Hello, and welcome to next on WQLN, I'm your host, Marcus Atkinson, you get an opportunity to go to our page on Facebook and like our page.

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Next, lend your voice to the dialog into the debate.

Today is a very special way of honoring Black History Month I know oftentimes we hear people go after things like historic figures in U.S. history.

Maybe there's something that that makes mention of slavery.

I wanted to go back even further where black history was concerned.

My church has been going through a book every week for the month of February, entitled The Bible is Black History, and this body of this book does a masterful job of just outlining not only the ethnic backgrounds of many of the people from the Bible that we've become familiar with, but it also does a great job of debunking some of the myths that we've been fed from various institutions and various churches throughout this country.

It goes after some of the myths that exist where the Bible is concerned about ethnicity overall.

My church found it extremely enlightening, and so one of the things that we wanted to do was bring the writer of this wonderful book onto our show here for WUOM in order to enlighten the audience and share the information that we've had an opportunity to sit down and unpack together for these last few weeks.

And so I'd like to welcome the author of the Bible is Black History, Dr. Thayer and Dee Williams.

Dr. Williams, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Marcus, thank you for having me, man, I appreciate it.

Yes, sir, and I want to give his exact title.

He is the founder and president of the Bible is Black History Institute LLC.

He is also the pastor of Mount Carmel Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

So I want to start with first things first, because as I read the book, in the beginning, I have a 30 year old son and a 2829 year old daughter now and a 22 year old daughter.

When the conversation about this comes up, it was interesting when I read about your experience with millennials that your church because I heard so much of my adult children in that dialog enlightened the listeners as to the impetus behind you writing this book in the first place with this conversation with millennials that your church.

Yeah.

The thank you markets several years ago.

We were experiencing a mass defection of younger people from our church, and I thought that it was unique to Mount Carmel in Indianapolis and I was trying to figure out what the heck is going on historically.

Of course, I've been at my church for 35 years, so I've seen a lot of trends taking place in our church historically.

Earlier on in my ministry, at that church, when young people would leave to go to college, many of them who decided to return to Indianapolis would come back to their church and they would come back serving and offering themselves and trying to pull the generation behind them along.

But then I started discovering that even when they did return to the city, they were not returning to the church.

And with that, there were those who decided to go to school in Indianapolis.

They were defecting from the church as well.

And those who didn't.

Go to college but decided to enter the workforce after high school.

They were defecting from the church.

So we had a whole range of young people.

Leaving the church, and I was concerned because I thought perhaps it was something that I had done.

Maybe they had some misgivings or.

Had become apprehensive about the direction of the church and the leadership of the church, and so I called them together.

You know, I sent out letters and my personal telephone calls so that we can have a conversation and most of them responded.

And so we had all of these young.

People at our church.

one Thursday night, just to have a conversation as to why they had left the church and come to find out that it had nothing to do with me personally, they still respected me.

That's why they came to the meeting, because they did want to talk about it.

And the problem that they were having is.

They were getting information.

From the internet.

A lot of misinformation concerning and it caused them to question the.

The efficacy of the.

Black.

Church.

They were arguing that the black church is not what it used to be.

And perhaps it has outlived this purpose.

They were arguing.

The the authenticity of the Bible with you, that the Bible is a white man's book and it was use is designed to oppress black people during the slave era that master obey your slave, that slave, obey your master, pass it and all of that.

But they argued that that was used to make this slav docile and complicit, compliant to white domination.

So they wondered, Why are you continuing to rely on this book when it has been used as a tool of oppression?

And then thirdly, they even begin to question the historicity of Jesus.

You know.

They said there is no.

Jesus.

Jesus is an invention of the Roman government, and that invention is designed to keep oppressed people at the bottom.

And the problem that I saw is that they got this misinformation off the internet and then they circulated it on their social media platforms And you know, the social media.

Platforms have algorithms, and when they look at the algorithms.

Everybody who think.

Alike or give a like or a thumbs up or engage a particular conversation, all.

Of them are grouped together.

So there was literally a virtual community of young people circulating this misinformation.

That they have gotten off of the internet.

And so I'm sitting there in the midst of all of this.

And I say to them, I'm going to ask you to do me a favor.

Will you give me four weeks?

So that I can conduct a Bible.

Study with you to address the issues.

That you've just pointed out here tonight in this meeting, and they say fine.

And they attended the Bible study for four weeks that four weeks mark has turned into nine months.

Mm hmm.

And at the end of nine months.

