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Okay, good afternoon, everyone. We'll go ahead and get started for our second day and second part of the Settles Lectures. And as you may know, as Dean Eamer said yesterday, these are some of the oldest lectures at the seminary. And so we're grateful for that fund that continues to fund these lectures every year so we can host some incredible speakers and panelists as we have today.

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They are missions lectures. And so, as you can imagine, missions broadly defined, which is excellent, especially for our times. We welcomed the Reverend Dr. Liz Theo Harris here yesterday for your amazing lecture.

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Thank you. And we have some incredible panelists who do incredible work in their own ways and through their own lenses and life experiences. And so they will also be in conversation with us today. So I want to introduce them and then invite you to provide them a warm welcome and gratitude for

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sharing time and wisdom with us. So many of you may know Bea Morehead, who is the director of Texas Impact. Thank you for joining us today. And yes, let's give her a warm hand of yes.

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And Reverend Dr. Liz Theo Harris, who you got to hear from. Yes. And I want to note that if you're interested in any of the books that she has available, they're in the back with Allison.

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So take note of that for after this lunch hour. And Reverend Dr. Jim Rigby, also from St. Andrew's Presbyterian.

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And I want to give a warm welcome to Marcus, who is also Reverend, but I want to say that you preached in our chapel for MLK service, and that was an incredible sermon. And not only welcome here to the seminary, but to Austin and to Huston Tillotson as the new chaplain at Huston Tillotson. A warm welcome to Reverend Marcus. All right, so as we get started, we're going to, I'm going to just start us with a couple questions, and then we're going to open the questions to you all present here and to those of you online.

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Welcome also. I'm sorry you couldn't be with us in person, but glad that you can join us through the live stream. I want to ask each of you if you can speak to what advice that you give to I would say Christians and non-Christians alike, but all people interested right now in mobilizing and in organizing who maybe don't have that experience, but right now they are activated because they care about their neighbors and they see what's happening, what advice do you have for people who have not been part of organizing movements and don't have that experience?

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If you'd like, speak to your, experience and your knowledge. This is muted. So, the advice is to people who want to get engaged, who have not previously been engaged, and The very first thing I would say is start where you are.

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So what I have said to people always is being engaged in the public square is like playing double Dutch jump rope. You stand there, I mean you guys know how you do it, right? Like you stand and you stand and you're waiting and waiting to jump in. Just jump in and start jumping.

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And the way that you do that is to find people in your community who are doing something, and tag along with them, and then you'll start to figure out who the other players are. Don't try to figure out how to do it perfect, because there is no perfect. Thank you very much, B.

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That's helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I'm trying to think of advice that I would want. So pretty much every morning,

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I read a couple of different quotes, usually some from the Bible, but I have a favorite one from Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. He said this and then wrote it on the Canadian Broadcast System in December of 1967 as he was kind of announcing what would become the last crusade, the last campaign of his life, the Poor People's Campaign. And he said, there are millions of poor people in this nation who live in a cruelly unjust society.

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They must organize a revolution, not against the lives of their fellow citizens, but against the structures that are there that can be adjusted to lift the load of poverty. And he continued, he said, there are millions of poor people who with little or nothing to lose, if they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life. I messed up a little bit of it, but there's something that's really amazing to me and very grounding about that quote.

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Because I think it locates that if people who are impacted by all of the injustice that is going around can be helped to take action together. And so then I often ask this question pretty much on a daily basis, like what can I do to help other folks take action together that then can help unsettle this complacency? There are people that are taking action every day. There will be 3,200 actions tomorrow as a part of this No Kings 3.

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And mobilizations are one way of doing actions, but I'm actually more interested in just the day-to-day kind of permanent organizing of our communities. But what I do think that these little actions and big actions do is kind of unsettle the consciousness of our society. And so that means you can tweet something out or spread something on social media, that means you can sign up to engage in mutual aid.

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That means, I mean, it's so many things, but what grounds me is the question of what can I do to help others take action together? And from there, then the answer gets to be, all kinds of things. And people are doing all kinds of things.

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And so welcome all of us to join us in that work. Thank you so much. I don't think I should be on this panel. I think they made a mistake.

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Get ready for drop-off in quality. Pee-wee Herman said, and these are two great organizers, so I don't have anything to suggest at the level that they do it. But for me, it was realizing that I wasn't sitting in the audience of history.

