#133: How race broke the world (with Lisa Sharon Harper)

Acclaimed speaker, activist, playwright, and the author of several books, Lisa Sharon Harper is on The Puddcast! Recognized as one of the most important and powerful voices speaking to matters of justice and religion today, Lisa joined us to talk about her latest book Fortune: How Race Broke my Family and the World - and How to Repair it All. Blending fascinating ancestry research, family biography and memoir with a detailed history of race law in the United States, Fortune moved me profoundly. In this interview we discuss colonialism, radical re-connection to our stories and land; we explore shalom, confession, and the rehumanizing process of forgiveness. We talk about the lies of European supremacy and the greatness of pre-colonial African nations. There is some heavy content within, but it’s also full of hope and wisdom. Please listen today and let your heart be impacted.

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Transcription

Lisa Sharon Harper  00:00

The core of the gospel is the image of God and the protection, the coming the coming of the King, of the Kingdom of God, to reclaim the health of the image of God on earth. The health of any Kingdom is symbolized in the health of the images of the king, or monarch. So when they said, "Let us make humankind in our image, and let them multiply and fill the earth," what is that doing? It is saying to the earth, "God is the king of the Earth. This is God's Kingdom, the whole realm is God's kingdom." But when we govern in ways that dominate the image of God, to prohibit, and limit capacity to exercise agency in the world, that cover over the call of God in certain people groups, or in most people groups actually, to be self-determining, and to decide for themselves where they will live, and how much their labor is worth. When we do that, we limit and crush the capacity of the image of God to flourish, to exercise agency. So what if when we govern in ways that crush the image of God, we are actually declaring war on God?

Jonathan Puddle  01:31

Hello, friends, welcome back to The Puddcast with me, Jonathan Puddle, and of course, my co-host, Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon. This is episode 133. And this episode is a doozy. Our guest today is Lisa Sharon Harper. And we have been longing to talk with her for a very long time, we finally got the opportunity to do so unpacking her book Fortune: How Race Broke my Family and the World - and How to Repair it All. I would commend this interview and this book of Lisa's to absolutely everybody. There is hard stuff in here, I would give a content warning: Lisa does not gloss over the evils of racism. But she offers an incredible hope-filled vision for how God can put the world to rights again. We talk about ancestry, about radical reconnection, about Shalom, about forgiveness as a re-humanizing process where your agency and dignity is reclaimed. We talk about the myth and lies of European supremacy, and of the greatness of pre-colonial African nations. There's a ton in here and honestly, make room in your heart and in your calendar, and get into this and go and buy Lisa Sharon Harper's book Fortune. It is hard going. It is not easy to read. But it is important, and it is powerful. So with all that said, please welcome Lisa Sharon Harper to The Puddcast.

Jonathan Puddle  03:13

Lisa, like I just said, I don't know if a book has ever impacted quite this intensely. I just feel the need to honor you and your story and your ancestors. I read these words and these stories. And I and I wept and my body shook. And I felt dirty, for myself and for my ancestors. And and I hope that doesn't sound like I'm centering my issues here. But I just I want to give honor to you and to every one of your ancestors, for their fight, for their survival. And for all that you have woven out of their legacy and in your life and what you've freely chosen to give to the world. I don't feel that I deserve it. And I am profoundly honored.

Lisa Sharon Harper  04:12

Well, I do appreciate that. Thank you so much, Jonathan. I'm honored that you took the time to read Fortune and that you also allowed it to get in, you know enough to actually move you; that's the goal. The goal is for it to actually change us. For the story to change us and really for a re-centered story. So I think that's probably what you're responding to more than anything is that we're so used to hearing stories that, where the victor is centered. Where the the colonizer settlers are centered. And so we care about their love lives and we care about they're they're hacking it out and making it work and... But we haven't really heard the stories that center, those who are being hacked

Jonathan Puddle  05:01

Yes.

Lisa Sharon Harper  05:02

And that's what Fortune did. And does.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  05:05

It very much does. And can I just say thank you, because even when you talked about the idea of offering your body up as a living sacrifice to be the bridge between the then and the now and to unpack the story, you've so seamlessly did that. And I can't even imagine the toll that that took on your own body, so thank you to you for just taking the time to document that. I so appreciate it. So can I can I ask you this? Because I so appreciated how you took time to walk us back many generations. So why is it so important for you right now? And for our listeners, like why is it so important that we understand where we are situated as individuals, and why was it important for you to situate yourself?

