Ask a Pastor Ep. 77 - The Church and Systematic Racism

Welcome to Ask a Pastor, a podcast from Orchard Hill Church! Have you ever had a question about the Bible, Faith, or Christianity as a whole? Submit your question and one of our pastors will answer on the program. New episodes every Wednesday.

This episode, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, Joel Haldeman and JoAnn Adams sit down to have a conversation about racism. It it too political for the church to handle? Does systematic racism exist in America? What should the church do about past sins and what should we be doing now?

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Podcast Transcript

Joel Haldeman: Hey, welcome to the Ask a Pastor podcast where we're going to spend some time diving deep on a question that you have sent in. My name is Joel, I'm our Strip District Campus pastor joined by Kurt Bjorklund, our senior pastor and JoAnn Adams, our co-director of Women's Ministry and Life Stage.

Kurt Bjorklund: Big title.

Joel Haldeman: Come on.

Kurt Bjorklund: That is a big title.

Joel Haldeman: JoAnn Adams, Stanford.

Joel Haldeman: We're coming up on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the goal here is to spend some time talking about race and especially what that looks like within the church, what the church can do about that. But before we get into that specifically, the question that we want to start with is, looking back on 2019, the best book that you've read, is a highlight book for you. Kurt, you have to go first.

Kurt Bjorklund: I'll go first. I did not know you were going to ask this question, but the book that jumps at the top of my mind is a book called, Seculosity. It deals with how we make almost religious-like affections out of all of our secular pursuits and I thought it was really helpful to see my own tendency in some of those categories and ways.

Joel Haldeman: Interesting.

Josh: Explain that better, what do you mean by that?

Kurt Bjorklund: The concept, by Seculosity?

Josh: Explain the concept for me.

Kurt Bjorklund: The concept is basically the idea that your family, your work, your finances, your kids, your exercise, that all of those things we end up putting religious-like devotion and affection into and we use them to replace devotion to God, that is our ultimate thing. So it was just well-done how, I think it was David Zahl, I think wrote that but that was probably the best book I read.

Joel Haldeman: Wow. JoAnn?

JoAnn Adams: I'm always starting books and I probably started about three or four but the one that I read all the way through was Serving Leadership and that was in preparation for a class we did here with young adults. Although i think I practice serving leadership, I never read the book and so that really just helped me to not only prepare for the class, but also to see how I could better improve in some of the things that I was doing as a leader.

Kurt Bjorklund: Interesting. Joel, how about you? What was your best book?

Joel Haldeman: I've been reading a lot of fiction the past two years so if I were to pick one of those, I did read-

Josh: Hop on Pop.

Joel Haldeman: Hop on Pop, Podcast Josh says. I would say, actually I'm still midway through The Shining right now and it's really interesting to me. I just love getting into a book that is immersive and imaginative. Okay, I probably shouldn't say this, so I've read the first three and a half Game of Thrones books. I've watched the first episode on HBO and I was like, "There's no way I can watch this." But I'll tell you what has been really interesting about those books is, it's made me appreciate the life that we have today because the value of life in those books is so low and it actually, I feel like has given me this different picture of some of what we read in the Old Testament just about kings and the authority that they have. That's been really interesting, but midway through book four I was like, "I can't." I've quit that book twice now. I think I'm done for good.

Kurt Bjorklund: Okay.

Joel Haldeman: Not an endorsement for those books or the show. I definitely couldn't hang. There was too much content that was disruptive.

Kurt Bjorklund: I was some guys the other night and one of the guys told me that his wife is into something, what is it called, K-soaps or K-Pop or something. They are Korean soap operas.

JoAnn Adams: Right.

Kurt Bjorklund: And he said there's a whole group of women who, that's their indulgence. I don't know why women, I guess he was just talking to guys, maybe there are guys who are into it too, but evidently that's the new thing. If you don't want books, maybe that's a route to go.

Joel Haldeman: An immersive experience.

Kurt Bjorklund: Since we're coming up on Martin Luther King, I'm wearing Kids Fest swag. That's intentional. Kids Fest, registration is now open for Orchard Hill so if you're local to Pittsburgh, Kids Fest is an awesome thing that happens every summer around our Wexford campus, Butler campus, Strip District is building one as well hopefully this summer. Get your kids involved, you won't regret it. You can go to OrchardHill.com to do that.