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Because I think we're taught a passivity in the United States. And I think like with capitalism and some of the things that we did, and church, taught this sense of helplessness. and that there's somebody that's going to help you. And so just like they're saying, it's like, what do you love?

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What do you care about? Yeah. So to me, that's like to deal with first that false. Okay.

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I can't even operate the microphone. But I think we're born into these financial and spiritual systems and things that make us falsely feel that we don't have an impact. So just to like you're saying, find what you love, find other people that care about that too, and act on it.

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I mean, I think that's where we all have to kind of start. I try to tell the students that I have been fortunate enough to lead, and now I also pastor a 162-year-old, 163-year-old historically black church on the east side that has seen our area and community changed so drastically. I tell both of those groups of individuals, because I think there's a beautiful harmony that exists that is unexplored between young people and older individuals, because they both have very similar passions, but also very similar anxieties about life.

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And It's start small and start specific and embrace your ordinary. I love Amos. Amos was an ordinary prophet, a very simple individual who does not necessarily come from the schools of prophets and things of that nature, just a very ordinary individual.

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And often what debilitates us from doing work is because we know there's so much work to be done. if you start small and you start specific, then you don't get overwhelmed by all of the things, because we're not necessarily called to do all of the things. We're called to engage on the matters that affect us small, local, and those matters that affect generations that follow us still very small and local. And to Liz's point, when you start small, multiple small things become larger things.

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And so if you start small and very specific, find that issue, that one issue that really burdens your heart, that you can say, oh, I work a 9 to 5, but at 6.30, I can attend this thing because I'm passionate about it. Or I'm a student, so my schedule is all over the place, but I can find something very small that I can do. And so small and specific, and embrace the ordinary. Thank you all so much.

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I hope that you all are paying attention and recognizing how each of our speakers here brings us some really important wisdom and knowledge that we can take away. So I appreciate that. And in the context of what we're experiencing in the U.S. and many of our most vulnerable neighbors,

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as being compounded by what we're doing in other countries, right? And so I wanted to ask if you could help give our audience online and present here something to think about. How is it that we can do these things, but also be mindful and care about people outside of our borders, right? So the Bible says, God so loved the world.

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And sometimes we get really focused on us as the U.S. And so how do we expand our imagination to care also about our neighbors outside of these borders? Imagine borders, I will say. I don't know how to do the microphone, I'm afraid.

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Well, it seems to me Christ was calling us to care about the whole world and that national boundaries are an abomination to that calling. I mean, and to think how easily this country adapted to the murder of Venezuelans, Iranians, Gazans, tells you there's something arts. We were very lucky.

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Reverend Dr. Sylva McCormick was at our church for a period of time, and she like opened a window for us. Like we started doing the detention camps, and we had done some immigration stuff, but it's like to feel the pain of it and to reach outside this parameter that you learned in school, you learned in Sunday school, and to realize that's not your true home, that we have to get beyond that, and that we're called to side with our human family over and against our nation, our sect, our status, all of that.

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So it's this time of year, you know, the Palm Sunday thing is realizing that's the joyful life we were talking before. This is like, I've known nothing but privilege my whole life. So to find out who I was as a human being, it took targeted depressed people to help me feel parts of my heart that I didn't even know were there.

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So to realize that until we care about the people who live outside our comfort zone, we're not fully alive and fully human. So it's a gift. It's not a sacrifice. It's this wonderful gift to become fully alive.

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Thank you so much for that. Thank you. In higher ed, you don't have any choice but to be aware of our global footprint and how what we do impacts people abroad. Because again, Huston-Tillotson, for example, we serve students from all over the world.

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Right now we have students, we have a large community of students from Nepal. We have students from the Caribbean, students from the continent of Africa. And so because in higher education people come here, you're keenly aware of how what we do here affects what they do here, how they exist here, and what they hope their purpose here does for their journey back home, wherever home may be. And so I think those are things that, we become very intentional about.

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And then, we are in an information age and a social media age, technological age, where the world is much smaller. And I think for many of us, we know what's happening because we see what's happening. And I think, talking about young and old, younger and older, there is a tendency for younger people to embrace what's happening globally because that's their world.

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And it's also a tendency for older individuals to reject what's happening globally because so much of their identity was framed around national identity, around what happens here. But as we continue to serve people who live among us, And I think this is where relationships are key. When you build relationships with people who come from a variety of different spaces and backgrounds, it's only natural you become concerned about what concerns them.