Lisa Sharon Harper  05:46

Well see, as an African American, I did not start this book, to write a book. I started this as family research. As an African American, it's hard to trace our history back beyond our grandparents, maybe great grandparents. And if we're really lucky, we can go back into the Reconstruction Era just after the Civil War. But when you hit that era, that is the antebellum south of the South before the war, the South where slavocracy ruled. Part of that slavocracy was the erasure of our lives by not documenting our births and our deaths. By not naming us, by the dehumanization of sales that only named "male, mulatto, 16." Right? Or, or that kind of thing or a slave schedule as opposed to a census record. So because of the lack of records, which I found out in the course of my of my research, was intentional and intentional practice, or lack of practice, decided on by legislative law, back in the colonial era, and the time of the British colonies back in the 1600s, and early 1700s, they made the ruling, they would not trace the births and deaths of even free people of African descent in the United, in their colonies. And the reason was very simple: it's not worth it. Like they literally just said, not worth the trouble. And so that decision leaves me or left me in 1991 not able to trace my family. Like do you see the impact? Of, of? I mean, think about an adopted child. Um, so I have a friend who was adopted, anybody got any adopted friends? Or are you adopted? You know, then you have either watched your friend struggle, are you yourself have struggled to understand who you are. You can understand as an adoptee into a family who this family is that you've been grafted into. But it's very different than knowing who what is the blood that you come from? What blood courses through your veins, and what did they experience in life? And how did you come to be? That's the experience of African Americans at large, unless they were, they descend from people who, for whatever reason, usually, because they were here from the very beginning. And those those original 19 and odd Angolan people, they were indentured and not enslaved. And so that so you know, after seven years, or, or even 30 years, they were set free, but then they were free, and free indeed, after that, right. So that's a rare set. And it's the only reason why we can trace all the way back to Fortune is that she was among those. She was here, born into, into this world on colonial soil, the soil of the eastern shore of Maryland, in 1687. And because she was born at that time, in her circumstance, she was actually well documented. And the circumstance that really made for her documentation was the fact that her mother was white, and her father was black. And because of that mixed race union, they then fell right squarely within the crosshairs of the very first race laws in Maryland. But it's because of that circumstance, that I have the privilege of being able to trace back that far. When I first started writing Fortune, or sorry, doing the research 30 years ago, I had no intention of writing a book, I only wanted to research who am I. But it was upon discovering Fortune and realizing that wow, my family history intersects with the history of race in America, as in the establishment of the legal construct, the political construct, that we now call race in America. Wow, I realized this is more than just my story. This is America's story. And and then as I went through each generation I realized, well, you know, you're here, you really literally are here during major events that are happening. And most of the major events that make America America, my family was a part of it. And here and so, you know, I realized this is not just my family, it's family story, it's the story of America, and it needs to be written. So, I wrote it.

Jonathan Puddle  10:21

For people who have no grid, of what it means to not know where they come from, what do you lose? What do you not have, that that others have?

Lisa Sharon Harper  10:36

Well, if you are, and this is, this was the case for me in 1991, when I first called my mom and I said, Mom, I need to know who are we? You know, my only reference for me what it meant to be African American was black and white sepia tone pictures of the Civil Rights Movement, which I wasn't that up on. It didn't know that much about it. I knew it happened. I had watched a couple of movies, but I didn't really, I wasn't deeply invested in knowing that history. Even though my mom was a part of it, and didn't I didn't even know that. I knew, I knew Alex Haley's family really well. So I knew Roots, right? He wrote Roots, and I my mom forced us to watch Roots every single time it came on every time. So you know, Aunt Kizzy and she became my Aunt Kizzy, right? Chicken George became my uncle, Uncle George and, and so on. And Kunta Kinte was my ancestor that's, like we, we, we grafted ourselves into the story by proxy. And, and, and that was enough for a time. But I'll tell you, since I have come to understand who I am. Now, I understand. There's a rootedness that happens. When you are rooted in the actual stories and know how you got here. When you have you are reconnected, to your line, your lineage to the lands that your ancestors walked upon, and the things that happened to them that moved them to the place where you came into the world. You are not moved by the winds. Nor do I feel like I have to please anybody to be accepted. I just simply know who I am. And it's literally like take it or leave it, this is who I am. And, and, and guess what, I have all my ancestors to back me up. Now, like I got my posse, and my posse, you know, they came before me and they stand with me. Like they still like, especially now that I've really learned so much about their lives and the decisions that they made there's a sense of, I think, in a very similar way, interestingly enough, a very similar way that I kind of understand that that Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration moment where Jesus stands with his ancestors.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  13:07

Yeah.

Lisa Sharon Harper  13:08

He literally stands with his hands and they back up. And guess what he's about to do? He's about to go to the Cross. Like, that's just before he turns his face to Israel and moves toward the Cross. That's when he has the Mount of Transfiguration. And he stands with it. And I think he's getting power from them. He's like, remembering who he is, and that he's not alone, that they are with him. And so I mean, that's, that's now how I move through the world. I show up in any room, I show up with Fortune, I show up with Henry I show up with, with Lizzie and Leah, and Austin, and all of their foibles, and all of their brokenness and all of their strengths and all of their strategies for resilience that I've learned from, that make me more resilient. That's the benefit of not, of being connected. And I think that ultimately what I've really come to understand, especially considering the last book that I wrote before Fortune, The Very Good Gospel, is that what Shalom is is radical connection.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  14:16

Yes!

