Have you ever been in a setting where the lines between faith, race, and identity become blurred? As a person of color navigating various professional terrains—I share honest reflections on representation and integrity, and how economic decisions ripple through marginalized communities. Dr. Sims and I confront the difficulties of racial tensions within the church, advocating for justice and the courage to remember the true purpose of our vocations.
Dr. Sims and I dissect the historical roots of institutionalized racism in religious movements and contemplate the church's role in fostering genuine reconciliation. By examining how faith shapes societal issues like health and education, we shed light on the need for actionable equality, challenging religious institutions to practice what they preach and to rethink their role in perpetuating discriminatory norms.
We grapple with the obstacles of institutionalism, religious culturalism, and nationalism within the church. We question the conflation of cultural traditions with biblical teachings. This episode serves as a clarion call for compassion in action, urging believers to not only absorb the truth but to live it out by inviting conversations and learning from the full spectrum of history. Join us for a dialogue that promises to challenge and inspire your faith journey.
#abovethenoise24
# faith
#reconciliation
#race
racialreconciliation
Stay in touch:
Podcast art by Mario Christie.
Have you ever been in a setting where the lines between faith, race, and identity become blurred? As a person of color navigating various professional terrains—I share honest reflections on representation and integrity, and how economic decisions ripple through marginalized communities. Dr. Sims and I confront the difficulties of racial tensions within the church, advocating for justice and the courage to remember the true purpose of our vocations.
Dr. Sims and I dissect the historical roots of institutionalized racism in religious movements and contemplate the church's role in fostering genuine reconciliation. By examining how faith shapes societal issues like health and education, we shed light on the need for actionable equality, challenging religious institutions to practice what they preach and to rethink their role in perpetuating discriminatory norms.
We grapple with the obstacles of institutionalism, religious culturalism, and nationalism within the church. We question the conflation of cultural traditions with biblical teachings. This episode serves as a clarion call for compassion in action, urging believers to not only absorb the truth but to live it out by inviting conversations and learning from the full spectrum of history. Join us for a dialogue that promises to challenge and inspire your faith journey.
#abovethenoise24
# faith
#reconciliation
#race
racialreconciliation
Stay in touch:
Podcast art by Mario Christie.
I'm Grant Lee Martelly and this is, Above the Noise, a podcast at the intersection of faith, race and reconciliation. So welcome back to part two of my conversation with Dr. Andrea Sims and our conversation about my life, how I got this podcast started, and I'll turn it back over to Andre.
Andre Sims:Yeah. So, Grantley, definitely, definitely excited to be back, been looking forward to it all week and, yeah, I learned so much about you, god's hand on your life and your family, his supernatural intervention to do things that have benefited the kingdom through you and then through you, through your mom and your upbringing, and we kind of begin to throttle down, if you will, with your call to the ministry, which has been over 20 years, and I just want to pick right up kind of where we left off and I want to ask the question how does race affect the way that you interact at work? You currently are at Pierce Transit, but you also are on staff at Hillside International Church of Nazarene, and so I'm assuming you can answer that from both directions, if you will.
Grantley:Yeah, I think I can. I think race affects what we do more than people realize, because it's built into our society especially. The society was built on certain principles and how people see you in the many ways affects how they react to you, and so, you know, I have the privilege of working in both. I call it a bivocational setting and the Old Testament calls it working in the palace of the king and working in the courts of the temple. Right, I love that.
Grantley:Both of them, and so when I'm working in the palace of the king. I am typically, it has been my experience, you know one of few minorities working in the fields that I've worked in, whether it be scientific, laboratory work or environmental field, transportation, which I'm in right now and, like I told you, when I became the first executive at Utah Transit Authority, I was the first one the black one to be there. So I think it affects the way people see you, how people react to you. I remember going into meetings with our CEO and people would speak to him and nobody would speak to me until he introduced me, you know. And then he was such a brilliant man. He would say this is Grantley Martelly, he is one of my new executives and he's your representative from now on. Everything that he says represents me and whatever you have to talk to me about, how you can talk to him about, and he would give me credibility based on his privilege.
Grantley:And then people would start speaking to me, right, wow, even sometimes in the company, you know, I remember having conversations with other people and they would say certain things, not recognizing what they were saying, you know, and I would just have to correct them or they would make certain assumptions, but it also affects how we react. Right, because people are watching to see, you would be. None of us want to be the first and none of us want to be considered to be speaking for our entire race, but many times we end up doing that way, no doubt, and I have to remember that I'm building a path for people to follow behind me and before me. You know, have gone before me and I remember one of my co-workers, one executive said to me one day. He said one thing I like about you is that you've never forgotten where you came from. You're always concerned about the poor and about those who don't have resources when we're making decisions, and you've always been a person of integrity.
Grantley:He said those are the three things that I always remember about you and he said I appreciate the fact that you speak up for people who don't have a voice, and I think that's part of our call right, it's to speak up for people who don't have a voice. You know, everybody talks about, the, the righteous woman who Proverbs 30's, but before that there's a whole section that says do not withhold from others what you have the privilege to give. And it also says to speak up for those who need justice and righteousness. And that's part of our role as people of color in many avenues in the courts of kings to speak up for people who don't have resources. I remember once we were having a discussion about raising fears and the discussion in the room was yeah, we can raise the fears by another 25% or 25 cents or 50 cents, you know, per trip. And I spoke up and I said you know, it's easy for us to say that when you make the kind of money we make. Yes, sir.