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And so I think that is how we first must recognize who among us is different. What things do those individuals who we are in relationship and now a community by force of choice, for those of us who are in higher education, We chose these spaces, and the people who chose to come here are now part of our community, and so we have to be intentional about those. And for those of us who live in places where we can recognize that there are people who are not among us among us, who would not look like us among us, then we have to be curious, and we have to lean into curiosity and ask the questions of humanity, right?

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They also live and breathe like I do, and I know historically we have not always seen others as human. And even when we name certain places, we also acknowledge that those places are mostly brown folk, melanated folk. And so, but when we don't lean into curiosity, it makes it even more difficult for us to embrace the challenges that we're facing right now.

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So I think one of the true heresies of Christian nationalism is the nationalism part. Because as he started, God so loved the world, not only, just like the formulation of a kind of US exceptionalism or a priority for this nation over anywhere else. I mean, it's literally anathema.

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It's literally couldn't be more like opposite of the call of Christ, as you said. And that's because it counters that we were all created in the image of God. And everyone means everyone. And so there's no first among equals here.

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I mean, that's not included in the Imago Dei. There's no exceptionalism in the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount. I mean, it literally means that it cannot be the Christianity of Christ. if some are deserving and some are undeserving, if some are up and some are down.

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Like, it just, it falls apart. And I think it's predicated on this lie of scarcity. And I think we function from that and hear that and live into that lie all the time. Because often the reason that we're justifying, and I put that in quotes because you can't justify, but cutting off aid to the rest of the world or engaging in war is something about, well, if everyone has, we'll have less, or we can't afford that.

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And again, the only scarcity that exists in this world is a scarcity of moral consciousness or political will to actually make sure that God's abundance is experienced and realized by all. And so this notion that we could ever separate ourselves from anyone else is just, it's just a lie. And it's not just like a little lie.

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It's not like a to the side lie. It's just absolutely central and core to who we're supposed to be. And so therefore, our siblings around the world are truly our siblings. And what happens to anyone happens

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to everyone. And injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And that's not cute words. That's at least the belief system we're supposed to adhere to, even when many of our political and religious leaders do not.

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Thank you so much. So I wanted to, my posture on this I think is kind of practical because Texas Impact And Becca's here, so I'll just point out, I have two staff members here at least, which is exciting. But one of the things we work on is climate change.

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And climate change has done such a great thing for the United States in helping us understand that we are connected to what happens in the whole world. But the practical thing I want to say that we talk a lot about is the church is so fixated on global ministries in so many ways. And global ministries are a way to talk to people who don't talk the language of justice, right? They are a completely different frame.

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But that's our entree into how it matters, how everybody matters all over the world. When we go to the climate negotiations, the thing, I think the thing that's the most interesting to me is talking to people from other countries and finding out that they're not all great. They're not, they, all of them have rough edges.

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They all have bad motives, just like we have bad motives and rough edges. And also their experience is so different. It's so different from ours. They talk about the political tensions in their countries.

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One of the things that people say that is always a little bit of a like, is When you said the continent of Africa, I wrote it down because I was like, it's not a country, right? And the reality is no, people don't, they don't quite grok that. Africa's just a country, just like any other country.

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The experience of people on the African continent is so different depending on where they are. The experience of people in Asia is so different depending on where they are. And when we get to hear that stuff, I think what, I mean, Becca can speak for herself too, but I mean, I think what it makes us think is not how central the United States is to everything and how big of a role we play and how much we, it's more, oh man, 185 or 90, 190 countries, right, without us, 190 countries, because we're no longer in the Paris Agreement, 190 countries,

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There's a name tag for every one of them on the tables at the UN, and our name tag is the exact same size as everybody else's. Nobody cares that much more about the United States. One of the things, and this is the last thing I'll say about this, I'm part of a thing called the US Global Leadership Council, which is, I guess I would say that it's like the booster club for the State Department. And

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And one of the things that they talk about a lot is the point of programs like USAID. And what they say is, one of the most important beneficiaries of USAID is Americans who get the opportunity to understand the rest of the world through our involvement in it. And it helps Americans understand what's good about being American, as well as what's bad. And by stepping away from it,

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We've actually, ironically, made it harder for our own people to see ourselves in a good light. Thank you. Allison, did you want to do this? Can you read the card information?

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Oh, I can. Sorry. Questions are there. One step through before I was so happy reading it, but it's okay.

