Let's Talk About: Christian Supremacy

Church historian Bradley Melle chats with Rev. Joash Thomas about Christian supremacy, colonialism, and trauma in the church. Brad and Joash dive into how Christianity's history—from Constantine to today's Christian nationalism—has often prioritized power, dominance, and control, leading to deep historical wounds and ongoing struggles.

Drawing from personal experiences, historical examples, and current events, they unpack how beliefs in Christian supremacy have shaped global Christianity, suppressed spiritual diversity, and contributed to injustice worldwide. They explore stories of colonial missions in India, Christianity's troubling alliance with political power, and how religious trauma continues to influence church communities today.

Listeners will discover how intergenerational trauma affects contemporary Christian life and gain practical insights into creating a healthier, more compassionate, and trauma-informed faith. This conversation is perfect for anyone curious about church history, religious trauma, Christian nationalism, and the journey toward a more authentic and humble Christianity.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right. So it has been a while since I've been on here doing this podcast, but I'm really excited to be back at it and have big plans for it. And today I am joined by one of my new friends. One of my new good friends. Are we there yet? I

SPEAKER_01 0:28

think we're there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

This is Reverend Joash Thomas, and we discovered, I had been following him online for a while, and I discovered that he lived about 10 minutes away from me. And it was, what a great day that was. Yeah, it's

SPEAKER_01 0:46

only gone uphill since then. Yeah, in a good way.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, and so it's just exciting to meet someone that you respect and are aligned with in a lot of ways just down the road. And so I am super pumped that you're here on the podcast with me. And yeah, just for my listeners, why don't you tell them a little bit about just who you are?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, thanks, Brad. Great to be here. Yeah, my name is Joe Ash Thomas. I live in Hamilton, Ontario, as you've already heard. I feel like I'm from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. So I was born and raised in Mumbai, India, spent the first 18 years of my childhood there. I then moved to the US, lived there, worked as a political consultant, lobbyist in a past life, and then Jesus saved me again. And And yeah, I've been working in international human rights over the past decade. Worked in three countries over the past 10 years for one of the largest Christian human rights organizations. I now work as a fundraising leader. And a big part of my work is mobilizing the church to prioritize justice and offering different ways to do that. So yeah, I'm an ordained deacon with the Diocese of St. Anthony. Recently ordained, so wearing my collar You probably can't see it with the beard, but it is there. It is there. Believe it. Especially for those of you listening, the podcast version of this. But yeah, and so I'm an ordained deacon currently in discernment for the priesthood. And yeah, it's just really cool for me going from the evangelical world to the sacramental world over the last few years. Born and raised evangelical, but I'm a St. Thomas Indian Christian. So my ancestors have been worshiping Jesus in sacramental ways for about 2000 years now, about 50 years now. 1500 years before the colonizers showed up. So a lot of,

SPEAKER_00 2:43

a lot of fun trivia and facts there, but

SPEAKER_01 2:45

yeah, that's a

SPEAKER_00 2:46

bit about

SPEAKER_01 2:46

me.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

You know what, you know, you've got it. Yeah. You have a pretty fascinating story. I would love to talk about that more. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for being here with me. This is cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yeah, this is great. This is great. Yeah. And I've admired your work for a while and I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that we were neighbors. So

SPEAKER_00 3:03

it's been great. So cool. Well, you know, things in the world right now in the Western world, you know, the Christian world are pretty ugly. It's not a pretty time. Something that's important to me is, as a church historian, I don't really shy away from the dark side of church history. I think doing that is like shying away from the dark side of your own family's history. It's not going anywhere. It just gets pushed down. And so... You know, obviously this stuff's on my mind a lot. And I think on yours too, the Christian nationalist movement in the US, but also across the Western world. And sort of a, something I've noticed about the like Christian nationalist movements are they're very like, on the one hand, they claim to be really proud of a Christian heritage

SPEAKER_01 4:06

and

SPEAKER_00 4:06

yet totally unwilling to deal with the ugly history of what I think we need to call what it is, which is Christian supremacy. And I think I just really wanted to talk to you today and get some of your thoughts on Christian supremacy, what that word, what that phrase might mean to you, kind of where your mind goes, and what the problem is and what there is to do about it. Do you have any initial thoughts? When I say Christian supremacy, what comes to mind?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, that's a really great question. Yeah, so the term Christian supremacy is a newer one for me. But as I've been overlaying that with everything I've been researching and writing on how colonialism has shaped Western Christianity, it actually tracks. So for the uninitiated, I'm... I've written a book called The Justice of Jesus, comes out this September, pre-orders alive. And one of the core arguments of the book is that injustice isn't just bad for the oppressed, it's also bad for the oppressor. And we see this in the history of colonization where colonialism wasn't just bad for the the Global South Church and the colonizers, also bad for the Western church and those of us who've been shaped by it to resist justice for our marginalized neighbors. So pulling in Christian nationalism or really Christian supremacy here, I think, you know, so just historically If you look at my ancestors, they were worshiping Jesus in a very ecumenical and pluralistic way for about 1500 years before the Portuguese colonizer showed up and then the British colonizer showed up. And then both the Portuguese and the British church tried to change the St. Thomas Indian Christian Church from its pluralistic ways with this mindset of, no, Christianity is supreme to every other religion and Christ cannot be revealed to these people from other religions, to these pagans, unless they put their faith in Jesus. And it was a very different way of practicing Christianity than what they'd been doing for about 1,500 years before that. So I think of Christian supremacy with that historical lens of what it was like for my ancestors to be told that they had it all wrong for about 1,500 years. And I think Yeah, there's much work to be done to unpack that and see how it's shaped us and also understand where it's come from. And you're a historian, Brad, so you