Lisa Sharon Harper  14:17

Shalom is... and Shalom is the call. Shalom is what the kin-dom, or the kingdom of God, looks like. What it requires of its citizen, that in the very beginning, at the end of the sixth day, God looks around and says this is very good. Well, what that very good met was radically good and the goodness existed between things not inside the thing. So it was the relationships between all things that was radically good. So if that's if that's what God desires, is radical reconnection, then that includes our connection to our past, our connection to our people, our connection to our actual story, as opposed to the disconnection that was created through colonization, enslavement, and also the exploitation of land.

Jonathan Puddle  15:11

Mhmm. Thank you, that is so powerful.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  15:14

Thank you. So I loved how you talked about connection being such a central part of all of this. And even when you're writing, you talked about connection in correlation with forgiveness.

Lisa Sharon Harper  15:26

Yeah.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  15:27

Can you unpack that for us because that was earth shattering to me, the way you had brought that around and treated forgiveness as something that I had agency or something that gave me agency and autonomy.

Lisa Sharon Harper  15:42

Yeah, forgiveness is something only humans can do. Forgiveness requires agency, you can't be... you can't be pushed to forgive, because forgiveness lives in the heart. It's a decision of the heart and the mind. And so it's not something that can be compelled, you can say you forgive and yet not forgive with your heart, right. And so it is, it is a re-humanizing act. But I also think it needs to be understood in the context of repair, that it is, in fact, the last step on the road to repair. The first step is truth seeking, and truth listening, and then telling the truth that you have heard that there can be no repair without truth. Um, in fact, that's one of the reasons why I think for so many people who are, quote, subjects of the Queen, and now the king. That's why there's just so like, literally, like gnashing of teeth and just rage, rising up around the world, from especially brown people, but not only brown people, I'm hearing some Scots and some Northern Irish people who are absolutely incensed that that monarchy, which exists on the foundational lie that some people have been created to rule, and others have been created to be subjected to their rule. Hence, the word subjects, that that lie is now being lionized in the passing of the scepter. And as that scepter passes, we in order for it in order for the world to look on and actually say, okay, you know, we're going to keep going with this, the world has to keep going with the lie. You see, that's part of the truth we have to tell, that's part of the reason why people are so enraged. And so it's so painful is that this process of succession has actually been a process of covering over the truth, wallpapering over the truth. And when you do that, what you're actually doing is muffling the cries of the image of God.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  18:02

Yes!

Lisa Sharon Harper  18:03

You are silencing the image of God, the voice of God actually in subjected people. And so, you know, so true telling is the first part. And the second thing that must happen, then is to ask okay, now, given what we now know that happened, because we've listened to the truth is we have to ask the question, okay, how do we repair it? How do we repair the relationship between us that broke when, let's say, I am now in the, in the place of, of the settler colonizer, when I took the place of God, and ordained that I should live over you, and determine where you should live. Or that you should not live, when I commit genocide against your people. Right? So this is, that's, that's where you get imbalance in relationship. And that's how things get off-kilter. And that's what reparation is for. It's for bringing that relationship back into proper balance, and bringing the bringing the power relationship back into proper balance. So I don't mention in the book forgiveness until we have talked about reparations. And when I do talk about forgiveness—now getting to your point that you asked about—I'm talking about it in the terms not of something that we do for the sake of the colonizer, or for the sake of the one who has oppressed, to let them go to, to let them off the quote, hook. Right? That's not it's not for that. In fact, I was my first time I kind of had this revelation was when I was in South Africa. And I was walking, well, actually, I was I was sitting in I was talking with some friends. I had done did some walking with another friend who grew up in Khayelitsha, one of the most dangerous and impoverished um, shanty towns, townships for black people in Cape Town area. And, you know, he said without without missing a beat that restitution is what would be necessary in order to make things right. And then I was talking with a white friend of mine over scones, no joke. And and she was, you know, just talking about how grateful she was for the forgiveness that was offered by the black South Africans. But it struck me that that forgiveness was really not for her sake. And yet she had received it as if it was for her sake. And not just her but almost all the white South Africans received the forgiveness offered by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela and the nation as letting them off the hook. Right? Like, it's for their sake. It was not!

Jonathan Puddle  18:03

Yes.

