Listen to a recording of our monthly subscriber chat from this past Tuesday, where Jonathan, Sy, and our subscribers get into:
- How to practice hope and peacemaking in fearful times like this election season
- How peace is different than unity, and takes power dynamics into account
- How hope is shaped by God’s presence with us, the depths of evil and suffering we see around us, and perspectives outside our context
- And we discuss and contextualize the news about increased BIPOC support for Trump
Credits
- Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.
- Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.
- Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.
- Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.
- Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.
- Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.
- Editing and Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribers
Transcript
[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]
Intro and Announcements
Sy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra, and this is a bonus episode where we are bringing you the subscriber conversation that we had just a couple of days ago. You might notice that I, both in the recording and right now sound a little bit sickly just because I have COVID. Don't worry, everything is fine. It's been pretty mild, but I sound stuffy.
We are bringing you a great conversation today about hope and about peacemaking in difficult times and times like this election, frankly. Why hope is so hard to have, both because it's risky, but also because it can seem privileged and naive, and why we think it's not and we do it anyways. Some stories of where that kind of hope comes from. And we talk about peacemaking and how it's not the same as just unity and kumbaya, but how we sometimes strive for unity in the name of peace. And sometimes we strive for a little bit of strife, maybe, to tell some truth in the name of peace. Not maybe, we definitely do that a lot [laughs]. And then we get into a little bit about some kind of changing, somewhat changing demographics about who is voting Republican and why that is. And that actually makes sense when you understand it from the perspective of whiteness and colonization.
Quick favor to ask, if you like this podcast, which I know you do because you're listening to the subscriber only feed, go give this show a rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And if you're on Apple, give us a written review too. They are so encouraging, and the ratings and the reviews help other people find us and see that other people think that this show is good and worth their time.
Also, in case you missed it, we are going to be doing a Substack live conversation on November 6th at 1pm, that's the day after the election. If you're listening to this, you're already on our mailing list, so that means you will be notified via email. You will need the Substack app. There will be a link in that email, but you can also download the app at any time, iOS or Android, and then you'll be able to watch our live video conversation. We've already done the tech check and everything [laughs] to make sure that it all works. It's a new feature on Substack, and we're excited to talk to you, kind of in that new format. So do join us, Wednesday, November 6th, at 1pm to hear our reactions to what happened on Election Day and whatever is going on after it. There's a lot of possibilities. Trump will have declared that he won no matter what happened, that's my guess, and we will be moving on from there. So please do come join us. That'll be, I don't want to say, a fun conversation, but it'll be an interesting conversation for sure, and you will find some grace in it and some people who share your values. So join us then, and alright, without any further ado here is our monthly subscriber conversation for October.
[The intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]
Jonathan Walton: Let's pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil one. For thine is kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen.
Sy Hoekstra: Amen.
Jonathan Walton: And thanks again for all of you all for being here. Sy is gonna set up our time.
What does it mean to have hope or be a peacemaker in stressful times like the election?
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, thanks for coming. We just figured we wanted to, I mean, obviously we do this every month, but we wanted to talk some about kind of what it means to be a thoughtful peacemaker in a time like the next week [laughs] or the next couple of months to come, depending on what exactly happens next week. And first of all, you'll hear I'm a little stuffed. I apologize. I have the COVID virus.
Mindy: Oh no.
Sy Hoekstra: I've been okay, don't worry. It's been a mild cold for me. Welcome Allison. And so I will sound nasally, but [laughs] that's all. And so I guess we wanna talk a little bit about that, and then we wanted to get into, assuming people don't have questions. At any point anybody can interrupt with questions that they have, you put in the chat, or you can just join the conversation and ask questions. So we wanna talk about what it means to be a peacemaker in this time. And then also, a little bit about interesting things that have been happening around, like where voting demographics and stuff with the with the Trump campaign. So Jonathan, I think you had some thoughts to get us started on what you think it means to follow Jesus' instructions to be a peacemaker in a time that is as unpeaceful as this. So [laughs] do you wanna get us going?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I think we may have talked about this a little bit on the podcast last week, just about how the invitation from culture, particularly the people texting me to give to campaigns [laughter] and emailing me. I got a text, it literally said, “We have texted you six times. You have not made a donation.” And I was like, “That is true, I have not made a donation [laughs]. I did not know you had texted me six times.” But Walz wanted me to know that. But the feeling is that I should be afraid, and then as Sy mentioned on the podcast, is that his sense is that he should be cynical. And so this invitation to cynicism and to fear, and just no. Jesus says no to that [laughs].
So what does it look like to be hopeful and have our hope be set on the hope that does not disappoint in that way, and then that we can ask questions and be introspective, and do the radical interrogation that is necessary to follow Jesus in ways that are transformative and helpful in a world that is fractured and falling apart, and not be cynical. And so, I don't know if you all have thoughts about that or feelings about that, but how are you pushing towards hope when you're pressed to be afraid, and then how are you, or do you have questions about leaning into radical interrogation and asking good, hard, deep questions without slipping into cynicism? I have thoughts, but that was something I wanted to open up with, particularly in light of CNN, and a certain rally that happened in New York City two days ago. Does anybody not know what I'm talking about when I say the rally?
