it tries to shift the conversation around race and racism to questions of what I call political economy, which is the racial capitalist description I just gave. Moving it from the individual convenient orthodox story to a much more complex story that actually lays out possibilities for redress. The second thing I try to tackle is the complicity of Christianity in the story, but my goal here is twofold, or really within the Christian narrative one fold , I try to tell a story where the Christian Church is not just a villain in the story , uh, which certainly includes it being a villain in the story. So, but it's not just a villain because the twofold story of the villain, not just villain, is within the one fold story of God's , uh, ordering , uh, of creation and ordering of creation towards redemption and love and freedom. So I'll come back to that. The third thing I try to do is try to tell this , these two broad things that is reconceptualizing race and racism around racial capitalism and two , offer a theological story about the church and Christians. The third thing I try to do is situate that within the lives of Asian Americans , uh, because of course the exploitations that I described , uh, occur across a whole host of people, certainly , uh, what we now call black and brown people. Uh, certainly yellow folks , um, certainly white folks. So how do we tell that story with sufficient complexity? Interestingly, I think, I think that we tend to rely on the overly individual story, and that also tends to reduce to understanding race as largely a white and black phenomenon. But of course that that isn't the case. Even in our experiments with American child of slavery, there were of course prior and ongoing and post experimentation with all kinds of labor , uh, including yellow labor, including white labor. So how do we understand these things in their racial intensity and complexity , uh, in ways that help us expand the broader. Now going to the question about the Christian complicity. Yeah, I'm a Christian and I, you know, I teach at a Christian institution and I think , uh, the Christian Church is , uh, the best thing since sliced bread <laugh>. How do I square that with the deep, deep , uh, and ongoing history of the church's complicity? Uh , well, this is where the sophisticated narrative of , uh, redemption sin creation help us understand things. So it's not as going , it's not going to be as easy as two moves. We tend to have, one tends to be on the right, which is to try to deny the history and the others on the left to reduce Christianity to the history. Um, like most things that are morally interesting, it's gonna be a bit more complex. Um, so indeed the church played a profoundly disturbing role, but the church also played some very interesting roles, right? So for example , uh, how do we understand the missionary presence in Africa? Well, on the one hand, we can understand the missionary presence in its all of its bastard lee ways , uh, of extraction exploitation , um, as described eloquently by you and others like Willie James , uh, Jennings. But it's also an interestingly complex relationship , uh, that, say I have a Nigerian PhD student, and we're looking at the history of the church there, and it was oftentimes the church that raised the primary questions about chattel slavery trade , uh, in African, in , in emerging African nation states. Now, were they completely up in bed oftentimes with the political economic powers of empire? Absolutely. But to tell the story is simply a reduction of one to the other , uh, rides rough shot over the history, but again, misses the important ethical details that can shed light , light on what moral life often is. Again, the convenient story seeks to simplify things. It's too easy of a story. And if our anti-racist behaviors and strategies are based on the simplistic thing, then we will , we'll, we'll take part in what we tend to generally do that is forms of moral name calling while business goes on as usual with these forms of exploitation. That's one of the difficulties of our present moment, as I think both of you know, is that anti-racism in the present moment generates a ton of political, a ton of political heat. It's not clear that it's doing much work though. Uh, and what I think we need to do is we need to do the work to get work done.
Speaker 1:And so you, you alluded to this a little bit, that there is the actual, the story at the core of Christianity is something that upends and stands counter to this oversimplified narrative that we, that we try that history, that we try to spin in history and often we tell ourselves. So I was wondering if you could go a little bit more into detail about why that is so important and why that is, as you said, like the best offering that , uh, Christianity has brought , uh, into the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and , and let me again, that's a great question. Let me again, return to my crude left, right liberal progressive slash conservative continuum because I think we tend to think of these as opposites. I actually tend to think of them as two sides of the same coin or more of a continuum that operates in a kind of feedback loop or the right and left, say, consume each other. And , and you see this right now, say in the, in education , uh, say the , the , the relationship between cancel culture on the left in universities, specifically elite universities across America and cancel culture in high schools and middle schools and elementary schools in conservative state legislatures, which are also cancellous . Uh, both of these operate in extreme and obvious , um, often violent forms of virtue signaling. Um, again, the