In this Episode
In this episode we are joined by speaker, educator and author, Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil, who is Associate Professor of Reconciliation Studies and Director of the Reconciliation Studies program at Seattle Pacific University. Rev. Dr. Brenda is also associate pastor of preaching and reconciliation at Quest Church in Seattle, Washington, as well as the author of several books, including Becoming Brave, Roadmap to Reconciliation, Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0, and the classic, A Credible Witness.
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Transcript
Lisa Sharon Harper: Coming to you from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection. I’m Lisa Sharon Harper, president of Freedom Road, a consulting group dedicated to shrinking the narrative gap. Welcome to the Freedom Road podcast. Each episode, we speak with national and global faith leaders, advocates, scholars, artists, and activists.
To have the kinds of conversations that we normally have on the front lines. It’s just that this time we’ve got microphones in our faces and you are listening in. And in this episode, we are joined by a dear friend of mine that goes way, way back, literally decades. Um, in fact, she’s one of my longest time mentors, the The Reverend Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil. is the Associate Professor of Reconciliation Studies and Director of the Reconciliation Studies Program at Seattle Pacific University. [00:01:00] She is a speaker, an educator, and an author. She’s also Associate Pastor of Preaching and Reconciliation at Quest Church in Seattle, Washington.
Some of her books include Becoming Brave, Roadmap to Reconciliation, Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0, and the classic, really truly a classic A Credible Witness, and she co wrote The Heart of Racial Justice. Um, and that was actually, I think, was that one of your first books?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Very first book. Very first book.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow. Wow. Okay. So we’re going to have so much to talk about. So we would love to hear your thoughts. So please, um, thread me or insta me or freedom road at freedom road.us me at Lisa as Harper and keep sharing the podcast with your friends and networks and letting us know what you think. All right, so let’s dive in.
Brenda, I just received [00:02:00] Empower to Repair. And I’ve started my way through the book. Forgive me. I have not gotten to the end. I literally just got it a couple of days ago. It finally came in the mail. So I, but as I’ve begun to, to scan, you know, the table of contents read the, in the introduction, thank you for the nice little mention.
Really appreciate that. But also just looking at kind of the arc of where this story goes. I’m really, I’m really struck that what you’ve done here is you have created in some ways a handbook for Christians who are tired of spinning their wheels, you know, learning stuff and actually want to get engaged.
But before we dive into the actual content of the book, what we normally do here is we get kind of a taste of our guests’ faith stories. So can you share with our, our listening audience, like a little bit about, you know, how did you come to faith and what is your faith story?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: [00:03:00] Yeah. Well, I was 19 years old when I became a Christian, grew up in the church.
So it was very church-y, had a church background. It was a part of our family culture. But my conversion to take it seriously happened when I was 19 at Rutgers University. My freedom of being a college student far away from home or farther away from home where I could stay out longer, et cetera, et cetera, for the freshman year really showed me that I did not have discipline in my academics. I almost kind of had a really bad semester where I thought they were going to send me home. And the thought of coming home to my parents and explaining that I did not make it in college was not an option for me.
I just thought, Lord, I will die. My mama… My mama will not have it. And so, it made me wrestle with the wannabe spirit that I think I had. I wanted to seem like I was much more cool and hip and with whoever I thought was out there kind of doing their thing. I really [00:04:00] wasn’t all of that kind of a person who really needed to be out all night and doing all kinds of things.
I was really out of my lane. If the truth be told, and so I met a person on my college campus. Her name is Margaret Alma Blackwell, Moore now. I have loved her for since I, since we were teenagers and she was a Christian who lived a certain way and I’d never quite seen that. I saw a lot of the do’s and the don’ts, but I hadn’t seen someone who was a beautiful human being who carried herself with such dignity and respect.
That other people wanted to be around her and also respected her. I just kind of started gravitating toward that aura. And as we sat and talked and what have you, it came to me that what she embodied as a Christian was what I wanted to be. And so, it was a revival at a church. I went to it, they invited whoever to come to Jesus.
I did. And I’ve been walking with God ever since.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh my goodness. Well, now you’ve written a million books. It feels like, or at least you, you’ve been [00:05:00] writing for decades and you know, it’s not a million books. What it is the books that you’ve written have really landed. Like they’ve really made impact.
And it feels to me like they’ve been on a trajectory. You know, I’m starting with A Credible Witness. You were really calling out the church for the ways that we have, we have a message, but we’re not living up to that message. And so, we are actually not, we don’t have a credible witness. We are, you know, and if we’re looking at the Trump trial and people are looking at, you know, Michael Cohen and whether or not he’s a credible witness.
That’s what we’ve… what you were saying about the church, that our talk is not, is not matching our walk. And then, you know, Roadmap to Repair and, and others, you seem to have been on a trajectory from like the heart of the faith into the hands and feet. What do we do? And what is this racial reconciliation stuff into now with this book, with Empowered to Repair, you seem to be kind of moving [00:06:00] into in some ways, kind of the last frontier.
For that, for the same audience you’ve been writing to write that Christian audience trying to help Christians to understand and grasp and engage in this work of racial reconciliation, racial, racial healing. So my question to you is, how do you see Empower to Repair fitting into the arc of all of the books that you’ve written so far?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah, you’ve done a great job of summarizing and you’ve known me. We’ve already said it at the very beginning. We’ve known each other for a very long time. And we’ve seen each other evolve over a long time. So Lisa, you know me, you know that way back in the day, right? We’ve been talking about reconciliation and I, you know, I got called into the work of it when I was way back at Occidental College and Los Angeles, right?
So I tell you, the biggest thing that I appreciate about what you’ve just done and setting this conversation up is that, you know, that the things that I write are really reflective of who I am [00:07:00] so the trajectory that you see is really my own growth.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Mmmm. Wow.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: So, when we back in the California days of our early work with Intervarsity Christian fellowship and other things that we were doing in ministry on college campuses with college students.
