today we have a wonderful guest with us we are in disagreement over some very fundamental issues related to Theology and how we understand the scriptures but it is important to me to have guests from all sorts of different opinions on Theology and the scriptures so enjoy today's show hi I'm Dennis Metzler and welcome to the charge today we are going to take a look at lumenism with Dr Mitzi Smith who's professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary just outside of Atlanta and is the author of womanist SAS and TalkBack social justice injustice intersectionality and biblical interpretation published in 2018 and editor and contributor uh I found god in me a womanist Biblical hermeneutics reader published in 2015 both books by with and stock so Dr Smith thanks so much for joining us today Kevin thank you for the invitation glad to be here all right Dennis absolutely Dennis Kevin actually some people think I look like Kevin Bacon so anything Works uh so let's start with your your personal background in terms of like church background theological background that give the viewers some understanding of where you're coming from yes so I was raised by my mother and uh with my siblings in Columbus Ohio the Midwest my mother was raised in the South and she grew up methodists in the Methodist Episcopal Church uh so I first um learned about God or became uh became familiar with God through my mother and she remained she's deceased now but she remains for me uh the epitome next to Jesus of what it means to be a Christian because she just she just loved people um and just uh believed in treating people all people like human beings and so I kind of strive to be like her in many ways uh so but my mother was confined to a wheelchair by the time I was about maybe nine or ten um so she couldn't take us to church but there was a presbyterian Mission uh that would come through our neighborhood and the projects and invite us to go to the church and so the times we would we took the uh on Sunday the uh bus to Calvary Chapel Mission Church in Columbus Ohio and then later my mom joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church and um I followed her maybe a year later but before that she made us go to church on Sunday and Saturday until we made our decision uh and so but currently I am ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal church but to be honest I'd rather be non denominational okay okay okay good and now um if you could give us some background on woman has thought how it started and how it got incorporated into Christian theology um so and some some of the key people in the movement yes so womanist and the term Warmness was coined by Alice Walker she first mentions it in a 1979 essay called Things Fall Apart the things coming apart uh and then she provides a more expansive definition in her book in our mother's Gardens and that was 1983. um and so the term comes out of the black community not that other communities may have used the term but you acting womanish right which mothers would say to Young dollar daughters who were both audacious talkative um yes and want to know everything uh there is to know so you're acting womanish so it was a term that came out of our our community and she goes on to um describe a womanism or a woman is this one who is comes in different colors she does physical experience in terms of what we do and so forth that we are come in all kinds of colors that we are um uh in the struggle for Freedom like Harriet Tubman you know I'm walking to freedom and I'm taking a bunch of children with me uh so a freedom Focus uh Liberation Focus uh but she also makes room for women who are um uh non-binary or who are not heterosexual you know I happen to be heterosexual but she makes viewing for women who are not uh speaking of women a woman this can be a woman as well who loves men and also loves uh loves women sexually and non-sexually and and that's that's a part of the definition some conservative more conservative persons uh would probably may have a problem with so it's sort of ideally an ideal uh description of what uh or prescription of what a womanist is and I ideals we attempt to live into all right as far as the church then how did that oh discharge yes so so Katie Katie Ken and that's a womanist uh African-American woman ethicist right change as an ethicist in the academy first woman ordained the black woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church uh she she appropriated Alice Walker's term um in the 80s as well and brought it into the religious Academy um women black women needed at least some black women felt that we needed a term that came out of our communities a term uh which that we would choose to Define ourselves rather than choosing feminists and uh given also the history of feminism rarely if evidence probably still the case uh dealing with the issue of race and for me I'd rather be I've called myself a woman is as well not only because it comes out of our community and The Way It Is defined fine but also I hate to think of myself as a feminist who has to append the word black to it black activities now there are black feminists I don't fault them for choosing that but many of us prefer uh to name ourselves uh using a name that has come out of our community so Katie Geneva Canada and ethicus started that and a bunch of uh black women I'm very small in numbers but those in the academy uh uh yeah I said yes we need this is what we need to do but she started that movement uh you have the theologians uh black women theologians following suit uh lay Kelly Brown Douglas he's a well-known uh person still living um Dolores Williams she recently died Jacqueline Grant um and so now you have mormonists Dr Benita Williams he first Hebrew Bible scholar black woman um you have women in Africa as well who identify as womanists and you have women outside of religion of course but you were talking about religion yes all right great and so why would you say womanism is necessary hadn't uh black Theology and feminism and liberation theology covered all the