extraordinary thing is not simply that that occurs, but it occurs in a way that leaves almost completely untouched the political economic realities that actually need to be addressed. For example, access to education is almost entirely divorced from the question of what is taught in education. Now, I firmly believe that what is taught absolutely matters, but the substance of what is taught cannot be separated from the form of who is doing the teaching and who gets taught , uh, especially since education is maybe the primary means by which class mobility happens in this country. So , uh, so for example, the the intense identity politics, culture wars , uh, operating in elite universities, including my own , uh, we need to remember that those occur in ways that participate in the gatekeeping features of upper middle class mobility. And so we may talk all we want in universities about diversities of faculties, representational schemes and hiring, et cetera , et cetera , but all of that may do nothing to treat the larger inequality. The upper middle class elite institutions are meant to keep at bay, right? So, or to facilitate. So, so those are the kinds of concerns I worry about. Uh , so to get back to your question then , uh, what is the, and , and then of course the same thing is going on in the right, I should say. And again, the , the nature, the political nature is that these will just consume each other. The counseling on the left antagonizes and , uh, perpetuates counseling , um, on the right, counseling on the right, perpetuates the need to , um, have its own forms of military, bi military like violence on the left in institutions of higher education. So , uh, that's what I mean, lots of heat, little work. So the story of the gospel, I think the story that the gospel tells is meant to do two things, I think for the reality of racial capitalism. One, it's meant to call time on it to say that as monumental and as epic, even as the powers of racial capitalism that I previously described, remember systemic structural, institutional historical , um, going on to forms of exploitation, domination that are worldwide and age deep, I mean age old . That story is just a momentary story within the larger story of God's redemption. We need to begin by recognizing that no matter sin and no matter what form sin takes, God wins in the story that Christians tell. So the first thing is, what we're supposed to be doing is imagining and living out the gospel in a way that calls time on racial capitalism. It frees Christians to live differently. The second thing is we're supposed to call time on a certain way of telling the story. That is, we need to tell the story that appropriately brings out the problems, but makes sure that the problems are not the whole story. I cannot emphasize enough this latter point because as Christians become increasingly self-conscious as they need to about the complicities of Christian sin in Christian life, there's a temptation to give up the story of the gospel, the basic grammatical narrative , uh, of God's victory over the powers. If we forget that, then we tell the story of things as destruction of destructive as racial capitalism, as if God does not matter to the story, as if somehow those things are Coe vow , uh, with the supremacy of Christ , uh, God in Christ. That's what the power of the gospel does , is it helps us come to terms squarely , uh, with the effects of sin in the world without the effects of sin in the world running rough shot or taking up the entire story. That's critically important. Now, with both of you, I, as a Christian, I'm trying to tell the story oftentimes simply as a statement of faith, because I think with both of you, there is mounting evidence for reasons of despair. So oftentimes I write or think as a theologian, including the writing of this book , um, as a statement of faith. That is, I say these things teach you thi teach these things. A because I think scripture and the tradition requires it, but b , because I wanna believe it, and I think wanting to believe it , uh, perpetuates a certain kind of politics of resistance, one that , um, gives us hope when there are reasons only for despair.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's, that's, that is hard for me, <laugh>. Um, and it's, you know, it's, it's always being reminded of that and working in the church and being a , a minister and all these things, it's, and I'm also a cynical person and there are many times, and also as a person to where my relationship with the church, I don't even know how I got here. That is the thing. And I keep putting that, I keep putting that in in front of me saying, you know, the spirit works in the way the spirit wants to work and that God is within this stuff. And it is hard, I think, for people to kind of maybe take a breath. And we've had this conversation before too, I think as you were talking about like how things get heated with little work, I think the heat creates the emotion so much so that we, we get wrapped up in it. And I get wrapped up in it too. I can ask Simon, I complain all the time and I get emotional all the time, and so much so that, you know, you, we don't often are not equipped to take a a breath for a second and then kind of zoom out and because we're just so in it, and I think we, we often just get so consumed by it that there is a lack of hope, but there's this, there's this moment to where I think sometimes the spirit invites us to take just a second and a breath and to kind of take into account all these things that is happening. And I wonder what you would say about that too, because I do think we're just so reactive that, that sometimes our reactions, like you were saying, are not productive in actually getting the work done. And what does that breath look like for us to, to really kind of zoom out and take a , a more critical look at what we can do?