Let's Talk About: Today's Evangelical Tantrum

In this raw and wide-ranging episode, Brad is joined again by Rev. Joash Thomas to explore the emotional and spiritual roots of what Brad calls the “evangelical tantrum”—the reactive, fear-fueled backlash of white conservative Christianity in the face of cultural change. Why do some Christians in America act as if they’re being persecuted, even while holding power? What are they so afraid of losing—and have they even lost it?

Together, Brad and Joash dive into history, theology, trauma, and personal stories. Joash opens up about his past as a rising political consultant in Georgia’s Republican Party, his moment of reckoning, and the journey that brought him to international human rights work and ordained ministry. Along the way, the two reflect on the immaturity of much of Western Christianity, the seductive illusion of cultural dominance, structural racism, and the healing power of surrendering control.

If you’ve ever felt disoriented by white evangelical fragility or longed for a more mature, liberating Christianity—this one’s for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Freestyle Theology. I'm back with my good friend. You hear that? Good friend. Good friend. It's better than just friend from last time. Yeah. I'm back with my good friend, Reverend Joash Thomas. And we seem like we just keep having lots to talk about. which is, I mean, kind of essential for this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

It's good to have an excuse to hang out more with a neighbor when I'm in town, so I'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

How have things been lately?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Yeah, things have been great. I mean, honestly, just getting to travel the world, but also across Canada and the U.S. and find hope and signs of hope in places that... You wouldn't expect to find it. Yeah, just been feeling very encouraged lately.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

What's the energy like right now in the U.S.? I haven't been there in a long time now. Don't have plans to go, but I'm just wondering because you have to go there sometimes. Yeah, I have

SPEAKER_02 1:12

to go there is a good way to put it. Yeah, I mean, I think... What I'm noticing is that there are maybe two or three types of people. You've got the type of folks who aren't affected at all because of their privilege right now and they just seem oblivious to everything happening in the political climate and the fears of their marginalized neighbors because life is the same for them. You've got the folks who are affected by it or are close to people affected by it and are very nervous and anxious and fearful and just complete opposite. And then I think you've got like, Some of the other folks, folks who Dr. King called the white moderates, who could be black or brown too, by the way, depending on socioeconomic status. But I think these folks find themselves in the middle where they know that there's bad stuff happening to good people around them, but find themselves just choosing moderation and choosing to bury their heads in the sand despite knowing evils befalling marginalized neighbors. So it's fascinating to watch the U.S. right now. Yeah. I mean, you've got friends in the States. What's your interaction like with them these days?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, I guess in a way, the people I know would fit somewhere on that spectrum of totally... You know, this actually gets at kind of what I want to talk about today.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Let's get in

SPEAKER_00 2:45

it. Right? Because... As you're describing this demographic who are not affected at all, who are not, nothing is really that different for them other than what they're consuming in the media and the fears that they're having, which a lot of it's just happening in their imagination, right? And what I wanted to talk about today was actually the white evangelical reactionary movement and responses that we see right now. But if you look at American history in the last 125 years, the story is the same thing over and over again of conservative evangelicals reacting badly and immaturely to changing culture, to political shifts. And the word that I just can't get out of my head these days is tantrum.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Tantrum.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

this evangelical tantrum over culture and just kind of spinning out of control. And the reason that when you asked me why that clicked for me was, interestingly, a lot of white evangelicals are the people whose lives are not affected at all. And yet there's this enormous landscape of internalized fear. And it leaves you with that question, like, fear of what? And that's sort of what I want to get into. Fear of what? Because for all the changes that we've seen in the United States over the last century, for all the, you know, it's been a lot of change. But the white conservative Protestant is still at the center of society, is still dominant in most institutions. And so it leaves you thinking like, afraid of what so when when I bring up this topic I'm doing it where I know that there are so many other voices and fears from different from people who are not white evangelical Christians and it's almost like I don't even necessarily want to have another discussion about white Christians but You see what I mean? Like I don't want to necessarily continue to center that, but these reactions are causing so much destruction and so much like paranoia and suffering for people that I think we need to drill down a little bit. And again, ask that question, afraid of what? So when I bring that up, when I bring up white evangelical fear or tantrum, what are some of the, you're like, where do you go initially with that?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah, I love that. That's such a great question, such a great thing to ponder over. You know, I think of Richard Rohr, right? I'll tell you why I think of Richard Rohr before. You know, who throws tantrums? Children, toddlers. But physiologically speaking, that's understandable because their bodies aren't mature yet. Their emotional well-being, their brain isn't fully mature, developed yet, right? So there's a reason why we then... tell adults who throw tantrums, hey, you're being a little childish right now. And I think of the Apostle Paul where he says, when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, spoke like a child, but then I became an adult and there was transformation. Put away childish things. Put away childish things, exactly. Put away immaturity. And so I think of Richard Rohr because Richard Rohr often talks about how so many evangelical Christians, really so many Western Christians, have a very immature underdeveloped Christian faith where and he also says that maybe one of the reasons why we have immature underdeveloped faiths is because maybe because of the trend of getting married younger and having children younger so you know I mean I think of this like for my parents too my parents marriage is so different today than when it was when I lived with them and there's a reason for that they've grown together they're matured but When I go visit my parents today, I see them having a very different relationship, almost a partnership in mutuality, right? That was quite different from my upbringing. Like my dad will say that things in the home are more patriarchal and more hierarchical back when we lived in a society like that in India. And with time and experience and context come developments, right? And so it's the same thing. I think many Western evangelicals have a very different childlike faith and a childlike way of looking at Jesus in a bad way, because Jesus said childlike faith is a good

