Lisa Fields: Hello. Welcome to the Jew three Project podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Fields. I’m the founder of the Jew three Project. Well, thank you for watching another episode of the Jew three Project podcast. As always, I’m your host, Lisa Fields, the founder of the Jew three Project. And today, I’m joined by my dear friend who you’ve seen on the podcast numerous times, doctor Malik Blake.
Dr. Maliek Blade: Thank you for having me back. Yes. Appreciate it.
Lisa Fields: We are continuing on our series on, when heroes fall, healing from the aftermath of sin in this episode. And so,
Dr. Maliek Blade: Malik I didn’t do anything.
Lisa Fields: Tell our audience a little bit about who you are.
Dr. Maliek Blade: Malik Blade. I’m the CEO of the Whole Brother Mission, which is a nonprofit that connects men with mental health services nationwide. I also see, clients myself, work with a lot of pastors and leaders, also an author, whole brother, Debunking the Mist to Break the Black Family, whole man devotional through our daily bread ministries, and also, my doctoral research was on the most common reasons that black men are in counseling.
Lisa Fields: When we think about when heroes fall, what do you think is one of the
Dr. Maliek Blade: the challenges
Lisa Fields: for us thinking about failure among leaders as parishioners.
Dr. Maliek Blade: Yeah. So something I’ve come across quite a bit is that people’s introduction to God is heavily tied to the people that were the the leaders or the purveyors of the message. Mhmm. So a lot of times, how people understand God and how they view God is is unhealthily necessarily tied to those people. Mhmm. So if those people misbehave, that affects how they view God. Mhmm. So I would say, an unfortunate thing that happens is when heroes do fall or make mistakes as as humans do, it is kind of a double or triple impact because those people are tying those failures to God somehow failing them as well. Mhmm.
Lisa Fields: And when we think about hero failures, often we only think about sexual sin. Mhmm. Why that is a big failure. What are the other ways in which or things we should be looking at as problematic that also should cause concern or pause about a leader?
Dr. Maliek Blade: Yeah. Well, I first wanna say that, you know, the sexual sin thing is real. And depending on what context of church we’re looking at, I would say that it’s often underaddressed or overlooked in some context. So that’s that’s a real thing. I don’t want people to feel like, indiscretions of of pastors are something to be overlooked simply because they’re they’re leading. So that’s a very real thing. But at the same time, there are several ways that a a leader can fall that a human can fall. And that’s important to say too because sometimes when we think about these positions of leadership, we disassociate them from their humanness. So in talking about this, we must always recognize that Christian leaders, ministers, pastors, elders are humans functioning in a role. They still have the same frailties that any human would have. But other ways that people fall, I would say, thinking from a mental health perspective, many leaders aren’t equipped to handle that type of stuff well. At one of a previous, Jude three event, I I was talking about, how oftentimes when leaders see things through a spiritual or biblical lens, in a very narrow way. If a parishioner is going through something, the assumption is, when they’re going through something emotionally or mentally, the assumption is, well, you must ascend. So let’s figure out what sin you did that is causing this distress that you’re having. And that’s not really handling people well because people are more complex than that. And sometimes someone didn’t necessarily do something wrong per se, but they’re experiencing a a series of mental health issues that, caused them to have a discomforting experience. So I would say leaders not being prepped to deal with mental health issues well. But, also, I would say, being careful with what they say. They don’t recognize the impact of their words because of their position. The same way that you give a lot of trust to your medical doctor, you allow them to cut you open, put that stuff in your mouth, look in your ear, look in your eye, smack you on your knee. You allow them to do all these things because you’re entrusting yourself to their care because you believe they’re prepared to handle you well. And there’s a lot of licensure and, stuff that doctors go through to get that position. Although we understand the importance of of the church and the roles that that God has established, we allow these same humans to get that same type of access to people, without medical school or the things that doctors go through or the oversight that doctors have. So a lot more harm is caused because pastors and or leaders aren’t taking that role as seriously and dealing with the people they’re entrusted to with the same amount of care that maybe a doctor would, but that doctor has that carefulness because of the oversight that they have. Yeah. And I think that’s a good delineation because
Lisa Fields: when leaders fall, the first thing they say is people are human. Mhmm. Yes. But if if a doctor cuts off your wrong the wrong leg Yeah. In surgery, yes, he is human. But the impact Mhmm. Of that is devastating to the person Right. Because this is an assumed expertise. Mhmm. So I can still say, yes. This doctor is human. We all fall short. We all make mistakes. The impact, because I assume certain expertise and experience is different. I’m not gonna let you operate on my leg Mhmm. Because I know that’s not the assumed experience you have. While you’re a doctor, you’re not that kind of doctor. Right. You know? And so I think when we talk about people falling and being human, that’s a good, illustration to use to make that delineation
Dr. Maliek Blade: on the impact Right. Of a person’s failure. And I will just wanna add one more thing. As you were saying, I just thought about when doctors make mistakes like that, it’s called medical malpractice. When pastors make mistakes, we say, well, he’s human.
