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With Clare Williams
77 Plays2 years ago
The Church Behaving Badly can be an insurmountable obstacle for many people in coming to faith in Jesus. In the case of religious justification for racism and slavery, this issue impacts whole communities and ethnic groups. How can we de-bunk the concept of "the white man's religion" when speaking to our friends in black communities? Andy and Kristi speak with Clare Williams on PEP Talk to unpack this obstacle to evangelism.
Clare Williams is the founder of Get Real, a Christian apologetics organisation which addresses questions about Christianity, particularly from the black British community. She has a degree in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, and she completed postgraduate training in theology at Wycliffe Hall. Clare has an MA in Leadership and an MA in Culture, Diaspora and Ethnicity. She enjoys engaging with questions of culture, truth, identity and the gospel.
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Transcript
Introduction: Pep Talk and Unique Locations
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Kristy and I am joined by the fantastic Andy Bannister who, well actually let's just say hi first. Hi Andy. I was going to say I would always say adjectives and superlatives, but just hi. Hi would do. Yeah, great to see you. I was going to say that you're zooming in from a really special location today, aren't you?
00:00:32
Speaker
I am. I mean, well, I suppose I'm in Hobbiton, kind of really. And I'm in my, we had a garden office kind of built recently. It's this lovely kind of wooden Scandinavian wooden hut thing. And we just christened it today. And as I'm a, you know, terrible Tolkien fan, really, I read the thing every year and we had to call it something Hobbit-y. So it was, yeah, back end. I actually wanted to call it Rivendell.
00:00:59
Speaker
A nine-year-old daughter looks at me and goes, Dad, that's Elvish. The Elvish wrote a six-foot and blonde. You got a five-foot eight and game ball. She put you in your place and she... And she's off to the orphanage. So I'm going up.
Guest Introduction: Claire Williams and 'Get Real'
00:01:16
Speaker
Well, we moved from the wonderful place of Rivendell slash Hobbiton with my wonderful colleague to our lovely guest, Claire Williams. Claire, hi. Hi, Kristy. Hi, Andy. It's great to have you with us today, Claire. Shall I just give a little bit of a potted kind of overview of the stuff that you're involved in? You can tell me if this is completely wrong.
00:01:41
Speaker
Sure, yeah, yeah, go for it. So here we go. You trained at OCHRE. You started Get Real, which is an amazing apologetics kind of ministry, just generally full stop. And you have kind of like a heart for reaching the black community with the good news of the gospel. I mean, is that what Get Real is kind of about?
Big Faith Questions in the Black Community
00:02:01
Speaker
Tell us a little bit more.
00:02:03
Speaker
Sure, thank you so much. So yeah, Get Real is about kind of your general big questions, suffering, science, problem of evil, those kind of big questions that people have about faith. But particularly, as you said, I do have a heart for the Black Majority Church. I grew up in a Black Majority Church in Pentecostalism. And generally, I would say within the Black community in the UK, you kind of get people who are
00:02:31
Speaker
quite Christian or, you know, kind of a God-fearing sense, maybe Muslim, but quite, I don't know, a community that is quite faith-based. But recently, not that recent, but there's always been a question that's always bubbled away amongst my peers. You know, is Christianity a white man's religion? Is it a Western religion? Has it been imposed upon Black people? And I think in recent years,
00:02:57
Speaker
seen so many things happen on the global stage where race is concerned, that question has really just bubbled up.
00:03:05
Speaker
And so what I've seen is, I would say an exodus, some people call it the black exodus from Christianity because of some of the history and entanglement of the church with racism. And so my heart is to reach the kind of disillusioned Christian, disillusioned black Christian, and also Christians from any ethnic minority, any ethnic background, sorry, who
00:03:31
Speaker
say, do you know what? Well, I don't want to be involved in a religion that was kind of mixed up in this. So that's where where I kind of like concentrate some of my work.
Is Christianity a 'White Man's Religion'?
00:03:40
Speaker
One of the things that interests me about that question is Christianity, the kind of white man's religion. Obviously, that's been, as you say, has been accelerated in the public domain because of what's gone on in recent years. Everything from George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, so on and so forth. But I remember getting asked that question earlier than that. Muslim friends would say to me, or Muslims have been using this form of evangelism for years among the black community saying,
00:04:07
Speaker
Islam is the religion of the black man, Christianity is the religion of the white man. So obviously it's become more prominent in culture right now, but it has a slightly longer history. So maybe Claire, how would you sort of press into that question? There are people listening today who've heard that question and just have no idea where to begin. What are some of the ways that you begin helping people kind of think that one through?
