Lisa Fields: You all so much for joining us today. As we are waiting on our third panelist, I’d love for you all to go ahead and introduce yourselves briefly, and we can go ahead and get started. Yeah.
Justin Giboney: I’m Justin Giboney. I’m the, the, president of the and campaign. I’m also an attorney and political strategist. And what the and campaign basically does is we are a Christian civic organization. We try to give Christians a framework for looking at politics, without just being Republicans or Democrats or Conservatives or Progressives. We think being a Christian in politics is much more than that, and so we try to provide, resources and equip people to engage in a real way.
Lisa Fields: I’m Lisa Fields. I’m sure you’ve met me before, because I was just up here. But I will say I forgot to mention to follow us on all social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, x at g three project. Yes. Well, let’s jump right into it. Our first question, is for suggestion here. How can we discern between biblical Christianity and the cultural Christianity often seen in America, especially in the context of politics and Protestant allegiance?
Justin Giboney: That’s a really good question. But I mean, the the question almost answers itself too. It’s the bible. Right? When we look at the Christianity, you know, if you talk to somebody who may not be a Christian, somebody who doesn’t know a lot about Christianity, the first type of Christianity they usually refer to is kind of this toxic evangelicalism. Right? And so what they they judge the religion based on what they see from, you know, folks who do whatever Trump says or whatever. And I think for us, it’s very important to know the bible so that you can know why that’s actually not the most accurate form or faithful form of Christianity. Right? You look through the the prophets. You see the prophets talking about social justice, justice in a social context. So if a Christian comes up to you and or you hear a Christian talking and they don’t believe in social justice, then you know there’s probably something wrong, they’re missing something. But but I guess what I’m saying is don’t let one tradition, that may get something wrong be your model of Christianity. And I think that one of the ways the way that we put the framework for the and campaign is within Christianity, you you need to have compassion and conviction. In Ephesians four verses 14 through 15, Apostle Paul is telling the Ephesians that regardless of what goes on, you must be a Christian must always be able to speak the truth in love, The truth in love. And I remember when I first heard that because that’s basically what we based the and campaign off of, truth and love. I remember when I first heard that, it was like, you know, something went off in my head because I said, oh, it’s not just about truth. Because if you’re just about truth and you have no love, you become harsh. You become hypocritical. You say, oh, you don’t live up to this point scripture, so I can condemn you. I can hate you or whatever. But that’s not really the gospel. You have to have compassion even if we all fall short, but even if we get something wrong, we have to have compassion for people. But it’s not just love either. And I think this is where some people struggle too. Love is so important, but love doesn’t mean that we don’t tell inconvenient truths. A love that’s just affirms everything, a love that just goes along with whatever somebody feels good about at that moment is not the strongest gospel form of love. And so we have this tension between love and truth. And when we engage politics and engage culture, that’s how we should be thinking. What does doctrine say? Because doctrine matters. Right? That’s how we know what’s right or wrong. And also, what does my compassion say? So I can disagree with somebody. I can know somebody is living in sin and still have compassion for them. And I think some forms of Christianity have missed that, and the Bible tells us that those are not accurate forms of the faith.
Damon Richardson: Yeah. Okay.
Lisa Fields: The mic for the next question. No worries. Thank you so much for that response. That was so amazing. For miss Fields, we have our next question. How does the Bible define the role of women in the church? And how should we interpret that in the modern context? Yeah. That’s a great question. In here in this question, is Christianity good for black people? It also the question, is Christianity good for black women? Black women have endured a lot, in Christian spaces and a lot of challenges. Several different abuses, misuses, and demonization. So people may have misused the bible and said women are evil because of Eve, giving the fruit to Adam. And so, and we think of other ways in which people use the scriptures and talking about Delilah, and the kind of theme is that women are temptress, and they are the problem. And I love how God affirms women throughout scripture. First, that men and women are both made in the image of God. There is not men that are just made in the image of God, but both men and women are made in the image of God. So that first affirmation should should be helpful for women to note that God affirms affirms us. But I love the way that, Jesus, handles women in the New Testament and this the unique ways in which he shows them shows us value and women of the text value, particularly, how he allows the gospel message to be spread through a woman. That the first person to share that Jesus is risen are women. It’s not men. It’s women. And it which is a unique flip because it was women who took the the fruit to the man, but Jesus flips it, and he gives the gospel to the woman, and she takes it to the man. So it’s this divine flip that you see, okay. So you may say, oh, the enemy used Eve, but God used Mary. And so that flip helps us to see the unique ways in which God values women and how he affirms our role. You see prophets. You see judges like Deborah. You see, prophets like Hoka in the text. And and even the fact that the first person to name God in the text was Hagar, a African slave. She names him the God who sees. And so there’s so much in the text that shows women their value, that we are not second class citizens. But we are affirmed and adored and made in the image of God. Amen.
Justin Giboney: Wow.
Lisa Fields: There’s already so many gems being dropped. That was amazing. Oh my goodness. Well thank you so much for your response as well. And I think we have another panelist who joined us recently. So thank you so much, Richard Richardson, for joining us. I’ll give you a chance to introduce yourself, and actually I’m gonna have a question for you as well. So I’ll ask you the question you can introduce yourself and then answer. Now the question I have for you, is what are the what historical evidence exists of Christianity in Africa before the Transatlantic slave trade, and why is this history often overlooked?
