S4E4: Finally Woke: A Candid Conversation with Monique Duson about Identity and the Black Female Christian

In this eye-opening and deeply personal episode, I sit down with Monique Duson, co-founder of the Center for Biblical Unity, for a powerful conversation about faith, identity, and what it means to be a Black female Christian in today’s world.

Monique shares her unique journey from embracing critical race theory to discovering a biblically grounded understanding of unity and identity. With grace, boldness, and honesty, she speaks on navigating cultural expectations, confronting ideological shifts, and finding liberation through the gospel—not through societal labels.

Together, we unpack tough questions:

• How do cultural narratives about race and gender shape our faith?
• What does true “wokeness” look like in the light of Christ?
• How can Black Christian women embrace their identity without compromise?
• How can we be the example of unity in order to reach a divided nation?

This is more than just a discussion—it's a clarion call to live authentically and courageously at the intersection of race, gender, and biblical truth.

Whether you’re struggling under the weight of oppression, wrestling with your identity, leading others in ministry, or simply seeking deeper understanding—this episode is for you.

For additional resources and support:

Please visit The Center for Biblical Unity's website

Listen to Monique's Podcasts

Purchase Monique and Krista's book Walking in Unity

Purchase the book by Thaddeus Williams, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth

Read more about my (Davenia) own identity journey - Back to Biblical Africa

And as always, Annie and I would love to hear from you. How are you holding up under the weight of all the "isms?" What, from this episode, do you resonate with or continue to grapple with? Please share your story with us on IG @davenialeawrites, or on FB @annieraney.

Finally, your reviews mean the world to us, and they also assist us in spreading God's message of hope and victory across the globe! So please leave us a review on your favorite podcast player or on our Podcast Webpage 

Tell us what you think of this episode and we'd also love to hear your story!

🔗 Again, don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to keep the conversation going!

Today's episode song is Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Please note this song is for your listening enjoyment only and cannot be downloaded or shared.

Thanks for listening! From our hearts to yours!!

Transcript

Annie: Welcome to the Didn't Ask to Be a Hero podcast. I'm your host, Annie Raney. In each episode, we will get an opportunity to see how ordinary women are now living amazing, abundant and extraordinary lives with God's help.

May their stories serve to encourage and inspire you. Let's get started.

Davenia: Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of the Didn't Ask to Be a Hero podcast. As Annie and I have shared, we're going deep this season. We're diving into topics that she and I struggle with that make us uncomfortable at times and that are often overlooked because,

well, that's just not proper for conversation for us ladies. But today, my guest and I are going to just begin to scratch the surface as we explore the notions of being black in America without losing our saved and sanctified minds.

My guest today may not know this, but her story served as a catalyst for pushing me back over the ledge at a time when I thought I was going to lose it.

I know that may be hard for many of you to understand because by the world's standard, I have it all. A devoted husband,

terrific kids, most of the time, my dream home, a cush job, a loving family, strong church connection,

bucket list fulfilled. But underneath that surface of happiness is this black girl who made it but still feels empty and numb and who continued to question her purpose and place in this world as a black woman.

So I read this book, Confronting Justice Without Compromising Truth by Thaddeus Williams. And smack dab in the middle of that book was my guest story.

I read it, and through my peers, I was shouting, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's me.

And so today I am thrilled to have Monique Dusan with us today.

I'm going to stop gushing now and allow you all to meet Monique so that you can be amazed for yourselves. Welcome, Monique.

Monique: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Davenia: I am so excited. And why don't we just jump right in? How about we start with you telling us your story? What was your childhood like? Your home life, your school experiences, et cetera?

Sure.

Monique: Well, I am Monique Dusan and I.

Am the president and co founder of the center for Biblical Unity.

Monique: We are a ministry based just outside of Los Angeles, California, and we talk.

About race, justice and unity from a historically biblical position.

Monique: I came into this work quite by God's divine providence. I was born and raised for the first 16, 15 years of my life.

In an area called South Central Los Angeles.

Monique: And so South Central Los Angeles, for anyone who is unfamiliar, is a very low socioeconomic area, at least when I was Living there, it's, you know, experiencing some gentrification now. But when I was living there, it was, you know, a primarily black area, very low socioeconomic status, Lots of gangs,

drugs, prostitution, all of that just happening right in front of me. I am the oldest of four children.