Lisa Sharon Harper  18:39

It was for the sake of those who had been tied economically, socially, politically, spiritually to their oppressor for a century or more actually, centuries at that point. And so they had a relationship with this oppressor, that felt like it couldn't be broken and anything that they got had to be because the oppressor said they would do it, right? And, and so they had to beg their oppressor to do right, to give them what was their do. So to forgive... Forgiveness is a resilience strategy. Because to forgive, is to cut the tie between the oppressor and the oppressed. It is to say to the oppressor, "You can go now, I don't need you anymore. Now, go!" And then you turn to God, who has cattle on 1000 hills, and moves the course of rivers, and moves mountains. And you say to God, the one who is our Abba Father, the one who is... who delights to give God's children good things, and meet our needs. You say to God, "Okay, God. Now you ante up." You see, people who have oppressed nations, that have oppressed, don't always have—actually literally have—what is necessary for our healing and restoration. So for the things that cannot be repaired, for the things that can never be restored, for our own sake, we must release them from the the mandate to give back what they took, because they just don't have it anymore. But then we turn to God, and we say to God, "You do it. You fill the need." And guess what? God is infinite. God does move mountains. And sometimes mountains move through our politics, and sometimes mountains move through our business. And sometimes mountains move through the cooperation of neighbors, but mountains do move!

Jonathan Puddle  23:23

Mhmm! Amen.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  23:25

My entire body is on fire right now. You are speaking and it's like, Oh, my goodness, Holy Spirit. I was saying this to Jonathan before the interview, I so believe you're such a prophetic,  profound prophetic voice in this moment. And even as you speak about forgiveness and connectedness, and I can say like, even in my own journey, it hasn't... I haven't understood it in that way as a space for agency and autonomy. Like, "Now go." Like, you have no power over me.

Lisa Sharon Harper  23:57

That's right. That's exactly what it is.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  23:59

And I think even as a culture, unfortunately, it feels like some people are just waking up to all of this. And that's a whole other conversation. But there's so much anger that comes up in my own spirit. With that, and like the re-traumatizing that happens. And often, it's like, "Well, you're just you're living in anger, you need to stop living in anger, and you need to just forgive, move on. Forget." But the way you speak about it, and just the power and authority that it holds, I think you just explained the gospel.

Lisa Sharon Harper  24:33

That's what it is. That's exactly what it is. And that's the reality, right? Is that as Christians, we actually have everything we need to be able to move healing throughout the world. The problem is, is that I don't think we believe the gospel. I don't think we actually believe the good news. I don't think we actually believe that Jesus is the King. I think that I think that people of European descent have actually warred against God for supremacy. And that's the reason we're here, that if you actually bowed to brown Jesus, the reality the truth of who Jesus was, that you would bow to the one who said, "I've come to free the oppressed from white supremacist Roman Empire." Right? That's the context that he's speaking in. I've come to set the political prisoners free.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  25:33

Yeah.

Lisa Sharon Harper  25:34

That's the context.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  25:36

The way you spoke about the Lord's Prayer, political call the that was...

Lisa Sharon Harper  25:45

Yeah, I mean, I think that we, we don't really appreciate because our hermeneutics are so horrible, in the church right now. There's so bad, people literally in Bible studies will open up the Bible and like, treat it like a ouija board and just put their finger down and go, this is the word from the Lord for me today, right? Like that's, that is not the word of the Lord for you today, and you don't even know what you're looking at, because you haven't studied it. You haven't gotten into it. And it's possible, it's possible for you to understand it, but you're lazy, and so you don't get it. And and that's the issue. That's the problem. So what would it look like then for us to actually take the Lord's Prayer? I was blown away when I read about this and also heard Obery Hendricks speak on this at a conference in 2009, 2008, rather. The conference was called the gospel... Envision: The Gospel, Politics, and the Future. And, and Obery Hendricks spoke on and part of his his speech was on the Lord's Prayer. And what he said was that, you know, Jesus lived in the context of literally a white supremacist Roman Empire. They were they were explicitly white supremacist, in fact, and you'll hear people I've heard scholars say, oh, no, they would, they didn't believe in, you know, they were they were very, very egalitarian. In other words, they were very diverse...