Lisa Fields: So we need to be careful and probably adopt the term spiritual malpractice because that has more severe impacts as well. Yeah. Yeah. And that spiritual malpractice is broader than, like we said, sexual sin. It’s how you deal with people in trauma, how you counsel them Mhmm. How you may overlook things for the sake of an institution Mhmm. That causes additional damage. Right. One of the challenges that people are facing is leaders with personality disorders.
Dr. Maliek Blade: Mhmm.
Lisa Fields: Whether that’d be narcissistic personality. I know narcissism is overused. Yes. In our, culture, borderline personality disorder, bipolar. And we don’t often think of these things as as damaging to people as one that’s cheating on their spouse. Mhmm. But they can have damaging effects to a congregation. Mhmm. Tell us how that plays out and how we can recognize it.
Dr. Maliek Blade: Yeah. So you threw a lot out there, so I wanna, organize some of this because you’re right. People misuse terms a lot. Mhmm. So, narcissism is, well, let’s just say narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnosis that someone would need to receive from a professional like a psychiatrist or maybe a psychiatric nurse practitioner. And it’s possible for someone to demonstrate narcissistic traits and not actually have narcissistic personality disorder or meet the quota that’s outlined for that. So we do wanna be careful. What I do see people is they’re not even familiar with the quota that’s necessary to say narcissistic personality disorder. They call someone a narcissist when they have repeated bad experiences with them. Mhmm. So we don’t we wanna be careful with using that term. And, again, it’s also possible for someone to have narcissistic traits and not have narcissistic personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder is another personality disorder. There are clusters, a, b, and c, of the different personality disorders. But then you mentioned bipolar, which is a mood disorder, which is also like, depression. That’s a more common diagnosis we hear. So you have mood disorders and personality disorders, which can broadly be experiencing. And this, again, is why I underscore, mental health a lot because we’re not acutely aware of how it impacts so many different areas of life. You wonder why somebody’s marriage didn’t work out? May have been some mental health issues, personality disorder, mood disorder issues going on there that people didn’t know was diagnosed. A lot of things can be tied back to these things, especially leaders falling or mishandling people or doing things that lead to a spiritual malpractice. So I do think it’s important, something that hasn’t been emphasized enough is that while you might feel a calling to leadership, you should hone that. And that’s not just going to seminary, but that’s also tending to your mental and emotional wellness to ensure that you are handling people properly. And even if you do have one of those diagnoses we mentioned that you’re attending to that so that that is not impacting the people that are following you. I recently spoke at, something called the Urban Reformation Conference at a vision church in Raleigh, North Carolina. And my, session was about the importance of emotional health and how it goes hand in hand with spiritual health. And, unfortunately, many leaders are given the stamp of approval as a great leader simply based off of either a big following or being aligned with a certain tribe in terms of doctrine or theology, but we completely overlook their mental or emotional state. Mhmm. And I am uncomfortable with the amount of stories I’m aware of where leaders had a, quote, prospering ministry, but behind closed doors, they were a tyrant or a very damaging person.
