Ideas Have Consequences

Walking in Unity: Biblical Answers to Questions on Race and Racism with Monique Duson and Krista Bontrager

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 2 • Episode 32

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Are you tired of the endless divisive drone on race hustling, white guilt, victim culture, and the list goes on? You're not alone; it's time for a refreshing, biblically-based perspective on racial reconciliation that gives an unbiased perspective on disparities to determine genuine injustices and highlights the need for unity and individual responsibility. Join us as we sit down with Krista Bontrager and Monique Duson from the Center for Biblical Unity to uncover the profound insights in their upcoming book, Walking in Unity: Biblical Answers to Questions on Race and Racism. Krista and Monique's unique backgrounds—Krista from a white, suburban environment and Monique from a black, inner-city setting—shape a compelling dialogue that challenges conventional narratives and emphasizes the power of friendship and unity in Christ in reconciling differing perspectives on race and justice. Whose voice is shaping your worldview on race and racism–is it God or culture? Have you ever wondered why the Scripture emphasizes nationality and ethnicity over skin color? Don't miss this enlightening episode that has the potential to reshape your understanding of race and provide you with a hopeful vision for a unified future.

Monique Duson:

But truly, race is a social fiction that we all participate in. There is really only one human race, with varying ethnicities or nationalities.

Krista Bontrager:

We're putting forward a different worldview. Christianity is an entirely different approach that says God did everything necessary to make cultural enemies into family and that that is our starting point.

Luke Allen:

Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott Allen:

Welcome again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by my friends and co-workers, luke Allen and Daryl Miller, and two friends and special guests that have been on the podcast before, and we're so happy to have you back, krista Bontrager and Monique Dusson from Center for Biblical Unity. It's great to see you guys again.

Monique Duson:

Hi, thanks for having us on. Yeah, we're excited to be here.

Scott Allen:

Oh, it's so great to have you back. We love your work so much and just so grateful for you and your heart. We're here to talk about your new book, which is coming out in October. The title of the book is Walk in Unity Biblical Answers to Questions on Race and Racism. Guys, congratulations on this new book. I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy and providing an endorsement. Thanks for that. I loved the book. I really did, and I just it'll be the book that I recommend everyone read on this issue, that you know, if you want, as a Christian, if you want to understand anything about social justice and this whole race discussion, you've got to read. This is the book you've got to read. So thanks for the contribution. It's really great.

Krista Bontrager:

Well, I think there was probably some times we didn't think we could do it, so we're glad to be at this stage now.

Scott Allen:

Well, god really had his hand in your relationship and a lot of the book is the story of your relationship and I thought that part was wonderful. And in fact that was really the first question I wanted to ask you guys was you're both very committed Christians, very theologically-minded Christians, committed Christians, very theologically minded Christians. Krista, you're famous for your work in theology and Monique, you know, graduate of Biola University and very committed Christians, both of you very committed, and yet one white and one black. You know, it was so fascinating to me how you came into the relationship and your thoughts on issues related to race and racism and justice were quite different. You know, even though you're both Christians reading the same Bible, and I thought you know it's just fascinating to me.

Scott Allen:

I think as Christians we take culture like way too for granted. You know we assume, oh we're. You know we go to church, we read the Bible, we all think the same way, have a biblical worldview, and yet culture shapes us so deeply and in ways that we're not even aware of really. And you become aware of it when you bump up against another culture. If you travel abroad or something like that, then you kind of bump up against these assumptions that you have and then that allows you to kind of go wait what okay is that assumption? Is that from the Bible? Is that from my culture? Is it, you know, whatever? But even so it's hard to change those and I was so proud of you guys, or just I was so happy that you guys had a friendship that allowed you to kind of see some assumptions and be willing to make some changes.

Scott Allen:

In that I love that part of the book. I was just wondering if you could comment on that a little bit. Just the idea of your own kind of subcultures evangelical, white, black, whatever it is. You know the part of the country you were from and how that shaped your thinking in ways that you weren't aware of. Any thoughts on that.

Monique Duson:

Well, I was living in Krista's house at the time when we first started having these conversations on race and justice, and we couldn't escape our cultures bumping up against each other. You know, we both come from single, like families that are single moms, um, both being raised by single moms, but I definitely come from a black, more inner city culture and krista definitely does not, you know, and so a lot of the assumptions that come along with our culture met hands in hand from both sides of of the fence. You know, both sides of the coin were really bumping up into what. I assume this and she assumed that, and so one of the first things that we had to do was really figure out, okay, what is biblical, what is cultural, and how are we defining the terms we're even talking about?

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, there, I was, you know, as a kid growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Monique grew up in more in the downtown area. But we're even. We're not just intercultural or interethnic friendship, we're also intergenerational to some degree, and so there was a lot of things to bridge for us. But I think that what helped is that at some point we both made a conscious decision that the friendship was worth fighting for, and so the journey that we went on in terms of investigating our perspectives, our worldview frameworks, we were doing that because we wanted to find the truth, but we were willing to endure the hard conversations because we were fighting for our friendship.

Darrow Miller:

That's very precious.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, that is Really for that reason alone it's worth reading the book, just to see your guys' journey through that, I still. It strikes me, though, that still a lot of Christians, when they come up against something that they believe deeply, that's cultural but not necessarily biblical, or reluctant to change what caused you, beyond the friendship, what caused you to kind of say no, I'm going to have to change the way. I think you know which we'll get to this later but the Bible calls changing the way you think, metanoia, or repentance. We don't think of repentance in that way typically. It's a very spiritual thing. It's, you know, it's salvation related. But there's another level, which it's just changing your mind. It's realigning your thinking from something that's false to something that's true. You know, what was it that allowed you guys to do that? It seems to me there's other things as well.

Monique Duson:

Well, I personally was convinced that she was going to repent from her whiteness.

