Paul vs. Jesus? | Dr. Esau McCaulley

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[00:00:00]One of the tricky parts when you have slogans is that slogans always communicate a half-truth.

[00:00:06]Paul is our brother, Jesus is our savior. Nobody thinks that Paul and Jesus are equal in the sense of who they are as persons. Jesus is God, Paul ain't God.

[00:00:17]But the real question is did did the same God who inspired Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John also inspire Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians, right?

[00:00:26]So to to posit Paul versus Jesus where Jesus is also mediated to us through authors who believe the God-inspired.

[00:00:36]And so what we're trying to articulate when we're trying to wrestle with Paul is Paul's is whether or not we believe that the Pauline texts are inspired.

[00:00:52]>> [music] >> Well, thank you for watching another episode of the Jew 3 project podcast. As always, I'm your host Lisa Fields, the founder of the Jew 3 project, and today we're joined by my good friend Dr. Esau McCauley. Welcome, Esau. Thank you. It's been a minute since you had me on the podcast.

[00:01:15]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Do I am I do I have the record of the most shows or is someone who's been on more than me? I don't know. I think somebody has been on more.

[00:01:21]>> Okay, who who who's in Am I in the top three?

[00:01:23]>> Yes, you're definitely top three. You're definitely top three. You might be the top two. Okay. Who who who are you Who do you think is ahead of me?

[00:01:30]I don't know. That's a great question.

[00:01:32]You might be >> I'm I'm claiming the top spot until you can show >> [laughter] >> me, yeah. Um for those who don't know who you are, tell our audience a little bit about you. Yeah, my name's Esau McCauley. I am the Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College. I am the church planter and pastor of All Souls Anglican Church in Naperville. I'm a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. I host a podcast called The Esau McCauley Podcast here at Holy Post where we're recording this episode studios and I have written a bunch of books.

[00:02:01]You might have heard of reading while black, how far to the promised land, New Testament in color, and recently I published a kids book called Isaiah Johnson and the bit game and a children's Bible called God's colorful kingdom. So I think that's the that's the briefest version of my CV that I can drop for you. Yes, and we're going to try to put two episodes together. Okay.

[00:02:23]>> So this is going to be part one and part >> Part one and part two, a double episode.

[00:02:26]>> Yes, a double episode. What we're going to dive in right now in part one.

[00:02:31]>> Okay, part one.

[00:02:32]>> Is the controversy around >> Controversy, okay.

[00:02:36]>> [laughter] >> Okay. The conversation Paul versus Jesus. Okay. Which is so funny because that was the first like courageous conversation topic you were a part of with the first courageous conversations I knew back then in 2018.

[00:02:52]That's man, I've known you for a long time. Yes.

[00:02:56]That this was a topic that we needed to address and it's funny that it's circling back around and we Never goes away. I feel like I feel like basically the same three or four topics keeps coming up. So what exactly do you want to know about Paul versus Jesus? Tell our audience, for those who don't aren't even aware of the conversation, tell them what the conversation is. Well, one idea is that Jesus is kind of loving and kind and Paul is the legalist and so there's one form of Christianity that Jesus presented and then Paul presents another version of Christianity.

[00:03:28]And so I think there's a tons of things that we can say. I want to see which are the ones that are most helpful. Let me start by talking about like Jesus' context. Jesus is born into a conquered and colonized area as a Jewish person, a minority, became flesh of the Jewish person. And everybody there, the majority culture there was Judaism, they were Jewish. And so when you begin to read Jesus' story, he's often pushing back on the hypocrisy of religious leaders. Mhm. And so, they would say one thing and do another thing. Now, it's important to know in that context, it wasn't because there was anything inherently correct about being Jewish, it's because the high priesthood at the time was for sale. So, you could buy by bribing Roman officials, you could buy the the high priesthood. And so, the high priesthood wasn't chosen because of its piety, it was chosen because of its proximity to the empire.

[00:04:22]And so, Jesus is not And the people know that people know the high priesthood is corrupt. And then, other religious groups within Israel, because of that, who are associated with the high priesthood and even the Herodians, they're corrupt. And so, Jesus is pushing back on this stuff. And so, you see a lot of Jesus talking negatively about religious leaders, which people love, right? People love it when Christians are You know, when people are talking about religious hypocrisy. Mhm.

[00:04:45]That's the first thing. The second thing is Jewish ethics, right? So, Jesus grows up in a time where everybody, nominally at least, says they want to follow the Old Testament. And so, you see on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus would take an Old Testament passage and then raise it.