Sy Hoekstra: You might as well just say because people listen to it later, so [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Okay, great. So there was a… shoot, what's his name? Shoot. Donald Trump [laughter] had a rally.
Sy Hoekstra: What's his name. Old What's His Name?
Jonathan Walton: Well, because I was writing another… so I did not write this blurb. This will not show up in the newsletter, but I was trying to write, and it turned into too many links about the Nazi rally from the 1930s at Madison Square Garden, and that comparison to the rally that happened yesterday, and like they're strikingly similar. Also the similarities between Elon Musk and Henry Ford and their anti-Semitism racism, but that's an essay, friends. That's not a blurb in our newsletter, and takes more time and energy than I have right now. But all that to say, Donald Trump was at Madison Square Garden, and he did a rally there were however many thousands of people there. And it was littered with racist, xenophobic nationalists just… it was a lot. It was a lot of them in one speech with lots of people.
So I honestly can't tell you what other content was there, because there were so many groups that got kind of called out, which was similar to Trump's presidency. But I think the invitation from that is to be afraid and then to be cynical, because it's quite likely that he could win. And so that feels for me particularly pertinent to present to being hopeful and present to asking good, hard questions and loving the Lord with my mind in that way. So yeah, any thoughts, comments, puzzles that you'd like to share Allison sighed. I mean [laughs], Mindy sighed. And David looks very reflective [laughs]. So feel free to share about that, what you all are thinking and feeling. David, looks like you almost started. Did you have anything to share? No? Alright.
Making Peace Involves Taking Power Dynamics into Account
Sy Hoekstra: Okay. I could talk a little bit, Jonathan. The guy who spoke, the guy who most of the comments that the media is focusing on, was a comedian who opened for Trump who told a bunch of racist jokes. And I think when I think about what it means to be hopeful and peaceful in this moment, I do contrast it a little bit with what I think a lot of people who I think would probably be sort of politically in the middle. Oh, David says he can't unmute himself, Jonathan.
David: Now I can.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh, there you go.
David: Sorry, go ahead.
Sy Hoekstra: Okay, well, I'll keep talking, and then you can go, I guess, since I started [laughs]. But I've just been contrasting in a little bit with what I think some people in kind of the middle would view as peace, which is…Typically the default in our conversation is, without recognizing this or making this explicit, the default is people who vote for Trump are real Americans, with the concerns that we should care about and we need to understand and empathize with. And lots of other people, especially people who are marginalized, are more marginal. Not to say that no Trump voters are marginalized, but more marginalized than the demographics that vote for Trump are like DEI concerns, you know what I mean?
Like some kind of special concern outside of the concerns of real Americans. And so I do think that, in part, what it means to be not cynical and not fearful and hopeful and peaceful is to reject that binary and to say, for me to be a peacemaker, I need to take into account power dynamics and say that the thing that has to happen is, yes, everybody needs to be understanding and kind and empathetic and everything toward each other, but because there are power dynamics, there actually are people who need to do that more than others [laughs]. And it is not that the elite liberal media on the coasts needs to understand the farmers in the middle [laughs]. That's not the power dynamic.
The power dynamic is everybody who has positions of privilege, whether they're on the coast or in the middle or whatever else, whatever part they’re part of needs to be making an attempt to understand people who have less of a voice and less of a say in the world than they do. So that's my initial thought. I don't know, David, if yours is related to that at all, but you're welcome to go ahead.
God’s Often Confusing Presence in Our Grief Is a Foundation for Hope
David: No. Thanks, Sy. And I agree. I think it's there's a combination of, what do you do? What should I do? And I don't have a lot of clarity on that. And I think you're right. I mean, I think some of us have more responsibility than others to do and to stand up for the people who are going to be feeling marginalized no matter what happens in our church.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I was just gonna say, what are you doing as a pastor? It’s an interesting question.
David: Yeah, this coming Sunday we have All Saints Sunday, and the gospel reading is the end of the raising of Lazarus. And I was talking to someone this morning who said, “This really should be the reading for the Sunday after the election, because we can say it's been four days and it stinks”
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
David: Which I guess is the cynicism temptation. But just sort of in reflecting on that, I think that's one of the things that I've been trying to wrestle with, is being in the space of Jesus both knows what he's going to do at the end, it's gonna be good, when he tells us what to do we're gonna say, “Oh no, no, no, that's not a good idea.” But we haven't gotten to that point in the story yet. And we're at the point of the story where we're weeping, and God is weeping with us and present with us. And I think for me at least, I think we have to be grounded in that first. That God will show up. No matter what happens, God will show up. God will show up in a way that we don't expect, don't understand, and probably will resist at first, but we don't know what that is yet.