Joel Haldeman: Let's jump into the topic by starting with this question, talking about race, racial tensions within the church. Is this subject too political? Is this something that the church should just not talk about?

Kurt Bjorklund: No.

Joel Haldeman: Give us more, Kurt.

Kurt Bjorklund: No.

Kurt Bjorklund: Nothing should be too political. Anything that matters should be something that the church is willing to address and talk about fully. Obviously there are issues. I think what the church, at least Orchard Hill, I shouldn't say the church, a lot of churches lean into politics hard and just say, "We're on this side. We're on that side. You're out." What we don't want to do at Orchard Hills, we don't want to handle politics in sound bites and what I mean by that is we don't to just say, "Well, if you're a Christian, you should believe this." We want to embrace a subject fully enough that if we talk about it, people can say, "Okay, I've had a chance to think about it from a biblical prospective and respond to it." But if we aren't talking about the issues of the day, then in some ways we're not being faithful to address the text that does address issues that are still contemporary to our day.

Joel Haldeman: That's good. What were you going to say, JoAnn?

JoAnn Adams: I was going to say that no, it's not too political. I agree with Kurt that it really depends on the church in terms of how you address it. As an example, I know I grew up in the black church and subjects or racism, social justice were regularly talked about. But of course they were talked about in congregations that were solely black congregations so there wasn't an opportunity to really have this dialogue about the tension.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, yeah.

Joel Haldeman: The reason I wanted to start there, is there is a pastor that I listen to and he says that every year they do, beginning of the year, they do a message on abortion, they do a message on race, I don't know what the other ones are, but he says he comes out of the abortion message and he gets all these emails from people, and this is Texas, conservative, right, applauding him, saying good job handling that subject and then he comes out of the race one and he gets all these emails from people that say, way too political there, shouldn't have done that. That makes a lot of sense in a very conservative area and a church in a much more progressive area would maybe have the opposite thing, talk about race all the time, but if you talk about abortion now you're being too political.

Joel Haldeman: I think there's sort of that gut check that we all need to have that just because someone is on a different side of the political spectrum that you are, if you're in church saying it's too political, is not a good way to ... a cop out, if that's the right way to say that.

Kurt Bjorklund: Well yeah, the message I did right before Christmas Eve, the 22nd of December, I talked about this some, but it's interesting that if you really read through the Bible closely, there are times that you will come out feeling and sounding very liberal and times you will come out sounding very conservative and you almost need to put aside your political lenses in order to dive into the Bible in reality. And what I mean by that is, if you go in expecting to have a confirmation of one side's political views, you'll be disappointed or challenged in some way. And what I mean is, I think on issues of justice, poverty, community, some of those things, the Bible sounds pretty liberal. When it comes to some other issues, sexuality, family, maybe even gender at times, the Bible might sound very conservative to people and so there's a built-in tension there and I think that's why sometimes people say, let's just avoid it. Any of those issues that touch the "third rail".

Kurt Bjorklund: And I know, like certainly somebody who does have a fair amount of teaching, publicly, there are issues that if you just mention them, you know that you'll get negative reaction no matter how you come down on it. We did a series a couple of years ago now on gender, race and a few other things, abortion, all of the stuff that was in there and I got lots more email than I normally get and more people saying I'm done at the church than I normally get because of what you said and so you know if you wade in, but again, I think to remain silent is to miss part of what it is to proclaim the whole counsel of the word of God.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah.

JoAnn Adams: You know, here's the thing. I think that sometimes when there are topics that are taught from the stage, if you will, there's one shot. You talk about it and then there's little follow up about it. So people who have passion about it, in doing something, and that's where sometimes I think that the church misses out because we will talk about these things and there are, of course, people in the congregation who are on multiple sides, so to make a decision like, "Okay, we're going to go and really do this", you would be spreading yourself very thin around all of these issues and sometimes that's where I struggle because there are hot topics for me that I think we should probably do more about this.

Kurt Bjorklund: You should do five, six weeks on that.

JoAnn Adams: Exactly. But how do you make a decision then to go further, to do more?

Kurt Bjorklund: Right, no. That's a great question. I think, again, as somebody who gets a chance to shape a lot of the teaching, there is always issues that are left. I looked back the other day and it's been six years since I've done a direct teaching on the issue of homosexuality. That's a long time in a church cycle. Now some of that, I would defend by saying, wherever you come down on homosexuality, the issue is, is the church should have a voice on that, regardless. And that's an issue where you could say, "Well, how do you just do one week? That needs five, six." Whereas other people would say, "Don't spend five weeks on that. Good grief. Give it to me and let's move on."