Historical Misuse of Christianity and Counter-Narratives
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think the first thing to do is to appreciate the, I would say, righteous anger about the question. It's not coming from a vacuum, it's coming from a place where
00:04:41
Speaker
as you said, people from a range of different backgrounds have struggled with this question. And so I would say chiefly when it comes to the black community, it comes from the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, where, you know, passages of the Bible, I think it's in the book of Genesis, where you've got the curse of Ham, Noah curses Ham, who according to sort of church kind of history was
00:05:05
Speaker
the descendants was the ancestor of black people. And so from that supposed curse of ham, black people were meant to be the servants of white people. So strange theologies used to justify the enslavement of Africans. And so people kind of believe that Christianity was therefore imposed upon black people during the transatlantic slave trade. And it's kind of all indigenous beliefs stripped away
00:05:32
Speaker
and therefore we shouldn't be worshiping the God of our oppressor. That's where the kind of argument really comes from. But actually that is a, I would say a whitewashed presentation of church history.
Diverse Christian History: Beyond Europe
00:05:46
Speaker
There's a great book actually called The Whitewashing of Christianity and it's by a guy called Pastor Jerome Gay Jr. And he talks about the African church fathers. He talks about just other figures and other,
00:06:01
Speaker
stories and narratives that actually say no, Christianity is not the white man's religion, it's not oppressive, it was used in that way. So there's a few thoughts that kind of fleshed out. We've gone deep straight away.
00:06:16
Speaker
I love that you mentioned that the church fathers because we forget that you know how deeply embedded you know like Augustine and all those guys they were all African right but it also occurs to me that if you if you use that as an argument against Christianity you're almost actually I love the phrase whitewashing it's really helpful because Christianity originally was not a European religion right as a Middle Eastern religion one of the oldest Christian communities today are the Marthoma Christians in India
00:06:43
Speaker
privileges are hanging out of that community a few years ago. They are, you know, adamant, they trace their ancestry right back to Thomas. They possibly traditionally went east. They are thoroughly Indian. They've been Christian for 2000 years. So almost does all those communities a disservice, doesn't it? If we say our Christianity is a European religion. Similarly, there's a really strong history of the Ethiopian church, actually.
00:07:09
Speaker
really strong. There's a scholar called Dr. Vince Bantu, and he's so big on the heritage of the Ethiopian church, and he kind of links it back to the passage in Acts 8 when Philip is talking to the Ethiopian official and how Christianity likely made its way into Ethiopia from that encounter. So there's so much evidence to counter that idea, but I do think the narratives are quite powerful
00:07:38
Speaker
and have kind of sat and need to rewrite that stuff really, yeah. That's such a, in a way like starting there is such a helpful kind of way in kind of Claire.
Black Abolitionists and Christianity's True Message
00:07:51
Speaker
Is that, what would be like the next step? So I'm just wondering kind of how persuasive that is as kind of scene setting and saying that it's not a white man's religion. Where would you go from there? So for example, if I'm,
00:08:07
Speaker
This happened to me a little while ago if I'm like sharing a taxi ride with somebody thinking about this guy who picked me up in the Uber and we were just having a chat about these things. He was black. I'm white. We're talking about Jesus the funeral. It was just after the Queen's funeral. Sorry, not Jesus' funeral. The Queen's funeral. We were talking about that.
00:08:32
Speaker
still so fresh in my mind really. And yeah, where do where do you go? Like, where do you go after that kind of first reflection of saying, well, you know, actually, there's, there's much more kind of evidence to demonstrate that it's not a white man's religion, like, where would you go after that in like a conversation with the taxi driver?
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah I think I would again try to as much as I can because I feel this way too and I'm unapologetic about that. I would affirm the anger and say like honestly when you read some of the stuff that was done to
00:09:07
Speaker
enslaved Africans is horrific and in the name of Christ. However, I would then say when we look at Black testimony of formerly enslaved Africans, some of the narratives are just amazing. So like Credit Doggers' narrative, brilliant. I just love it. So he writes his narrative and he's talking about the horrors of slavery and he makes note, you know, he's very clear about what happened and it's horrific.
00:09:32
Speaker
And there are times where he's really despondent and he kind of maybe you think he has no faith. But in the appendix of that account, he says something like, reader, you might be thinking, you know, I'm opposed to faith or I'm opposed to God. When actually he's got this great paragraph where he says, between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I find the widest possible difference. And so actually what you have there is not a docile enslaved person.