Grantley:When you realize that 25 cents a trip is $10 as well. As you know, going back and forth is 50 cents a day, 50 cents a trip. You make two trips a day. Right, that's a dollar. And you multiply that out for a person who's trying to feed their family, for a person who's trying to decide if they have better going to buy food or get the prescription, that kind of stuff, for the people who are, who are who are making minimum wage, an extra $10 a month, an extra $10, $20 a month is a big deal. So my stance was we shouldn't raise the fears because these decisions we may impact other people's lives. Yes, so I think that's part of where our race and our upbringing makes a difference. In the courts of the kings, in the context of the church, in the halls of the temple, we have the same issue.
Grantley:Many of our churches are claimed to be colorblind and they claim to be multicultural. Some of them are monocultural. People tend to want to ignore issues of race and how people are treated. Many times people of color are not treated the same. You know, you hear things oh, that's unique or that's cute. You know, maybe we can have them come up and do a special number and everybody's going to think it's so great. Yes, you know.
Grantley:Why do you think it's so great and so different? The only reason why it's so different is because you haven't had enough times that it has become common to what you do, which means that your church does not have the representation of the people and the principles and the services are not structured in a way that everyone has a role to play. So when you have other people typically people of color participate, then people think it's unique and it's cute. I believe we have a responsibility as leaders to make sure that our churches represent the people who are in the church and the community where we serve. Many churches that claim to be multicultural. I've found their definition of multicultural is people can come as long as they adapt to what we do.
Andre Sims:Assimilation, not integration.
Grantley:Yeah, so yeah, we have people from all these different countries and everything, but this is how we do stuff, and if they want to participate, they're going to have to learn to do it the way we do, because this is how we do it.
Andre Sims:Yeah, that's a very common issue in both places, in the King's Palace and in the temple. In the temple, most folks want you to assimilate to whatever the dominant or larger population is, Correct, and so I love the fact that, just by how God's wired you and your gifting made it known that you recognize the marginalized, you advocate for the widow, you advocate for the orphan, you advocate for the immigrant, and that has become your reputation in both places with integrity. So this co-worker, while he may not like what you said, everybody else knew that you would be the one to say it. Yeah, that's basically what he was saying, he said I can expect you to speak up.
Andre Sims:Yes.
Grantley:That's what we have to do. We have to remember. That's where you came from. That's where we came from. I joke around with people many times that we used to walk down the street looking in the gutters and on the sidewalks for coins that people drop so we can raise enough money to pay our bus fare. As we were walking home, we were trying to pick up money off the street to raise money so we don't have to walk the whole rest of the way.
Andre Sims:Wow, Wow. Yeah, it's so interesting that that's your life history looking for coins to catch the bus and now you're an executive in transportation, the primary vehicle of which is a bus.
Grantley:Yeah, it is. Yeah, I'm starting to come full circle, right? I tell people in my other thing that I do, walking in the footsteps of the books of my youth, that I identify with who I consider to be one of the greatest philosophers of our time Robert Nesta Marley, Bob Marley. As he said my feet was my only carriage, so I had to walk on through.
Andre Sims:Wow, yeah. My dad used to have a saying growing up in the ghettos of Detroit much like yourself, growing up poor and he would say that a raggedy ride is better than a proud walk any day. Yeah. So, whether it's part one, whether it's this introductory portion of part two, everything you've communicated is worthy of a book, like the information could easily be published, but you've chosen to go the podcast route. Talk to us about why a podcast versus writing a book.
Grantley:So I actually started writing a book.
Andre Sims:Okay.
Grantley:I got you a few chapters of it. But writing a book is hard work or is very hard work, and most of my friends who are writers say it's very hard work. But I could never get it finished or written in the way to get it published. So one of my friends said to me one day it says have you heard about doing a podcast? What about doing a podcast? You can do the same thing that you can do with a book and you can get it out there much faster, much easier and you can do it over and over again. And I didn't know how to do a podcast. Now I've been doing sound ever since I was 13 years of age, so I can do anything with live sound amplifier speakers, setting up sound, buying sound system, configuring sound system. You know, I play the guitar, I play the drums, play the bass.
Andre Sims:I can.
Grantley:I can rent, Tons of talent, Tons of talent and I put on a show for 20, 30,000 people and lay out the whole thing, but I never done a podcast. So I went home and I went to YouTube university. I pulled it up and it says how to start a podcast from scratch, right. So I started taking this, this class, online, and I learned all the aspects of it, and part of it is having the right equipment. Well, it turns out that, as they were going through all the right equipment, because I was a sound guy the only thing I didn't have in my house at that time or in my office at the church was a digital audio converter, which is the device that takes your microphone and allows you to hook it into your speaker. So when you're speaking into a microphone, it's sort of like analog. And this converter your computer needs digital and it just a little box that you can plug in, and it allowed you to convert it. Now we have a Roadcaster pro here, which is a lot more sophisticated, but I started with that and I didn't have one. So I call up my friend, Darren, from Performance Audio in Salt Lake City, and whoever he and I have been doing sound together for many, many years and I said, Darren, I'm starting a podcast and I digital-analog a converter. How much does it cost? He said well, it's interesting, you should call and ask for that because I have one sitting right here on my desk. It's been sitting here for a year. This guy purchased it and never picked it up and I was looking to get rid of it. He said I'll just ship it to your house, you can have it. Oh my gosh. So within one phone call, I had everything I needed to start my podcast. I had the free software to record it on my Mac computer and I started learning all the aspects of it and put the plan together. So that's how I got into podcast and realized it's actually pretty powerful.