I was raised by a single mom.

Monique: I did not have much contact with my father at all for the first.

12 years of my life.

Monique: I probably saw him, I would say what I can remember.

I saw him less than five times.

Monique: In, you know, those first 12 years of my life. And then my dad died when I.

Was 12, when I was in sixth grade.

Monique: And so that ended, like, all possible, you know, contact and relationship. My mom did remarry. My. Now, my father and my mom were never married, and, like I said, very little contact.

She did eventually remarry and had two.

Children from that union.

Monique: So. So my brother and I, my oldest, or I'm the oldest, and then I have a brother, and we come from my mom and my dad as a sibling set. And then I have two sisters who come from my mom and stepfather as a sibling set.

But my stepfather was quite hectic. Um, there were drugs and physical abuse and, you know, verbal abuse. Like, there was a lot happening through that union.

And as you know, he and my mom were on again, off again. That left me with a lot of responsibility for my two young, younger sisters.

I am 13 and 14 years older.

Monique: Than that sibling set.

And because of a lot of that responsibility and just the chaos in my home and things like that, I did not go to school often. The first, I would say seven grades.

So, like, first through seventh grade, I.

Did very well in school.

Monique: Eighth grade was not so well.

Ninth grade, I hardly went to school.

Monique: Tenth grade, I did not go to school at all. Probably less than a quarter of the time. And in 10th grade is where I received a report card. And on that report card, it was like the end of the year report card, and where it would normally say, you know,

next grade would be 11. My report card said 10R, which meant 10 repeat. And I immediately said, no, I'm not going to do. I'm not going to repeat a grade.

Like, there was a lot of pride there. But there was also the very realistic understanding that what would really change for me between 10th grade and 11th grade, I'm still going to be in the same, you know, financial condition.

I'm still going to have the same home life and things like that. I'm still going to miss the same amount of school. And so at that point, I had A conversation with my mom and we agreed that I would drop out of school.

And so the last grade that I.

Successfully completed was 9th grade.

Monique: I attended 10th grade, did not successfully complete. And so that is, that's a lot of my young life in.

Gosh, when I was probably 15, we moved out of South Central Los Angeles into an area called North Hollywood, which was still a lower socioeconomic status area, not as low as where I was living in South Central.

But you know, those same issues that we were facing in South Central followed us into North Hollywood. And so that is, that's, you know.

What my teenage years were like.

Monique: At 16, though, is where I received.

An invitation to go to church with a friend of mine.

Monique: And I was presented with the gospel and the hope of having a heavenly.

Father who would love me.

Monique: I think it was that draw. Not, I think I know it was that draw of a call to a heavenly father that, you know, encouraged my heart to respond to the gospel message.

And so it was in North Hollywood at 16 that I began to think.

About God, to who is Jesus?

Monique: To and to have a relationship with God. And so from there I, you know, I worked. I eventually went back and got my ged, or I forgot what GED stands for now, but it's like your high school equivalency.

And then I went to Biola University. I started a little late, I entered at 21. But in doing that, I was able to eventually get a bachelor's in sociology with an emphasis in counseling.

Davenia: Amen. Praise God for that friend to share Jesus with you.

And at a young age we often hear how the youth are leaving the church. They're not engaged,

but there are some young people out there. So praise God for that.

So, wow, that, that's a lot to unpack in your, your early years living in that chaos, but then being responsible for your siblings and I guess trying to protect them, shelter them.

So what was going on for you also as your understanding,

race related and what that means for you in light of your experiences?

Monique: Yeah, so when I lived in South.

Central Los Angeles, there were two pivotal.

Monique: Things that happened, or probably three.

One, Rodney King was beaten.

And about a week or so later, maybe may have been before, was within like the same two week span,

a girl, a 15 year old girl named Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by a Korean store owner.

The Korean store owner basically received probation. And she, I think she had done.

Maybe six months in jail or something.

Monique: Like that, maybe less, but she received probation. That was the majority of her sentence. And like a $500 fine. And this happened about three miles from my home. And all of South Central was just angry.

And then you have Martin, not Martin Luther King. You have not Reginald Denny.

Goodness, I just saw Rodney King. Rodney King, Rodney King.

