Episode 221
LENNOX KALIFUNGWA - Racism and the Gospel: Ethnic Identity and Faith in a Shifting America
Lennox Kalifungwa, the host of the podcast Of Flames and Crowns, joins us to discuss his journey from Zambia to the United States. He reflects on his upbringing in sub-Saharan Africa and the cultural contrasts he has experienced.
Throughout this dialogue, Lennox emphasizes the importance of a Christian worldview in combating contemporary societal challenges. He critiques the superficial understanding of identity that divides people based on ethnicity rather than uniting them through shared faith.
Ultimately, this episode serves as a call to recognize the transformative power of the Gospel and the unity it can foster in a divided world.
Takeaways:
- Lennox shares his unique experiences growing up in Africa and navigating cultural differences, which have shaped his worldview.
- He emphasizes the importance of building a Christian culture that transcends ethnic boundaries and focuses on unity in Christ.
- Lennox discusses the contrast between the spiritual fervor in Africa and the spiritual complacency he observes in America.
- He advocates for a return to biblical principles as a means to combat the rising tensions around identity and ethnicity in contemporary society.
- The podcast aims to amplify voices that contribute to the understanding and construction of a distinctly Christian culture in a chaotic world.
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Hello, my name is Will Spencer, and welcome to the Will Spencer Podcast.
Speaker B:This is a weekly show featuring in depth conversations with authors, leaders and influencers who help us understand our changing world.
Speaker B:New episodes release every Friday.
Speaker B:My guest this week is Lennox Califung, host of the podcast of Flames and Crowns, a production of New St.
Speaker B:Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho.
Speaker B:Now, I love my dear brother Lennox, and I hope he will forgive me because I'm about to sing his praises.
Speaker B:I believe Lennox has an important voice in this moment of American history because, as you may have noticed, there's an idea circulating that members of other ethnicities, such as black or African, are somehow less able in their essence, to embody the promise of the gospel.
Speaker B:Men are tweeting in the clear things like race is real and whites are supreme.
Speaker B:And rather than receiving universal rebuke for such statements, the men who should otherwise know better are saying things like, that man is a good friend.
Speaker B:Now, perhaps it's me, but if I were friends with a man who said something like that in public or in private, I would reconsider my friendship with him.
Speaker B:A man who considers himself superior because of skin color is likely to consider himself superior for other reasons too.
Speaker B:Down this road, you also get thoughts like, that guy is 1/8 less white than me, so I am superior to him.
Speaker B:Then come racial purity tests and it all goes straight to hell.
Speaker B:Literally.
Speaker B:I'm baffled that some men can't or won't see this, but be that as it may, in an environment where such ideas are being entertained and spoken aloud, we need counterexamples.
Speaker B:Exceptions that don't prove the rule, rather demolish it from the inside.
Speaker B:Take Dr.
Speaker B:Vishal Mangalwadi, for example.
Speaker B:He was born in India, the same India that white Western supremacists regularly mock.
Speaker B:Dr.
Speaker B:Mangawati was my guest back in October for one of my favorite podcasts ever.
Speaker B:His works, including the Book that Made youe World and this Book Changed Everything, demonstrate not just his abiding faithfulness, but but his wisdom and genuine brilliance.
Speaker B:There's no other conclusion once you do the reading.
Speaker B:If the white supremacists are truly supreme, I invite them to write competing books on any topic of their choice.
Speaker B:My only requirement is that the books must glorify God over themselves.
Speaker B:I'd say I'll wait, but I reckon I'll be waiting a long time, because being supreme is much harder than simply saying that you are.
Speaker B:Meanwhile, men like Dr.
Speaker B:Mangawati are doing the hard work of real innovation, regardless of adverse circumstance, bringing a biblical perspective from their regenerated hearts outward to a hurting world.
Speaker B:And now to my brother Lennox, who probably thought he could escape my admiration, but to no avail.
Speaker B:I see him and Dr.
Speaker B:Mangawati in a similar light, though at different stages in their lives.
Speaker B:Lennox was born and raised in sub Saharan Africa, the son of a pastor.
Speaker B:Growing up, he had none of the advantages we enjoy in the west, as you'll hear him say in this interview.
Speaker B:He regards sidewalks as a sign of civilizational advancement.
Speaker B:Having traveled in many third world countries that lack them.
Speaker B:I know exactly what he means by the white supremacist reasoning.
Speaker B:Lennox should be less able, in essence, to embody the Gospel's promise.
Speaker B:And yet Lennox is faithful, wise and a thoughtful man, one reason I enjoy his podcast and highly recommend it.
Speaker B:He thinks Christianly about his experience, both from living inside the United States and out.
Speaker B:He asks questions from the depths of his insight, showing that he cares about his guests and the truth.
Speaker B:And as you'll hear, he's good humored, jovial, and deeply humble.
Speaker B:Don't worry bro, we're almost done.
Speaker B:All of these qualities should be impossible from a white supremacist perspective.
Speaker B:Here is a man from sub Saharan Africa populated by what I'm told are the most lesser of the lesser humans, just like Vishal Mangalwadi is from India.
Speaker B:Yet both these men's minds and hearts inspire me in different ways and set a standard that, frankly, I think many less melanated men fail to even try to live up to.
Speaker B:Because it's easier to be part of the meme class than the reading class.
Speaker B:It takes less time, a smaller vocabulary, and a shorter attention span.
Speaker B:You could put effort into writing books, painting works of art, and carving sculptures.
Speaker B:Or you can larp the accomplishments of your forebears with JPEGs, GIFs, and AI artwork.
Speaker B:Take your pick, I suppose.
Speaker B:But only one has the chance to build a meaningful legacy or stand the test of time.
Speaker B:And that kind of thinking is what civilizations are built upon.
Speaker B:Not bitterness over what was, but love for what could be and the desire to share it righteously and spread it.
Speaker B:So maybe, just maybe, the promises of the Gospel aren't based on skin color, but on faithfulness.
Speaker B:That faithfulness is demonstrated by our repeated choice to let challenging circumstances sanctify us rather than making us resentful.
Speaker B:And our willingness to continually make that choice is what prepares us for great things, new adventures and new friendships.
Speaker B:Like a man set sail on a great galleon ship bound for a new world, perhaps even all the way from Zambia to a little old Town in Idaho, just like my friend Lennox.
Speaker B:Appreciate you, bro.
Speaker B:If this is your first time enjoying the Will Spencer podcast, welcome.
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Speaker B:And don't forget to leave a five star review so others can join the party.
Speaker B:If you'd like to go deeper, you can subscribe to my substack at the link in the description or click Buy me a coffee in the show notes.
Speaker B:Every contribution you make helps keep this independent platform running.
Speaker B:And please welcome this week's guest on the podcast from Of Flames and Crowns and new St.
Speaker B:Andrews College, Lenox Califungua.
Speaker B:Lennox Califungwa of the Flames and Crowns podcast.
Speaker B:Welcome so much to the Will Spencer podcast.
Speaker A:Well, it's great to be here, Will.
Speaker A:Thank you so much.
Speaker A:I'm a big fan of yours, if you didn't know.
Speaker A:And any excuse to hang out with you is an honor to me.
Speaker A:So, yeah, man, thank you.
Speaker B:Well, this is going to be a wonderful interview.
Speaker B:It'll be the mutual admiration society annual meeting, because I have to say that I'm a huge fan of you and what you do as well.
Speaker A:Appreciate that, brother.
Speaker B:And I know, like a good podcast host, you're very focused on your guests.
Speaker B:You're very focused on their stories and what they have to say.
Speaker B:And as a result, you're sort of a man of mystery.
Speaker B:So I've been looking forward to having this conversation with you to demystify or perhaps even enhance the mystery of Lennox.
Speaker A:I kind of like the smoke and mirrors sometimes, you know, preserve that mystery.
Speaker A:But I think it's time we, we dispelled some myths here.
Speaker A:So let's do this.
Speaker B:Of flames and crowns and smoke and mirrors.
Speaker A:There you go, smoke.