[00:05:00]You've heard it said, "You shall not commit adultery." So, in other words, he can say that and everybody would agree.

[00:05:05]Like, "Oh, yeah, we know that part." And then, he goes, "But I say to you, a man who looks at a woman lustfully in his heart." So, he's saying, "I want to go beyond the surface level of what the scripture says to the heart of the scripture." And so, you see these two elements that Jesus is pushing back on the religious figures of his day, and we see him um kind of taking Jewish ethics to a higher point. A key part of Jesus' ministry is the kingdom of God. Mhm.

[00:05:33]That because >> [clears throat] >> in his life and his death and his resurrection, what he was bringing to the earth was this this moment of God's definitive action. So, you need to repent and believe in the kingdom. And so, the center of the kingdom was God's righteousness, God's justice, all of the stuff that we care about as as it relates to both caring for the marginalized and the transformation of of life. That God's people should be holy.

[00:05:57]So, you then take Paul.

[00:06:00]Um Paul is is in a different context.

[00:06:03]Paul is a minority born in Tarsus where there he grows up as a minority in a majority culture and he's a Roman citizen.

[00:06:13]And Paul, when he's converted, he becomes an evangelist largely to Gentile audiences.

[00:06:19]And so Paul can't begin with the ethical basis of Judaism and build from there.

[00:06:25]So, you don't hear Paul say, "You've heard it said do not do not do not commit adultery, but I say to you do this." He's beginning to say things that no one else that would be surprising to his audience. I tell you again, the people who drink, who steal, like you won't you won't inherit the kingdom of God. And so when Paul is saying these things, he's basically paraphrasing the um Ten Commandments, but he's giving it to the Gentile audience. And because Paul is dealing with particular concerns that are emerging as he's evangelizing Gentiles, he has to be more direct. And for that reason, people tend to say Jesus is nice, Paul is mean. But even as it relates to something like sexual ethics, Jesus is the one who goes beyond actions to intent. He's the one who says, "Hey, if you look at the woman lustfully, if you're imagining having sex with this woman, then you're then you're a simple." And so part of it is kind of just Paul gets a lot of propaganda against him. And another part of it is not taking Jesus' words seriously. Now, there's more we can say about that as it relates to the kingdom, but I probably said a lot now, so I want to give you a chance to jump in and stop me. Yeah. So, I think what happens is Paul's words on women, his words on sexuality, and his words on slavery are what make people dismiss him, right? So, they're like, "I've heard it said, Paul is my brother, Jesus is my savior, so I don't have to listen to Paul in an authoritative way on the the topic of gender, sexuality, and slavery." And I think it's the maybe a misunderstanding of what Paul is communicating. How would you feel about that?

[00:08:06]I mean, there's a lot of things that are like One of the tricky parts when you have slogans is that slogans always communicate a half-truth.

[00:08:16]Paul is our brother, Jesus is our savior. Nobody thinks that Paul and Jesus are equal in the sense of who they are as persons. Jesus is God, Paul ain't God.

[00:08:27]But, the real question is did did the same God who inspired Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John also inspire Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians, right?

[00:08:36]So, to to posit Paul versus Jesus, where Jesus is also mediated to us through authors who we believe that God inspired. And so, what we're trying to articulate when we're trying to wrestle with Paul is Paul's is whether or not we believe that the Pauline texts are inspired. And this is something that's not new So, I guess one of the Can can we talk about inspiration for a second? Yeah. And then we'll kind of come back around to the three issues you talked about.

[00:09:04]>> inspiration for our audience.

[00:09:05]>> Inspiration just means um was God at work in the composition of these texts? That's probably the simplest way of talking about it.

[00:09:13]There's a bunch of different ways people try to articulate it, but was this a are these purely human documents or are they a combination of God working through human beings to communicate?

[00:09:25]Now, there are different ways of accounting for this, right? People say, "Oh, these books are just written by men."

[00:09:31]Well, of course, they were written by human beings. But, that's how God comes to us. Like, the idea that God couldn't use a fallible person to tell us something true would simply just mean God couldn't communicate. That's all I mean ultimately saying God To say that God used a human being to write something means that God can use broke broken people to do good things, which basically means God can God can communicate with us. And so, that to me like saying that he's just a human being is just it's not actually making an argument, it's just an assertion.

[00:10:00]Now, as it relates to like Paul, gender, sexuality, and slavery, these are huge questions. We've dealt with each one of these individually.

[00:10:11]I would just say this very clearly.