Lisa Fields: Mhmm. Yeah. And one of that one of those issues that comes into play on both sides when we talk about a more conservative space is if you can communicate doctrine, you can Mhmm. We can overlook some stuff. Yeah. And so this kinda plays out with, okay. You say all the right things theologically that aligns. You are sound, but you’re a tyrant as a leader. You don’t treat your spouse right. These things can come to play. But, you know, on the more progressive side, it can look like, man, you’re you are verbally affirming women in the pulpit, and you’re, you know, you say all the right things around justice, and you’re more inclusive in your ideology, but you’re still a womanizer. Mhmm. Or you’re still a manizer for some for some, or you, you know, you’re, addicted to a substance. You know? So we give people a pass if they say the right things in public no matter what theological spectrum we’re on. Yeah. If they say the things we affirm, if they vote for the people we and then we may excuse their private life because they align with us Mhmm. Tribally. How would you address that? Yeah. It’s wrong.
Dr. Maliek Blade: For one, it’s wrong. It’s not helpful, ultimately. And I it made me think of how, to a certain extent, while we want people to be accountable for the things that they do as leaders and mishandling people, there all also is a level to which, we are not setting them up well in the first place in terms of the culture that exists within church. I am familiar with, the this idea of church hurt, and many people have spoken to this, from the perspective of the leaders hurting the people, but the people hurt the leaders too. Mhmm. And one example of that is just the culture of pushing for more even if that person isn’t well. Mhmm. I’ll take it out of church for a second. I think about different artists. I remember there was an event where Kanye West was supposed to be, speaking at with, radio personality Charlamagne the God. And at the time, I I think I can say now, you know, it seemed as if as if Kanye was having a manic episode. Charlamagne being mental health adjacent, he canceled the event. He said, I I I can’t in good faith sit down with Kanye in front of all these people in this state that he’s in. It is wrong. That’s rare in that type of entertainment industry. They will push people forward to sell those tickets, get that attention, get that promo, get that product out regardless of what’s going on. And that’s the world, so to speak, that behaves that way, but it’s not that different in the church. If that leader is drawing people in, selling out conferences, selling books, their wellness doesn’t really matter after a certain point. If you’re profitable, you’re profitable. If you draw a crowd, you draw a crowd. If you get people emotional, then we’re gonna use you to the fullest for that until we can’t use you anymore. Mhmm. So while we would have a distaste for that when the world does it, we do it too in the church because we’re more focused on what the leaders can do for the ministry or what they can do for us personally as far as delivering a message and not their own wellness. So there’s a shift that needs to take place in terms of us not being okay as parishioners, as the support, the the lay elders and and other people that are supporting the the leaders, and the other leaders as well, other elders, we need to move away from this culture of keeping the show going and actually care for these leaders’ wellness as well. Yeah. And that’s why I’m I’m pleased to see more and more pastors that are doing, sabbaticals and some that are stepping away for a period of time for mental or emotional reasons.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. One thing you said about, like, caring for leaders well Mhmm. One thing I noticed in the in the church culture is sometimes the leaders don’t care for other leader peers well. Mhmm. So I’ve seen this play out in a number of things. There was something that happened with a leader that I knew, and I got a call and I called him. And I was like, hey. Has anybody called you? And he was like, no. They just text me. I’m praying for you. And I’m like, this is a crisis. Mhmm. Why am I one of the only people calling you and everybody else that you were in ministry relationship with doing work with just text you, I’m praying for you. It’s it’s a very passive way of engaging people. Mhmm. We had another situation because I serve on a number of boards where I had to, you know, handle some stuff. Mhmm. And and I was I reached out to another leader. I was like, hey. Did you see what’s going on? He was like, yeah. We talking about in the group chat. I said, well, are we gonna do something else? So I had to be the one to make the call. And I’m like, why am I why am I being the person? Mhmm. I’m like especially as a woman. Now I I am a leader. So but I have run across a lot of men who can be passive in dealing with things, whether they’ll talk about it in the group chat, but I won’t actually address the issue. Right. And I was lamenting to another leader. As a woman, I had to go and do the actual work that needed to be done to rectify the situation as a leader, why everybody knew it was a problem. And these are men that would be very vocal online about handle stuff. Was it handling stuff that actually