bases uh absolutely not so I didn't think so so uh womanist like Kelly Brown Douglas and the Lewis Williams were the first to actually critique James Cohn who's known as the father of black theology uh for uh um putting forth a theology that uh that claimed to speak for all black people he said no black women's experiences are different from those of black men and not that every black man or every black woman's experiences are the same but we are we definitely definitely experience sexism and sexism not only from outside the community but from black men and so our experiences are different right you cannot claim black theology uh as a theology constructed by men from a male's perspective as covering or are also representing the lives of black women and with feminism the problem is too often the emphasis is on women as of all women are alike and as if black women don't also deal with racism uh feminism very often does not uh deal with or is concerned with racism but just with uh gender and sexism okay and um so is there a place for a conservative Evangelical black women in womanism or are those two mutually exclusive uh so that's that's an interesting question you know I would say that you know a person can name themselves um any way they choose they'll be liberal black women uh so-called liberal or Progressive black women who may not choose to call themselves a womanists may prefer black feminists or some other term in there and that is indeed the case um it would depend uh I I would say there probably are some conservative leaning Evangelical women who may call themselves women's but they may reject part of Alice Walker's definition uh so it'd be up to the woman yes okay and uh so I'm sure you've come across this many times I mean it's true of black Theology and feminism and liberation theology but many more CR conservative critics would say you are elevating your own experience above that of scripture this scripture has Authority not your own experience they would accuse you of isagesis rather than exegesis you're reading in what you want to into scripture so how would you address that yes so just as a Biblical scholar a long time ago I've been teaching about 19 about 17 years now uh but it's a long time ago I decided that that this this notion of exegesis versus isagesis is a false dichotomy uh we all bring who we are right whether we name it or not whether we uh whether we're explicit about it or not we all bring our context and we all have context all human beings have context uh we bring um the things that form us the culture that inform us uh to a reading of a text we are reading something in even if it is uh the level of literacy that we have we bring that to a reading of a text um so I was I was just today we had our first Chapel at uh for our school today and my colleague who's a white male uh I'm a letician jake Myers spoke uh gave the sermon and I was uh you know very happy to hear him say that he didn't believe in exegesis versus Isaac Jesus so we shared that in common he's a white male and so I think if you're old if you're open and I think uh honest about it that that is a false dichotomy there's no there's no way of using a tool and not and not in some way bringing who you are how you've been shaped theologically culturally and so forth to a reading of the text even if you don't name it how can white men relate to womanist thought yeah so I think the best person to ask that is white man but Lucy said you know you you know I'm right uh I I write uh the books I write because of the uh all the books I need in the classroom because I believe I have um something to say to my to my community or about my community uh that should be of interest that I hope and and I'll be happy if they are of interest to others but you never know right I remember when I worked when woman assassin came out one of the first persons to um to say something to me about that book was a middle class middle aged white male on Twitter who said how that book changed his life right the woman assessed you know uh that centers black women our expenses black communities but it's also very human because even though uh this is a thing we need we are all human beings and the things that we may not name the same but that we have in common right people across race and ethnicity are poor right people across race and ethnicity are impacted by high water the cost of high water the privatization of water right and and when I read this American woman I am uh reading that in dialogue with and through the lens of the privatization of water the high cost of the water uh the inability to get good clean water uh and so forth which impacts not just black women uh it impacts poor people across race gender sexuality and so forth and so uh you know for years before there was African-American interpretation or black theology or woman of theology primarily because the skulls are primarily white and male were writing but how why is it that right people read those things because somehow they saw something human something that was of interest to them all right and so it should be the same way if we look at each other as human beings this person is just writing overtly I'm writing overtly whereas my white male a white male colleague is writing and not stating not identifying himself not identifying his culture not identifying what always what motivates him but often it is out of his own culture but there's also something very human right because we are human beings about whatever we talk about and and so uh if if we can see uh uh the the the the the the foundational um humanness uh in what we all each are doing I think that we will find benefits uh in in in womanist work just like black people have found benefit in writings by forever and merely by white males and white women alrighty well let's uh dive into your books then uh so in I found god in me uh you wrote a chapter the womanist biblical scholar as prophetess iconoclast and activist so you are a new testament scholar so um explain to us what's going on there so another number in that section of the