I'm like, all the names are just meeting together. So then you have Rodney King and Rodney King gets beaten. And then the verdict comes in for.

The four white police officers who beat.

Monique: Him that they were not guilty. So if I'm remembering correctly, it was three not guilty verdicts and then one where they never actually reached a verdict at all. Like. Like it was either hung a hung jury or something where he was not going to face any jail time.

And that sparked the Los Angeles riots.

And the riots happened right on the street where I lived on. Like I was right off of Normandy. And, you know, they just. Everything burned around me.

And that's when I began to realize that being black isn't safe.

Davenia: Hmm.

Monique: Like it's not safe for us in America. But then at the same time, I'm learning about people like Nelson Mandela and, you know, apartheid and what does it mean to be black in the larger world and how it's just not safe.

That was a lot of the rhetoric that I heard between I felt like my teachers and even my friend's parents and my mom. Just this idea that, you know, white people think that they can do black people any kind of way, and because of that, then, you know, blacks are angry and they're rightfully angry and so they riot.

And that, that line of thinking really just stayed with me over the course of my life. Now I was and have. I've always been very justice oriented. So whether that's working with orphans or, you know, taking care of homeless people or whatever, my heart has always been bent toward justice since I was a small child.

And now, you know, with this justice minded heart,

hearing the things about what it means to be black in America and what it has always meant to be black in America really sparked for me this thought that I have to fight for my people and I need to fight for the poor.

And it was primarily the poor black person.

But that's. That's what was really happening for me as a young child or, you know, as that. That time when you're really beginning to.

Come into your own.

Monique: You know, you also had.

This was the beginning of the 90s.

Monique: I think the riots happened when I was 13 or so.

You had, you know, groups like TLC or En Vogue or just Gosh, Tribe Called Quest. You had groups that were talking about what it meant to be black or what it meant to be a black woman, what I was going to stand for, what I wasn't.

Public enemy.

You had, you had this,

like, a conscious thought about blackness during that time. I remember my mom gave me a shirt that said black woman, no sugar, no cream on it, with this bus of Nefertiti.

And there was just an air of, like,

this is what it means to be black. And, you know, much like Maya Angelou.

I am going to be a black woman phenomenally.

Monique: Like, I'm a black child now, and there's a place for me in being a black child. But when I grow up, I'm going to be a phenomenal black woman. And it doesn't matter, you know, like, if you try to keep me down or whatever.

The reality is, is that you're really.

Threatened by who I am.

Monique: But I am meant to be phenomenal.

Davenia: Right, Right. We don't even understand how we're shaped by the things that happen, the things that we hear where we grow up. I grew up in primarily black communities my whole life.

And so there was this during,

during that time,

during the 80s 90s, there was this push to just infuse in us this whole sense of black pride.

And so I resonate with you with how it begins to shape how you think about yourself and how you navigate in the world.

I know for me, I grew up in, like I said, all the black communities. I felt safe.

All my doctors and teachers and everyone around me in my world was black. And I don't know, I just thought that's the way the world was until I went to college and I went to a primarily white university.

And I remember just, like, what in the world has happened? Like, I've never seen this many white people in my whole life.

And then all of a sudden,

you know, the notion that my blackness was somehow inferior or it wasn't seen the same way in that environment as it had been my whole life.

Monique: And so, yeah, I, I, I definitely hear you. I think moving out of South Central.

Into a more diverse area, like North.

Monique: Hollywood, I became aware of other cultures. Like, I met people from Armenia. I had never heard of her. I was like, where is Armenia? What is an Armenian? Like, I don't understand.

And, you know, that opened the door to, you know, like I said, other cultures. But then going to a church where the youth group was primarily black because.

The youth pastor had a vision for.

Monique: Reaching the students in the junior high and high school. But the main church, big church, was primarily white.

Davenia: Okay, okay.

Monique: And how some of that. That integration,

there was struggle for that. By the time I got to university, because I was 21, I had already been in, you know, many environments where there were just different people of different, you know, cultures or ethnicities.

And yet being at Biola, you know.

Black people were a very small percentage. It was a primarily, and still is, a primarily white institution.

Monique: And I do, like, I remember my. Some of my professors asking me, well, can you tell us the black perspective?

