- Just ahead on "American Black Journal" our Black Church in Detroit series examines the impact of the Israeli-Hamas conflict on interfaith relationships.

We're gonna talk about how the Black Christian Church navigates the Middle East conflict.

Plus we'll explore what faith communities can do to prevent acts of hatred.

You don't want to miss today's show.

"American Black Journal" starts right now.

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(upbeat flute and drum music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal".

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

Today we're continuing our series on the Black Church in Detroit, which is produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

The surprise attack on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas on October 7th has led to thousands of deaths and created a humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.

The war has brought a longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the forefront once again.

So how does the Black Church navigate in the midst of the Arab and Jewish conflict?

I had a conversation with three Detroit religious leaders Bishop Charles Ellis III of Greater Grace Temple, Reverend Dr. Constance Simon of Fellowship Chapel and Bishop Mbiyu Chui from the Shrine of the Black Madonna.

I think everybody is struggling right now to know what to make of what's happening in the Middle East and how to react.

I think as African Americans, that looks different for us than it does for lots of other folks.

And then, of course, for African Americans in the clergy, I think it looks even more different.

So hopefully we can talk about some of the things that you guys are facing and what the rest of us can draw from that.

Bishop Ellis, I wanna start with you and talk about some of the things that you've encountered.

- Thank you for having me again, Stephen.

And, you know, the Jewish community as well as the Arabic community, the Chaldean community is very dear to me.

Individuals who know that I have tremendous respect for the Jewish community and have great friends in the Jewish community up in high places and are very well to do as well as, you know, we live in a community where we're surrounded by the Chaldean community and the Arabic community.

I believe we have the largest population of Middle Easterns here, right here in Southeast Michigan.

And, you know, I lived up one day and the grocery stores were no longer Great Scotts and Farmer Jack, AP, and A&P and all of that.

And now, you know, we have a lot of Chaldeans running the stores, as well as the gas stations.

I went to Ferndale Adult Education to learn how to speak a little Arabic so that I could befriend them and share with them that I was concerned about them being welcomed into the community as well as having a mutual good relationship with them.

So, you know, I'm receiving invites from the Jewish communities, some of the things that they're having, as well as the Palestinian community about some things that they're having.

And Stephen, you know, it's a fine line because, you know, things have been going on so long and sometimes you have a little quietness or a ceasefire whatever you want to call it, time of peace, I guess, and then, you know, it just takes one thing to set things off.

And now it seems like you're back where you were back during Jimmy Carter's days and even before that.

So, you know, as a Christian pastor I preach love and you can't go wrong with love.

Bishop Chui and Pastor Simon knows, you know if a preacher don't have nothing to preach go to John 3:16.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

So I'm trying to stay on love because I believe that's the main thing.

If we could ever get love right in our community, other communities, and I think that would solve a lot of problems.

- What are you hearing, Bishop Ellis, from your friends in the Jewish community in the Muslim or Arab community about what's going on and how it's affecting them here in Metro Detroit?

- My Jewish friends are very concerned about the state of is Israel.

They're concerned about their land and their people.

Of course, everybody's concerned about these hostages whether they be Arabic or whether they be Jewish or whether they just be innocent bystanders people that just happen to be in the way and got caught up in it.

And I'm hearing from my Palestinian friends and Arabic, Chaldean friends that they're very concerned because, you know, nobody wants to see all of the Arabic nations be brought into this conflict and into this pending war.

Or people say it's already a war now.

Because, again, that will as exacerbate all of the relationships that we have here in America and even around the world.

- Yeah, yeah.

Reverend Simon, I wonder what your perspective is on just the tension that this raises for for African Americans and African American clergy.

- I think this is a, it's the kind of conflict where you can't take sides.

You know both sides have legitimate reasons for saying what they're saying.

And no, don't get me wrong, I am not for war.

I'm not for hostages.

My class, I'm teaching ethics and social justice.

And they said, what do you think?

And I thought it was interesting because they threw it to me before I had a chance to throw it to them.

And I said, you have to understand those who wage war are not the ones who will suffer.