Grantley:It's also another thing that happened that led to that, which was interesting. I was talking to one of my ministry mentors years ago, talking to him about, you know, this call to ministry and this bi-vocational ministry and working in the courts of the, in the kings and the halls of the temple. And he said to me you know, I see your ministry different than you see it. Your ministry is not going to be in one church or attached to one church. Your ministry is going to be bigger than that, so you need to think about it in a larger concept. And I didn't know what that meant.
Grantley:But after I started my podcast and I put it out there and after every episode you upload they give you analytics. You know how many, how long was it up, how long is it people, how many people downloaded it, how many people listen to it, where did they listen to it? And I started sending it out to my friends and all that stuff. But I realized that when I got about somewhere about the 15th, 20th episode, I look at the statistics and I saw that there were people listening in North America, south America, africa, europe.
Andre Sims:Wow.
Grantley:There's called Oceana, that I didn't even know what it was. But Oceana is like Australia, New Zealand, down there, and I realized that what he told me in that coffee shop was beginning to come through, that, without even leaving my very home, I was now beginning to speak to people all over the world. Wow, and it's interesting, about three weeks ago I got a call from another young man who we used to mentor, who now has re-dedicated life to the Lord and he is learning to be a preacher and he's preaching across the US and now he's starting churches back in his homeland in Liberia. And he said he called me. And he said the day after Thanksgiving. He said, Grantley, I've been thinking and I've been praying and you and your wife Tamina keeps coming to my mind.
Grantley:And he says I want to share a vision with you that I see you and your wife talking and preaching and doing ministry all over Africa. Wow, he said the Lord has been showing me that, but I didn't want to call you until I was confirmed about it. But now, when I go and look at my statistics, I see yes, okay, a large population from Africa, but it's getting better and better.
Grantley:You can't tell how many people that is. You can just tell how many downloads or how many listens. You know it could be one person, it could be a group of people.
Andre Sims:Wow, so were you able to share some of that with him, that you already kind of see God doing some of that?
Grantley:Yeah, we talked about that. I shared him some of the stuff that I was doing and we are actually my wife and I are actually going with a team of people to Democratic Republic of Congo in March and we've got another friend who's us to us to go with them to Kenya.
Andre Sims:Okay, Let it begin, okay. So you know. Whether it's the continent of Africa, whether it's South America, north America, there are always questions about the existence of God, the power of God, the person of God. So one of the questions that often is asked on this topic of faith, race and reconciliation that if God is so big and God is so strong and he's omnipotent, he has all power why hasn't he brought an end to racism? I think it's a legitimate question. What would be your answer to that question if it were posed to you?
Grantley:So it's interesting because I've been thinking about that for a year and many years and that was actually going to be the topic of my first book that I wanted to write If God is so big, so strong and so mighty. You know, there's a song that the kids sing and by vacation Bible school we learn in church there's nothing my God cannot do. And I started making fun and saying there's nothing my God cannot do except stop racism. Right, okay, because that's what we see in the church and in the community, and I believe that the people of faith should be the leaders of reconciliation in the community, because we are the only people who have a mandate to be reconciled.
Andre Sims:Yes, sir.
Grantley:Right, and I find it hard to be reconciled in your spiritual life without also pursuing reconciliation in your physical life. I don't think they can go up separately. I agree Because God, the same God, also said love your neighbor as yourself, amen. So I believe the problem is the as yourself and there's a whole another topic that I'm developing around the phrase as yourself, because many times people of faith say love your neighbor and I love my neighbor, but we drop off the as yourself. But without the as, when you add the as yourself, you make it personal, because then it says, yeah, I need to love my neighbor, not just say I love my neighbor, but I need to love my neighbor as myself, which means what is good for me has to be good for my neighbor. If it's not good for my neighbor, it can't be good for me. If I want my kids to go to the top schools, then I want my neighbor's kids to go to the top schools. If I want to have accessible medical care in my community, I need my neighbor to have accessible medical care in your community. See, if we don't use that as yourself, then we can live with it that there's health disparities, there's educational disparities, there's people who don't have places to live. All right, if you put as yourself on it, then you can no longer be satisfied with the status quo. That's the first part of it. The second part of it.
Grantley:I believe that many of our evangelical churches have been built on a principle of institutionalized racism that they don't even realize, left over from the colonial system. Much of the missionary movements that took place within the colonial system, sending the gospel around the world, but much of that was sent with also a cultural and a national bent to it. Yes, sir, right, we want to start churches like the Church of England. We want to start churches like the Catholic Church. We want to start churches like this or like that. So we bring people together, we teach them this and then we send them out into the world. But those people weren't taught to love their neighbor as themselves. So correct, how can you demonstrate so? How can you build something that you're not living in you and demonstrate it?