SPEAKER_00 6:52

tell us about that. Yeah, see, having that perspective in this conversation is so critical. It's not every day that you meet someone whose ancestors were one of the earliest Christian groups in the world. Like, I remember you said something once, like, something to the effect of, like, you know, your ancestors have been worshiping Jesus since, I think it says something like before mine were worshiping Thor or something like that. I was like, okay, that's really cool. Right. But yeah, Christian supremacy is one of those things that, you know, with, with obviously I studied colonialism from a very different perspective. Right. But studying some of the same paradigms and movements and, and, it gets all tangled up with a lot of different active supremacies. Because you had white supremacy. You had Western civilization supremacy. And sometimes Christian just gets tacked on. Like, it was kind of like, it was there. It wasn't really the big bad guy. It wasn't the culprit. It was just sort of like coming along for the ride. But I don't really think that that's fair. Like, I, you know, while I am a Christian... I think Christian supremacy is a very different posture to the world, to society, to others than let's say Jesus would have taken to the world, to society, to others. I think its goal is to dominate.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

On

SPEAKER_00 8:22

the one hand, that might look like dominating by like kind of converting other people. And so your kind of goal is to erase non-Christianity from existence. I don't think that all evangelistic efforts are that. I think some genuinely are an attempt to communicate good news. Same way like if there was some disease out there and there was a cure that you'd want to be communicating to people, like there's a cure, right? That's not what Christian supremacy is. It's built on this notion that Christians have this God-given right to... occupy the center of culture and society and to kind of be at the helm, to be the leaders and to control legislation. And it's the, I feel like the fruit that it bears is, is bitter because what I'm learning as a, as a father, you know, is just how, first of all, how impossible controlling your children or other people really is. And secondly, like that, when you attempt to control other people, they hate it. They reject it. It builds resentment. It breeds division and bitterness. So, I mean, we can talk about this soon as well, but as you know, I really believe that if you look at a family, a dysfunctional family that has a lot of control issues... That is usually not from a healthy place. That is really rooted in some kind of dysfunction, some kind of trauma, some kind of, it's rooted in something negative and dysfunctional itself. And then it manifests as an attempt to control, let's say children or your spouse or your friends or something. The fact that Christian circles have a real control problem means that we need to actually ask like, what's like the pain deep down? that continues to drive this behavior that hurts other people?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Right. Yeah, that's such a good question. And I love how you interweave trauma into history in your work. And with all the research I've been doing, I've also been seeing how the way the Portuguese acted in India, the way the Brits acted in India, was really a reaction to other events in global Christianity happening on their continent, the European continent, right? I mean, so these are folks in a post-Reformation world. And with the Portuguese Catholics, they they were vicious in their evangelism because they were being accused as not being Christian enough, not being evangelistic enough, you know, of being a dead faith. That was kind of the accusations levied against them, right, by the reformers. And so with Portuguese Catholics, you had, yeah, you had them send the Jesuits, you know, as their evangelistic arm. And you see these Jesuit fathers acting in really weird ways I mean I have a lot of Jesuits in my life today they're some of my closest friends and they're the gentlest sweetest people I come across who have learned from the historical errors of their order but the Jesuits back then who were sent as missionaries to India hand in hand with the Portuguese Empire were not Jesuits like that and it's because they were reacting they were coming from a place of trauma of other events happening in Europe so that would just be one example of things that shape us yeah what do you think? shock troops