SPEAKER_00 7:47

thing. Because childlike faith sounds good. Right. But you mean like an immature faith? Yeah, more like a

SPEAKER_02 7:53

childish faith than childlike faith, I guess, where it's just very immature, very reactionary. You know, it's not nuanced. It's not patient. You know, it's not like this beautiful prayer of St. Francis where we pray, we ask for strength not to console, not to be consoled, but to console, not to be loved, but to love, not to be understood, but to understand. But that's not the posture of so much of white evangelicalism. It's a posture of, honestly, fragility so many times, you know, where if you offend my evangelical sensibilities, I deem you as a heretic. I, you know, call for your firing, your expulsion, expulsion, your death, you know, whatever. Uh, and it's, it's so, it looks, it's so childish. It looks nothing like Jesus at all at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah. That was another line from Paul that's sticking out to me right this minute is when he's talking about like what love is, you know, the classic wedding passage, but that line, love endures all things. And that endurance of all things to me, that strikes of like maturity and of flexibility, of adaption, of creativity. Like, we're dealing with these circumstances. Maybe we've never dealt with this before. What does love do in this circumstance? Sometimes you don't know what to do when society is changing, let's say. You don't know exactly how to respond or where things are going to go. But the abusive thing to do is to clamp down. Try to, you know, put things back the way they used to be, something like that. That can only be accomplished through violence. That's the only way to force something. That's the closest thing we have to a time machine is violence because that's what we do to try to force things back through legislation or something. But that's not love enduring and adapting and responding. You know that one of the central sort of philosophical tenets of karate is mind like water.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Which I think is just so powerful where it's like water, you know, it will, it will react in a, in the appropriate corresponding way when it's like affected. If you drop a rock in it, right. It'll splash upwards, but very quickly it tries. What it's good at is returning back to stasis. Mind like water, very powerful concept. And honestly, like I can't think of something further. from how I would characterize the conservative evangelical mindset of the last 120 years. Mine like water, mine like fire. Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Yeah, I think of fire. I think of waves by a beach, high tide. I think of a tsunami. Yeah, I actually lived in a city that survived a tsunami in 2004. Really? I did, in Chennai, India, and it was devastating. And I think there's a reason why water imagery is so prevalent across scripture as well. And I love that Eastern wisdom from Karate of a mind like water. I mean, I think of peace that passes all understanding at the end of the day, peace that transcends all understanding, that phrase from scripture. And I've often wrestled over the last few months, ever since the last election, really, what does it mean for Christians, lay Christians, but also clergy to embody peace a transcendent peace, a peace that transcends the anxieties, the trauma, the chaos of this world. And I think I love that imagery of water because still water, something serene about it, there's something peaceful, restorative about it, but there's something really anxiety-inducing when you see a tsunami coming towards you. And I think, unfortunately, That's how our neighbors outside the church likely experience the church right now. They experience the church as a tsunami and not as, you know, a serene surface of water.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Right. Not as a grove, an oasis to come to for rest and refreshment and shade and safety. And that's just so, it's so disturbing and disappointing. And that's why I'm wanting to sit here and be like, what is going on? And how long has this been going on? So, you know, what's your initial take? If someone came up to you on the street and asked, why are evangelicals throwing this tantrum? What would you respond in that moment? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Yeah, that's a good question. I've been talking to a firefighter friend of mine, a firefighter friend who fights fires in Toronto, and his name's Jeff. And I've been picking his brain on something that I've been processing that only someone who's responded to situations like that might have insight on. But I've had this theory that what we're seeing right now in many ways is the last gasp of a people who are afraid of losing power, afraid of losing control, domination, status. The threat may not even be real, because like you said, White evangelicals hold significant power and authority and influence in the States, but the very threat is enough. And so there's this last gasp. Patriarchy is dying away. White supremacy is dying away. It's ultimately gonna die away. But you see this last gasp of people trying to hold onto it. And I was processing this with my firefighter friend, Jeff, and he was telling me, I've seen this, it's real. And when I'm with someone who's dying, they have this last gasp, they're about to die, but they have this last gasp where they breathe in real hard and exhale and that's it. And he resonated with my last gasp theory as a firefighter because he sees this firsthand and that could very much explain what we're seeing. right now maybe that's a very optimistic perspective but that's what i'm hoping for