Many of them were.

Convinced.

Some of them worked.

You know, they left the church and never returned.

Many of them were convinced.

And they repented and came back to the church.

Some were convinced, but they never did return to the church.

So it was a mixed, a mixed reception to the to the information.

But all of them appreciate the information.

And they asked me, You know, this information is too rich to be kept in our church.

Can you.

Put it together in book.

Form?

Right?

And I did.

You know, I went to Kindle KDP and put it together in book form, and it was just for my church and their friends who had who they had been.

Share this information with.

That's all.

That's all I wanted it to do.

And when that book was published, I went online to check it out.

It was the number one new release and then it moved up to a Level one bestseller.

Then I started giving all of these calls from.

The black Hebrew.

Israelites because they started some other way over time about about.

Let me go back.

And relook at this and redo a second edition because of all of the attention that it was getting.

And I knew that I had to put my best foot forward as a scholar because I didn't know the book was going to do this.

So I read the the second edition, which is probably the addition that you have, at least, I hope.

And so that's how that's how it got started.

So I want to go back to just the human reaction to the reaction of your children, the children from your church, the youth of your church.

You know, this is a raging debate going on in the country in all types of churches is the service for the church to the unchurched and we get into a rhythm where the service becomes the type of service the church folk are accustomed to.

And for other churches and they wrestle with how much are we doing to reach people who haven't really come to know Jesus or the Bible?

And so the moment that you realized you had this large contingent?

Of members of your church feeling this way.

What did that conversation sound like to whomever you went to after be it a spouse or other pastors?

What did that conversation sound like once you got to the bottom of this apathy or this defection?

Well.

Again, I thought it was unique to Mount Carmel.

But then I started.

Talking to pastors around the country and they're experiencing the same thing, right?

And then I'm thinking, OK, well, this is universal.

This is across the board.

You know?

And there were also.

The mass defections that I lear From white congregations.

But the defection from white Catholic congregations were different in nature.

For the black church.

And so we started having this conversation, and many of my colleagues say that we need to relook at this, we need to investigate this so that we can get this information.

At least.

It can help address some of the issues.

That was causing that effect, since at least the defections of the.

Young people from.

The Mount Carmel Church.

So when you said you didn't put your best foot forward as a scholar, say more about that.

Give us the exact things or some an idea of the type of commentary that made you feel like, you know what?

I should have gone deeper.

Let me go back in and rework some things.

What does that look like?

I was invited to do lectures around the country.

And as I would go to these lectures, I would get a lot of questions from the people in the audience that I had not addressed, that I did not go deep enough in the first edition.

And there was some scholarship questions, some scholarship issues that I did not fully pursue that I did that put my best foot forward as a, as a writer, as a scholar And so when I took all of that into consideration, I said, you know, a second edition is meaningful for this so that I can go more in-depth into some of the questions that the audience had and some of the comments that I was giving on my or my, my page, my website or getting comments from people and people.

Who have read the book would.

Make comments in.

On the website about the book, and so I took all of that in consideration.

Some people were scathing about it.

Some people really dogged it out and talk bad about it.

But that's OK because some of the stuff that they were saying about the book was true, even though it was couched in hateful and angry language.

It was still true.

So I took all of that.

Stuff and put it all together, and I say, Let me do this, tighten the thing up, make it a bit more scholarly.

Site more credible sources.

Write us to make this more believable and more acceptable.

Obviously, this is a book best seller of all time, all the time, right?

And so it's something that is hotly contested even within the ranks of traditional Christianity, let alone people that are not following that belief system or people that have their own type of spiritual belief system.

Let's go back to the beginning because even from a scientific standpoint, the Bible and its genesis is an African slash Ethiopian story.

Unpack that for the listener, please.

Well.

first of all, one of the things that I argue is the.

Location of Palestine.

When you look at a map, it's clear, irrefutable that Palestine is.

Located on the furthest northeast.

Corner of Africa.

It is literally connected to Egypt.

Now, when you look at that and you look at the definition of a continent.

The definition of a continent is a contiguous.

Landmass, one of the seven large contiguous land masses on Earth that surrounded by two or more water expanses, major water expenses.

And if you look at it at the North America where we live you know the landmass.

Consists of Canada, the United States and Mexico.

That's North America.

And is surrounded by at least four major.

Water expanses.

Including the Atlantic.

The the Pacific, the Caribbean and up north is the what is it the Antarctic made toward its matches?