Grantley:And we see the remnants of racism throughout people of faith, not just in Christianity I talk about Christianity a lot because that's who I am but in other things as well. We see the difference between the Assemblies of God and the Southern Baptists, yes, the Church of God in Christ. Right, we see that the denominations that came about because certain people were not allowed to participate because of the color of their skin, yes, so, right, from that foundational element, the Christian movement, the religious movement. And even if you talk about Hindus and Muslims, or different sex of Judaism or whatever, when you start an organization based on the fact that we have to be separate, it means that becomes your foundation. And then, for years and for decades and decades, you're building this thing built on the fact that we are separate from them. Yes, yes, so then it becomes institutionalized.
Grantley:People don't like to talk about institutionalized racism or institutionalized religious bigotry or institutionalized traditionalism, but all institutionalized means is that you have done it this way so long that it's now become the norm and people don't realize where it started from, or the sin in it, or the sin in it, right. So what you think is natural wasn't natural at some time in the past. It's natural to you because this is where you are, but if you don't take the time to go back and to see, how did we get here? That's what we call an institution. When an institution is good, people don't realize where it came from or where it's going. They're just in the flow.
Andre Sims:Yes, which is what makes it good Right, at least in function.
Grantley:In function and you have systems set up to perpetuate that, and the systems are not good and bad and of themselves or whatever, it's the product that they're produced. Yeah, that's good. So I believe the reason that we see that continuing in our communities of faith is not God. God is more than capable and his word is clearly playing where we need to be. It's us who have not adjusted to his institution. His institution is the kingdom.
Andre Sims:Oh, that's good.
Grantley:Our institution is, whatever the nomination we belong to or whatever race we belong to or whatever society we belong to, and we put it, juxtapose it, against the king next to the kingdom of God. But we don't take it all the way in. Yes, so we're running in parallel, but if the systems that we established, we were to say how does this fit within the kingdom philosophy and the kingdom theology, then those institutional things would be exposed because against the kingdom philosophy. We would see, oh, that doesn't match what he said.
Andre Sims:Yes, and so that becomes. Then why is the quote unquote big C church not conforming to the truth of the scripture? What is? Why are we not doing that once we've been exposed or made aware that that is the disposition in which we find ourselves, collectively speaking?
Grantley:I think there's a number of reasons for that. One of them is, once you get accustomed to a system or an institution, people feel loyal to it and sometimes questioning it or asking for change. People feel as though they're being disloyal. So that's the first thing. The second thing is I think that sometimes the leaders of institutions and leaders of organizations perpetuate that misconception that everybody must believe, everybody must conform, and if you question then you're outside of the gates and your troublemaker and all that kind of stuff. The thing for me is that I was considered a troublemaker ever since I was 13 years old. You're not afraid of that title since you've carried it for these years.
Andre Sims:It doesn't bother me anymore.
Grantley:So I'm not really worried about whether to think I'm a troublemaker or not. I'm worried about the result. What is the result we're going to get if we make this change Right? So that's the second thing. The third thing is I think people are also a mistake.
Grantley:This principle that we practice in our family, at our family reunions, is we can question, we can look at and we can expose the mistakes of the past without dishonoring our ancestors. How many people tie those together? If you go back, you look at it, you see the mistakes, you see the things. If we question that, then we have dishonoring them.
Grantley:But I believe if my great grandfather was alive, he would say well, I didn't have any more smarts than you, I was just doing what I thought I needed to do, sure, sure. Why are you so tight up to protecting what I did? I just did what I need to do and I want you to do what you need to do. Right, that's good. So until we get people out of that mindset that you're being disloyal to something that the people who did it really weren't even thinking about how loyal you're going to be three generations from now, they were just doing the best thing they could do within the set they had or whatever they were taught. Until you get to that point, then we don't have the freedom to really implement some of these things, you know. And lastly, we have to get rid of leaders who don't like change. If you have a leader who don't like change, that means that leader is not leading you in the right direction because change is a constant in life.
Grantley:Change is like death, right? If you're not willing to change, you're going to become stagnant and you're going to be left behind. And we see that in many of our churches and religious organizations, where our society and community now are saying you're irrelevant, we don't want to hear what you've got to say anymore because you're talking about things that are 30, 40, 50 years in the past. You're saying we've got to protect this and you've got to protect that, but you're not listening to us, so they're going for other voices. And then we get frustrated and say well, our young people aren't coming to church.
Grantley:We live in a post-Christian society and all of these terminologies that I believe are just terminologies by intellectuals to get us away from the point. Right, and I don't believe we can have a post-Christian society. I don't believe we can be post-Christian. I don't believe any of that stuff. Because? Because what that tells me is that my God is not able. He said you must take the gospel to the ends of the earth. He didn't say you must take the gospel to the ends, not take the gospel to the ends of earth until the psychologists and sociologists and political leaders tell you you're irrelevant. Right, there's no escape clause. So if the society is post-Christian, it means that we, as Christian, are not doing our job because he didn't give us an option B I agree it's.
Andre Sims:It's not the great suggestion, it's the great commission Right?
Grantley:So if the society is telling us we're the society is giving us good information, I believe our modern society is giving us great information. You're not doing what you supposed to do. You're not relevant to what we're talking about. You're not addressing issues that we think needs to be addressed. Right. Your institutions are no longer valid to us. You got these big, multi-million dollar edifices there that you lock it up for six days a week and only open it up for one day a week when there's people out there that need feeding, when there's people that need clothing, when there's people that need food. We need places for people to meet, we need places for after-school programs. We need all of these things. Why is your church locked up?