00:09:56
Speaker
who was blindly worshiping a God, someone who was quick, who was sharp, able to see the difference between how Christianity was used to enslave and actually how it actually is a liberating force.
00:10:09
Speaker
A lot of the black abolitionists were Christians and their faith really became the driving force and their heart for justice. So Mary Prince, her account is also phenomenal, Equiano, great stuff.
Cultural Impact of 'White Jesus' Imagery
00:10:25
Speaker
And so the testimony of black abolitionists, which I do think sometimes gets a little bit overshadowed by Wubbleforce and Granville, shut up, but you know, their testimony really suggests otherwise that actually Christianity became
00:10:40
Speaker
And the Christ of Christianity became the focal point of their quest for liberation.
00:10:47
Speaker
To what extent has there also been a problem around some of this as well in terms of, of course, some of the images of Jesus that were overly familiar with them? And I remember the Sunday school I, you know, went to when I was a kid. It was funny, actually, when we are into Baptist Church, which was very stripped of all imagery in the sanctuary, there was one simple crucifix, nothing else. Go to the Sunday school room, there was a lot of art everywhere, and we had Swedish Jesus.
00:11:10
Speaker
on the wall, you know, blue, well, actually all my possibly Californian Jesus, actually, blue eyes, blond hair, white robes and, you know, animals all over him. And I remember even then thinking that's not quite right. Of course, the temptation is then go the other way and start creating African Jesuses. But, you know, is there, how do we sort of recover people back to the Jesus of history and go, actually, the neat thing is he was actually neither. He was a Middle Easterner.
00:11:34
Speaker
I don't just worry about how we engage then that the black community also worry that we disconnect from history because we end up just constructing, you know, the Jesus of arch rather than trying to think about what Jesus was actually kind of like in this context. Yeah, I think the whole inverted commas, white Jesus is a problem. And I think that really sparked, I mean, I think it's 2020 when Sean King, the activist in America, he talks about white Jesus needs to come down.
00:12:00
Speaker
All images of white Jesus needs to come down. They're a form of white supremacy. He went in. And I remember seeing actually some Christian apologists responding to this and saying, you know, if you go into any culture, you're going to see Jesus portrayed in the kind of skin and in the kind of characteristics and features of that culture. But I kind of thought to myself, that's not quite true. I've been to West Africa recently and I'm talking about in the last four years and I've seen in churches
00:12:28
Speaker
where you've got black worshippers, white Jesus, on the walls. There's something, and so that tells you about the legacy of colonialism, and that needs to be addressed. So whilst it is true, absolutely, I think there was a BBC kind of image of Jesus and what he would have looked like, quite dark, olive skin, brown hair.
00:12:45
Speaker
quite prominent features, just looking like a first century Palestinian Jew, not like you say Jesus of Norway, but representation matters. And that kind of imagery sends a message. So I do think you're
Justice and Faith: Addressing Racism
00:13:03
Speaker
absolutely right. I think there's quite a few books that have come out recently in Apologetics kind of trying to recover the Jewishness of Jesus. And that not only helps us in terms of seeing ourselves in the story or seeing
00:13:16
Speaker
It's not a Western construct, but actually seeing and appreciating how you're meant to understand scripture, how Jesus, you know, what Jesus was talking about when he talked about different parables and how that related to the culture of his time. So I think there's definitely we need to be wary of committing the same erasure, cultural erasure of Jesus when we we kind of say, OK, well, Jesus clearly wasn't right. Let's make him this or let's make him that. Let's honor the point in history
00:13:45
Speaker
in which God himself stepped in, into human flesh. Yeah. Claire, this is utterly fantastic. It's just so good. I could listen to you all day, talk about yourself.
00:13:58
Speaker
We'd also love to hear a little bit more about Get Real. What is Get Real about? And I guess what are some of the other challenges that you face in helping, as you mentioned earlier, on the disillusioned kind of black Christian and also in kind of
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, so inside the church, how do you go about helping the disillusioned black Christian? And is Get Real a part of that? Or is that something else? How does Get Real kind of relate to the stuff that we've been talking about? Yeah, so within the church that I attend, my kind of church leaders are very much supportive of what I do. And I do a lot of work, I would say, around youth in particular.