You look at Africa, it's a contiguous landmass that is.

I can access any point of Africa by foot without having to cross a major water expanse, for example, on the continent of North America, I can start at the furthest most point in Canada and start walking south and not have to cross a major water expanse until I get to the southernmost point of Mexico.

I can get around barefoot in Africa.

You can start walking in South Africa and.

Start walking north and not.

Stop till you get to Morocco.

Without having to cross a major water expanse.

You can start walking in in in.

Nigeria, on the west.

Coast of Africa and start.

Walking east and not stop until you get to Israel without having to cross a major water expanse.

But now you do have to.

Cross a major water expanse.

With the.

Institution of the Suez Canal.

You know.

That's a that's separated Israel from Egypt.

But prior to the institution of the creation of the Suez Canal, you could get from Egypt to Africa to Israel on foot.

It was a part of the Egyptian peninsular, but somehow they have cut off Israel.

They've cut off Egypt, and they have created this, thi political construct, this geopolitical construct called the Middle East.

I, along I agree with Dr. King Builder.

There is no such thing as the Middle East is either Africa or it's Asia.

And when the Middle East was first started, we the name was in the late 19th early 20th century when that name Middle East first started.

It was designed to designate the land between Arabia going over east to to India.

It was a small strip that they call the Middle East.

But in time, the Middle East has grown because the people who are in charge of naming it the powers get to decide what its boundaries are.

And so the boundaries are growing.

Wider and wider.

And wider.

Man land doesn't grow.

That's why I say it is a geopolitical social construct The powers that be decide what the boundaries of the Middle East are.

But the truth of the matter is, is that Israel and Egypt are on the continent of North East Africa, being that.

That's where Christianity and Judaism emerged in Palestine.

If it emerged in Palestine and as Palestine is a part of the continent of Africa, that makes Christianity and Judaism African religions.

But we'll never hear that because we never talk about it, right?

We don't want to talk about it.

From a scientific standpoint, you cite several studies that were made in terms of trying to narrow down or pin down the ethnicity of Adam and Eve.

Talk about that a little bit for us, please.

Well.

first of all, when you look at the the description.

Of the Land of.

Eden.

According to the Genesis narrative, it talks about what is it for rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates and the two other rivers are the what are they?

Had I known you were going to talk to me about older, remember that some of the two other rivers that a book of Genesis, the deal and the thinking of the river that's in the Senate is a narrative that describe.

The location.

Of the Land of Eden.

But the land masses are important in that text as well.

To the land, masses are in Africa push and heavy land.

Now there was.

Some debate over.

Where heavy LA is located, but there is no debate about the location of Kush.

We all know that that's Ethiopia.

Avila, according to some archeological scholars, is South Africa.

Because it fits the description of the river that runs through heavy metal and heavy in the Bible is also described as a land that's.

Rich with gold.

And wood.

And with other.

Aramaic resins and other things.

That are common in South Africa.

Mm-Hmm.

And so that's one of the reasons that many archeologists and.

Other scholars.

Locate Avila.

In South.

Africa.

And so now you have the Tigris and Euphrates this upward.

Near Iraq and Iran in that area, the Tigris and Euphrates.

And so when you look at the boundaries.

Of the Land.

Of Eden as described in in the Bible, we see that Africa is embraced within those boundaries.

Now here is what's fascinating.

In 2005.

In 1987, I'm sorry, Rebecca Kan was looking for the mother.

Of modern humans.

And she traced the mitochondrial DNA women.

Everybody has mitochondrial DNA, but women are responsible for.

Passing it from one generation to the next.

So Rebecca can say that makes sense that if I'm tracing the mother of modern humans, I would trace the mitochondrial DNA.

She took DNA samples from people worldwide, and she traced it back close to 100,000 years ago near Ethiopia, near between South Africa and Ethiopia.

She excavated skull fragments.

From from bombs, that carbon dated back to the time when she argued the the mother of modern humans originally as she made skull fragments and used to see those skull fragments she had.

These scientists, forensic scientists to create buzz of what they believe the first modern humans look like.

And she concluded that the mother of modern human is a black woman.

Several years later, in 2005, Spencer Weill did the same thing, but he was looking for the father of modern human.

And he traced the Y chromosome because men have a X and a Y chromosome women I have to.

Which chromosome eight trace the Y chromosome back to East Africa, Ethiopia and discovered that the father of modern human on the Bible identifies as Adam.

The mother of modern human over the Bible identifies as Eve.