Speaker A:And that's the next podcast of smoke and mirrors.
Speaker B:So let's, let's let's kind of start at the beginning then.
Speaker B:So let's.
Speaker B:So you came here from Africa.
Speaker B:You're, you're living up in Moscow, working for nsa.
Speaker B:So sort of talk about, you know, life in Africa, your upbringing, your background.
Speaker B:You hinted at it a little bit with your interview with Dr.
Speaker B:Mangalwadi, but maybe talk a little bit about that for a while and then what brought you to the States?
Speaker A:Yes, I had a very interesting upbringing.
Speaker A:So I am natively from a country in sub Saharan Africa called Zambia.
Speaker A:It is right in the heart of Africa, like sort of south Central Africa is where that is.
Speaker A:It's, it's surrounded by nine different countries and that's where I'm natively from.
Speaker A:But I spent my formative years growing up in South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa, which was very interesting.
Speaker A:My family and I moved there in the 90s, right off the heels of apartheid having been overthrown, it had just ended.
Speaker A:And my father, who is still a minister to this day, was called to a pastorate in Pretoria, South Africa, an all white church in an all white neighborhood, which was a fascinating way to grow up.
Speaker A:And so there's a sense in which I have, from the time I was young, been in environments where there's just interesting cultures around me which I think have informed just the way that I think in many ways.
Speaker A:And so the interesting thing with that actually is despite growing up in Africa, I had a fundamentally Western upbringing.
Speaker A:The languages that I spoke were English and Afrikaans, which is sort of a language that is, well, it's, it's, it's built off of Dutch and it's sort of become its own thing now.
Speaker A:But that's, that's what I grew up speaking.
Speaker A:And so that was an interesting way to grow up.
Speaker A:And we had a blessed time there.
Speaker A:It was, it was interesting just trying to understand what culture was, who I was in the midst of a context where I didn't quite look like everybody, you know, but because that's where I grew up, I thought like most of the people I grew up around, which was interesting.
Speaker A:And then, you know, I guess we were there for about 10 years and after that we moved back to Zambia.
Speaker A:I was in my teen years at this point and that was interesting as well, because Zambia is still in many ways a third world country.
Speaker A:Which means that my upbringing in South Africa and my time in Zambia were just two very different things.
Speaker A:And so I've always had this ability to compare culture because of that same upbringing.
Speaker A:There's a sense in which I've been a foreigner everywhere I've lived, which is a fascinating thought.
Speaker A:But having these cultural contrasts, living in the midst of this contrast really piqued my own interest for things like culture and culture, building Christian worldview things.
Speaker A:And I got involved in efforts in helping people develop Christian worldview, public theology, apologetics, definitely with an emphasis on culture.
Speaker A:And so that's shaped a lot of the way that I think and the way that I live my life.
Speaker A:And about seven months ago, my family and I moved out to Moscow, Idaho, Pacific Northwest of the US which is another very big jump, you know.
Speaker A:And it's amazing that I can be this far away from where I grew up and still find like minded brothers with whom I share a culture with which I think would make many people's heads spin.
Speaker A:I mean, one of the questions I get asked most frequently is what have I found most culturally shocking?
Speaker A:And sure, there's some interesting things about American culture.
Speaker A:For example, Americans love their peanut butter and they put it in absolutely everything, even in foods that, you know, probably wouldn't appreciate the peanut butter being there.
Speaker A:But, you know, that's fine.
Speaker A:We'll work with that.
Speaker B:We'll work with that.
Speaker A:So there are those kind of like subtle, I would say it's like, yeah, insignificant idiosyncrasies.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And yet I can still be in fellowship with a wonderful Christian community where we're trying to order our homes in much the same way.
Speaker A:We have the same emphasis on what we want to do, how to engage culture, all of that.
Speaker A:And it's been a terrific experience.
Speaker A:And so, yeah, by the providence of God, connections were made between what I was involved with back in Zambia and what's going on here in Moscow.
Speaker A:And yeah, we've been here seven months now.
Speaker A:It's been really good.
Speaker B:You've enjoyed, you've enjoyed the time then.
Speaker B:How long did it take you to get over the culture shock?
Speaker B:Well, first of all, had you been to the United States before and how much if so, how much time had you spent here versus, like, when you got here and you're on the ground and you're moved into a house and now you are, you're in small town America.
Speaker B:You are in America.
Speaker B:America.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm very curious about that.
Speaker A:It's a great question.
Speaker A:So I had visited before, but just a year before, actually.
Speaker A: my family and I moved here in: Speaker A:I mean, spent.
Speaker A:It's not really significant to say that I spent time in other airports that I, that I passed through, but it was helpful to certainly get that first experience to help me assimilate actually having made the move.
Speaker A:I mean, yeah, there's just all kinds of differences in America.
Speaker A:People drive on what should be considered the wrong side of the road, but, you know, on the right side of the road.
Speaker A:I think much of the world drives on the other side of the road.
Speaker A:So it's just small things like that, just different infrastructure.
Speaker A:It's been interesting trying to understand the kinds of things that people value at a small level, at the minute level, just trying to understand how people think, the kind of things that they appreciate.
Speaker A:Things like what kind of gifts do people in this part of the world appreciate?
Speaker A:Things like that have been very interesting.
Speaker A:What etiquette is in America.
Speaker A:Do people pay their own bill when they've been invited out for lunch, or do they expect whoever invited them for lunch to come?
Speaker A:It's small things like that, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, I mean, it's kind of fun to figure all that out, but, yeah, it's been good.
Speaker A:It's generally been good.
Speaker A:Nothing shocking to the point where were completely misplaced or feel like we've landed on Mars or something like that.
Speaker A:No, not at all.
Speaker A:It's generally been a very good experience.
Speaker B:So I want to get into the larger worldview issues.
Speaker B:But before we do.
Speaker B:Okay, I'm curious.
Speaker B:So when you got here and you.
Speaker B:And you.
Speaker B:And you're.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker B:You're embedded, what's something that you thought that there was no way that you were going to like or get used to about America that you've kind of come to be like, okay, I actually kind of like that.
Speaker A:That's very good.
Speaker A:Actually, one thing that comes to mind is snow, you know, so, I mean, before moving here, I had never seen snow.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I really thought that.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:So I really thought I'd struggle with it and it would just be so different.
Speaker A:But honestly, I.
Speaker A:I really enjoyed the snow and just enjoy the scenery that comes with it and.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's just a whole unique season on its own.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I wasn't expecting that, but turns out, yeah, I actually quite like snow.
Speaker A:Yeah, sure.
Speaker A:There's some things that I can say I appreciate a little bit more.
Speaker A:I've probably never tried to follow football as closely as I try to do now.
Speaker A:You know, things like that that I think, uh.
Speaker A:I didn't necessarily think I'd get into, but.
Speaker A:Yeah, here we are.
Speaker B:Is there something that you thought that you would like that you definitely don't.
Speaker A:Like peanut butter and everything?
Speaker B:Okay, when.
Speaker B:When you say everything, like.
Speaker A:No, like, it's just.
Speaker A:It's just odd.
Speaker A:Like, here you kind of find all kinds of foods that have a lot of peanut butter.
Speaker A:Like, where I come from, peanut butter is a spread that you put on your bread, and that's it.
Speaker A:You know?
Speaker A:You know, maybe you might make a dessert that's got some peanut butter, maybe.
Speaker A:But here it's an.
Speaker A:It's an ice cream.
Speaker A:There's different variations of just everything.
Speaker A:Peanut butter, which I find intriguing.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I know exactly what I'm getting you for Christmas.
Speaker A:I'll take it.
Speaker A:I'll take it.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So let's.
Speaker B:Let's go back to.
Speaker B:Let's go back to your time in Africa.
Speaker B:So in Some sense.
Speaker B:Okay, so you, you mentioned that you were growing up and your dad was a pastor of a.
Speaker B:Of a.
Speaker B:A predominantly white church.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And Christianity is, of course, like, it's struggling to get a foothold in Africa as it is in many places around the world.