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Can you read that? Yes, thank you so much. This is for Reverend Liz. Can you speak to the difference between advocacy, quote, on behalf of, end quote, versus, quote, in solidarity with, end quote?

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How do we avoid excluding the voices of people we hope to empower? Yeah, I really appreciate this question because I think it's actually at the core of at least my understanding of how we change things. We often will talk in our work about not doing things on behalf of or doing things for people who are poor and impoverished, but actually in solidarity with or led by those that are most impacted by racial and social and economic injustice. I think a piece here that I want to push around a little bit is the idea of empowering.

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Because there's something about people talking about empowering others that already has in its kind of base understanding that I have power that I'm going to give to you, and not that people get their power from who they are and from within and from above, right? And so, I have spent more than 30 years doing very grassroots organizing. That work has been led from

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compelled by and coming out of people who are poor and dispossessed. And I have experienced poverty in my own self, but I've also experienced a lack of poverty in my own self and have been invited in to a struggle alongside of other folk. in solidarity, in mutual solidarity with people, right, that has taught me that the way we're going to get out of this mess is going to come from below, lifting from the bottom so everybody can rise. And so I think sometimes when folks are engaged in doing this kind of work,

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people kind of have their kid gloves on and are worried about, am I going to take up too much space? Am I going to say the wrong thing? And my experience organizing is that you should come with what you have to give, and you should listen to what else people have to give, and you should form the kind of work you're going to do based on all all of our strengths and none of our weaknesses.

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And I think that then has a recipe for actually transforming things. But doing it on behalf of someone else or being a voice for the voiceless, you know, it just makes me cringe. Because people have voices. They've been silenced.

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And anything you do on behalf of someone else doesn't fully recognize the power that people have amongst themselves. And if we look at history and how change has happened, we like to tell a story in this country about the movement to end enslavement and how it was white northerners that were really to be thanked. And it was really Abraham Lincoln who is the great, you know, kind of redeemer.

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But if it had not been for the agency and the insight and the bravery of enslaved and formerly enslaved folk who engaged in an underground railroad, it never would have called the question on the horrors of enslavement. Like we would have, like, and And here you have, in our history of this country, a powerful example of those that are most impacted, who have nothing or a little or nothing to lose, taking into people's bodies and minds and hands freedom. And then everybody in society has to adjust around that.

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And that's the history of how we have abolition in this country. And it's not a story we've been told necessarily. And I think it then speaks to why we have to have solidarity with and why we have to have leadership. We often talk in our work about the plight, the fight, and the insight of those that are most impacted.

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A lot of times people are happy to hear the sad stories of poor and unhoused people. But what about joining in the fight? And what about seeing what beautiful theological and theoretical insight people have about making meaning of this moment and how we're going to get out of this place?

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Very well said. Thank you. And thank you for naming the power dynamics that we need to be aware of, that we don't do for, but alongside and with, and often, and if not always, right, affected people know far more about their circumstances than we do. So thank you so much for naming that.

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Did anyone else want to speak to that question? I'm sorry. Just very simply, every time I see advocacy, I'm always I'm drawn to wonder if there is a desire to open the door, make room at the table, and then leave the room for people who desire to see marginalized and others empowered.

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I often talk to a lot of my Methodist colleagues who say, oh, Marcus, we would love to have your voice in the room. And I always ask them, can I have your seat, though? If I can't have your seat, then you're not advocating.

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You want to be a part of, and this is true in any place of privilege. As a man, if I say I want to advocate on behalf of women, women, am I willing to use my privilege to open the door, make this space at the table, and then leave the room so that the voice can have what is necessary? So I just think sometimes it's easier for us.

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It's harder for us to realize that what we mean by advocacy often is I want to do something for someone that I have sympathy for. instead of, how can I use my privilege to make space and room and depart so that they can truly, as you say, be empowered from what they bring and not what we give them access to. Very well said. Thank you so much, Reverend Marcus.

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What else? Okay. And maybe I know, Reverend Marcus, you spoke to this as well, so I don't know if you want to start there or if you all want to speak to this question.

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How can we be more effective in helping our older congregants care about people outside the U.S. and outside the West, which is something you named as to why that might exist, that context might exist? I think it's important to keep global realities before the people you serve. And do you do life with?