Damon Richardson: Alright. Thank you. And, so, just to answer that question, and I think I’ve got a slide. So this this, Stela, dates to, around, 30, three thirty AD. So this is, fourth century. Christianity had already been in Africa for three hundred years up to this point. But what makes this, archaeological evidence so important, is that, this represents so in this monument, which is written in, Gs as well as in Sabean, which would have been indigenous languages, for the Aksum Empire, what makes it so important is that is that King Ezana is literally describing not only his conquest, but he’s also describing on the stela his actual conversion, to, to Christianity. And so, that marks essentially the Aksum Empire, which we would know of today as, Ethiopia and Eritrea, that would mark, the Aksum Empire as the first Christian nation in the world. Right? So it’s really interesting. So we’re not just we’re not just proving that Christianity was on the continent of Africa, we’re also proving that the very first Christian nation that ever existed, was an African nation, led by an African king who was as black as every last one of us, in here. But Christianity had been on this continent of Africa as far back as the first century. African memory, you you you here in college, you’ll learn about historical memory. That’s not just the memory that a person has, but that’s the memory that lives in tradition through, oral stories or through archaeological evidence, that points to what that particular culture knows occurred there. And so when we, look at the continent of Africa, North Africa, whether it’s Libya, whether it’s, Egypt, or whether it’s, Ethiopia, Christianity has a footprint going back, several years after the Jesus event. So the writer of the gospel of Mark that you have in your bible, was an Syrian Jew, which meant that he was from Libya. He was from Africa. And so one of the writers of the gospel is an African Christian, and African memory puts him in North Africa essentially five years after the resurrection, excuse me, of Jesus Christ. So he was planting churches in North Africa as well as in, Egypt. And then, of course, we have, numerous other stories. For instance, Acts chapter eight, the Ethiopian eunuch. He becomes a believer. He goes back to Africa, essentially the, the, Miro area, which is the was the capital, of the, Abyssinian Empire at the time. And he goes back. He shares Christianity. And then you just have all of these church fathers and important persons, Tertullian. You have Athanasius. You’ve got Bishop Alexander. You’ve got Bishop Peter. All of them are either from Carthage, North Africa, or from Alexandria. And these people led churches, as early as the second and third century. And so Christianity had been in Africa, again, as as far back as the first two or three years of the Jesus event. And Africa, in fact, was one of the largest centers of Christianity. And so when Christianity began to spread and urbanization began to take place in, North Africa, that was one of the areas that many Christians, moved to. And when you look at the persecutions going on, in Christianity, most of them were centered in North Africa because that is where the greatest populace of Christian Christians, actually lived. And so so, there’s some evidence, at least, just from a historical standpoint as well as an archaeological standpoint of the footprint of, Christianity in Africa on the continent, within the first three centuries.
Lisa Fields: Thank you so much for that. That’s a good point that our history does not start with slavery. It’s merely part of it. So I thank you so much for bringing light to that. And keep in mind, audience, there’s time at the end for q and a. So if you have a question, please keep it in your mind to add for q and a at the end. So our next question is for mister Gibboni. In light of the tragedies and suffering in places like Gaza, Ukraine, and The Congo, how should we understand the goodness of God in times like that?
Justin Giboney: That’s a really good question. I mean, I know a lot of people struggle with religion and faith in general when you see suffering. But I think we have to go back to why we suffer, and and we have to go back to the fall. Right? So we’re in this situation because of sin, of of original sin. And because we sinned, we suffer. Right? Now we have to set that as the the the context of where we are. In a sinful world, in a world that’s broken, in a world where, there’s pain and there’s hurt, and we ourselves, it’s not just another people, we ourselves hurt people. Right? So one of the questions you have to ask yourself is, well, why do I hurt people? You may not have done anything as tragic as the things we’re talking about, but it’s there, and you’ve done it. It’s self interest. It’s the will that we have, to do things that we shouldn’t do that that puts us in a place where we are going to suffer. So so we’re there, but also God is not far from us. And so even if you look at the suffering through slavery, I would advise you try to read some of the slave narratives. There was a deep abiding joy there and a gratitude even within that suffering. So an understanding, people who had nothing else, who had every reason to be cynical, to be upset, to be mad, because of their faith, found a reason to have gratitude. And the gratitude was in knowing and feeling that God was there and that the victory eventually was his. Right? How did we get here? How did people who couldn’t read have a better theology than the people who had all kind of seminaries and all that? There was something there, and they felt it, and that they and they knew that it was there. So suffering exists. And if we read the Bible, we know where we know it exists, but we never go through it alone. God is with us. And I we don’t have to look too far back, whether the civil rights movement, whether it’s slavery, to see people who went through that serious suffering and still understood salvation, still understood the gratitude that they had knowing God was with them as they survived through what they were going through, had family, taught each other, learned the learned the scriptures, built churches. Look at the just look at the history of black people. You see the pain, but you also see the achievement. You also see the brilliance. How else does a people who are not allowed to read or do any of that stuff, as soon as they get an opportunity, become artists and poets and theologians and all those things because there was a God who was with us? So understanding the suffering, the background of why we suffer, but also having gratitude and knowing that God is with us and goes through it with us.
Lisa Fields: Thank you for your response. That that is such so, so head on. Oh, my goodness. For Ms. Fields, how does faith in Christ empower us to find peace amidst life storms? Yeah. Great question. Life is hard for all of us. Whether your your heart is your midterm or your final or your heart is, your heart that you’re trying to navigate through is the death of a loved one or, childhood trauma. There’s always something that will rattle our peace, that causes us to look for something outside of ourselves to bring us solace. And often we want inner peace apart from God. So, we want peace more than often we want god. We want what god offers more than god himself. And god rigs our lives for us not just to want the things he offers, but to to want him. Many of you all in this in this, room probably have been in a romantic relationship before, or you desire to be in a romantic relationship, and you never want someone that just wants you for what you offer. You always want people to want you because of you. And, unfortunately, in our walk with Jesus, we want Jesus for what he offers. We want his peace, but we don’t necessarily want him. And so, God often allows storms to happen to us to reveal to us what we actually want. And so, when I talk about peace in my book, when faith disappoints, I talk about three peace in three ways. We are all familiar with the third way, inner peace, inner solace, the feeling of calm, comfort in the midst of turmoil. But the bible talks about peace in not just that way, but he also talks about peace with him and peace with others. And I believe that God often rigs our lives that we don’t get inner peace until we have peace with him and peace with people. So, peace with Him is the work Jesus did on the cross for our sins. And if we accept that work, then we have peace with Him. And then peace with people is the work we have to do to reconcile. And most of us are familiar because we’re on social media with the term of protecting our peace. So, when we say we’re protecting our peace, we’re protecting our peace by running away from any relationship that’s hard.