Right? I think that what was told to me about reconciliation and what I believed was that reconciliation had something to do with God. coming together, having cultural diversity, understanding each other, respecting each other, including each other. Right.
And what I did not realize at the time, there was also a subtle message behind that, that basically said, but you don’t get into other issues that have to do with social justice.
You know, it was more relational than it was otherwise, and so, and so, and because I was preaching at that point to people would invite me to speak at large conferences [00:08:00] and the unspoken expectation would be that you can talk about diversity, reconciliation, multiculturalism, but don’t don’t bring up things that could be controversial. Right?
And because I really had no hidden agenda or motive, right. I stuck to the Bible because I thought that if I could help people to see that this call to diversity, to reconciliation, that this calling was rooted in scripture, that people would know that I’m not trying to bring in my, you know, racial biases or my, you know, gender equity, you know, or my politics.
I really wanted people to see that this is a biblical call on the people of God.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Right. I have a question for you. I’ve been… hold that thought because my question is, did you have categories, the categories that you just named out gender equity, you know, systemic justice. Those were those categories that you held.
In the nineties, when [00:09:00] you were, when you were doing that initial preaching and teaching, or are they categories that you gained, you know, as you went along
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: As I went along.
Lisa Sharon Harper: because if you held them, if you held them, then that’s really striking because that, I mean, really what that means, what I, what I’m hearing is that you were silenced in your ability to speak those words in that context.
Is that how you would characterize it?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: No, I wouldn’t say I was silenced, but definitely I’ve grown in those categories. I see categories weren’t there. Then it was more my own sense because you can read a room, you know, and you can kind of tell what’s, kind of what’s kosher, what’s not, what’s allowed and what’s not.
And so, because I wanted people to understand that I did not have some hidden motive because back then to rate, bring up racial diversity, reconciliation, and, you know, all that kind of stuff, there was this kind of unspoken fear that we were going to become extremely [00:10:00] liberal. Right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: That whoever was preaching about this kind of stuff had a liberal agenda that
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Hidden somewhere, right? Yeah. And, and people, the, the, the people that I was preaching to basically wanted it to stay biblical because if you, if you left biblical, now you’re going into a liberal, now you’re going into political, now you’re going into social and you know, and
Lisa Sharon Harper: you might just be socialist,
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: and so, right,
Lisa Sharon Harper: like you’re gonna be calling on Marx pretty soon.
Right. So. That’s deep. That’s deep. You know, I have to say, because I was in that context at the same time, I was in Intervarsity at the time as a student and then as, you know, as, uh, you know, first or second year staff. And I didn’t know, I didn’t know that, that my context was apolitical. I didn’t realize that at the time.
I just knew when people told, when people like trained me in how to talk about race to the, that we were just told do it biblically. I didn’t realize that, You were navigating this political [00:11:00] minefield more consciously than I was at that time. That’s deep.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah. And I did so because I really do love God. I mean, I’m not, you know, I was not trying to manipulate people.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh absolutely.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: I wasn’t trying to. But I think being a black woman, being a woman of color, um, I think that there was a need to prove that I didn’t, I wasn’t trying to be destructive.
I wasn’t trying to come in up, you know, upturn things. I really wanted to see God’s people be who they say they are. I really wanted people to be able to look at scripture and say.
That’s really in the Bible. We are called to be these kinds of people. This is not like a fad. We are called to pursue this, to embody this, this notion of a kingdom made up of every tribe in every nation is not a wish dream. We’re supposed to be an example of that on earth as it is in heaven. And I was trying to pursue that, promote that [00:12:00] and preach that so that people would have clarity around the call to that. Right?
So that’s why it wasn’t because somebody said I couldn’t say it. It’s because I knew, and just think about who we’ve seen: Tom Skinner, Tom Skinner brought up, you know, racial justice and got back into it. Got got completely sidelined from his public ministry when he went there, right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah, it strikes me, I’m sorry. Very quickly. It strikes me that you were a student, you know, at the time when he was being sidelined. Is that right?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yes.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Like, you were like, you were witnessing that. And I learned about it after the fact, when they were, when they were holding him up as Tom Skinner spoke in Urbana, isn’t that great.
But you know, I didn’t. It’s only honestly in the last year that I learned that he was actually sidelined after that.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Completely off the radio, completely uninvited to speak other [00:13:00] places. Now, I wasn’t afraid about not being invited to speak, but those kinds of messages tell you. You will come to speak and you will speak on my terms, on our terms.
Lisa Sharon Harper: That’s right.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: And, and without even saying it, you know it, right. And the reason why I was able to stay in my lane was because I did not have an ulterior motive. My goal was to call people to the work of reconciliation from a biblical perspective and to be as accurate in that work as I possibly could.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Mm hmm. So when you ask the question or more than more than that, when you when you when you look at the church today and the state of the church, especially regarding racial reconciliation as we used to call it I think people more now think of it in terms of racial equity, racial justice racial healing I hear. There’s a profound slippage, don’t you think backwards since 2020?
I mean we had We had in [00:14:00] 2020, it felt like the universe opened up. I mean, all of a sudden, everybody wanted to know how to do racial reconciliation, racial justice, right? And all of these grants were given and programs were established. Honestly, this last year, I have been witness to so many of these programs being cut, being chopped, you know, being questioned, being interrogated for whether or not they hold value.
What do you see when you survey the state of the church when it comes to race and repair?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah. I can say to you, I see exactly what you see. And I agree with your analysis. For me, the problem with that we’re now experiencing started with the, with the initial first presidential run and then when of Donald Trump.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Me for me. So anyone who’s listening to this [00:15:00] podcast This is my story. My test. Hello. Hello. Yes. Testimony is that I really did give my all for decades to preaching to white evangelical audiences about racial and and well about reconciliation about the call of God to reconciliation. The Bible says that we have been entrusted with the ministry, the message of reconciliation.