Or, you know, thinking, wow, this is really interesting, because I don't see it. See whatever is being talked about this way at all. I wonder if that's because I'm black.

I remember in my sociology class going on a field trip to a quote, unquote, lower socioeconomic area to give the students the experience,

and walking by my old house feeling like, are we just on display?

When I read Beverly Daniel Tatum's why Are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

It made a lot of sense to me.

Monique: And while it makes sense to me today that she can say some of those things, I don't necessarily agree with her underlying presuppositions,

but it made so much sense then. And then, and being at Biola and studying sociology,

much of what I had learned,

you know, on the streets of LA or from my mom or teachers and things like that was just reiterated in my sociology classes.

And so it, yeah,

gets. It gets real when you really notice that, oh, I am not quote, unquote, like the others.

Davenia: Right. So in the book, the excerpt you wrote for Thaddeus Williams book, you shared how this. The rhetoric that we've been talking about begin to weigh on you and begin to cause you to become angry, maybe sort of militant.

And then you had this encounter with God where he had a conversation with you that perhaps you needed to change your perspective. Can you share what that encounter was like?

Monique: Yeah, I definitely. I would say that, you know, I began to see all white people as being racist and racism as the foremost problem in America.

As I thought about,

you know, racism.

In other parts of the world, I.

Monique: Could also see whiteness and racism as being the primary issues within, you know, those countries as well.

I lived abroad in South Africa for.

Monique: Over four years and could see, you know, if apartheid and racism and whiteness, you know, weren't part of all of.

These issues and within all of these.

Monique: Frameworks, and then the country would just be better.

And as I began praying, I began praying and seeking the Lord and the Scriptures because I started having a conversation.

With a friend of mine.

Monique: Krista. And Krista and I are now in ministry together.

But she began to challenge me, and she's white. She began challenging me on just some.

Monique: Of the ways that I thought about race. And I very boldly and bluntly told her she only is wanting to challenge me because she's white and she doesn't like the fact that she's racist.

And so she. We would have Bible study or she.

Monique: Would just ask me like, well, where do you see this at in the Scripture? Like, I want.

She wanted to be persuaded to my.

Monique: Position, but she couldn't get there scripturally. And so I began really searching the Scriptures and as I did and, and.

Having other conversations with people to just gain more insight into the sociological construct.

Monique: For all of this,

the Lord began to really mess with my heart. And as I was praying to him about, like, social justice and Christa's whiteness and why can't she see her, like, unconscious bias and God reveal it so that it's no longer just this unconscious.

Thing that she's participating with? The Lord really impressed upon my heart.

Monique: That I needed to repent that I was the one who was upholding a narrative that wasn't biblically aligned when. And it started with social justice. It started with that narrative. And what does social justice look like and what does it mean in my own cultural context?

But what does the Scripture have to say about it?

What does the Scripture have to say about justice? Overall? I knew a lot of, you know, Micah 6, 8, do justice or, you know, let justice roll down like a river.

Like, you know, I knew the one line in verses, but I had never really read Michael 1 to understand Michael 6 in context.

And so I began to read the Scriptures in context and continue to pray.

Monique: And slowly my paradigm really broke down.

First on social justice.

Monique: But social justice is connected to so many other things that, you know, very.

Soon after this idea of whiteness started.

Monique: To be questioned, or the idea of, you know, quote unquote, America's greatest sin. You know, what is America's greatest sin? How do I see white people?

Are white people really my brothers and sisters in Christ?

Monique: Or is there another category for them?

And I just, I couldn't. I couldn't argue back with God.

I couldn't argue back with His Word.

I either trusted His Word or I didn't.

His Word was either infallible or it wasn't.

Monique: And that's, that's really where a lot of the.

The paradigm broke down for me, was at the Scriptures.

Davenia: Wow. And that I can only imagine that Journey with you and God.

And it's so amazing when he begins to reveal truth and when we begin to look at the world around us, not through the lens of the rhetoric and the things we hear and what we've experienced, but through his lens of truth.

And yeah, that, that's just amazing.

You also shared how that,

you know, some of those ideologies that you had to give up in exchange for biblical truth. And you, you spoke some to that of seeing,

for example, seeing white people not as a race, but as your brothers and sisters.

So are there some other things that you gained as you shed some of those false ideas?