SPEAKER_00 11:56

right that's what the jesuits the church's shock troops go anywhere do anything at the drop of the pope's hat right that's like what that's what they were known for rigorous now it's interesting because like in in you know today's canada around the great lakes back in the early 1600s the jesuits were very active there too and compared with later mission efforts at like sort of the high tide of civilizationalist colonialism. Compared with those missionaries later on, these Jesuits seemed really committed to, not necessarily, I wouldn't call it gentle, but like culturally strategic. Rather than like take the land, dehumanize the people, and kind of erase them, which is the later settler colonial way. In the Great Lakes, at least, the Jesuits were always, they were somewhat outliers, like they were, there wasn't that many of them. And so maybe that was why, but they certainly acted with more respect, learning local languages, doing the translating. especially into the Wendat or Huron language. So it's just interesting. They're a strange group of extremists. And sometimes that extremism was really incredible. And sometimes it was really brutal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah. And, you know, I'm thinking of specific accounts of Jesuit fathers in southern India who started sending communication back home. So we still have their letters where they're telling the king of Portugal and the pope, look like, you know, we need to understand the local religions better if we're going to attack it and if we're going to present Christianity as supreme. And so some of these Jesuit fathers, you know, then go on to study the local religions, various sects of Hinduism. And for that, they actually end up studying the languages, right? And they come up with these language studies and they go deep into religious literature of these religions. And the next thing you know, they're seeing things in there that... the rest of the Catholic Church isn't seeing. So then they're writing back home saying, look, we're seeing evidences of Christ being revealed possibly to these cultures. They have things, they have virtues in common with us. These are very sophisticated advanced religions. These aren't primitive religions that we assume they were. And then they get letters back from Portugal and the Vatican saying, you weren't sent there to study the culture. Just stick to your job. You weren't sent there to, you know, to be an apologist for their religion. You were sent there to represent Christ. So, you know, be a Christian in all the supreme ways possible, right? So I think historical accounts like that also explain so much about how we may have gotten here with Christian supremacy.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

And isn't that just so, like the irony is so thick, right? You were sent, like the way you just worded it, you're sent there to be a actual connections, relational connections with these people in South India, of course your perspective starts to shift. It's like when you know someone, to love your neighbor, to love another person, you must be curious about them and know them, right? There's no other. And so it's just funny because to me that sounds like they were actually in that moment representing Christ to these people. and respecting not just the things in the various, because right, there's no Hinduism. That's kind of a Western construct, right? So you have to be regional. and competing sometimes, right? Different schools of spirituality and philosophy, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Right, yeah. I mean, if anything, in many ways, many Hindu scholars today, many Indian historians today argue that modern day Hinduism was a reaction to colonialism and the attacks on the indigenous faith from this foreign colonizer faith that was coming in. And it's interesting because at the same time, you have Indian Christians who have lived there peacefully for 15 centuries And they're not engaging in this. They've learned to live in peaceful pluralism with everyone else. But then you've got this Western version of Christianity that, yeah, is acting in Christian supremacist ways.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

So, yeah, see, that's the word, right? The word is, and you said it, the word is supreme. And I just think I'd like to take a second to just take to contrast how different saying the gospel is good news is saying Christianity is supreme. Those don't technically have to have anything in common with each other. We usually kind of think of them as almost synonymous. Maybe saying Christianity Supreme is a little extreme, but the sentiment is still there. You could just say it's the truest religion or something like that. No, sorry, it's the one true religion. I don't know. When I say that, Christian... Christianity as the supreme religion or supreme truth versus the good news. Like what kind of things come to your mind?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Wow. Wow. That's so good. Yeah. I think we also have to read the good news part in context, right? Otherwise we kind of get lost in the weeds. So for example, where we get that from, you know, the reason why the gospel is called the gospel is because it's the good news of Jesus that he proclaims in Luke chapter four, verse 18, where Jesus says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news and to the poor and to the oppressed, to the captive, right? We've over-spiritualized these texts in a very Gnostic way, in a very disembodied way because of colonialism and slavery and our support for it as the Western church. And then today, you have a very reduced, amputated version of this good news that's just spiritual in nature, that doesn't have room for physical liberation for people in poverty and oppression. And so then you have the Western church participating in poverty and oppression and enabling further poverty and oppression in the global South because, or even here with indigenous communities here, because they've lost the good news. So that's what I think of.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

You know, when you bring up, I like how you said that. You said it's an amputated, what was the other word? Gnostic, amputated, disembodied, right? All of those things are very visceral, embodied images that helps us realize exactly what is is missing um but but something i like to to bring up is you know that kind of idea that or that posture that like the gospel is kind of over spiritualized and what it's really about is spiritual realities um after death like what is the good news is really and this is not what i think this is the evangelical sort of way is you don't have to go to hell everyone else has to go to hell but you don't have to and that's sort of the good news If you really want to get down to brass tacks in evangelical circles. And I'm like, that sounds like a completely different story in every way than what Jesus was talking about. It doesn't sound even related. You said, I'm here to proclaim good news to the poor, to the oppressed, right? Yeah. And the thing is, if the good news is really just about like, we can't really, there's no good news in this life. It's just the next. Then that's what that is, is nihilism. Yes. Nihilism claims that there's sort of no meaning to life. And what I have found is, is Christians are often some of the most nihilistic people I know.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