And when you entrust somebody with something, you’re basically saying this is very valuable, extremely important. And I trust you with it. And I was trying to say that a church we’ve been entrusted with this message. And if we want to see healing and wholeness in our world, we have got to take this call seriously, right?
And people would invite me to speak all over the place and I was doing so. And then the very same people in, in a large number voted for a person who was antithetical to everything we said we believed about what God looks like a person who held the Bible [00:16:00] upside down, a person who was a philanderer, a person who… adultery, all of these things.
And I just thought, how is it that evangelical Christians can make this okay? And that was a wake up call for me because I was keeping myself very, very, very circumspect and what I would and would not talk about for fear of offending. So I was very careful to make sure that I stayed biblical and that vote at such a large percentage of white evangelical Christians voting for Donald Trump made me see with my eyes wide open. Oh, this is not about the Bible. This ain’t about the Bible. You can’t convince me that the reason why you can’t hear this word on reconciliation is because it’s the Bible. No, because nothing you’ve just done has told me that you are led by the Bible.
And because of that, I am no longer going to pull back on what I’m trying to say, because the approach [00:17:00] of just staying straight, straight in scripture for you has not led to righteousness. And as a result of that, I am going to speak the truth in love, but I’m going to tell you exactly what I believe and what I think, because I’m giving my life to this and I’m not doing this for your entertainment.
And so either you will hear this and receive this as the word of God to the people of God, or don’t have me come.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow. What was the response?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: People know that I’m going to be honest. I’m older now. And so people who want to hear it, invite me to come. People who are very clear that they really just need a woman, a person of color to fill some gap in their program.
Don’t ask me because I don’t want to come. And I’ll say no, because I do this because of a call of God. I don’t do this for any other reason.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow. Well, I mean, I think I watched your developments. You know, I remember [00:18:00] literally being your bag carrier at Urbana 2000. I’ll never ever forget that. And that’s where we met. Richard Twiss, I happened to meet him because I was your bag carrier. And you know, I remember you beginning your ministry when you left InterVarsity and when you started your own nonprofit and, you know, just the faith that it took to do that and, and seeing, you know, the ways that you have.
You have actually influenced not just one generation, but multiple generations. Now, since you are now an educator at Seattle Pacific, you’re talking to Gen Z, like you’re not like I’m Gen X and you deeply impacted Gen X, but you also deeply impacted the millennial generation and now Gen Z. I think that the big question that I have for you as we go into our break is, you know, is there, is there a difference?
In the [00:19:00] generations in terms of the message that is needed for each of these different generations as you’ve been, you’ve been teaching and moving the church forward in racial justice for three generations now.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah. Yeah. Here’s what I would say as we prepare ourselves for our break. I would say this.
I believe in the generations that are coming behind me. I believe in that. And I want to say to everybody, every major revival that has ever happened has taken place in that demographic, in that young adult community, college student age. Just think about the civil rights movement. There’s an energy in that generational kind of demographic that wants to see change.
And when I see that, it inspires me and I want to give them everything I’ve got.
Lisa Sharon Harper: These are our stories. You’re listening to the Freedom [00:20:00] Road Podcast, where we bring you stories from the front lines of the struggle for justice.
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Okay, so Brenda, in Empowered to Repair, as I said earlier, it reads like a handbook for Christians who are tired of spinning their wheels in learning mode and they want to actually organize towards systemic and structural repair. And I wondered, is there a moment or was there a moment, you know, that you can read, we can harken back to when you realized that this book was needed.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah, I think that for me, as we were talking in the first segment of our time together as I started seeing that people were inviting people like me to speak about reconciliation, right? But we had somehow made it so [00:23:00] relational, so diversity. So churches would be more racially, culturally, you know, diverse.
And that was almost the goal. And so back to young people, what I started watching was that young people are losing confidence in the church, right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: That’s it. Yeah.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Right? I have two young adults in my, my children who, you know, I love a door, right? And they, and they’re spiritual, but they don’t have much confidence in the church.
And because I’m a college professor and I’m around college students and that’s the demographic that I’m drawn to. I can tell you there are many, many, many young people who are just kind of feeling like the church is some social club that we come to and we talk about things and we sing songs, but they’re not sure that the work that we’re talking about, even in multicultural churches are actually leading to change.
So we’re talking about reconciliation. And some of my students would say, Dr. B, I don’t know if [00:24:00] I even believe in reconciliation. You guys go ahead and do that. You know, your generation and stuff. Y’all talk about reconciliation, we’re talking about reparations: no justice, no peace. Right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: That’s right, that’s right, wow.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: So I heard them, I heard them Lisa, and somehow we have disconnected reconciliation from reparations. And in truth, I believe and I know you do, that they are two sides of the same coin.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Absolutely.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: It was never supposed to be a relational thing and then a justice-oriented thing. We were supposed to be people who were repairers of the breach, restorers of streets to dwell in that’s what Scripture says about us. We were supposed to be repairing people. We were supposed to repair what was broken around us and the fact that it became relational was our fault. We somehow reduced it a relational rubric or a relational kind of reality, and that’s what I’m trying to reclaim. Trying to reclaim the potency of reconciliation and reparations as one thing that God has called us to do as the people of God: repair the breach.
Lisa Sharon Harper: I love that. And, you know, Dr. King says, what is justice? It’s simply love in public. So I 100-percent understand, and actually, the funny thing for me is that I heard, you know, my, my first introduction to racial reconciliation was, you know, John Perkins, who you actually think is one of your mentors in your book. And I thought that was really, really sweet. And several other people as well, but he was my very first introduction.
It was with justice for all and let justice roll down. And so when, you know, and I wasn’t very deep into the whole, you know, white evangelical world, [00:26:00] quite at that point, I had four years under my belt, you know, with, with Campus Crusade, actually three years under, under my belt with Campus Crusade. And, but I still had my, you know, my SNCC mama, my SNCC mother who was very much in my ear, you know, so I had a category for that reparation should be good.