book the first section were uh written by uh written some time ago they were reprints and I I was I wanted to write about you know what do I have to say as someone new to woman is very new compared to the other people in section one two womanists interpretation uh and as a womanist scholar right and the need for us to be prophetic in the sense of uh speaking Truth uh to power and the sense of privileging justice which we believe we we serve a God who is very much interested in and focused on Injustice or bringing about Justice in the world and among human beings um about sometimes you know those icons that we have been whether they're intellectual or theoretical so forth icons that can be oppressive um you know breaking up or d d deconstructing some of those things uh for example the notion of the Great Commission uh and and and I see myself as activists uh through my work every woman is when I see themselves this way but I see myself as activists in that I am trying to not only raise my own Consciousness when I write about Injustice in the world but they raise the consciousness of my readers about Injustice in the world in which we live but also in the biblical text all right and then in the same volume you also discussed the new testament's binary portrayal of women as virgins and so it's a provocative approach um all the way from Matthew to Revelation so what's significant there in your interpretation yeah the things that ideas and things that are oppressive and we do know that the Bible is we most of us admit very patriarchal Angelic that means concerned with centering men men's constructions of women and we do see this from beginning and end this notion that a woman is either a virgin or nothing in between um uh and so virgins uh in the beginning with the Hebrew Bible are supposed to become wives and you see this whole notion that it you know the the property of their uh their fathers until they're married and they become the property of their husbands but in order for that property that human property to be passed on uh of value to a man she has to be a virgin and supposedly you you know this on the wedding night when they when uh when when she supposedly bleeds which is a construction as well right I imagine a lot of people were killing goats and putting blood on sheets uh so um and when we think about even in our you know uh Society more civil and more um um uh Advanced Society we know that Jessica Valenti wrote a book about the Purity myth we know there's no such thing as a medical uh a definition of virginity but it was something constructed in women and men over the years we we have a hard time even thinking differently and a woman can be can be considered a particularly in our society just by rejecting the advances of a man but just by rejecting the cat calls as she walks down the street and so forth right uh she can be called out her name and treated like she is not a lady or even a human being and so I'm saying we need to dissent all right I like this I'd like to talk about thinking about the the Supreme Court in the history of people who have dissented in in the name of justice but we have to dissent even when those constructions uh are those binaries are in inscribed in our secret texts all right so um okay let's go ahead and the the Great Commission then is that it's interesting also what you do with that so you talk about uh the teaching emphasizing the Great Commission but you also want to put an emphasis on social justice there so how how's a good way to rethink it or understand the Great Commission in the first place or even the naming of it calling a degree yes yes that's what we get at first time you know and and I I decided to write that essay because I was in a classroom and we were studying we're beginning to study the gospel of Matthew and I asked students you know what do you know about Matthew you know uh coming into this class and the only thing I heard was Great Commission I'm like oh okay you never read it for yourself it seems like right Great Commission you know a lot of tradition gets passed on that we never question we just repeat it we just repeat it and so and so if people just see it and even inscribed in the Bible are these titles right uh those Bibles you do get a title not in all of and the Great Commission when you get to Matthew 28 right uh but the Bible itself does not name it that right uh it has been named that and inscribed in the Bible and so even the title uh guides you or circumscribes limits the way you are uh you are taught to read that text right as it that is the that is the um that is um uh what that that is and it says our mission that is the mission of Christians is to engage in this Great Commission which is a teaching in the sense of the notion that some some group uh one group is better equipped to teach another group where the other group is in is is uh is deficient when it comes to knowledge of relationship with God uh but um but no but the Matthew does not name uh that uh that takes in in Matthew 28 goes ye therefore into this king's King James English go ye therefore to the audience and and teach right other nations uh but what is named um in the Bible as great the two greatest Commandments is loving God loving self as we love our neighbor right uh which is not a a rhetorical task it is not a a it is something that requires action toward or relationship being in relationship to with God and with uh having a good relationship with ourselves and with other human beings right valuing other human beings and and I I see that Jesus in in Matthew you really can't separate uh what he teaches from what he does right and to me this whole notion of a Great Commission because it is historically founded on the notion of going and taking a a gospel to people who missionaries and the crown the emperor the king and so forth uh considered inferior right and so I said we need to you know we need to rethink that right that uh to teach uh that first of all we can learn something from each other as human beings and the god uh can uh people have relationship with God