[00:10:15]The Pauline texts that are often used to argue for the exclusion of women in ministry have been interpreted differently by people who have high views of scripture. That there is a strong case that Paul believed that men and women should work together in the preaching and teaching ministry of the church. And so, that is simply a misreading of Paul.

[00:10:35]The idea that the New Testament, broadly speaking, and then even Pauline theology, cannot be read in such a way as to see slavery as a evil is just also something that Christians have done. I mean, it's really And this is like I'm writing a book about this, and I want to say this like with as much certainty >> a book. Tell tell our audience what you're writing a book about.

[00:10:57]>> It's going to It's not going to come out so long. It's about the Bible, slavery, and liberation.

[00:11:00]And it is to me always interesting that our ancestors, when I'm talking about our black Christian ancestors, the abolitionist, looked at the texts of the New and Old and New Testament and saw in it a God who liberates.

[00:11:14]And they said that um the people who are using the Bible to oppress black people were reading this book incorrectly.

[00:11:24]And so, now we've kind of gone all the way around to now there is a certain segment of the black community that's saying no, the slave masters were the better readers of the Bible and our ancestors were foolish. And the thing about it is and I just want to Can we just talk about this for like 30 seconds?

[00:11:38]>> Yeah, go ahead.

[00:11:39]>> So, I think what people try to do is they try to pretend as if the argument was simply around the exegesis of Pauline text by themselves.

[00:11:49]But, if you just go back and read this literature, there there is the curse of Ham that is going on there. There is blatant racism. One of the things the abolitionists kept saying over and over again is if this is how you read these texts, why can't black people enslave white people? They said this. And And the And the enslavers goes, "That's ridiculous. That can't work because you're inferior to us." Mhm. And so, undergirding all of this stuff was an exegesis that had nothing to do with the Bible, but they were baking white supremacy into their interpretation of these passages. And what we try to argue is, "Okay, you take all the white supremacy out, you take all the racism out, and the argument's still better." But, the non-racist, non-white supremacist argument in North America was not the majority argument. The majority argument is, "We know." And here's the thing, there was scientific racism. There was all this stuff about like what they said about There was scientific racism. There was social racism, or cultural racism.

[00:12:43]And all of these things are impacting how people are arguing about the Bible.

[00:12:47]And so, we tried to isolate this one portion of the argument and say that people were just reading Paul. If that was actually the case, then you would have seen in the time the enslavement of the Irish in the or or or like the Germans or these other people. One of the things that happened and I'll say this and I'll I'll just go on. One of the reasons that slavery explodes in the United States is that initially they're doing indentured servitude servitude for whites who are coming in during like the potato fam famine. And so, things are bad the um and so, they would bring people over and they would serve for 7 years and they would then they would kind of go and they would kind of integrate into society. But, the But, the people learned two things. One, that's not as good of an investment, right? You get someone who's 7 years and then they go. And second, because they can integrate into society, those people who want you indentured servants now become your competitors. And so they said they didn't just open the Bible and go we should enslave black people. They said, "Hey, there's another labor source that we can enslave. They can never integrate into society because they're black and they're different than us and they're they're and they're permanent underclass and we never have to let them free and their children inherit their status.

[00:13:59]And so the things that is driving the massive expansion of and the enslavement of the black people in America is socio-economic and cultural and not simply the exegesis of the biblical text. And so it is as much attributable to greed as anything. And so I think we can sometimes oversimplify these things. Now, it is simply the case and and here's the thing and this and this is what I mean when I say to have each one of these things considered in a 30-second or 60-second sound bite is just unfair to the complexity of these questions.

[00:14:31]As relates to human sexuality, I think it is the case that we have to be able to as Christians read the Bible, the Old the New Testament, the the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets, the narratives, the Gospels, the Epistles, the Book of Revelation and ask the question of what is human flourishing and how would how my God expect us to steward our sexuality? And the idea that we can just um assume that the only reason there's a Christian that the only thing that's informing Christian ethics is the reading of a few Pauline texts is just simply not true.

[00:15:13]And so there are I think a way of saying maybe I'll put it this way.

[00:15:21]We think that we can look at all of these things for ourselves and we can decide what we will keep and what we will throw away.

[00:15:35]And we just assume that like we can do this well.

[00:15:39]I will say there's a long history of people editing the Bible to suit their own needs and that has not always ended well.

[00:15:52]What what I think is is is is true of Christianity. This is not some kind of like tired biblicism or something like that.