Dr. Maliek Blade: impacted congregations? Mhmm. Because that’s a category that a lot of men struggle with, even the the leaders of leaders. So this kinda is my niche area in talking about how and studying how men tend to lack a lot of depth in our relationships with each other and lack a lot of depth in terms of our in terms of our own emotional understanding of ourselves. That even reflects in how pastors relate to each other. Again, while I think it’s fine to say call people brother brother in Christ, I mean, I know having been adjacent to the the preaching circuit, you know, there’s this thing where people are roles just based off of you preach at my church, I preach at your church. You preach at my conference, I preach at your conference. And there’s just this camaraderie of us being in the the the circuit, but there’s no depth in that relationship. Although when they introduced them to speak at their church, my my strong brother in the Lord My best friend. My best friend even. But it’s really just based off of the camaraderie of us being in the same field, and there’s not a lot of depth there. I’m reminded of this, show A Million Little Things or Pieces. And it was a show about this group of of adult male friends all in, marriages with kids and so on and so forth. And, one of the men in the friend group suddenly committed suicide. And so then all the other guys in the group are like, he was the strongest one. And they’re completely flabbergasted that he committed suicide. And a big part of that, yeah, I I would say, is another example of how we’ll spend time together, we’ll share space, but not share all of who we are, not share depth. So, that isn’t, again, just something that’s typical of the world or worldly men, but that still exists even amongst pastor pastors and leaders, which we know in terms of the church’s majority men. And I and I’m not shocked that you as the woman were the one to say, hey. I’m concerned about this person’s wellness. Because that’s unfortunately not something that we we handle well. And you would think that the people with the shepherd’s heart lean in that direction, but that might come out more with congregants and laypeople. But it it it’s harder with those peer to peer relationships. And you and I have talked about this. There are many leaders that struggle with peer to peer relationships because they only know how to wear the hat of caring for someone else and being, Needed. Someone that is looking to them. Yeah. Mhmm. As looking up to them. But they become uncomfortable in reciprocal relationships because there’s that give and take of, I may come to you with my brokenness, but you can come to me as well. And that’s more of a reciprocal relationship, And some tend to struggle with that because we’re trained to just be of service to others,
Lisa Fields: but not get the things that we need as well. Yeah. One thing I say to people now when looking at evaluating leadership relationships is I noticed that some people are okay with being mentored. Mhmm. They’re okay with being, a mentor, and they’re okay with peer relationships that are distant. Mhmm. They don’t deal well with peer relationships that are up close. Yep. And so you need to watch when you’re engaging with the leaders to whatever proximity you have. Yeah. Yes. I’m glad you have a mentor. Yes. I’m glad you have people you’re mentoring. The depth of your peer relationships will really determine the the longevity of your ministry and your the quality of your life. Mhmm. Yeah.
Dr. Maliek Blade: I agree. And I think that, I don’t have, data on this, but it’s my suspicion that, unfortunately, the majority of pastors and leaders probably lean more toward that group that struggles with closeness and reciprocal relationships, because that’s some there’s some vulnerability there. And many of us struggle with vulnerability, but that lack of vulnerability in our personal relationships, spills over into our leadership roles, and that leads to the spiritual malpractice we were talking about. You can deal with people better in their lowest moments if you’ve navigated through the depths of your depravity and brokenness and emotional pain. But if you don’t even go there with your own self, it’s hard to go there with other people. Mhmm.
Lisa Fields: And that leads to leader loneliness, which leads to Burnout. Inevitably burnout, which leads to failure. Mhmm. People don’t fail intentionally, usually. There’s a process. There’s a process. Mhmm. And so when we’re calling leaders to lead, it’s it’s, I was talking to a friend who’s going through a divorce, and she was lamenting that when they were going through her her husband were going through church planning, not a lot was focused on, like, emotional health. Their church planning training was about, like, is he sound? Mhmm. Can he preach? You know, a little bit on marriage, like, don’t cheat. Don’t watch porn. But not like, you know, are you emotionally well, which his wellness unraveled in this whole another level of unwellness now. But all of those things were not investigated or interrogated. And if they had been, some of the the damage may have been prevented. Mhmm.