Kurt Bjorklund: What we try to do here, which sometimes makes it hard, is we try to teach generally, expositional though books and let the topics come as they are in the text and the downside of that is instead of every year saying, "We know that we are doing a message on abortion, we know we're doing one on race, we know we're doing this", sometimes it might be several years before it comes in the text. Now sometimes we'll do a topical series like we did a few years ago where we said, "It's been too long since that's come up naturally through a text."

Kurt Bjorklund: When I talk through Acts, race came up clearly, in the Book of Acts. You couldn't avoid, there it is and so there are different times that it's all of a sudden you say, "Okay, here the text emerges with the issue." But other than systematizing it, every year we do right to life and Martin Luther King and that's why I think people do it because those two days that we recognize nationally come in January and so it's an easy time, if you want to say, we're doing these every year but we've chosen to be a little more expositional in our approach.

Joel Haldeman: We had a brief conversation yesterday and we wanted to handle the topic of race and it seems crazy for three white guys to sit here and talk about here's our explanation of race. Obviously we want you to be a part of this because you have experience that we don't have, but can you share-

JoAnn Adams: I am black, just in case-

Kurt Bjorklund: For the radio listeners.

Joel Haldeman: That's right.

JoAnn Adams: Yeah.

Joel Haldeman: Can you share what you shared yesterday, just about being the spokesperson?

JoAnn Adams: Oh yeah. It's interesting because whenever there is a topic about race, because I'm black people think that I am the expert on it and yes, I am the expert on my blackness, but I am not the expert on everybody's. Sometimes it just feels like the token, we're going to have a discussion about this with a black person and what I'm going to give you is my perspective and that's all I can do. I don't want anyone to think that I am giving the answer for every black person in the world. I'm giving it from my perspective.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah, yeah.

Joel Haldeman: I think what Kurt-

JoAnn Adams: I'm sorry.

Joel Haldeman: Go ahead.

JoAnn Adams: And the other thing is, there are also other people that have a perspective about it and it's always good because I know I love it when I have conversations with people that have a widely different view than I do about race and so having those discussions where you this discussions that are widely different are always helpful in people to make their own decisions about some things.

Joel Haldeman: I think what Kurt and I would both agree on, judging by the size of the pile of books that he has sitting next to him about race is that is something that is not right today, that we need to figure out how to address race, both in terms of as a society and as a church. We certainly welcome your input in this because I get overwhelmed by feeling like how do we even begin, how do we even get started on this. You've got some notes written down there, where do you want to start the conversation?

JoAnn Adams: I wasn't prepared to start it, I was prepared to engage in it. It's interesting because living life as a black person, as I started to do some research, I was like, "Okay, what are we going to talk about", and I know the one issue is just really around should there be repentance for the sins of the ancestors. As I did a little research and I was looking through the Bible and trying to see are there references where there were praying for the sins of the ancestors and I know one reference was in Nehemiah where Nehemiah prayed for the ancestors wrongs, all the wrongs of the ancestors and of his own before building the wall. I thought, okay, and then I read an article about a church in DC that had this whole service of repentance because the church was founded, the founders were slave owners, so they decided they were going to have this service where they would just pray for those wrongs. But then they set forth a plan of how they were going to do things differently. I'd just be interested in hearing from you, what do you think about whether or not I should blame you for the wrongs of your forefathers around slavery.

Joel Haldeman: I read an article about a church in Montgomery, Alabama and the pastor said that he had done a bunch of research into the church's past, it was an old church, and saw that it had had this long line of just racism within the church and the church gathered and decided, "We're going to repent of that even though it was a long time ago." They went through this repentance process, they changed the name of the church and basically all the members that existed signed this thing that they put on the wall that said, "We are no longer this and we're repenting of it." I thought that was a really cool, that's an incredible way to deal with that especially in that setting where the church has a very clear connection to the past. Not as much clarity in a church like Orchard Hill that's ...

Kurt Bjorklund: Founded in 1989, so 30 years, 31 years old and doesn't have any clear tie. It's different if you were in the south or in the north even in an era when things were founded and said, "Hey, we only want certain people here." I can see that being a very different issue.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah.