Monique: There are ideas that I gained as I shed false ideas. And I would say that the, the. The idea that I love the most.

Or the truth that.

Monique: Because when I think about ideas, like, I can come up with my own.

Ideas, but then there are ideas in.

Monique: The scripture that I just call truth.

And when I think about the truth that I gained, it is that we are family. Like, regardless of skin color, when someone.

Comes into the body of Christ, we are family.

Monique: And so regardless of, you know, my socioeconomic status, my,

you know, family heritage, my skin color, my ethnicity, we are family. And it is only the cross that can really bring unity. Like, there is nothing that I can do as a human person,

um, in.

A very sinful world, and me being.

Monique: Myself, a sinner, there's nothing that I can do that can create a foundation.

For unity the way the cross does.

Monique: I can, I may be able to get to agreement with someone, but what I can never do is, is have that foundational oneness, unity that the, the Gospel provides in Jesus.

And so to me, that's the biggest, best truth. Because as that truth was highlighted and as I was able to walk in that truth more, I no longer saw white people as my enemy.

But white believers became my brothers and.

Monique: Sisters, as did Asian believers, Hispanic believers. It didn't matter what your ethnic background was.

We were brothers and sisters. And we see this so clearly written.

Monique: Out in especially like the first two.

To three chapters of Ephesians.

Monique: The work that Christ did that I could not do creates a family. We see this in John, in the first chapter of John, it says, to.

Those who believed on his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Monique: It.

It was for me that.

Monique: That switching on of that light of like, okay, one, no, we're all not children of God. You know, like, we are the creation, sharing equal indignity, value and worth because we share in his image.

But there is something that, that connects us supernaturally.

Monique: And that is the power of the Holy Spirit.

We see this in John 17, in Jesus's high priestly prayer.

Monique: But that, to me, that's the best truth. Because now my family is so big and, and the unity that I share with others is, Is strong. It's. It's better than anything that I can create.

My social justice mind will never knock down the barrier between people the way the cross can.

Davenia: Amen. Amen. Yeah. And it's so amazing when you look at it that way. This is my family, and we're all image bearers. And as image bearers, we all have the same mission, the same purpose, which is to spread the gospel and the good news.

And,

And I think when you can, when you get to that place, it's so freeing.

I know for me, though,

there, there were some struggles of letting go of some of that, you know,

but I. I've been victim my life. I've been oppressed all my life. And, and so to let those identities go in exchange for. You're not a victim, you're a victor, you're not oppressed, you're.

You're free. You. You know, and it was hard,

but as you said, God is gracious and works with this.

Monique: It's so true.

The struggle can be so real, you know, like you can hear something played over and over and over again.

Monique: It's like. It's like the enemy has this tape that just plays over and over and over again. Especially to me, within the black community of. Racism is always going to be real.

White people are always going to be oppressing you. You need to be looking for racism at every turn. The church is always going to be institutionally and systematically racist. Like, you need to always understand that racism is going to be your biggest threat.

Davenia: Yeah.

You are always.

Davenia: And stay in fight mode.

Monique: Yes, fight for you, your people.

Davenia: And.

Monique: Yeah, but. And that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. I am not a racism denier, but that doesn't mean that I am constantly a victim or that my white brothers and sisters are always my oppressors, you know, seeking to keep me down, or that every system in America is systemically racist.

You know, so it's like there's this thought that we must adopt these ideas without evidence, but as believers, we are called to evidence.

Davenia: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know, when, when you read and study God's word and you'll see that some of those fights that we've had,

it's such a small part of our bigger calling.

Yes, we are to Fight on behalf of those who are oppressed. But we're also called to feed the hungry, cloth the naked,

support and help the widows and the orphans. And there's so much more to our calling. And I think sometimes we get stuck in this one small piece and we allow that to just be the lens that we look at everything.

And I think it also keeps us. I'm sorry, keeps us on this big level, the macro level. We're fighting the super system, the man.

And when we're called to touch individuals and. And it should be my heart to your heart. And so, yeah,

I would.

Monique: To add to that thought about, like, the marginalized or the oppressed. We've been invited in, you know, as a society, regardless of skin color, to actually redefine who the marginalized and the oppressed are.

I am not marginalized or oppressed simply because of my skin color. We must be looking at these definitions through a biblical lens.