Lisa Sharon Harper  27:04

The subjected people! Like they literally threw salt on people's land, so that they couldn't grow anything anymore. And, and that's how they and and before that they killed people, to make them subject to them. That's the Roman Empire. And their goal was to make the world Rome, right? Just like England's goal was to make the world England literally, these these all come, they're all from the same lineage of thought. And so, so the Roman Empire, believed, as Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, said, that, that if if a if a people group has been conquered, it has shown itself that it was created to be enslaved, right. So and, and when they looked at another or considered what would be a human being, what they believed was a human being was somebody like them. And it wasn't it didn't include women, it was white men, basically, who can walk and stand on to two feet. So in other words, disabled people were not fully human, women were not fully human. And certainly not brown people from other parts of the world were not seen as fully human to them. So that meant Jesus was not seen as fully human to them. So you know, that's the context within which Jesus says, "Pray this way. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are indebted to us—or forgive us our trespasses, (depending on which gospel you're reading)—as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil or the evil one, (again, depending on which one you're reading.) For, for thine is the power and the glory forever. Amen." Right? So, so he says, pray this way. But what we don't do because we don't do the work, we don't understand that Caesar, Caesar said, "call me papa, call me father." And Jesus said, no, no, pray to Papa God in Heaven, our Father in heaven, not our papa here in Rome. Hallowed be your name. Hallowed isn't just like some cool English word, it means the highest, the highest name is God's name. And by the way, this is a this is actually a direct reflection of Genesis 1, he's harkening back to Genesis 1 here, because in Genesis 1, the name for God is the supreme god over the God of their captors, which depending on who you're reading, either you think it's Egypt or, or Babylon, but basically their captors, right? So the supreme God, Jesus harkens back to this other time when they were enslaved and says, "God, our God is highest not Caesar, do bring bring, basically bring heaven to earth, and do on earth as you would have done in heaven." In other words, you have your will God, not Caesar's will. And your will be done. That's, that's your will God. And then give us this day our daily bread. You realize that Caesar had this thing called the daily bread? It was literally like the centurions, Roman army going around in carts and throwing bread out to the crowd, that was called the daily bread. Why? Because they had salted the land, so they couldn't grow anything on it. So they were dependent on Rome for even daily bread. So what does Jesus say? Jesus says, "Forget your bread. God, you give us our daily bread!" Right? So he's telling the people to turn their backs on Rome, because they don't need Rome. God is supreme. God is the provider of daily bread. And then in the middle of that, he says, and forgive our trespasses, as we have forgiven those who trespass against us. Who's trespassed? Rome. Rome has trespassed. So Jesus spoke in a context, a geopolitical context. So his words had meaning to the people who were the original hearers as they stood also in that geopolitical context, and they would have understood what he was saying. It's we who don't do the work. Who, who, who reduce the Lord's Prayer to a memory verse that we teach in Sunday school.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  27:04

[Laughs mockingly] Sorry...

Lisa Sharon Harper  27:08

Absolutely. It's a it's a freedom manifesto for an oppressed people.

Lisa Sharon Harper  31:52

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  31:54

I mean, watching people lose their minds over over debt forgiveness and any number of other things in this moment, you know...

Lisa Sharon Harper  32:03

A black mermaid...

Jonathan Puddle  32:05

Black mermaids...

Lisa Sharon Harper  32:06

"A little mermaid being black. Oh, my gosh!"

Jonathan Puddle  32:08

You know, and I'm reading Jesus say, if a Roman Centurion demands you carry his pack for one mile, carry it for two. You know, resist that oppression, with your own dignity...

Lisa Sharon Harper  32:22

With your own agency. And also, get this, to carry it for two would have been to break the law. So what he was saying was, you know, basically shame him.

Jonathan Puddle  32:34

Right!

Lisa Sharon Harper  32:35

Shame shame him.

Lisa Sharon Harper  32:37

He makes you carry it for one, okay? I'ma carry it for two, I'ma get you in trouble. I'ma get you in trouble. He's not saying, you know, grin and take it.

Jonathan Puddle  32:37

Wow.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  32:49

No.

Lisa Sharon Harper  32:49

He's saying resist dehumanization.

Jonathan Puddle  32:53

Yes.

Lisa Sharon Harper  32:54

Because at the core of the gospel, is the image of God, and the protection and the, the coming, the coming of the King of the Kingdom of God, to reclaim the health of the image of God on earth.

Jonathan Puddle  33:11

Yes, amen. Okay, so what does this look like, in your mind's eye, for the church, and and especially the church in America? And I'll... to that question I'll add, I've never lived in America, but I've lived in five other nations and the, the hegemony that, the religious hegemony that America exports to the rest of the world, the city on a hill language, this myth of a Christian nation. All of this stuff impacts us as Canadians and as Kiwis and as Europeans. It is obviously these kinds of unvirtuous cycles. What what does it mean for this country that has this, this founding idea of being some Christian nation that you rightly point out, has never once been the case... What... obviously the concept is flawed, but even just if you were to entertain it for the moment, this was never true.

Lisa Sharon Harper  34:09

No.

Jonathan Puddle  34:10

What what, what do you see in your, in your most hope-filled visions for the church in, in this land?