Those are not the ones that are going to pay the price.

I said on both sides you cannot make me believe that there are not Israelis as well as Palestinians that did not want this to happen.

And now they're caught up in a power and control struggle which, like you said, Bishop, it could grow exponentially.

But I think it's up to the Church not to take sides but to preach things that are going to be meaningful.

When I think about that, I think about the prophets.

And every prophet, which, you know, everybody who's in ministry says they're called.

And to be called means that you've accepted a call to not be for comfort, not be for just saying the things that make everybody go home and be happy.

You speak to the things that are the issues of the world so the world will be a better place.

It's not time to be silent 'cause the silence provokes violence, actually.

- Hmm, hmm.

Bishop Chui, I'm interested in what you think about what we're seeing and I guess what we are called to say or think about it.

- I think as African Americans, you started off asking how does this impact us as African Americans and as pastors?

And it does in a lot of ways because, and it's like it's already been said, it's we can relate to both sides, both issues.

We can see it from both angles.

And so it resonates with us because we've been facing historic injustices living in the land that we didn't ask to come to that we were brought here against our will.

And so we can identify with the issues and the conflicts that are still raging over in the Middle East.

That's been going on for, I don't know since Cain slew Abel maybe.

(Stephen and Chui chuckling) But I think as African Americans, we have to, as has already been stated, not take sides but understand the dynamics that go into these conflicts and how we can better navigate them, you know in our own struggle and in our own conflict.

And I think there are lessons to be learned.

I think what a pastor has to do is give clarity and focus and understanding and help people see the bigger picture.

Because sometimes we get bogged down in the details of it, and we miss the bigger message.

There's always a deeper meaning behind any conflict whether it's a personal conflict or a nation conflict.

But as a human society, I think it's a call for us to recognize the importance of standing up for justice and truth and speaking out and not being silent and not just going along with the get along.

- So, I wanna follow up on something you just touched on, Bishop Chui, and kind of pull that out for us to talk about.

You point out our history here in America which dates back, you know, four centuries to us being brought here against our will and mistreated for the entirety of the time that we've been here.

You know, Arabs have a similar story to tell about what's happened to them in their homeland in the place that they are actually from.

It seems to me that that often results in some real tension between African Americans and Jews who are also in some ways trying to make sure that their rights are respected and that they have independence, but who are responsible in many ways for some of the suffering that we see with the Arab populations in the Middle East.

So I wonder how you navigate that though in a community like this where, again, African Americans interact with the Jewish population we interact with the Arab population, and, in this case, we could kind of get caught in the middle.

Bishop Chui, I'll start with you this time.

- Well, what you're saying is true.

I think what's glaring for me is that we have to upgrade our consciousness and recognize the world that we're living in.

We're living in a global world.

It's no longer, borders really don't matter anymore.

What happens on one side of the world affects everything on the other side of the world.

And if we haven't learned anything from COVID, COVID should have taught us that that we live in a global society.

And that this global civilization warns all of our conscious activity and behavior and participation.

When COVID happened, the whole global trade network was disrupted.

National economies were disrupted.

Food prices went up all over the world.

And this kind of global challenge requires all of us to pay attention and to put our collective minds together to work on solutions.

So I think it's even more important now that we help people understand that reality and that there are some creative solutions other than, you know, war.

- Yeah.

- You know, war is outdated, but we're still doing it.

- Yeah.

- We need to update our sense of justice and our understanding of what that can look like.

And we have some examples in history, so it's not like we don't know how to come together globally.

How long has the Olympics been going on?

And why is that?

How can we can come together and run and jump and throw balls but we can't come together and figure out how to all coexist without using our egos and our lust for greed and power, you know, to rule over everything else.

- Yeah, yeah.

Reverend Simon, it seems to me that one of the concepts here that's really important is the concept of freedom and the different ways that we define freedom for different groups of people.

And, of course, freedom has a real role in the gospel, as well.

I mean, the roots of of the Black Church are rooted in the idea of freedom.

I wonder how that helps us process this tension that I was pointing out about how we feel about what's going on in the Middle East.