Monique Duson:

And you know, and so I was literally doing my best in my job to you know, it doesn't say what you think it says when you're only taking this one verse out of context. But then too, if you really believe that the word of God should be your authority, that it is truly infallible and inerrant, then I have to align my mind and my heart with what the word of God says. And that doesn't mean that Krista didn't have her own growth and change to do as well, because there were places where she was definitely wrong. But if we're going to look at, like in a measuring cup, who had more wrong? I would, I would ding, ding. I'm the winner in that one. And so I had to align my mind and my thoughts, my heart posture, with the word of God and what the word of God said. I couldn't, you know, say well, this is what the word of God says, but I still want to, for whatever reason, uphold this wrong position.

Krista Bontrager:

I think one of the unique things about Monique is that, even though she had a number of progressive ideas and beliefs, that she and I were on different sides, not just of the race conversation but on things like abortion, or we were on different sides of the conversation on some aspects of the LGBT conversation. So, but to her credit, she had a very solid view of the Bible. She had not jettisoned her view of the Bible. She had not jettisoned her view of the Bible. So if I could make some kind of appeal biblically to her and reason with her from the scriptures, she was very willing to listen to that. Now, that's not to say that it was easy for either of us. There were both. Both of us had things to learn as we studied the scriptures together and talked about things Like wow. I really think that maybe I've had a misunderstanding about this particular issue as.

Krista Bontrager:

I've dug into the scripture more, but both of us had a strong commitment to the authority of the Bible.

Monique Duson:

I just didn't know a lot of the scripture, yeah.

Scott Allen:

Well, to me, I think that's just so important.

Scott Allen:

What you just said there, that you had a deep commitment, a priority to the Word of God and to God right Behind the Word of God, that he was your. So credit to you guys, because that's not easy you often lose friends and it's tough when you go in a different direction from the people of your subculture because your commitment to wanting to be biblical and I think a lot of Christians aren't willing to do that, and so again, I give you guys a lot of credit for just your commitment to the scriptures and to honoring God, regardless of what that might cost. So I want to get into the book with you, because so much helpful biblical clarity comes out of this book on issues of race, racism and things like this and how we walk, how we think about that as Christians. I want to just start with the question about just what exactly is race and how is it different from ethnicity. Do we see these concepts in the Bible? Just talk about some of the basic building blocks of this discussion, maybe, monique.

Monique Duson:

Well, race, you know. On one hand, what we're seeing in our current culture is that race is everything you know, like. What is your race? And if you're of this race, then you might be better than people from that race, and this race is marginalized, but this race isn't, and things like that. But scientifically, there is only one human race. Scientifically, there is only one human race. We are, all you know, of the same race and we have different ethnicities. Our skin color shows up as a micro adaptation to you know, migration and things like that, but there's really only one human race. I tend to say that our skin color really is only skin deep, but aside from that, we're one human race. And so when we but when we think about this idea scripturally, one of the first things that Krista pointed out to me was Acts 17, 26, where we see that from one man, god created all the nations.

Monique Duson:

Well, biblically speaking, the idea of race is also very clear, that one. If we're using this idea, this term of race, there would truly only be one human race that all people come from, adam and Eve and technically share all of this. You know, genetic code. Now, if I'm going to think of the idea of you know, do we see race in the scripture? I would have to say no. What we see in the scripture would be nationality or ethnicity. The only time where you know the word race is used, where I you know, I personally see it. I could be wrong, but it's where we are either of the race of Adam or we are of the race of Christ. But even in that wording, I wonder how much of that is just due to our cultural messaging being, you know, so far removed from the scriptures and having or being removed from the original writings of the scriptures and having some kind of conceptualized idea around this term race. But truly race is a social fiction that we all participate in.

Krista Bontrager:

There is really only one human race, with varying ethnicities or nationalities, and cultures, and that's another tricky part of it is that in our context in the West, there is a certain collapsing of race and culture where they almost become synonymous in many ways, and so some of the work that we do has involved like trying to get people to decouple race and culture a little bit and to understand that not all black people or people with dark skin come from the same culture.

Krista Bontrager:

If you meet somebody who's an immigrant from Zimbabwe, they have a very different culture than an African American growing up in South Central LA, and so, just as a white person or a light-skinned person who lives in Appalachia has a very different culture than a white progressive who lives in Boston, so there is a certain decoupling that we need to do of race and culture.

Krista Bontrager:

And so, when we look biblically, one of the first insights that we had in our conversations is isn't it interesting that God doesn't use race language? We use race language all the time and we're so kind of numb to it, but when we look in scripture, god's not categorizing people by black skin and white skin and all of these ways of thinking ways of thinking now there are ways of segmenting the population, at times based on nationality or ethnicity the moabites, the ammonites, the jewish people, and we can talk about that, but trying to deprogram our minds a little bit. As christians we want to renew our minds so that we can think more and more like God and how he sees humanity. We need to do a level of deprogramming of not just having our skin color, our physical characteristics, be the first thing of most importance about another human being. Be the first thing of most importance about another human being.

Luke Allen:

Hi, friends, I just wanted to quickly tell you that Krista and Monique's book Walk in Unity is now available for pre-order. So right after this episode, make sure to head to walkinunitycom and pre-order your copy today. This book talked a lot about Monique and Krista's clash of worldviews and how much of a role those played in their decision-making and their perceptions on life and society. If you would like to learn more about worldview, and specifically a biblical worldview, and how you can begin a journey of transforming your mind to start seeing everything through biblical principles, I would encourage you to check out our free biblical worldview training course, the Kingdomizer Training Program, which is available at quorumdalecom. The Kingdomizer Training Program, which is available at quorumdalecom.

Luke Allen:

The Kingdomizer Training Program, was created to help Christians live out their call to make disciples of all nations, starting with themselves and working out from there. I would recommend this course to any Christian who wants to stop living in a sacred-secular divide that limits their faith to only some areas of life, but instead this course will help you start to see everything quorumdale, which means before the face of God, and start connecting. This course will help you start to see everything Coram Deo, which means before the face of God and start connecting your passions and your callings to your faith. Begin to have an impact for Christ on your culture that, if it's anything like mine, is in desperate need for truth and purpose right now. Again, the online training course, the Kingdomizer Training Program, is completely free and available at CoramDeocom is completely free and available at CoramDalecom.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, absolutely, I think it's really important what you said about race and culture, ethnicity and culture and separating those two things. One of the things that struck me in the research I was doing for my book why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice is that, yeah, skin color and culture, don't? You know? There's not an overlap to those things at all. You know there's a variety of kind of subcultures within any particular skin color group. You know and I saw that with you know this whole discussion on blacks in the United States there's not one culture. Everyone doesn't think the same way.