Dr. Maliek Blade: This makes me think of how this looks in white church context and how this look in black church context. I think it just needs to be called out directly. Part of the reason we have in more white evangelical context, what some would call racism, racist ideologies, or or the the meshing of Christianity and faith with some political parties that are perceived as racist. That whole thing exists, I would say, in part due to the culture within what evangelicalism of emphasizing sound doctrine as the the the number one priority. As if if someone preaches what you consider to be sound doctrine, then that makes them acceptable in all other context. And that’s simply not true. Someone can preach sound doctrine and, as we know, be a slaveholder. And in that context, I would say there is this wrestling even still in a lack of of of being settled with this idea of, if someone participates in a certain thing, while that doesn’t guarantee that they aren’t a believer, sometimes that is the proof of it. What they did perpetually was proof that they were not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ. That doesn’t apply to everyone, but I think people are wrestling with that because there are people that they look up to again for the sound doctrine. But when we look at, like, a Jonathan Edwards, people have a hard time well, I wouldn’t even say a hard time. I would say what I’ve observed in that context is a glossing over of, again, the impact of this on the slaves Mhmm. And the the the genealogy and the families, that came after, it’s really easy to skip over all those thousands of people that are the byproduct of the slaves and just say, well, he was a great preacher. Mhmm. But that same thing has been happening for years in terms of how they look at their heroes, and then that manifest, I would say, a spiritual malpractice and and abuse, so to speak. But then I can switch over to a black church context as well. I see another version of that same thing though, and it’s not necessarily protecting slaveholders who preach what I prefer to be preached, but it’s more so this protecting of the institution of the church where we keep pushing leaders forward in spite of their indiscretions, and this is where the sexual thing comes up. I’m not going to go down the list. But, unfortunately, I am just another church person, Christian, coming into the culture and seeing what’s going on. And we’re familiar of several pastors who have repeatedly had indiscretions and just keep getting platformed and they keep moving. So much so that when there was a daytime television show called Preachers, one of the first jokes that one of those preachers made while he was interviewing Monique about her open marriage, the joke that he made on daytime television was that my ex wives didn’t know that we were in open relationship too because he cheated on them. So, like, this some might say I’m being salacious by even referencing that, but I do think we have to be real about the things that parishioners are seeing from leaders and the impact it has. So, again, the version of this I I see in black church context is pushing people forward if they have the cadence of a preacher, if they hoop, if they draw a crowd, but still not looking at the impact of the things that they’ve said and done.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. It’s always the weighing of the damage. Mhmm. So people are like, well, he you know? Yeah. He he comes through, and he raises money when he comes through or a crowd shows up. He might just go through two of the women or three of the women while he here for revival. Right. So let’s see. We got money that could fund programs to help the community, that could help. So these people, men or women, because it doesn’t have to be exclusive. Yeah. It could be men or women, that are doing this, and they’re running through men or women in the in the audience. You know? And they’re like, well, that’s three or four people that are damaged, but look at all this is helping, or then we do the wait. Oh, well, you know, they doing this, but Mhmm. Such and such, you know, people doing this. And so we kind of wave. It’s like you know, I hear black people say this all the time. Well, white people doing it. And that’s our excuse. And that can’t be the metric. Right? Yeah. It’s okay. Because I’m a good student. It’s not good. When they do it, it’s not good when we do it. Like, it’s it the standard or, you know, people doing much worse. And I think I always tell people, when you stand before God, you’re not gonna be able to say what they did it to because you’re all gonna suffer the consequence for doing it. Like, it’s not gonna God doesn’t excuse you for somebody else’s hypocrisy.
Dr. Maliek Blade: Mhmm.