right uh long before the Bible existed um and and and beyond the Bible right uh Christians you know like to see the Bible and we tend to see the Bible as providing a model in the life of Jesus but it matters how we read that that story how we read the stories of Jesus how we see them and then how we see other human beings in relation to that and we figure okay so we we know we know the stories we entered into a pool so who better to teach another person how to be in relation to God well perhaps we can learn not perhaps but certainly we can learn something from one another and it's more important how we treat one another okay but isn't there something that the disciple of Christ has the teachings of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit The Gospel itself that Christ commissions us not just to teach but to make disciples yes absolutely we're to be humble and learn from the people we interact with wherever we go but there isn't isn't there something unique about the deposit that we have from Christ yep so yeah so that's an interesting question we'd like to say that that just because uh we have become Christians and have been taught right a certain way to read the Bible which many of us don't agree on right right and and we have different interpretations so which one do we take anyway uh so that therefore because we have been indoctrinated right about the Bible and how we should read it therefore that indoctrination is the truth that we should take to other people as if there is no truth from God in those other people and as if the only way to get truth from God is through our indoctrination and through the text okay yeah that's always going to be a controversial topic for sure alrighty so in womanist SAS and TalkBack um you talked about there's an unexpected connection with the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 with the what you already talked about before briefly the the Water Crisis in terms of having safe affordable water and so um if you could and just those terms women assassin talk back if you could mention what you're talking about there getting in the title before you even get into the John Passage yeah so a woman assassin TalkBack that came to me uh when uh Sandra Bland you know was in uh uh died as a result or um in consequence of a traffic stop where supposedly not um signaling for turning Lanes as if that should be a death sentence but um that really um impacted of my life and I've heard you know people post different things across race and gender oh she should have kept her mouth said okay so that that she should die because she knew her rights and she you know tried to voice her rights um and so you know I wanted to first talk about her story in conversation with a woman who talked back to Jesus the siphonesian woman in Mark's version not Matthew's version of the story um and and think about it we'll get to that story too yes okay so yes and so the ways that we have that sometimes the only thing you have and particularly poor particularly poor black women and men particularly poor women uh period or marginalized people right sometimes the only thing you have uh is your voice right uh and and and not even always your voice your vote because you know uh throughout the years that has been either denied or been um uh you face Violence by casting your Vote or or whatever and and and someone trying to wrote us back to those days but our voice right is important it's something God has given to us and so um we have the right and sometimes very necessary to talk back uh to uh oppressive Powers uh and so forth whether they are in the biblical text or outside the biblical text okay good and so what happens in John 4 then yes or in John 4 I am talking back and and I like to play some dialogue contemporary Injustice issues issues of Injustice and a reading of the text of a Biblical text and it doesn't mean that I'm in I never uh ignore this the historical context of the secret Texas I think context needs always to be considered and I like reading closely and critically biblical texts but in conversation with current justice issues we serve a living God who is not fossilized in a text a text actually we must continually interpret right but it is above Beyond more than because if God is to be equated with the text then what we have then is an idol but God is so much more God is Not Human and God is Not Human made that's why Stephen was stoned right he said God does not live in in in houses made with human hands I'm like wait a minute and so um yes and so that's what I do is I place I lived in Detroit at the time water not only did they have their Flint water prices which has taken places and many cities throughout the U.S but not only did they have the Flint water prices but they also had which a lot of people did not hear about was the water shut-offs people who over as little as 150 a month Perhaps Perhaps but but living in poverty and couldn't pay that bill Warrior was was shut off and um but huge corporations had hundreds of thousand dollars in bills and their water bills were not shut off so Humane and all of this is attached to the privatization of water and so I placed that um that Injustice in conversation with the woman at the well which caused me to focus on the water right the water what is Jesus saying about the water what does he mean by give you living water he went to the Hebrew Bible what is a living water in the Hebrew Bible it's free flowing water from a natural source right but she did not have access to but what's wrong the Roman Empire had created access to to uh through uh particularly the wealthy uh through the building of the water aqueducts and putting those water spigots In The House of the wealthy right and how that ingratiated Caesar uh to the people which causes us also to look at Jesus statement I can give you living water as subversive to oppressive Empire and not that Empire can be in some ways you know we always demonize these bodies Empire can be you can have some good and if I can have some bad you know they allow people if you you can get as