It's somewhere in East Africa, and here's the part that's.

Exciting.

Is that where it trace back the mother and father of modern humans, it is within the boundaries of the genesis of the of the Land of Eden, according.

To the Genesis narrative.

It is within those boundaries.

So that's what makes it extremely exciting to me.

Fascinating.

This needs to be a three hour interview because the book was riveting.

I read a lot of questions, but I want to go after the things that I know I've heard the most in society.

And one of the narratives that I've heard quite a few times is the narrative of Noah and his sons.

And sidebar, I thought the the conversation about Albano ism that illegal.

You make some very interesting points in there with.

That's concern.

I see that you quoted the book of Enock, which brings up a whole other conversation about what is biblical canon, what is accepted scripture, which is very fascinating, but the story of Noah and his sons Can you encapsulate that story?

Talk about the misconceptions or the flat out lies with Noah and his sons are concerned.

And give us a snapshot of what truth looks like, according to your research on this topic.

OK, well, first of all, let me let me address.

Briefly.

The use of the Book of Impact.

And I know Enoch is not canonize and know that, but Enoch is quoted at.

Length in the Book of Jude.

Which is the 65th book.

Of The Gambit.

Jude relies on.

Enoch.

He calls.

In at.

Length.

So if Jude uses him and we accept Jude as divinely inspired, then he legitimizes Enoch, right?

You know, he doesn't make it work.

Canonized.

Is not a part of the canon, but he legitimizes it as a credible source.

And so I use l'Arc in my development.

Of my theory about.

About.

Noah and his son.

Dr.

But anyway, if I can interrupt you for just two seconds on that point for the listener, if you are unfamiliar with the book of Enock, this is a book that many scholars, many even laypeople are starting to read, and it's being quoted more and more often.

And you use the term legitimize the legitimacy of the Book of Enock is something that is also of great debate if you haven't had a chance to read it.

I encourage you to do so.

You don't have to agree with it.

It's not so that you can accept it per se, but it is an eye opening read for those that ascribe to the truth of the Bible.

Go ahead, Dr Williams.

Yeah.

So the whole lie to justify white.

Supremacy.

Is that, you know, the.

Story of of of Noah, how Noah.

Got drunk.

He went to sleep and his.

two.

Oldest, his youngest son Hamm, came in, saw him naked and.

Whatever happened because when.

Noah woke up out of his drunken stupor, the Texas, when.

He realized what.

Hamm had done to him.

I don't know what happened to him.

I don't know what happened.

I don't know if he just looked on him.

I don't know.

The Bible does not say.

But while he was.

Drunk in.

His stupor, whatever Hamby, it looked on.

His nakedness.

I don't know what happened, but his older two brothers came and walked backwards.

And covered his father.

So since his brothers came and walked backwards with the blanket, the finch probably was just looking on his.

Father's mechanism.

Probably ridiculing.

His father's neck.

And it so.

When?

When Noah wakes up from his drunken stupor, he curses.

According to.

White evangelicals eat cursus ham.

To be the servant of his brother's right, which legitimized oppression of all black people.

You know, and they call a code the names of Noah's son.

They say, how means dark, hot or black?

Shem means brown or dusty.

And, Jake, that means white, right?

You know that that's how they color-coded.

But that's illogical.

Number one, because they all have the same.

Parents, all three boys.

You have ham.

Who they color-coded with his name, meaning black.

But the word harm actually means.

Father of a multitude.

The name shell means famous.

Or popular the name.

That means that his boundaries may expand.

See, here's the problem.

When we first meet Abraham, his name is not Abraham, is Abraham, right, which means exalted father when Abraham discovers that he's going to be the father of the multitude.

The name Ham is added as a suffix.

Now, his name means the exalted father of a multitude.

So the name ham means father of a multitude.

It doesn't mean black.

And there are people who push back against that and and insist that the name ham means black, and I said, OK, if the name here means black, then Abraham naming black father, black exalted father.

They say no.

Islam means the father of the exalted father of a multitude.

I said, Well, the name Hamm doesn't mean black, right?

It means the father of a multitude.

You can't have it both ways, you know.

So.

And plus, Noah did not cause harm.

Noah first came in.

Never said anything about a curse hand, but encouraged aim, and now when you understand the Bible as literature, just reading it, that's literature.

You will find that the Genesis writer.

Was setting came up.

To be dominated to justify the Israelite domination of the Land of Cayman.

You know.

Because.

Hamas, three Hamas, four sons.