Scott Allen:

Now there's one kind of dominant culture in the sense of, you know, they've got the media microphone but yeah, I definitely saw different subcultures, even within that particular group, and I found it ironic and kind of maddening that, you know, this is a. You know people that were advocating for diversity. They didn't want diversity when it came to the subcultures within the skin color groups. Like no, you've got to think like a black person thinks, and I'm like well, so all of a sudden, this isn't about race at all anymore. This is much more about culture and worldview than it is about anything with skin color and things like that yeah.

Scott Allen:

So I appreciate it.

Darrow Miller:

May I ask a pragmatic question, and maybe this is something I haven't read your book, maybe it's something you've wrestled with, maybe it isn't, maybe it isn't, but we think of the church and Christ is the king. He is the king of, it says in the book of Revelation there's many tribes, many nations, many cultures, but one king, and that, to me, is the picture of what the church ought to be. And yet we find black churches, white churches, vietnamese churches, churches that basically do not represent the kingdom of God but are more represented by race and ethnic background. What would you advise the church, what would you advise Christians from what you have learned? To form churches that are more reflective of the kingdom of God or reflective of an integrated community. It may be in a city where there's an integrated community.

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, so we have a whole chapter in our book about this question of the multi-ethnic church. I'll kind of start the answer, since I wrote the chapter, and then Monique can jump in if you have any other thoughts. But we get this question a lot, and one thing that I think is helpful is when we kind of had the aha moment that those descriptions in Revelation 5 and 7 of every nation tribe and tongue, first of all, to notice that the focus is not on skin color.

Krista Bontrager:

The focus is on ethnicity and language and nations, but not on skin color. So again, there's a little bit of deprogramming we've got to go through in our minds there. Secondly, I think it's helpful to understand that that's a picture of the universal church. Then we call that in theology the picture of. You know that Matthew 28, 19, and 20 has become a reality. The gospel has gone out to the nations and now we are seeing those people from every nation, tribe and tongue come in and worship the lamb. So that's a picture of the universal church, not necessarily the local church, and I think it's helpful to make that differentiation and to focus in the local church context we try to guide people to think about does your church reflect your community as being the primary issue. So if I'm a pastor and I live in Cody Wyoming, where there are very, very few people from other ethnicities and you know, 98 percent of the population in Cody Wyoming is people that look like me and have, you know, a European background, and if that's the makeup of my church, there's nothing inherently sinful about that Because that's the makeup of my community. But now if I am pastoring maybe a Chinese church which is predominantly Chinese people are going there. Maybe we even only have Chinese speaking services. Because in our neighborhood 25 years ago it was a predominantly Chinese neighborhood and the church reflected the neighborhood at the time and was serving a gospel mission to bring the gospel to Chinese speaking, maybe immigrants, in that area. We have a few pockets of those here in Southern California, like Monterey Park, for example. All right.

Krista Bontrager:

So then what happens if that neighborhood changes and now the neighborhood is predominantly Farsi speaking? That church is in a neighborhood that at one time did reflect the neighborhood, but now those elders might have to think about how are we? Most of the people who come to our church drive from 20, 25 miles away? What could we do to reach our community who are Farsi speaking? Maybe our elder team needs to start praying into how do we support an evangelist who speaks Farsi and can help finance a church plant in our neighborhood? And so these are not just white church problems. This is a gospel issue of how do we reach we like to say like kind of the five to 10 mile radius around our local church.

Krista Bontrager:

Does our local church reflect the community? If it doesn't, let's investigate why that is. Is it apathy, is it something else? But let's not just immediately run to oh, we need to jump to racism or we need to jump to something's inherently wrong with our church? We want to first look at hey, what are we doing for the gospel in this area? And if our church is reflecting the demographic of the community, there might not be a problem. But that again is something to be investigated. I don't know, darrell, does that help you at all? Do you have a follow-up?

Darrow Miller:

Yeah, I think what you've said are things that I've thought and understand, but what I'm hearing you say is that the global church is is to be one thing and that model is not necessarily to be manifest in a local level.

Krista Bontrager:

It might be but it might not be. Yeah, because sometimes it's not practical. Sometimes we have churches that are in different languages. Yeah, but I think the church is multi-ethnic If I look at it globally globally.

Darrow Miller:

The gospel is going out?

Monique Duson:

no, of course. Yeah, I would only say, um, that I. I think that a lot of cultural messaging tells us that any all-white space is a dangerous space, a negative space. You know, something that needs to be shifted or changed to become more diverse, and I don't see a lot of that language happening in minority, mono-ethnic minority churches. I just ask the question of are people within any church participating righteously with one another and with people who come through their doors? And so there is nothing inherently wrong with an all white church or predominantly white church, depending on where you are.

Monique Duson:

Like Krista said, you know, if, if my church is reflecting the the five to 10 mile radius around where we are, and that's, that's what's around us, you know, do I really need to create a busing ministry to go 30 miles away to bring in quote unquote diversity? I'm not bought into that idea myself. I would say, if anything, why not go down, you know, to the area where you might want to bus people from and give them the skills to be able to grow and nurture their own gospel-centered ministry? We need to get away, in my personal opinion, get away from this idea that mono-ethnic communities are inherently wrong, especially when they're predominantly white.