SPEAKER_00 14:22

well i i don't think i've ever thought about where the the saying came from last gasp because i've heard you know you tend to think of your last breath being sort of kind of fading away taking you know less and less and less of a breath right but this description uh Sounds like for some people, there is literally a huge burst at the end.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Yeah. I mean, think about it. After eight years of Obama, it's not a coincidence that you see the backlash or what some would call the white lash of the most unhealthy parts of white identity coming out and having a last gasp kind of moment. No, we're going to. do the exact opposite of what we just had for the last eight years. And we almost had that here in Canada too. But, you know, I think, I think this stuff is real.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

That is, yeah, that, that aligns kind of with what I'm thinking as well, as well as with American history more broadly, because this is, The way that conservative evangelicals are acting right now, generally as on a whole, obviously there's exceptions to every single thing anyone says about anything. Or as Richard

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Rohr would say, there are a few sane people who make the rest look sane. Right, yeah,

SPEAKER_00 15:46

yeah. But this reaction to hold on to power and centrality is... It's absolutely critical. And for a long time, I tried in many ways to separate whiteness from Christian identity, kind of treating them separately as kind of two sometimes overlapping identities that get tangled together. But with what we know from intersectional studies, and that's just... That's the more lifelike way to analyze something where you look at all the intersecting identities operating at once. Conservative white evangelicalism and whiteness are just, in so many ways, one and the same. That's not to say there's no hope that that doesn't have to be that way. There absolutely is. But the way it's operated, they have been like two sides of a coin. And what I'm coming to realize is the way evangelicals are responding right now, you would think that they had lost something, something immense, something huge, that this is like a painful trauma response, lashing out, hurting people the way that like an animal would if it was cornered, right? And this is the strangeness of the situation, right? Evangelicals are acting like they're a cornered animal lashing out when it's in so many ways that's imagined. That's not real. They are more likely to be the one cornering someone else, some kind of marginalized group. And so it's like I want to go down this rabbit hole because why is that the situation? Why is the white person... so fragile. And I know books have been written on this and all that. But when it comes to the evangelical identity, why is the white Christian, the white Protestant in America so ridiculously fragile? Like an open wire that if you just touch it, it blows. Like what is with that? I think that there hasn't actually been any real significant loss in Nothing, no significant material loss to speak of. Economically, no loss. And I'm talking now about the course of the 20th century and into the 21st. White Protestants in America, economically, enormous growth. Politically, like, that... It's never been better. It's never been better, right? Cultural, like, as... as for what group sort of gets to determine the mainstream, normal, natural image of an American family is a white family in the suburbs. But what I think, the one thing that did change was in the 1960s, and this has some predecessors before it, but That's when things, the 1960s are when the conservative evangelical really starts to lose their mind. And I think what happened was the loss was the loss of uncontested, unchallenged cultural dominance. That itself is, you might look at that and go, that's it? Like, so now, you know, you just don't get to have, you don't get to just walk around unchallenged. And that's enough to trigger an entire decades long movement of like culture war. Because I cannot find something that says it more clearly than that. It just seems so pathetic. And the part that's grating on me right now is, this is the part that embarrasses me, is that these people are at a chemical level operating. Chemically, these are trauma responses. And that's embarrassing because it's unfair. It's unfair that we have to sit here and talk about white evangelical trauma when they have inflicted so much trauma on people, so much real trauma, like with real violence. And we have to sit here and talk about it give it the time of day again because that trauma, that grief, again, this is embarrassing,

SPEAKER_02 20:52

right? It's embarrassing to even call it trauma. I know. As someone who works in trauma-informed spaces. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

But there is a grieving. There's a grieving that is being ignored or denied. It's hard to even say this, but it's grieving over losing the world they once had, which again was the unchallenged dominance. And so you look at it and you're like, these are suppressed grief responses and trauma responses that are destroying lives and totally corrupting a lot of people's faith too. And you're right. It's embarrassing to even call it that, but that's what it is. And so it leaves me thinking what, What do you do then with that?