JoAnn Adams: Although, I would say that we also need to think about Orchard Hill in the sense that there are people who come here that may not have felt welcome because they were. Because in the 1980s, even in this area, let's talk about where we are. If someone that looked differently that came into Orchard Hill, they may not have been welcomed in the same way they are welcomed now. I don't think because it is not in the south or it was in the 80s.

Kurt Bjorklund: It doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

JoAnn Adams: Correct.

Kurt Bjorklund: Right. What I think I'm alluding to is I think it's one thing if you're in an institution that clearly participated in versus just we exist in the shadow of and I don't think that that absolves you, saying we exist in the shadow of, but what I'm saying is it's different. Here might be a way to think about it. As a kid I grew up really wealthy, I did not, this is just an example. If I grew up really wealthy and I found out when I got older than the reason I'm wealthy is that my parents had been really dishonest and had stolen a ton of money from other people, by poor means, for me to continue living in that wealth without some repentance or reparation, feels disingenuous. However, if I live in a world as a wealthy child where my parents benefited from other people doing that, I'm still living in the shadow of it, and there is still something that needs to be done, but it's different than saying, "My mom and dad stole from you. I'm making a reparation." There's a step removed and I'm not saying that there isn't something there still to understand, but it's different if I have a direct line versus one that's a step removed.

Kurt Bjorklund: Now I realize that that's probably not a take that everybody has today, but to me, once you start saying you have to repent of things that don't have a direct ... that you can't directly trace back, there's no end then to everything that needs to be repented of. Every wrong in the world, you're going to be repenting of.

Kurt Bjorklund: Now race, especially in America and the time we live, is different because of this and that is, and again, I know that this is not agreed on by a lot of white people that will hear this, but the essence of white privilege in many ways is the essence of benefiting from something that you didn't have any say in creating and just by virtue of being white, there has been benefit given to a white person and so there is something in that that is problematic because even if my immediate white ancestors did not steal or participate in, they participated in a system that gave an advantage to me as a white person. Now there are some voices, Shelby Steele is one of them, and some others who is not revered by many in the black community, even though he's a black educator and author. The books I've read, I try to read on both sides of the issue so that I don't just get one side. He would say that now it's exaggerated because the flip is actually switched to where if you're a person of minority status in our country, we're so aware of it that you're given more opportunity. I don't know that that is true, that's just another take.

Joel Haldeman: I know that maybe a couple of years ago you and myself and a couple of others from staff went to a mini conference that dealt with race, and I don't know what we were getting into but I was disturbed at the way they retold the history of America through the lens of the light and black conflict and that was, for me, the first time where it hit me that I am a part, I am down the stream from some things that are very bad and I am benefiting from them. I've really wrestled with how do I make sense of that, how should I feel about America? How should I feel about America's past? What's your take on ... distinguishing between when you have that clear line versus I'm living in the shadow of ... I think this conversation is about living in the shadow of. So what do we do? Do we repent of the sins of the generations past?

JoAnn Adams: I think that's an individual decision. I think what is most important is what are you doing now. If you know there are some things that you are doing now that are inappropriate, then you need to make amends for that. And I think part of that is ... How do we live our lives? We live our lives mostly in our own little communities. The people that are our friends are people that are like us and that we share some common history with. Those are people that we enjoy being around because sometimes it doesn't feel good when you're with someone that you don't share any history with. I know as a black person, sometimes when I go into situations where people are mostly white, I have to get myself together because it's like, "Okay, I'm going to go in here", and this has happened throughout, mostly throughout my career and my adult life that I've been the only person or one of one or two people so it's like I have to be bilingual because sometimes I just like to be with people where we're just talking however we're going to talk but then I have to go and I have to be appropriate and that doesn't feel good.

JoAnn Adams: However, when I'm in those situations sometimes, I always glean something about another individual. I always think, "That person's not so bad." Or they might think the same about me so I think it's making an effort to put yourself in a situation that might not be where you are really comfortable.

Joel Haldeman: Interesting.

Kurt Bjorklund: I love what you said there, JoAnn, about repent if you want to, that doesn't matter nearly as much to me, not as much as, "What are you doing today?" I think sometimes the repentance question can be almost a grandstanding. Like, we're doing something, we're repented.

Joel Haldeman: Sure.