Lisa Fields: What are what are ways to think about confrontation? Now people have a hard time. You know? You know the situation I just had to navigate with this whole confrontation situation and with the leaders. How do we help leaders develop the courage to confront people? And, again, I think there’s a way to do it where you don’t have to put people on blast on social. Are you talking about leaders confronting other leaders? Leaders confronting other leaders. Mhmm. Leaders doing the work necessary to guard peep the people’s flock, from damage, because I know people who have been casualties of this. Mhmm. Whether that be I have friends that have been molested by leaders that came to do revivals. I’ve seen women and men pray on leaders. Mhmm. So they come in town, and they are attracted to leadership. And so they Yeah. Pray and plot and scheme and DM after sermons. All that happens. We know this. It’s it’s not just one way. Some people some parishioners prey on preachers because they like the power or the dynamic. Mhmm. What are ways to,
Dr. Maliek Blade: help leaders? With the confrontation. Yeah. Yeah. So, one, I do think this is something that we all generally need to accept, and it’ll help the leaders as well. I’ve noticed this with a lot of men in terms of how they lead their sons in navigating through sexual discipline and not getting caught up with porn and things like that. A lot of fathers will just fall back from that conversation completely because they feel as though they’re not qualified to talk to their son about that because they struggle with those issues or they still struggle with them. So the mindset is, it will be hypocritical of me to confront my son about this because I have this issue. We need to move away from that mentality of not being able to call a spade a spade just because we are still struggling with it. If truth is truth, it doesn’t matter who the messenger is. And I know that many of us struggle with that because sometimes we don’t wanna hear truth from certain people. But if truth is truth, it doesn’t matter who the messenger is. So preachers and leaders need to get to a point where they’re able to confront other leaders without thinking they’re disqualified from doing the confrontation just because they made mistakes. If it’s right, it’s right. If a leader, with struggling with infidelity, wasn’t faithful to his wife in the past, that doesn’t mean he’s disqualified from telling this other preacher ten years later, hey. Don’t do that. No. He still shouldn’t do that regardless of what you did. So right is still right regardless of your track record with right. So I think that is something that keeps people from speaking up. Another one is, we have to disassociate Christianity from being nice. The assumption is, that the Christian thing, the high road, what would Jesus do is always whatever is the nicest thing, whatever follows the path of least resistance. And that’s not true either. Jesus was confrontational. In fact, Jesus or God as a whole is inherently divisive and confrontational by saying that I’m the only way. That’s very divisive and confrontational. And not only that, but if you don’t go this way and you reject me, you’ll spend eternity in the lake of fire. That’s very divisive. So we’ve created this separate category of niceness. And, you know, I joke because I’m I’m from further north. I’m from DC, from Florida. I joke about the whole southern hospitality thing and the whole nice and say hi to everybody. I do think that’s part of the culture too, the idea of southern hospitality, bless your heart. Say the nice stuff, but we all know sometimes, you know, bless your heart is being messy. That’s being petty. You know, it’s not really bless your heart. It’s I’m judging you. So we also need to recognize, hey. Let’s move away from just do what feels nice to me or can make people think good things about me, and let’s deal with what needs to be dealt with and deal with the consequences of that too. So Jesus, was killed due to the consequences of his message. That’s how people responded to the truth that he had to share, but he still shared it. So in in many ways, we have to be okay with not being liked and be okay with the backlash that comes with confronting something rather than compromising the message just to stay on good terms with people. Yeah. And I, you know, I’ve had so much experience Mhmm.
Lisa Fields: With leaders over the years Yeah. Especially in light of the work I do with you three. For some people, they are only courageous in the pulpit. Mhmm. They are not courageous in interpersonal dynamics. And that’s the time to do it the most. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember a particular situation where somebody was, like, going live, and they were talking about, we gotta call out these false preachers to their faith. And so I was like, hey. I know some of the people you talk about. You wanna I could put you in a courageous conversation. I was like, oh, I don’t wanna do that. And I was like, oh, so you’re challenging Mhmm. Everybody else to do it. And so you look bold. Right. And it’s like, nah. And then people will be, sending me messages. Why don’t you get such and such? They’ll they’ll stand 10 toes down. And I’m like, if you only knew. Mhmm. And so I’m like, you have lacked courage that’s only talking at people. You don’t have courage to talk to people. Mhmm. And