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Because if you just lash out, if you just lash out, that just re-entrenches it. Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

So I'm curious what that brought up in you, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

I think it just breaks my heart, to be honest. I think it just brings so much grief to me that this is the state of the world that we live in. Right? Because while you've got these folks who have their grievances, so much of it from a place of privilege and power of just losing that. And none of this new, by the way, historically. This has always existed in all cultures, all societies, everywhere. But it breaks my heart because it's a complete distraction from the real grievances in the world right now. It's a complete distraction from the children being starved to death in a blockade in Gaza right now, from children after being bombed for like, months right like it's a complete distraction from global hunger from global poverty from human trafficking um from some of the darkest things happening in the world right now and and it's just this self-absorbed uh persecution complex that blinds you from what's happening in the world around you right now that keeps you so focused on yourself that and meanwhile you've got the power and the resources to liberate our marginalized neighbors, right? And so this is why, you know, this is why I think historical injustices like colonialism and white supremacy and things like that, and I named this in the book, I think this wasn't just bad for the oppressed, it was also bad for the oppressor and those who benefited from the oppression of their oppressed neighbors, right? And so it breaks my heart to see this kind of disunity and cognitive dissonance that is caused by self-absorption and being blind to the brokenness and the injustices and the need in this world. And what a missed opportunity. What a wasted opportunity to, you know, I mean, just look at all the money that's spent in political elections. US and Canada, all the money that's burned in election cycles. I worked in professional politics. I've been at these fundraisers. I see how fear is such a strong motivator to big pocket donors. And all that money is being burned on these political conquests at home when you've got a world out there that's suffering and you throw a few dollars in chump change out there for the world out there. And then cancel it.

UNKNOWN 24:28

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Right. And, um, it's, it's just so, it's just so wrong and it's just so messed up and, uh, it's, it's really frustrating. So what I've tried to do is I've tried to look for signs of hope, you know, even as hard as it is to find right now, like, where are you finding hope? Where, uh, are you finding life? You and justice, and you actually won't find that in the halls of power. So I tell people I looked for Jesus in the halls of power when I worked as a Georgia Republican political consultant. I didn't find him there.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

That has to, we have to stop and talk about that. You can't just drop that in this kind of conversation. Okay, so for those of you who don't know, and this will shock some people. Shocker. That Joash, do I have this right? You used to be a political consultant for the Republicans in Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

One of the best. I just, I, you, we have to like divert. You gotta say, you gotta tell us how, how did you come to do that and then be, be who you are now? I just.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's such a great question. It's like, what happened before Jesus saved you again? Right. I get that question a lot. Yeah. So I think the story of that for me is deeply tied with my racial identity as a person of color in America. So I moved to America at 18 from India and I wanted to be as American or as white really as possible. And so, you know, The Georgia Republicans were in power at that time, and I was like, I'm going to do it. You're a teenager at this point? I was 18 when I moved, and so when I was 19, still a teenager, I started working in Georgia Republican politics. was quite good at it. I started off as a policy advisor and a communications aide and then mostly worked communications. I was chief of staff for a few state representatives. My final year in university, I was writing speeches for the former governor of Georgia and his re-election campaign. I started working on a presidential campaign. I mean, did it all. And then just made a lot of money doing it. And then eventually realized the cognitive dissonance that was taking place where I was just a hired mercenary for people and causes that I didn't really believe in. And I think the bottom pet for me was writing an opinion editorial article for a client running for Congress. basically saying that legal immigrants should be stopped from coming to America through a specific program called the Diversity Visa Lottery program that my family actually came to the U.S. through. So I ghost wrote this opinion article. About how that should be stopped. About how that should be stopped. When that's how you came to America. That's how I came. Wow. And so I did that and woke up the next morning just being like, what the hell did I just do?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Right. And I think That's what power does to you. It robs your humanity. That's what the allure of control and domination does to us. We weren't built to handle that, right? And that's why I'm in discernment to be a priest now because I learned so much about the brokenness of my humanity from that and how my humanity was suppressed from that pursuit of power that it just started me on this quest of how do I be human again? How do I be human with God and neighbor again? How do I liberate myself and my oppressed neighbors and those who benefit from the oppression? How do I liberate all of us, help liberate all of us from this with God's help? Because again, this isn't just bad for the humanity of our marginalized neighbors. It's also bad for our own humanity, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

So did you get pulled into it through like young Republicans kind of thing? Oh,

SPEAKER_02 28:49

yeah. I was the chairman of the young Republicans on my university campus. So I was the one pulling others in. It's just so... I can't blame anyone else. I

SPEAKER_00 29:00

made my own choices there. I take it you're not still a Georgia Republican.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