Monique: One of the things, one of the.

Ideas that I had to shed was.

Monique: That, you know, all of the people that culture said were marginalized and oppressed must be the marginalized and oppressed.

I had to begin defining those words biblically.

Monique: What does it mean to be a.

Marginalized or oppressed person? Person.

Monique: Scripturally, just because I am a woman does not automatically make me an oppressed person. I am not necessarily marginalized simply because I am black.

I would encourage people to go back.

To the scripture to understand who were the marginalized groups in scripture.

Monique: What were the requirements that we see set forth that actually meant someone was marginalized and then go forward from there. Because one of the things that I.

Found was that in wanting to fight.

Monique: For the marginalized and oppressed at times, I was participating in sin,

never want to be doing good. And I'll put that in air quotes.

And in reality, you're actually participating in sin. For example, I wanted to fight on behalf of women, the marginalized woman. Women are, according to the framework, a marginalized group. Well, how do I fight for women who are marginalized?

Well, part of that is to fight.

Monique: For this thing called reproductive justice, which can be a euphemism for abortion, and.

Making sure that women can choose.

Monique: So we.

We just really want to make sure that we're defining our terms not according to culture, but according to scripture.

Davenia: Amen.

Yeah. And I think it. And it's. It. It. It happens so subtly. You know, I remember my time in higher ed, and I mean, I was the cultural diversity champion.

I taught all the culturally competency courses and culturally proficient and culturally cultural Reciprocity. And I was on that bandwagon and then. But so slowly definitions begin to change and terminology I once used to mean one thing, now it means something else.

And I think because we get so caught up in again the rhetoric, we forget to go back to our standard of truth. And so how do you deal with pushback?

You know,

for example,

pushback from like black community that, oh, you might not be black enough or you're selling out, or the struggle is still real, you know, or is there pushback from the white community that, you know, they're tired of this conversation or tired of being blamed?

How do you deal with.

Monique: Oh, the pushback can be real.

You know, oddly, I find that I receive, I do receive quite a bit of pushback from the black community, but I receive even more pushback from many white liberals.

A white middle aged woman who's a liberal, I mean,

if they could throw hands with me like that, I'm sure they would because I have been called a racist more times than I can count by a white woman.

The, the way that I deal with the pushback is just with truth. Like, explain it to me scripturally, you know, and, and usually what people swim to is this idea of inequity.

But can you help me understand biblically.

Monique: Where inequity automatically equates to being an injustice?

Davenia: Yeah.

Monique: Just because someone is poor, does that necessarily mean that, that there is an injustice happening to them or that they are poor because of systems of oppression?

I definitely don't want to get in a conversation of this is my thought and my opinion. I would rather people search the scripture. So then it's not what Monique said, because Monique is fou, like she can be wrong.

And so how do we bring people on, especially Christians? And I feel like my, my primary audience is Christian.

And so how do I help bring.

Monique: Christians on a road through the scripture.

Where they can see this is what.

Monique: The word of God says? This isn't just, you know, I'm not just up here, you know, talking or having this conversation with you at coffee.

Because I want you to think like I do.

Monique: No, we need to both of us.

Conform our thoughts to the mind of Christ.

Monique: And so how ironic.

Davenia: Like what you just said. You just said, I want to have a conversation with Christians, with Christians about what the Bible says, which is sad that we as Christians have also moved so far from truth, from, from biblical truth.

And yes,

yeah, I think what you just said, that's the answer that we have to go back to,

to studying for ourselves, searching God's word for ourselves, bringing every question and thought that we have before his word. And I'm just amazed how pushback that you do get. And it's within the Christian arena.

Monique: I feel like secular people, you know, people who don't have a relationship with Christ at all, tend to be more willing to listen,

to ask, you know, just regular questions, well, how does this work for you? Instead of, that's the most racist thing I've ever heard. You don't even like black people. And I'm like, have you.

Are like, are you blind? Because I truly am like, my. I'm black.

I've been black my whole life.

I do enjoy being black. There's a lot of things that I enjoy about being black.

And what I can't do is put what I would call a matter of providence. You know, I am providentially designed. The way that I am designed. That is a matter of God's providence.

I can't put that matter of providence, my skin color, before my identity as.

A child of God.

Davenia: Amen.