Andre Sims:Well, that's good. Yeah, that would not go over well at anybody's national convention, that's for sure so, but but it is the truth. Let's take a break and come right back you know you have people that come up with terms for the reality of what you're saying. That's where critical race theory came from. Correct, that's how it was birthed, right? Yes, yeah, the same thing is true of this idea that we keep on saying that we're afraid of change, when really it's not changed that most people fear it's loss.
Grantley:Right, yeah, the loss that comes with, or the fear of the loss. Correct, Because a lot of times in change there's always a loss, but again quickly outpaces the loss Absolutely. And then people get to the point where they say, well, how come we didn't do this before?
Andre Sims:Yeah, we've known then what? I know now I would have done this, you know, a decade ago, kind of thing.
Grantley:But if we never pursue people, won't get to that point.
Andre Sims:Yes. And then we have people that we have to deal with the reality of our inability to walk in our identity in Christ as opposed to needing other people's approval or affirmation Correct. So we're so busy trying to be okay with the other people that we aren't willing to stand on the truth because we don't want to lose their friendship, their quote, unquote affirmation of us or acceptance of us. We don't want to be the troublemaker.
Grantley:You don't be the troublemaker Like Mr.
Andre Sims:Martelli has been since he was 13.
Grantley:You know I've told people I have never had anybody in any place that I've worked. Tell me, ask me to be less of a Christian.
Andre Sims:I come to think of it. Neither have I, but I've never thought of it that way.
Grantley:Yeah, they may not agree with everything you say, right, but that a lot of times that depends on us and how we come across to them. But I have never had anybody say you know, you need to stop being a Christian at work. Now I've had people say well, you know, you shouldn't quote the Bible when you're talking in a public setting and all that kind of stuff. Yes, right, and I can understand that. But I point out to them also that most of the things that we have in our society comes from the Bible.
Andre Sims:Yes, sir.
Grantley:So even in the United States I'm not just the United States, but even most of the post-colonial countries if you look at your constitution, the constitution of those countries and this country there's a lot of biblical context in there. You got that right. So then you say, well, you shouldn't talk about that. Well, maybe you should go and read the constitution and talk about it in your country or in your school, because a lot of those things in there don't steal, don't lie, don't commit tax fraud.
Grantley:Yes, Love your neighbor, don't murder, don't cover your neighbor's wife.
Andre Sims:Don't cover your neighbor's wife Right.
Grantley:All of these things that we hold as valuable to a civil society trust that we're back to the Bible, amen. But because we have failed to do our job as people of faith, people think you can talk about these things and say well, you're talking about the Bible Again. This is institutionalism at its best. It is so ingrained in the society now that people don't even realize they're quoting the Bible when they do, when they are right.
Andre Sims:Yeah, unbeknownst to them. I would say you have very clearly identified one of the larger challenges for the 21st century church. Part of it is, as you stated, not addressing the elephant in the room. A part of it is this idea of national culturalism, or national yeah, religious nationalism and religious culturalism. And so what would you say would be a way to either expose those two things or help us understand the damage that those things are doing to the witness of the born again believers and or the cause of Christ? How do you? We're coming up to an election year, and that tends to bring out the worst in folks.
Grantley:That does some people.
Andre Sims:It's right Some are willing to use the platform for good and education People like yourself that are creating podcasts like this and talking honestly about these topics prior to listening to political candidates make whatever promise they think they need to make in order to to be elected. But just give us the the G martelli. Take on religious culturalism, religious nationalism and the difference between the true Christ follower and those who may be, again based on the institutionalization of these terms, not even know that they've adapted or adopted this philosophy into their everyday Christian living.
Grantley:Yeah, that's true.
Grantley:I think that many people haven't even realized that.
Grantley:So I think fundamentally and I give credit to one of my, one of our friends who just passed away recently, Jerry Kester, who said and he said that in a previous podcast, on this podcast people can go back and listen to it with Jerry Kester that what has happened, what's going on with this religious nationalism and political issues and the whole thing around COVID and all that stuff, is it has exposed the weakness of our discipleship in the Christian community.
Grantley:We haven't taught our people what the Bible says and differentiate it from what our community says, what our society says in tradition. Many people don't know the difference. I like to read every year, if you can Google it, you know the Gallup does this and sometimes there's another company in Europe who does it and they go around and they ask people quotes and they're measuring how educated people are with what the Bible says and what the society says. So they ask them these questions and say was this in the Bible or was this in the movie or whatever? Right, and so many times they find that people, even people who go to church, don't even recognize the quotations from the church, from the Bible.
Grantley:Wow, they mix them up with movies and all this other thing Right, and a lot of people get nowadays are getting their theology from movies and from the media because we fail to do it Right. We don't have church on Wednesdays anymore. We try not have church on Sunday nights. We apologize into people for coming and being a part of it. When I just read recently that some of the churches that are growing the fastest around the world are the churches where people they call it high demand. They come on Sunday morning, they come on Sunday night and they come on Wednesdays and people are flocking to those places, compared to the ones who are trying to eliminate everything. Because they're learning new stuff, wow, and they're finding this interesting. They're learning things that they didn't even know. They learn right.