I'm barely American these days. I mean, I'm a Canadian now, a political independent. But I will say that I watched people change while I was there. I watched people lose their humanity in the pursuit of political power or access to political power. You know, I was one of the three never-Trump Republican political consultants in Georgia in 2016. That three individual people? Yeah, which was a lot. Like most states just had one at that point. Three never-Trump consultants. Yeah, three never-Trump. That's it. That's it. That's it. And, you know, one of them took over a lot of my clients after I left and is now the right-hand guy to the governor of Florida. who is kind of a big deal, ran for president as well. Um, so that was the path I was headed on. Uh, you know, Ron DeSantis is right hand guy. Um, really? Yeah. Yeah. That's the guy who took over most of my clients. He's now Ron DeSantis is right hand guy. That was the path. And he was, he was a never Trump guy. And the other never Trump guy, I'm taking names here by the way today, but the other never Trump guy as this guy named Eric Erickson, who's a massive right wing political commentator, a radio host. And he, uh, he's now a very pro-Trump guy, right? And I mean, like I took my stand and look, like I have friends who, not to make this about Trump, right? Like he's a human being, God loves him, right? I have friends who support him because they see other things in him still. But the reality is, you know, I saw people change. I saw people betray their own values. You know, regardless of what you think about the president of the United States today, if you went from a place of, I can't stand this guy, I won't put this guy on TV in my household because I don't know what he'll say in front of my kids, which I've had Republican state legislators say that to me on inauguration day, 2016. If you've gone from that to like, worshiping the guy now and believing that he's God's best, you know, God's second son and all of that, something has happened to your humanity and you've changed, right? And so I've changed, sure. I've moved in the direction of liberation for all my neighbors, but they've changed too. And I saw the Republican Party change from the inside too. And it's not the same party that I worked in and hope to be a reforming voice within. People have to take their own journeys. And I mean, I wouldn't have thought back then that I'll be here today. So if you have people still caught up in that cult or any cult, whether it's the MAGA cult or the white evangelical cult in the US in many spaces, It's not the end of the story for them. It's not the end of the rope for them because there's always hope and there's always redemption that's possible. if we have the courage to embrace that journey and humble ourselves and learn at the feet of our marginalized neighbors. And that's really what was transformative for me, learning from survivors of abuse while doing human rights work, both within and outside the church. That's where I met Jesus. So I didn't meet Jesus in the halls of power where I expected to find him. I met Jesus on the margins. And that's where he rescued me and liberated me and put me on this path towards working for the collective liberation of my neighbors.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Man, I mean, I have a feeling. That's my real testimony. Yeah, that story probably has so much more detail that we could go into. Maybe we'll slowly open it up. Because the other thing I was thinking was you, important for your kind of transformation was returning to your indigenous roots Homeland, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And doing human rights work there for a year. I mean, I did that before the 2016 elections and it was transformative. It messed with me. Yeah. Such a good point. But the indigenous nature of that is

SPEAKER_00 33:27

beautiful. I appreciate you calling that out. The dissonance you must have experienced with just in general, but then writing that letter, that editorial must have just been unbearable. Like that kind of dissonance.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Yeah. Yeah. And I just remember, I mean, I write this in the book, by the way, I share the story in the book, but I remember talking to a wise older woman who was a volunteer. One of the campaigns I managed back then telling her about what I just did for the other campaign. And she looked me in the eye and she was Jesus to me in that moment. She was my, she was a Holy spirit to me in that moment. She looked me in the eye. She was like, Oh, I told her, I don't know. what I should do here. She looked me in the eye and said, I think you know what you need to do, Joash. The very next day, I closed shop. Closed down your consulting firm? Closed down my consulting firm. I had offers for acquisitions from public affairs firms in D.C. that were later indicted in a federal scandal, but that's another story for another time. I had offers to sell my firm, but I was like, what have I done? And it was too heavy for me. And so yeah, so I closed the shop and was unemployed for a couple of months trying to figure out life. And a couple of months later, I moved to DC, took a 50% pay cut, started working in international human rights. And I haven't looked back since then.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

It's a real, true, you know, the Greek word metanoia, for conversion, like an eye-opening, right? And that's one of those. That's the story of metanoia.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

Totally. And I think we need to have our eyes opened to the beauty of God and to the need for liberation for our neighbors every single day. You know, like, sure, this was a big moment in my life, but this is why... I'm sacramental. This is why I need Eucharist. Experience Jesus through the Eucharist every single week because I need Jesus every week, right? Like, I mean, I've been processing this in my Pentecostal to sacramental journey. I'm switching gears from politics to theology a little bit here. But like, you know, in my tradition growing up, you do altar calls where you invite people to come up front and receive Jesus. And we'd laugh at the kids who'd go up every Sunday, right? That's what the sacramental tradition is. At the end of every service, Mass, you've Eucharist, where you come and experience Jesus. You come and receive Jesus at the table. And when you do that, you're publicly proclaiming your need for a Savior every single week. And there's beauty in that, because we don't just receive Jesus in our lives one time, according to evangelical myth, right? You need him every single day. You receive him every single week. And so this whole glorification of a moment of justification, a moment where you're saved, it's is honestly a load of crap. Because what you're also saying in the same breath is, well, then I don't need Jesus after that. Because I'm good. I made my decision. I'm escaping from here to heaven. My ticket's punched. But we need Jesus for transformation in our lives every single day.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Yeah, that's good. And I mean, the evangelical altar call is also the part of it that really grates on me is that in effect, it negates everything that came before that moment as illegitimate because you're saying I wasn't really a Christian. I've written on this in my thesis somewhat because evangelicalism really thrives in crisis. That's what it knows. And that connects well with what we're talking about this week. Because the evangelical tradition is a crisis intervention kind of Christianity.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