00:14:40
Speaker
And I have lots of good conversations with millennials, so from people my age, about this. And so I think it's about, again, listening to the questions people have, where they are. And I just think what kind of underlies all of this, and I know you've done a lot of work on Gen Z as well, Kristy, is that this issue about racism isn't just racism as we might have thought about it 30 years ago. This is justice.
00:15:06
Speaker
And it's linked justice kind of crosses over into all different kinds of areas, climate change, sexual orientation.
00:15:16
Speaker
Gender, lots of areas. So I think justice is really at the heart of some of these issues. And actually showing people, and I just love this about God, that God is a God of justice. And the justice conversation should be coming from the church. God loves justice. He is a just God. And there's so much, that's just a fantastic apologetic right there. I think that's been really helpful to me to approach these kind of issues from a justice perspective.
00:15:45
Speaker
because we know intuitively what justice is and we're great judges of other people. And actually seeing that that is on the heart of God, I think is really powerful.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's also, as you say, that strikes me as on so many issues, it saddens me that the church was once very often at the forefront of some of these issues. And then we sort of slid backwards. For me, the environment one is a classic example of that, that we were much more involved in that conversation than I think there was a sort of sense that this is politics and we stepped out of this.
Integrating Pentecostal Faith with Reason
00:16:16
Speaker
But one other thing I'd love to chat to you about for a few minutes, Claire, one of the things that intrigues me is as well as obviously engaging the black churches and young people, you also come from a Pentecostal kind of background. That's the stream you come out of.
00:16:27
Speaker
And again, in apologetics, that's a stream of the church that sometimes has shined a little away from apologetics. You alluded to it at the start, when it's all about faith. It's just, you know, believe and trust and that we have the Holy Spirit, we don't need all this argument stuff. And I'm fascinated that you've, without abandoning your background at all, you've weaved that in nicely. How does that
00:16:45
Speaker
How does that work? If you're engaging with Christians who are, you know, perhaps more inclined to go, we don't need to use, you know, arguments and words. We've got the Holy Spirit. How do you help them see that it's not a case of either or? It's both and in God's economy. Yeah. Well, I love starting with the passage where I think someone asked Jesus, you know, what's the greatest commandment of all? And Jesus says, to love the Lord, your God, of all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And so my faith in God cannot just be about
00:17:14
Speaker
fuzzy feeling I have on a Sunday or speaking in tongues if that's what anybody does on this podcast I don't know or you know and I've seen the Holy Spirit do great things I have and I will be a Pentecostal to the day I die. But actually I don't think that being a Christian or being a Pentecostal Christian means that you have to trade in either or and I read this great book actually
00:17:38
Speaker
It's a very small book by John Stott. It's called Your Mind Matters. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that was really helpful. That was really helpful. And just seeing Jesus, his ministry, he operated, you know, with the spirit's power. Like you just saw Jesus did amazing things, miraculous things, supernatural things. But he also wasn't afraid to address people's questions, to reason with people as well. So these things come together. And I just think kind of showing people that.
00:18:07
Speaker
that beauty about God is a role winner. Claire, thank you so, so much. I think we're now at the end of our time together. Andy, do you have any other quick questions you want to ask before we wrap up? No, I spoke about the last question, I suppose, really, as we come up to the top of the 20 minutes, Claire. But if people want to find out more about what you're doing and get real and all that stuff, how's the best place they can do that?
Resources and Conclusion
00:18:33
Speaker
How can they engage all that great work you're doing?
00:18:36
Speaker
Sure, so check out the website realquestions.co.uk
00:18:41
Speaker
realquestions.co.uk and on Instagram at getreal321. That's what you find a bit more. Fantastic. We'll put links to those in the show notes for this episode. And of course, regular followers of Solas may recognize Claire's picture from the image that will come with this podcast, because of course you've done several short answers for us. So that's been great using you that way. So if you also want to engage in what Claire's doing, check out her website. Still also check out her content.
00:19:08
Speaker
I think, Claire, we're really grateful, as ever, that you've made the time to be with us today. Thanks for coming along. Thank you, Andy. And it's been so nice to collab with Solas on the videos, honestly. I remember the days of watching the short answers and seeing Andy there with the white background and the text popping up. I was like, this is so good. So to be able to collab with you and the team on it, it's just been amazing. Thank you, guys. We look back at those videos and go, wow, he looks so young.
00:19:35
Speaker
But for all of you at home or in the car or on your run, wherever you're catching pep talk, we hope you enjoyed this episode and Christy and I are back in two weeks time with a new guest. Do tune in and check out our conversation. Meanwhile, thanks for listening and goodbye.