Damon Richardson: Right. That’s right. Okay.
Lisa Fields: But God wants us to be in community with one another. That’s right. And so all relationships will be hard over time. And so when relationships get hard, we say, well, we don’t have peace and we have to get away from the people that are not allowing us to have peace. And I’m not talking about abuse or things of that nature, but I’m just talking about conflict in general that comes in relationships that requires humility, forgiveness, and repentance to move through and operate through. And so, God will sometimes strip you of inner peace because you won’t do the work of reconciling and forgiving in relationships. Whew, Whew. Wow. That was really good. We have one final question, and then we’ll move into q and a. So if you have, any questions, please feel free to get them in your minds at this point. But, they’ll it’ll go to mister Richardson, our last question. And that is, what are some of the strongest historical and archaeological archaeological evidences that support the the reliability of the bible? Alright. Wonderful. Great question.
Damon Richardson: Amen. Wonderful question. So the first, archaeological evidence that I wanna point to is called the Cyrus Cylinder. And, so they’ll pull that up, in just a minute. So the Cyrus Cylinder, points back. So Cyrus was, the, king of Persia. And so at this, particular period, they had essentially conquered a number of nations. And according to scripture, the nation of Israel was one of the nations that, that Cyrus and the kingdom of Persia had had conquered. And, and so, Cyrus this particular cylinder shows that Cyrus is issuing a decree where he’s allowing the people to go back, to their land, bring their gods, their shrines, and rebuild their shrines and go back to, their lands essentially to be, very free to to to worship, as they they want to. And so it it says here on the cylinder, it says, I sent back to their places whose shrines had earlier become dilapidated. The gods who lived therein and made permanent sanctuaries for them. I collected together all the peoples and returned them to their settlements. I returned them unharmed to their cells and the sanctuaries that make them happy. May all the gods that I return to their sanctuaries every day before Bel and Nabu ask for a long life for me and mention the good deeds. Well, in Ezra, in the Old Testament chapter one verses one through three, Ezra literally mentions this exact event. He says, in the first year, Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, that Cyrus stirred up the spirit of, that the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judea. Whoever is among you, all of his people, may his god be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judea, and rebuild the house of the lord. So this is showing how Cyrus was particularly favorable towards the Israelites in allowing them to return back to Jerusalem, rebuild the temple, reestablish Jerusalem, because while they were in exile, it had gotten torn down. But what we could see in Cyrus’s, decree on the cylinder is that he didn’t just do this for Israel. He did this for many peoples from other nations as well. So that also corroborates, what we see in scripture. Another and there’s just so many archaeological evidences, but another one is called the Tel Dan Stela, or I should say Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Let’s let’s go to that one real quick. So, Hezekiah’s Tunnel is mentioned in second Chronicles chapter 32 verses two through four. So that when the, Assyrian king Sennacherib the first was invading, Jerusalem, he, Hezekiah escaped through a tunnel that he that he actually built. And so it mentions it in second Chronicles chapter 32. When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and he intended to make war on Jerusalem, He consulted with his officials and military staff about blocking off the water from the springs outside the city, and they helped him. And so it goes on to say how he took an aqueduct and tunneled created literally a tunnel through a cistern or an aqueduct, and that was how he actually escaped. Well, they actually found Hezekiah’s tunnel. So this is the actual, this is the actual evidence of it in Jerusalem. And inside the tunnel, you could see, the writing on the tunnel where Hezekiah as soon as, they, essentially got to the end of the tunnel, They collapsed it so that Sennacherib would not be able to follow them all the way through. And so there’s archaeological evidence there. Let me see. Just maybe, one or two more. Tel Dan Stela. A Stela is essentially a, a monument with inscription on it. And so for years, critical scholars denied that, for instance, that Israel ever had a historical figure by the name of King David. In fact, one critical scholar laughed and said, there’s about as much evidence for, for, David’s, life than there is for, you know, King Arthur. And, and so for many years, it had been kind of a running joke that, Israel celebrates this great king named David, and yet there’s no archaeological evidence that even supports that he ever lived. Well, that was until the King Dan Stela, was actually found. And so, here’s what it says on it. There’s just a little piece on it right around the seventeenth or the eighteenth line, and it actually mentions it records the victory of, the king of Aram, that’s of Syria, and then it also mentions, that he is, over the king of Israel, the king of the house of David. So this dates about to, the ninth century. So this is about two hundred years after David lived. And the very fact that it says the House of David proves that David was not only historical, but that he had a historical dynasty. And the king that they’re referring to would have been a king that would have been from the same tribe of David, which is the tribe of, Judah. And then there’s just so many other things. If we get to the, the New Testament, I’ll just mention one or two more quickly. There is the there is the or, of course, there’s the great Isaiah scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the one that I wanna show you is actually, they call it p 52. It is a fragment of the gospel of John, chapter 18 verses 31 through 32. So what’s so important about this particular fragment? A fragment is essentially just a piece of a manuscript. But this manuscript dates back to the early part of the second century. So that’s essentially about one twenty five AD. So this is a copy of the gospel of John. So if you go to the gospel of John right now, chapter 18 verse thirty one and thirty two, this little fragment reads exactly the way you would read it in any English translation. And what’s so interesting about this is that, this is essentially a copy of a copy, but it is a copy that is closest to the original transmission or production of the gospel of John. The gospel of John was probably written sometime in the late seventies or eighties, which makes this particular fragment less than one hundred years from when John actually wrote the gospel. So that actually puts it very, very close, and that means that whoever copied this is either a first or second generation believer, and they are very close to, in fact, John died, essentially around one ten, one twelve AD. And so by the time this fragment was copied, John had probably only been deceased for maybe ten years. And so that’s another, really, really important, piece