Monique Duson:

Most people will attend churches for two reasons what their children's ministry looks like and what the worship is like. What their children's ministry looks like and what the worship is like. If I like a tambourine and loud music being played, the Anglican church may not be for me, and so if you see a predominantly Anglican church, that is, you know, more liturgical and more high church liturgy and has more chanting, you're not going to find me there. Now, is that a problem? I would say no. If when I do go to that predominantly you know, anglo church, if they're not calling me out my name and using racial slurs because I've walked through the door but they're treating me as Ephesians, you know, one to three says like a brother or a sister in the faith. I'm not. I'm not sure what the issue is, but there are a lot of people who would say that a mono-ethnic, especially a predominantly white, you know, mono-ethnic church is a problem that needs to shift to have more diversity. But I can't. I don't see any biblical precedent for that.

Krista Bontrager:

And you kind of raised the question in the book of. Well, that burden is not placed on all black churches, for example. You know where it's predominantly black.

Monique Duson:

Yeah.

Krista Bontrager:

That there's not the pressure to integrate.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, this is a question. I. You know times that systemic racism in the United States is proven by one thing above all else, and that's the fact that people say church is the same way that you guys are, that this isn't necessarily a sign of racism, because, yeah, it's just. You know, there's all sorts of reasons that people like to worship together. As you just said, monique, that may not be racist, that may have to do with worship style or food that we like to eat together, or even something as simple as just how long we worship.

Scott Allen:

You know, we have a Hispanic congregation associated with our church and we've worship. You know, we have a Hispanic congregation associated with our church and we've thought, you know, it should be nice if we all just worship together. Why don't we have Hispanic and white churches together? And it never did work out. Not because there's any kind of racial animosity there at all we all, you know. But the Hispanic church, you know, they like to have two or three hour long services and the white people don't want that, right, you know. So there's nothing wrong with that and I think we can just accommodate. You know these differences, but at the same time, it's good to check our hearts too right. Is there some kind of level of racism? And I think in some ways that does get to the next question I want to ask you guys is what is racism? Define it for us. And again, it's not a word. I don't think you see the word racism in the Bible, but you see the idea. If you could just comment on that a little bit.

Monique Duson:

Yeah.

Scott Allen:

I'm not sure. I'll just leave it up to you guys. Who wants to respond?

Monique Duson:

I want to go back actually to your comment about you know racism might not be at play or you know we do need to check our hearts for racism. A lot of times it racism isn't at play, it's just a simple overlooking. But people will will be deemed racist. If you're in a predominantly white, you know space, and when there's not a lot of diversity, it's not that, you know, we don't like blacks or we don't like, you know, hispanic people or things like that. It's just that we are comfortable doing what we do. We just do what we do. We come to church, we show up, we're not going to treat anybody different, but we're just doing what we do, and I think that is part, you know, sadly, that's part of why people say, well, it's systemic, because people just do what they do. Well, that's not actually it. Just like the black church just does what they do. No one is, you know, thinking about. Oh, you know, our neighborhood's changed. How are we?

Monique Duson:

going to start to reflect that to be more quote, unquote, inclusive or inviting to others. It doesn't have anything to do with racism. You want to define racism, sure.

Krista Bontrager:

I can. Yeah, it's, it's a. Let's start with the Bible, let's start with you know the biblical definition, and then we can go out, I'll tap into culture.

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, so I wrote the chapter on. You know what is racism and just giving some of the basics of that From a biblical point of view, I would say that racism is some combination of several sins. There can be an aspect of holding hate in our hearts toward a particular person or group. Now, if that's targeted toward a particular ethnic group or people of a certain skin color, you know that could be. You know, like it says in 1 John, that we have harbored hate in our hearts toward someone else, toward a brother or sister in the Lord, that could be one aspect of it. Another aspect of it could be using our words verbally to curse one another, as it says in the book of James. It talks about how curses and worship of the Lord should not come from the same mouth, because you know we're cursing our fellow humans who are created in the image of God. So if we are using racial slurs that would be an example of that could be an aspect of racism.

Krista Bontrager:

Another sin that may be in play is that of idolatry, of looking at racial idolatry of I value my race over another race and it's so important to me it's almost like the first thing that I think about myself and my pride and, you know, putting my culture out there, pride in my culture as the first thing, and denigrating others.

Krista Bontrager:

So those are just some of the sins that may be in play on the issue of racism.

Krista Bontrager:

Partiality could be another one of I show partiality or favoritism toward one race, or I show negative partiality or avoidance of another group of people. So some combination of those sins, I think, is a more biblical way of thinking about the issue of racism, and these matters start in the heart, but they can be manifest through our behaviors. Another important point, from a biblical standpoint I would say, is that we go against the idea that some ethnic groups cannot be racist simply because of their skin color. We say racism is an equal opportunity sin. So it's for all the people of all ethnicities and all cultures can participate in the sin of racism in some way or another. So it's a call for all of us to check ourselves and check our hearts and check our behaviors, so that, for us, is a more biblical approach to the conversation, very different, though, than what our culture is wanting to call racism and getting into systemic issues, and that's kind of more of what Monique writes about in her chapter.

Monique Duson:

So when we look at racism just the word. You know racism what most people think, especially people who are Gen X or boomer generation or before they're going to, and probably early Gen X, not the later Gen X closer to the millennials. But when you think about racism, you're thinking about, like the person who uses racial slurs, or the person who belongs to the KKK or a person who would you know, wear a swastika patch or something like that. Like that's racism. It is what this person does Today, racism, and it actually changed. This definition of racism changed in the 1970s through a small book that a woman named Patricia Biddle Padva wrote in around 1972, 75.

Darrow Miller:

Sounds like a young woman.

Monique Duson:

Where she changed the definition. She worded it as prejudice plus power, so holding a prejudice in my heart but also having an institutional power to create impact on someone's life. And so because minorities do not hold the institutional power within the structures of America we are not largely you know the CEOs or Fortune 500, you know company presidents and you know things like that we are seen as having less institutional power. Because of that, we cannot be racist. I might be prejudiced, but I may not be racist. And so racism today is less about the prejudice that I hold in my heart and those individualized actions that I may do. It is more about having the prejudice coupled with the power. Because white people hold the power within our society, they are seen as always having the the possibility of being racist, and always actually not just possibility, but always participating in racism.