Yes, he had three sons came in.

He has miserably.

He has Kush and he has the father of Libya.

He has four sons.

Is not the only one.

But Kanan is the only one that was coerced because later on, we're going to see the brutal slaughter of the canaanites.

By the Israelites.

So now when the reader is reading it, he is saying, OK, their domination is justified because of the curse of Kanan.

It had nothing to do.

With white justification of dominating all black people, right, that's understanding the Bible from a white evangelical hermeneutic.

Which is basically designed to justify white supremacy.

Mm-Hmm So the question is what I challenge people.

On.

Is change your biblical hermeneutic.

Change how you understand the Bible.

And read the Bible for what it is and not with the lenses of white evangelical hermeneutics.

So obviously one of the most contentious parts of discussions like this is the ethnicity of Jesus.

And when you start that conversation, the question that you hear when you start to peel the layers back is what difference does it make What color his skin tone was?

What difference does it make?

Speak to that for a minute, because I saw on an interview you discussing that very point, and it's the go to whenever you do start to have a learned discussion about what Jesus actually looked like.

Well, first of all, truth should always matter.

Is this truth should always matter?

And the truth is.

When you consider the the color of Christ, the earliest church, we don't know of any.

Depictions of Jesus before the third century B.C., a bit before the third century A.D., we don't have.

Any known depictions.

And when the early church started depicting Jesus, it was not to capture Jesus's historical likeness, but these images.

Were designed to make theological statements.

For example, one of the hot theological.

Debates back around the third century was don't citizen.

And it challenged traditional.

Christian orthodoxy.

Because no citizen argued that Jesus was not really human but Jesus was spirit.

And his body was only a.

Projection of its flesh, but was not really flesh.

Because the dose.

It is said that.

God was too holy to come in.

Contact with something that has that is as debased as human flesh.

And so that was a doctrine that was circulating the early Christian community, and it challenged the orthodoxy of the church, which is Jesus was a human.

So many of the early churches when they invented depictions of Jesus.

It was to debunk or to refute the notion of no citizen because they argue that a ghost, a phantom or spirit cannot be captured.

In artistic renditions.

And so on the catacombs of their in their graves, on the surfaces.

Of their works of space.

They invented these.

Images of Jesus.

Not to capture.

This historical likeness.

But make to make a theological.

Statement to push back against the notion of global citizens.

Secondly.

Many of these early.

Christian community invented images of Jesus.

To.

To reflect the worshiping the ethnic makeup of the worshiping community, so many of the early depictions of Jesus were of him, of dark skin.

He was a black.

Man in these early fiction.

And that was not designed to capture his historical likeness But it was designed to reflect the worshiping community.

The ethnicity of the worshiping community so embodied in these images of Jesus was the worshiping community.

You look at this image of Jesus and you know that these what the people of that worshiping community looked like.

And so it was innocuous at the beginning when the images of Jesus begin to surface.

Now we move over into Europe.

Just like the earlier Christian communities, the Europeans invented white images of Jesus to reflect the European early Christian community, which this innocuous which is innocent.

For us, this is how Jesus look.

He is the embodiment of our European worshiping community.

They initially were not trying.

To tell us that Jesus was a white man.

But a mere reflection of the European worshiping community.

Interesting.

But what the European community had that the earlier Christian communities did not have.

They had the the Renaissance Masters.

They had Michelangelo.

They had Leonardo da Vinci.

And when those fellas started creating images of Jesus, it cemented in the minds of Europe what Jesus actually look like, so it moved from a symbolic representation of Jesus to the actual historical depiction of Jesus.

Because of the popularity of these Renaissance artists.

When the slave trade began.

White Christians, armed with this image of white Jesus used it to legitimate their supremacy over people of color because they argue that this is what God in the flesh look like, that God favored our race so much that when God decided to become flesh, it became white flesh because white flesh is the pure flesh.

And it legitimized the reality that we are at the top of the social Iraqi because God decide to use us.

And so they took this image of Jesus and used it.

two, to substantiate or to legitimize their domination of people of color.

So when they brought that white Jesus over to the Americas, that's what it was used for.

And from that point forward, it has been the image of God.

It this an enduring image, and it's not going anywhere.

And people around the world have come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ could not have looked like that Historically, based upon where he was from, based upon where he was raised.

But it continues to be the enduring image.

Omar Lord.

The salmon head was invented in 1940 the salmon hit, and when you get a chance to look up Alabama, a man named Salmon invented this image of Jesus.

