You Tube Theology

Former PCA elder Greg Thompson says Christians need to follow his example and adopt the "spiritual tradition" of liberation theologians like Howard Thurman (a universalist mystic) instead of "the reformed American evangelical church" in a conversation with Duke Kwon, his co-author on the book "Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair," and Thabiti Anyabwile.

--TRANSCRIPT--

GREG THOMPSON: I started living by a version of the Benedictine rule ten years ago, which took me in a contemplative tradition. But it also takes you in a tradition of boundaries, that you are by nature bounded. Like, you pray at this time and you can do this and do that. I think the experience of boundedness, meaning the world is not all mine, I can't do whatever I want, is a really important spiritual practice on a day-to-day basis. I would say that in that tradition, and this is mediated through people, not just Benedict but, you know, Bernard of Clairvaux and the desert tradition and Julian of Norwich and people like that.

But it really comes to a beautiful expression in America through Howard Thurman. It's this instinct to identify with the "weak Christ," with the Christ who is identified, as Thurman says, with those whose backs are actually against the wall and to see Christ there. That is a deeply patristic, deeply medieval approach to understanding that was strongly picked up in the African-American church, is Christ's identification with this place of pain being the place of life.

And I think that as long as I was in a spirituality in the reformed American evangelical church that is largely about cognitive mastery and dominion over the other worldviews that are allegedly destroying things and not about fellowship with Christ in the dark places of the world and in the painful places of the world, where my life is small, which is what's actually true, then I could not turn to reparations.

And one of the things I see that is evidence to me not just of white supremacy but of a form of spiritual death, it's Christian leaders, and you can watch what's going to happen. Christian white leaders, prominent leaders, not being able to countenance a conversation where they themselves are centered and defining the terms. That is an illustration of spiritual death and that they are not dwelling with the Christ who dies.

And so for me, this movement into this contemplative tradition and identification with Howard Thurman of, like, where is Christ in these places, that is, for me, the necessary spiritual prerequisite, because otherwise you're always coming from a position of mastery and unacknowledged indebtedness to the neo-liberal visions of the world that center white male worldview thinking. And I think that we can't get there, it's not an accident that we haven't gotten to reparations through that.

THABITI ANYABWILE: That's right.

THOMPSON: That didn't happen by mistake. We have to go into a different spiritual tradition that leads us to repair.

ANYABWILE: My, my, my. That's so good. I hear the Hammond B3 tuning up.

[Laughter]

THOMPSON: [inaudible]

[Laughter]

DUKE KWON: That's right. It's true, though, man. It is a fundamentally different vision and moral impulse to believe in a Christ of the disinherited. Right? I mean, you're just looking for a different thing, for your life, for other people, as well, when you see that Christ. And I think you're right, Greg. Well said.

THOMPSON: Yeah, I feel like it really does come down, like, are you following the Christ who is present in the pain of the disinherited? Or are you following Christ who is leading the culture war and to re-establish your dominion? What you do in the world is directly correlated to what you believe God is doing. And what I believe God is doing is weeping with the suffering.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7wsIV1NPI

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