Ben Lippen Podcast
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Ben Lippen Podcast
Applications of a Biblical Theology of Race at Ben Lippen School
Unlock the profound connection between biblical identity and racial reality in our latest episode with Dr. Ben Mathew from Columbia International University. Join us as we explore how prioritizing our faith can help us transcend biases and foster unity within the Ben Lippin School community. Dr. Mathew guides us through the complexities of maintaining our identity in Christ while embracing our diverse backgrounds. Discover how this perspective aligns with the gospel's message of love and redemption, offering a pathway to reconcile differences and build a stronger, more inclusive community.
Get ready for an engaging conversation as Dr. Mathew shares his insights on addressing cultural misunderstandings and hurtful comments with compassion and scriptural wisdom. We tackle the challenges of "colorblindness" and "color essentialism," advocating for a balanced approach where our faith informs our views on race and culture without overshadowing our unique identities. Drawing lessons from the unity between Jews and Gentiles in Ephesians, we aim to inspire honest dialogue and understanding. Don't miss the opportunity to connect with Dr. Mathew for further exploration of these vital topics, as he offers his contact information for those eager to continue the conversation.
Click here to submit your questions for Dr. Mathew to review.
Welcome back to another episode of the Ben Lippin podcast. This is episode four out of five with Dr Ben Matthew, where we are talking about the gospel and racial discussions here at Ben Lippin School. If you haven't listened to episodes one, two and three, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to them so that you can have more context for this discussion. But if you don't have time, it's OK. We we trust the Lord has brought you here for this time to listen to this and you can go back and listen to this at a later time. So in the first few episodes we talked about our heart posture when it comes to this topic and then understanding the biblical theology of race. We broke that down into the beautiful story, the big story that the Lord has created for us, and so now it's time for us to take that and apply it to our community here at Ben Lippin. So, Dr Matthew, I'm just going to kick it off to you and start this discussion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one of the things I so appreciate Aaron and the administrators at Ben Lippin wanting to discuss this and we had some conversations and prayers before where we wanted to make this a reality for life at Benelit, for the students, for the parents, the families that support. We recognize this can be sometimes out there or so heady and theological that we don't make it relevant to our particular community. So I'm very encouraged by that desire to kind of put some rubber to the road here, as it were. Comes to that.
Speaker 2:And to me it kind of plays in line of what we did in those earlier episodes in developing a biblical theology creation, fall, cross, redemption and glory Trying to think through okay, how can we kind of practically live these five points of the biblical narrative out? At Ben Lippin, which I think you know, going back to the creation account, we talked a lot about what this means. To find our identity first and foremost in who God is and how he created us, that our identity again first is not our ethnicity. Ethnicity is part of us but it's not the priority of us. There is a pastor, african-american pastor that I knew when I was going to Dallas Theological Seminary and he made this quote one time. He says where my blackness bumps up against my faith, my faith has to win. And what I loved about his statement is that he wasn't discounting his ethnic realities, his cultural realities, but he was putting it in subordination to a greater identity, namely his identity in Christ. So I look at that and I ask the question of us at Ben Lippin where is our first identity? That doesn't mean that you get rid of your other identity and that could be ethnic, that could be political, that could be gender, that can be socioeconomic. There's so many other variables of defining who we are, but they must all fall under a greater identity, namely who I am.
Speaker 2:Made in the image of God, and that's true for Christians and non-Christians, right. The image of God is something that all humans have, regardless of their standing of faith, and we need to admit there may be some listening to this podcast that don't know Christ and that may not be a reality for them. We would hope they would and embrace the gospel of a God who loves them through Jesus Christ, but I want them to also understand that your identity and value is not only when you come to salvation. Your identity and value is made there because you're created as a human being. What if we start looking at each other at Ben Lippin through that lens?
Speaker 2:First, what does that look like? How do I see if you're a student? How can you see other students as being made in the image of God? If you're a teacher or administrator, how do I view my colleagues and my students made in the image of God? If you're a parent, how do I help my kids? How do I help myself engage with those other people made in the image of God, having to say that phrase out many times, made in the image of God. Made in the image of God, I think is so important, kind of start us working towards what I think God wants in his gospel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we have to continuously and consciously do that because our sin nature will want us to go right back to Genesis 11. I'm going to dive back to Genesis 11, but you know, and it kind of what you're saying, neutralizes the some of the hot topic-ness of what we're talking about, because if we're gentlemen have said, when my blackness bumps up against my faith, my faith must win, we can look at that too. When, when my mom-ness or my wife or my habit-ness, whatever it is, bumps up, our faith always has to win, and so we just can kind of take a step back, I like to say be a curious observer and neutralize it in that role. So, yeah, I mean, that's wonderful. Just, with every interaction that we have in the Benton Lippin community, are we, are we putting that, that lens of Christ and that lens of our faith, all right? So that comes to the second step.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which you kind of highlighted that I already want to get into, how quickly we can jump back I like the way that you said it back to the Genesis 11 type of attitude where we see the division, we see the difference first. One of the things that I often have to recognize in myself is how quick I am to do that that when those differences surface against another ethnicity, against another culture, and I see the difference, how I want to isolate and if not kind of cause myself to think I'm a little better than them in this area. I want to be very clear here and recognize there's a lot of discussions as it relates to individual and systemic realities of racism. This podcast is not intending to enter into that debate. The one thing I think is important to say is that all of us red and yellow, black and white, all of us have bias and have prejudice. That we need to confess before the Lord and each other.