That's how it began, right? People at those camp meetings, at these revival tents, kind of just putting their emotions on their sleeve and feeling whatever their shame, you know, there was rampant alcoholism in the United States during the revivals and people were like filled with shame about that and

SPEAKER_03 37:55

So

SPEAKER_00 37:56

people had these intense emotions and hit rock bottom, really had nowhere left to go and experience some encounter with God at these meetings, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

And I think the evangelical tradition, that was its initial strength, was providing some kind of lifeline to someone at rock bottom. How it then discipled people, right? following that crisis conversion was usually was often pretty troubling and problematic because as a Christian tradition it was pretty weak but it could this is the image I used in my dissertation it's like a defibrillator wow but a defibrillator is it's a powerful thing that can like bring your heart back to life but you don't want to put one of those on when you're You don't want to put that on when you're just walking around.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Or like, what does recovery look like? Because that defibrillator might make your heart start again. But like, what is the long road of recovery looking like? And that's what, in a way, that's what discipleship is. The long road of recovery. Recovering our humanity. Recovering our humanity. And like some of the ancient Christians thought, that recovery process sometimes doesn't end with death. that recovery process continues.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Right? Like, like Isaac of Nineveh or Isaac the Syrian, right? That recovery. Now he was working with like the idea of your soul recovering, but like, you know, there's a lot of overlap there of your true humanity, right? And so even I've asked, you know, myself, why, why is our evangelicals, if, white evangelicals in America, if they have traditionally occupied the halls of power and the halls of financial success, there's two questions. Why so much sense of loss and why so much fear? And I've wondered that to myself. Why react so immaturely when things change a bit, when there are challenges? And I think the answer is the discipleship that a fundamentalist or an evangelical would go through because it is teaching them that everything is war, a battle, spiritual battle, a battle for the culture. We're drifting away from our Christian roots and we have to do whatever we can to get it back. And the list of consequences are usually very dire. And everything from If we don't get this culture back, it's just going to be rampant crime and immorality. No one's going to believe in God anymore or care. Everyone's going to go to hell.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Such an anxious faith.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yes, so anxious. And if the evangelical church as a whole was sitting in a therapist's office, which many of them wouldn't dare to, the therapist would say, okay, we have some serious problems here and some serious work to do. There is some real... like incredibly unhealthy dynamics at work. If it was reduced to one family, it would be a nightmare. Oh, goodness. So I guess that connects with the evangelical tantrum. On the one hand, it's rooted in, again, this is the embarrassing part that I still don't fully know what to do with. I think the feelings I'm feeling are almost, yeah, embarrassment or shame, humiliation, because it's like, it's pathetic, right, to be feeling... to be talking about white evangelical grief and trauma, but the brains of the people in these communities is releasing trauma chemicals at the very idea that they don't have unchallenged dominance anymore. So why do you think there was such a conservative collective mind losing in the 60s, right? Well, it was like a convergence of civil rights, of feminism, of even early queer visibility, of allowing for non-European immigration, which I think changed in the mid-60s. And then you have the counterculture, which is often white youth criticizing the United States and its idea that it's exceptional. And it's like, those things all at once, again, none of those groups gained a bunch of power. They just were more vocal about contesting the unchallenged dominance of white patriarchy, Christian patriarchy.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Yeah, that's so true. And I mean, you know, we've been talking about white grief and trauma this whole time, which I think it's safe to say we've narrowed down that so much of this is self-induced from historical sources. multi-generational participation and the oppression of our marginalized neighbors around the world. Well, I see that in non-white communities too. I don't think this is a problem that's exclusive to white people who've been accustomed to power and privilege. I see that with brown people too in India where you have an upper caste reactionary movement in many ways right now to the liberation of lower caste neighbors. And you've got a lot of Christians like my ancestors and my St. Thomas Indian Christian community that's benefited from the oppression of our lower caste neighbors that now feels oppressed in the States and votes the same way that many white evangelicals who feel oppressed vote. But the reality is, dude, you're living in the US. You made it out. You've enjoyed the benefits of the world in the West. Why do you feel oppressed? You're doing quite well. Your family's doing quite well. Again, why are you so threatened by the loss of power?

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Threatened by the loss, by the fact that white Christians are losing, in air quotes, losing power?