Andre Sims:So it's, two parts to it.
Grantley:It's not just coming, , but they come in to learn. The other thing that I realize is many of our churches have too much what I call Sunday school theology, right, yes, the apostle Paul calls it the milk of the word, yes, and we're not getting into the meat of the word. Jonah got swallowed by a whale, right, okay. And the Lord plays the large fish, right. And there's a difference between Jonah got swallowed by a whale and a large fish, right? Yes, sir, because one of them is folk theology and the other one's what the Bible says, right. And there's a whole bunch of other things like that which I just call the Sunday school theology that doesn't get people into real deep discipleship. What is the word that God says? How does it say? What does it mean? The third and the next thing is we have many of our teachers don't even understand the cultural context of the Bible. Yes, sir, I don't believe you can accurately interpret the word without understanding the cultural context, because many of the things that were said there was within a certain cultural context.
Andre Sims:Yes sir.
Grantley:So we try to take that context and we bring it into the 21st century and we completely misinterpret it because we interpret it in a 21st century mindset. Yes, sir, with people who've never milked a cow, who've never been out in the pasture with a sheep you know all the examples that you, they don't know the difference between a wheat from a tear. Yes, sir, yes, sir. So you're trying to interpret something. There was a thing on TV about, you know, taking kids from the city to the country to visit a farm. Right? Yes, because kids were thinking, you know, they don't know where chicken comes from, they don't know where beef comes from, they don't know where all this stuff. And when we try to read the word without understanding the cultural context, it's like thinking that your meat comes from the supermarket and it's just not because people are stupid, it's just that they haven't been educated. Yes, we haven't taken the time to educate them. So those strips that we were showing was helping the kids to become educated as to where what they see in their context comes from and the amount of work it takes to make it happen. It takes work to create true disciples of Christ. Amen. Sweat equity, sweat equity, and we got to put it in and we've got to build relationships and it's not going to happen on Google, it's not going to happen on Zoom and all that stuff and those things help. But part of it is face to face and talking and getting into the word together. The other part of it is, if you don't understand those principles, then when you place it up against your tradition and your culture and the things that you've been taught are important, then you don't know how to differentiate it.
Grantley:Yes, I've been an example that I use many times and when I was in college some people got mad at me, right for it. But Thanksgiving is not a spiritual holiday, correct? It's not a biblical holiday, right, that's fine. So some of my friends were like what do you mean? We've always celebrated Thanksgiving. I've just said that church. And I said, yeah, that's really great, it's a good cultural celebration and the principles behind it are okay. We've come to find out that some of those aren't even true.
Grantley:That's a whole other discussion for another day right. The pilgrims didn't really like the Indians, but that doesn't make it biblical Correct, and just because you got songs about it and people bringing all these things doesn't make it biblical right. I got into trouble in college as well when they were celebrating Halloween and I wrote an article in the newspaper about what's the Christian basis for Halloween at a Christian college. The only thing they didn't do was to throw eggs To me. It was at me.
Andre Sims:But they didn't like that. You brought that truth out, oh people were mad, including professors.
Grantley:They were like I'm not going to. I'm showing me, wearing the word of God, that this is a biblical celebration. Well, we've always celebrated it. It's cultural. Our kids go out and get stuff, we dress up. I said I'm not questioning that, I'm saying what's the biblical authority behind the celebrate? In that they couldn't explain it to me Because there is none. There is none right. So they went into the culture that even people who claim to be true believers weren't able to differentiate it and they took offense at it Rather than learning. Yeah, we're doing this because it's cultural, but it's not biblical.
Andre Sims:I think it's important to delineate that you're not stating that it's sacrilegious or hedonistic to participate in some form or some fashion. Your specific question was where do you find this celebration or this event in the word of God, in the word? That is not the same thing as do I have liberty or not have liberty to engage in this.
Grantley:In getting it or the cultural event Take your kids trick or treating them or whatever, which?
Andre Sims:they were lumping it all together and you were trying to make a not trying. You had made a clear statement referencing it not being biblical, biblical.
Grantley:Yes, sir. So the funny thing is, next semester I was walking across the quad again and a religion professor came up to me and he said you know, I was really annoyed when you wrote that article, but I actually went back and did some research. I think I agree with what you had to say Wow, wow, okay. Well, that's good. I glad I stimulated you to go and do your research right, because that was the purpose of it. It was not to offend anybody or whatever, but even he, as a religion professor, hadn't done his research.
Andre Sims:Yes, which he exposed by stating you he went to go do something. You had to go do some research, right?
Grantley:He should have been the one writing the article in the first place, not me. Why is that important? Because unless we are willing to do that kind of critical thinking and that kind of in-depth study in the word, then things like cultural nationalism and religious politicalism. Religious politicalism comes about. Yes, because people think you need a politician to defend the Word of God, which Jesus, by the way, never accepted. Right, that's one other topic for another day.
Grantley:But Jesus never felt he needed a politician to promote the kingdom. He educated politicians about the kingdom, about the kingdom right. So we don't need a politician to carry the flag for the kingdom of God. We don't need a political theology or a political party or a political representation. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have political parties. I believe we should vote. I believe we should, but I don't go to my politician for my theology. My theology has to come from the word. Amen. and it has to come from prayer and from understanding kingdom principles. I don't need a politician to tell me who to love and who not to love.