Monique: And so to me, this isn't a skin color conversation. This is a family conversation. How are we going to treat each other in the church? How. What do you believe about what it.

Means to be a human person?

Monique: What do you believe about matters of providence? My skin color, my socioeconomic status, my family heritage, my culture. Like, how are we having this conversation.

And getting to unity?

Monique: Because in John 17, when Jesus praise, he says that our unity would show the rest of the world.

So our unity is an evangelistic tool to let other people know that God sent Jesus and that he loves us, even how he loved him. And so we need to be clear on this.

It really means something. It.

It.

Monique: Like I said, it's not so that.

I can toot my own horn.

Monique: It's not so that, you know, I can be a quote, unquote hero. No, it's so that we can continue to evangelize. Paul says that we have the opportunity for the ministry of reconciliation to.

To let people know that a way has been made back to God. Well, our unity should serve as a part of that.

Davenia: Right there.

Monique: There should be something when.

When there are things happening in the.

Monique: Culture that just continually breeds division. The church, that is our time to shine. We should stick our chest out and be like, hey, this for me, this is my time right here.

And how do we do that except.

By continuing to live according to how.

Monique: We have been commanded to live?

Davenia: We should. You know,

especially as. As black people,

we have such a testimony of. Of how do you forgive? How do you reconcile with those who have, have hurt you? And, and, and how do you come together and move forward?

And yeah, if we could stop the fighting and allowing Satan to use this division to keep us having conversations about.

I mean, how long have we been talking about these issues?

Monique: You know,

yes, it's, it's, you know, how do we get to a place of having a conversation about forgiveness, number one, but also how do we have a conversation about repentance? Because many of us, us, we need to repent.

We have bitterness in our hearts. We. There's contention, there's an idolatrous thought process about, you know, I want. Why do they get to have what they have? And I don't have like, there, there's.

There's this curvaceous almost spirit that, that comes along with it as well.

It's like, no, we have things that.

Monique: We need to repent from.

Maybe we need to look inward and.

Monique: Say, how do I need to repent to be able to extend myself.

Davenia: The gospel message is. It. It's about me individual. I am now church. And so it's, it's not about our entire race,

you know, getting.

What is it? Reparations and, and the entire white race seeking forgiveness is. It's about Divinia and Divinia's heart and what am I harboring and my. What sin, what unforgiveness. And it's about my relationship with God.

So I can then go out to my neighbor.

Yeah, exactly.

Were to give a keynote address to a group of women,

let's say particular, a group of women who are burdened down by quote, unquote racism and sexism. And they're just feeling heavy and, and tired, exhausted. What would you say to inspire them?

Monique: Oh,

it's such a good question.

I would first acknowledge that racism and sexism is real. I would say I would encourage women not to participate by the identity that culture may want to put on them.

Culture may want to say, you are only a woman or you are just a black person.

That's okay.

You can say what you want.

Monique: What does God say about you? How has God defined you as a child of God, as an heir and co heir? God has defined us as sisters. Like, how do we live out what scripture says about us more than we.

Are concerned with what the world is saying about us? I would also say that because the.

Monique: World can say things about us that can define us in ways that impact our jobs or impact our education as women, we should be able to have our ears and our Eyes tuned to those things.

So then one year I can check.

Monique: In with someone and say, hey, I know you're working at X Company, and I know they have these policies. How are you doing? How are you holding up under that? Or, oh, I know that, you know, your boss really is into this idea or ideology.

What's going on?

Let's sit down for coffee and let's.

Monique: Talk and give another woman, you know, some room and time to, to vent or to express, you know, what's happening for her.

But don't leave it there. Then take that to the Lord. We take these issues to the Lord in prayer.

Monique: We can bear one another's burdens, but we ultimately are going to take that.

To the full foot of the cross.

Monique: Because it is God who has the answers for us. Another thing I would say to, To.

A group of women is to understand.

Monique: Your role as sisters and regardless of.

Skin color, regardless of socioeconomic status, walk together as sisters. We need each other.

Monique: We are more and more becoming a cultural minority, a religious minority, and that's okay.

But we do need each other in that. And so if you notice the woman,

regardless of skin color, you know, like.

We need to be extending ourselves out to other women. How are you extending yourselves out to single women? How are you extending yourselves out to.