Darrow Miller:

so it's prejudice plus power yeah, yeah, may I observe that in listening to both of you and this goes back to what you said a few minutes ago, monique we're all part. There's only one race, the human race. And even to use the word race is putting a category out there that doesn't really exist, is putting a category out there that doesn't really exist. And if we believe that we're all of one blood, we all have the same first parents. We are all of one human race. If that's what defines us, then what I'm hearing from you and I think you both are doing this well what I'm hearing from, you and I think you both are doing this well is you were reducing the word race.

Monique Duson:

Yeah, there is truly just one human race. I think we both believe this, that it would do us well to move away from the word race and to be able to talk about ethnicities or nationalities or cultures. Unfortunately, the word race is so prevalently used in our culture that you know it's a very quick, shorthand way to help someone understand exactly what we're talking about, but really, you know it's a social fiction out, but really, you know, it's a social fiction.

Darrow Miller:

No, it is, and I think the way you guys have talked about this the last few minutes is illustrative of that and I take my hat off and commend you and would go as far as you have, or maybe furtherique, to say that we shouldn't use the word race, because just to use the word is to give power to that idea and you know, I don't think it's a biblical concept. The biblical concept we have one blood, one human race, and that's, if we can get away from even using the word even though a lot of other people do we can create a space for having the discussion without using that word.

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, I agree. We've tried to use it less and less over the years.

Darrow Miller:

Oh, I could tell just by listening to you.

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, and it's hard. Sometimes you want to take that little shortcut and say, like you know, this is what we're talking about, but we have moved further and further away from it because we want our language to be more and more closely aligned with biblical language.

Darrow Miller:

Yes.

Krista Bontrager:

And so part of the project of our sanctification or renewing our mind means that we happen to believe that Christians should think differently than the world and also talk differently than the world.

Scott Allen:

But too often we are very busy borrowing the language from the culture and bringing that into the church and the idea you know behind that too, like you were saying, with racism, monique, you just described how racism has been redefined prejudice plus power. You've got a whole group of people now I mean almost a majority that believe that Christian and non-Christian and a lot of whites feel a lot of guilt about that just by being white. You know I'm somehow racist just by virtue of the fact that my skin color is white. So I like what you were even saying earlier, krista, about you know, instead of using the word racism we're talking about, the Bible talks about other things. It lists other sins preference or not preference.

Monique Duson:

Partiality.

Scott Allen:

Partiality, partiality, idolatry, harboring hatred towards a brother or sister those are specific sins. And if you use the word racism, it's tricky now because it's been as you say. It's tricky now because it's been as you say. It's been redefined in the culture, so even that word is a really difficult word to use now. So I think it's better to use the specific sins you know and we can judge ourselves. Am I struggling with those specific sins and not feel this burden of guilt? You write about that too. Maybe I can jump to that question about a lot of white people bearing a sense of guilt about slavery, the reality of slavery and racial injustice in America. And you know, even today there's calls to repent. You know we've got to repent over those sins. Do I need to bear guilt as a white person for things that other white people did, maybe you know, several generations ago? What does the Bible have to say about that?

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, again, that's a chapter I wrote.

Monique Duson:

I feel like I'm genuinely going to take the lead here. I don't know what I wrote.

Scott Allen:

Well, we can talk about chapter. I didn't know who wrote which chapter, I guess, or I didn't reference that I'm sorry.

Monique Duson:

No, that's okay, I didn't know who wrote which chapter.

Scott Allen:

I guess or I didn't reference that. I'm sorry. No, that's okay, I'll start off and then.

Krista Bontrager:

Monique can jump in, I mean.

Krista Bontrager:

I think that this was for me probably the hardest issue that Monique and I talked about. It led to, I think, quite possibly the worst fight that we ever had, and it lasted many days and I just was confused, fed up, angry, frustrated all of the emotions all at once and I just didn't want to talk about this anymore. And I tell the story in the book of you know what happened to me on a live stream when this issue came up. And so it's a tough issue because I think that you know, obviously we think that the form of slavery that our country participated in was horrible, and you know, kidnapping people, forcing them into forced servitude, is a horrible idea. But here again we need to use biblical language of that. It's a sinful issue in particular, which I think that the Old Testament law has enduring, timeless, transcultural principles in it for how to order our lives and express righteousness. And you know there's two sins in particular that I think are underneath the American form of slavery. One of them is man snatching, is kidnapping, and then the other one is forcing people into a work situation where there is not a contract of mutual consent but it's forced labor. These are deeply sinful ideas. These are what God calls wicked things endorsed, co-signed, allowed these sins to be pervasive and even protected them in some cases in our laws, in our national practices, in some cases in law enforcement.

Krista Bontrager:

And we can have all of those historical conversations, but we also need to understand that slavery is endemic to the fall. There is something about us as sinful people that we want to rule and control other people, and it has been the pervasive practice in human history that when one people conquers another people, slavery will follow. This is part of what it means to be in a sinful human condition. There is still slave trading today. So this is not a uniquely white problem. This is not a uniquely European problem. This is a human problem, this is a sin problem.

Krista Bontrager:

And so if we're going to have the whole conversation about slavery, monique and I are always like all right, let's have the whole conversation. Because even in our American context there were some. This is minority, but we have to recognize, if we're going to have a real conversation about history, that there were black people who owned other black people. There were indigenous people who owned black people as slaves. So let's have the whole conversation. So we can feel bad, we can feel sad, we can regret things that our country or people did on that issue, but the question is, what do we do about it now?

Krista Bontrager:

And I think, if we're going to talk about now, one thing we as Christians can do is fight back against slavery that's still happening in other parts of the world. This is one of the reasons why Monique and I talk about things like human trafficking as a current justice issue, but we also have to talk about, you know, to talk about. You know, what do we have to do? To focus on what's happening now? Because if all the conversation is about the past, you get into like the Olympics of what culture, what nation was more victimized by another culture or nation? That's never going to get us to the place where we need to be. Rather, we need to focus on seeing one another as brothers and sisters first, and that that is our first identity, and thinking about what are the justice issues today that we need to fight against.