Speaker B:So in some sense, you had a dual, I guess you might say, cultural challenge of blending in with the larger African community, sub Saharan African community that is not necessarily predisposed towards Christian and Christianity.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And you're in this white community.
Speaker B:So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's an excellent question.
Speaker A:You know, African history in that sense is a very interesting thing to consider.
Speaker A:For example, in South Africa.
Speaker A:South Africa's actually.
Speaker A:South Africa actually has a very long Christian heritage, almost as long as America has had a Christian heritage.
Speaker A:So Dutch Puritans had moved down to South Africa, I believe this was in the 17th century, and essentially established a Christian colony there.
Speaker A:And you still see the glories of that heritage today.
Speaker A:South Africa is just much more sophisticated than almost any other country in Africa.
Speaker A:You go to South Africa and you think, okay, this is very much a first world country.
Speaker A:And sure, it still has its pockets of a developing country, so to speak, but it has this very rich heritage.
Speaker A:And so it was interesting being in a context where you're exposed to some of that.
Speaker A:I mean, to be fair, I should also qualify and say, I think a lot of that has been lost to secularism.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And over time, as South Africa became tolerant of just different kinds of religions.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's just become sort of a cesspool of cultural madness in many ways.
Speaker A:South Africa is really struggling.
Speaker A:It's sad to see where they are today, that they're even making the news these days.
Speaker A:So it's really struggled a lot because of the ideas that it has imbibed.
Speaker A:But then, in contrast to the rest of Africa, yeah, it still stands out, at least economically, generally speaking, infrastructure.
Speaker A:But the rest of Africa is.
Speaker A:Yeah, just not at that level.
Speaker A:The influence of Christianity had not yet really influenced the culture.
Speaker A:There has been quite a lot of mission work in many African countries.
Speaker A:But it's a sort of mission work that at best, people have a base understanding of what the gospel is, have a base understanding of how to be right with God.
Speaker A:But they do not yet have a framework through which they can think through the whole of life, through which they can make sense of how Christianity pertains to every single realm, every single area of life.
Speaker A:That's yet to happen.
Speaker A:So by and large, a large part of Africa has been evangelized but it has not yet been discipled.
Speaker A:And it shows, which is why you kind of get this very common stereotype of African poverty, which by and large is true.
Speaker A:It really is a problem.
Speaker A:And it is my firm belief that African poverty is not a result of a lack of material resources.
Speaker A:African poverty is an issue of cultural deficiency.
Speaker A:It boils down to the kinds of things that people believe and value that are detrimental to the culture, to the way things are governed, in the ways things are governed there.
Speaker A:And so we still have our work cut out for us in that sense, to really disciple the nation of Africa, where the Bible is not just a book that tells you how you can punch your ticket to heaven, but where the Bible can now be wielded to help people understand how they can be free and flourish in absolutely every area of life.
Speaker A:And I suppose growing up kind of seeing these contrasts, kind of seeing the degree to which, or say, the consequences of the Bible having influenced one area, not another, there's a profound difference there.
Speaker A:And so cultures that have been influenced by the Bible tend to do significantly better than cultures that have not been influenced by the Bible.
Speaker B:That's Vishal Mangawadi's work, the book that made your world.
Speaker B:He makes that very clear.
Speaker B:So from your upbringing, from your time in whether South Africa or Zambia, can you think of a time when you've seen the gospel come into a community or a church or a town and just completely reshape everything in front of your eyes in a relatively short piece of span of time?
Speaker A:That's an excellent question.
Speaker A:One of the first things that comes to mind for me is when our family was moving to South Africa, my dad had it in mind that he would have to be engaging with racists.
Speaker A:And in his mind, he understood that was going to be his mission field.
Speaker A:And I mean, he will tell you just numerous stories of the triumph of that, the triumph of the gospel over people's minds and over people's hearts.
Speaker A:And actually seeing the transformation there, I suppose just even in the context in which we lived in an all white church that would call a black minister to be their pastor would not have been a very popular move.
Speaker A:And yet they still went ahead with it.
Speaker A:And so even in that sense, you see the power of the gospel in having transformed an entire church where their concerns were less ethnic and more about principle and character and competence.
Speaker A:And in that sense, skin color didn't really factor into it.
Speaker A:And so I could see the advance the gospel there.
Speaker A:Beyond that, I've also been involved with, or at least previously with the African Christian University in Zambia, where essentially we were teaching students a Christian worldview.
Speaker A:And it's amazing to see people's lives getting changed just by coming across what this Christian worldview is.
Speaker A:It transformed their entire lives.
Speaker A:And so you could really upfront see the power of the gospel in transforming people and transforming and transforming churches.
Speaker A:And so this gospel really is a potent thing.
Speaker A:Um, it's not just a, a, an intellectual exercise that has no ramifications for the real world.
Speaker A:This gospel has the capacity to turn worlds upside down for the better.
Speaker A:And in many ways, I've had a front row seat to see that happen.
Speaker B:So as you've had that front row seat, you've probably encountered plenty of people that have never had the opportunity, based on upbringing or circumstance, to see that transformation.
Speaker B:So, so I imagine there's probably a little bit of a culture clash there where you're like, guys, I've seen this fix things.
Speaker B:And people are like, I've never seen anything like that.
Speaker B:Because they're living in the wake of the blessings of the transformation having happened a long time ago.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I think that's very well said, actually.
Speaker A:That's absolutely the point.
Speaker A:I think there are some people who take for granted the ground that they stand on and can't appreciate how it was put together.
Speaker A:And they've never seen transformation in a radical sort of way, an extreme sort of way, in an overt sort of way.
Speaker A:And yet I'd say that their very existence, the very fact that they live in a place that has experienced freedom and flourishing tells a story of its own.
Speaker A:And, you know, kind of fleshing out that point a little bit.
Speaker A:One of the things that has pleasantly surprised me about my time in the United States is the degree to which even the non Christians, the pagans, have been influenced by Christianity.
Speaker A:It's amazing to see pagans who have by and large, a Christian culture in the wake of their hatred for God.
Speaker A:They are working very hard to throw off what they've been given and even who they are.
Speaker A:And it's sad to see, but it's just a profound reckoning to me of how deep this Christian heritage goes.
Speaker A:And in contrast, in Africa, you get people who, they're familiar with the name of Christ, they're familiar with many Bible passages, but it hasn't really infiltrated the culture there and it influences all kinds of things.
Speaker A:If you want very specific details.
Speaker A:One of the things that I love most about the US Is the fact that it has sidewalks.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And that seems like such a small thing to Someone who has grown up with sidewalks as an ordinary occurrence, as an ordinary feature in society.
Speaker A:And yet sidewalks actually communicate the value of human life.
Speaker A:You want to make sure that people are safe and you want to value their lives.
Speaker A:And so you build these sidewalks where they can walk safely.
Speaker A:Where I'm coming from in Zambia, I think the majority of the populace move by means of their legs, right?
Speaker A:Like they're pedestrians.
Speaker A:That's how they get around.
Speaker A:And yet you don't see as many sidewalks.
Speaker A:That's not to say it doesn't have any sidewalks whatsoever, but you'd be surprised to see just how many people have to compete with cars for the same space.
Speaker A:And so that's just like one of those small things that shows you that there's a very different value system at play here.
Speaker A:Cultures that have been influenced by Christianity tend to.
Speaker A:To have a higher premium on, or place a higher premium on human life than cultures that do not have that Christian influence.
Speaker A:So, yeah, that contrast is very, is very profound in my mind.
Speaker A:I might be going off on a tangent here, but you know, something else that a debate that I kind of see happening around, and it's a great debate, this whole conversation around natural law.
Speaker A:There's a sense in which I think conversations around natural law are very much a Western privilege.
Speaker A:And by that I just mean when you can already take things for granted and assume that people think a certain way, natural law sounds like a great argument.
Speaker A:And by the way, this is not me demonizing natural law.
Speaker A:I absolutely embrace natural law.
Speaker A:But in much of the world, what they naturally perceive in front of them won't lead them to the kind of conclusions that the Western mind would think.