Lisa Sharon Harper  34:17

Well, I see I see truth seeking. I see truth listening. I see them now turning around and telling the truth that they've heard from those who have been subject, not only to crowns and legislatures that have legislated human hierarchy, but also to the church, which spearheaded it and laid the the philosophical, religious, and then even the legal foundations for that human hierarchy to take root in law around the world. So one of the things that when we do that truth seeking that's going to be really important, is for the truth for the church to own the truth that it is within the church that Aristotle's understanding of subject and ruler got embedded into our theology. It was Pope Nicholas V, and his Romanus Pontifex, which declared that any explorer could go and if they found an un-Christian or uncivilized nation, they could claim that land for the throne and enslave its people. What was his justification for that? He was looking at Genesis 1, and he was reading it through the eyes through the lens of Aristotle, not through that lens of brown Jesus. Right. So he was reading Genesis 1 and saying, it is those who were made in the image of God, who were called to exercise dominion on earth. And he was, he then said, Well, those who made an image of God are people like me. Those made in the image of God are, quote, civilized, even though, look, we can argue about who was civilized first, I mean, throughout the continent of Africa, there were aqueducts, and there were trade routes. And there were cathedrals, even literally cathedrals, before there was the first cathedral in Europe, before there was the first city in Europe. So you know, you want to talk about civilization? We can go there. But But he had, he became God, in his own imagination, determining who, who is created to exercise dominion, where the Scripture itself is clear: all humanity! If you're a human, you were created to exercise stewardship of the world, agency in the world, make decisions that impact the world. So that's the truth that must be embraced by the church is that it's: we were central to the break, as we have experienced it, over the last 500 years, since the age of quote, discovery, which was actually the Age of Conquest.

Jonathan Puddle  36:59

Yes.

Lisa Sharon Harper  36:59

And so that Age of Conquest was given the the theological and religious eschatological cover of religion, Christian religion, and we have to own that. We also have to own the reality that within the very first beginnings of the colonial era, in Maryland, and then throughout the colonies in the United States, it was the church that became the holders of the keys of indenture and enslavement. It's just this incredible moment that happens in the midst of, of Maryland, the colony of Maryland, working out its first race laws, where they determined... they're the second ones to create race laws, Virginia was the first... Virginia was trying to solve the problem of these mixed-race children that were being born to white men who were raping their enslaved black women. And then these mixed race children saying, you know, you, my dad, you are a British citizen, and according to British law, we can't be I mean, I can't be enslaved because my dad is a British citizen, and citizenship comes through the line of the Dad! So in Virginia, they just shifted where citizenship came from, now it would come through the line of the mother. And then they added "in perpetuity," and that's what created race-based slavery in America, that words, the words "in perpetuity", forever, through the mother. So if your mother's mother's mother's mother's mother was enslaved, therefore, you are not a citizen, therefore you can be enslaved. Now in Maryland, they were solving a slightly different problem. But same side, same thing, but different side of the coin: white women were coming into the colonies, saying, I'm falling in love with an enslaved black man. And this is a white woman usually was an indentured servant, Irish or Scotch, or Scottish. And, and they were marrying, and having children with enslaved African men. And of course, this bruised the egos of Maryland's legislature, and it also confused their caste system because they had 600 mixed race children, just in the colonial era alone, just in Maryland and Delaware alone, umm... that they had to figure out what is their status? What is their caste, in other words? Are they going to be enslaved? Are they going to be indentured, are they going to be free? So the the legislature answered that problem by saying, if any white woman marries and has children with an enslaved African man, she herself will become enslaved to her husband's master and her children will be enslaved in perpetuity. Again, who benefits from this? The planters, the legislature, actually who was the planter class benefits from this by getting free labor forever, and creating a permanent bottom line, right? So permanent, permanent profit. But what they realized, and they didn't expect this and this is a Catholic colony. And they didn't expect that throughout the colony planters would actually start to force their indentured white, white servants, indentured servants to marry, and have children with enslaved African men, thus breaking the law, thus now, the penalty of which being that they would be able to be enslaved by that same master that forced them to marry. And that's what was happening. So white women were now being enslaved, and their children were being enslaved in perpetuity, and they were forcing it to happen. So this, these planters came back, rather than the legislative class came back, you know, years later and said, "We have to, you know, we didn't expect that to happen"... and clutch their pearls. And they say, "From henceforth, the ones who will now have the keys that establish who will be indentured, and who will be enslaved, it's gonna be taken out of the hands of the planters, and put into the hands of the church." So now the church becomes the keepers of freedom, the keepers of enslavement, that, that the arbiters, really the central auction block of the colony of Maryland, and then eventually, Virginia, and then North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, it goes throughout the southern colonies. And so the church not only is complicit through its silence, but now it's actually a manager of the oppression of the image of God on earth. So these are the truths that we as the church have to reckon with and repair, and offer reparation, in the same way that universities are doing now, when they realize that, that they have a university because of slave labor. And now they're beginning to make reparation for this, the families that were enslaved, in order for them to be... Well, the church has to do the same thing, around the world. In order for things to be made, right, again. Or for the first time.