Monique Duson:

I don't know if you want to add anything to that California is talking about reparations and repentance, up to you know, like a million or more for black individuals between us. If they do, I'll give you all a little piece. Thank you, I'll take it.

Scott Allen:

But you guys haven't totally answered the question. I guess I was asking which is a lot of the guilt issue. You know, the more you know do I bear actual guilt, sin guilt for what's happened in the past because of skin color?

Monique Duson:

Yeah, I can. I can answer that. I just had this conversation with a group of teenagers yesterday. I would ask the question of well, where do we see this idea in scripture where someone who is generations removed from a sin you know, a sin that they did not participate in can be held responsible or guilty by people who are generations removed from an ill that was never perpetrated against them? We don't have a framework for that Now. We do see, you know, maybe it's Nehemiah who's repenting for the sins and the people who have gone before him, but his group was still participating in those sins. Today, slavery has ended and white people are no longer holding black people in slavery. We fought a war for that, you know, we've passed laws against that, and so you know it comes to ask the question of are you guilty? What do you do with the people who came through Ellis Island, who have no contribution to slavery at all in America, who have no contribution to slavery at all in America? You know, where do we see this idea biblically of guilt by skin color?

Krista Bontrager:

It's sort of this appropriating a sin. You know that we're going to appropriate the sins of previous generations. There's really no biblical precedent for restitution. Now, restitution is a deeply biblical idea, but it's between. All of the examples of it in scripture are between the parties involved, the wrongdoer and the wronged, but we don't see five generations removed of restitution. And so I would say it seems like in god's economy there is a place for the sins of a particular generation, their response, that person and that generation is responsible for those sins. Once you get past that, um, god's forgiveness and you know there's just sort of a moving forward, and especially for and I think that's the great hope of Christianity, you know is that we're not participating according to the world's version of things, they're moral code. When we get into the Christian, in Christianity we're different than the world and in our worldview we're brothers and sisters first. Now we're family.

Monique Duson:

I would say, a better question to ask if you are white, struggling with white guilt, is what do I have to do to be free, like what has already been done, and what must I do to be free from this feeling of guilt? Or is this feeling of guilt because? Or or is this feeling of guilt even appropriate and accurate? You know, like what? What is holding you back?

Monique Duson:

If Christ has accomplished all that he has accomplished on the cross, why are you still walking in the guilt and the shame of something that you actually didn't participate in at all? What lie are you possibly believing? How has the enemy played or wreaked havoc with your mind? That you are still in this conversation? That would, to me, be a different question to ask, because truly, there is no white person alive today that has enslaved anyone. Now, if the Holy Spirit, you can maybe you pray, and the Holy Spirit is, you know, bringing to your mind the reality, the potential reality, that you live in a slave holding line. So your great, great, great grandparents were slave holders and you have all of this wealth seemingly because of the enslavement of black people. Okay, so get into a conversation with the lord about, you know, is there something that he wants you to do with that, like I, I have no idea. What I would say personally is that this idea that white people must now all be responsible and bear the guilt and the shame of slavery generations later, it's a cultural idea, it's not a Christian idea.

Scott Allen:

Guilt feelings and real moral guilt.

Darrow Miller:

And you can feel guilt for something that you have no real moral guilt over. And that, I think, is what you were alluding to when you used that phrase guilt feelings because slavery is real. There's real moral guilt there for the people who enacted it, who lived on the basis of that, and some of those had guilt feelings and some of them had no guilt feelings, but they were still guilty. But for people today, they may feel guilty but do not have real moral guilt over that issue. Yeah, so I think that's a helpful distinction.

Monique Duson:

I also think that you know we can talk about just the sadness of sin, you know, and the deep grief that comes along with sin. So our nation participated in something that was horrible and our nation has participated in many things that have been horrible to many people. You know, slavery isn't the biggest sin on the planet, like that's not the highest sin in the hierarchies of sin. You know my heart can grieve that our nation thought that it was a virtue to enslave, you know, certain people because of skin color. Now, before the skin color thing became law, white people were also enslaved or served as indentured servants.

Monique Duson:

But you know I can look at Japanese internment camps. I can look at, you know, dutch people or Germans, or you know I can look at just the nation, our nation and how we have participated with people, and my heart can be grieved and I can feel sad because we understand the reality of sin. But that doesn't mean that our nation inherently is racist because it's treated certain people certain ways. What it means is that inherently our nation was founded by sinners and sinners have continuously lived in our nation. No one has lived in our nation perfectly and so with that there's something that just can, you know, prick my heart about that and I can feel sad about that. But what I don't need to do is live in a guilt simply because of my skin color.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, that's really helpful. You guys, I think the new racial movement you know, if I could call it that really isn't interested in racial reconciliation. In fact I remember it wasn't Ibram Kendi, it was Ta-Nehisi Coates once said you know, no, there's nothing. Essentially, it was like what would it take for white people to kind of what would they have to do to balance the scales of justice for the injustices that have been committed against blacks in the United States? And his answer essentially, just, you know, is there's nothing that they can do. You know no amount of money, no, no, no, nothing, you know, there's nothing that they can do. You know no amount of money, no, nothing, you know.

Scott Allen:

And I thought, if that's your you know he's not a Christian, but I thought if that's your worldview, then there is no hope for, you know, reconciliation. It's just going to be endless conflict. And I thought this new I mean that's in a nutshell, my view of this new kind of discussion on raises it's just going down this road of endless conflict. You guys are going down a different road, a biblical road where there's hope for unity and reconciliation. And I know we're running a little low on time, but this is in some ways the heart of your book and your ministry. I'd like you to just comment on that. How is what you guys are putting forward different than doing the work let's say that Ibram X Kendi wants you to do, you know, in his famous program of anti-racism? You know what's different that you guys are putting forward.

Monique Duson:

I was asked this question yesterday. You know how a young person. He was 17, and he asked the question can't we just pay reparations so that we get to the place where African-Americans will say, like, we're good now, like thank you and let's move on.