Speaker A:They would only be able to assimilate certain thoughts by having been exposed to the word of God.
Speaker A:And that's why it's so important to appeal to that, to that written word.
Speaker A:Naturally, speaking in Africa, what you see is a lot of degeneracy.
Speaker A:What you see is just carnage.
Speaker A:And if we took natural law and the way a lot of people apply it, that's not enough to tell people what they ought to be.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's something that I think only the written word can profoundly tell us.
Speaker A:And it helps us make sense of the natural order, for sure.
Speaker A:But that's one of those very big differences I see in a first world country like the United States and the Third World specifically.
Speaker B:That's a fascinating observation because I've traveled quite extensively never to sub Saharan Africa.
Speaker B:That's one of the best major, probably the major region of the world that I haven't been to.
Speaker B:But, you know, a lot of these places around the world are very similar.
Speaker B:Other country, other nations that I've been to, nations that will never develop economically.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And when you talk about natural law, you know, you talk about ordered affections and all that.
Speaker B: r us to do that in America in: Speaker B:Versus if you go to some of the places that you're talking about and then you say, well, let's talk about natural law here, you know, this would seem to be natural, but the only standard you have to evaluate that there's something unnatural about it comes from Scripture.
Speaker A:That's exactly it.
Speaker A:The irony being that just what you're describing is that natural law in this case is actually a presupposed thought.
Speaker A:It still rests on presuppositions.
Speaker A:No one arrives at natural law by reckoning with natural law.
Speaker A:There's a sense in which it's revealed law, written law, that helps us make sense of natural law.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:And so those presuppositions are inescapable.
Speaker A:And yeah, you really do profoundly see that in a world where people only rely on nature, oftentimes because of sin, people will resort to all kinds of power plays, which is why much of the third world has also been steeped in things like Marxism.
Speaker A:It's ripe ground for Marxism because of that, because that's kind of what they see as part of this natural order.
Speaker A:But God's written word gives us a framework to temper that sin.
Speaker A:It gives us a framework to make sense of what human beings are for, how human beings should be governed, what freedom is, what flourishing is, all of that.
Speaker A:And that's why it's.
Speaker A:It's so important.
Speaker A:And there's also this direct correlation with, you know, Third world countries are as destitute as they are because of illiteracy.
Speaker A:The Western world was developed by literacy.
Speaker A:I think back to someone like King Alfred, who profoundly led the advance of the Western mind that ultimately led to Western civilization becoming what it is today.
Speaker A:And at the core of what he was seeking to do was to educate people, teach them words, tell them, teach them the meaning of certain words.
Speaker A:It's only as and when people are able to deal with and comprehend written words that they can really effectively live in the world the way God had intended them to live in this world.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I say written law in that sense is inescapable.
Speaker A:It doesn't diminish natural law.
Speaker A:But I Think it helps people make sense of what natural law is.
Speaker A:An example I can give to this is natural law will tell you that there's a difference between male and female, but only a written word can tell you very specifically how men ought to function and how women ought to function.
Speaker A:Even Adam in his perfect state had to be told how to function as a man.
Speaker A:Eve had to be taught what she was made for, even in a perfect world.
Speaker A:And so revealed.
Speaker A:Law in that sense is inescapable.
Speaker A:That's the stuff that civilization is built upon.
Speaker B:And in some sense, when you're, for example, in Africa, anywhere, and you're trying to bring the gospel into an area where they haven't been sufficiently evangelized, you're actually, you're confronting a form of natural law.
Speaker B:It's like, because they all point around and say, this is how it just works.
Speaker B:And you have this book from somewhere else in the world that's telling me how things work.
Speaker B:No, this is how it works.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So that's the confrontation between the gospel and natural law just right there.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah, very well said.
Speaker A:That's exactly it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Again, natural law can sometimes be the premise upon which people can actually live according to the lusts of their flesh.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:If that's how they want to define it.
Speaker A:And so in that sense, it's not enough.
Speaker A:We certainly need something more.
Speaker A:Yeah, that was very well said.
Speaker B:So growing up in a Christian household, in a Christian environment, in a very anti Christian region of the world, Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker B:I imagine you said that you've never really felt at home, or you've always kind of been a traveler wherever you've gone, something like that.
Speaker B:So talk a little bit about that friction as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's an interesting question.
Speaker A:I think in many ways my family just always stood out.
Speaker A:My parents made decisions that were not always very conventional.
Speaker A:Especially when we arrived in Zambia, for example, my parents were very devoted to giving us a Christian education.
Speaker A:In that context, the best way to do that these days is through a home education.
Speaker A:And we were the only native Zambian family we knew at the time that was doing that.
Speaker A:And so that certainly made us stand out.
Speaker A:There were ways that we lived that certainly appeared odd.
Speaker A:In fact, I can't tell you how many times people would call me an Oreo or a coconut.
Speaker A:I was considered the white guy among my peers because of the way that I thought and the way that I did things.
Speaker A:So at that level, there's a sense in which we all stood out that way.
Speaker A:And I must confess I wasn't always comfortable.
Speaker A:It's not comfortable to never fit in.
Speaker A:It's not comfortable to always be a foreigner.
Speaker A:And yet I think that that's precisely what the Lord has used to help me objectively analyze culture and tether myself more to my identity in Christ and His kingdom than earthly kingdoms.
Speaker A:And that's kind of been my focus, even as I engage with cultures that aren't anchored in Christianity, is realizing that the Lord placed me here because this is my mission field.
Speaker A:This is where I have an opportunity to build his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker A:This is where Christendom gets realized through me.
Speaker A:And I'd like to believe that the Lord didn't necessarily tether me to a very narrow view of culture and place precisely for me to reckon with this idea of kingdom, where the only place, the first time I felt like I truly belonged somewhere is in my understanding of Christianity and Christendom.
Speaker A:Understanding I'm a citizen of the kingdom of Christ.
Speaker A:That's what freed me in many ways.
Speaker A:That's what enabled me to understand who I was, what my purpose was in this world, how I should view culture, and why I am where I am.
Speaker A:And that's for the building of his eternal kingdom.
Speaker A:And so I think that kind of approach really helped a great deal.
Speaker A:And so my goal at that point wasn't to merely fit in or to even live for the acceptance of others.
Speaker A:My goal was to glorify the King of kings and establish his kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker B:That's so interesting that you said that.
Speaker B:The feeling of displacement that you always had, no matter where you grew up, a lot of people would find that, and I relate very much to this like this.
Speaker B:I'm going to spend some time thinking about this when we're done.
Speaker B:But a lot of people would find that very alienating, and they would be very resentful of never feeling if they never quite fit in.
Speaker B:But it sounds like in your case, God has redeemed that to give you a certain flexibility when moving through cultures, to not feel alienated, to feel more like an explorer.
Speaker A:That's a.
Speaker A:That's a very good way of putting it.
Speaker A:So I feel more like an explorer.
Speaker A:There's a sense in which I have this ability to engage with different kinds of people from all over the world and to engage with them in a real, genuine, sincere way.
Speaker A:I have this way of understanding them that I don't know if I would have if I was just tethered to one specific place, while at the same time While I can relate to all kinds of people, it's apparent to me that I don't fit in completely in any of those places or with any of those people.
Speaker A:But here's the thing is, for as long as they're in Christ as I am, we have a lot more in common than we would have with our respective kin.
Speaker A:And so it is my firm belief that truth, beauty and goodness transcend ethnic and national boundaries.
Speaker A:I have much more in common with my brother or sister in Christ than I do with my own kin.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Christ's blood is thicker than human blood.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And people like to use that phrase, you know, blood is thicker than water, and it is, but Christ's blood is thicker than anything.
Speaker A:That's the blood that essentially bought us.
Speaker A:Christ owns us now.
Speaker A:We belong to Him.
Speaker A:Which is why, you know, think of 2 Corinthians 5, 20, which refers to us as ambassadors of Jesus Christ.
Speaker A:Matthew 5 refers to us as the salt of the earth, the light of the world.
Speaker A:This is our new identity.