To have that perspective that like the environment doesn't really matter is nihilism. To have that perspective that like God will one day fix everything, that can be hope. But in some people's, when it comes out of some people's mouth, it's profoundly disempowering. And it's like what it's really saying is we can't really do anything. So hopefully God will magically do it when we die. And you start to, again, start to think that really doesn't sound anything like the gospel that came out of Jesus' mouth and his life and action.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

It

SPEAKER_00 20:26

doesn't even seem related.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't sound like good news, especially to people in poverty and oppression. Right. And so one of my favorite things that liberation theologians, one of my favorite things that I've learned from liberation theologians, rather, is that if it's not good news to people in poverty and oppression. that it's not the good news of Jesus. And that's a biblical statement. That's not just a theological statement. That's straight out of Luke 4, 18. Jesus's words, Jesus's definition of the gospel, right? I sometimes ask people, hey, whose definition of the gospel would you rather buy into? Jesus's or John MacArthur's, right? And I often have people tell me, well, you know, I prefer Paul's definition of the gospel over Jesus' definition of the gospel, to which I'm just like, well, congratulations, you've played to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Right. Just if I can put you on the spot. Yeah, yeah. If someone asks you, what is it about what Jesus said and did that was good news to the poor and oppressed? What was it about him that would have made the poor feel a sense of relief, of energy, of excitement, of hope wash over them?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. Such a great question. And, you know, I have a lot of thoughts since I just wrote a whole book about it. But I would say, like, he started at the very beginning of his life and ministry and art. Like, just his life, right? His incarnation. He could have chosen to... come as a Kardashian if he wanted to. He could have chosen to come as a Bay Street billionaire if he wanted to. Instead, he showed up in that era of time in a very colonized, occupied society. And even within that society, he could have chosen to be born in Herod's family as God. He could have been chosen to go wherever he wanted to. But he chose to be born in a manger to a family dealing with a teenage pregnancy, honor-shame culture. And he chose to be born at a time of genocide and violence. And then he chose to... live as a homeless, unhoused person his entire life on earth, his entire ministry on earth, and a poor carpenter's son, and ultimately chose the cross. He chose to be murdered by the state innocently. He chose to be put to death on a cross and tortured and murdered. And so that Jesus, who is a suffering savior, is good news to people in poverty and oppression. Because that Jesus knows what it's like to suffer. That Jesus knows what it's like to be betrayed. That Jesus knows what it's like to die as an innocent victim of state violence. And so Jesus is good news. Jesus himself is good news to the poor and the oppressed. But so often the church has failed to communicate that to the poor and the oppressed by just... oppressing people who are poor and oppressed instead of meeting their physical needs, instead of caring for them. And what's funny is you don't see this in the early church. In the early church, you actually see them caring for people's physical needs. They were known in Roman society for that, right? And they weren't perfect, but they got that right. But then over time, you see with power coming in, and I mean, you're a historian, you know this better than me, and you can speak to this better than I can. But my sense is that with power coming in, And, you know, the crusades and colonization and things like that, you have that shaping us to be very resistant to justice, to only preaching a spiritual gospel when the gospel is both spiritual and physical. But yeah, I'd love to get your thoughts in on all this. Weyen, what are you thinking as I say all that?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah, I think what we have to talk about, grapple with, arguably more than anything, is empire is a hell of a drug. And when Christians got a taste of empire, it forever changed everything. And I think it's important. It's easy for us to say, oh, the church got corrupt when it had power and money. It's not the power and the money. That's the real problem. That's not the real drug of empire.

UNKNOWN 24:57

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

The real drug of empire is control and dominance over others. That's the real hit. Power and money, especially wealth. I think sometimes we do that in the church. We can like sort of practice like a form of self-shaming where we're like, we have this random number in our head where it's like too much for people to have. And everyone who has more is, you know, bad in some way. I don't think it's about money. Money is just a tool that amplifies like what you're about. That's what I think. I think you can get caught up in the pursuit of wealth and forget yourself, forget what you're about. But I think the real problem for the church started when it got that taste for control. Like when Constantine has this weird conversion, like whatever it was that happened there, there's just different interpretations. We'll never know for sure, right? Yeah. But, you know, he welcomes Christians into the halls of power. And really, the question is like he wants he wants them to help him reform his empire, make it stronger, make it more. Yeah, because it had been in this state of decay. And so he saw in Christianity with its one God, with its like highly structured systems already, he saw a real opportunity. Right. And I believe he really did have the experience he had. where he had this vision of the Christian God giving him victory. I believe he had that experience. I don't know what that experience means. I don't know if that experience was from God, but I believe he had it and believed that the Christian God had given him victory and had given him favor to see Constantine make Rome great again. Because that had been, for the last 50 to 60 years before Constantine, that was kind of the emperor's goal, was reviving Rome. Very nostalgic, very similar to the American MAGA movement and stuff like that. Make it great again, based in some kind of fantasizing about the past. So Christians get ushered in, and it's not like, here's a bunch of money and a bunch of power, and they go like, oh, we're slowly becoming corrupted. It's like, hey, I want you guys... to kind of reform my society morally and culturally and religiously. And it's that part, to me, that's the most dangerous moment. Because the Christians said, and you can't blame people for rising to a challenge. I don't think they should have just been like, we're out of here. Well, some of them did do that, right? Literally, the monastic movement kind of starts because they say, we're out of here. Yeah. But I'm not saying you shirk all responsibility. It's just that very quickly Christians turned around and became the persecutor. They did not love their enemies in the way that they would have wanted to be treated. They didn't after they gained access to state, like to the project, the machinery of the state. And that makes me like really sad and enraged and go into like a what if kind of mode. Why do we have to turn so quickly and be like, Okay, now, you know, because within 50, half a century after Constantine, which was that whole period after him was very much like theological infighting, like which group is going to be the official Christianity? Is it going to be Nicene or is it going to be Arian? Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Mutual exiles of, you know, but when they settle finally on Nicene Christianity in the year 380, it's like within a couple years, this new persecution movement begins, right? Paganism, you can't be a pagan and hold public office. You can't be a heretic and your writings can be taken and burned just like they did under like Severus and Decius and stuff like that earlier.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