Jonathan Puddle  41:58

Yeah, right. Right. For the for things to be made the way they should have always been. And...

Lisa Sharon Harper  42:04

That's right.

Jonathan Puddle  42:05

in many cases never were.

Lisa Sharon Harper  42:07

That's right.

Jonathan Puddle  42:08

Yeah. Wow.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:09

I thought it was so profound when you talked about how you couldn't think of an example where a, like white men showed up into a community or a space and didn't think to themselves, how can I benefit from this?

Lisa Sharon Harper  42:21

You know, let me I'll just to clarify, it's not benefit. It's "Who should be ruling here?"

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:28

Yes, yes.

Lisa Sharon Harper  42:30

And there, and the assumption is, they should.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:32

Always. It's this is an area that like when even when you talked about your civilization and aqueducts in like parts of Africa, right. So it's just interesting when you spoke about intergenerational trauma, how things continue to get passed down. So then, as a woman of Indian descent, we're all talking about, you know, the passing of the queen in recent days. And so that brings up emotions in my own body, about how I feel about that, and what was stolen from India, whether it was like financially or socially, you're just like, intellect and like, just like, all of that.

Lisa Sharon Harper  43:05

That's right.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  43:05

And yet the conversations that I have with so many family and friends who are from that part of the world, it's like, "Well, you know, if the British never came to India, we would never have railroads. If the British never came to India, we would never have like this and this and this." And somehow there's been this trauma of, "You're still not civilized, for you to have civilization. You need the white men to show up and build you a railroad system..."

Lisa Sharon Harper  43:29

It's a failure of imagination.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  43:31

Yes. Oh, that's so good.

Lisa Sharon Harper  43:34

It's a failure of imagination. And it is actually indicative. I mean, it really reveals how deeply folks have literally swallowed the lie whole cloth, like they've just, they believe it. They've actually they're eating and going, this tastes good. Now, that's not true. It's not true that they wouldn't have railroads. Maybe they'd have something else. Maybe they wouldn't need railroads, maybe they would have something else. You know, I mean, really think about thinking but just think about the continent of Africa. Before Europeans hit the continent of Africa there was there were trade routes, people traveled hundreds and 1000s of miles. And those trade routes went deep into the heart of Africa, down into Sub Saharan Africa, and all the way up through Europe, that these trade routes existed. They didn't need Europe to do that. They just, they did it. Because we got it like that. The pyramids were not a European creation. And Europeans want to say Martians did it because they don't want to believe that people other than them actually have brains! That God gave us that can work. Like we have brains too! The very first libraries in the entire world were on the continent of Africa in the nation of Mali in Timbuktu. The very first university in the entire world was on the continent that we now call Africa, or the Middle East—which the Middle East actually considers itself, Africa, Hello—That's the, even the division is a European worldview that's imposed on the people and the rest of the world. So, you know, we could do this. We don't need, we don't need Europe to do this. And we had it before them. We already did it. And in fact, we already had Jesus.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  45:36

Yes.

Lisa Sharon Harper  45:37

We already had Jesus, do you realize the kingdom of Congo, as in, in Central Africa, in the heart of Africa, they had a pope. Like they had, or I guess you could say, maybe not a pope, but they had a bishop, like they had Christianity. They had, in fact, the first evangelist in the Scripture is the Samaritan woman, not a European. She's a brown woman, and not even Hebrew. She's mixed race. And then one of the first acts of the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit comes to earth, in Acts, in the book of Acts, one of the first, actually the first act of the Holy Spirit is to decolonize the language of the Roman Empire, which had imposed Greek as the only acceptable and legal trade language, the language everybody had to speak to each other. But so in Acts 2, like, the minute that the Holy Spirit comes, what does the Spirit do? Boom, people start speaking their indigenous languages. And not only theirs, the... the indigenous languages of the others in the room. So now everybody understands everybody, without the domination of one language, whaaaat?! So we have a lack of imagination, if you think we need European railroads, to do what you know, to give us good stuff, then you don't you must not believe in God, who could actually not impose one language to make everybody understand, but could give everyone the ability, the supernatural ability to speak each other's indigenous languages.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  47:30

Come on!

Lisa Sharon Harper  47:31

And understand them, you don't have an imagination that is worthy of the king, the king of God, if you think we need subjugation and domination, in order to succeed. No, we do not.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  47:43

Preach.

Jonathan Puddle  47:44

Come on!