of archaeology that supports, the reliability of scripture. And then I’ll just do, one more. This is called the Sergio, Paulus Inscriptions. So there’s essentially two of them. So in Acts chapter 13, it talks about Paul and Barnabas going to an island called Cyprus. This is Barnabas’ hometown. And they go there to preach the gospel. And when they go there, there’s an important diplomat that meets them. This guy is the proconsul or the governor of Cyprus under the Roman Empire, and his name is his name is Sergio Paulus. And then Acts chapter 13, after they preach the gospel and they convert Sergio Paulus to Christianity, they leave there and then they end up, in a place called Pisidian Antioch. There’s about three or four Antiochs in the ancient world. There’s the Syrian Antioch, and then there’s the Pisidian Antioch, which is in Turkey. Well, the interesting thing is is that there are two archaeological inscriptions that bear the name, Sergio Paulus. One is actually found on Cyprus, the very place that he lived and governed, and the other one was found in Pisidian Antioch, which was the very next place that Paul and Barnabas go to preach the gospel after they leave Cyprus, which probably meant that he had relatives there. And when they went to share the gospel there, it was with some of Sergio Paulus’s, relatives. And so he owned real estate there from history. And so not only does this corroborate the events according to Luke in Acts chapter 13, but it proves that Sergio Paulus, was a historical figure that lived in the very same places at the very same time that the New Testament mentions. And so there’s hundreds of archaeological, evidences that corroborate and support that the people, the places, and the events that the Bible says, or speaks of, that those people existed, those places existed, and the events that the scripture speaks about as having occurred in those locations actually did occur. And I could go on and on and on literally, like this is an entire course in archaeological evidence, that supports and corroborates the reliability of both the old and the new testament.
Lisa Fields: Wow, wow, there is so much knowledge, that we just heard and I want to have time for you all to ask questions as well. So if you do have a question, please meet me. Please come to the front right here to this blue chair so I can pass you the microphone and you can ask a question. Don’t be shy, y’all. This is the time to ask your questions since we can get some really good feedback. Oh, we have it already. This is great. This is good.
Damon Richardson: Hey. How’s it going? My name is Anthony Boston. I’m a junior business major accounting concentration in Dallas, Texas. And, yeah. Yeah. And, Alice, so my question was, throughout history, the we we can’t not connect Christianity with whiteness. And I think, throughout slavery, there for example, in The Congo with the rubber, rubber, they were forced Afghan were forced to mine rubber. There was also situations where, the Batiso people, were forced to change their religion, drop idolatry, and drop all these other religious things to for Christianity, they were forced to. There was a point where they said they desecrated and urinated on their on their, their old gods. And then in the same token, we could look at slavery, we can look at, just situations that American African Americans have been put in throughout the society. And a lot of it does have to do with imperialism and Christianity. So I want to know how how can we separate, separate these crimes from the people that did the crime. And then the second part to that is, how do you build a society? What is it? How do you build this how how do we live in a society based on these structures of materialism and oppression? Thank you. Yeah. So I’ll I’ll answer that. I’ve I’ve got a question, a couple of questions for you. The, the source that you’re using and what what dates are you referring to in The Congo? In The Congo, we’ve, this is the reason. This is when the Dutch came, I cannot tell you to get it off the top of my head. This is when the Dutch called Dutch, had two shell companies come into The Congo, and they, they had had African people They cut off hands. They cut off, breasts for African females. Gotcha. So you’re talking about in the twenty first century. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So no. So, and we know for a fact that, you know, there there have been people throughout history who have, essentially misused, the name of Christianity. I I would, refer you to the appendix of, the life of Frederick Douglass. In the appendix, he talks about, how when he observes the Christianity of this land, as, slave, slave dealing and women whipping and, you know, people plundering this, that, or the other, versus Christianity of the Bible. He says, I recognize the widest possible difference. And so our ancestors were able to intelligently discern, the misrepresentations of Christianity from biblical, Christianity. For instance, we even have a quote from, from, Marcus Garvey, which is very, very similar. And he mentions how he says, no. I’m not going to hold Jesus or biblical Christianity, I’m not gonna hold them responsible for the commercialization of Christianity and how people have used that as an excuse to rob people of their land and to kidnap them. So he recognized, like Frederick Douglass, that one was an imposter and one was actually biblical. Now the interesting thing is is that if we go to The Congo, the very same area of West Africa that you’re talking about, and we start at the thirteenth century, we actually have evidence of Christianity thriving in The Congo without force. Now Islam was in the area as well. Islam came onto the continent of Africa by force and threat of death, but not Christianity. It had already been on the continent, and when it spread to West Africa, it’s in The Congo, and Christians are thriving there peaceably. And so one piece of evidence is a letter that was written to Mansa Musa about Christians that were living in an area called Takkar, which is right there in on the coast of West Africa. And, and so the Arabic historian that writes to them says, well, why don’t you just take the land from them like you did everybody else? And he said, well, we tried that. And, because gold was growing there. And he said, but when we took it, the land stopped producing gold. And, but when we gave it back, it started producing gold again. And he actually mentions that they are Christians. This is in the, I’m sorry, the fourteenth century. So we’re talking about two hundred years before the French or the Portuguese colonized, West Africa. Christianity is in the continent of Africa on the West Coast, by, by choice. Right? So they they intelligently recognize that it is morally and spiritually superior than the African tradition or the traditional African religions of which many of them had subscribed to. And so we just, when we look at the evidence of scripture, how people misappropriate and misrepresent Christianity, none of that is actually supported in scripture from the way God has revealed himself in his character. And when we look at the contour of scripture, every misrepresentation of Christianity in the name of Jesus, that is evil. Scripture actually condemns that. So anybody can take something and misuse it, but you don’t charge the thing with misuse, you charge the person with it.