That

SPEAKER_00 28:49

taste of like, hey, we're at the center now. We've got the backing. We can remake society. That is a moment to be very nervous when a group is like remake society quickly. and through legislation. Be on guard when that starts to happen because that's probably not going to go well for anyone who isn't aligned. Yeah, I think its origin is in the church as a persecuted group, an oppressed group who then gains access to power over their enemies.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I just think that it was overwhelming. And I think in that moment, the church kind of lost sight of itself and its vision. And unfortunately, its vision did change then. It quickly, the Christian vision mutated into an empire. We can conquer. Now that didn't have to mean militarily, but it did come to mean that. But it was like, we can conquer spiritually. We can defeat paganism legislatively. All of that is a very different project than the project the early church was involved in.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I've been chewing on it through the lens of the Lord of the Rings lately, where I think of Frodo getting the Ring of Power and how that transformed him completely from the inside and on the outside significantly, right? Yeah. But it reminds me so much of well-meaning Christians that I've seen both in the political world, and I thought I was leaving this in the political world when I left that world, but I continue to see it in the Christian ministry world today where people who are serious about their faith, want to do good in the world, like you talked about intent, want to make the world a better place, restructure society, do all this. They come in with those aspirations, and the next thing you know, They get their taste of power and control and dominance and wealth and empire. And it changes them. It transforms them. The best of people. My whole time in the political world, I can think of one elected official friend of mine who stayed true to his original conscience and paid the price for it. greatly. He's the former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan. He spoke out on some stuff and was crucified for it by his party and is a pariah today. Could never run for office, can never run for office again, at least not as a Republican, the party left. But yeah, I mean, I've just seen it transform the best of people in the worst ways possible. And it's just, It's heartbreaking. It can happen to the best of us. I'd be foolish to think that... I mean, it did happen to me too, to a degree, which is why I had to get out. And now I'm discerning my future in the Christian nonprofit space because I see it here too. And so I'm thinking, how do I be faithful to the opportunities I've been entrusted with while at the same time not losing myself to the allures of empire and power? control and dominance.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Yeah. I feel like that really, that's exactly like what I'm trying to get at. And the fact that you've kind of seen it firsthand in the world of political power is super helpful for us. It makes me think, you know, I brought this up already, but I'm learning a lot about control, having kids, what is possible and what isn't. And when my daughter... I have two daughters, 10 and 7. But when my first daughter was, you know, her first couple years of life, I was operating definitely out of a like controlling kind of paradigm where, you know, it was nothing extreme, but it was just like my posture towards her was one of like, you're going to go like wayward and I need to keep you in check kind of all the time. And While yes, that's necessary for sticking a fork in an outlet, sticking a fork in an outlet is different than the kind of things that you're exploring or you're interested in. If we're always feeling like everyone's in existential danger at all times, then you're going to always react with emergency measures. And that's another big part of church history that I try to explore is there were times when the church did initiate emergency measures because they were necessary. Society was sticking a fork in an outlet with the fall collapse of the Western Roman Empire. And the church stepped up and did the hard thing and took responsibility. But it's like, you don't want to let go of it. You don't want to let go of it. And that's the part that's really intriguing me is like, you know, with billionaires, we talk about how, you know, like, what do they care if they get a tax break? Like, what does money even mean to them? And I've been thinking about that a lot in the last few weeks, obviously, with all the billionaires having their heyday. And I think we got to just come clean about it, that it's not about money anymore at that point. Power is the drug that drives our desire for money anyways, right? Money is power. And so I feel like that appetite we have is almost like an infinite void, craving more and more control over others and situations until we can control life and death itself. But There's some emptiness inside us, a vacuum. And I am not a person who thinks power is evil. To be empowered, to be full of energy and capability, to be well-connected and being able to enact and do things is amazing. I think everybody should look in their life and figure out where they're being disempowered and why, what beliefs are driving that. But I feel like once you get a taste for, hey, it's a taste for victory almost. The Constantinian church experienced what we could call victory.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Like you never want to go back. You never want to lose that again, especially when you're a traumatized people. You know, I think there's something big to the church when it finally gained Constantine's favor saying like, we're not going back. God brought us through that time of persecution and we are not going back to that again.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