Kurt Bjorklund: Rather than saying, what are the systemic issues that are still happening today and am I part of some of them and is there anything that I can do to change some of those systemic systems. And it really, I've lived largely in more white areas of my life. I lived in the city of Chicago for a number of years, but even then it was a more white neighborhood than black neighborhood. There were certainly interracial parts of the community and I would say, as somebody who is white, I have not heard very often white people sitting around trashing people of other races, intentionally saying, like the caricatures of racism are not something that I've seen. Maybe it's because I'm in the church and pastor and people don't want to do stuff in front of the pastor, I don't know. And same thing, like when I've been around people who are hiring, people who own companies, the question I hear is not, how can I hire more white people and not hire ethnic diversity, the question I hear is how can I hire ethnic diversity. And so I don't think that, I'm not saying that overt racism does not exist, but I think the bigger challenge is the systems and the things that are just built into our culture that you may not even see.

Kurt Bjorklund: I noticed something the other day, I was watching some TV and an ad came on for one of the exclusive resorts in the Caribbean and just on the screen they had a bunch of white families sitting there enjoying themselves and out came the black person, who presumably was Caribbean who served them. You watch that, and at first it didn't catch my attention and then all of a sudden I thought, that is an example of portraying white as rich and being sort of ... by black, and if you come here, you're going to be served ... Now, did they intend all that? I don't know. I'm not going to presume their motives. Maybe they just said, "Hey, here we are." But that sends a message in our culture and that is part of this systemic system that at some point an awareness and an ability to see it and say, "I don't want to contribute to that, if I can help in some way."

Kurt Bjorklund: I'm not saying, don't go to the resort necessarily, but maybe, if that's what they are promoting, that might be a way to avoid that. Is to say, okay, how does that live differently?

JoAnn Adams: You said so many things there that I wanted to respond to and one is that you've been in situations where you certainly don't have white people who are bashing people of color. It's interesting, I won't say that I've been in situations where black people don't bash white people but there are certainly situations that I've been where it's like ... especially being in a company and black people get together and talking about the racism that they've experienced and it's been a hot topic for us. What are some of the things that we can do about that? I do think that in other environments that certainly goes on. It is interesting too, this is a story about my dad that I just keep thinking about.

JoAnn Adams: As I moved around, I mostly lived in white neighborhoods in the suburbs. My dad did not grow up in a white neighborhood, always lived in a black community. So he came to visit me in Chicago and I was doing something and the door bell rang and my dad answered the door and he came back to me and he said, "There's a white man at the door. There's a white man at the door." I was like ... and it just was interesting how he was processing that because to him it was like, "Ut oh, something's wrong. What have you done? What is going on?" And I said to my dad, "Everybody in this neighborhood is white, so I don't get it." It's like having that conversation with him. He stood with me. It was like, "Okay, I've got to protect her in case something is happening here." It was only the guy that was coming to talk about my garage doors. He passed by my house, he saw my garage doors and he really like them. He wanted to talk about them.

JoAnn Adams: All of his references were around white people, bad. Nothing good comes out of this if they come to your house especially. And I just remember as a child growing up, we didn't necessarily talk about race. We didn't have those conversations. I just remember growing up as a child, seeing the riots, seeing Martin Luther King and I remember distinctly the garbage, there was some ... oh gosh, I can't remember now, in Alabama when he was there and the garbage strike. And at the same time there was a garbage strike going on in Oklahoma City and I remember our church had this rally and I wanted to go and I was young and my parents were like, "No, you don't need to go because something might happen." I was like, "No, I'm going. I'm going."

JoAnn Adams: I remember having a real affinity for just knowing what was going on and being hurt by everything that I saw although there were never any real conversations. There were only conversations when my dad was in his 70s. He started to talk about some of the racism that he experienced on his job.

Kurt Bjorklund: How much, JoAnn, do you think things have changed in the last generation because even when you talk about some of those events, I'm too young to remember them. And Joel is younger than me and probably doesn't remember some of those things. You've lived long enough to have seen. Is it different? Is it better? Is it not? And how do you see that?

JoAnn Adams: I do think it's different and better, but it's only different and better because of some of those things that happened then. I know that I would never have been able to work in corporate America at the level that I worked in had some of those sacrifices not been made. I recognize that fully. So yes, things are better, but yeah I still hear stories of racism. I still experience some of that myself. I mean, it's still happening. It's interesting. There's this quote from Martin Luther King that I love. He said, "We will need to repent in this generation not only for hateful words and actions of bad people, but for appalling silence of good people."