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, just to acknowledge the challenge, there are many, many Christians who find that there aren't reasons to continue to hope, at least with Christianity, or that they find their hopes in different places. I mean, this is , uh, it , the , the church's complicity in all kinds of sin is really how we ought to understand the massive exodus out of the church. And so the lives of, say, religious nuns , uh, and O n e Ss , um, who find no reason to remain in the church when there's all kinds of reasons to leave it, are , is an indictment on the , the church's , uh, faithlessness. I mean, it's always been the case. And this is one of the interesting things about God <laugh> , is that God has made God's people, those who claim God both the best reason to be Christian and the best reason not to be Christian. And of course, there are other ways that God could have proclaimed God's gospel truth, but it's us humans now that is an extraordinary , uh, weight to carry. Um , but I think God expects that insofar as anyone that would claim , uh, a God who came as , uh, Christ did and died and raised. So those are incredibly difficult realities. And for many people , um, you know, it's losses Lester. On that reason, I think I just, maybe I have a different biography. I grew up outside the church, experienced tons and tons of racism, grew a war , uh, refugee, pretty significant poverty. I became a Christian at about age 20. And so I think while many Christians I think have natural reason to narrate themselves out of Christianity, I have reason to narrate myself into Christianity. This is what I meant by the church is the best thing since sliced bread. But I'm also, you know, a theologian, a critical theorist, and you know, I go to church <laugh>. So , uh, uh, the reality doesn't escape you. It's pretty clear. But you know, this again goes back to the interesting moral psychology of scripture. I mean, it's not like the New Testament promises a both cherries when it comes to the church. It is, as you say, the locale and activity of the spirit. Not the only place, but certainly one of , uh, but the activity of the spirit is a spirit, I mean an activity of kenosis , um, and a demonization and Zach , you know, the life of the sacraments and its forms , uh, of sanctifying us. And those are necessary and proper processes for people who are hardnosed , uh, stiff necked people. So, but this again, is just a , a belief that God will take all the time in the world to make us faithful, and it will probably take at least that long, if not more <laugh>. So, yeah, so your struggles are my struggles, and I don't think that they're different than the struggles of the church over its 2000 year history. Uh, there have always been reasons for despair and the call to hope. Uh, I think one of the most dangerous moments, part one of the most dangerous parts of the moment we're in is the reduction of Christianity to its complicity in these processes. Uh , and part of the problem there is that we , if we keep on saying that, that Christianity's only, you know, x, y, and Z problem that will prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's why I say that part of what we do in preaching the gospel is calling time on those things. Uh, even if we don't have a lot of evidence to believe it. This is the a , a statement of faith, hope, and love that is at the core of the Christian life of virtue. Um, so we say it , um, because we wanna believe it and believe it that there's a politics that accrue around saying and speaking about the world in light of a certain kind of thing. It is, as one of my atheist professors, radical democratic theorists at Duke used to say, we look for available lights wherever we can find them. For those atheist , uh, community political organizers, they often found it in Christian churches in Durham , North Carolina, not because they're Christians, but because they could tell they were powerful staging grounds for radical democratic practice. And I think if they could, then why would Christians be so quick to disavow even the possibility for reasons of hope?
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. And as I'm thinking about what you said regarding that, one of the powerful narratives within the gospel is that the problems are not the whole story. The problems are acknowledged and a part of the narrative, but they don't take over the narrative by any means. And so, as I we're thinking about sort of the original question around technology that makes me think about are we, as I think about this question and what technology represents in the world today, technology is a, is a tool. Technology can be a problem, technology can also not be a problem. But what is the actual problem that we're even talking about here? It's really about access. It's really about resources, and how do we make sure that that problem isn't the whole narrative around trying to make life better for everyone? Um, and so I just wanted to return to the original question and ask what you see , uh, in this question about technology. So