much free water as you want as long as you can carry it all right if that's not happening you know in our context so much in some places uh so um it's not free you're having what you want but it's not free um and and so yes and so that's how I read uh that story that's how I um um I read a text a lot uh because we serve a living God who is very much interested in our lives uh that I think is very important for us to become aware of what's going on in the world and read in conversation with sacred texts already and so the story appears in Mark 7 and Matthew 15 the story of the serial Phoenician woman or the Canaanite woman who comes to Jesus to get him to heal her daughter and so she asked three times and he finally heals her daughters so um what do you do with that your chapter is a womanist lens of intersectionality and Inter contextuality how do you put all that together yes so I put you know I I prefer Mark's version of course Scholars think that Mark was the first version right but I prefer a Mark's version because one uh there's not this what I see is which I'll be writing about another article it is not this what I see as a weaponization of Faith right uh but what he does say is that it was her logos her word right that uh because of her word how she can go home and her daughter is whole would you you reminds me of that God puts power uh the image of God we have a part of the image of God and access to uh the spirit the power of God's spirit each of us right uh and so it made sense for me that Jesus was you know he is of a very human very human in Mark right and we can count the many ways that he is human um um and uh he is shaped by his Jewish upbringing which prioritize Judaism right and I believe that comes through but she pushes back because she has heard people from her region we see earlier in Mark have experienced healing from him and healing was not uh a new Phenomenon with Jesus in that context but you know but but he is his healer who has who who has been proven to be a Healer people have come back uh to where she lives and uh and so she finds out she's there and says well maybe you can hear my daughter but but what it is though that he recognizes the power in her word and her voice and says because of your word your daughter is healed right and then perhaps God has he seen her and this is you know this is um I don't want to harmonize these but I love the picture of Jesus in The Gospel of John uh where Jesus says uh two of his followers disciples that you would do greater things than I did all right you would degrade it things that I did uh when the spirit had you know when you when the the comforter the advocate or whatever arrives however we see that um uh which which is so powerful to me right that we have access to same power Jesus had he is saying John's Jesus and can do greater and so we we forget about the fact that you know God created us according to the dentist or in God's image and and and and and gave us power uh which you know which does not have to be mediated power all right but um wouldn't some people accuse you of saying that Jesus is being xenophobic then and originally withholding the blessing healing from her um sure and I would I would I would say he's not be on that I mean you know Indiana he's human to be human is to be not God and I know we have a long tradition of right it is a tradition of a church uh uh councils who decided that Jesus is both human and God and so we tend to read the gospels through that ignoring his humanity and not coming to terms having difficulties coming to towns with Jesus Humanity right uh but you know I you know I think you know tradition tradition is not is something that is started and can be looked at differently can be we looked at tradition you know this is something we pass on uh tradition is not the same as God and so I think we need to in some ways we think and that tradition was also we never we never even go back to think about how that tradition came to be uh by murdering those who disagree okay here we go okay we can go a longer a long ways with this one it'd be a whole different video a whole different interview okay so and uh in the book of Acts then you look at the uh this parallels um Innovative parallel between the Ethiopian eunuch with the alexandrian um Apollos so we even have some alliteration there um but you talk about uh the epistemology pedagogy and subordinated other okay so this is fascinating tell us what you do here so you know reading through you know I teach my first book was on the Acts of the Apostles and I teach it uh quite often and each time I teach you know I try to remain open to seeing what I may not have seen before I think we all should do that we maintain what I call a hermeneutical humility right we can change our minds we can see something different we can see something newly and so just reading through and thinking about the Roman Empire right and its impact and and looking at okay the Ethiopian unit you know sometimes if it all has been written no we all bring something different to a reading of a text or age and if we're open you know I think it could be very fascinating you know we reading and reading reading these biblical texts but anyway so we see the Ethiopian eunuch and of course there's this orchestrated um encounter between him and Philip uh and it's on the out it's between it's on the outskirts of Jesus is not in Jerusalem he has been there and Philip has been pushed out of because of um persecution it seems only perhaps a Phillips group because the 12 they stayed there according to acts in Jerusalem and unmolested and so they meet um uh orchestrated by the spirit and the angel but on the outskirts in the margins right and and he is taught now in another essay after the one you read in woman that says also take a diff a little bit different take on their meeting right and when I think about his teaching and crucifixion of Jesus is that you have this encountered not only in the margins of one teaching the other but you also have two people who have been traumatized right Philip has been