We've all seen that.

In the 20th century alone, that image has been repeatedly replicated over a half a billion times.

Half a big bath.

The most replicated image in world history.

Even in 2022, if you walk in a grocery store and look on the magazine rack, you're going to see depictions of white Jesus, and we all know Jesus did look like that.

So the question becomes since we know he didn't look like that, why do we still perpetuate this lie?

Why do we still perpetuate this image of white Jesus?

You know, and it starts you to start thinking about this raised in this question.

And then when you trace this thing back, you discover back in what year was that?

What year was?

What is the name of the movie?

Hmm.

Oh, my goodness.

I can't think of the name of the movie.

It was a huge movie that that depicted.

At the end of the Civil War.

When black men had the right, oh, what's the name of it.

Was a glory.

Well, glory was when with Denzel Washington, they actually fought.

A little almost.

64th regiment.

It was the opening.

The movie came out back in the 1800s and it was first viewed in the White House.

And it was it was about the end of the Civil War.

When black men could now vote and.

Voting in.

A.

Black lieutenant governor.

In South Carolina, they had.

Congressmen and all of that.

And this movie came out.

Oh my goodness, I can't think of it, that.

This movie came out, and the movie depicted black men in power.

As savages.

Who had a thirst for raping white women.

Mm hmm.

And the Ku Klux Klan came in and saved the day.

Of the southern way.

Of right.

What's the name of it?

I would just say that they save the day.

The name of it is coming to.

We keep talking is coming.

Yes, the.

Birth of a.

Nation.

They saved the birth.

Of a nation, birth, birth of a nation.

They saved.

That's right.

And at the end of that movie.

White Jesus at the end.

Of the KKK saved the nation.

At the end of that movie, white Jesus is standing there with his hands.

Stressed out over the south.

As if he orchestrated the rebellion of the KKK.

And then he sanctioned white domination.

Of the South.

That he reinstituted then.

And from that point forward, white Jesus has become the imag the the mascot for legitimacy of white supremacy.

That's why the image of white Jesus is not going anywhere.

Any time soon.

Well, then that goes white supremacy.

And it's not going anywhere.

So that begs the question on several issues.

Go ahead, Dr. And and and so when people ask the question, what color?

What difference does his color make?

That's the difference, and I ask one person who asked me to do the lecture.

I say, well, if this color doesn't matter.

This is a white person who asked me.

If this color doesn't matter if you've been in church all of these years and you are Christian one or to take a picture of black.

Jesus.

And hang it in your house.

The Jo White children see it, that your white family see it, point to that black Jesus until your white children.

That's who God wants you to be like.

That's who you said bow to.

That's who you should worship.

You know, that's who saved your soul from hell.

That's who you're trying to be like.

And when you die, that's who you're going to be with.

If you can't do that, then it's color matters.

Excellent point.

This all brings up the question on several occasions you mentioned evangelicals we had we talked to the writer of the book.

I want to make sure I have the title right Jesus and John Wayne, how white evangelicals corrupte a faith and fractured a nation.

It was a fascinating read, first of all.

And it was.

It was a great interview.

You quoted but not quoted.

You referenced evangelicals on several occasions.

The predominant the pastors of predominantly white churches that you have come across.

What has been their reaction to your book?

They accuse me of being divisive.

Of race baiting.

Of using the Bible to advance.

My personal agenda.

To inflame the passions.

Of.

Black people.

All types of of things, because it runs counter.

To their claim to their narrative.

That, you know, my next book is coming out, in fact, it should be out within a couple of weeks black and.

White theology how white evangelicalism controls the black.

Church.

And one of the things that I argue in my book.

Is that?

Early white Christianity in America.

You had.

A whitewashing of the Bible.

And much of the theology.

And white evangelical theology early on was shaped by White domination of black people to justify slavery.

So you had white evangelicals, popular well educated pastors like Basil Manly.

Like John Elliott brought us.

These men were in the south and they were slave holding people, and they owned 20, 30, 40 slaves.

And so they used their white theology to justify their domination of black people.

And so be if you free it, Robert Jones's book wait too long.

If you haven't read that, I suggest, man, you pick that u because once you pick it up and start reading that, you won't put it down until you're done.

Robert P Jones, who is a white guy who was raised in white evangelicalism.

But then he could not justify how the racism and the white domination.

And yet you're worshiping Jesus Christ on one hand, but justifying domination of black people and white supremacy, on the other hand, it could not make these two agree.