Speaker A:And this transcends any local barriers.
Speaker A:This transcends nationality.
Speaker A:And let me give a caveat here.
Speaker A:This is not an argument for a globalism of sorts, not at all.
Speaker A:Christ recognizes that idea of nationhood.
Speaker A:That's why he tells us in Matthew 28 to disciple the nations.
Speaker A:But I think it's important to make the distinction that the nationalism is not the goal.
Speaker A:The Christendom is.
Speaker A:I say the nationalism is the means to the Christendom.
Speaker A:I think we live in an age now where people think of it as the opposite.
Speaker A:People want to misuse religion to realize their nationalism rather than the other way around.
Speaker A:In other words, they tether themselves more to their kin and their ethnicity than they do to Jesus Christ himself.
Speaker A:Jesus Christ and His kingdom.
Speaker A:And I think that's where things go wrong.
Speaker A:And so there's real freedom.
Speaker A:Even with people like me who have felt displaced for a very long time, I don't feel bothered by it anymore because I know who I belong to.
Speaker A:I know where I belong, I know what I'm for.
Speaker A:And that enables me to not simply be a consumer of culture, trying to place myself in worldly categories.
Speaker A:I think of myself as a culture builder, a kingdom builder.
Speaker A:And that changes everything for me.
Speaker B:So I want to lean into this a little bit.
Speaker B:So growing up in Africa, because you had black skin, but you had a Christian interior, so they called you an Oreo, a coconut, things like that.
Speaker A:Okay, Right.
Speaker B:So now here you show up in America at a very particular moment in Reformed Christian history, right?
Speaker B:Which we See it unfolding around us like wild every day.
Speaker B:And so now you arrive specifically here at this moment where you have a Christian interior, but you have a black African exterior.
Speaker B:And you're facing some of the same.
Speaker B:Some of the same questions, but in a different way.
Speaker B:And did you see that coming?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:Run with that.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Let me tell you, I did not see this coming.
Speaker A:Not at all.
Speaker A:In fact, here's the interesting thing.
Speaker A:Being in America, this is actually one of the first times I have felt like I actually can fit in ethnically and can fit in culturally well, just because in America, there's a category for a black American.
Speaker A:Culturally speaking, I'm a Christian, I'm Protestant, I'm reformed.
Speaker A:That's the stuff that made this country what it is.
Speaker A:It's that same belief system that anchors me.
Speaker A:That's the same system that built America.
Speaker A:And so in many ways, I really do fit in.
Speaker A:I understand the ethos of America, and not in some abstract, distant way.
Speaker A:That's how I'm determined to govern my life.
Speaker A:I believe in being a people, a nation under God.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's the principle.
Speaker A:And so, as someone who submits the lordship of Christ that way, I understand very fundamentally the American experiment.
Speaker A:But then you're right.
Speaker A:I think now there's this weird thing happening around us at the moment where people seem to be making a very big fuss on ethnicity and what that means.
Speaker A:And there's all kinds of questions about what nationhood is.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's just.
Speaker A:Honestly, it's been an interesting experience for me to just figure this out.
Speaker A:Watch the conversation.
Speaker A:Hear.
Speaker A:Hear what people have to say.
Speaker A:But it occurs to me, Will, that there's many people who I think are experiencing an identity crisis.
Speaker A:In many ways, I think it started with Marx.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And we're still seeing the consequences of that.
Speaker A:There is really a lost sense of place.
Speaker A:But also with Marx.
Speaker A:Marx gave or provided.
Speaker A:It's mostly Marx's followers who did this.
Speaker A:But they offered the world new categories through which we should see life.
Speaker A:Darwin, I think, also contributed to this, where we see ourselves more as tethered to our melanin levels, you know, than being made in the image of God.
Speaker A:And now we think of ourselves in primarily, like, on terms of our melanin levels, where we're black and we're white, which is a weird way to view the world.
Speaker A:And sure, I think the onslaught of globalism hasn't helped.
Speaker A:All this stuff just hasn't helped.
Speaker A:And now I think the world is in this tailspin of people Just don't know who they are.
Speaker A:They don't have an identity.
Speaker A:And now when they think of identity, they think of identity as a means through which they can gain power.
Speaker A:Kind of goes back to the whole Marxist thing.
Speaker A:And so it becomes this elaborate power play of sorts, which is quite unfortunate.
Speaker A:And so I think we're seeing that kind of restlessness.
Speaker A:And whether it's people who buy into critical race theory and try to tether themselves to a certain skin color and trying to demonize whiteness, whatever that is, or on the other side, where you have, you know, these sort of ethno nationalists, white supremacists, who.
Speaker A:Who want to pretty much do exactly the same thing.
Speaker A:I don't think they realize that they are imbibing the, like, Marxist dogma that that's.
Speaker A:Those are the categories they use to view themselves.
Speaker A:And all they've done is just rearranged furniture on the same sinking deck.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:Which is why, I mean, people might try to demonize the term, but I think woke, right, is a very apt term in terms of describing the present moment that we are like, there are people who have imbibed the foundational principles of wokeness and just rearrange the furniture.
Speaker A:So while critical race theory posits this idea of a black supremacy, you've got this woke, right, that's, you know, imbibing thoughts on white supremacy, which is very dehumanizing, even for themselves.
Speaker A:I think in man's attempts to think of himself more than he ought to, he.
Speaker A:He actually ends up dehumanizing himself where he thinks of himself more in terms of skin color than being, than a creature who is made in the image of God.
Speaker A:And, yeah, it's a weird moment to be in, to say the least.
Speaker B:That's a.
Speaker B:That's a great observation that you made, that people are thinking of themselves in terms of skin color and how dehumanizing that is, this idea that who you are will forever be defined by something external about you in a way that can be quite restrictive, right?
Speaker B:In the sense like, well, I don't like this culture that I'm involved in, and I would like to go participate in another culture.
Speaker B:But you're telling me that these superficial things will define me forever.
Speaker B:Now, you can take that argument too far, right?
Speaker B:Obviously, there's a ditch on that side of the road.
Speaker B:But the idea that people are restricting themselves into these very narrow cultural definitions with no real firm foundation underneath them at all, and saying, no, this is who I am, it's like, well, what if your life calls you to be more than that, will you constrain yourself to this?
Speaker B:You know, what if Christ calls you to be more than that?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker A:Again, I think chaos ensues when we tether ourselves away from Christ.
Speaker A:When we employ categories through which we view the world that are not anchored in him or his Word.
Speaker A:That's when everything goes awry.
Speaker A:I think Darwin is to blame for a lot of this.
Speaker A:Yeah, he.
Speaker A:In his notion of the origin of species, that's how people kind of view themselves today.
Speaker A:I don't like to use the word race as it relates to ethnicity because I believe there's one human race with multiple ethnicities within that human race.
Speaker A:But because of someone like Darwin, we've been trained and conditioned to think of ourselves in categories that are antithetical to reality.
Speaker A:And our greater folly is that we call that science.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:That's truly tragic.
Speaker A:It's a dishonest science.
Speaker A:It's a science that has a false philosophy imposed on it.
Speaker A:Its presuppositions are fundamentally flawed.
Speaker A:There's a sense in which what Darman was trying to do was to make sense of a world where God does not reside, at which point we're just left with creatures who are just kind of playing it out for whoever can out survive the next.
Speaker A:You know, and that's tragic.
Speaker A:Again, that's fundamentally dehumanizing.
Speaker A:And from what I actually like, if you read history, any civilization that has employed this way of thinking, has sought to destroy itself, has essentially shot itself in the foot.
Speaker A:There is no society on earth that has thrived from this sort of Darwinian supremacist approach to thinking about human beings.
Speaker A:Any society that has understood what the image of God is and tethering themselves to the identity in Christ more, those are the societies that have flourished.
Speaker A:And so even as people might be concerned for the west because things like DEI have taken root and all of that, those are real problems.
Speaker A:But the solution is not to resort to a white supremacism or a black supremacism or whatever, ethnic supremacism.
Speaker A:It's to return to the principles of Christianity, the principles of the Bible.