- Hmm, good question.

I agree, but I think we have to start with how we want to define humanity and how we want to let that show up in our lives.

The interesting thing about this conflict and I think both gentlemen have alluded to it is that our history as Black people being oppressed being treated badly, being used for economic gain, power, and control, that's part of our history.

So to be, and it's a part that we're still fighting, actually.

We're not there, but it's because there're factions that don't want to look at humanity.

They don't wanna look at that scripture that says love God with all your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself because then their definition of neighbor becomes very narrow, it's not broad.

And it becomes tainted because it gets into a my four and no more.

It becomes a thing of exclusion.

How do you keep things separated?

And that's not what we need right now.

But it's interesting because I'm a professor, so I like books.

Walter Brueggemann's book called "Chosen?"

it's a very good book.

Reading the Bible amid the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

And he talks about what it means to be chosen and how these things intersect.

But on the flip side, Martin Luther Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's book, "Strength of Love" speaks about this.

And it speaks about it in life-giving ways where we, as ministers, communities, congregations, should be able to read this and really lay into what humanity should look like.

How do you bring balance?

How do you sit down in the tension?

'Cause to have these discussions, it's clearly tension.

How do you sit down in that tension and make that tension life-giving without making it a threat or without making people feel like, well, if I don't wanna play I'm gonna pick up my marbles and go home.

- Bishop Ellis talk about how we as African Americans can take that fellowship we probably are instinctively gonna feel with Arab Americans and apply it in this situation where you've got this tension between them and the Jewish community.

- Well, I hear what both my brother and my sister are sharing, and I agree with a lot of what they're saying, especially our plight as people being brought over here against our will and being considered not human beings as my sister was talking about.

So we were not classified as humane.

We were animals, we were beasts.

We were just like a ox.

We were just like a ox pulling a plow, you know.

That's who we were.

And even when they began to legitimize our humanities they were called us two thirds of a man.

I don't even know what that means.

You know what I'm saying?

But anyhow, you know, just some kind of way we have to be less than who God created us to be.

Then we look at the holocausts, you know, the Jewish nation is sending in their.

They're saying you have a right to say that will never happen again.

You know?

We will defend ourself against anyone whose goal or objective or whose reason for living by their articulation is to wipe us off the face of the earth.

So here we are as Christians talking about and sharing the love of Christ and the teachings of Christ.

You know, I think that Black people have demonstrated a lot of humanity, even though we are characterized as uncontrolled, violent.

We have been the most forgiving people in, I don't say the whole wide world but we've been the most forgiving people.

You know, you saw a Caucasian boy go into a church in Charleston, South Carolina and sit there throughout a whole Bible teaching and had time to think about what he went there to do and to hear a teaching that should have said to him, you know, this probably ain't the place you wanna do this.

You know?

There are a lot of other places that you might wanna go do that, but not here.

And you don't see any of those people picking up guns or any of those people talking about vengeance or talking about this or that.

Most forgiving people that I've ever seen in my life.

And when you look at the Jewish nation and the Arabic nation, those are two of the most wealthiest communities on the face of this, on the face of this earth.

And they're probably tracing it back to the promises that God made to Abraham, to father Abraham.

Now we are adopted sons and daughters of Abraham not blood daughters and sons of Abraham so we we're still trying to get our 40 acres and a mule, and trying to get, and trying to help somebody to give us something that will help to make up for the wrongs that have been done to us.

And now you free us, but we have nowhere to go.

And now you tell us, well, at least you learn some skills so you ought to be able to go get a job and work.

But, listen, we don't have no shoulders to stand on because you buried all those folks.

You killed all those folks.

You worked all those folks into the ground and buried them so deep until we don't we don't even know where some of them are buried.

So I think that we, again, as the Black Church we have to continue to preach the love of Christ and that's where it's got to be.

- We've only got a few minutes left but I want to have each of you talk about on a local level, the interfaith possibilities that the Black Church can help kind of facilitate at a time like this.

I mean, the strain in the Middle East is playing out in our community, between these two communities.