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Yes, as a pastor, I know that many of those I serve want to hear messages about our plight and about our struggles. And that's true. But I also have to be mindful, you know, to the quote that King lifted up, that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And so if we are facing, you know, for instance, if we are facing gentrification on the east side,

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imagine what those in Gaza, those in Iran, imagine what they're facing and what that looks like. And so I have the privilege in these spaces to make older congregations aware that whatever is happening here is happening somewhere else at a similar magnitude or even greater magnitude and being willing, if that's in sermon illustrations, if that's bringing individuals in to inform us, because again, I think sometimes as pastors, we take the expert role too often. And so how do I bring people in who are different, who are from other countries and other places to speak more intelligently and directly to those things?

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But I think it's keeping what's happening outside of the U.S. very present in our community and our spaces. Very well said. Thank you.

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Anyone else want to speak to that? I just, again, I would say we have global ministries and we have partners all over the world. We have PCUSA has a guy in Peru who's working with the indigenous community on rare earth mineral mining. We get to talk to him because we go to the place where they collect all of us to have those conversations.

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But we should have him on Zoom in our churches in Austin, right? I mean, we should be trying a lot harder to make sure that people, I mean, Heather's nodding and Heather's been to the continent of Africa as well, to Ghana and South Africa. we should have ongoing communication with the people that we're in relationship with, and not just assume that that's a one-off. You know, oh, it's nice to know that they're out there.

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They're part of our community, and we can talk to them all the time. Thank you. Did you want to, would you like to add anything? Okay.

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I, yeah, I really appreciate this, kind of provocation to this point that like it's like our responsibility to make sure people are hearing the stories and realities of people all over the place. That it's hard for anybody to know to care if we're not hearing about what's really going on. And

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I've had the opportunity to travel globally before. And when I turn on the news in other places, it's so different. I mean, it's so not US-centric. And it's so beautiful because it like, it reminds you that the world is vast and big and beautiful and diverse and

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actually all of us get to be bigger and more beautiful and more diverse because of it. And so I think sometimes we think when people are not able to see a bigger horizon, we should just kind of chide them for it instead of opening up their eyes to it, right? And inviting people in to imagine being responsible to To this bigger world and this bigger community, and so not doing it out of punishment, but doing it out of invitation, because we're all better when we're a part of something bigger, and I think I...

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I think it's part of the reason we're seeing young people respond. I mean, I'm an organizer, and so folks will often be like, don't you believe that you can just organize people only around their self-interests? And I was like, I think if we're looking at the moment in the world right now, it is very clear that people are not just organizing out of their self-interests. You know, some of the most beautiful organizing of the last couple of years have been about people very different

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and out of very different experiences and places all over the world, whether it's Gaza or whether it's around immigration justice or whether it's around climate, than the folks that are doing some of that organizing. And so people are clear that actually their connection to people that are like them and not anything like them matters. And so I think that it's very possible, but it's not by by telling people that they're all wrong and that they're too narrow and that they're wrong, that they're, that they can't ever get there.

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I think it's inviting people to be a part of this global community because it's a lot better here than just in this little scared, closed-off world that so many people live in. Thank you so much. Jim, would you like to add anything? Just, sure, why not?

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I think when you leave seminary, very early on, you'll be faced with the decision of whether to pretend, to know things that you don't know, to be a part of the institution. If you're ever going to be prophetic, you might want to start as you're coming out of the gate. But to realize, to me, is what people don't realize outside the church is that teaching Christian theology is very much like trying to teach baseball to children who've been beaten with the bats before you got there.

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That the words are often coercive and they're nationalistic by their nature. And the problem isn't the congregations. It's an institutional church and the clergy who don't have the courage. Like the question about older congregants, you have some really kick-butt older congregants.

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You know, to assume that people are cowardice, usually it's the clergy that have been the cowards. And to model honesty and just come out of the gate and say, I don't know what the truth is, but I know whether I'm being honest or not. And what I say will sometimes anger you, but please know I'm saying what I think is true. And I will listen to the flip side of that.

00:41:49.360 - 00:42:14.960

So to me, it's like, I think the model of ministry is much more professional than prophetic. And a lot of people are going into the pulpit thinking about how they can keep the job kind of stuff. It's like loving the people enough to piss them off. And you'll be surprised at the people that will be grateful to have somebody not faking it.

00:42:16.080 - 00:42:33.600

That they'd much rather disagree with you than be bored to tears every week. You know, to realize how appreciative people are when clergy are courageous. So to me, it's like most people know this, but they've never felt permission to be fully human. So this is an opportunity.