[00:16:01]It is to say there is a God who exists outside of us, who's able to make demands not even make demands is the wrong question. Who's able to direct us in a way that leads to human flourishing. And if he is actually the one who created us, then he actually gets to define what that flourishing is.

[00:16:18]And I think that sometimes we can be overconfident in our ability to discern God's will apart from anything beyond our own opinion and I think there needs to be a little bit of more humility there. And I think that Paul versus Jesus is a way of trying to get at that question without actually doing business like with maybe what it is that God might be calling all of us to. And so I think I think that's probably part of what's going on.

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[00:19:35]I was seeing somebody recently deconstruct and one of the things that they wrestled with was slavery in the Bible.

[00:19:42]>> Yeah. Um you've talked about this a number of times, but since we're on the subject of Paul versus Jesus, >> Yes.

[00:19:48]>> can you just give your spiel? You you've I mean for people could get Reading While Black, you have a whole chapter on that, but >> [sighs and gasps] >> Yeah, okay. So, I think it's very Oh man, there's so much stuff I can say. It's a whole book that's coming. Um I think that one of the things that I'll talk about what the slave masters did.

[00:20:09]Okay.

[00:20:10]>> Let's talk about what slave masters did.

[00:20:11]This is actually important cuz people need to say stuff, but it's actually important to see what they did. Mhm. Um the slave masters wanted to use the Bible as the the ceiling and not the floor. It's the Pauline texts as the ceiling. So, there are Pauline texts where they say slaves submit to your masters and all of these other things.

[00:20:32]And there these texts exist in the Bible. To say they don't exist in the Bible would be like an unserious argument. Well, why is it the Christians um were able to still see in the Bible liberative text? Mhm. They did a couple of them. Let's just Let's just Let's stop at like three places. The Gospels, the Prophets, and then some of the Torah text.

[00:20:52]So, in the Gospels, they looked at the Christians looked at the love command.

[00:20:55]Mhm. They said, you know, the God says love your neighbor as yourself or do unto others you would have them do unto you. They quoted these two passages over and over again.

[00:21:04]And they say, well, okay then, if you were if you were in a slave person, what might you desire? You might desire freedom. So, neighborly love would entail freeing the slaves, right? That's what it means love your neighbor.

[00:21:17]So, how did the actual So, we're talking about like how did the the pro-slavery party actually respond to this claim?

[00:21:23]And they said, "Well, because black people are inferior." You can find this over and over again because black people are inferior.

[00:21:30]To set them free would be harmful for them because they wouldn't know what to do with it with freedom. They would misuse it and be lazy. And so, the loving thing to do is to keep them enslaved because we're the ones who are civilizing civilizing them. And so, you can ask yourself, is that actually a viable interpretation of the Bible?

[00:21:47]They're saying that what it mean their understanding of the love command was this: that God created a hierarchy with whites on the top, blacks on the bottom.

[00:21:56]And that love then means people operating within the place that God designed them within the hierarchy.

[00:22:00]That's the interpretation of the of of of of of of of of of of of the golden rule.

[00:22:04]And so, when you then begin to see the slave narratives that come as a result, autobiography of Frederick Douglass, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, those aren't just narratives, they're a long reflection on the love command. So, they're saying, "This is what slavery is. This is actually what it is.

[00:22:21]Can you love someone and do this to them?" Which is where you get the the um stereotype of the happy slave. Where they're saying, "No, no, no. The slaves are happy." You think of the Birth of a of a Nation, becomes a movie later, but this like narrative of happy slavery.

[00:22:33]So, as related And then they said, as related then to the Gospels, they found themselves struggling to make sense of the story of Jesus. There's another guy named um I think it's Beriah Green. He takes to um Matthew 25. He says, "I was sick. I was in prison. I was a foreigner." All of those passages, right? And he says, "You look at each one of those descriptions of people who are who are who are described as the disenfranchised."

[00:22:58]And he said, "The enslaved person meets every one of those categories. So, you can judge a person in his day about how they treat the enslaved.

[00:23:07]And so, the abolitionists like, "Well, no, no, no.

[00:23:10]God didn't Sorry, the pro-slavery party.

[00:23:11]God didn't actually care about the enslaved people. He meant other oppressed, hungry, imprisoned." It's like, "No, these are the people." So, okay, then you go to like the prophets.

[00:23:19]The prophets talk a lot about the oppressed and the disenfranchised and the people whose wages are stolen from them.