Speaker A:That's what enables a people to truly.
Speaker B:Flourish, because it calls you to die to yourself.
Speaker A:That cause you to die yourself.
Speaker A:Yeah, very well said.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:And I think that's actually part of what civility is.
Speaker A:Civility cannot be realized without self restraint.
Speaker A:And self restraint, just as you put it, is a dying to yourself, dying to your impulses, dying to your flesh and conforming your mind and your affection and your will to.
Speaker A:Toward that which pleases God.
Speaker A:That's how civilization is foundationally formed.
Speaker B:So this is great, because this gets to a question I kind of wanted to ask.
Speaker B:So you have this place within you that is able to stand back and observe cultures from sort of a remove, sort of as a result of God's configuration of you and your upbringing.
Speaker B: he United States prior to the: Speaker B:I think it's pretty clear.
Speaker B:This is a sea change moment in American history, at least in the recent.
Speaker B:In recent times.
Speaker B:Who knows the long term?
Speaker B:And so you're.
Speaker B:So you jump from Africa, sub Saharan Africa, right into the middle of this enormous shift in America that would be going on anyway.
Speaker B:Meanwhile, within the reform world, there are some pretty big things that are happening that are.
Speaker B:That are going on.
Speaker B:And you're in Moscow, Idaho.
Speaker B:And so.
Speaker B:And so I don't even know where to begin with that, but I'm interested your thoughts maybe at all three of those layers of resolution.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, it is a crazy time.
Speaker A:I bet maybe one day I'll look back on this and be like, wow, that's the kind of environment we moved.
Speaker A:Like, it's.
Speaker B:What was I thinking?
Speaker A:What was I thinking?
Speaker A:But honestly, it's been fun to kind of have like this front row seat to see everything unfold.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, when we moved here, it was just a few weeks after Trump was shot at the attempted assassination.
Speaker A:That was already.
Speaker B:You were in progress of moving when that was out.
Speaker B:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I remember, like, literally I was putting stuff in a suitcase when I just see this thing pop up on my Twitter and I show my wife and I'm like, look, they're trying to take him out.
Speaker A:And so, you know, we're moving to America kind of in this situation where like, there was this thick fog, you know, that really the left, like leftists had really created.
Speaker A:There was not much optimism from conservatives, although Trump was starting to pick up some steam.
Speaker A:A lot of people predicted that the left would steal the election.
Speaker A:You know, there were all kinds of.
Speaker A:That's kind of what people expected because it just seemed like the claws of the left were really sunk in.
Speaker A:And then November comes around and Trump wins this resounding victory.
Speaker A:And all of a sudden there's this shift, a very real shift.
Speaker A:In hindsight, you kind of see that there's probably a much longer buildup to that, but clearly a lot of people were fed up with where things were.
Speaker A:Now, I think the upside of it has just been amazing.
Speaker A:I don't know about you, Will, but I am not tired of winning.
Speaker A:And I feel like it's just great to see everything that's going on.
Speaker A:It's great to see Trump cleaning house, which I think this is going to go down as one of the most important moments in American history.
Speaker A:But it's been great to see that unfold.
Speaker A:And yet, at the same time, I think that this Trump win has also emboldened many people in expressing their folly.
Speaker A:You know, and like, I mean, the whole conversation around this ethno nationalism in the pre Trump era, it was happening, but not in the way it's happening now.
Speaker A:I think there's a lot of people have been.
Speaker A:Have been emboldened by Trump's win, and this is not to blame Trump at all.
Speaker A:I'm a Trump guy, you know, this is just to say that I think it has created this moment where all of people's fears are finally sort of alleviated, and now they have this freedom to just say what they want.
Speaker A:And some people have used that very well, some people haven't used that very well.
Speaker A:It's been disappointing for me to see certain quarters of our reformed camp imbibe ideas.
Speaker A:There's no cute way to say this, but imbibe ideas that in the past have incited genocides.
Speaker A:You know, facts.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like it really.
Speaker A:That's what it is, once you go on this ethnocentric, ethno nationalism thing that incites genocides.
Speaker A:But of course, people don't have categories for that because they're.
Speaker A:They're still thinking in terms of black and white or Jewish and white, I.
Speaker B:Don'T know, Boomer or millennial or whatever.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:But I'll tell you that even within African tribes, there's a lot of ethnic animosity at that level.
Speaker A:You know, Africa has over 3,000 ethnicities.
Speaker A:There's tribal wars, multiple tribal wars that happen between many of those tribes because of this ethnic vainglory or ethnic malice.
Speaker A:And when you look at the rhetoric that incites any kind of genocide anywhere around the world, this is what it sounds like.
Speaker A:And I'll also say that these genocides are often enabled by a church that is complicit in the rhetoric or just silent in the wake of this kind of rhetoric.
Speaker A:And so if we don't address this sooner rather than later, I fear that we might see some pretty dark things happen.
Speaker A:I'm hoping we can turn the corner on this pretty quickly.
Speaker A:We should remain optimistic about that.
Speaker A:But it has certainly been a very concerning thing for me to watch and sometimes I just haven't known what to say, honestly speaking.
Speaker A:But yeah, there's much to be concerned about.
Speaker B:I agree, I agree.
Speaker B:I'm less concerned about a widespread American push towards something like that.
Speaker B:I think Americans are largely quite lazy and quite comfortable, and I don't see them developing a massive amount of ethnic animus leading to camps or genocide or anything like that.
Speaker B:But I definitely do see moves within churches that have very weak spiritual immune systems being susceptible to these ideas, radicalizing and then being a vector for the disease.
Speaker B:I do see that being a very serious threat, specifically to the body of Christ.
Speaker B:I don't know that these ideas have purchase at a larger American cultural level maybe.
Speaker B:But clearly within the body of Christ, there's an infection that has spread way too far.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:And I think it's interesting.
Speaker A:One of the things that I like to speak about a lot, especially these days, is the potency of the Church in discipling the nations.
Speaker A:I believe that in the wake of Christ's victory, the Church is very powerful.
Speaker A:One way I can illustrate this is by saying that the cowardice of the Church is more potent than the courage of devils, right?
Speaker A:Like we are the ones who disciple the nations into chaos.
Speaker A:You know, we are the ones who have allowed the carnage to happen.
Speaker A:And so when, when our own pulpits are compromised, you can be sure that society will be compromised, right?
Speaker A:Like the world can try its worst, devils can try their worst.
Speaker A:But for as long as the Church is doing what it's supposed to be doing, devils have no power.
Speaker A:They really can't do anything right now we should understand that and say yes and amen and cease to utilize the moment that we've been given.
Speaker A:But at the same time, we should also be sober and reckon with the fact that, okay, as the church, then we have a real responsibility in the chaos that we see around us today.
Speaker A:We're the ones, either through our compliance or silence or apathy, we're the ones who are responsible for the world being as chaotic as it is today, for our nations being as chaotic as they are today.
Speaker A:And if we don't reckon with that, I think there's real problems there.
Speaker A:And it's funny that I think that just.
Speaker A:It reveals our own unbelief.
Speaker A:We don't know the power that we've been given.
Speaker A:We don't know who we are.
Speaker A:And because we don't know who we are, we can't Shape the world the way we ought to.
Speaker A:And a lot of the conversation that I'm seeing even in reform circles around ethnicity and all that is a display of unbelief for me.
Speaker A:And it's the kind of unbelief that is of no good to nations, of no good even to the kin that people say that they're trying to fight for.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We lose our potency to be of good effect to them when we buy into the world's ideologies.
Speaker A:And we should always be concerned will when quarters of the world can champion or champion what the church is saying.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And when there's no distinguishable distinction between the church and the world, it's not because it's rarely, in fact, I say, it's never because the world is becoming Christianized.
Speaker A:It's usually because we're bowing down to the same idols as the world.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And that's why we've lost our ability to really influence.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I think these are some thoughts that we need to reckon with very, very seriously.
Speaker B:So I want to.
Speaker B:I want to check something out with you and see and see if my read on this is correct.