Dr. Maliek Blade: that’s, I feel like, what we need amongst the people. And that’s where a lot of leaders are. I’m one of those people. You know, my my family laughs at me because, I’ve always been this way. Even since I was young, I would get in trouble in school because I I just did I never really cared about backlash. I don’t know. I just, you know, I I fine tuned it, you know, as as an older man now. But, I even deal with that in terms of whether it’s counseling or just my personality type. You know, I’m all about, alright. If there’s a issue that needs to be addressed, let’s call a meeting. Let’s address it. Let’s deal with it. Whatever happens, happens. I deal with it with care, but I’m not gonna brush this under the rug. And I say this to say that in the most resistance I’ve gotten with this type of personality type or with this directness as a result of getting to the root issue due to counseling, the most resistance I’ve gotten has been from Christians. Because it’s like, what are you doing? You’re rocking the boat. You’re you’re messing up the image. You’re not helping us to be able to save face. Mhmm. And that has damaged us for so many years. We’re more concerned with saving face than dealing with what what needs to be dealt with. Peacemaking versus peacekeeping. Peacemaking is actually dealing with the issue at hand and fighting through the difficulties to get to true peace, whereas peacekeeping is just keeping up the image. It’s like, alright. You sit over here and you sit over there, and let’s just do this event and try to make sure y’all don’t cross paths. They have issues with each other. We need to work through the issues. There’s scripture about offenses with the the brothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t live out a lot of stuff that we we read when it’s time to live it out. So, you know, I I do think that it it’s important for us to get comfortable with this idea of confrontation and be willing to deal with with the consequences because, again, the the way that this indirectly is impacting people that are following leaders is that, we actually attack the wrong people. We reward and this is how some jobs work too. We reward the people that are docile and quiet, and we demonize the people that are calling out the problems. I’m familiar of context in employment where someone called out sexual harassment and was later fired. And that’s because in that worldly context, it’s about saving face and protecting the business at all costs. But, unfortunately, churches and church people function the same way. You’re messing up the image. We gotta hold this thing together and look good for the people. No. We should be the place where we’re not focused on saving faith, but we’re focused on true healing. And we also need to recognize that Jesus, God, does not need us to fight on his behalf to protect his image.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. If he wanted to protect his image and present the pressing image of his creation humanity, we wouldn’t have the bible. Yeah. Because it’s a whole bunch of mess Right.
Dr. Maliek Blade: Yeah. In there. And that’s exactly where I was going. It’s like, well, if god didn’t feel the need to hide the ugliness, then why are you? But that’s a personal thing, and that’s why I lean into the things I lean into in terms of counseling and psychology because so many times we get so busy just doing things because this is the normal thing to do in the culture. It’s groupthink. But when you slow down and examine this, why am I yelling at these people on behalf of God? Why am I getting angry at this person for calling out some misbehavior of leadership when the Bible says that the leader doing that is wrong. So whose side am I on? So if we just slow down instead of reacting, we could have more thorough and substantive and helpful responses. But we move so quickly, and we don’t, think through, our responses in an emotionally healthy way. Mhmm. We react. We get offended. We defend. We shut down. And we say that it is being spirit led because we’re doing it on behalf of a church or a leader, but it’s still very much so sinful and wrong, and we’re getting into the worst parts of our emotions
Lisa Fields: and reacting in an ugly way. Yeah. I think one of the things that happens with the leaders when it comes to not confronting leaders is not wanting to confront people who’ve helped you. Mhmm. Yeah. Right? So I remember talking to somebody, and they were like, well, you know, this person has been gracious. They’ve helped me financially. You know? So they kinda overlooked the damage because of the help. And so it’s interesting to me because we will get frustrated with politicians for overlooking and not rendering justice, for whole people groups, marginalized people groups. Like Mhmm. We we could see clearly that what Trump’s interaction with Elon was because Elon helped him during the election. Mhmm. And so there’s things that Elon does that Trump is gonna overlook. And we will call that out and talk about the grave injustice that does to marginalized people. We should call that out, but we do the same thing. And it reminds me of Romans two. When Romans two, he’s like, you’re complaining about these people, but you do the very same thing. And I think many leaders don’t realize how hypocritical they look because they have a microphone, and they are very vocal about political and systemic things when they create or keep systems of dysfunction going Mhmm. In the church. Yeah. And this is why we need to be
Dr. Maliek Blade: completely separate of these political parties and not demonstrate the same hypocrisy that they demonstrate or give them the really esteemed honor of saying that one party has a monopoly on God because that’s not true. Mhmm. Neither does. Mhmm. So that’s why we need to maintain our independence from those political parties. But, also, I think recognizing that this is why I tell everybody to go to therapy, ultimately, because it helps you to get to a level of self awareness. Mhmm. I’m reminded of an interaction I had on on Facebook. I ended up clashing with a former seminary, colleague or or student was in class with. It was right around the time that Charlie Kirk got shot. And I had just left an HBCU doing a tour stop about mental health. Right after I left, the school got shut down because that school and several other HBCUs were getting bomb threats after Charlie