Scott Allen:

Scales are balanced.

Monique Duson:

Yes, and it was so sad to crush his heart because I said, no, no, we will never get to that point because there's never enough. So if you read Ibram Kendi's book how to Be an Anti-Racist, there is always a work that needs to be done. Ibram Kendi's goal is to get us to a place of utopia, work that he is requiring us to do. Number one some of that work is based in sin. I would say a lot of that work is based in sin and who we must advocate for, and all of that but. Two, it's a continual work in order to bring us to this place of righteousness. Basically, but we aren't that good. We can never do enough work to get us to the place where there won't possibly be racism.

Scott Allen:

It's a works-based religion isn't it?

Monique Duson:

I mean we're talking about justification.

Scott Allen:

It's really an alternative.

Monique Duson:

It is, but there's no way that any of us can do enough. We can never like his book as well as it's done. You know, in sales really is of a stature where we can't accomplish that. I can never be that good where I am always because for Ibram Kendi, there is no not racist. You are either racist or you are being anti-racist, and the way to eliminate racism is for all people to always be anti-racist. And so we're always advocating for anti-racist policies, we're always speaking out, we're always, always, always, consistently and perfectly doing these things. We aren't that good. We need a savior for that, and that is why Jesus had to step in, because, no matter how many sacrifices I made, no matter how much blood was spilled, no matter how well I abided by the law, I still was an imperfect vessel. And this is where the conversation breaks down. Is that we are imperfect vessels striving for perfection that we will never attain?

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, I think that what people have to understand is what we're putting forward is almost. I think maybe a follow-up to this book would be. You know this conversation as a conversation of evangelism. I think people are weary and feel hopeless that there is never going to be enough appeasement to get to a place of racial peacefulness. What we have to understand is that we're putting forward a different worldview. Christianity is a different, an entirely different approach that says God did everything necessary to make cultural enemies into family and that that is our starting point. And so if we do not understand that this is a different approach, this is a different worldview than what the world is offering. This is not some syncretistic hybrid view of a little bit of anti-racism sprinkled with Jesus on top. That's not what we're putting forward. We're saying this is an entirely different approach, mindset framework, paradigm, whatever you want to call it, than what the world is offering.

Monique Duson:

Another thing is that what we've just been talking about in your question and in Krista's wording and the young man that I spoke with yesterday, it's this can't we just do something? Like, can't we just give them something to appease, to make right, to make people feel better? Well, what does that do for me as the black person? Like, truly, if there was something that I thought white people needed to repent for, instead of just offering me this, you know, this peace offering here that'll make you feel like I don't, we don't need something, that'll just make us feel better. That is that is. It's so infantilizing in a way. Like, well, here, let me just give you your pacifier, but that's what culture is putting forward. But that's what culture is putting forward. Continue to give me my pacifier to the degree that every time you give me something well, I can ask for something else. No, from a cultural position, we need to be big enough to say no, I'm not going to do that In the church.

Monique Duson:

I think there's a whole different solution that Krista's talking about. It's a different worldview. But if we're just thinking in our culture, we have to be able to understand that wrongs happen, people get hurt, and yet we still have to continue on. No one is going to sit here on the sidelines continuing to spoon feed you or to give you bigger and better pacifiers until you stop crying. What world do we live in, where that is a thing?

Scott Allen:

Yeah, guys really well said, by the way we're talking about Monique and Krista's new book Walk in Unity Biblical Answers to Questions on Race and Racism. You need to buy this book, you need to pre-order it. I really urge people. All Christians need to read this book because we you talked about worldviews, krista you know we've got evangelicals, have got a lot of these assumptions. We've mixed up our assumptions with this.

Scott Allen:

You were talking earlier about Ibram X Kendi's his worldview, his approach to anti-racism. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the utopia that he's looking for, this kind of utopia of perfect equality in the sense of equality of outcomes, right? There's no disparities between blacks and whites, right? And that where there are disparities, that's a sign that racism still is abounding, right? That assumption, just that one alone isn't a biblical assumption, right? Assumption just that one alone isn't a biblical assumption, right? I mean, is the goal, is the kind of the ultimate goal of Christianity to eliminate all disparities between all different kinds of people? I don't think so. Talk a little bit about that. I mean, that's just one example of where these are different worldview assumptions, but we brought those in as Christians far too often to our own thinking.

Krista Bontrager:

Yeah, I think that we've been very conditioned by the culture, discipled by the culture, to think that disparities is an alert to an injustice. Now, it might be, it could be, it could be and this is one of the things that we talk about in the book is that we need to investigate, and there are times when disparities do indicate an injustice.

Krista Bontrager:

Yes, they can, but things need to be investigated. The scriptural principle is that truth must be established through multiple lines of evidence. We don't just notice a disparity and then jump to therefore injustice or therefore racism.

Krista Bontrager:

That's not the biblical precedent. Investigation is, but that requires care and patience and sometimes gathering data, and that takes time and asking hard questions and all of that. But I think that nobody's asking about disparities. In the NBA, you know there's African-Americans make up approximately 13 to 14 percent of the population. If we just break it down to adult men, you know that's maybe about four or five percent of the total population, and yet they make up a huge percentage of the NBA. Well, where's the equity for people like me? I'm 5'4" or I'm 5 feet tall, so you're not 5'4" no.

Krista Bontrager:

I'm 5 feet tall. I'm a little over middle age. Now Where's the equity for people like me? But nobody's saying, hey, that's an injustice, so this is a high. You know, we have to wrestle through the difference between a disparity and an injustice.