And right now, emotions are raw, and they're gonna be raw, and just knowing that God is present in that, I think that has to be the starting point. Because if we don't start there we're gonna just do whatever comes to our mind first, and that's probably not gonna be the right thing, because we're reacting out of a place of fear.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
David: And there's a lot to be afraid of.
Jonathan Walton: Right. [laughs] Mindy nodded, yes, there's a lot to be afraid of.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
David: But there really is a lot to be afraid of.
Sy Hoekstra: Right.
Jonathan Walton: Right.
Sy Hoekstra: What you're saying is…
David: Regardless of who wins, to be honest.
Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely.
Insisting on Hope is Difficult and Emotionally Complicated
Sy Hoekstra: And what you're saying is not to delegitimize that reality.
David: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: And it's a hard thing to do to insist on hope [laughs]. It's not just a hard thing to do because you're risking, like, what if I hope and I'm wrong and I get hurt? But there's also just, there are people who are going to see hope and think it's the wrong thing to do, and it might even be an insulting thing to do, depending on where they are, and we're still called to it, and that is just genuinely complex.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, Mindy, did you wanna add something to that before I dive into Jason's question in the chat, because I think it pulls David's question like in a tighter vein?
Mindy: Well, I guess I'll say it's hard to have hope in this… I believe that you're right, and I believe that God is present in this, and will find a way. But I just feel like there's going to be so much pain before that happens. And I mean, there already has been.
The Depths of the Racism Is a Barrier to Hope
Mindy: I read something yesterday, I think that, so this was the thing that people chose to speak out about [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Right.
Mindy: And we totally were fine with the Haitians being under the bus, but… and I don't want to pit people.
Jonathan Walton: No, no, I understand.
Mindy: It’s all awful, but I thought that was really interesting, that politicians weren't threatened by that, but were threatened now and so had to disavow it now.
Sy Hoekstra: Sorry, what are they threatened by now? The Madison Square Garden rally?
Mindy: The Puerto Ricans because they're…
Sy Hoekstra: The Puerto Ricans. Yeah.
Mindy: And…
Sy Hoekstra: Well, the Puerto Ricans are citizens, aren't they [laughs]? They can vote.
Mindy: Yes. And that just really hit me when I read it, because just the whole thing about the impact on Haitians in this country just has broken my heart. And again, it's like you can say something as a joke, and real people suffer. People are suffering. And even here's another thing that hit me. And we don't have to go up on this tangent, but I just wanna say it.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Mindy: Is that part of that joke was about Puerto Ricans having so many children.
Sy Hoekstra: Yes.
Mindy: And it's like, I thought that's what everybody [laughs] wanted.
Sy Hoekstra: No, it's the wrong people having the children, though. That's the thing.
Mindy: I mean, obviously the underlying thing is they don't want Puerto Rican children.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Right.
Jonathan Walton: Having children. Right.
Mindy: But, I mean, just all… I'm sorry, I’ll stop, but it just all makes me sick [laughs].
Sy Hoekstra: There was a famous clip. It got a guy fired. He was an anchor or a pundit? I think he was a pundit for Fox News who when those numbers first came out like 15 years ago, or whatever that said, “By 2040 or whatever, we’ll be a minority nation. There'll be no majority race. There'll be a plurality of White people, but it'll be less than 50 percent. There was a Fox News anchor who said, basically, entreating his White audience, he explicitly said, “Do your duty. Have more children.”
Jonathan Walton: Right.
Sy Hoekstra: And he got fired over it. But also he just, like they might say on the Twitters, he said the quiet part out loud [laughter]. That’s what you're identifying that quiet part.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: Jason said that the perception being the Haitians don’t vote as much as Puerto Ricans do. And, of course, the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, a lot of them are actually not citizens. That's the point there, but yeah, there are a whole lot of Haitian citizens [laughter] in some important places like Florida.
Jonathan Walton: And Pennsylvania [laughs].
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: Right. Which is why Rick Scott disavowed it, because he's trying to win an election in Florida.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, exactly. Every politician in Brooklyn disavowed it. Of course, they did [laughs]. Boston, or whatever.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: Do you wanna go with Jason's question?
There Is Hope in Worship and in Remembering How Small Our Particular Context Is
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, because I feel like David's question of, “What do I do?” and then it's like, if you pull that down one level, down a lot of abstraction, it's like, “What do I do today, what I do tomorrow, what I do?” Because there's like, real different things there. And then I think there's the engagement and communication across difference or perceived sameness that Jason is talking about, where it's like, “Alright, well, I'm doing this with Christians, but in this environment. Like how do I do it in this place?” And so something I've been thinking about a lot is the… I don't think that Christians, like followers of Jesus, are aligned with Trump as much as we believe or think that he is, because I think about the world.
So I have to right size, capital C Church, to remind myself that there is a remnant that exists outside of this context that has nothing to do with… You know, like I was having a conversation with an Indonesian kid in Tampa this past weekend, and him deciding to follow Jesus and seeing a vision, and all of these different things of God moving, his context has never been intersected with the Trump or Christian nationalist reality, and Jesus is meeting him. So I think there's some of that. So I can right size this to be like, Revelation like 3 to 22 is still at work in all these different places. Like, how does it work in this context? So I think being as present as we can with real people, and as present as we can in the promises of the Lord, and kind of seeing how those things work together, there can be a little more hope, because the pain and the suffering and the brokenness perpetuated by people gets overshadowed by the light of Jesus, to still be doing things in these places.