And so he went into research and started talking about the vestiges of white supremacy that inherent in white evangelical theology and that those same traces are influencing white evangelicalism today.

one of the big evangelicals, probably one of the most consequential white evangelicals of our time, John MacArthur, who pastors out in California, he has written over 100 books , many of the books we all preachers we have in our library John MacArthur.

John MacArthur in an interview in 2017.

Say it's slavery, this is in 2017 that he'd say it's slavery in some sense has been instituted and ordained by God.

He's still talking about slavery is justified.

And one of the reasons Basil Manley back in the 19th century he said one of the reasons the Civil War that the South left defeated in the Civil War was because it was divine punishment, because white slave owners did not treat the slaves with decency and respect.

That is.

The judgment was not on the institution of slavery.

In his mind, the judgment was on how white people treated slaves would suggest seductively if we had treated them nicely, then God would have still had slavery.

You know, instituted even today an interesting point when the whole idea of slavery is abused in and of itself.

And so John MacArthur in 2017 justify slavery.

The King, the white evangelical theology.

So let me interject with this with this point.

Dr. Williams, thank you for that.

We made reference to what's known as the slave bible on this show before, and I've actually given a speech to based on that as well.

one of two or three copies that exists in the world is that the Bible Museum in D.C and it's on loan from Fisk University.

And in that Bible, as you know, there's so much of it has been extracted from the Bible, New and Old Testament in order for slave masters to justify the institution of slavery and to keep the members or not the members that the slaves that they owned in an enslaved state mentally.

And so the reaction to that slave Bible, they actually give people an opportunity to fill out little cards, put them on the wall at that museum in D.C. and you hear a lot of the commentary you're making right now.

And so with the white community is concerned and we've got about ten minutes left.

But we're the white community is concerned.

Are you finding a genuine ignorance and wanting to learn more once they get a hold of this information to you with your experience anyways?

Or is that kind of a willful?

You know what?

I like this thing the way it is.

I like the narrative.

The way it is.

The truth of the matter really is irrelevant to me at th Yeah, the latter.

You know.

It's a pushback against it.

I don't want to hear the truth.

You know, because I don't want to use my privileged position at the top of the social hierarchy and my the analogy.

Justifies.

My supremacy.

So if I have to go back and rethink my theology and deconstruct my theology that jeopardize who I am at the top of the social hierarchy, so I'm not going to let that go right.

I'm in control.

Of that power.

And not letting it go, and I'm not going to let go of the structure that hold that notion in place.

So before we before we adjourn, let's talk a little bit about the Bible is Black History Institute.

This is tell us a little bit about that.

And is there something offer that pastors, church members, people in general can get involved with all over the world?

Tell us a little bit about the institute.

OK.

Yes.

The truth is, they.

Trained Mugabe as.

A teaching.

Tool to enlighten people about the history of the Bible.

And the trouble back to the theological roots of the Bible.

I mean, when when we begin to understand.

The Bible a lot of times, particularly, I.

Suppose, when we understand Jesus, we rarely understand.

Jesus against the backdrop of his historical.

Reality.

The reality is is that Jesus ministry unfolded in Galilee of Palestine.

During the time Israel was under.

Colonial oppression from the Roman.

Empire, the Roman government had colonized Israel.

The Roman government had also co-opted the Jewish leadership the Jewish ruling class, the scrap, the Pharisees, the SC decided to seize the temple priesthood and the whole Rhodesians.

They had all been called up by the Roman Empire because Rome had the authority and the power to set down the worship of Jehovah to shut down the temple and the Jewish ruling class understood Rome as you shut down the temple.

You're going to justify our living.

We won't be able to make a living.

The scrabbled affairs, the bishop, they all made their money off of the compulsory.

Temple tax.

That was imposed on the residents of Galilee Judea.

The entire Land of Israel.

That's how they make their money.

So under the threat.

Of shutting down their religion.

The Jewish ruling class was complicit.

And work in conspiracy with the Roman political authorities to keep the Jews oppressed.

And so when you look at what the Pharisees were teaching in those days, they were not teaching the revolutionary component of Judaism, which is very revolutionary.

They weren't teaching about the prophet.

And when the profits came on, the saying they were prophesyin against oppression, whether that oppression came from the Jewish ruling class or whether it came from foreigners that had come.

Up.

Colonize Israel.

When you look at Moses.

Moses was a social justice leader.