Justin Giboney: That’s right. Thank you. Yeah. I would just add to that. I mean, he covered it really well. I would just add to that. Not dealing with Christianity because one group got it wrong is like not dealing with algebra anymore because your roommate failed the test. Right. Right? It’s not the algebra that’s unhelpful. It’s your roommate who got it wrong. And I think that’s really important because it is almost a type of white supremacy that makes us make whitewash Christianity the norm, the standard, why we think of that first. Even he just gave us all the information to show us it was actually in Africa first. But we we we go to this other version, this clearly wrong version of Christianity, and put up that up as, what it’s supposed to be. Because that’s, in many ways, historically, what we have been taught. This is the right way to do Christianity, even though it’s so far from the Bible. And one thing I would just leave with you is the Christians who were, you know, engaged in slave trading, engaged in all these other things, engaged in Jim Crow, their problem wasn’t that they were following the Bible too closely. It’s that they weren’t following it close enough. So that wasn’t orthodoxy. That wasn’t true Christianity. And I think that’s how you separate those two things. Absolutely.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. I think everything they said has been spot on. I would add that to Justin’s point that every authentic thing has a counterfeit.
Damon Richardson: That’s right.
Lisa Fields: So we have counterfeit money, but we have authentic money. Right? And those two on the surface look the same. But a critical eye can delineate between a counterfeit $100 bill and an authentic $100 bill. And so the the the the presence of a counterfeit doesn’t dismiss the truth of the authentic bill. And so we have to remind ourselves that anything that’s true is gonna have a counterfeit. And people will use anything, to manipulate when they have power and control in their heart. That’s right. One thing I love about Jesus is he’s able to identify with everything that we experience, and he’s able to identify with being abused by religious malpractice. The reason Jesus is on the cross is because religious people were operating in religious malpractice. He’s good also. Yeah. That’s good. And so he knows what it’s like to be shamed and abused and even killed because religious people had an agenda. And they pursued power over the heart of God. And so he knows what it feels like to to have religious people manipulate the text for their own agenda. And he can identify with minorities who are grappling with people who are trying to marginalize us using religious text.
Damon Richardson: That’s it.
Lisa Fields: Oh, that’s so good. Wow. That was good. Let’s do a round of applause for that. That’s fine. That’s fine. Please. Yes. Yes. Indeed. Any other questions? Are you?
Damon Richardson: My name is Elijah. I I am a senior biology student at University University. My question surrounds it’s basically on the relationship between slavery and Christianity as it relates to Christian development and the direct run world. Right? So there’s a topic or a academic subject called duology, which is the study of this very subject, right, coined by scholars named Chris Yvette and Jennifer Glancy. They were proposed the idea that as Christianity began to develop throughout the centuries, church fathers such as Gregory Munissa or John Chrysostom weren’t actually speaking against slavery as an institution, which Christians commonly claim today, rather than they only spoke against, the ill treatment of slaves. Right? Such as the Ecclesiastical Homilies of Gregory Benison. That’s great. Or John Chrysostom’s work when he’s writing writing about, you know, slavery as institution. We would expect I think we would expect that Christians have been fighting against slavery as an institution. But how do you respond to the critique that this actually isn’t the case? Rather, they only spoke against ill treatment, but they were silent on the institutionalized form of slavery as Christianity developed. Does that question make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that’s a great question, Elijah. So, that that theory, the the problem with that theory is, several fold. So the first thing is is that, the practice of slavery in the ancient world, even going back before the first century, is not monolithic. And so, in in many instances, slavery was like a welfare system. It was something that people sold themselves into in order to be able to get out of out of debt and to, and to even have economic, reprieve. So it’s that it so every form of slavery was not particularly, like chattel slavery in which people were mistreated or evil, and there were numerous different types of of slavery. For instance, we’ve we’ve got evidence in the first century, where where slavery is practiced under the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean world, where slaves were more more often, were often more powerful, than free per free people. Right? So say, for instance, you are the, admin assistant to Jeff Bezos. Right? And and let’s just say I got a little mom and pop store with three employees. Right? You don’t own a business. I do. But if somebody would’ve asked, well, who’s the most powerful, Elijah or Damon? Well, the very fact that you are controlling the calendar of a, you know, an oligarch, a a a multibillionaire, and you’re in his ear influencing him even as an admin assistant, you are and so slaves were often powerful in the Mediterranean world because they were the servants of powerful people. This is exactly why Jew doesn’t say I’m the brother of Jesus. He says I’m the doulos, which is the word slave of Jesus. Because if Jesus is great and I’m just merely his servant, then that makes me great as well. And so I I don’t I don’t just based on the theory alone, I I don’t think that she is nuancing the various types of slavery as it existed. The last point I’ll make is this is is that when you take what the Bible says about the practice of slavery, kidnapping people, the mistreatment of people, that sets up the very reason why slavery is ultimately abolished. So it is actually the biblical and the Christian worldview that over time does that because the biblical worldview is the only worldview existing that recognizes the Imago Dei in humanity. That is the image of God, whereby every human, regardless of their ethnicity, their skin color, whether they’re male or female, whether they’re a child, whether they’re a slave, or whether they’re free, has dignity and value just on the strength of the fact that God created them. Well, Christianity recognized that, and the reality is is it recognized the equality of all people, especially in Christ. And so that ultimately sets up. That’s the reason why she does recognize that they are reacting to mistreatment. Right? Because in in many instances, there was no reason to react to the welfare aspect of it. But to the mistreatment of it, you could see where, Paul, for instance, reacts to how, for instance, Onesimus is treated. And he he tells the person who is the, the slave master, he’s like, that’s your brother in Christ, and you’ve gotta regard him in the very same way that you regard yourself. And in fact, both of you are serving the same master. So Christianity actually took the same word, slave, and repurposed it to be something actually more meaningful while condemning the horrible practices that often came around with certain other practices of it. And so in reality, when you put the collective of history together, the only reason why, slavery was abolished in the West is because of the ethical Christian worldview that that appreciated and held out the value of the Imago Dei. No other civilization in the world throughout history had that kind of ethos as it relates to seeing worth and dignity in all people. Only the bible and only, Christianity did.