You know, you're so right, Brad. I mean, I think of Christians, not just in North America, who feel persecuted right now. I'm also talking about the persecuted church because I've interacted with persecuted church leaders over the last few months. So I was just in Sri Lanka for a global church conference on justice and freedom and got to sit with so many persecuted church leaders who don't mind persecution. and who don't mind Christian nationalism in the States because they have the trauma of being shaped by their persecuted context. And so I was actually thinking about your work a lot when I was in Sri Lanka because we'd connected right before and thinking about trauma and thinking of persecuted church trauma even today and wondering how is this going to play out in the future? Because, you know, I know Global South Christians who fled to North America and are now voting in North American elections, and they don't seem to mind Christian nationalism, even though there are racist elements to it, even though there are religious nationalistic influences to it that could hurt them and their relatives and their home country. So for example, I had a relative in my family recently who voted for Christian nationalism in the last American election. basically reach out and say, wait a second, this person's supporting all the extremists in my country now and all the authoritarians in my country. And that's concerning to me. That's not what I signed up for. And it's almost like this cognitive dissonance of... You know, what's bad for one category of neighbors? Like, you wanted to go after one category of neighbors, so you voted for Christian nationalism. But it's going to be bad for all of us long term, including the oppressors. And I think that's something we have to reckon with. And I'm curious to see how it plays out in the years to come.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah, it seems like a critical part of, you know, if Jesus is actually our model and... lord and all those words we use then the one of the most critical question is like what does he what if what what is his posture towards power towards dominance what does it look like in practice and i feel like we need to really like re take another look at the cross and resurrection maybe for a while put aside our theological norms and become a little bit more disoriented with it and be like, what is really going on here? What is, why is this good news? And try to like forget everything that we've known because he's confronting, he's coming up against, like this is God in flesh coming up against the greatest power of his day, right? And like what is done in that encounter, right? I just think we need to slow way down. Maybe, I mean, this is Lent right now. It's kind of the time to do that, right? The Passion will be coming up and Holy Week and all that. And you're a sacramental guy now, so you're probably got your schedule booked for that. But just take a moment to be like, to see the arch dominating power of his time, coming into contact with him directly, Jesus being the actual ultimate power of all time. And to see what he does and what his actions are there, I feel like there might be something there worth really meditating on if we want to dismantle and start to loosen ourselves from this legacy, especially for me, this legacy of Christian supremacy, which really lives inside me, my body. My ancestors have been those people around the world, you know? They weren't the Portuguese, but they were the British and they were the Germans, right? So it's like Christian supremacy is in some ways like a lot of my ancestry. And I don't know, I just, I don't fully know what to do with that.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Yeah, yeah. You know, quite honestly, Brad, it may not seem like it on the surface, but as a St. Thomas Indian Christian, it's also part of my legacy. It's part of what I've inherited too, because... My ancestors were not without fault. They participated in the caste oppression of their neighbors. And I haven't done enough history to see what theology may have motivated that. But there is a good chance that it was also motivated by a different flavor of Christian supremacy, right? And just this need to be on top of the pecking order and control. And that's actually one of the reasons why My family has our lineages preserved so well. It's because we needed it to defend ourselves in the caste system and hence participate in the caste oppression of our lower caste neighbors. So all of us have our blind spots. All of us need each other to point out our blind spots. So for example, the British Anglican CMS missionaries showed up a few centuries after the Portuguese you know, to convert the heathens and discover that there have been, again, the same thing that Portuguese discovered St. Thomas Indian Christians. And then start to have dialogue with lower caste Christian converts, lower caste Hindus, and realize that St. Thomas Indian Christians had participated in the caste oppression of their lower caste neighbors. So, you know, we give... the British the credit for their liberation, but it's really these lower caste Christian converts who brought their plight to the attention of these British missionaries who explained the caste system, because they didn't understand this as foreigners coming in, who explained their plight, sought their own liberation, and then we were able to see some reform in the St. Thomas Indian Church because of the influence of British missionaries who acted because marginalized people spoke up for their own liberation. So I have to reckon with that too and see how that shapes me today in Christian supremacist ways.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Yeah, so acting more as mediators. So rather than seeing... That would be in some ways similar to the abolitionists. Right. Like abolitionists were more mediators between the stories of people like Equiano, right? But I think that can bring us full circle because there's something about... There's some necessary action needed to like, how do we loosen our grip? You know, I'm a person, I have a lot of respect for other traditions too. And it's not some like, this isn't something I'm trying to say. It's just, it's kind of how I was raised, which is I'm really grateful for. Like I was raised in a home that was not controlling. I was raised in a home where we gathered regularly and discussed kind of what we were into at that moment. There's a lot of curiosity in my family. And this is a rare thing. This is a very rare gift to have. What I'm just thinking about in this moment is like one of the most central aspects of the Buddhist way is that, you know, like the famous first noble truth. the buddha taught was that like life is suffering and suffering is caused by desire i always hated that line because i thought no desire is what makes us alive and i've recently learned that a better a better translation for that is suffering comes not from desire but from clinging from grip wow from being unable to like relinquish that grip and so that that has been really helpful to me in a my life with my children I am their like protector and provider and all that, but I'm not their like controller. I'm not their like master. I'm their dad. And so that's, it's made me think about that. And it's also made me look at sort of Jesus's life in a way of, and I start to see, I don't see him as someone going around like dominating. He seems to hold people somewhat loosely, give them the choice to come or not. I don't know. There's something about Jesus's like lack of like grip not a strangling figure while a lot of the church's history it's been even if it's done good it's also been a strangled cultures and people