traumatized by the persecution and Philip has been traumatized by castration right probably forcefully castrated these two you mean eunuch yes the eunuch these two traumatized people meet because I am asking in another essay um where did we get this uh bringing together this intersection of uh the crucified prize and silence right and all the Christians and it it is not in the Gospels it is in this act story right because uh these two people have been traumatized and it's interesting that Philip or that he's reading this story of the suffering servant in Isaiah who who detect the Texas reading say he's he he suffered silently basically right and Philip comes alongside and the unit was nowhere who is he talking about who is this person if Philip says it's Jesus all right so it's interesting that this traumatized man Philip depicts Jesus you know because Philip has to flee you know he can't stay there and he has in a sense suffered in silence and so that he and his that he uh interprets this text perhaps not just but maybe tweak it a little bit since this the first reading of it I'm not not just in the context of his own life in a sense but that of the eunuch as well seeing this text as a story of Jesus right which is also when it says the story of each of them and I think that's that's very proud but I also saw earlier you know the womanist texture talking about that there's something similar about the Apollo story in acts in this story of Philip um of course uh in the Apollo story um it is Priscilla normally her name is mentioned first prisca or Priscilla and her husband Apollos who take um a Aquila and take Apollos aside and teach him which is also this is just so fascinating because the text goes out of the way to say how eloquent he is how much he knows the scripture so accurately and then they thought on this thing about the way of God right which is a new phrase and so I find it interesting that they take him aside a similar taken aside right and of sort of winning over these two uh characters Priscilla and Aquila made us like Paul but nowhere in that story with Paul when Paul takes them with him does he allow them to teach or preach but they have this opportunity on the side in the margins right uh and the relationship what made these two people represent in terms of Rome right uh Ethiopia was uh the unique uh presumably goes back home right and we know the history of this with the oldest uh in Christian communities in Ethiopia and Africa but anyway Rome never completely conquered Ethiopia his acts trying to tell us something right Rome never completely conquered Ethiopia but it did conquer Egypt and so I wonder if also these two stories are as much also about uh the relationship of this movement to Roman Empire right and and and these two characters being also in some ways of a symbolic also of empire in the conference and the company not physically conquering but not spiritual Empire all right but um but your point is then that the Ethiopian is the subordinate other okay interesting both of them just one native yes all right and in Second Kings this is one of the most interesting ones uh Second Kings two there's the story of Elisha cursing the boys because they are saying gone up Baldi treating him disrespectfully so he curses them and before you know it two mother bears come out and Maul 42 boys so and then you you connect this to police brutality so how do you put this all together here yeah so I wanted to talk about you know normally I'm the uh necessarily thinking of uh well I guess it pays but sometimes I'm not thinking of the text first but I'm thinking of the justice issue I want to talk about and what text allows me to put those two in conversation right and so in this case I remember you know growing up reading this story all the time uh this story the Christians of the boys you know and of course the boys are wrong they deserve what they got you know that's the way we read it right uh but um for for you know if every kid ended up this way for being disrespectful toward an authority figure we want to have any children that may not be any children around but we buy into this notion because it's in a sacred text right oh yes that was okay yeah but what I'm saying is that it is in both cases it is very much about Authority right and how Authority in a sense I don't think I use this word in in the in the um in my analysis but Authority in a sense almost gets deified right when it's connected to profits right and our places in the context of the struggles that are going on between the northern and southern Kingdom and how this has a part to play in uh why uh we have this story about uh this cursing of the boys for teasing a man of God right and as if because this person is a man of God then any of this of slightism you have to be very thin-skinned man of God right but any slightest right but we call disrespect or designer whatever uh should result in such a horrific uh mauling of these boys right and and we you know we we've carried those ideas on you know I remember growing up right I was doing that that's not it always easy uh uh taught through the phrase touch not my anointing and leave them no harm right and so one thing you can't talk about is the man of God I don't care how horrifically the man of God may be acting uh themselves right that you you don't say anything about that person and uh or or you bring the wrath of God down on you but but you know I'm saying that we need you to question that whole idea right and it's got that thin skin I hope not okay okay and then how do you tie it more specifically to police brutality yes talking about Authority right it is a lot of times and we see this lately with the the The Tyree Nichols case right I believe it is all about it becomes about Authority right these ideas are who is Authority as if for example uh the police are not human right that they're not capable of making mistakes and they're not capable of having biases or if they do it doesn't matter because they are authority figures in the community right that they can do anything right and