Speaker 3:We begin, I think by acknowledging and ac acknowledgement is the key word , uh, you just used it. Uh, acknowledgement is the acknowledgement of our situatedness in the world and in, in the case of racial capitalism, for many of us, our victimization and suffering under the terms of racial capitalism, and for many others of us, our participation and perpetuation of that very system, technology is not neutral. Um , we tend to want to think technology is neutral, but technology comes with its own inculcation into a , into a moral formation. Anything that is significantly taken up by humans comes with that. We never just pick up something, nor do we ever just see things. We see things in ways we've been trained to speak about and operate in the world. Same with the things that we use. So technology is not neutral, as you say. I think it's that , uh, technology comes with its own moral story. Its own moral warrant . If you want to get a sense of how powerful the moral formation of technology is, think about, you know, I don't know what instantiation of the iPhone we're in, but I think we're in 14 or something. So when 15 comes out, there will come a moral demand on people that they buy it. What's the moral demand? It will be simply something like, well, it's available. That's part of the moral formation of technology is it comes, right? So we tend to think about ethics and technology as in technology's going too fast for our ethics. Why? Because our ethics were written, you know, thousands of years ago by Aristotle on some Athenian Hill , uh, and technology keeps on coming out the new thing out of Silicon Valley or what have you. I think that story is , is somewhat, there's some truth to it, but I think the , the , the better story is something like this technology isn't ahead of ethics, is that technology produces its own ethics. It comes with its own demands by the iPhone 15, because it's not the iPhone 14, use this drug because it's available, and if it's available to your kid suffering, you know, whatever, then there's something wrong with you if you don't use it. There's no question about it. The ethics of it, the use of it is the, is the , uh, normative force. So , um, technology, you know, you know, think about one primary technology that is pretty prevalent in human history over the last, say, 300 years. Guns , uh, right? We wanna tend to think that guns are neutral. Of course, they're not. Um, the buying of a gun, the having of a gun, the handling of a gun comes with extraordinary moral power. Anyone that's ever handled a weapon knows it's a affective power, whichever side you're on, I think everyone would acknowledge that technology's the same, it's settler than guns. Uh, but for that reason , uh, maybe perhaps more dangerous to us, they inculcate us into a certain world. Now, we could go on and on as many philosophers and theologians have about the dangers of technology. Te just means making or making use of things. But it's also the case that if we're going to hang on to the prior, my , you know, the prior point we just discussed, which is how do we find available lights? We both acknowledge the challenges that come with technology, but we also seek out reasons for hope within technology. It's also , you know, we can and should <laugh> think a lot about the role of social media, say over the last, not even 10 years, maybe 10 years , um, in American life , say 2013, 2014. And we can complain and talk about all the terrible things that have come of it, the way it's rewired our brains, especially in the midst of things like the Covid pandemic. Uh, but it's also the case that technology and say things , uh, that we tend to dismiss as ethically problematic. Like social media have been incredible generators of democratic political life , uh, not simply here in America around certain very powerful political moments, but throughout the world. And part of the power is to connect movements from one part of the world to another part of the world. So technology has extraordinary capacity. Uh , it also has capacity , uh, to grant access. I mean, that's part of what the internet and the dream of the internet was. It was the worldwide web that it was about the world and everyone in the world could get access to it. Now, of course, it hasn't tended to work out that way that the lines of access have tended to cash out in the same way access questions have always tended to cash out northern hemisphere versus southern hemisphere , uh, capitalist democratic countries in the north versus those that are not , uh, people of color in America. Different kinds of urban spaces, different kind of rural spaces. Just think of , for example, the technology to host a Zoom conversation like we are all doing, especially in the deep , um, recesses of a global pandemic. I have fiber optic , um, it , I , fiber optic was one . The first was rolled out in the city of Waco. Literally the first neighborhood was my neighborhood just by chance. And I , uh, got it right before the pandemic, which allowed me to do tons of this kind of stuff , um, over the pandemic. Now you can imagine the many people who did not have access or even knowledge, right? It , it , and it tends to work the same way as access to education. Who finds out about magnet schools? Well , those with the privilege and convenience of having lots of time and can take off in the middle of the day to go to a parent's meeting about magnet schools. It's the same kind of question. Who has access to fiber? Who knows about it? Well , the same people that usually do. And so technology tends to accelerate and exasperate and articulate inequality , uh, at its best. It can challenge that in significant ways. Uh , one of the things your question asks about is financialization around things like cryptocurrency. Uh, certainly that has allowed people , um, to get access to in financial infrastructures in ways they never did before. So for example, if you go to lots of poor , uh, undeveloped disenfranchised neighborhoods in rural and urban communities, those are the same