JoAnn Adams: It's that some white people and others believe that some of this is wrong, some of the things that are going on, but they are silent. And silence is not only not speaking out, but doing the small things that you can do in your world. Because sometimes I think about my family, we didn't have a lot of discussions about race and I'm wondering, had we, what would it have meant for me because the only time I came into contact with white people when I was growing up is when there was mandated busing. I had to go to a white school and that's when I started to become familiar and began to form some friendships, but those friendships were only in school because nobody was coming in my neighborhood and my mother certainly wasn't going to let me go into another neighborhood. It wasn't real relationships.

Joel Haldeman: Let me ask this question. I've always been sort of pro-America. I think of the fourth of July as a holiday that, as a Christian, I can celebrate that almost in a spiritual sense because I believe that God has used America to change the world and just writing into our Constitution some of these biblical ideas that people are made in the image of God and are equal. That, that has changed the world in huge ways over the past 300 years.

JoAnn Adams: Except that, Joel-

Joel Haldeman: Go ahead.

JoAnn Adams: When that language was written, it wasn't written for me.

Joel Haldeman: Right.

JoAnn Adams: That language was written for you and I'm also pro-America, but my narrative is very different than your narrative.

Joel Haldeman: And that's exactly my question. Is it right and appropriate for me to be pro-America? Should I be proud of what our country has done? Does the black community feel that way?

JoAnn Adams: Remember, I'm only speaking for me.

Joel Haldeman: Oh, sure.

JoAnn Adams: I am proud to be an American. I've traveled to a number of countries and this is the best place that I know of. However, we can not create a story or a narrative that dismisses some of the things that have happened around racism and around slavery. You can't dismiss that. It did happen and there are things that are going on now that are happening to people of color. Recognizing that we still have a long way to go. And some of these people are not ignorant people that are doing this, some of these people are very educated and are using the Bible to carry out some of this, what I would call, backward thinking.

Kurt Bjorklund: Can you give an example of that in today's world just so that somebody could say, "Okay, I'm connecting the dot to where that's still happening." Because I would guess some white people would hear that and say, "Okay. Yeah, maybe there is some isolated instances where some people are ignorant and act poorly." But you're talking about something bigger.

JoAnn Adams: There was a recent issue where a Christian woman refused to provide service to a couple that was interracial, a black person and a white person, and she did that based upon some biblical standing.

Kurt Bjorklund: The Bible doesn't teach that, by the way. Are you tracking anything?

JoAnn Adams: And what happened was, there was this, of course, you know the internet ... Twitter, everybody, they just went, "There's nothing in the Bible about that." She had to repent of that and she said, "This is what I have been taught." This is recent, within the last year or two. So there is still things that are going on.

Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, that's good. Helpful, thanks.

Josh: When I go to, sorry ... shout out here.

Kurt Bjorklund: This is Josh behind the camera.

Joel Haldeman: Podcast Josh.

Josh: When I go to stores, Target, Walmart, Giant Eagle, with David Bowens, I have a different experience than when I go by myself. Of who sees me, how frequently the clerks look at us while we're shopping, and that happens to me. Does that happen to you?

JoAnn Adams: [crosstalk 00:38:03] In some cases, maybe, but you know sometimes I just don't ... I'm not aware of it maybe. I'm just not aware of it because I'm just so singularly focused. Okay, I've got to get this so I don't think of it. It has happened to me when I've gone to buy a car.

JoAnn Adams: I have gone in to buy a car and sales people will just be dismissive, like okay, she is not coming in here to buy a car. She's just looking. And when I've really been looking, and it's been really hard for me to get a [crosstalk 00:38:38]

Kurt Bjorklund: They assume because ... You assume they assume because you are black that you didn't have enough money to buy the car.

JoAnn Adams: There's two things. Black and then I wasn't dressed up. I was like going in looking like, okay. I'm just going in here.

Josh: Why do you feel like you need to do that?

JoAnn Adams: Because white people ... I've always ... This is what I was taught from my parents, it's like you've always got to look better, you always got to know more just to get a little bit. And that's really the thing because the one thing that my parents always said is, "Get an education. They, white people, can't take it away from you." And so that is the one thing, it's like it's really ... And the black community for the most part, black parents really do ... especially my generation, and I'm going to be clear about my generation is that you have to get an education because we want you to have more than we have and that is something that they cannot take.

Josh: Wow.