Moses saw the oppression and domination of his people, stood up against a political power and said, Here's what your wife said.

Let my people go.

He was a social justice preacher.

And we forget that.

So there was a liberation theme throughout the Bible.

And we understand Jesus's ministry as it unfolded against the backdrop of oppression.

Marginalization.

And Roman supremacy, then we get a better appreciation of what Jesus was talking about when he said Blessed are the poor.

And when you look at that word poor in the Greek, it literally means blessed are those who were made poor, made poor by political policies that disenfranchized those who were at the bottom of the social order.

And so Jesus became the friend of those who were at the bottom He was a friend and a savior of those who were at the bottom of the social order.

So when we begin to understand Jesus's ministry against the backdrop of his historical reality, we get a different and a more biblical appreciation.

But what Jesus was dealing with?

But as we have it now?

We take Jesus out of his social context and put him in America and 2022, and we have made Jesus and his teaching as a white evangelical middle class person who voted for Donald Trump, who was on the side of the rich and the powerful and the wealthy.

How did Jesus of the Bible put us on the side of the poor?

All of a sudden, he's on the side of the rich and against the poor, and so we see how the religion of Jesus was prostituted in the interest of keeping the poor will fall in place.

And so the Bible is black history.

We want to understand the Bible from that perspective.

And so we have coming on line a man.

We course that people can enroll in and people can participate in to help us to understand we're going to do it and then weeks segments.

And there are a number of different pastors and teachers who are going to be joining me and sharing their thoughts and teaching these classes.

That's coming up.

We're going to try to roll it out in September of 2022.

So I want to start this.

I want to end this conversation.

We've got about three minutes left.

I want to end this conversation the way we began.

And so often on this show and others, we talk about millennials and this next generation behind us and their outlook on global warming, their outlook on the economy, their outlook on social justice their outlook on the Bible, the same old narratives that have that has caused division in all of these categories.

The same narratives that has benefited a few and has hur the masses are narratives that are no longer accepted by and large by this next generation.

And so as we head to the finish line, talk to our listeners very quickly about regardless of how they feel personally, why we need to get serious about bringing truth to the biblical narrative in all of our churches if we expect to reach the next generation.

Yeah.

And you know, man, my generation millennial children, so we may be close in age.

But when I was.

Growing up, my brother, I mean, there was certain things.

Even if we have.

A question, we didn't articulate them.

You know, we didn't question the Bible.

We didn't question Jesus Christ.

We didn't question the church.

All of those were given.

You know, we didn't question that.

If you were a Democrat and you went Democrat, you didn't question Democratic politics.

You didn't question anything.

If you were aligned.

With it, that's the way it was.

But we have a generation now best questioning everything And it is so.

Refreshing to see these young people black and white, black and white rising up.

And questioning the status quo, questioning the system.

Trying to make sense out of it, and if it doesn't make sense to them, they push back against it, which in my estimation and I might be out there, which in my estimation has a lot to do resembles the Kingdom of God.

Because when we start talking about the kingdom of God, it is always antithetical to the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God pushes back against the kingdoms of this world, even if we have to do it through young people.

Because then by when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God, he does it directly connected with the church.

So the kingdom movement may or may not include the church.

Interesting.

So you have young people out there on the front line pushing it forward who have no connection with the church.

But when they're pushing against oppressive forces, that reflects the kingdom agenda.

Interesting point.

So we're going to get people more involved in the church then, you know?

You know, we have to appreciate their resistance.

To the status.

Quo and how these.

Systems are working against them.

Killing the environment, destroying the planet and that type of thing, they and their children.

And grandchildren.

Are going to inherit a planet.

That our generation.

And generation before.

Have destroyed, we will be gone, moved off the scene.

And this is what they have inherited.

They're pushing back.

Against it and rightly so.

Dr. Theron, Dee Williams, Dr. Williams, thank you so much for an enlightening discussion.

Thank you so much for taking the time to really put your thoughts on paper and to create this book.

The dialog that at Spurs alone is worth the price of admission We firmly believe here the public's voice or the next excellent WQ a limb that the dialog is where change happens.

And so even if you push back against the words of Dr. Williams in this book, it makes you think and it makes you challenge what you've learned.

And that's all it accomplishes.

It still accomplishes a lot.

Dr. Williams, thank you so much for coming on today.

Thank you for having me, Marcus.

Appreciate it.

Bless you and your ministry.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Well, this has been next door WQ online with Marcus Atkinson.

Thank you so much for tuning in once again.

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