00:42:33.600 - 00:42:56.800

It is dangerous. And some people just holding the job and being a model of a person in power, that may be the best that you can do for a while. But if you're a person of privilege, like we have no excuse not to deconstruct the system of oppression that's hiding in Christian theology.

00:42:58.720 - 00:43:23.480

You know, so anyway, I mean, to me, it's like, I think if we're afraid of the congregation, we won't do it. But if you think there's a friend in there somewhere beneath, all of this stuff, the ministry can be one of the most delightful jobs and intimate jobs for those who choose to be honest. So. Thank you all so much.

00:43:24.000 - 00:43:35.040

Yeah. Thank you so much for, because each of you has taught our audience something here, right? You've taught all of us something from your lens of experience. And

00:43:36.240 - 00:43:59.960

many things you've taught us, and I'm especially mindful of what you were saying, Jim, about, it made me think of the Bible verse, they will hate you, that we will be hated, and that we don't often take those risks because we're afraid, for many reasons. So I appreciate you naming that. And also, I was thinking of this morning, I don't know how many of you saw a J.D. Vance

00:44:00.040 - 00:44:25.600

talking about people in Iran, very obviously sweepingly, but I don't agree, obviously, with attacking people and committing genocide and displacing over a million people. But he said they're awful. And he said some story about people who were going to strap bombs to themselves and things. And it just reminded me that so many of our churches and our communities get their information about other human beings from the news and not scripture.

00:44:26.080 - 00:44:48.160

right? So we are shaped to think about people, not for God so loved the world, but from what we hear from the news, and not just from JD Vance, but from ABC, NBC, CBS, everything. And it's not the scriptures that are shaping it. So thank you for teaching us and reminding us, because the dehumanization is the start of consenting to the violence that you named, Jim.

00:44:48.160 - 00:45:12.800

So thank you all so much. The last question I'm seeing here, the most recent question actually, is our church youth group made signs for the No Kings march. What sign have you seen or made in your advocacy that sticks with you and could wake up the conscience of America? So I'm going to say an unpopular thing, which is

00:45:13.440 - 00:45:44.160

I'm not sure why the youth group would have been making signs for the No King March necessarily. That's not necessarily the right use of their time. The signs I've seen that I like the most have been people who were posted up outside a legislative district office on any given day of the world saying, today, Tuesday, I'm here yet again hoping to meet with my legislator to talk to them about my specific issue.

00:45:44.160 - 00:46:21.200

I think the big problem about the things like No Kings marches is it is easy to get a lot of people to want to participate in the one thing, the one time. It's a fun party. But I don't know that any of those signs will wake up the conscience of America as much as somebody on a normal day being, what I would suggest is in many cases, much more courageous to go directly to the legislator or the member of Congress, say, I am not coming as part of a large group of people.

00:46:21.520 - 00:46:46.400

I'm not coming with a slogan. I'm coming because I really want to talk to you. So having said that, I will say the signs that matter the most in like organizing land are the ones that make a good photo op, and the ones that make a good photo op don't have specific people's names on them, and they don't have cuss words on them.

00:46:46.720 - 00:47:21.760

So a good message that will help us do the kind of organizing that we need to is a good sign that doesn't have cuss words and doesn't have any person's name on it. But the thing that will really make you feel like you did the work was when you go have the meeting with the legislator. Why did you look at me when you said not to swear? So I have a couple of thoughts on this.

00:47:23.920 - 00:47:51.760

I often like to bring signs with Bible quotes to rallies because I think one of the things that we've really lost over the last, my lifetime, I'm 50, is this prophetic? Like, is this like what the Bible really says? And is people of faith bringing the full force of our faith into the public square?

00:47:51.960 - 00:48:16.680

And so I like having woe to you who pass, who legislate evil and make women and homeless children your prey. I like the wages you fail to pay your workers cry out against you. I like, do justice, but I like the judgmental ones, to be honest, because they feel like they're like, I'm going to a protest, you know?

00:48:16.800 - 00:48:46.080

And I don't have to just say it, the Bible says it, right? And what I experience when I show up at protests and rallies with with Bible quotes on my signs, is so many people from lots of walks of life just being really struck by it. Because they're not hearing that form of religion and Christianity, in my case, like very many places.

00:48:46.400 - 00:48:56.080

And it resonates. Or it's just like, wow, that's something. So My favorite is just like quote the Bible.