[00:23:26]>> Mhm. And the abolitionists were going, "Well, if Jesus calls himself the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, and the law and the proph- the law and the pro- the prophets in particular, places like Isaiah, talk about the breaking of bonds. He said there could be nothing more Christian than the breaking of bonds and the fulfillment of all of these oppressed passages in in the prophets. So, how do I then our our beloved slave power party, how do they respond? They go, "No, no, no. When Jesus says he came to fulfill the law and the prophets, he had in mind the curse of Ham."

[00:23:57]Cuz the curse of Ham is in the law.

[00:23:59]And so, the Jesus k- approving of slavery was Jesus bringing to fulfillment even the prophecies in the Torah as relates to the perpetual enslavement of black people. That's what he actually meant. The prophets and the law, they include slavery that Jesus was coming to make sure that that thing stayed in place. And so, I think you can also do something like look at the Torah and look at the prophets and see, "Hey, this is how they're reading it. Let's look at what's going on in like these Torah texts."

[00:24:26]The abolitionists go, "Well, hold on.

[00:24:30]There is a law in the Torah that says any If you injure a slave, you knock out his tooth. If you injure the slave, the slave goes free as a result of the injury." And he said they also say, "Hold on. There's also a law that says if anyone escapes from one place, you're not to send them back into slavery."

[00:24:46]And so, they're saying that the fugitive slave laws that goes in the United States going counter to what the what the Torah says. And they said the idea that any person who escapes from one place and goes to the other place, that person is allowed to be free, makes slavery effectively voluntary in like the Old Testament. Now, whether or not that's actually what happened in practice is a different question.

[00:25:04]They're saying the text itself says, "Hey, you should If someone escapes, you shouldn't send them back." They also say there's explicit laws against kidnapping um of people to send them into slavery.

[00:25:17]They said every black person in America was kidnapped, every single one of them.

[00:25:21]And so you do begin to see that there it's not as simple as, "Hey, uh I'm sorry. Let me say this last one.

[00:25:28]They say, "Okay, let's look at the story of the Exodus, where God sees and enslaves people and he sets them free."

[00:25:34]And what the abolitionists are trying to get to, and people often misunderstand what they're trying to do. Some people talk about it versus the spirit of the text versus literal interpretation. What they're actually saying is a Christian can do this. They can look at the entire witness of scripture from the law, the prophets, these narratives, Jesus' own ministry, his concern for the weak and the marginalized, Paul's statement about our essential equality in Christ, and say, "Okay, taking all of these together, and if I have two options, to enslave people or to set them free, it seems to me that that the way that the evidence goes towards setting people free." They said this last thing, and actually this is really important. They said, "Okay, this is what I mean the ceiling and the floor."

[00:26:16]Paul doesn't call for abolition.

[00:26:18]But they're saying, "Well, there is the Christians were like 1% less than 1% of the population, and it was a monarchy.

[00:26:24]They had no ability to vote. You couldn't vote slavery out as as you weren't Most of them weren't even citizens." And he's saying now, the abolitionists are saying now, "Christians control every level of power.

[00:26:36]They control the church, they control the um businesses, they control the government." And they're saying to treat Paul as the maximum that is required in the context where we have all of the the misunderstands what he's trying to do.

[00:26:53]And they're saying the the the changing circumstances of Christians in North America in the 1700s means they have an added responsibility, that they can't be put they are actually held to a higher standard cuz they can actually effectively change these laws. And so that's the reason why the abolitionists did not think that what they were saying was crazy. And I think wishing all of that away and not doing the hard work of trying to synthesize all of these complex texts in these complex circumstances and accounting for the differences between the 1st century and the 18th century is not necessarily taking the testimony of our own ancestors seriously who read these texts. I mean, I talked about this a lot. Frederick Douglass says it explicitly. He said, "What do you do?"

[00:27:36]He says, "What do you do when they when you see things like the Fugitive Slave Law and people are using the Bible to justify the enslavement of our people?"

[00:27:44]He said, "Do you toss this book away?"

[00:27:46]He goes, "No, you you you you hold it to your chest more tightly and you show from these pages that God is on the side of freedom and not enslavement." And that's what they did. And I think that taking their testimony seriously and reading them and hearing what they have to say makes it clear to us that they weren't just begging the question, they weren't running from difficult text. They're trying to say that on the whole this is a liberative text. And the truth is that liberative tradition has been the same wherever the Bible has gone and oppressed groups they're seeing these stories, a God who's a friend of theirs and a God who's not their enemy. Mhm.

[00:28:24]No, I I think that's helpful because what you're getting at is the misreading of the text by slave owners. And I don't even know if they thought this with like conviction or they were looking for tools to manipulate. So, it's really interesting.