But then I heard, I heard John Perkins actually, kind of distance himself from the call for reparation. And this was in the 1990s, I think maybe late 1980s, early 1990s. And it really surprised me in a major way, because I totally thought he would be, of course, he before this, but now looking back on it, I understand that the reason why he did that was precisely the reason that you couched everything in Bible and didn’t talk about systems because you were trying to be heard in this really, quite honestly, white supremacist space.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yes.
Lisa Sharon Harper: And yeah. So, so [00:27:00] can you, can you share with me the moment when you said.
Is it, is it, was, was it actually, maybe you already did. Was it the Trump moment when you said, no, we need to talk about reparations now, or was that, did that come even after that?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Well, I’ve gotten stronger and clearer and that happens for all of us. I want to say to everyone listening, we grow. We continue to grow.
This is a journey. It’s not a destination. And so for those of us who are pursuing racial justice, reconciliation, reparations, the work of justice, we are on an ongoing journey and we should continue to evolve and grow. That’s part of the work. Right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: And John Perkins now actually calls for reparation. I just want to say that.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Good.
Lisa Sharon Harper: He’s not even in that same space.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Good. And that’s another, it’s indicative. It’s a lifelong journey. So there is no, are we there yet? We are on the road tour, right? We are on freedom road, and we are going toward the kingdom and we are doing it one faithful [00:28:00] step at a time. Right? So I would say that, I think that my own experience is that people wanted to hear about reconciliation, and I didn’t want anything to stop them from being able to hear that as a clear message.
But yes, Lisa, you are right. When I saw the evangelical community that had been inviting me nationally to speak at all these various places, vote in over 80%, I think
Lisa Sharon Harper: 81 percent
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: 81 percent for Donald Trump. And again, it has nothing to do with a white male. It has nothing to do with a Republican, nothing at all to do with any of that.
For me, I have seen many a president in this whole life I’ve had, and it could have been Romney, it could have been anybody I would have been, okay. It was the lack of moral compass that Christians, co-signed that made me feel like, Oh, [00:29:00] I am here tiptoeing and trying to be as careful and as conscientious as possible, and you who say you love God, who say that there is a standard for who our leaders are, have completely caused everyone looking at this to see hypocrisy.
I cannot, will not co sign or be a part of that.
And that’s where my freedom came from, my sister. My freedom came when I realized, oh, this is not true.
What you’re saying is not true. So I’m going to be free to tell the truth. So now let me tell you something else about reparations, which I think is important for people to hear. Yeah. Because when you said that, that our dear, dear, dear mentor, father figure, John Perkins and others wouldn’t say reparations because somehow we’ve been told and I think this is a little bit of a continuation of what we’ve been saying, who’s been telling us, say this, don’t say that, who’s been saying, [00:30:00] who’s been giving us, you got to name it,
Lisa Sharon Harper: You got to name it, come on, name it,
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Right? So the very fact that I censored myself. And the places that I was invited to speak suggest that white evangelical conferences or, or, or, or communities were basically saying what’s allowed and what’s not allowed. And I think that has to be changed.
Lisa Sharon Harper: And can I just say real quickly how profound that is that?
And I think here’s the thing is that, when I think back to the era when, when we were first kind of breaking into this racial quote, reconciliation movement, really within the white evangelical church, in many ways sparked by Tom Skinner and John Perkins, and then carried forward by you and Elwood Ellis and Carl Ellis and others, you know, who were really on the front lines in that 1980s, 1990s space, carving out making space for this conversation.
Y’all were a [00:31:00] vast minority. This was not a national conversation until like the 1990s when we had OJ Simpson, right. And then the 1992 civil uprising in Los Angeles. But even then it was sidelined within a church within most churches around the country. So the thing that I’m struck by is that the way that you had to plow, like you were plowing hard soil.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yes.
Lisa Sharon Harper: And you were turning over for the first time, actually hard soil. This was a white evangelical church that was only in the 1980s, only two decades away from the passage of the Voting Rights Act, and most of the white evangelical church up to that point had not really still hadn’t really come around to say that was a good thing.[00:32:00]
They were, I heard people in InterVarsity, staff members in InterVarsity in the 1990s asked me privately, do you really think that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian? Right. So, this was hard soil. And so it doesn’t surprise me that you didn’t talk about reparation at that time. You know what I mean?
Like you were just trying to get a hearing.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah.
Lisa Sharon Harper: My question to you though, was there a moment besides, I mean, cause I know, I know that Trump and that, like it kind of threw the bars off and you said, okay, we’re going to talk about some systemic stuff up in here. Right. Was there a moment when you said: Reparation in particular is necessary.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yes. So I would say when I was younger, I didn’t know about reparations because we’re honest about it. Our discipleship happened within white evangelical space.
Lisa Sharon Harper: That’s exactly right. [00:33:00] Yeah.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: And so we were talking about reconciliation because that was in vogue in evangelical spaces.
Right. Had I been in the South or someplace where people were talking about different things. But I was basically… I came to faith as a 19 year old college student. And so my faith was shaped in a college campus kind of environment. Right. And then I go to seminary. So a lot that I’m taking in is coming through a white evangelical lens.
Now I’m no shade on that. I’m very grateful for all that I’ve known and learned and et cetera, et cetera. But I was being formed a certain way. Right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: I do understand that.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Right? Grew up Pentecostal as a young child, but as I got older and more exposed to the world and became a speaker, I was more in a white evangelical world. Right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah. Yeah.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: So, that was the place and no one was talking about reparations there.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh, hell no. That word was not going to come up.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: It didn’t come up. So let me tell you a story. It’s in the book. It’s in the book, [00:34:00] Empowered to Repair. And this is how this book started coming for me. Right?
And so I was with this, I was speaking here in Seattle, Washington, where I now live. And, um, this young guy was in a conference that I was speaking at. And he interrupted something I was saying at one point, raised his hand and said, why don’t you talk about reparations? And so we had a real good public conversation in front of the rest of the conference people that were there was, you know, it was in a church.