00:48:56.800 - 00:49:42.480

But I'll say for no kings, Cairo Center that I direct is on the host committee because we're trying to actually push it to be, you know, I think what it has played of a role is for in many places is to be a reminder to people that they're not alone. that things are not okay and that lots of people agree. and there will be 3,200 events in every congressional district tomorrow, which is huge and not necessarily organizing, and I'm an organizer, right? So our team has

00:49:42.960 - 00:50:32.480

at the request of a bunch of the organizers, actually put together song sheets and a couple of unified songs that thousands of places will sing tomorrow, partially trying to actually not just curse the darkness, but shine a light on what people are doing, who people are. And so One of the songs that places will sing tomorrow and maybe here too, I don't know, is the song that the peace poets wrote for kind of for this occasion, but also for other things. And it says, we are the movement, liberation moving, for every single human, we have come to win.

00:50:33.360 - 00:51:03.520

And to then imagine potentially millions of people singing that, we are the movement, liberation moving, for every single human, we have come to win. Like that to me shifts people as individuals feeling hopeless and scared in this moment to a space of like, we care about everyone. And we have come to win.

00:51:04.320 - 00:51:34.480

We have a vision that goes way past just reacting. to all of the barrage of things that are happening. And I think our hope, and we've trained hundreds of song leaders who will be leading that and many other songs, like in New York City, where I'll be tomorrow, what's happening is that church and other choirs are at every block. We've arranged for them to be at every block.

00:51:34.720 - 00:51:59.840

And so that what people are doing is they're singing. That's what they're doing tomorrow. And they're singing movement songs that have a content that are about, we're in this together. And then to have been able to organize dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of church and other choirs to show up and do that, to me, that feels

00:52:00.720 - 00:52:41.360

we're trying to get somewhere, we're trying to build something, and that power can then be applied, to our elected officials and to everyone, so that we, again, aren't just fighting back, but that we're actually, staking a claim that this can be for everyone. Do you want to speak to that one? Oh, sure. I've been, I don't want to say fortunate, but I've had the opportunity to lead young people on marches.

00:52:42.400 - 00:53:24.920

And in particular, I had a youth group that was downtown marching several years back when there was a shooting in Dallas. And so I'm I always think that the best sign, to your point, are things that give new information to already existing belief, like the Bible. If we are in a Christian country, just recently I had a colleague share a scripture about generosity on Facebook.

00:53:25.560 - 00:53:46.160

And one of our students said, I never read that scripture before. Like those are the things I think we should be striving. Like how do we lift up the biblical witness, the biblical prophetic witness in such a way that it illuminates and enlightens individuals already preconceptions about what they think they know and believe? Because that's what awakens consciousness.

00:53:46.160 - 00:54:08.880

Consciousness is awakened when something, some part of us is open to receive something new that challenges what we previously thought. And so I think can't go wrong with scripture and you can't go wrong with something that shocks the already existing belief system. Very well said.

00:54:08.880 - 00:54:13.760

Thank you. I think Thank you. Did you want to speak to that?

00:54:14.160 - 00:54:22.520

No, okay. I'm looking at time. And so we're right at one. I do want to give you all the opportunity to offer any closing remarks.

00:54:22.520 - 00:54:49.920

And I definitely want to extend our gratitude because as I knew you all are teachers in your own right, you're right, and you've been teaching us. And I'm so grateful because it gives us so much to think about these days and moving forward in the various facets of ministry that people are involved in. So thank you so much. And I think just a reminder, too, that organizing and mobilizing within the church and the church in the streets has different facets, right?

00:54:49.920 - 00:55:05.360

So that you all come from different perspectives and different parts of the body that do these things. And so all of them are important. So the signs, the margins, publishing, the organizing, they're all important pieces of the puzzle.

00:55:05.360 - 00:55:18.240

So thank you for the work that you do and for sharing with us. Are there any closing comments that you all want to provide for us here? I just, I'll answer that last question. Oh, yes, please do.

00:55:18.240 - 00:55:35.800

Yes, please. We challenge scarcity mindset by reminding people that there are areas where things are more dire. Americans, we think in America, we don't know what poverty really is. I mean, we do.