Joel Haldeman: Wow. So a bunch of white people that are listening, watching. What would you say to the white community about how we can do a better job of helping you not feel like an odd person out when you walk into a room?

JoAnn Adams: The one thing is racism is really sin at the foundation of everything. I think that if, as Christians, if you see me walking in the room just like everyone else, embrace me. Talk to me like you would anyone else. Sometimes I struggle with, is it because I'm black or is it because they don't know me. I lived in a community that was much more demonstrative around love and encouragement and in white communities, they are less so. Sometimes I have to balance that. Like, is it because I'm black or is it because they just don't know who I am. Sometimes I choose to think it's because I'm black. I think it's just, as Christians, just being more open. Just embracing people.

Joel Haldeman: Yeah, that's good. That's good. I think part of what we need to do is change the issue in our minds so that it's not necessarily racism, but it's a racial insensitivity that we need to be aware of, because anybody listening is going to say, "No, I'm not a racist person. Sure fine, we can agree to that." But we have these racial sensitivities where we just say things or we assume things and you're not doing it on purpose, you're not doing it to be mean, but that's where we need to go below the surface to change the way that we are thinking.

JoAnn Adams: Well, I hear you and I think you're absolutely right, but here are some things and I don't know if we soften the words that it's still not racism. As an example, I get in an elevator, not me, because people aren't really afraid of me, sometimes they should be, but anyways ... Like my brother or cousins or someone male would get in an elevator and if white women, even men get in there, it's like you can see the fear on their eyes. It's like, "Oh." And this person is a Christian.

Joel Haldeman: Interesting.

JoAnn Adams: And they are like, "Oh my goodness. I'm getting in this elevator with these people." They don't know that I'm thinking the same thing. If I'm in an elevator and I'm alone especially ... if it's black people that get on, I'm never afraid, but if it's white people that get on and it's just me ... I'm like, "I'm not getting on that elevator. I'm waiting until they get wherever they are going." It is the same kind of thing with black people.

Kurt Bjorklund: Let me ask you a question with that analogy because this may ... this may feel like an insensitive question, I don't mean it to be. You just cited that as an example of current racism, somebody saying, "I don't want to get on an elevator with black people." And then you said, "I don't want to get on an elevator with white people." How is that not racist the other way?

JoAnn Adams: I think I am just being, I am protecting myself, and in some ways as a woman, I'm protecting myself. In some ways, I don't think that, again in this ...

Kurt Bjorklund: My question is, if a white woman says the same thing, but we are assuming that that's racist.

JoAnn Adams: And I think because of the history of for example, Emmett Till. Emmett Till was hung because some white woman said that he looked at her, when in fact he didn't and he was murdered because of that. I think there is this whole historical perspective for white people that ...

Kurt Bjorklund: That justice will be on their side.

JoAnn Adams: Right, exactly.

Kurt Bjorklund: Okay. Okay.

Joel Haldeman: Anything else that we want to ... Do you have any other thoughts to wrap up our time here?

JoAnn Adams: I love you.

Joel Haldeman: Final thoughts. [crosstalk 00:44:07]

Joel Haldeman: I think that these sorts of conversations are some of the most helpful and we have to have the conversations just to be able to understand each other better and to do so in a charitable way.

Joel Haldeman: One rapid fire question. Here we go. If you could snap your fingers and instantly become a pro at something, what would it be? Kurt?

Kurt Bjorklund: Oh it's easy, basketball. My goodness, to be paid to play basketball? Turn the clock back to my early 20s, have a sick jumper, great athleticism, absolutely.

Joel Haldeman: JoAnn?

JoAnn Adams: I think I would be a pro cake maker.

Joel Haldeman: Keg?

JoAnn Adams: Cake. Yes, see there. Your mind went to the beer.

JoAnn Adams: Cake. Cake maker. Yeah.

Joel Haldeman: I had some time to think about this so it's not fair. I would be a pro real estate investor, if I could do that on the side. That's all I got.

Kurt Bjorklund: There you go.

Joel Haldeman: Thanks for checking out the Ask a Pastor podcast where we like to jump into topics that are sometimes uncomfortable and in this case, show that we can have good, meaningful conversations about topics that are difficult and try to understand them a little bit better. Please send in questions to askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com. We'd love to be able to answer those in future podcasts.

Joel Haldeman: Thanks, JoAnn.

JoAnn Adams: Thank you.

Kurt Bjorklund: Thanks.