[00:28:39]This is what I mean. So, there's a lot of stuff that's happening around like the 1700s and 1800s.

[00:28:46]At the beginning, um especially after the Revolutionary War, um and by the way, they're all This is all motivated by greed. So, I'm not trying to Yeah, that's why that's why I was saying But let me let me let me let me let me explain. So, in the 1700s, like, oh, this is an unfortunate reality that we hope ends, right? So, Jefferson, like, super racist, right? But he kind of comes in and out as to saying, "You black people are inferior, but slavery is kind of an embarrassment to the Republic."

[00:29:14]By the time you get to the era leading up to the Civil War, because of things like the cotton gin, and it's become the economic engine of the South, the argument changes from slavery as a a a a unfortunate necessity to a positive good. And the reason it becomes a positive good is because people making money off of it. And so, the idea that like there was that this is strictly These are people who would otherwise treat black people as equal, but they happen to find a couple of verses in Paul to justify enslavement is not true to human experience, right? There is a a reality that and this is The Bible talks about this, human sinfulness, that people desire to make money.

[00:30:04]And one of the ways that you can justify making money is you you must first dehumanize the person that you want to exploit. You see it there in the same thing with immigrants, right? These immigrants are different. They're not normal people.

[00:30:16]They're They're called we you know you know the um This government They're calling them animals. They call them dangerous. They say they're like eating dogs. So, you have to say that. So, then when you exploit them, you don't feel the pangs of conscience.

[00:30:31]And so, what you actually And this is happens in Christian context and in non-Christian context. They're completely secular places all over the world. This economic Yeah.

[00:30:39]>> conscience for their own for their own economic economic and social benefit.

[00:30:43]>> Yeah. Now, I want to be really clear.

[00:30:45]The church is complicit in allowing the co-option of its message to do that work.

[00:30:55]But at least you have to say something like this. This is what I mean talking about these bare facts, right?

[00:31:00]You have in Christianity, at the center of Christianity, a person who died a death that was not possible except for non-citizens. Right? A Roman citizen The reason Paul They apologized to Paul when he's beaten cuz Paul was a citizen. But at the height of Christianity is this idea that Jesus, a non-citizen of a part of an oppressed people who's colonized, is killed on trumped-up charges and tortured to death because they saw the Jewish people as less than human. And so that act, yes, it's a it's an atonement for sins, but it is also a critique of imperial ways of being. Of dehumanizing, beating, torturing, assaulting, and murdering people. So the fact that you worship someone who that is a an essential part of their narrative ought to raise by the bare fact of the cross ought to raise the question of well, how am I treating the marginalized in my own context?

[00:31:51]>> Mhm. And so the idea that all of this stuff can easily be co-opted with the empire is simply not true because that's the reason they didn't want the enslaved people to read this book. Mhm. It's the reason why they edited this book.

[00:32:06]And so if there is no danger in these texts, then they would have given it to us. It's the reason that when they preach the the sermons to us, they preached only certain texts.

[00:32:15]Right? Because they understood that there implications there that that the book is dangerous. We often treat the Bible as this domesticated tool of patriarchy when it is a tool that actually inspires revolutions.

[00:32:29]>> Mhm.

[00:32:29]And I think that that's like when So when I when I talk about um like why these texts ought to remain useful for us as the church.

[00:32:41]It is because I think it's the book that sets people free. Mhm. And it's not the book itself like it's some kind of like talisman. It's the fact that God was at work in this book and through this book and through other things too. Through creation we see the glory of God. Um but he's at work in a unique way through this book to give his people and a a chance to encounter and know him and have their lives transformed. What I think we see a lot is don't trust this book, trust me.

[00:33:12]And I want to go, "Well, who are you?

[00:33:14]You didn't save me. You didn't die for me on the cross. Your words have no long history of bringing transformation to our community. I have receipts." People often talk about like the receipts of what God has done for black people. Like literally read our history.

[00:33:28]Read all about Read many of our best authors and our and our best activists who brought change. It's because they saw in this story a a a hope that that they could not concoct concoct on their own.

[00:33:42]Hey family, this is Lisa Fields, the founder and CEO of the Jude 3 Project.

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[00:33:59]That's why we created the KWB stands for know, wrestle, build. So every Monday in 2026, in just 90 seconds, we walk with you through scripture, cultural questions, and real-world faith challenges. You'll learn to know the truth, wrestle with the context you're living in, and build a more confident defense for what you believe.

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[00:34:46]>> [music] >> God bless you.