communities. You won't ever see kind of standard financial investment . So you're not gonna see a Bank of America in East Waco. But what you are gonna see is lot of payday lending schemes, which, you know, tend to , uh, have these kind of profiteering , uh, forms of exploitation that allows, you know, through various legal loopholes, people to exploit over and over by a way of kind of predatory interest rates. Now imagine if you can expand traditional financing processes through those com , through those communities, through, through the, through the, through the web , uh, even on people's phones, even on their watches. Uh, you automatically expand access to financial structures. Now, again, it can go any number of ways. There can be an enfranchisement and an empowering, but right. What was 2008, the expansion of financial systems , uh, to previously unrepresented communities. The government required that of banking institutions prior to 2008 . The idea was a justice driven initiative and a kind of financial technology, if you will. What did the banks realize? Well, at first they resisted, and then they realized they can make hand money handover fist by way of an incredibly new and easy and vulnerable market. And so they started shopping subprime loans and , uh, you know, it allowed some people to make some money, but what it did is ultimately just a debt, tons and tons of communities. So you could see both and right, both the access issue and then the ways that we tend to profiteer, right? So part of the, part of the ethos that ra the racial capitalist analysis is supposed to train us to see is this tendency, which m l k borrowing from other freedom struggle theorists used to call thingify the world. It's, it's the, it's the, it's the tendency, the habits of looking at the world. And instead of saying, how do I see God in that? How do I engage God in that? How do I articulate God in that , uh, say in the midst of plenitude or in the need , uh, in the midst of need? Instead of saying, how do I find and honor God in that? We say something like, how do I make money off of that? That's commodification, that's thingify . And that's exactly what the banks figure out how to do prior to 2008. And now the extraordinary thing about 2008 isn't simply what happened in 2008 was, but after 2008, what did <laugh> , what did our political economy do? Just double down on the very financial structures that made 2008 possible. You know, there was a little bit of hand ringing and, and a few, you know, things are shifted here and there, but they've largely shifted back. Um, and it goes with a , a set of decisions America made, say 50, 60 years about the financial industry always being the backbone of our economy. So again, access crypto economies, the very name crypto economy , which I see now showing up everywhere. Crypto , uh, uh, dot com , uh, is now an nba , uh, basketball stadium I noticed the other day. So it's everywhere. Is it access? Sure. Is it also exploitation? Of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I also think now about the new tr the new thing, well, it's not new, but AI and which kind of terrifies me a little bit. I'm not gonna <laugh> , I'm not gonna lie, because I was just listening to Spotify the other day and all of a sudden now they have AI DJs and the guy comes on and it sounds like a dj. Like he sounds like a person, but it's not. And then I read like the guy who kind of like, was like the carrier of all of that, like is now terrified of what it's gonna become. And then you think you have all these ideas in your head about like movies and like what could come of it and how people's jobs. I mean, you know, and that's a whole other question about access when it comes to that because it's now seeing the AI is kind of being grown on us in a way that I don't see how you can control it now. And so that's another que that's another thing that came up the other day just going in , just listening in the car, is I was like, cuz my husband was like, yeah, that's, that's an AI person. And I was like, what? And so it just becomes like another conversation to have about , you know, who does AI replace? And those kinds of questions that I think, you know, are come up when it come talk about access and, and all of this too, so, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And again, it goes both ways. So let's , um, let's say that , um, through chat, G P T or whatever technology, some person who doesn't have access to the regular forms of resourcing around DJ finds the AI and they just plug some stuff in a software and they get some kind of, you know, they hack into some kind of web system from some far flung corner of the earth. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , but they're talented as a dj. They just don't have the, the regular resourcing. And, and, and lo and behold, you know, through a series of TikTok videos or uh, Instagram or what have you, through those reels, they become a sensation, they generate cash, they invest it in their local communities, they look to redistribute income away from the traditional resourcing. That's the kind of working mm-hmm. <affirmative> . So in my book, in the second half of my book, I talk about a software company that does some pretty impressive things. And part of what they do with their profits is redistribute to local neighborhoods. Now they're producing solu technological solutions like any outstanding software company, but they're trying to imagine it. But it could go the other way, exactly the kind of way you just described, which is , uh, instead of the, the happier story of redistribution and reimagine of resources and access, the story that you