Monique: Younger women, younger women?

How are you reaching out for.

Monique: For counsel or tutelage under an older woman, under a married woman?

The body of Christ is intergenerational.

Monique: We need each other. My biggest weapon will be my relationship with Christ.

The.

Monique: The reality that I get to pray and go to him, and then my relationship with other women as I walk it out.

Davenia: And Amen.

I heard in that we need to know our true enemy.

We are not the enemy to one another, but we. We have a. A true enemy who's using these things to divide us. And so we need to seek ways to support one another and.

And strengthen our walk in Christ so that we can bear one another's burdens.

Monique: Yeah.

Davenia: Thank you. You.

Our last question, that's. We're wrapping up. I could talk to you all day, but as Bible text, is there a particular text or passage of scripture that serves to motivate you?

Monique: Gosh. Ephesians talks about all the things that. That God. You know, the first three chapters, because.

Ephesians is really split into two sections.

Monique: So first three chapters are really looking at all the things that I could not do for myself, that we as.

Sinful humans cannot do for ourselves, but.

Monique: That Christ did and what he accomplished in his life, death, burial, and Resurrection.

And then the last three chapters, especially for me, Ephesians 4 really looks at now, how do I walk this out with somebody else? How am I forbearing or forbearant?

How am I forgiving?

Monique: How am I patient? How am I speaking the truth in love? Like, you know, how do I do this? Well, because the person on the other side who might, you know, be a.

Christian, who is wanting to uphold social.

Monique: Justice or black lives matter, they're really most likely wanting to do this not from a nefarious place, but from a place that honors God, from a place that really just wants the good of all humans.

But they're mistaken in some things.

Monique: And so how do I seek to have a conversation with them again, to.

Put my own pride and hurt feelings.

Monique: Or frustrations and anger to the back, and not sin and my anger, but actually love them and love them well to. To, you know, win another conversation with.

Them so I can continue to lead them back to the Scriptures.

Monique: So Ephesians. But then right now, I'm in the book of Hebrews. And he man, Hebrews is just about the greater like it. It's always, it's always sending us back to the idea and the reality that what God has is greater.

It's a greater temple, it's a greater sacrifice. It's great. Everything that Jesus does is greater.

The old temple system was a type of shadow, a copy and a shadow. But yet when we look at what Christ did and the temple that is not made by hand, it's always greater.

And that is what I see in our current situation, in looking at social justice or looking at this conversation of race, when we are in this idea of social justice, the justice that God has is greater.

It's better. It's a different system. When I think about the idea of race as a social construct and as, as you know, a flawed and sinful.

Culture wants to put forward this idea of race.

Monique: When I come into Christ, it's greater.

There is, there is this.

Monique: There is no idea of race we come into in Christ. The racial construct breaks down to either being in Adam or in Christ.

And in Christ is going to be greater, it's going to be better.

Monique: He is always offering us the greater. And so, yeah, I think those are the two books right now that are really just. Yeah.

Davenia: Monique, this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much.

I have to get back on your calendar. Maybe have you and Krista start talking about having that conversation about taking what you shared today and how do you actualize that in your daily life?

Walking in Unity. And so thank you so much. And if you all want to connect with Monique and learn more in the podcast description, we'll have links to her podcast off code and we'll have links to the center for Biblical Unity.

You can continue to be blessed by her ministry.

Well, my friends, I pray that this episode has edified you in some way. I pray that despite the continued struggles, because, yes, the struggle is real. Racism, sexism, ageism, oppression, discrimination,

it's all real.

Davenia: But despite that, I pray that we've.

Emphasized that we serve a God who is bigger and more powerful than all the isms out there.

I encourage you to take all of that hurt and anger to God and allow him to comfort you, to assure you, and to ultimately heal you so that we can be about our Father's business.

So that we can be the voices of love, healing, reconciliation and unity to a divided and hurting world.

I encourage you to read Monique and Krista's book Walking in Unity and then let's have a conversation or let's have multiple conversations via social media.

In our churches and in our communities,

let's support and pray for one another so that we, as instructed in Ephesians 4, verses 1 to 3, can walk worthy of our calling with humility and gentleness and with long suffering,

bearing with one another in love,

endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace from my humbled and loving heart to yours, this song's for you.