Justin Giboney: I mean, that was huge. And just to dig into just so everybody knows that where the dignity comes from. So what he’s saying is, if you were made in the image of God, to say that every human being was made in the image of God is revolutionary. They weren’t saying that in Rome and Greece before Christianity comes along. The fact that you’re born in the image of God means you have value, innate value, that nobody can take away from you. Civilizations were not saying that before Christian Christianity comes along, that you have a value. And no matter if you commit a crime, no matter what color you are, what you you have that value. And that means you have to be treated to a certain standard. So Christianity takes certain people who are down here, whether they’re in the caste system, whatever you wanna say, and they say, no. There’s a standard by which no human being, I don’t care what they do, should be treated below that. That’s the revolution that was Christianity, and that’s the exact same reason why when you see slavery fall apart, it’s Christian abolitionists. It’s Frederick Douglass and people who are breaking down the false, the false premise for slavery based on that Imago Dei, based on that inalienable right to have, to be treated, to not be treated under certain, standard. That’s it.
Lisa Fields: And I think, you know, when we see slaveholders in The US, saying that black people are three fifths of a person, they’re trying to actually get a scapegoat from the text. Because they know if they were honest with scripture, that they couldn’t treat their slaves the way they treated them. That they couldn’t even have the system that they had. That’s right. So they had to create something in the constitution that says- They knew that racism. Yeah. You are less than a person. That’s it. Because if you are a person, then that means I’m living in sin. So to soothe their own consciences, they created the false narrative. And I think it’s important, going back to what we’ve been communicating about the misuse of scripture, that even when we think about the slave Bible that existed, it was an edited version of the Bible. Because they knew reading the Bible from cover to cover that it was a liberative book. That’s right. That not only liberated us from the sin of slavery, but the slavery of sin. That’s right. And, they knew that if slaves got a hold of it and could read it from cover to cover, they would criticize the way in which they were treating them. That’s it. And, so to suppress the slaves’ voice, they gave them an edited volume of the book. And so, we live in an era where people are saying we need to throw away the scripture because it’s oppressive. But that does what white supremacists wanted us to do in the first place. That’s right. They never wanted us to read the book from cover to cover. So, to protest white supremacy, you need to read it from Genesis to Revelation to see what they’re trying to hide from you. Wow. You got lots of deep questions. Oh my goodness. Any other questions we have? Yes. Come to the front, please. War house.
Damon Richardson: Good evening. My name is Carlos Green Junior, professional software engineering at White House College. Yeah. My question man. What is so, like, what’s your response to people saying that Christianity has been spread through the forest and violence? Like, that’s an argument I hear a lot in secular circles. I was wondering what, like, you guys’ responsibility.
Justin Giboney: I I mean, I think it connects to what we’ve been saying this whole time. There it is true that some people try to use a partial or incomplete Christianity as a means of keeping people docile, as a means to serving their personal ends. That’s true. I don’t think we have to deny that history to but what we do have to know is what they were doing is not in line with the scripture. Right? So you can create a group, your group can have an ethos, your group can have an ethic, and all these principles. And I can say, yeah, I’m part of your group. Use the group to build my status and get my way, and not be upholding anything the group really, you know, really believes. That’s happened. And the thing about it is, this is not just us saying it. The bible told us it would happen. Right? The bible bible tells us that there will be people who are false prophets or people who are really in the synagogue of Satan that are acting one way, but they’re really not of God. We should be anticipating that, again, not using them as the representation of Christianity, understanding that they’re misrepresentation.
Damon Richardson: And so I I wanted to read, at least one of the so, there’s what you would call the slave narratives. I don’t even like to use the word slave. I I like to use the word enslaved, so as to describe what happened to them as opposed to describing them by, their experience. But, there are numerous examples of these. These are their narratives. Right? And so we talk about, for instance, lived experiences, which are, testimonies of of, phenomenon that people experienced and and and and why their voices need to be heard. So it’s interesting that you hear all of these narratives about I just read something earlier today where somebody was like, yeah, they, shoved the Bible down the throats of black people, this, that, and the other. And it’s just interesting that we’ll take that, again, a white supremacist narrative, but the actual narratives of those who were enslaved, who walked with Christ, who who believed, their narratives are different. Their narratives are we were beaten, killed if they found us praying, if they found us worshiping. They had to go to places that were we would call them brush arbors out in the woods. And they were so intelligent that when they would sing, they would make sure that if they were either by a river or they would take a bucket and put water because they understood that water was a natural acoustic that would drown out the sound so that the slave master couldn’t hear them singing praises to God. I attend a church in Lilburn, which is not too far from here, Salem Missionary Baptist Church. We are a 192 years old. Our church was established by believing Christians who were enslaved. And the the brush arbor that they actually used is, like, less than two miles from where the current building is. They were out in the woods worshiping. And, and and so when the slave owner found out about it, he offered to build them a building as long as they accepted the slave preacher. And they rejected the slave preacher because they didn’t want to hear, the word being preached that was truncated, such as from the slave Bible. And so the very church that I’m a part of is a legacy of the courage and the tenacity of believers who accepted Christianity on biblical terms rather than, on terms of, of of subjugation or what have you. But when you look at their narratives, they don’t talk about it being shoved down their throat. They talk about how they were in fear of their lives if they were found preaching, praying, praising God, or any of the things that are associated, with Christianity. So their very own narratives, literally refutes and and debunks that that idea.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. I think when it comes to the reality as as Justin and Damon articulated, yes, there were people who tried to spread Christianity through war, through different things, and we are not running away from that reality. But we are we are aware of that, but we know it wasn’t biblical Christianity. When you look at texts isolated from the verses before or the verses after, you can conclude anything you want to from that. Most of us have never read the Bible from cover to cover, even though we say we believe the Bible. And so when you haven’t read it from cover to cover, it opens you up to being manipulated. Right? Because most of us read our Bibles like Bible lottery. We like, God, I need a message from you. And so I’m just gonna open up my Bible and point my finger to whatever it lands on, and I’m a claim that as what you’re speaking to me today. And most of us don’t have our physical Bibles, but we open up the YouVersion app. And whatever the verse of the day is, we say, man, God, you’re speaking to me through that verse today. Disconnected from the chapter and what it means. You could take it and apply it to your life in a way that God never intended it for the for it to be applied. And so it is the misuse that we see other people do, but we have to be aware enough to know and challenge ourselves to see, am I doing this too? Right? Because with all the conversation about what the way white supremacists misuse the Bible and the way other people misuse the Bible, I want to challenge us to say, what are the ways in which we’re misusing the Bible in our own life? What are the ways we’re claiming Christianity when we don’t live out as practices? What are the ways the people in your classes in the AUC, in Morehouse, Feldman, Clark Atlanta would be like, oh, you a Christian? Because your life looks disconnected from the text. And it’s easy for us to get super critical about the ways in which white supremacists and all the others misuse the bible for their benefit. And we excuse ourselves from the way we misuse it every day. And so I want to challenge us to not just think about the ways in which the world has misused it, but to say, which are the ways that I’m misusing it and I don’t reflect the message of Christianity that I proclaim? Oh, That was amazing. We have a question back there. Can you come to the front, please?