Andre Sims:The word of God has already made that clear.
Grantley:The word of God has already made that clear. Does it give me a plan B? That's where I believe those things creep in, because it's a lot easier to stand up and hear somebody say stuff when you say, yeah, I agree with that, because it doesn't take much thought to say that it may sound good. I also did a, by the way. I did a podcast on this topic earlier episode on it, but there's also one on abortion, this whole abortion thing with a Supreme Court, and it amazes me with how many people who call themselves believers are going around saying that this is something that we don't have a choice to support. Well, I'm not sure my word tells me that.
Andre Sims:Well, you are sure it doesn't and you're trying to understand. Why don't you also land in the same place, if you choose, if you profess?
Grantley:If you profess right, yeah, yeah, tell me. I'm more concerned about loving the young woman who finds herself pregnant, who feels as though she doesn't have any options, and how we treat her and how we make her feel like a human being and how we give her support. Like Jesus said to the lady in adultery, he didn't ask her for a history, how she gets there, yes, he just looked at her with compassion. I am more concerned about that than how she got where she is. Yes, right, yes.
Grantley:Now, if it was rare for our incest and stuff, then I'm concerned about that because that's injustice and we got to fight injustice, right. So I'm concerned about injustice. I'm concerned about how we treat people and I'm concerned about how we provide opportunities for people and how we live out our faith to help the sinner become Christ-like. Amen, and we can only help them become Christ-like if we are Christ-like. I also don't believe that we should punish children for the sins of their parents, and many times our community punish children for the sins of their parents because they come from a single family, home or this thing or the next thing. The child has nothing to do with that. They deserve a place, they deserve safety, they deserve shelter, they deserve food, they deserve medical care, they deserve a good school to go to, because the word that God says they do, that's my authority.
Andre Sims:By what authority are you saying all these things?
Grantley:So, and the other principle of this is I'm not the Holy Spirit police. God doesn't need my help in saving people's lives, right? He doesn't need my help in pointing out to him or that one did this and that one did that and that one did that. He already knows that and all he asked me to be is to be salt and light so that, as the Apostle said, by some means we can save some. Yes, sir, but he's the one who does the salvation, not me. Amen, right, my job is to take people where they are. That doesn't mean that we condone what they do, but we take them where they are and we show the love of Christ, we show compassion, we show grace and we show mercy, and I believe that God is able to do what he says he will do. Yes, he doesn't need my help to qualify people. He qualifies that. He's already qualified them. If you are born and breathing, he's already qualified you as a candidate for his grace and mercy.
Andre Sims:Amen. He is not a man that he should lie. Everything he has said will come to pass as he has stated it. That's so, so good. Well, if you would close us out, we give us some tools. What are some of the things that someone that's listened to this podcast, whether it be part one or part two, and they're saying to themselves I really agree with 90 plus percent of what I heard stated. I'm going to go back re listen, pause it, stop it, take notes, do my fiduciary responsibility, do some research. I'm probably 99 percent in agreement, but I really don't know what to do next. Like I don't know how I should go about acting upon the truth that I heard in this podcast.
Grantley:Well, there are a number of things that people can do. One of them you can go back and listen to some of the other episodes by other people who have spoken about some of these things and who have also been involved in many of these things. And you know, I even have podcasts with people who are Muslims right, who are struggling in their faith, who are struggling in how their faith is living out their religious thing in the world right.
Grantley:They're struggling with the same things. We are just in a different name, right? So go back and listen to some of those, and they put some good references in there as well. Read and learn. Always be open to read and learn. Learn new things. I tell young people all the time use your phone and that computer that's in your hand, or your electronic device, for more than playing games and watching TikTok and Instagram. Use it to learn. You have a wealth of information. You have more information in your hands than many of your ancestors had in their entire life, so use those tools to learn. Learn to differentiate. Don't accept everything you read, but read. Learn so get knowledge. Secondly, we don't have to be an expert to act. None of us are an expert. We're constantly learning. So find someone that you could begin to learn from, maybe form a partnership with some person that's different from you, and just say hey.
Grantley:I would like to learn. Can we learn together? Can we get together? There's some questions I have. Can you help me understand? And do it with respect, right? They're not. They're not. Don't make somebody your teacher for the things you need to go and learn yourself, right. But in relationships, you can learn things by being in relationship with people and natural conversations take place because we have built a relationship and earned the right to share in that person's journey the things that they want to share with us. The next thing is prayer for direction and compassion. Prayer for direction and compassion that's that old song that says what the world needs now is love, sweet love.
Grantley:Remember that song yeah, sure, but some days I say what the word needs now is grace and compassion. What we need now is more grace and compassion. Give people space to be themselves and don't expect people who haven't been exposed to light to act as people of light.
Andre Sims:Yes, sir.
Grantley:You can only produce what's inside of you, and that applies to believers and unbelievers, and some people nowadays I see who call themselves believers. And I'm looking at what's coming out. You know, the Bible says what's in your heart comes out of your mouth, and I'm questioning the two. But I got to remind myself I'm not the Holy Spirit police. You know. I got to trust. God knows how to deal with that person and is dealing with that person in a way that will bring those two together and synchronize them in a way that they eventually they eventually be. What's coming out is what's being lived out.