And so I think one way, as close as we are to the stories of people encountering Jesus and participating in that story is just a really helpful thing as best as we can. And I mean, I am I think a little privileged, and a little, it's a little problematic. It's like, this is my job. I get to think about these things. Oh, I get to, in air quotes, Allison. I get to think about these things [laughs]. But I think there was something that happened for me in writing. I just put it in the chat, we have these three prayer meetings next week, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Like the first one is, even if my greatest fears come true. The second one is, even if my greatest hopes come true, and the third one is, praying for our political enemies.
When we saturate ourselves with scripture, when we sit before God, when we have conversations with people, things just… It's like the song says, the things of this world begin to pass away, and we can actually see Jesus. And then we look back at the world, the world looks different. And so spiritual disciplines of prayer in community and individually, spiritual disciplines of fasting, spiritual disciplines of generosity, those things change us. And so I actually got, I told somebody a story of Gabrielle, Sy actually, when she was trapped in Haiti during the earthquake. And I don't know if you all remember the earthquake in 2010. And she's sitting there in the rubble and there's no power, and there's worship.
And there's something that happens when people of Jesus, people of faith, decide to praise God. And so I think worship, prayer, meditation and scripture, individually and in community, and in these moments of, what do I do now? I do feel like is, we need to pray, fast and intercede. That's what the people of God, we worship. So I think there is an urgency around that for orientation. And then the long-term stuff is the things that we were able to, I've said it in different ways and different contexts. In the KTF context is to pace yourself, being like to pray, to assess, to collaborate, establish. Like we can discern what God is doing, because if we're sitting on a Zoom call in the middle of the day, we have food, we have resources, we have… we have the capacity to plan, which people in Gaza don't.
So it's, how can we see that adequately, because we will in Jesus name, be alive post November the sixth. Like we can actually plan longer term because of how empire has treated us in 2024. Yeah, so I think that the dwelling in scripture and dwelling with people in scripture, and dwelling in worship alone and with people can kind of create the fire behind and the cloud above to be able to know that we're kind of it with God in that way, to use a, not we are not Israel, but to use an Exodus analogy, because now… Go ahead, Sy.
Sy Hoekstra: I was gonna say, if I can add to the hope point there, the hope in difficult times when Gabrielle was in Haiti, you just reminded me. So basically, Gabrielle was basically trapped in Haiti for a couple days and… this is my wife we're talking about. And she was not hurt, and neither was her team that she was there with. She was with a bunch of students from her grad school program, and a couple of professors, one professor. And they basically found themselves at a makeshift medical tent that someone, I think, a PA or a doctor, there was one actual medical professional there, and then just a bunch of people acting as disaster area nurses [laughs]. So that's what Gabrielle did for a couple days.
And was sleeping on the hood of a car whenever she got too exhausted to keep working, because people just kept coming in and coming in with horrible injuries. And we'd come to learn more than 100,000 people had just died in a matter of seconds, and way more were injured. And she was exhausted from all this after a while. And there was this young woman, I don't know, early teenage years, who at one point, she was injured. She was in a bed, or in whatever, a makeshift spot that Gabrielle was treating people around her, and she stopped Gabrielle, and she asked her if Gabrielle would pray with her. And Gabrielle comes over thinking, “Oh, yes, I'm gonna pray for this injured young woman who's whatever,” and the young woman starts praying for her, and basically asking God to give her the strength and hope as she keeps going. And I mean, I think maybe that was the moment you're referring to, Jonathan [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Yes.
Sy Hoekstra: But that's kind of where she… Our daughter is actually named after this young woman. I've told Gabrielle, I won't put our daughter's full name out there, so [laughs] I won't say it. But it was just an incredible moment of Gabrielle… Gabrielle questioned the whole time while she's there, where on earth is God in all of this? And that was the answer she got. And I think there's a lot of… it was like you and the work that you're doing and in the prayers of this young woman, and that's where God is operating in the middle of this disaster. And I think to a lot of people, this is why I'm saying hope is hard. Like that's not a satisfying answer to a lot of people, for reasons that I can understand. I can really understand. But it's one of those times… it's like one of those things that's deep enough for me, that gets me to think about the cross [laughs], to be to be my own… Once an evangelical, always an evangelical [laughs].
And just to think of the pain that God, I just talked about this on a recent episode, the pain that God puts God's self through in order to get us to trust him through those little things. Like through those prayers and through that work that we do when hope is so low and in short supply. So I don't know, that's what you got me thinking about Jonathan. And because it's the origin of my daughter's name, I got all up in my feelings [laughter].
Jonathan Walton: It’s all good.