Monique Duson:

And I would say likewise nobody has said that the National Hockey League is racist. And you know, I'm wondering why. Because there are a lot of white people who play hockey. You're not going to find me, or a lot of black people. I mean, you get some. I'm not trying to say that we're a monolith, but you will get some people who play hockey. But I mean, really, like, let me go on the ice in these thin little blades, like, let me, let me blade on like knife points and shoot a puck around, like, to me that makes no sense. People who, like you, do you that's okay, but by and large, like that's not the sport that we play. The sports teams are very merit-based, so to speak. Like you need to be able to show that you deserve to be there.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, and this is I mean, this is, yeah, merit is. I think that has to do with the biblical view of what it means to be a human being, doesn't it? You know, god endows us with gifts and with that comes a responsibility to do something with those gifts, and not everyone's going to treat that the same way. You know, there's that famous parable in the scriptures, you know, the parable of the talents, right, and you know you've got God saying here, you know, essentially here's, I'm going to give you some talents and some gifts. You've got to invest that until I return, and then I'm going to look for what you did with that, you know, and the outcomes are going to be different depending on how we, you know, treated that. So this idea that every, you know everything has to work out equitably at the end isn't a biblical idea, but we've somehow incorporated that into our thinking, as many Christians have.

Monique Duson:

I think one. What you're talking about is human autonomy. We have autonomy, but also, because we have autonomy when we think about the cross, like, yes, the footing is equal and even God is not, you know, sitting up high looking at the blacks better than he looks at the whites, or vice versa, or things like that. But also equity allows, you know, or a biblical idea of equity would allow, for those who are going to come and who want to come, who choose to come to the cross, to come. Everybody's not making it to the cross. We see that in scripture.

Monique Duson:

And so the idea that we need to have an equal amount of people who are accountants, you know, equal black, equal white, equal Asian, an equal amount of people who are doctors. We don't see that. We see disparity in nature. We see different trees, we see, you know, just differences in nature. So why would we think that we would all need to end up at the same place? We do have and I am a proponent of equality, of of um, what's the opportunity? That's the word I'm looking for, yes, so don't, don't hold me back because of the color of my skin, don't tell me I can't participate because of the color of my skin. But don't tell me that we must all get somewhere just because of the color of my skin.

Scott Allen:

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely Again. The book Walking Unity Biblical Answers to Questions on Race and Racism. Guys, as we wrap this up, any final thoughts that you would like to share about the book or why you would like to encourage people to read it? Maybe I could hear from both of you guys on that.

Krista Bontrager:

I think from my perspective, I really hope people will check it out and read it just to feel like there's a more hopeful possibility available than what the world is offering. What the world is offering in terms of racial unity is never going to get us to unity. It will only lead to more breaking of more commandments. It's only going to lead to more coveting and more difficulty and more dissension, and that's not the way that God wants his people to live. And then what we're trying to lay out is a completely different approach to the issue. Now, we don't answer every single question. This is not a book about critical race theory. Race theory. This is really just trying to make the positive case for a more biblical approach to issues of race, racism and culture, and I'm sure that maybe in future books, if God blesses us with that, we'll continue to build out the model. But we are really trying to put forward a start of a different conversation about race.

Monique Duson:

I would say that I think people should read the book, and I hope that people do order, pre-order the book and read it, because I personally am so tired of seeing Christians go down into the culture and pick up little pieces of the culture and bring that into their church as if that is the best way to go. The word says that we are to be salt and we are to be light. If we are the light on a hill, I can't go down to culture and pick up pieces of their little light and bring that up onto my hill. No, we need to be the ones shining our light brightly, letting culture know hey, up here, there's a different way to do things.

Monique Duson:

In John, chapter 17, in Jesus's high priestly prayer, he says that it's our unity that will let the world know that God loves us and has sent Jesus, and so our unity actually serves a purpose. It's not for kumbaya, it's not just so that we get along and, you know, have fun at the potluck and things like that. Our unity is an evangelistic tool. We can't go down to the culture and bring that up here. That's polluting who we are. We have a distinct, unique way for doing unity, with Jesus as our foundation, and so I am hoping that people read the book so that they see this distinct, unique way that Christ has put forward, or that is being put forward because of Christ, so that they can use that as an evangelistic tool to reach the world.

Scott Allen:

Yeah, that's so good. You guys and I just want to underscore that A lot of Christians, I think they want to be doing the right thing on this issue of race and racism and they really do want to be a part of the solution, and I think that they've gone down the wrong track with that. You know, unintentionally and in the process, borrowed a lot of really unbiblical assumptions, and so this is why I really really want to encourage people to pick up this book and buy it, because this is going to get you back on track. You've got the right heart, the right intention. You want to be part of the solution, but this is actually going to lead to kind of the biblical unity, and you're right, monique, to say that that's not a small thing. That's a big biblical goal for God. You know it's the reconciliation of all things, and so this is really really important work, but you've got to be doing it based on clearly biblical assumptions and thank God that you guys are laying those out and saying here's how you build on those assumptions in a way that's really going to lead to true reconciliation. It's not just the book, it's your ministry center for biblical unity.

Scott Allen:

I want to encourage everyone to go to the website, check out the resources and the opportunities to be a part of this. So anyways, krista and Monique, thank you guys for your great work. Thanks for writing this book. It was an honor to have a small part in terms of endorsing it and just again encourage all of our listeners to go out and buy a copy and preorder a copy. So again, thanks to our listeners for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast.

Luke Allen:

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode with our friends Monique Dusson, and this is the podcast of the Disciples of Christians and Monks. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode with our friends Monique Dusson and Krista Bontrager from the Center for Biblical Unity. If you'd like to pre-order the book Walk in Unity right now, head to walkinunitycom Again, that is, walkinunitycom On our side. This week's episode page, which is linked in the show notes, has more information about Walk in Unity, the work that these guys are doing at the Center for Biblical Unity, and more information about my dad Scott Allen's book why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice An Urgent Appeal to Fellow Christians in a Time of Social Crisis, which was actually the book that helped us connect with Monique and Krista about four years ago.

Luke Allen:

Ideas have Consequences is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance, which, if you're new, is a ministry that has worked around the world for the last 27 years, helping over a million people in over 90 nations grasp the transformative power of a biblical worldview. If you'd like to learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, facebook and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciplenationsorg. Thanks again for joining us. Please share this show with a friend or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening, and we hope that you'll be able to join us here next week. On Ideas have Consequences, you.