Kirk got shot. I then went online to well, actually, I did a full, podcast episode about just the psychology of the racial tensions in America. And I went as far as to say, you know, whether people like it or not, a lot of people viewed him as a racist. Right? So you might have liked him, and you can like him. And you can see him as a hero and a great Christian leader who spoke about God on campuses. That’s your experience. But that doesn’t just erase a lot of these other people’s experience. A lot of black people in particular think that he was a racist. So I was addressing that online, and, here’s how the hero thing I wanted to explore this, how the hero thing contorts things. The man that opposed me online was, a black man, for one. He was one of the few black men at the white seminary I went to. He had two alive able-bodied parents, but still grew up in the foster care system. So his two black parents allowed him to go through foster care even though both of them were alive and well. He had been plopped around to different white families over his years. The reason he was even at seminary was because the white church that he went to helped gather money to get him a car and get him to campus, and they helped with tuition. In many ways, white people have saved the day for him even when his black family abandoned him. So I recognize, you know, what was going on with him is he was opposing me, and arguing in terms of the the content about Charlie Kirk because many of the people that have helped him and supported him love Charlie Kirk. So although he didn’t understand the nuance of what was going on, he was fighting and defending because these people that have helped me love Charlie Kirk, so I stand with them. And while there’s so much to unpack there in terms of the family dynamics, I think that groupthink thing happens too much where we’re not being nuanced. Because of proximity with certain people, we just adopt their point of view. We defend them without investigating, and it’s all based on how how we feel about these people. And we, as people of God, especially when we’re saying extreme things like there’s only one way to heaven, we need to be very measured in how we examine things. And it can’t just be a tribal thing. It can’t just be defending the people that are on my team, but we need to be thoughtful and and and comb through things with a fine tooth comb. I’ll close with this. An example of this is years ago, I interviewed my brother. My brother is a pastor in North Carolina. I interviewed him, and I asked him a lot of questions that skeptics have about, is God homophobic? Does God support slavery? All the things that the naysayers have questions about, the problem of evil. And I was speaking to a a woman who was helping us with some some publishing, and she didn’t know. She, one, said, I didn’t I would have never guessed that was your brother, your biological brother that you were interviewing. And two, I wouldn’t have guessed you were a Christian either because you were grilling him. We actually should be that way. I shouldn’t just give him a softball interview because I believe in the same guy he does, so let’s just create this fluffy interview that no. Let’s comb through the things that the people are concerned about. So I think that is actually the posture we should be taking where we grill each other. Iron sharpening iron isn’t just me, you know, setting you up to say great things about what it means to be a Christian, but it also means it it genuinely means us working through the hard things too. Like, neither neither you or I will sit up here and tell the people that, yeah, when you come to God, everything is peaches and cream from that point forward. Mhmm. That’s not true. You know? And although I want you to believe, I’m not gonna sell you on something that’s not true. And when you bring your concerns to me, I will work through those with you rather than getting upset and just saying how dare you question.
Lisa Fields: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this has been a rich interview. When we heroes fall, I encourage you all to get the book. We dive into some of these things that we’re we Malik and I were talking about just now in the book. It’s available wherever books are sold. Malik, how can people get in contact with you on social?
Dr. Maliek Blade: Yes. Malik blade dot com. That’s where my books are available. Homebirdthemission.com to learn more about our nonprofit or looking into mental health services for yourself or, making it available to the staff or members of your church, we’re able to to build those packages to make, Christian counseling and other mental health services available to your team. So definitely check us out, and all the social media handles are the same as the website, Malik Blade and Whole Brother Mission.
Lisa Fields: Awesome. Well, you can catch all our past episodes on our website or YouTube channel or wherever you stream podcast. Remember here at the Jude three Project, we cannot do what we do without generous support from people like you, hitting that donate tab on jude3project.org. We have an amazing, amazing resource coming your way, a new website that’s gonna blow you away. I’ve just been looking at all the updates to the website that our team has been working on. I’m blown away. It’s gonna be a a resource that doesn’t exist, particularly for the black apologetic community, that we’ve been working on, taking twelve years of resources and really developing something that’s gonna be revolutionary. And so stay tuned. We’re gonna be making more announcements about that soon. So, keep up with you three project on all our social medias, handles and look for videos about the new stuff we have coming out. Remember, till next time, grace and peace, and God bless. And here at the Jute three Project, we’re helping you to know what you believe and why you believe it. Have a good one.