Sy Hoekstra: But that's, yeah, that's real.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think we could talk a long time about the cross and the gospel and how relevant it is when we are trying to feel hopeful.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: And at the same time, it's like, for me, it's like, not the go to thing. I will go to lots of other things before I remember, “Oh, right. This was not what he promised.” We were doing a Bible study on Sunday at our house with our small group. It’s not a very small group. It’s like 10 families, which is not a small group anymore [laughter].
Sy Hoekstra: That’s a small church, a house church.
Jonathan Walton: I was like, “There are a lot of people here.” But Ephesians 3, where it's like… I'm sorry, Ephesians 1, where it's like this deposit that Jesus, that God has made in us because of his promise. And I'm like, crap, his promise is just his presence, and the Holy Spirit is that deposit until we see him on the other side of eternity. I’m like, that's what was promised. All these other things I want were not promised, which is I like what Mindy, I would like to think that's really good, but in the daily I'm content, but not satisfied, which is really hard when people are suffering. So yeah. Any other thoughts or musings on that before, I know Sy has other things on the list, but you all may have had questions and stuff that came up between them.
Sy Hoekstra: Now, I made my other things feel insignificant [laughter]. I was like, we'll just start with a general thing, peacemaking, hope, whatever [laughter]. Oh, sorry, what was…? Jason had a question though, Jonathan, that was a little bit back about, I think White identity which I wanna hit since we have time.
Calls for Peace Versus Calls for Unity
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm curious about how you're made hopeful in peace building as Christians, when there is such strong alignment between White Christian identity and Trump campaign. I think I said stuff about that. Just been making, kind of decentering our current reality towards one that is much larger.
Sy Hoekstra: Oh, I see. Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: But I did not do the second paragraph. It seems to be that 1, a perhaps well-intentioned call for Christian unity could center White Christianity, 2, reinforce, mirror false peace. Yep, all three of those things. Yes, it would do that [laughs]. And I think that I personally don't… I mean, there may have been a season where I did, but I don't know that I've ever called for unity, like been like, we need to really... I don't know I've ever done that.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I'm trying to think real hard. Have I ever…
Sy Hoekstra: Because the thing is, I think everybody would agree in the extreme… and Jason's right, calls for peace can be experienced as calls for unity. That's a good point.
Jonathan Walton: That's true. Okay, cool.
Sy Hoekstra: So that's not what we're saying [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: Because I think what anyone would probably concede if you just made it abstract and took it to an extreme, there are always times when you should call for unity among people who are disagreeing over things that don't matter. And there are things where you need to call for, excuse me, disassociation, when there are disagreements over things that really do matter.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: Like for any individual person, you could come up with something that doesn't matter and something that really, really is crucial, and I don't think anyone would say, “Yeah, we really should have been calling for unity in the churches of Germany in the 1930s,” or whatever. Like all those churches should have just gotten together and made peace with the Nazis and been fine because a lot of churches were basically Nazi churches. Or segregationist churches in America, or whatever. So I think the trick is just, you got to know when you're calling for unity and when you're calling to shake the dust. And obviously our orientation at this particular moment in the American church [laughs] would be the call to do the name of our podcast is. But I think that peacemaking and unity are different things.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: And when we say peacemaking, I'm not talking about an absence of conflict. I'm not talking about just being nice to people no matter what. I'm not talking about very fine people on both sides [laughs]. I am talking about reconciling people to the truth, as many people as you can, and the people who will not do that. As Jesus said when he sent people out, before you shake the dust off your feet you let the peace that you gave to them return to you, and then you leave.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Philippians 2, where it talks about, so the unity that we are talking about is when Jesus says, “I want you to be of one mind. Be of one spirit in Christ Jesus.” And so if we, like we on this call are talking about that, then the other thing that my mind goes to is calls for peace and unity. I'm trying to think of when they have come not from people in power. And then I think there's a sliver of that in the quote- unquote, like parts of the Democratic Party, particularly Black folks right now. Like well, we need to vote for Kamala Harris, because if we do that, then we have a better chance of fighting for peace in Palestine. Or there's talks about what's strategic versus righteous in that way.
And I think that the calling for unity, I can't think of a time where that was, if we're not talking about Philippians 1 and 2 kind of unity, the calls for unity are usually by people in power, or to get some sort of power, which I don't know that Jesus is ever about getting power. So they feel irreconcilable to me. If I'm calling for unity in the spirit and in the church, I don't think it's possible for me to call for unity for the sake of political power. That seems antithetical to the entirety of acts to me, and the early church and the witnesses and how the redemption project that we can see, the arc of Jesus’ coming as a complete story. Nothing of that to me sounds like the strategy to obtain political power and influence.
So it's almost like in the church, when we call for unity, there has to be a radical explanation of what we mean by that before we say it, or people will just define it for themselves, or feel totally, not obfuscated. What's an easier word? Papered over. Like let's just paper over this difference for the sake of this. For the sake of the voting on this measure at our board meeting, or making sure this bylaw passes. Or this person gets into office, or this good thing happens. Literally, a lot of Black activists arguing vote for Kamala, because then we won't have to shoot all of the fires out if Trump's elected, then we can act… You know, like just time. I mean, you all probably remember this, activists’ energy got totally sucked up by everything that Trump did every day.