SPEAKER_01 44:04

yeah yeah i mean you're so right about jesus though i've been chewing lately on uh jesus's interaction with our our disabled neighbors right like um Jesus doesn't go up to them and presume they want to be healed. He asks them every single time, do you want to be healed? Right? He gives them agency. He gives them power, gives them control as the son of God, right? In his full divinity and his full humanity, he gives us agency, not just in putting our faith in him, but also in, hey, do you want me to heal you? Do you want to be healed? Kind of a thing. And I think it's beautiful. I think, you know, and the more I've study disability theology, the more I've appreciated their appreciation for this agency too, because the reality is that many of our disabled neighbors If you ask them, hey, in the new creation, do you want to be fully healed? They say, no. I love my body. I've come to love my body. I've come to love its quirkiness. And I feel at home in my body. It'd be really weird for me to be healed. And then there are some who say, no, I would love to be healed. And I long for that kind of a thing. But Regardless, Jesus gives us agency. And I have to think that the same Jesus on this side of eternity who gave that agency will also give us agency on the other side of eternity.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

So like empowering people to sort of, it's so essential. You know, this word has been demonized in some Christian circles, but the word autonomy. We want to talk about how like autonomy is evil. It's like us against God. And I'm kind of like a little bit done with that. Because again, I keep drawing from this, but it's pretty essential, right? Like Jesus, one of the most revolutionary things he does is he, theologically, is he changes our orientation towards God as one of child and parent. That is critical to his understanding of who God is. And I think we continue to go back into, and there's nothing wrong with this, but like God as king, us as subject. I don't think that's, I think that actually in some ways, that's one metaphor. it's not the primary metaphor and yet in a lot of western christian history it definitely is the primary metaphor king subject but if the primary if if the main way that jesus is teaching us how to relate to god is as loving parent and child then that means what we learn about parenting and what makes for healthy parent-child relationships is of critical theological importance for us. But I know again, from being, from seeing my kids, when they, if they were like these compliant, shut down, quiet kids, I would be worried. I'd be taking them to the doctor. I'd be like, where's their energy? Where's their autonomy? I think Jesus, the way you're describing it, empowered each person to kind of, you know, get in the driver's seat of their life and make like, come back to life. And, you know, can I touch you? Can I heal you? Do you want to follow me? And no one was forced to do anything. And Jesus didn't line people up in a line to make sure none of them, or as few as possible, didn't go to hell. I just think we're wrong about the whole project. I think the goal is to become fully human, and a fully healthy human is autonomous. And I don't mean that in an atomistic way, like isolated. They are part of an ecosystem, but they are a critical component in that ecosystem. of relational web of relations, right? With other people, with creation. I think we have a lot to learn. Yeah. In a time when there is this new, and we have been here many, many, many times before. This is not where it's like, Hey, Christians, we need to like take control of society, grab the legislature by the horns and like what's best. Cause that's what God wants. Like, Oh, we're back here again. Haven't we done that enough and tried it and it didn't produce the society we wanted?