Damon Richardson: Hi. My name is Reed Smith. I’m a sophomore psychology major from Dallas, Texas. And so my question is for miss Fields. How do we understand that God is pleased with us in the midst of our wrestling with him?
Lisa Fields: Great question. I think inherent in that is that in that question is we think that when we’re wrestling with God, he’s displeased with us. But when we’re wrestling with God, that’s when we grow closer to him. Like, my relationship with God grew when I started questioning God. I had a very surface relationship with God when I didn’t ask him questions. Right? Like when you meet somebody new and you want to get to know them and y’all go out for coffee or y’all just hanging out on the quad, what do you do? Ask them questions. Because if you don’t ask them questions and you just engage them, say, hey, how are you doing every day and never ask them questions, you will never build relationship. Every relationship grows through questions. And your relationship with God won’t grow unless you ask him questions. There are some things in the bible that don’t make sense to me. And so that’s when I start asking God questions. That’s when I wrestle. And it’s through the friction of that wrestling that I get closer to God. It’s through that wrestling that I even know that he’s pleased with me. And most of us think like well, I won’t say most because I don’t know who’s in the room, but I’ll say there are some who think that if I ask God questions, he’ll strike me down. But in reality, the Bible is full of people wrestling. David in the Psalms is wrestling with God. The prophet Jeremiah is wrestling with God. Jesus on the cross and in the garden is wrestling with God. So if a king, a prophet, and a savior can wrestle with God, why can’t you? That’s it. Mhmm. Yeah. And so when you wrestle with God, it is the key to getting closer to him. It’s not the key to going farther away from him. It’s when we suppress our our questions and say, okay, I just believe the bible hook, line, and sinker. I look at this text, it don’t make sense to me. I’m just gonna believe it. That’s when our relationship actually becomes more surface. But when I investigate and say, oh man, the text doesn’t make sense to me, or I’m wrestling and saying, I can’t believe these people proclaiming Christianity and and doing all this stuff politically. Like, as I wrestle with it, then my faith actually becomes my own. I grew up in church. Like I said, my father’s a pastor, and I had a very surface relationship with God until I had to wrestle with God in college. When my professor challenged me on the authority of scripture and should I believe it and the dating, that’s when I had to wrestle and that’s when my faith actually became my own. And so you grow deeper in your relationship and God will be more pleased with you when you enter into that wrestle with him and ask him questions.
Justin Giboney: Yeah. I don’t have much to add to that. I would just say that many of us, especially those of us who grew up in the church, we start off with a kinda naive faith. Right? A faith, our parents told us this is right. It seems right to me, but I don’t really know. It’s not without the wrestling that you go to a more in-depth faith where you can explain what you believe, where you’ve experienced, what where where God is when you’re going through something, and how he gets you through. Without that wrestling, you don’t get there. You stay in the naive faith. Right? Or you just walk away. Right? So to to Lisa’s point, that wrestling gets you to a deeper relationship with Christ than going from the naive, I just say it because everybody in my church said it, to I feel it, I believe it, I wrestled, and I’ve seen how he’s been with me throughout that wrestle. So don’t don’t run away from that. I think I heard Lisa say this before, God can handle all your questions. There’s not a question that you can ask that he’s not gonna be able to handle. Yes. In the past, sometimes our elders said, don’t question God. That wasn’t biblical. Alright. They said that, but that’s not what the Bible say. You can question and you will get the answers that you need. You gotta stay in the word though. That’s it. That’s it. Yeah. I, I used to hear that a lot.