And so, and it was pretty good. So at some point I called him up and said, here, so everyone can hear what you’re saying and he was so surprised that I would let him kind of have the mic that at the end we kind of exchanged numbers and said we would grab a lunch or coffee or something together. And so that became a more regular kind of a conversation between he and I, his first name is Jason, but I’m here to tell you every time we met, we talked about reparations.
It was this, it was his. Thing, right? Okay. I started calling him [00:35:00] brother reparations. I didn’t know what else to call.
Lisa Sharon Harper: I read that and I laughed out loud. I have to say
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: That was brother reparations. So anyway, long story short, he, um, was a part of a sponsoring organization that brought Brian Stevenson to Seattle.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh!
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: I couldn’t, I couldn’t go because I didn’t get a ticket in time. And he said to me, Hey, I have access to a ticket. I’ll give it to you. So he gave me a ticket. I was able to go. And that night was when I had my aha. Yep. I’m sitting here. Brian Stevenson does a spectacular job as he usually does as a speaker.
It’s fantastic. He gives a great presentation. And then at the end of the presentation, he opens the floor to questions and answers, right? So, he says, is there anyone here who has any questions? I’d be happy to entertain some of the questions from the floor, the first hand to go up was my boy, brother reparations.
He [00:36:00] was on the front row. His hand went up and Brian Stevenson pointed to him and he said, yes, sir. Go right ahead. And he stood to his feet and he said, Mr. Stevenson, do you believe in reparations?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh, okay. Okay.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: And I knew he was going to ask the question. I just knew whatever he was going to ask has something to do with reparations.
And so this is what Brian Stevenson said, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forget it. He said, of course I do, but anybody can write a check.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Real reparations would mean, would be to repair what was actually broken. For example, African American people were forbidden the right to vote in this country.
To repair that, we would give all African Americans the right to vote on their 18th birthday. Now that would repair what was actually broken.
And he said, if you were an Elderly African American person, we would come to your house and drive you to the polls. [00:37:00] Now that would repair what was broken.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow. Exactly.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: I’d never heard it that way before because reparations had only been tied to getting back the 40 acres and a mule that we never got.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Right.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: And, and I understand the reclamation of wanting what was, what was ours, what was taken. what was not what was due, right? But this gave the word repair a new meaning for me.
That night as I was driving home in my car, this actually happened. I was driving and thinking about what he’d said, and outta nowhere, a scripture that I had not heard in years came to the top of my heart.
I mean, I heard it inside my mind and I thought, whoa, where is that? I didn’t even know where it was. It’s in Isaiah chapter 58, verse 12, and it says this. Yes. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. Yes. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You [00:38:00] shall be called the repairer of the breach.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: The restorer of streets to live in.. When that scripture came to my mind, I thought reparations is not a new thing.
Lisa Sharon Harper: That’s right.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Reparations is in the Bible.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yeah. It’s, it’s a, it’s a biblical concept. It literally comes from the heart of our faith.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Exactly. Lisa, I’d love you to say more about that because that was the epiphany I had that night.
That’s why I wrote empowered to repair.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Wow. Wow. Okay. So now kind of going to the other side of this, as you have been surveying the church, maybe sharing this message, I’m sure, sharing this message in preparation even for the launch of the book and even more sharing, what do you think is the biggest barrier to American Christians today actually doing the work of repair?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: You know, I think we’re going to have to look at how we’ve been [00:39:00] socialized. And I think there’s two things I want to say about that. I now have a critique about the individualistic way that we are discipled.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Okay, let’s go in. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. That’s good. Is this in your book?
What chapter would this be in your book?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: The Western worldview. I’ll tell you this. The Western worldview is a very individualistic worldview.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Evangelical worldview is very individualistic. So we say things like Jesus Christ came into my heart. Jesus is my personal savior. I’m not racist. I love everybody.
I gave money to the people in, you know, named Gaza. Wherever. I did such and such. I went on a missions trip. Do you hear all the individualistic language there?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes, I do. And this is, and let me just say for people who are following, who are not, have never had this interaction with[00:40:00] white evangelicalism. I just want to say that there’s, there’s like cultural lingo that like there, there are phrases that you hear all the time. And they’re markers. They’re markers of faithfulness, right? Of somebody who has a good relationship with God, they would be able to say all of those things about themselves. So you hear it a lot.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: A Lot. Exactly. Exactly. And I now want to say that we are not supposed to come into the world of Christianity individualistically: we are the people of God.
We are becoming a part of a communal experience. We can’t be who God calls us to be individualistically. So because we have this individual lens, our solutions are individualistic, right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Oh, yeah.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Right. We don’t,
Lisa Sharon Harper: and they don’t work.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: And they don’t work. We’re not thinking systemically. We’re not thinking about the big picture.
And that’s why we choose issues like abortion to be focused on, because it’s about a [00:41:00] person, an individual who’s done something that we don’t, you know, that we don’t agree with. And so now we’re going to deal with that person and give that person… you know, I’m trying to say as Christians, honestly, I want to calm down enough to say from the bottom of my heart, we have got to start to think more systemically and less individualistically because our individualistic lens has led to individualistic solutions that are not helping to change the world or make it a better place.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Can I just say, I mean, like, riffing on that, like moving, moving forward in the conversation from that. The reason, the strategic reason, why systemic as opposed to individual. The individual faith, or individualized faith, might help the individual, might, and it may not, because the place of brokenness within that event with that within that individual might actually be in an often is, especially nowadays, communal. It’s actually a broken relationship with the way things work or relationship with their community. Right? And but when we have only an individual lens. What do we do? We then we focus on they must be doing something wrong.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Exactly.
Lisa Sharon Harper: That individual must be doing something wrong. That individual must be deficient that it must be broken and now needs to be fixed.