SPEAKER_01 48:19

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. I mean, without taking any names, I recently came across a very influential, ex-evangelical, progressive Christian influencer and had a conversation with this person. And this person kept talking talking about how, you know, we're the good guys here. We need to take, this is right after the presidential election in the U.S., but this person is telling me, you know, I feel like we progressives, not that I identify as a progressive, but he's talking for his own tribe, he's like, I feel like we progressives need to take control of things and, you know, We need to use the tools of empire better than empire does. We need to take control of those tools of empire. And I just remember feeling really weirded out at that moment and being like, that feels a little weird. I don't know if I can go that far. I think we need to decolonize that perspective a little bit. And then sure enough... Just a tiny bit. We just need to decolonize that a little. Yeah, exactly. And sure enough, a few weeks later... huge scandal breaks out about this person for abuse of power. Wow. And to me, all I could think of when those allegations came out, those confirmed allegations from survivor accounts came out, was, my goodness, this person in our conversation kept saying how he wanted control of the tools of Empire. And I kept getting weirded out by that. But there's something there. There's something there. Like, Just the whole longing for that should be examined and should be deconstructed and decolonized because that is not from Christ. That is not of Christ, that desire to control the outcome. And even in that conversation, my challenge to this brother was, I don't think we're called to be successful. I think we're called to be faithful. And I think... That's the outcome we should strive towards, us being faithful regardless of the outcome. But I hope and pray the best for this friend. But I think we need to watch out for things like that too.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

Yeah, you keep saying that phrase, keeps jumping out at me, the tools of empire. Because what is the main tool, physical tool of empire in Scripture? The sword.

UNKNOWN 50:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

The sword is the main tool, the implement, right? The physical implement of empire is the sword. Whether that's cutting flesh or pointing it with the threat, it's all, that's what the tool does. It uses fear of pain to enforce control. And it's the sword that is turned into the pruning hook, right? That's what's beaten into the plowshare. I want to keep that phrase front and center if we have future conversations. Because I think when we talk about empire, it can get a little bit abstract. But once you bring it back down to the gritty, metallic, bloody tool of empire, it's the sword or the gun. And that's cut apart, bent, hammered into something new. Something that is for fruit, right?

UNKNOWN 51:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

So good. So good. I think we should end this conversation on that note. I don't have anything better to add to

SPEAKER_00 51:50

that. That's

SPEAKER_01 51:51

just gold right there.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Well, yeah, this has been really, really awesome, Josh. Thank you for being here. I hope we can talk again soon. What I'm kind of drawn to is I'd like to dive into some Indian stuff more. I'd love to think about a little bit more. Maybe you can share at some point with You talked about how the St. Thomas Christians lived in kind of a peaceful, pluralistic world, even though they participated in the caste system. I'd love to know all I can about how they engaged with the various philosophies and spiritual traditions around them, what Christians might be able to learn from some of those traditions. But that's just one thing. I feel like we've got a lot to talk about. Just scratch the

SPEAKER_01 52:32

surface. Yeah, yeah. No, totally. And as we close here, Brad, I want to give you an opportunity to update us on the different courses that you offer. I know last I heard there was a wait list for one. What can we expect with the incredible course offerings that you have?

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Well, right now, the best thing you can do if you want to learn more about this trauma and church history, I created a free course called It's a quick one. You can get through it in, what is it, like an hour and a half or something like that. If you go to my website, bradleymela.com slash free, you can sign up for the course, which is called Ancestral Trauma in the Church. And you'll start to dig into this, like how deep this rabbit hole goes of the pain that lies at the heart of church history or at the beginning that continues to affect us now. So If you want to check that out, yes, bradleymala.com slash free, and you can sign up there. And I also wouldn't mind if you could talk briefly, just give us, you have a book coming out. Can you give us some more details? Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01 53:43

mean, I would just say, you know, the book is available for pre-orders. The response in Canada has been overwhelming. I mean, even in the U.S., on Amazon U.S., it was in the top 30 for a few categories like Christian ethics and discipleship and pastoral resources. But in Canada, it was number one for like the first week of pre-orders, which is just humbling as a first-time author, especially as one from an underrepresented community in Christian publishing. So, yes, so, you know, do support that, you know, go sign up for Brad's course. Yeah, I mean, the fact that it's free is phenomenal. I mean, take full advantage of that by all means. And then, yeah, do pre-order my book as well. It's called The Justice of Jesus. And it comes out this September, but pre-order is alive. And honestly... If you wanted to do a deep dive into everything we've talked about, because we've done more long-form work there, I think this is the place for folks to go and get more information. If we've even piqued their curiosity with this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Beauty. I love it. And for those who want to buy pre-order, but buy Canadian, what do you suggest?

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Yeah, yeah. So still working on it. You can go to Indigo and get like a e-reader version. You can also call your local library or your local bookstore and ask them to order the Justice of Jesus copies. So I have folks in Winnipeg who've done that with local bookstores there. So yeah, by all means, buy Canadian and support an underrepresented voice in publishing.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

All right, Joash. Hopefully we can get you on again soon. Thank you so much for being here and sharing some of your story with us and your brilliant insights.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Too kind. Yeah. Lovely to be here. And thanks for having me, Brad. Great conversation.