There was no focus and availability for long term things like climate change, just like second level problems that people engage with and experience. It was like we were afraid. I’ll speak in the I. I was afraid every day to go on social media to see what needed to be mobilized next and who would be hurt.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs]. Right.
Jonathan Walton: That was exhausting. So I can see the strategy, but it feels irreconcilable with Jesus' prayer, and the apostles prayer in John 18, the high priestly prayer in John 18, the call for unity in Christ in Philippians 2, it doesn't go together with political power.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I think it sounds like you’re asking what the unity is, what is the goal? And then is the thing that I'm doing in the name of the goal? Can I have integrity with that, right?
Jonathan Walton: Right.
Sy Hoekstra: Does that sound right to you?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, because I can't... Man, I was talking with a young woman… Well, she's not young, just a woman. She's an activist. I was doing a workshop. And she’s probably a nurse. She has two kids, she's Haitian. She's probably like 45/46. And she just said, “This isn't abstract for me. This is very real.” And what we're saying is, the Scripture says vengeance is not mine, vengeance is God's. But you're saying is that like, if this is true, then my people are going to suffer. Like that's not an uncostly thing to say, believe, preach, call people to. And so, yeah, the frustration with that is real.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: And I would not have integrity on the flip side, if I told her it didn't matter, this is just the right thing to do for the sake of being united. Because we're united in Christ, which means I have to mourn with her, I have to suffer alongside her if we're united.
Sy Hoekstra: Any other thoughts on that? Thank you very much for the questions and the thoughts. Jonathan, you can still hear me, right?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, you're good.
Sy Hoekstra: Okay, cool. I just made sure I didn't do something there.
The Somewhat Elevated Black and Latine Support for Trump
Sy Hoekstra: The kind of like the more newsy item that I wanted to talk about, the thing that I've just been seeing a lot about recently is there's been a lot of stories about, I mean, we're hearing this a lot in New York too, because Trump had his rally in the Bronx a little while ago, and it's just about why there appears to be a shift upward in Black and Brown support for Donald Trump. And it's been such an interesting story, because a lot of it is like obscuring the fact that Kamala Harris is gonna still overwhelmingly win all Black and Brown voters [laughs]. That's like not a question. But they keep saying there's X amount of percentage increase or whatever.
And then Jonathan reminded me earlier today, we had Barack Obama coming out recently and basically going after Black men for increasing voting in Trump, as though Trump getting elected could be their fault and not the fault of the overwhelming majority of… not overwhelming, but the majority of White voters who are voting for him. And people are just, I feel like people are missing the point in a lot of ways, in that we're kind of over emphasizing the upswing as opposed to right sizing it and looking at the whole picture. But I also think there's this interesting thing going on in the Republican Party, where they are I think realizing that with the demographic shifts of this country, they have to find a way to include more people somewhere under the umbrella of whiteness if they wanna survive.
Like if they don't wanna really change a lot of their outlook in the ways that they approach voting and still get elected, there's gonna be some inroads that have to be made among some people, other than hardline White conservatives. And that's harder the more Trumpy you get. But it's kind of like we have to find ways to make whiteness and the propping up of whiteness seem beneficial to some marginal increase of Black and Brown people. And the way that it's working the most is among men. And again, it's not really working overall at all, but the way [laughs] that there's small gains is among men. And I was listening to this interview with this journalist named Paola Ramos, who is really a great journalist in her own right, but she's also the daughter of the famous Univision anchor Jorge Ramos.
And she has written a book that she was talking about called Defectors, which is all about basically the increase in right wing and religious right wing Latinos in America. And she talks about, she has a nice, little alliterative three-word thing that she's talking about. She says we talk about tribalism, traditionalism and trauma, are her three big factors in her investigative reporting. And the trauma thing was the thing that kind of stuck out to me, and this real sense that Republicans can take advantage of massive amounts of people who have come to this country because they were fleeing… Jonathan just gave you the link to the book. Because they're fleeing communist dictatorships, or their grandparents fled communist dictatorships or whatever.
And the actual, genuine fear that Democrats are not taking into account, which is if you actually grew up afraid of the secret police or whatever from a communist regime, and you came to America for freedom, and one of the two people getting voted for is being labeled a communist, how that's scary in a way that a lot of people are not thinking about. That's like scary in a, and it's like a bone deep fear [laughs] of something that actually happened to me or to my family, and that still haunts me. I might have PTSD or whatever. And how easy it is for that kind of, again, like Jonathan inviting us to be afraid. There are fears that are more and less understandable [laughs] I think in the world, that would make somebody vote for a strong man, and that's one of the ones that's more understandable, even if it comes out, when it's in your face, it's really mean and ugly sometimes, but it's real.