Damon Richardson: Don’t question God. And, I mean, we we don’t question God’s necessarily necessarily his authority, but God actually invites us to, to question him. In fact, I think it was he tells Isaiah, he says, come, let’s reason together. Let’s talk this out. Right? So one of the, how many of you have ever read the Psalms before? Right? And, you you you might even have a bookmarker to one of your favorite Psalms. Maybe it’s 23 of this, that, and the other. And then we read it. Well, there there’s a, so in in scripture, there’s what you would call genre, and and that’s essentially the type of literature you’re reading. And, like, whether it’s history or whether it’s, wisdom literature or whatever. Well, in the Psalms, two of the largest genres are praise and lament. And, of those two so so essentially about 90% of the genre is either praise or lament. Well, of those two, lament is the largest genre and there’s a reason for that. Lament is is the language of of scripture. It’s a a holy complaint. It’s a person that’s walking through crisis, chaos, and difficulty while trusting God. Now, here’s the interesting piece here. There’s a there’s a binary here because on one hand, there were there were some people in the book of Numbers, the Israelites who complained and God sent judgment among them. And, and throughout Israel’s history, they would speak of that day as the day of provocation. He literally sent venomous serpents to as a judgment. And then in the Psalms, there are these other people complaining. And and then you ask yourself, well, what’s the difference? Well, the difference is is that in the numbers, that is one of the first five books of the Bible, their complaint wasn’t rooted in a trust in God. Their complaint was rooted in disbelief and and lack of trust and in a condition in their heart that caused them to see God in a different way. Whereas in the Psalms, lament you’re you’re not really losing trust. You’re just struggling to understand or to cope or to deal with the realities, to reconcile what God’s word says and what your your reality is. And, there is a, I recommend this book. There’s a, if you wanna know a good, black, New Testament theologian, there’s a good one, out of Duke, by the name of Luke Powery. And he wrote a book called Living the Questions of the Bible. And, and so he talks about the thesis of of this is that, of all the engagements Jesus had with people, he asked more questions than he answers. And and he invites you to grow in a deeper relationship with God by being more interrogative, by asking more questions as opposed to just seeking answers. And I think there’s a place for seeking answers, but there’s also a place for asking questions and probing. And then, what it is is that you begin to learn and grow more deeply and more profoundly in your relationship with God when you learn to ask questions. Questions make you observant. Questions make you pay attention to things that you would not normally pay attention to. And so if you’re wrestling with God, I would say that you’re in a good place and you’re right on track. You’re where God wants you to be. Good. Yeah. So well, you know, one of the one of the verses that I think of immediately is is that Paul, who essentially authored, in terms of inspiration at least three fourths of the New Testament. So there are 27 books in the New Testament, 39 in the old. Well, Paul wrote at least three fourths of the New Testament. And yet, when he’s thinking about the Old Testament, he says that I have not shrank back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. So, you know, for believers, understanding all of God’s word as being important, they’re out of the reformation, there were two words that, took value for the believer. One was sola scriptura. That is is that, that, scripture alone is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. And that was good. But then there was another phrase in Latin. It was toda scriptura, and that was all of scripture. Right? So all of scripture, as Paul says, is written for our example. Right? Even if it wasn’t directly written to us, there are some universal truths and principles in scripture that we can actually learn from that God still speaks to us out of. And I would say that if you’re only reading the New Testament, you are significantly robbing yourself of, in fact, about 75% of the Bible is narratives, and most of those narratives are actually found in the Old Testament. And so narratives are an incredible way. And just think about it. We we love good stories. Almost every movie we watch and book we read, there’s a plot, there’s a narrative to it. And so God even understood that this is one of the primary ways in which we connect with his story. And so he primarily framed his story in narrative. And I would say that you go to the Old Testament, you’re gonna learn a lot about God’s character. You’re gonna learn a lot about the overarching theme of scripture, which is redemption, liberation. That’s the overarching story. And you’ll see that thread as you just walk through book by book, and you’ll see God’s story unfold.
Justin Giboney: And I would just say this to, absolutely, you gotta read the whole whole Bible. I think sometimes people tell so your people might not be completely wrong, though, because sometimes people tell you to start in the New Testament, start in John, because John was written for you to believe. Right? So just to start in Genesis and go through Leviticus and all that, you might miss some you might miss the main point of the story. In John, you’re gonna get that. And then you can go back. So your people might not be wrong, unless they’re telling you not to read the Old Testament at all. But to say to start with the new testament or start to John, there’s a method to that. That’s good. That’s a good point. Good point. Yeah.
Lisa Fields: If if they’re so what Justin was saying, I think it’s super helpful. If they’re on the opposite end of the spectrum and they’re just saying just read the New Testament, you don’t need the New you don’t need the Old Testament. Think of it like Netflix. Right? If there’s a series on Netflix, if you start at season three, a lot of it doesn’t make sense without the context of the first and second season, right? Right. You need the first and the second season or you’re just gonna be getting bits and pieces trying to put it together. Yeah. Old Testament is the backdrop that makes the New Testament make sense. Yeah. Right. Right? So you need all of it together for it to paint a complete picture. I love the Old Testament because of stories. Like, Damon was saying, you know, in Judges, there’s this cool story where the man sticks a knife in a man’s stomach and the stuff becomes dishing. Like, it’s so much cool stuff in the Old Testament that you’ll miss. And I wanna encourage you to start, if you’re reading the Old Testament, and I know some of the language is kind of hard, use a different translation. So I love the New Living Translation, I read that devotionally, and I also think pairing it with a good study bible. Mhmm. So you’ll know what these things mean. You don’t wanna just read it to finish. Right. You wanna read it to retain it. Zero. There’s a whole bunch of books, as a college student, we had to read that I just rushed through. And if you asked me at the end of that book what was happening, I wouldn’t know. I just knew we had to read 50 pages, and I also had another class I had to read 50 pages, and it all was a blur. You don’t wanna read the bible like a textbook that you have to get through just because you have an assignment at the end. You wanna read it for transformation not for information. God. And so when you’re reading for transformation, you’re gonna slow down, you’re gonna investigate what you’re reading. Because this is not like a race where God is like, I’m gonna quiz you on Amos on Friday. Right. God is like, I want this to transform you. And the Bible is the only book that you read over and over again and you’ll see different facets of God. Right. Based on what he’s trying to show you in the season of life. That’s good.
Damon Richardson: And
Lisa Fields: so don’t have you don’t have to hurry through it. But just pace yourself and allow the word of God to transform you.