But if you the good way to put it is if a neighborhood has a culture of. People running, you know, going 60 miles an hour down a down a street where kids live, you’re gonna… not just one child will be impacted, but the entire neighborhood is impacted by that and creates a culture of kids staying in their homes because they can’t go out and play or, you know, or maybe playing in the backyards as opposed to out front.
But if you have a structure and systems where you have a roundabout or you have [00:43:00] speed bumps or you have a stoplight or that actually creates these systems. These structures create a culture of safety in the community that allows them for children–individuals to have a whole different life experience because of the structures that have been placed in their lives. And we just have not thought like that in terms of our faith.
So that’s why I resonate with what you’re saying. I resonate deeply because we have when we think about our faith in the evangelical faith and Christian stream. We do. We tend to individualize it, and therefore forfeit true flourishing for the community.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: I absolutely agree. I absolutely agree. And I’m grateful that you brought that to this place for us, because I do believe that that’s the new conversation I’m trying to have.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Walking [00:44:00] freedom road from coast to coast and around the globe. This is the Freedom Road Podcast.
Okay. So Dr. Brenda. What do you think… as you think back over the process of writing this book and all of the chapters that you know, that you poured your heart, soul, mind and strength into, ask the right questions, identify with the plight of the people, of people, and pursue proximity, organize a diverse coalition, repair the breach together, that’s the reparations chapter, expect external and internal opposition, stay covered in prayer, avoid faithful exhaustion, leverage access to resources. This is truly a handbook for organizing. That’s really what you gave us here.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Which was the hardest? For you to write.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Well, I’ll tell you this, even to write the book, [00:45:00] I had to take a course.
I took a Harvard course with, uh, OG, Dr. Marshall Gantz, who now teaches community organizing at Harvard, and he does so online. And so I took this online course with Dr. Marshall Gantz. People from all over the world, Australia, South Africa, all over the world, Brazil. It was life changing because back to how we’ve been discipled as evangelical Christians or people who are Christians, we lost some of that work that Dr. King and other people who were definitely Christians. I mean, anyone who correct question, that was the black church. Faith and activism. That was we singing songs, you know, about God as we are marching toward, you know, complete and total chaos with our faith in our hands, our Bibles near our chest and believing God as we’re singing a hymn that the Lord [00:46:00] will make a way somehow.
Those people modeled for us that this systemic engagement and our faith go hand in hand. We are supposed to repair. We are supposed to heal. There is supposed to be equity and the common good should be advanced. If the people of God are doing what the people of God have called to do. Yeah, so that’s what I believe. Right?
But because something happened, there was a new movement. And then prosperity gospel came in and other things came in and having a big church came in and mega churches and all this kind of stuff. And some…
Lisa Sharon Harper: Church growth theory came in and all the things, right?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Lost our way. We lost that grass root close to the ground.
Light of the people, you know where you like, Dr. King has a PhD and is in the front of the sanitation workers movement [00:47:00] arm and arm with them. Somehow we became erudite and distant from the ground level of human life and we weren’t repairing anything. We were having big churches that were like stadiums that were places where people came to be entertained and, and.
And I just wanted to say that we’re losing a generation of young people who don’t want to go to the show. They don’t want to go clap and sing and hear Hillsong. They want to see change in their world. And so this book, Empowered to Repair, and the subtitle, Becoming people who mend broken systems and heal our communities.
That’s what people are longing for. People are longing to see the church, be the church, that where we show up, something is repaired and healed because of our presence. Right. And so you’re right. It is a handbook. And so I tried to say, I see the problem. And I think the problem is [00:48:00] because we have disconnected reparations from reconciliation and we need to marry them again.
They’re two sides of the same coin. So let’s talk about how to reconcile. What’s broken and repair the breach that keeps people from reaching their full God given potential. How do we do that? Right? And so I look for a biblical narrative that would help me and the book of Nehemiah, even with its sketchy, you know, historical perspectives and what have you, it gave me a biblical narrative of people being brought together as a coalition of doing something together. No more individualism. This did not happen because of one person who happened to be a leader. That leader understood that All hands were needed on deck, and that’s what I believe we need now.
Lisa Sharon Harper: That’s fabulous. I love that you focus on Nehemiah, actually. And I know that Nehemiah gets a bad rap by some people, like they’re, they’re kind of mad at him for XYZ, but I’ll [00:49:00] tell you why I love Nehemiah. And it’s actually very similar to the reason why, what you just named, that Nehemiah actually really does show us what collective action requires and collective faith.
Like a collective, a faith that actually by nature is collective. My favorite moment in Nehemiah is when he’s praying and he says, we, I and my father’s house have sinned against you, oh God. But when you look into the actual history, you know that he never lived. He was never, he never lived there. He likely was born and raised, you know, in Babylon or, you know, in, in this, in Persia, in this place that he has been, been taken to. He didn’t have anything to do with the breach and the wall that is happening right now.
The reason why the walls are down by fire, and yet he owns it as a collective.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: That’s right.
Lisa Sharon Harper: We are a part of that. What for you, what for you was the point in [00:50:00] Nehemiah that made you say, aw sookie sookie now. This is it. This is it.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Well, I really appreciate it from start to finish the whole narrative of saying, as you did, he, he did give us a narrative of inclusive narrative.
It wasn’t the Lone Ranger. This wasn’t somebody who scooped in and was the figure who we focused on, right? It was more a narrative of a people who had a problem and how do the people who have this problem, how do they go about working to solve that together? That’s what it was for me. I think and I do agree with you.
It was at that moment because it seems odd. You feel like you’re not even a part of this and your heart is broken and you are identifying with the people saying I am a part of them. And so Lord, I confess my complicity in it. [00:51:00] Even if I’m not physically there, I own the problem with them. I’m a part of it and I want to be a part of the solution.
You see, that’s the kind of stuff that leads toward action.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Was there a point in your, in your study of Nehemiah where you just kind of went, Like you saw something you hadn’t seen before.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: I think the whole story for me was very, very, very moving. But I think maybe, I think the hard part was, and this is hard to say, but he takes a leave of absence after they’ve done all this very, very hard work. Right?