00:55:35.800 - 00:55:58.720

I don't want to say that tongue in cheek, but I grew up poor. And what I perceived my poverty was, when I've traveled abroad, I've seen poor, for lack of better words. And so, you know, start with gratitude. If we start with a posture of gratitude, being grateful,

00:55:59.520 - 00:56:23.120

for life in and of itself, for opportunities of life, but also just to remind, most people. I carry with me my brother's picture on my necklace. I take him with me everywhere because my brother, just four months ago, committed suicide. And it was primarily centered around

00:56:24.040 - 00:56:49.360

economy, economics, the inability to provide a life for himself and his children. And it reminds me daily that we operate in so much privilege. We operate in so much access. I mean, even surrounding his death, there were

00:56:49.960 - 00:57:29.360

things afforded to me in preparation for his death, that if people who gave those things to me would have given it to him, he would have lived. And so I think when we talk about this life that we live in this work of justice and especially poverty abolishing, because I do think we live in a time where probably no other time than other, then we can eliminate poverty and we can ensure that the hardships that people are living do not have to live them. And so when I think about people who talk, when we think about scarcity mindset, I think it's often from a place of privilege and access that we don't realize how great, how good we actually have it.

00:57:29.680 - 00:57:58.080

And when you remind people that there are people who are holding on to very, on to less, trying to do the most, it'll remind us. And so I carry that with me with reality, knowing that even what I think I don't have enough of, I still have plenty. And I can share that with someone who probably is praying for what I am crying and complaining about.

00:58:00.800 - 00:58:26.720

I think what I loved about your lecture yesterday, it seems to me that Jubilee is at the really heart of Christianity. The parables are talking about a kingdom, but what is that? I think it's Jubilee. And I think Mary's song, I think the road out into the wilderness where the mountains are lowered, the valleys are lifted.

00:58:27.520 - 00:58:43.840

Capitalism is the greatest enemy humankind has. There's not a problem facing us that we can solve within the constraints of capitalism. Jubilee is the answer. So that idea of good news,

00:58:44.360 - 00:59:12.800

which you said yesterday, which includes the real world. It's like, it's like on earth as it is in heaven is not, that's not an allegory. It's like that the love of God calls us to change the world from property rights to human rights. And you can still have some property rights, but it's like, it's evil, it's cancerous to base your laws and your values and your economic system on property holdings.

00:59:12.880 - 00:59:34.880

Because if you don't have property, you have no human rights then. So to realize the cancerous nature of the value system we've been taught, and that our job is to call people out of that, and into the joyous parade, into the lost, the marginalized, the stones, the builders have rejected, that will be the new temple to come. So anyway, that's.

00:59:34.880 - 00:59:48.720

I love that. That's a good sermon. Is it a Palm Sunday sermon? Yeah, it just made me think, and maybe just in closing,

00:59:54.480 - 01:00:19.360

We throw out more food in this country than could feed not just everyone that's hungry here, but across the whole world. It takes 45 minutes to build a prefab house. And yet, and we can 3D print houses now. There's 12 million empty luxury housing units in this country, more than the entire housing stock of Canada.

01:00:19.680 - 01:00:42.080

And yet we have about 10 million people that are housing insecure or homeless. So it's true, like we may be living in the only time so far in history where we could end poverty tomorrow across the whole world. I mean, we just have to do it, right?

01:00:42.600 - 01:01:05.320

And then to theologically think about what it is that we can do it, but we're not doing it. And then when we put that on God, Because there's something that just feels just like horrible to me. The idea that we put it on God that everybody doesn't have it, right?

01:01:06.640 - 01:01:30.800

like, I mean, it's kind of like implying like God didn't make enough. Because like, what do you mean there's scarcity? And so And yet, in the Bible, over and over again, starting with manna, going through Jubilee, going through the, community of saints and the collection for the poor.

01:01:30.960 - 01:02:04.160

I mean, just like there is an arc that says it's scarcity no more, right? And so how you, how we, how we move through that, I mean, is the question, because There's no material reason for us to have scarcity anymore. I mean, it's, and so then we're coming up with theological games and political games to continue it.

01:02:05.480 - 01:02:29.600

And so then our job, I believe, is to win those games and get out of this mess. And I invite everyone here to keep on trying to do it because I think we can. I don't have a short answer to how we get congregants out of the scarcity mindset.

01:02:33.280 - 01:02:43.200

I've enjoyed this conversation very much and I look forward to continuing it in the future. Thank you all. Thank you. Can we give them a round of applause?

01:02:43.200 - 01:02:47.120

Thank you so much. Thank you all.