people can have relationships communities particularly communities of colors can have relationships with such authority figures that are oppressive uh but uh it's okay because those are authority figures right so I'm questioning the whole um uh idea of giving absolute authority to human beings to do whatever they want to other human beings they end up in deaf environments right right and it is often the case where police brutality takes place is that there is an actual crime being committed there is a natural offense going on but well but then the police drastically overreact and that that would be another tie to the story the kids were disrespectful in the story but you're saying obviously there's an overreaction in terms of there yeah I wouldn't say it's always a natural a crime taking place right right in some cases yes yes yes yes of course does every crime uh require a death sentence right right regardless and then there are many crimes uh communities that are not police in the same way right uh I mean for example uh statistics show that there are more white people and perhaps middle class white people involved in drugs and Drug trade but their communities is not policed in the same way so they are not being arrested or harassed and so forth in the same rate so you're not going to find that kind of violence toward that their communities right whereas poor communities these import communities of colors are easy targets right easy targets I was just sharing um a quote there's a quote by I believe it was Nixon's um uh domestic affairs assistant or something I can't remember his name on that but I just posted the other day on on Instagram where he quote you know how they started the war on drugs and they said you know how they targeted communities will come and they said we all knew that it wasn't true but we did it anyway and you know and that continues and so uh yes uh but uh and and their statistics that show for example in other crimes that uh minorities and black folks aren't aren't the greatest perpetrators of uh in in numbers of shoplifting but they're the most ones charged right and so forth we can go on and on about crimes and also there's um there are there are things that are made uh uh are criminalized right um uh uh that make make certain people um let me see how one but this for example an easy example is when we go back to the um era of Jim Crow right where it was criminal for a black person to drink out uh to enter certain establishments to go um to drink out water fountains marked for by white people it was criminal and you know you can end up in a in a chain getting in jail right I mean he did right it was coming out of slavery uh so uh just because something is criminalized as well doesn't necessarily mean it's just right right all right okay finally if you could give us uh an application then as an individual believer or for the church how can we apply um the best of womanist thought yeah so I would encourage well let me let me let me well let me think from the from the perspective of white students who do take my womanist classes or take my new and take uh Testament classes and what uh those who have taken them have said to me and especially more recently is that they wish they had been able to well with this young lady speaking of her roommate sharing with her roommate what she's learning learning I'm nutritional classes I wish that when I was inseminated she wished that she was intimidated that she had been able to privilege Justice right their own Injustice Lord and my students when we privilege Justice to interpret text if you're a white student you know you have injustices that you incur right I have a student who had been you know really uh violated within his family and treated you know just horribly and he talked about the violence uh read his paper particular papers I'm using written by white male which I'm using as I don't know if I said this because I'm using this paper and I just want to sleep but anyway I'm using his paper as an example as a sample paper because he did quite well reading his story as a white male through the Injustice of violence against a man which he has experienced in reading a Biblical text right which is healing the people right when I first started teaching I wasn't teaching this way I wasn't writing this way but I had students when I lived worked in the Detroit area who came to uh simile for healing they came because they had a child who was murdered or they had a son and I'm talking about not just a last year I mean sometimes it was nine years previous but they you know they were hoping to find some kind of healing in the process and then when they did you know you didn't see them anymore which is you know I guess that's good but they were finding it in the church right and so um Everybody right I think for anybody any human being who experiences and I think we we all can especially uh experience Injustice was it whether it's through our families or some other ways violence out in this life and World um deserves the um ability to privilege that because God cares about our lives rather than privileging what went on in an ancient text and applying it to their lives I think it's better to allow people to be in conversation with an ancient text rather than imposing an ancient texts upon their lives our lives and that that works you know across people find that life-giving uh across race and gender and so forth yes all righty all right well you've given us a lot to think about for sure so um I'm Dennis messler you've been listening to the charge we've been with uh Dr Mitzi Smith looking at woman as thought and so she's the author of woman assassin TalkBack social injustice Justice intersectionality and biblical interpretation and the editor and contributor to I found god in me a womanist Biblical Hermann index reader um the links are below check him out so Dr Smith thank you so much for joining us today thank you so much all right peace to everyone please check out more videos from the charts don't forget to click on like and hit the Subscribe button [Music]