SPEAKER_02 44:26

To a degree, yes, but also that Christian values, as defined by the white man in many ways, can lose power. That the elevation of, and this is why many people in my family voted the way they did in the last election, it's because of the fear of their LGBTQ neighbors and all the transphobia there, the fear of social upheaval and you know, what'll happen next in society, you know, kind of like that fear. But in reality, the kingdom of God coming in upsets the old order of things to make way for God's new creation, right? The old must pass away as scripture says, so that the new can be ushered in. And the old passing away or the threat of the old passing away is intimidating, is nerve wracking to people who only been accustomed to power and privilege. But as Christians, we're not called to power and privilege. We're called to faithfulness. We're called to give up power and privileges so that others may have life who haven't experienced life so far, right? And we're called to oppose the systems that obstruct life for our marginalized neighbors. But when we get accustomed to power and privilege and control, and when we start to worship these things, we lose sight of the gospel of Jesus, which is good news to the poor and the oppressed. And we start acting weird. And childish and overly dramatic and with tantrums. And

SPEAKER_00 45:59

being willing to lie for the sake of... There's got to be some people out there who know that some of the ways they're spinning these stories are lies. This isn't just, I didn't realize it. There's got to be people out there who know exactly what they're doing. But there's a willingness to lie for some greater... again, air quotes, good. The greater evil, really. I do think the white Protestant male, the white male Protestant, you're right when you say accustomed to power and privilege. And that almost doesn't capture it because that's almost too tame. It's like that's all that they've ever known

SPEAKER_03 46:44

in

SPEAKER_00 46:44

America. Since the moment that At least, you know how the United States has a number of origin stories, right? They kind of get blended together, but one of them is the New England, the Puritans. Yeah, the Mayflower. Right, the Mayflower origin story. Like the moment they get off the boat in Massachusetts Bay, it's like the moment they step foot on the ground, it's like this spell happens of, well, this is ours, right away. There's not even a day of thinking, can we just take this land? And right away, this is really how it happened. They began, this image always makes me feel so, for lack of a better word, just cringe. It is cringe American history. It's what they start doing almost right away is writing up these land deeds for themselves and giving them to each other. And you're like, oh, all of this private ownership of land, which is the heartbeat of colonization.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

Or as Willie James Jennings says, to the colonizer's mind, to know a thing is to own a thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Right. All of this obsession with conquest, with stealing, conquering, tricking indigenous people out of land, however you want to do it, it's based on a fantasy. made up title. And it's like, you can actually get to the last one and say, there's nothing under here, but an idea, but a fantasy. And so that's like, that's day one.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Yeah. And think about where we are today, right? Where you want to protect it so much from anyone who looks different that you will kick out and do mass deportations of families, hardworking, contributing to the economy, law-abiding, you'll kick them out just because they look different or speak a different language. And who will you bring in? Look at who they're bringing in. They're not even trying to hide it. You bring in people who look like you. who also have a similar history. And you support nations around the world that look like yours, that also have similar histories, right? It's the powerful protecting the powerful. This is what empire does at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

I was looking at, you know, doing some research into when was the high, when was the zenith of white male Christian dominance in America? And, you know, because... That's a tall mountain range, right? Because there's a lot of heights of white male Christian dominance. But interestingly, the height was after World War II, and it was high before. But a lot of the changes that happened that made conservative evangelicals lose their mind in the 60s were born out of the 40s, because you have the American men going off to war, and All the imagery there, people forget that there was a huge group of African American and Native American soldiers fighting for the US. The image that gets propagandized is the white Christian American hero. And in their absence, women are working in the factories, building the bombs and weapons. And women are experiencing a world that they had never experienced. African Americans fighting over in the U.S., fighting in Germany against Nazis who are segregating people based on ethnic and religious identity, there starts to, a hope starts to develop there that like we're fighting here, the double victory it was called, fighting fascism away and racism at home. And there was an expectation and totally rightfully so that when we get back to the U.S., We dismantle segregation. We are here risking our lives, fighting against racism.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Wow,

SPEAKER_00 50:59

wow.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

If I can jump in there. Please do. I haven't put two and two together on this until now, but my people have a similar history. Most people in the West don't know this, but there were thousands of Indians who fought in World War II on behalf of the British Empire. And on behalf of the Allies, we fought for the liberation of Europe, of Asia, and sacrificed much. Never talked about. And why did we fight? We fought because we were promised by the British Empire that we will give you freedom and independence at home. Just help us out. World War I, help us out. We'll give you independence. Nothing. World War II, again, help us out. Give us independence. And at this point, Gandhi is doing a movement and the Indian leaders are doing a movement called the Quit India Movement. And again, promises not kept. The British would not have given India independence had Gandhi not... done what he did yeah yeah Gandhi and the other freedom fighters and and even then they refused to give us World War II ended 1945 we only got our independence 1947 there were two years that we could have got our independence but they didn't give it to us because they had no intent to and when they did give it to us only on their terms of divide and conquer so partition and leading to millions of more people

SPEAKER_00 52:14

and

SPEAKER_02 52:14

yeah

SPEAKER_00 52:15

yeah that's very similar and you know the black vets come back and American society, the federal government, all the states, everyone's interested in trying to get things back to normal. And in order to do that, they know that the US has boomed economically because of the war. So there's a lot of money. There's a lot of production. There's a lot of new jobs. So I mean, first of all, all the women are sent back home. forced to leave the workforce in mass numbers, even after having tasted this different way of living. And then through a variety of propaganda on radio, in pamphlets and stuff like that, sort of re-entrenching the goodness of the domestic housewife. That is a propaganda campaign after World War II to get women to go back to the way things were. The cracks are forming, though. The cracks are already formed. You get the black vets coming back and the white vets. And the federal government comes up with the GI Bill. That's what it's called, right? You probably know this history. But the GI Bill to subsidize housing. I can't remember all the specifics. Education. Yeah, education. Free education or at least heavily subsidized interest-free loans, which is why suburbanization happens, right?