Speaker B:So I would imagine that growing up in Africa, you feel specifically, being Evangelical Christian, Reformed Protestant in Africa, you would feel, say, a high degree of spiritual pressure, almost being like in a mission field, you walk outside your front door and you are in the mission field.
Speaker B:This is not a Christian environment by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker B:So you recognize in that environment that you have to be perhaps a bit more disciplined and focused to model Christ and also just to protect your own spiritual integrity.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I'd imagine coming to the United States, you see a great deal more spiritual passivity where people have gone very slack because they're not able to recognize.
Speaker B:To recognize that now that the mission field is all around them, like, this is not a Christian nation anymore.
Speaker B:But they haven't paid attention to that.
Speaker B:So they've kind of gone a bit.
Speaker B:A bit limp.
Speaker B:Would that accurately reflect some.
Speaker B:Some of the things that you've experienced?
Speaker A:Definitely, I would say in Africa, there's a sense in which, yeah, it felt like we were starting from ground zero.
Speaker A:We were trying to build a Christian culture from scratch.
Speaker A:We had no Christian heritage to try to recover.
Speaker A:This is when efforts to establish any kind of Christian heritage is beginning there.
Speaker A:And so in that sense, you're right.
Speaker A:Like, it's kind of in your face.
Speaker A:It's driving out your gate and expecting some corrupt police officer to jump out of nowhere and solicit bribes.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And that's a very real thing.
Speaker A:It's one of the things I don't miss, honestly, are just corrupt policemen.
Speaker A:It's shocking.
Speaker A:This is like being here and seeing just, just, yeah, policing here is so different.
Speaker A:It's incredible.
Speaker A:But seeing that and then contrasting it to a place like this, where there is just all this beauty and there is this rich Christian heritage.
Speaker A:And it does seem to me that, like, there are real spiritual battles happening here within the church.
Speaker A:I'd even say some of the skirmishes that happen between brethren in America can only make devils smile.
Speaker A:I can't imagine that some of these debates are perplexing God's enemies.
Speaker A:I think they're quite delighted that there's this much fragmentation among brothers who I think should be joining arms together.
Speaker A:But I think that's the point.
Speaker A:Our potency is undeniable, which is why I think God's enemies try to weaken us within our own ranks, put us to sleep effectively, make us think that the trivial is really foundational and distract us from actually dealing with the foundational things and making the foundational things seem trivial.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like there's that swish there and.
Speaker A:And that's a real problem.
Speaker A:And so because we don't have our own house and order here in America, in the west, it's hard for us to be of real influence to the world around us.
Speaker A:And I think what I've seen is a church that seems to have forgotten how to really engage.
Speaker A:I think a lot of Christians, what I've seen at least, this is not true for everyone.
Speaker A:A lot of Christians live in silos.
Speaker A:And by that I just mean one of the ways I've seen it expressed is on Twitter.
Speaker A:People will say all kinds of things that at best get a lot of high fives from people who already agree with them, but they're not really engaging with the world.
Speaker A:They're not really engaging with the other side that really needs to hear what needs to be said.
Speaker A:Like, there is no salt there.
Speaker A:It's not really there.
Speaker A:And because of that, yeah, it's just there's an impotence that I see now for sure.
Speaker A:I think Moscow is a very unique place anywhere in the world where that sort of engagement is just in our faces.
Speaker A:We rub shoulders with God hating people every single day.
Speaker A:When people think of Moscow, usually they think of just this nice, sanitized Christian town.
Speaker A:Yeah, they need to come here and see.
Speaker A:You've seen it, Will, and it's a real thing.
Speaker A:But by and large, I think as the church, we have lost our bite here.
Speaker A:We have been distracted, and I think there's something very.
Speaker A:We need to recover our orthodoxy, interestingly enough, and on that basis, get back into being a good influence to the culture around us.
Speaker B:When you speak to friends and family members back in Zambia, what do you say to them about your experience here?
Speaker B:I guess in all the realms that we talk about socially, culturally, they must have so many questions about Trump and that whole wave.
Speaker B:What do you even begin to say to them?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker A:To be fair, some of them are very aware of everything that's going on, so there's not much I could tell them that they don't know already.
Speaker A:Social media, in that sense, is very powerful.
Speaker A:That said, this will interest many Americans.
Speaker A:Much of the rest of the world aren't acquainted with American conservatism.
Speaker A:In Africa.
Speaker B:Yes, correct.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:In Africa, for example, on cable news networks, what people have access to, as far as American news media goes, is cnn.
Speaker A:An alternative Western outlet would be the BBC.
Speaker A:In other words, if you want to get any sort of conservative commentary, you have to know where to look.
Speaker A:You could find it on the Internet, but you actually have to have a category for that and nowhere to look.
Speaker A:And so because of that, I do come across a contingent of people who, because of everything they're seeing, they think that this current Trump presidency is a failure.
Speaker A:They don't have a category that.
Speaker A:That this is what winning looks like.
Speaker A:That's not what they're being told.
Speaker A:They're being told that Trump is trying to eliminate Africa and that's why he's cut off USAID stuff.
Speaker A:That's the way the conversation is being framed.
Speaker A:And so, yeah, I do get a lot of people ask me questions like, okay, so what is it really like on the ground there, even?
Speaker A:Just, is it tougher to be a black person in Trump's presidency?
Speaker A:You know, just, yeah, this is MAGA country.
Speaker A:This is MAGA country.
Speaker A:Of course, they were really shocked when they saw photos of me with a MAGA hat on.
Speaker A:It's like they don't have a category for that.
Speaker A:How could you support this guy?
Speaker A:So, yeah, it is interesting to sort of give people a real picture of what's going on here, because a lot of people don't get the full picture out there.
Speaker A:It's interesting.
Speaker A:I think Africa in that sense is actually even better than Europe.
Speaker A:There are parts of Germany, parts of Europe that don't get access to anything.
Speaker A:For example, I know there's some parts of the world, Europe included, that can't access New St.
Speaker A:Andrews College's website, that kind of media gets censored out.
Speaker A:So it's, this is a real war that's being fought, fought out there.
Speaker A:Which by the way, and I know I'm kind of going on a bit of a tangent here, but when you, when you, when you see all that propaganda pushed in the world outside America, in the third world, you understand why the Democrats love open borders.
Speaker A:Because if they can get more of those people to come in, these people have already drank the Kool Aid on Marxism, on Big government, on all that stuff.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think that's the play.
Speaker A:At least that's my theory behind it.
Speaker A:So yeah, it's interesting to have to communicate what's actually happening on the ground here to an audience there.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:Yeah, but to my circle of friends and family, there's less of that.
Speaker A:They're pretty in tune with what's going on.
Speaker B:Now, as I recall, you traveled here with your family.
Speaker B:I remember when you and I met at Grace Agenda, you had a stroller, I believe, and I think you had at least one or two other kids orbiting.
Speaker B:Yeah, okay.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So how old are your kids?
Speaker A:Yeah, so we've got three kids.
Speaker A:Our oldest is four, he'll be five soon.
Speaker A:And then we've got a little girl who is turning three very soon as well.
Speaker A:And then we have a one year old.
Speaker A:So we're still very much in the little years.
Speaker A:But yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker B:Have there been any lessons?
Speaker B:I guess your kids are probably too young to fully understand what's going on.
Speaker B:Although they probably look around and be like, what are all these white people, right, all of a sudden?
Speaker B:But at what lessons have you tried to impart to them?
Speaker B:What lessons would you like to impart to them over the long term about this experience?
Speaker B:And how long will you be here?
Speaker A:That's an excellent question, Will.
Speaker A:Yes, I think you're right.
Speaker A:This is, this is, I mean, okay, so to be fair, in Zambia they did have white friends, you know, but it's the first time that they have observed other people recognizing the difference.
Speaker A:So I remember not too long ago my son came to us and was like, why do they call me brown?
Speaker A:You know, like, why are those people calling me Brown?
Speaker A:And like now he realizes that other people see him as a little different.
Speaker A:And that's not to say they're not being malicious at all.