I think that his leadership style is something to be explored, you know, I think that his, his way of making sure when problems, how he solved problems in that community, how he, you know, was very interesting. Cause he was very strategic, how he embedded himself in the situation did not move, you know, [00:52:00] all of that kind of stuff.
So I think he models some very, very, very strong leadership skills and insights for us. The thing though, that was very difficult for me was after he gave his all, because that’s how I feel about myself. I feel like I’ve given all right.
Lisa Sharon Harper: You have, you have, um, and so whole life, right.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yes, he has given everything he could and then he knows that the wall is built and things are making great progress and he believes that people can carry it on.
He goes back to, you know, Babylon. It goes back to his place because he has to right. So he needs to go back. He does. And, um, so he takes a leave of absence and I do believe. And so I talk in the book about the need to know that we’re, we’re, this is a collective effort and no one needs to burn themselves out to make this happen. Right? And so he’s doing his job. He takes this break. He goes back to his point of employment with the King, but when he returns, the people [00:53:00] have regressed. Right?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes. Yes, actually, is that are you talking about the point, forgive me, because I’m it’s been a while since I’ve actually studied the whole narrative, but are you talking about the point when he says to the people, what’s up, why are you, and this really, this is the place actually that blew my mind, was he said, yo, you are doing the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place, and what he’s referring to is breaking the Sabbath?
He actually has them do a whole ritual and covenant that they will never break the Sabbath again. And the fact that it was the Sabbath, like that, that kind of blew my mind. I was like, why, why was this, why would the Sabbath be so important? And then it struck me when I asked the question, I just did a little more digging.
What? Why would that be significant? Well, it’s the way and they actually say it in the text. It’s the way that they broke the Sabbath. They did that [00:54:00] by inviting in all the merchants and, you know, who were the foreigners to sell to them as they were coming out of church right on Saturday morning. And so, what does that say?
What message does that give to the merchants about God’s desire to be with them because the Sabbath was supposed to be for everybody.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Exactly. Exactly. So Nehemiah is really upset and rightly so, you know, and, and so I think the reason why, when you asked me what was the hardest part of it for me is because when you give your all and maybe people like me and I’ll own this, I kind of am results oriented.
I like results and I like positive results. Right? And I think the truth of this narrative says. That you cannot be guaranteed when you do this work, you do this work because you’re called to it and you do this work because you believe that God will ultimately prevail, but you don’t have any guarantees that the work that you’ve done and the people that you’re [00:55:00] investing your whole self in will be or do what you think they will be or do, you know, or that the outcome will be what you hope it will be. I can only say, Lord, please, you know, and we do see times where we see the hope that we would… we’re looking for, but there are many times that faithful people have got to take, you know, two steps forward and you know, one step back and just have to trust the fact that God will do something, even if, you know, the people regress. And I think in our human nature that happens.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Yes, absolutely. So can I ask you, I’m dying to ask you some other questions, that have more to do with like with your development and how the, how that shows up in the book.
I’m wondering like, how has… Well, no, I’m not going to ask that question. I’m gonna, I’m going to ask another one. So you are a true [00:56:00] elder stateswoman in the church. Your speaking, your writing, your consulting has literally shaped the experience as we talked earlier of three separate generations, particularly of evangelical Christians.
And they’re engaging, you know, these next generations, particularly younger ones, Millennials, Zers, even my generation, Gen Xers, are engaging in a profound process of decolonization right now around our faith. So I’m wondering if you could look back, you know, to your 1990s self, just before giving your classic Samaritan woman talk, right, or your Esther talk, what might you say in those talks now?
That you didn’t have a category for then.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Oh, wow. Very difficult question. For so many reasons, right? [00:57:00] Because, you can’t go back kind of, you know, and you didn’t know what you didn’t know. Right? But I think that right now, what I know for sure is that the inclusivity of all voices.
And, and the hearing of people on the margins is critical to be centered, that’s where, that’s where I think truth lies in its unvarnished. I think people who can be brought more to the center of the conversation and given agency to speak into the larger conversation is something that I think we missed back then.
And I would love to say that if I could do it over again, I would love to hear the voices that aren’t being heard because I think that there are things that those people would say to us, and could have said to us [00:58:00] that would have changed the trajectory of some things had we been able to hear them.
Lisa Sharon Harper: That’s powerful. Now, you also talk about the, you know, the call to pursue proximity, right? Proximity to the problem.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yes.
Lisa Sharon Harper: And I told you just this week, I got back from the West Bank. And I went in order to pursue proximity to the problem, really. I mean, it has that the issue of what’s going on in Gaza, the 35, 36,000 now people who have died.
And just just literally overnight. New figures have come out that say that there are many who actually believe that the figures are closer to 200,000 that are died that have died so far in Gaza and West Bank. And it’s because of the way that they’re counting that there’s this huge discrepancy.
And being there on the land, I [00:59:00] did gain proximity. Wow. Like my body took it in, like, really. So I’m asking myself, as I was reading, as I was beginning to read your book, one of the questions that came up for me is what. Where are the places where you are actually moving into closer proximity right now, you know, closer proximity to the problems that are maybe causing you to have those questions that needle you or that push you that disturb you.
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah, here in Seattle at the church that I am a part of, Quest Church, which I thank God for we have decided that we need to be more proximate and more actively involved in the work of justice in our community. And so I’ll say to people listening, this is not a one size fits all. that where you are will dictate what thing calls you to get more proximate and more concerned, right?
Asylum seekers are here in Seattle. [01:00:00] And, just recently, there was an encampment of asylum seekers in a park just hoping for refuge.
And so there’s a group of churches here in Seattle that have come together Quest being one of them. And we are, Focus now on housing insecurity for asylum seekers here in this area.