[00:34:52]So, before we go, I want you to talk a little bit about the role of German scholarship. And [sighs] We're talking about the Germans again.

[00:35:00]our interpretation because I think when we're taking the ways sometimes we're framing Paul's words or our textual criticism our our criticism around Paul and his text saying we're we're trying to remove a white supremacist framework, we're also using a white supremacist framework in German scholarship.

[00:35:24]>> I think I think that like sometimes we can hurl these like who's who's colonizing who argument back and forth, right?

[00:35:32]And I think to put some context is the idea seems to be that any Christian who has a belief in the ongoing relevance of scripture and its inspiration has internalized white supremacy. They're not performing whiteness when I say that I believe that like God was at work in the in the writers of the Old and New Testament.

[00:35:51]Well, on one level that's just simply not true because I guess you can keep you can keep chasing down this where this whiteness originates. Like was it it was in Huntsville, Alabama at the black church that I was growing up in? It was actually where my grandfather where he was raised? It was actually in the black church all across the South? And you can say, "Yeah, the entire black church in the South is internalizing white supremacy." And then you say, "Okay, then maybe we go back to, you know, the early church." With the early church like so there there's this way of saying I don't like this and the way that I can separate black people from something like the of scripture is to link it to whiteness. That's just it's a rhetorical ploy that is historically inaccurate. So like I just want to say like it's possible for people to make the decision of their own in their full black selves, they believe that this is the word of God. So it's just like to me an unserious argument and it's like a slander that the people ought to make better arguments.

[00:36:47]Um Now, we could also say that none of us come to these texts without any history.

[00:36:56]There's a history of scholarship that comes out of the what do they call the mainline tradition, the majority white traditions in the United States during the early 1900s, the 1920s, and 30s, and 40s.

[00:37:07]There is what is called higher criticism of the Bible, the doubting of miracles, the doubting of inspiration, the um kind of more skeptical and hostile readings of Paul. And those things do come from Germany. They come from Europe. And so what happens later is that those ideas are adopted in certain black spaces. And then issues of race and justice are globbed on top of those things. But undergirding that skepticism, right?

[00:37:32]That Paul is just a man and all of this other stuff and Paul versus Jesus, that comes from German scholarship. Now, it was dipped in chocolate, right? And now we're having this what becomes the same argument, right? Is the text inspired?

[00:37:44]Is Paul this This is the same argument that white scholars had. And so if I am guilty of internalizing white supremacy, then that my opponent is also guilty of internalizing um white respectability.

[00:37:56]And the the white intellectual seriousness is coming out of there. And the important part about that though is that those Germans themselves were also racist. And that you can have progressive racism, which is why it's not just in like evangelical institutions, you have black people that make at mainline institutions who experience in different forms of racism and discrimination. You've been at your job, your progressive job, in your progressive city where it was racist, right? Where you want to say we're all about justice and equality." Instead of trying to build some affordable housing, they would want those black people near us. And so, the idea that progressivism is going to protect us from anti-black racism is historically not true. Those same Some of those same institutions weren't that There's this I want I'm going to put them I'm going to put them in the streets.

[00:38:38]And certain institutions they did want to let black people in. Like, it wasn't just the evangelicals. I'm not carrying water for them. And so, what does that mean?

[00:38:46]That means simply saying, "Hey, there are some white people who believe something, and those white people who believe certain things like the inspiration are tied to right-wing ideology, then everybody who believes in the inspiration of scripture is tied to that same ideology." Even though that doctrine precedes the creation of what we now call modern whiteness, it's in the actual Bible itself, right? Where the prophets claim the word of the Lord came to me.

[00:39:15]Right? The prophets them said, "W- W- In When they says no one spoke with their own accord, but they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." In the early church, in the first and second and third century, before they were part of the empire, they were arguing that these texts were in some sense authoritative.

[00:39:30]And so, the idea that the inspiration of scripture is only created to perform white supremacy is a historically unserious argument, cuz you can just look over it. Take yourself over to Russia. Take yourself over to parts of Africa and say, "What were these churches in Ethiopia and Syria?

[00:39:48]What were they saying about these texts?" Now, they were Catholic or Orthodox, and so they had other doctrines that attached to it. They might have something about like, you know, bishops, priests, and deacons. But all of these different Christian traditions across time and culture and apart from white supremacy saw these texts as serious. And so, I d- I think that that means that we're going to have to at some point answer these questions on their own merits and not use white supremacy um arguments as a cover cuz a lot of these questions have been answered. And I think that what happens is and I and I and I want to say I feel this too.