UNKNOWN 53:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

So you have all this money and all this like hope and promise and these black vets returned to segregation and they're like, nothing's changing.

SPEAKER_02 53:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

This stays the same. And what I learned in some of this research was like those African-Americans most likely to be harassed, beaten or lynched were people who wore their uniform in public. It was seen as like haughty and arrogant and stuff just for fun. Black vets. Wow. And they, while legally, they were completely entitled to every benefit in the GI Bill, there's nothing in it that discriminates racially, officially, but at every single step. You know, as a vet, I'm entitled to an interest-free loan. The bank says, no. As a vet, I'm entitled to, you know, free education. We don't accept... black people into this university. So it's like all the benefits are completely withheld, obstructed at every end. It was so rare. All the while, white culture is fleeing the inner city, getting as far away, you know the term white flight, as far away as you can from and building the suburbs, extreme wealth. The inner cities lose their tax base. They plunge into poverty, which is then blamed on the marginalized who are living there. And then what this brings me to is this is now the 1950s, which is the great romanticized fantasy era that MAGA and others like them look back on. And it's like it was this brief moment where white supremacy, white Christian supremacy, just stood up tall again and said, we're going to make things like this. And there's this heroic image of the white soldier and all the happy pictures of the housewife and the suburbs and the madmen kind of propaganda. Totally. And it's like ever since the 1950s, even though all the cracks were there now, Civil rights movement begins because the dissonance, like you experienced almost, but kind of the other side of it, the dissonance is too much. As an African-American vet, you're like, I did not give my life. My buddies didn't give their life so we could come back and be second class. And it supercharges civil rights. And it supercharges feminism. And all the various other movements that white evangelicals look at as a threat and then try to spiritualize why it's a threat. And so I think it's like Make America Great Again, it's like we need to go back to all the examples end up sounding like the 50s.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

Yeah, and it's ultimately this vision of I feel like I need to be on top by subjugating everyone else around me. Women, even white women, subjugate them, you know, domesticate them, segregate them, dominate them. And that's kind of the vision here. I get on top by subjugating everyone, which is actually not the way of Jesus. You don't say. It's not the way of Jesus, because the way of Jesus is not to be the master of all, but to be the servant of all. And that's where you find Jesus. Is it any... wonder that we find jesus then on the margins of society and not at the top because he came and integrated himself into the margins of society at his time but we have this christian nationalist movement today that wants to dominate power and you know dominate and subjugate and segregate our neighbors so that we can put jesus on top jesus is already on top and jesus still chooses to identify with the bottom and there's something there for people who find ourselves at the top or benefiting from the proximity to the top to reconcile with and to give away our wealth and our resources and our power for the sake of our neighbors on the bottom so that they may have life and life to the fullest, the life that Jesus always intended for them.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

It's beautiful. See, that's life-giving, that vision. That's backwards. That's upside down. But in our bones, we know that's the world we want to live in. And my last thought is, you know, I think sometimes about when Jesus asks us to, tells us to pray for our enemies. And, you know, that passage is sometimes used, you know, to enable, enable like, you know, like when forgiveness gets abused or it's like someone abused someone in church and we have to forgive or whatever. And it's just like, something's not right here. This isn't thick and full and true. This is not reconciliation. So I think the same thing with love your enemies. And then it made me think, who taught Jesus what loving your enemies looked like? And I thought, well, his mom, Mary, taught Jesus what loving your enemies looked like. And I can imagine, so I started to think, what does loving your enemies look like If you're Mary, what are you praying for? Pray for your enemies. Well, she prays that the rich and powerful are thrown down. And I think that if you have become accustomed to the top, to the cushy comforts that also just activate your full-on animal primal fears when people even think about challenging it, then what you need is to be thrown down from your throne. And then...

SPEAKER_02 59:45

Because that's good for you.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

Because that's good for you. And you find yourself then down at the bottom. And that's like where your real journey begins. So good.

SPEAKER_02 59:56

So good. Yeah. May we lean into that. And may we even throw ourselves to the bottom so that God doesn't have to humble us and throw ourselves out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Love that. Well, thanks so much for being here with me again. I already can't wait for next time. And yeah, thanks everyone for listening. This is a joy.