Speaker A:That's just other kids realizing, ah, okay, a brown looking kid, you know, like in this part of the U.S.
Speaker A:i think that's, it's still not as Common.
Speaker A:There's a lot more ethnic diversity here than people may realize, but.
Speaker A:But still, by and large, it's not a common thing.
Speaker A:So there's a sense in which we use those as good opportunities to teach them what it means to be in the image of God.
Speaker A:Teach them even just the basics of how they should think of themselves and other people.
Speaker A:With that.
Speaker A:And you asked me about some of the long term things we're trying to teach them.
Speaker A:Is one, to tether themselves more to Christ and his church and his covenant community, more than, you know, distinctions that the world might try to impose.
Speaker A:And so that's something we emphasize.
Speaker A:We emphasize and tell them these are our people, those who worship God, those who submit to Christ's lordship, these are our people.
Speaker A:And this is how we live in covenant community with these people.
Speaker A:And so for that reason, my kids don't feel like they're different.
Speaker A:They have assimilated very well and in many ways we fit right in.
Speaker A:So, yeah, those are some of the principles that we try to give them in terms of how long we're going to be here for.
Speaker A:We don't know at this point.
Speaker A:There's definitely more questions than answers around that.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:But while we're here, we wanna serve.
Speaker A:We wanna build up Christ's kingdom right here in America.
Speaker A:We wanna make America great again.
Speaker A:And we definitely think that this is such a great opportunity to be part of just this season in America's history.
Speaker A:And to be a part of this in some way is pretty unique and we really want to do our best to give as much to this great country.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Arriving here a month or so after the Trump assassination attempt, being here in the run up to the election, the win of the election and then the completely insane response both for good and for bad after.
Speaker B:I can't imagine being here at a more pivotal time in recent history.
Speaker B:It's a real moment to be in the States.
Speaker B:So let's talk about your show for a minute.
Speaker B:We've been going for a.
Speaker B:So talk a little bit about.
Speaker B:Of Flames and Crowns, some of the guests you've had on and the vision for the show.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So Of Flames and Crowns and in many ways that's like, it's a fun name and it's supposed to communicate something about battle and conquest and triumph, but all of it also resting under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Speaker A:And so we have, we have a lot of fun with that.
Speaker A:And we kind of think of ourselves as a metaphorical battleship.
Speaker A:At least that's what the show is.
Speaker A:And really the show is centered around culture and how to be shapers of distinctly Christian cultures.
Speaker A:I think there's a lot of content out there that has done a very good job at diagnosing culture, but I don't think we're hearing enough about how to actually be build culture, even in the wake of the chaos.
Speaker A:And so that's what I'm trying to bring to the table with this show, and really trying to talk to all kinds of guests, yourself included, people who have some idea of how to practically build culture.
Speaker A:And I think New St.
Speaker A:Andrews College is such a unique initiative, in my opinion.
Speaker A:I don't think there's a higher education institution anywhere around the world that is doing what we're doing, and we have incredible people here.
Speaker A:And part of what I'm trying to do as well is amplify their voice with this as well and show them that actually we have something quite profound to offer as far as building culture goes.
Speaker A:So it's been fun to build up.
Speaker A:I'm excited about just what lies ahead as well.
Speaker A:There's some exciting conversations and exciting initiatives that are in the works, and I'm really excited to unfold all of that.
Speaker A:But that's the flames and crowns.
Speaker A:That's what we're trying to achieve here.
Speaker B:Was this an idea that you had?
Speaker B:Was this an idea that NSA had and you were the guy for the job?
Speaker B:Was this something that kind of came about organically?
Speaker B:By the way, it's a great show.
Speaker B:The conversations, the set, the entire thing just really clicks into place in this, like, they just started doing this kind of way.
Speaker B:So it's a great show and a great presentation.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:And thank you, Will.
Speaker A:I really appreciate that.
Speaker A:It's been a lot of fun putting together.
Speaker A:Honestly, Will, I work alongside some of the best people in a very short space of time.
Speaker A:These have become some of my really close friends in life, and it's been exciting to put this together.
Speaker A:So everything you see in terms of the aesthetic and the intentionality is not just me.
Speaker A:There's a whole team behind it.
Speaker A:The idea of a podcast was an idea.
Speaker A:I wanted to come in here and see if we could just improve content creation and put our face out there a little bit more, amplify our voice a little more.
Speaker A:And so I thought something like a show would begin to do that.
Speaker A:And it's been a lot of fun to put together.
Speaker A:And NSA have been so gracious to me in terms of just allowing me room to do my thing and to just take responsibility for this and all the other assignments that have entrusted to me, and it's been very fruitful and rewarding already.
Speaker A:So I'm grateful for that.
Speaker B:So just real quick, can you talk about a couple of your favorite moments for the show?
Speaker B:And you don't have to mention any.
Speaker B:You don't have to mention my interview.
Speaker B:Don't feel no pressure.
Speaker B:But I just, like, I'm curious, from your experience as a host, you've done.
Speaker B:I want to say you've done six or eight episodes, maybe ten at this point.
Speaker A:Yeah, Actually, I think this week we're releasing our 14th.
Speaker B:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Like, we're going along.
Speaker A:I think you were.
Speaker A:I think the third interview that we did, if I'm not mistaken, it was a ton of fun.
Speaker A:Honestly.
Speaker A:Ours was really good as far as viral content goes.
Speaker A:You know, that was a lot of fun, man.
Speaker A:So, honestly, it is up there as one of my favorites.
Speaker A:Other notable conversations would be with Doug.
Speaker A:Doug is just fantastic to speak to.
Speaker A:Vishal Mangalwadi.
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:I mean, he's like an encyclopedia, you know, and just with so much to say and profound things to say, I really enjoyed that.
Speaker A:I've enjoyed several.
Speaker A:I think last week we just released one with Ben Merkel.
Speaker A:That was a lot of fun.
Speaker A:Scott Allen was one we did earlier in January.
Speaker A:Very insightful.
Speaker A:Talking about literacy.
Speaker A:I thought that was very powerful.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Honestly, I'm really blessed to have had the quality of conversation on the show as we've had, and it's been outstanding.
Speaker A:So we've actually wrapped up filming for the first season, actually.
Speaker B:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:And we're in the works.
Speaker A:We're working on something very special for the summer.
Speaker A:I will keep that card close to my chest for now, of course, but it's gonna be super exciting stuff before we get into another season of flames and Crowns.
Speaker B:Well, I'm very excited for that.
Speaker B:You guys definitely put a lot of heart, a lot of energy, a lot of effort, and a lot of yourself into it as well.
Speaker B:And I think your insight as an interviewer and your insight as a man, based on your life history and experience.
Speaker B:Experience, it really shines forth in the people that you talk to and the conversations you have.
Speaker A:I appreciate that, Will.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And thank you, brother.
Speaker A:I mean, you've been a great encouragement to me.
Speaker A:It's been fun just building a friendship with you as well.
Speaker A:And in many ways, I feel like I have yet another brother in the trenches as we try to build Christ's kingdom here, and it's been incredible.
Speaker A:So thank you, brother.
Speaker B:Thank you, man.
Speaker B:I feel the same.
Speaker B:Well, this has been wonderful.
Speaker B:I know you've got a day at work to get back to, but just real quick, where would you like to send people to find out more about you and what you do?
Speaker A:Sure, if you just look up my name on all the big social media platforms, Lennox, Californgua.
Speaker A:You'll find me on Twitter.
Speaker A:You'll find me on Instagram.
Speaker A:I think those two predominantly Facebook, too.
Speaker A:Some of my writing I publish on substack, so.
Speaker A:Lennoxcalafongua.substack.com you'll find my work there as well.
Speaker A:Those are probably the big places people could find me.
Speaker B:Those will be linked in the show notes.
Speaker B:Well, Lennox, thank you so much for this.
Speaker B:Thank you for sharing your story and your heart with me and the audience.
Speaker B:And I look forward to our future conversations now.
Speaker A:Thank you, Will.
Speaker A:God bless you, brother.