What should Black pastors, what should Black Church clergy what should Black Church congregations be thinking about the role we can play right now to make things better for the people who we live in this community with?

Reverend Simon, I'll start with you this time.

- That's a very good question and I think I'm seeing intersections going on.

But one thing I will say, and it's kind of piggybacking off what Bishop Ellis just said.

We live in communities where we believe in double consciousness.

We live and we hear, and everyone sings kumbaya.

But we have to turn around with our children our families, our congregations and say, no, we need to help you understand what's real.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid if it looks like there's poison in it, if it's not life-giving and full of love.

Don't sit up and take sides when you don't even really understand the entire issue.

Don't turn around and not think for yourself not telling them what to think which is what is happening in other denominations and other areas where, you know, you don't preach social justice and all these people sign that they're not gonna do that.

How do you do that?

Then that means you either didn't read the Bible or you just don't care about the Bible.

But we have to teach how we need to navigate in this world, aside from the good.

I mean, not that that's not, but it's an addendum to that which helps us not only to survive but I think it's part of what allows us to be that loving, kind, giving people who see the need in the heart, who aren't afraid to speak up who know that if I stay silent that same silence might come back to bite me or my family or my people.

- Sure, sure.

Bishop Chui, what should we be doing?

- Piggybacking off of what Dr. Simon just said, we need to be vocal and we need to help people understand it's not about taking sides, it's not about judging, but it's really about embracing each other where we are and coming to some common ground and agreement and finding that space.

I can't help but think about the little boy who was stabbed to death 26 times.

His mother was stabbed 12 times.

Innocent, but the victims of somebody else's hatred.

And that could have been anywhere, could have been that could have happened here in the city.

So I think we have to be vocal and we have to be active.

And this is an excellent time.

In any crisis, there's always an opportunity for growth and for healing and for change.

And I think that's what this is calling us to do especially us here in the city because of our close relationship with our Palestinian and Israeli brothers and sisters.

So it's a golden opportunity to be proactive in that way.

- Yeah, yeah.

Bishop Ellis?

- And Lemme say again, thank you, Stephen, to you and the Public Television Broadcasting family for providing this platform.

Because, you know, people were asking me and some news people were calling, "Bishop, are you going to have a sermon "about the war in Israel?"

I said, "Well, no, "I don't think that that's a place "for me to have a whole sermon at Sunday morning "to people that look like me."

I think it's these platforms where we can articulate what we think, articulate our massive, our message, some remedies that we might have to keep things even kilted here over in the States so that what's happening in Israel and Gaza is not flowing over to here.

- Right.

- And other places as we're seeing in other countries.

But I think that we have to get back to the relationships that we have built down through the years.

I mean, I believe that, I say to my brothers, listen, I'm Apostolic Pentecostal and, you know, they can have problems, get in a faith.

They can have problems with Ecumenical.

You get what I'm saying?

Just Baptist and A and Bs, and Presbyterians and United Church of Christ and all of that.

So I say to my brothers and colleagues all around the country that we have a tremendous interfaith relationship here in southeast Michigan.

I have some tremendous friends that are imams.

I have some tremendous friends that are rabbis.

And the list goes on even getting into the Sikhs and those who are the Indian persuasion.

And so I think that it's now time for us to find those individuals, you know, who are peaceful, who are loving, regardless of the circumstances.

And now to let that coalition begin to be visible and to show that illustration of love that we have, especially during this time.

Because if everybody now runs to their corner, you know and is waiting for the bell to ring in their location and come out fighting, then this world is on fire.

So I think that what we have to do is is now time for us to call that community together of interfaith religious leaders and to talk about what we can do to come together to demonstrate that there are still innocent people and those who want peace, and those who are trying to foster peace in this very crucial time.

- All right, that's gonna do it for this week.

You can find out more about our guests at AmericanBlackJournal.org and you can connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care, and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat flute music) - [Announcer] From Delta faucets to Behr paint Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Announcer 2] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of "American Black Journal" in covering African American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and "American Black Journal" partners in presenting African American perspectives about our communities and in our world - [Announcer] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(brief piano chords)