Speaker 2:Just because I am a person of color doesn't mean I can't be racist. I want to be very clear. I can and have been racist. I have harbored emotions and thoughts in my heart against other ethnicities, other people, in ways that have tried to make me better than them, in ways that tries to make a name for myself like in Genesis 11, and in doing so divides me from them. I think sometimes our culture wants to say only certain communities, if you're only white, then those are the only people that can be racist. I would challenge that because I know my own heart. I've been a victim of racism and I have done racist things to others as well. I need to own both those realities. Again, hard to be very practical. I'm often.
Speaker 2:There's a reason they're called my blind spots is because I'm blind to them. Um, my wife has a much newer car, nicer car than I do, and she has this wonderful feature that if she wants to move into the other lane and if there's a car in her blind spot, it warns her Like the lights start flashing, this beeping noise. My car is over 20 years old, so I'm just going to hit the person and get out of the way, unfortunately for me, but her car is really cool. She has a blind spot indicator. I need blind spot indicators in my life. I don't have this electronic device to do that, but God has given me other people my wife, my kids, my church, my community, my colleagues. I need other people to look at me and give them invitation to admit the areas I'm falling in when it comes to my pride and my division when it comes to other cultures. I'm blind to my blind spot, so I need a blind spot indicator. I need to admit the wrong before I can embrace the better.
Speaker 1:Where do you think some of these blind spots come from? And I mean, I know I have them too, but where do some of these blind spots come from? Great question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, like many things, experience tends to inform a lot of our biases. What we've gone through personally, I know for me, our family, we moved into a predominantly, if not almost exclusively, white community and we had to deal with significant racial violence. Our house was firebombed, our garage door spray painted, all kinds of verbal and physical attacks against our family because of our ethnicity. I know for me, growing up, it would have been I don't want to say justifiable, but understandable for me to have a lot of resentment against white people. And yet I look at the response of my parents and their gospel engagement that helped me get beyond my biases. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I think I look at their willingness to engage in the face of those really bad experiences and be willing to push the gospel into it rather than retreat.
Speaker 2:Experiences can be powerful, but experiences don't have to be determinative, and so I think we need to recognize what are the things we've gone through and ask the question maybe another area is what am I being discipled by, or who am I being discipled by, if this is the first time you've ever heard a biblical theology of race that concerns me on so many levels? Because if we don't talk about it in our Christian context, then I have to wonder what other narratives are we hearing? If I go to church for an hour or two a week, but I'm listening to newscasts and it's happening on both sides of the political aisle, whether you're more on the conservative or more on the progressive side. We're being discipled five, six hours a night by some of these voices. I need to be willing to ask are they helping me embrace something bigger, or is it just dividing me like we saw in Genesis 11? I think there's a lot of different ways in which we're being informed by some of these issues that then feed into our blind spots.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that comes into what you're saying too about the blind spot indicators. Sometimes within our community some people can say things and they don't realize the implications of what they're saying and so being able to lovingly disciple so that they have a better understanding of their words. I mean, it goes back to words and language. It can be used to divide or to unify. Talking about that and this kind of I guess it goes into some of the other points. But if you are in a place where you're coming to a different understanding of race, ethnicity, culture and the Lord has really moved in your heart through this discussion, and you have a dear friend or someone, just an acquaintance, that says something that can be harmful and hurtful, how can we address that through the lens of Scripture when we hear those things?
Speaker 2:Such a good question, erin, because, let's be honest, that's going to happen right. We're either going to say something or we're going to receive something. That is just going to be hurtful. It's usually not meant, but nevertheless received or understood in that context. For me, this is kind of even gets to our next point with the cross, when I find my identity and how I'm made in the image of God, when I recognize my fallenness, but then I see how Christ entered into our mess to redeem us for his glory. The cross, if I can say it this way, helps us develop not just thicker skin but deeper identity.