That’s the thing that has caused me to get proximate. That’s the thing that causes me to have to ask new questions to understand that people are fleeing for them. for their lives and, and have no way to go. And you can’t apply for any type of assistance as an asylum, as an asylee. And so, you know, how you eat, where you sleep, you don’t have resources because you’ve had to flee for your life.
So there’s no hotel, and who’s going to put you up, and what church is going to help. And all of these, and you’ve got kids and all of that [01:01:00] kind of stuff. This is a very complex world we’re living in right now. Challenges that we are facing are monumental. And on some level, it feels like, like probably rebuilding this wall in this narrative of Nehemiah, it almost feels impossible, you know, but you have to try to do something, and you do a little at a time, brick by brick.
Somebody works on this part of the wall, somebody works on that part of the wall, but each of us tries to do something to repair it. And so that’s the thing right now that is front and center on my heart and mind, and I’m asking God for the grace to educate me that I might understand more about what it is that’s necessary.
Lisa Sharon Harper: And what, so when you talk about asylum seekers, my mind immediately goes down to the Southern border, and the politics that is going on, the, the politicking that is going on, the politicization, actually, I should say of that issue [01:02:00] that has been going on that really in many ways has crushed the image of God and those asylum seekers, how, what do you think of the way that our politics is actually playing with the image of God?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: Yeah. I’m glad you asked that because earlier you asked another question about why I felt like even in the church, people are so polarized and divisive in these kinds of things as opposed to seeing this as for the common good for the healing of people and of communities. People see it as a win-lose kind of a thing.
And that’s what I think it’s about. Heather McGee, wrote a book called The Sum of Us. And I really appreciate that book. And I want to say to all of us, I think that we have been dubbed into believing that it is a zero sum game. That some people lose and other people win. And I don’t believe that that’s what the Bible says.
I don’t believe that we are living in a zero sum [01:03:00] game, but I think politicians do their kind of rallying of their constituency through that lens of fear that somebody’s going to win. And if they win. You’ll lose. So people vote against what’s good for them and their families and their children so that the other people won’t get it.
And that has got to stop. We have got to interrogate the lie of the zero sum game, right? I believe that Heather McGee is right. It’s the sum of us. That’s so good. I believe that and I believe that that’s a new thing we’ve got to start pushing and talking about in the church. I think we’ve got to begin to interrogate the worldview that says that it’s a zero sum game.
No, God has cattle on a thousand hills. God is plentiful and abundant and exceedingly gracious. And it is not true that there’s not [01:04:00] enough for everyone. That’s not true.
Lisa Sharon Harper: You just said something that’s just actually truly profound. We have to start, we have to start teaching on this, training on this, you know, interrogating our lenses on this inside the church.
And the thing that is, it’s striking is that especially, actually in the evangelical, white evangelical church, they don’t, they don’t tend to talk about, ironically, they don’t tend to talk about politics. There just tends to be a thing where it’s like an unspoken thing where people just: you’re a Republican because if you’re a Christian, you’re Republican, right?
So that’s just the way that you vote. It’s not like people are teaching classes on why immigration is bad. Nobody’s doing that, but yet it’s so deeply politicized that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted in a particular direction. You know what I’m getting at? So I guess my question is, when you say we need to begin to teach on this, what would that look [01:05:00] like? What would it look like?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: You know, I’m not sure, but I am sure that we’ve got to start having these conversations. I am absolutely sure that we’ve got to begin to discuss our worldview, because our actions are coming out of our worldview. And if our worldview is a zero sum kind of game that it’s a win or lose kind of thing, then that is going to shape how I vote.
You know, it is going to shape how I assume, you know, who’s in and who’s out who deserves and who’s not deserving. I think that these kinds of conversations are formative, right? So I would simply say this: that church can be a place of robust conversation, of robust, you know, book studies of robust opportunities to interrogate our thinking and our deeper worldview.
What is it that we believe [01:06:00] under what we say and do so that we have an understanding of, oh that comes out of this belief system for me. Right? So I think the more that we can have, and that’s comes back to what you asked me earlier, when, when I said, I would have more people in the margins talking, because if we had asylum seekers who shared their story, and we didn’t just hear what the news had to say, if we had a mama from Haiti who risked everything in her whole life to get her… if we had.
If you heard that and then you could say, my grandmother came here similarly from Italy. You see, we are human and that’s, I think part of what has happened. We’ve been isolated and siloed from hearing each other’s stories so that we’re not able to identify, but our stories are human stories. And if we get to hear those stories, everything in our heart would want to see health and healing come.
[01:07:00] Lisa, I’m telling you, when I heard that. People were taking parents, children’s children away from their parents at the Southern border. I had to go to, I couldn’t, it’s so paralyzed me to think that someone would take your child and you had no idea where that child was. There’s nobody listening to this podcast who would want that to happen to anybody you know. That’s the kind of empathy that we’re going to have to have to us to move past the zero sum game.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Last question. What is your dream for the church?
The Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil: I dream of a kingdom made up of every tribe and every nation. I dream of a kingdom where the haves and the have nots are family and that the lion and the lamb lay down together. Basically, I look forward to the day where the prayer we pray, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven becomes a reality.
[01:08:00] That’s what I dream.
Lisa Sharon Harper: Amen.
The conversations leaders have on the road to justice. This is the freedom road podcast. Thank you for joining us today. The Freedom Road Podcast is recorded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And this episode was engineered and produced by Corey Nathan of Scan Media. Freedom Road Podcast is executive produced by Freedom Road LLC.
We consult, coach, train, and design experiences that bring common understanding, common commitment, and lead to common action. You can find out more about our work at our website freedomroad. us and stay in the know by signing up for our updates on Substack. Yes, we are on Substack. We promise that we will not flood your inbox and we have a special treat for those who are paid Substack subscribers and also [01:09:00] our Patreon patrons.
I’m going to have a really special conversation, a backstage convo. With Brenda Salter McNeil, The Reverend Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil, right after this. So please join the conversation on Freedom Road.