[00:40:30]We to be a Christian in America means to consistently be deeply disappointed with other Christians.

[00:40:39]It means to see people in the name of God do things that are unconscionable.

[00:40:48]And this and and and sometimes in particular black people.

[00:40:52]And we need to and we're trying to find a reason why.

[00:40:56]And the answer that is offered to us because that is partially true. Like people use these texts to oppress our people.

[00:41:05]Therefore, these texts the solution to these things are to get rid of these texts.

[00:41:09]But the problem is we see places where these texts aren't normative in the lives and imaginations of the people.

[00:41:17]And we see white supremacy being still performed.

[00:41:21]It might mean that white supremacy is a product of human brokenness. I don't think that anybody believes that like Donald Trump or whoever read like, you know, Paul and decided he went to redistribute Texas.

[00:41:36]Right? You know what I mean?

[00:41:36]>> think he's read You know what I mean?

[00:41:38]Like yeah like it's like it's like and so I think I think that what I'm saying to you is the empire is often saw religion as a useful tool of oppression, but it will in the absence of religion they will use whatever tool is available to them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:55]Yeah, it's great point. I don't think the president is reading scripture and >> Yeah, like oh man, you know.

[00:42:01]>> legislation.

[00:42:01]>> Yeah, like oh man, I I want to redistribute Louisiana because I you know, I really believe Yeah, I think he's he's using >> He wants power.

[00:42:10]>> Yes, and he's using Christians he's using some segment of Christianity to to to use to be his cover for the things he's trying to do.

[00:42:23]>> I think um I think one of the things that I am noticing is that the problems that we face as a people and as a country persist.

[00:42:45]And we want a solution that's going to to give us a place to put the pain and the anger.

[00:43:02]And I think for me I have found that and I say this not as a as a lie, but as a true thing, despair and cynicism has never liberated anybody.

[00:43:18]And that I actually believe, this is like a crazy take, this might be crazy.

[00:43:25]The testimony in these texts there was a guy named Jesus who came and who loved and who preached the kingdom of God and they killed him.

[00:43:36]And 3 days later he rose from the dead.

[00:43:39]And he appeared to his disciples and he commissioned those disciples and those disciples went out into the world and were agents of change. And these agents of change transformed both hearts and societies. And I believe that the same message that inspired them kind of inspire can inspire us today.

[00:43:57]And so actually I have no desire to be in some kind of like intellectual back and forth to whoever might be this imaginary interlocutor.

[00:44:06]I am trying to say it is part of my job as a a a as a Christian to pass on this thing to the next generation as best I can.

[00:44:16]And I think that if if if we lose this thing as a people, we've lost something precious. And so I get it that like there are all of these questions like that we that we have to answer that are really important intellectual questions.

[00:44:29]You don't waste your life to three um apologetics.

[00:44:34]But I think that I think that this might Y'all put it there. You have to be taught to see.

[00:44:47]I It was very natural for me to see in these texts a God who is a friend and not an enemy. It's not that I didn't have questions about these texts.

[00:44:54]But the things that that gave me comfort were way greater than the things that gave me pause.

[00:44:59]And I just think that that that truth is something I want to pass on to people, not to run away from these questions, but to find that there's a God who still loves us on the other side of them.

[00:45:10]Now, I think that's helpful. Uh tell our audience how they can get your book.

[00:45:14]That I mean that book is going to come out whenever it comes out. Well, Reading While Black cuz Oh, Reading While Black, Hop to the Promised Land. I got books for kids, Isaiah Johnson and the Big Game, um God's Colorful Kingdom. You can go to my website esauymccauley.com. All of the books are there. You can go to any place that you buy books.

[00:45:30]Um but yeah, I think I think that anywhere I'm on social media. Um Esau McCauley, there's not a lot of people with that name. You type that into the search bar, it'll pop up. All right.

[00:45:40]Well, thank you for watching another episode of the 3G Project Podcast. As always, you catch all our episodes on our website or YouTube channel or wherever you stream your favorite podcast. Uh remember to get my book pre-order uh When Heroes Fall. Uh we're coming back for part two for that in the sec.

[00:45:57]But >> [laughter] >> um become a monthly partner. We cannot do what we do without generous support from people like you. So, consider consider being a monthly partner. Go to jewthree.org, hit that donate tab, and then until next time, grace and peace, and God bless.

[00:46:11]And I'm a monthly partner, so if I can do it, you can do it. Thank you.

[00:46:14][laughter]