Speaker 2:I am not asking us to ignore those hurts, those things that either we say to others or that we receive from others and just say, ah, don't worry about it. No, those are real hurts. I think we need to admit that and maybe to some degree be willing to broach that individual and ask them, kind of like Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew if your brother offends you, go to him. He doesn't say if your brother offends you, go on to Twitter or Facebook. He says to go to them. But what if we are willing to allow that offense to not just kind of bounce off us but recognize our identity is not in what they said but on what Christ has done for me. He died to reconcile us together. That then gives me some sustainability, that when those hits happen I don't have to let it be the end of the conversation, that it can in fact lead to more.
Speaker 2:As you know, in good therapy you recognize you have to get hurt a little bit. You got to unpack the wound before there can be healing. But there's hope because of what Christ did at the cross, that there can be reconciliation. Will it be hard? Yeah, let's own that and those comments and those, those contexts where we feel that hurt. Sometimes we just want to. We want to go back to Genesis 11 and just retreat.
Speaker 2:But the cross gives us power and deeper identity to engage, because I think then, getting into the redemption narrative, it gives us some parameters of recognizing. The two things I often try to help people understand is that we want to avoid two particular things ideas. One is what I call colorblindness. If you've ever heard this term before, I had a friend of mine at a meeting we were having this discussion. He was from a European white background and he said to me Ben, I don't see you as a brown man. I just see you as my brother in Christ. So I want to first commend him for that comment, because I think I know what he was trying to get at.
Speaker 1:And he's right.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, our connection is through Christ, not through the color of our skin. At the same time to talk about well, I don't see your brown skin. I remember responding to him. I said brother, I so appreciate that, but when I look in the mirror every day, guess what I see? I see a brown guy. Right, that's part of who I am. It's not the totality of who I am.
Speaker 2:But to ignore that, I think, is not. It'd be like me going up to a woman and saying you know what? I don't see you as a female, I just see you as another person in Christ. Well, to be sure, I don't want to elevate gender above or beyond, because we've unfortunately seen that through history, but neither do I think that means I go to an egalitarian position that says there is no difference between men and women. If you know the theological debate regarding complementarian and egalitarianism when it relates to men and women, I think the egalitarian position can lead into some dangerous difficult areas because it flattens out the differences.
Speaker 2:I think God created men and women to be different. I also think that, as it relates to not just gendered realities but ethnic realities, god created us to be different, not as a priority. Like my friend said, where my blackness bumps up against my faith, my faith has to win. But I don't think that means I get rid of, I don't become colorblind. In fact, god's not colorblind Revelation. Go back to some of those other podcasts. God most definitely sees color, but color through the lens of the gospel, not through my own personal desires. I also want to avoid the other side of it, what I call color essentialism.
Speaker 2:If you look at the book of Ephesians, in chapter two Paul is very clear that our first identity chapter one he kind of unpacks this reality and how now these two dividing communities of Jews and Gentiles can now be brought together. But it's only because of the work of Christ that the Jew-Gentile divide is so secondary to this greater identity, namely the church, that I can't put my ethnicity higher than my identity as a believer in Jesus Christ. I do think sometimes and I think at Ben Lippin we need to kind of ask ourselves the question, and can I say this particularly to the minority community? I think sometimes, predominantly the white community can be a little more colorblind in their mindset and they need to be challenged in that. If I can gently challenge those in the minority community sometimes we want our minority status to be put a little higher. I think we are pushing an essentialism way that is not healthy for the conversation that we may need to reprioritize.
Speaker 2:I don't mean get rid of, but I do mean reprioritize. So I want to avoid both those realities of color blindness and color essentialism that may get in the way of some honest communications at Ben Lippin.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you know even me as a, as a white woman, there are certain perceptions about me and my history is not what would be like a stereotypical, what you would think of. You know I went to a dominantly African-American school for many of my years and I have. You know I've been immersed in different cultures, I've done mission trips in different places. You know so, just taking me or anybody else at face value, you limit the ability to see how their experiences have helped them to better understand you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, which I appreciate you saying that, because I think we all, we all do that at some level when we engage with someone and, again, that's just kind of human nature. But we don't have to allow that initial reaction to be the only reaction. I like how you said it earlier. How can we be curious, right? How can we develop this sense of? Okay, that may be my first perception, but is that the reality means more engagement, more questions, more curiosity that helps me appreciate the unique realities of this person in front of me.
Speaker 1:Right, and it goes back to Philippians 4.8. You know, is it true? Okay, well, I'm having this thought or this perception, and now I need to measure it against Philippians. Like, is this true? Well, I don't know. So let's ask some questions.