And Gabrielle recently went to a protest. I wrote about this in the newsletter, there's all this ethnic cleansing going on in the Dominican Republic right now, where they're deporting just like tens of thousands of Haitians in a matter of weeks. And there was a protest at a Dominican consulate in the Bronx. There were a bunch of Dominican counter protesters, like serious Trump supporting, angry counter protesters. She said she was there and a couple people, there were cops and they formed a line in between the protesters and the counter protesters. So more than once, she heard a counter protester shout, “He's got a gun!” in an attempt to get the cops to spin around and pull their guns on the protesters and maybe shoot somebody.
And she was like, “This is serious. I'm afraid to be here.” And I don't know, that kind of fear coming from… and it's a little bit different in the Dominican case, because we propped up fascists in the DR to fight communism, but again, fighting this specter of this terrible thing that happened in Cuba and other places [laughs]. There's just so much wrapped up in that that isn't just what we're used to talking about with like rural White Trump supporters or whatever. It is heart wrenching, Jason. And I just think that difference and that nuance is like, we have to get that, but also I know that Donald Trump, the Donald Trump campaign, do not understand Latino voters [laughs]. You know what I mean? I know that they do not have the cultural context.
They know they have found through polling or whatever, that there is some anti-immigrant sentiment that they can take a hold of. There's some anti-communist sentiment that they can take a hold of. And also, I know for a fact that they don't actually understand the people that they're trying to preach to. And so there has to be a movement of people who actually do understand those cultures, to find the thing, find the hooks in those cultures that get people toward a movement of solidarity as the answer to trauma. Because that's the, you know what I mean? It's like empathy and understanding that other people have gone through the same thing, that the person you're voting for is putting other people through similar stuff to what you or your family went through, that kind of stuff has to happen and it has to happen from the from the inside, like from the people who actually get the culture and who know the stuff about the culture that Donald Trump doesn't know. And that I don't know, by the way [laughs]. Right?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah.
Sy Hoekstra: That kind of organizing has to happen. And that's the kind of stuff that you see happening with, I always think the Black Voters Matter movement in Georgia with LaTosha Brown and everybody else was that kind of movement, was somebody who understood, and Stacey Abrams, all those people understood something about Black voters in Georgia that outsiders, even in the Democratic Party, really didn't get, and they took advantage of it [laughs]. So that kind of thing needs to happen. I've been talking for so long now. I'm sorry [laughs]. I just had a lot of thoughts to get out, and I thought this might be a good place to do it. Jonathan, your thoughts, or anybody else's?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I want everybody else to talk, but I wanna say like…
Sy Hoekstra: Sorry.
Jonathan Walton: No, no, you're fine. Three quick things before too long. One, there's a book. Don't read the first one, definitely read the second one. The first one is Jerry Falwell's, Listen, America! Don't read it. It's a terrible book. It's not well researched or any of those things, but it dictates the United States’ entire Republican platform right now. And it's been that way since 1979. And one of the things that he says…
Sy Hoekstra: Well, except for the pro life stuff, They’ve kind of gotten rid of that. But go on.
Jonathan Walton: That's true. He did get mad about that later in life. What he says about evil communist and the evil Marxist and the godless, I think he said the godless socialist. That mechanism, and then if you can google his arguments with, he debated Jesse Jackson and he debated some other leader on Nightline in nineteen seventy something. And you could watch them argue about it.
Sy Hoekstra: All recounted in Jonathan's book, by the way. You can just go read Jonathan’s book.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah. It is in Twelve Lies. I write it all down.
Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan is trying to remember research he did a few years ago [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: It's true. It's true. That's what's happening right now. But what's interesting about it is that the playbook’s really old.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: And so the way that I kind of pull it into today is like, and it is Twelve Lies, it is White American folk religion. It's like after race, there is gender, and that includes orientation, sexuality, identity and practice. So let me figure out a way to make… there's a Peruvian scholar whose name escapes me, but he says, “I can make coloniality tempting. Let me just get a few people.” And so The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. you should definitely read. It's not an easy book, but one of the things you see, and that he highlights, is a dialog between slaves and why they're doing certain things, why they're not doing certain things. Who's willing to fight, who's not willing to fight.
One of the slaves becomes a pastor of other slaves, and this idea that he could be elevated is enticing to him. And so it's just a fascinating, so similarly, I think the same thing is at play. Because I may not be White, and I do not mean this in a pejorative way, but I'm gonna just use the language. It's like, I may not be White, but at least I'm not Black. I may not be White, but at least I'm not gay. I may not be White, but at least I'm not a woman. I may not be White, but… And so there's a there's a temptation there to get it with Paola Ramos’ thing, and her stuff is amazing, like if I cannot be traumatized, I would choose that.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: And it's a human choice.
Sy Hoekstra: It’s also, by the way, it's an intentional thing that we've done for a long time. And you can go back and especially among pro slavery advocates in the south before the war or after the war, at any point [laughs]. People who are supporting either slavery or supporting Jim Crow and the Black Codes later, there was an intentional, explicit, “We need to make sure that poor White people and Black people don't band together against us. So we're gonna give poor White people something over the Black people that they can hold on to that is of real value in our society.” And they would say these things in letters to each other just openly. Like as clearly as I just said it. And that's our history. You know what I mean?