Grantley:The next thing is to get involved, your hands and feet get involved with people, get involved in community and stand to stand around the sidelines and pointing at this person, pointing at that person. Get involved, volunteer, help, mentor a child, help somebody repair their house, more somebody's lawn. If you have somebody in your neighborhood who is hungry, don't just stand around and say, well, they should go and get a job. Share a meal with them, give us some food. Yeah, they may need to get a job, but hey, there are times when you were unemployed too. Somebody said you should go and get a job. The fact that you have a job now is merely by the grace of God.
Andre Sims:Yes.
Grantley:Most people are 30s or 60 days away from being in that same predicament. Yes sir, that's two months.
Andre Sims:If that eagle stops flying at that job, that job comes to an end. That's exactly where that person will be.
Grantley:So when we started on the sidelines pointing, remember that there's when we point one, there's three fingers pointing back at us.
Andre Sims:So good Right.
Grantley:How do we help people? Again, it doesn't mean that you go around condoning everything. The Bible says, blown by every wind and doctrine, but it means you have compassion on people and you help them and you love them and you trust the God that you serve is going to work in their hearts to bring about the change in them. Then love your neighbors yourself. Invite people into your home. You know there are many things that will, many conversations that will never happen at your church, but if you bring somebody to your home for lunch or dinner, you'd be surprised at things that they'll tell you that they'll never tell you in the foyer or your church.
Andre Sims:So good, right Get there.
Grantley:And then adjust and learn from what you learned, from what you interact with people, from how you be, how God is showing you how to be different. Adjust your behavior and learn and then start all over again. Continuous improvement. Get back out here, get back reading, Get back praying, get back involved with your hands. Adjust again, invite somebody into your home for dinner. Take what you learned, adjust, go back out and do it, and go back out and do it, and pretty soon it's going to become a lifestyle.
Andre Sims:That is so good, so good. Yeah, I think that you know it's one thing to hear truth right, james 1, 22, but be doers of the word. Doers of the word and not hear us only lest you deceive yourself. I think there's just so many strong biblical principles that you educated us with in part one and part two, and, as you've stated in some of the podcasts that you have out there, that the person that's willing to get involved and begin to read and learn, listen and learn in this particular case, that they can take advantage of. So it's not like well, gosh, you made a lot of very valid points, but I don't really know what to do. There were plenty of suggestions that you just gave of more than one way to get started, and that's the thing. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Scientification is for life, for the believer, and we should be seeking help to conform to the glorious image of Christ in any way, form or fashion that we can, based on what we learn.
Grantley:Yes, and what we learn? That's the key.
Andre Sims:You know, we got to get there and we all agree with everything you had to say, so appreciate your willingness to give of your understanding of truth so that we can also walk in a way that moves us from milk to meat, milk to meat.
Grantley:Yeah, we got to become mature in the word, you know. In closing, there's one thing I would like to say is this you know, we cannot be selective about the history which we choose to learn. One of the things that we talked about is that we've had selective history. I totally agree. There's a thing that says history is written by the people who have power, and we know today that we've had exposure to selective history. So, but we can't be selective of that.
Grantley:So we've got to go and learn and get the complete picture, and we've got to make seat at the table for people who may not have had a voice before. We've got to listen to the voice of the immigrant. We got to listen to the voice of the people of color. We've got to listen to the voice of the Native American. We've got to listen to the voice of the refugee. We've got to listen to the voice of the child, listen to the voice of the homeless person who was homeless, listen to the voice of the imprisoned, so that we get a true, full picture of the stories that's going on around us.
Grantley:And if we do that, then we also are setting up a guard against some of these things that we talked about. Right, we're getting in line and going with the flow and saying, if you're a believer, you should do this or you should believe that. No, there's only one thing for a believer If you're a believer, the only one thing you should do is to follow Christ and follow the Holy Spirit and do what he asked you to do. Everything else is debatable.
Andre Sims:So good. I had to get my phone out and type some of that real quick because I don't know when I'm going to get a chance to listen to the podcast once we get it put out there. But I wanted to capture that for myself in this moment because I know it to be so true. It's like the husband, as defined by his wife, has selective amnesia. There's a lot that husbands remember and then, when called to task and held accountable, that they conveniently forget. And the same thing is true of us.
Andre Sims:In our 21st century, uh, capitalistic society and culture, we tend to uh quote unquote, study selective history as opposed to all history history. Yeah, so I love that. Thank you for giving us a closing thought to park on something that we definitely have to ponder. It's not something you can process just having heard it. Uh, it's. It's going to have to resonate with us, uh, for a while. So we really appreciate you ending on that particular note. So we would just say to all please, please, join us, join, uh, grant Lee Martelli and this particular podcast above the noise.
Andre Sims:Yes, sir, above the noise, faith, race and reconciliation. I love it.
Grantley:I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. Thank you. Remember to subscribe and leave us a written. Written is very important to help in our podcasts, succeed in the podcast universe and helping it become known to other people. Email us your comments at above the noise 24 at gmailcom. Above the noise 24 at gmailcom. And follow us on Instagram and Facebook at above the noise 24. Thank you for listening and please share this episode with a friend.