Speaker 2:That's a great point. It's a great point, yeah. That leads us, I think, that much more to that last point of glory. I think glory. I think the new heavens and the new earth will be filled with the reality of diversity, not just for diversity's sake, but diversity to show our unity, to give glory to the one who brought us together. If that's what the future hope is, I think we need to be kind of holding onto that hope and living out that hope today.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I've learned from some of my missiological colleagues is Christianity's unique relation to the nations. Let me say it this way I have friends who are Muslims, who are Hindus, who are Buddhists, who are Jews and almost every major religion. For you to be part of that religion, you have to not just take on the name but the ethnic reality of it. If you want to be a Muslim, you kind of have to speak Arabic. You have to not just take on the name but the ethnic reality of it. If you want to be a Muslim, you kind of have to speak Arabic. You have to pray towards Mecca. You have to kind of become Middle Eastern.
Speaker 2:If you want to be Hindu, you're kind of Indian. If you're Buddhist you're kind of more Asian. If you're Jewish, you're more. You know, within that Jew you have to conform to the mono-ethnic reality of that religion. Christianity stands apart from all of those in that the way that the gospel expands is through the different cultures, so that a Christian in Brazil looks totally different than a Christian in Norway, who looks totally different than a Christian in China, and so on and so forth. But there are ethnic differences. I'll highlight a deeper reality that it actually you find greater. Going back to what you said, you get curious, like how are you able to express your Christianity in a Scandinavian culture?
Speaker 2:that is so different than an African culture and yet worship the same God. And that's actually the beauty of the gospel is that it actually becomes more beautiful through the differences. Not like every other religion that demands you become mono-ethnic. What if we at Ben Lippin start getting curious about that when I come across someone who is from a different culture, whether it be from another part of the world or just a different part of Columbia? What if we start getting excited about the differences, and not just the differences but how they help us see the same Savior and savor the joy of that salvation, if that's going to be a reality in glory? What if we start I tell my students sometimes, feel free to work ahead a little on your homework if it helps you. What if we work ahead a little bit on our assignment here of what the new heavens and new earth will look like and start getting curious about how the different cultures bring us together to savor our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you know you're talking about these different nations and blind spots and things like that and things that make us different. One of my children is has dyslexia and I got a text from Sarah Beth Helsley, who is our. She works at the Ridge here and she let me know that in January of 2025, january 9th, that they are releasing a Bible that is for individuals who have dyslexia and I I'm getting emotional even talking about it, but I just wept because I had never thought that about the challenges that someone with dyslexia has accessing the word of God and you know, when it comes to these other nations and we are called to take his word and make disciples of all nations and in order to do that, we need to understand their language and communicate with how God made them and the beautiful ways that God made them.
Speaker 2:So what a great story. How can we step into their reality? Whether it be a learning issue, like dyslexia, whether it be a culture Listen, this should not be too unfamiliar with us because, again, that's what the incarnation is God steps into our reality, our mess, in order to bring us hope. He doesn't leave us to our own ends. As we try to make a name for ourselves, god comes down and says no, no, I got a better plan. Let me step into your reality, and I think that's the model we can have. We can be incarnational into other cultures, we can step into their realities, which means stepping out of our comfort. I look at a God who very easily could have stayed in his glory and yet humbled himself, as Paul says in Philippians, taking on the form of a servant in order to bring more glory to himself and greater joy to us.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful way to wrap this up here. So in conclusion, in summation, how can we go forth and be disciples of all nations here at Ben Lippin? Because we have a lot of nations here. We don't have all of them, but we have a lot.
Speaker 2:No, it's a great question, Erin, because again, I speak not just as one who's looked at this theologically. It's something I deal with in my with my students, something that I deal with with my clients. But I have a special interest at Ben Lippin. Three of my four kids go there, my wife works there. We're relatively new to Ben Lippin in Columbia and this has been a blessing to us. So, to figure out ways in which we can be part of this community, but to see this community grow, Kind of going back to one of our first episodes, come as you are and kind of be willing to kind of have some of these conversations, but know that God wants to take you beyond where you're at my question, whether you're a student, staff member, a parent, a family member, how can we start looking at Ben Lippin through a gospel lens rather than just the political or cultural lens that's been so put out To me?
Speaker 2:I think that's part of it is having some honest conversations, Like we said, stepping out of our comfort zone and being willing to have willingness to let the gospel inform us, to see how we can move forward in ways that I hope are informed more by truth rather than our personal biases. We got to admit our biases, but know that there is hope beyond it as well.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that's wonderful, all right. So again, if you have questions, comments, concerns, there's a form that's in the show notes. Please take some time to fill it out. We care about your thoughts, we care about you know your concerns, that maybe this these conversations have brought up. We are open to that. So please fill this form out, because we're going to be doing a fifth episode where we're going to be coming to those comments and questions and we want to help continue to, to give opportunities for everyone here at Bentley to grow in this narrative in the way that he has already designed for us to. All right, dr Matthew, we thank you so much for being here and if anyone wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a professor over at Columbia International University. So my email benmathew at ciuedu. It's the best way to get ahold of me.
Speaker 1:All right, guys. Well, we'll see you in that Q&A episode.