And by the way, another thing you reminded me of, we have plenty of Cold War trauma about communism in this country too [laughs]. We had children hiding under desks and people saying that you could be exploded by a nuclear missile from the Kremlin at any point. So this is here too [laughs] is what I’m saying.
Mindy: But then what I don't get about that then is, how can trump being sidling up to Putin, and that's acceptable.
Sy Hoekstra: He’s a strong man.
Allison: I grew up with, you know, I'm a total Cold War kid. And so, how in the world, the Republican Party, I mean…
Sy Hoekstra: I hear what you're saying, but he's…
Allison: It’s making my head explode.
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Allison: This stuff is like, this Russian interference, it's all over the place, and now somehow Kamala Harris is the communist. I don't get it [laughs].
Sy Hoekstra: It's because they're like, we did this during the Cold War too, though. We cozied up with all kinds of dictators and strong men, as long as they weren't communists. And Putin's not a communist. He hates communists [laughs]. He's a right wing authoritarian. And we were fine doing that all over the world during the Cold War. Yeah, I don't know. It's an ideological thing. Anti-communism and anti-authoritarianism are not the same thing, is what I'm saying [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: I think that… All right, so it's 1:59. We are in like a lot of contextual soup.
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.
Jonathan Walton: And so to go back a little bit, Haiti and the DR, and then their distinct histories with the developed world. I hate using that phrase, but you all know what I mean.
Sy Hoekstra: Rich world.
Jonathan Walton: Yeah, yeah. So if we are just looking at them, it's like Haiti liberates itself from France, then kicks out Spain. But when they came together, because there was a Republic of Haiti, the Dominicans were a part of that. But then the Haiti wanted the DR to help pay reparations to France, so that France wouldn't invade again. And so then the DR was like, “They're trying to tax us.” And so then Spain was like, “Well, we're gonna come back.” So then you have the wars between quote- unquote, Haitians and Dominicans. But then if you go across the ocean a little bit to Venezuela, on their flags, they have portion of the Haitian flag because Haitians sent resources to South America to liberate them from Spain. And so in the DR though, you might meet a lot of Dominicans with Greek names and Latinized names, because their relationship to whiteness is very different than other countries in the Caribbean. So that's like Campbell Soup, which has its own mix of things. So when we start having these conversations, they go one way. But then you go over here and we get into Cuba and the revolutions and then it's like okay, well, Pinochet did this, and he was propped up. And then, I don't remember the dictator before… Fidel Castro. But then you get this, so then Russia's like, “Hey, we're gonna come in.”
And then you get the whole Cold War narratives that didn't happen with other countries in South America, like Brazil. Because the Portuguese… So I feel like there's an invitation from God to slow down and try and see each group of people… Thanks Jason. To see each group of people, and as best as we possibly can engage with the person right in front of us, as opposed to trying to hold all the… You know the movie Up where the balloons take the house away?
Sy Hoekstra: [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: I feel like we're the house and everything's trying to take us away [laughter]. And it's just like, how do we…? There you go. Because as we're having this conversation, I'm like, but this history is different, and their relationship is different. And depending how old you are, it's also different. But whiteness has a carrot for each one of these audiences, and that I think is the thing that is uniquely scary and hard, but we can definitely push against all that. Thanks David [laughs].
Sy Hoekstra: Thank you.
Jonathan Walton: I appreciate you, man.
Prayer and Outro
Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, we should wrap up [laughs].
Jonathan Walton: Yes [laughs].
Sy Hoekstra: Thank you all for coming. Just a reminder, we'll be doing our Substack live next week, on Wednesday at 1pm after the election. So get the Substack app and watch us there. And Jonathan, do you wanna pray to close?
Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Allison and Mindy, if you have time, I’m gonna pray one more prayer. It's gonna be the prayer of Saint Francis. Lord, would you make us instruments of your peace. Where there's hatred, may we sow love. Where there's injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy. Oh, Divine Master, grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood, as to understand, to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born into eternal life. In Jesus name, amen.
Sy Hoekstra: Amen.
Jonathan Walton: Amen.
Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much.
Jonathan Walton: Blessings on y'all.
[The intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]
Sy Hoekstra: Thank you so much for listening. Please remember, rate and review this show on iTunes or Spotify, give us a review. It is so incredibly helpful to us. It helps people find the show and believe, from the power of other people's testimonies, that it's a good show that's worth their time. Also remember, join us on November 6th at 1pm after the election for the Substack live to hear Jonathan and my reactions. Get the Substack app on iOS or Android, and you'll get an email or a notification when we start that. So we hope to see you there. Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. Transcripts by Joyce Ambale. I did the editing on this one and the production, and the production is also done by you, our incredible paid subscribers. Thank you so much, and we will see you next Wednesday.
[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you’re building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]
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