just described just follows the traditional story of the dlip devaluing and disenfranchising of local labor. So replacing human DJs with bot DJs , um, through AI is the same kind of thing as replacing, you know, chattel enslaved persons. Uh, at one point in the, the political economy around plantation culture, which we remember has to do not simply with the southern economy, but a global economy. The north was all up in bed with the south, it was the financial financing structure of the southern economy, just like England, which swore off the, the global slave trade was all up in bed because most of the cotton went to manufacturing places in Manchester that produced the textiles, that produ made cotton the most powerful commodity in the world and elevated America to global political economic status. So , uh, so the deval of labor there, the disenfranchisement of political power, there was all about exploiting labor in exactly the same way. Now that , of course, that was the exact same thing going on with Chinese laborers on the west coast, south Asian le laborers brought to the West Indies, right? These are all forms of commodifying basically asking the question, how do I make use of that? Um, we need to remember that the distinction that we tend to wanna make within capitalism between enslaved labor and paid labor is a razor thin distinction. And we need to remember if, if , um, uh, if capitalists could, they would make everyone enslaved laborers. That's partly that in in some sense totally explains why capitalists are always shopping for new labor markets. Where if you , if you can't exploit people , uh, to their dying breath in the United States because of legal law , legal moral interventions, then you're gonna do it in other parts of the world and tell those laws catch up with you. And if you can't do with humans, say in Vietnam, you'll figure out how to do with buts , uh, that exploit that kind of technology over and against Vietnamese laborers in Vietnam. Right? So it's the , and and notice part of the action here is to pit the oppressed people against each other. Now, the, the , the emancipated laborers in the South see the Chinese workers , uh, on the west coast as the enemy, just like the workers on the west coast divided say between issues of race , uh, see each other as enemies. Now they also see the Vietnamese, right <laugh> laborers as their enemies. It just goes on and on. Notice the , the divide and conquer at the bottom, which is not the bottom of course, it's the vast majority of us. And then the other dynamics that leaves the elites sco free . Everyone goes to war with each other as divided by race or what have you, nationality, religion, the elites get off skate Scott free . The disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us grows and grows. And then we have the political heat that we just described earlier with very little work being done. That's the larger political economy that we need to keep our eyes on. And the extraordinary thing about that political economy is, it's described fully in scripture. I mean, scripture is described , uh, entirely in terms of forms of exploitation or what is often just called privation or predatory behavior. That's how Augustine describes sin. So
Speaker 1:Dr. Tran, I'm really grateful for you to come on the podcast and talk about this with us. And you said something that really stuck out to me , uh, that I think actually goes to the core a little bit of when, of why we started this podcast, what you said about the , um, sort of the, what was it, the, the freedom theology around Thingify versus where do I see God? How do I see God? How is God at work in this moment, in this instance? That's something that , uh, Lee and I experienced as young adult volunteers and in different aspects of our own lives. And I think that if we always remember to be asking that question, then the narratives, we or I should back up and just say, we will not lose ourselves in the narrative so that such that we are only thingify our lives and thingify everything to the point that, as you said, we are pitting being pitted against each other. And that's something that the church offers. That's something that's really important for our own spirituality and also I think just for our core being. And I'm really grateful to you for reminding us of that because it's very easy to get caught up in the technology and in the problems, but also let the problems just be the whole story. And I'm grateful that you've reminded us that that is not in fact the truth, especially if, if we believe in the God that we say we believe in. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast and we'll have a link to your book in the show notes so that folks can check it out. But we are very grateful. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks to Dr. Tran for being with us this week. It was an awesome conversation and we hope all of you got something out of it and are doing the work to, to make things go forward and to move into action and necessarily continue the circle that we are currently in. So thank you Dr. Tran, for being with us on the podcast, and we hope you all subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And we hope you leave us a review. Just a few words we would love to hear from you, and we, hopefully you give us five stars. And if you have any questions for us, send 'em to Fate podcast@peaceusa.org. Also, check out our website, a matter of fate podcast.com. There you'll find our sister Spanish podcast and our Sister Korean podcast and you'll find our listening guides. So check all those things out on the website and of course, we will join you and talk with you next week.