Lisa Sharon Harper  47:44

The king of the, the health of any Kingdom is symbolized in the health of the images of the king, or, or monarch, in that kingdom. The health of the kingdom can be displayed or shown in the health of the images. And so and the people who are reading Genesis 1 would have totally understood this. So when they said, when they said, "Let us make humankind in our image, and let them multiply and fill the earth," what is that doing? It is saying to the earth: God is the king of the Earth. This is God's Kingdom, the whole realm is God's kingdom. But when we govern in ways that dominate the image of God, to prohibit, and limit capacity to exercise agency in the world, that cover over the call of God. In certain people groups, on in most people groups actually, to be self-determining, and to decide for themselves where they will live, and how much their labor is worth. And where that thread will go in this garment in this for this textile... When we outlaw the spinning of textiles in India, or the touching of the sea to gather salt that God provided to the people... When we outlaw or when we when we strip people of their families, of their children, in Canada, and in in Australia, indigenous families... when we do that we limit and crush the capacity of the image of God to flourish, to exercise agency. And guess what? Guess what the ancients would have understood about that? They would have understood that as the image of the king is crushed, then you better know there is war against that kingdom happening in the land.

Jonathan Puddle  49:39

Yes.

Lisa Sharon Harper  49:46

So what if when we govern in ways that crush the image of God, we are actually declaring war on God?

Jonathan Puddle  49:57

Absolutely.

Lisa Sharon Harper  49:58

So truth-telling, and reparation, and restitution, and the healing is all necessary. These are just simply prescriptions for health in the kingdom of God. It is simply confession and repentance and forgiveness. That's all we're talking about here, but instead of talking about it on an individual level, we're talking about it globally. For the ways we've treated each other, each other's people groups.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  50:37

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  50:39

Lisa, this is incredible. And you can come back and preach the gospel to us any time you like.

Lisa Sharon Harper  50:44

[laughs]

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  50:45

Lisa, can we ask you to pray for us?

Lisa Sharon Harper  50:47

Yeah.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  50:48

You had an incredible line in your book where you were praying over an individual who had been unjustly and unrightly imprisoned in isolation for many, many years. And your image of praying over him was you prayed the Devil back to Hell. And I think that even just Jonathan and myself right now, and so many of our listeners, I think, when you talk about "we have waged war against the image of God against images of God and against God," there are so many ways in which we need to pray the Devil back to Hell.

Lisa Sharon Harper  51:15

Yeah.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  51:15

Whether we are sitting here as a European like a man who is white. And it's, you know, as Jonathan shared in the beginning, he's owning his own pain in the story, as you're sitting here and maybe this is very traumatizing to your own story. I think in so many ways we all can sit in both sides. Anyway. Can you pray for us before we leave please?

Lisa Sharon Harper  51:31

Yes. And let me just say this, that this work, this work of repair is not only for the sake of the oppressed, it is for the sake of those who have benefited from and actually spearheaded the oppression of others, of the image of God on earth. Lies, lies dehumanize, and they dehumanize all, not only those who are on the tip of the spear, but the one who throws the spear is also dehumanized.

Jonathan Puddle  52:01

Can I just... Yes, can I just say, so much of my work with my therapist, has been around emotional neglect. And when you drew this line of what, what's... what it's cost the oppressor in their own access to their emotions, and what they had to do to continue doing this, for the sake of their wealth, and all of the ways they justified it. So many lights were going off for me, in terms of the legacy of European stoicism, and how much that's damaged our side... and amen to what you just said, in terms of how it destroys us to destroy others.

Lisa Sharon Harper  52:44

Well, that's I mean, isn't that I'm glad that you connected with that. And I think that that's, that's the problem... is that people of European descent have lost so much, in this bargain. Gained power, gained the ability to control others, and, and at least the illusion of control of the world. But in the doing, they have themselves become disconnected from their own land and story and peoples because they've had to take on this new identity that's completely disconnected from anything in reality, called whiteness. And whiteness is only, was only created to determine one thing: who is created to rule. That's it. That's the entirety of the purpose of this thing called, white, whiteness. And so when, in our current day, our current era, when we look at, especially here in America, we look at the next 25 years as being the time where there's going to be a shift, it's actually 23 years now, where there's going to be a shift, and no longer will there be any one ethnic group that is a majority in America, but rather, people of European descent will be in the decided minority in the United States of America, that is freaking white folk out, because it will no longer be the case that they should have assumed dominion, power, white, dominion, white power. And I think that that's what's causing now this uprising of around the world of, of like a movement to recolonize really a movement of white, we call it in America, white Christian nationalism. It's white nationalism in Hungary or, you know, basically white nationalism all over the country... all over the world. It's because we see the shift. And folks of European descent have not yet done the work to reconnect themselves to the reality of their stories and their lineages and their lands, as in their indigenous lands. So their identity is right now completely 100% wrapped up in their their capacity to wield power. So I think that that people have of European descent have work to do in this as well, and that their healing, their re maybe exchanging of a heart of stone for a heart of flesh, is going to look like doing their own family history and finding out how did my family get here to this land wherever we are? And did they, were they a part of the decision making that oppressed other peoples? Were they, did they get here after that? And did they benefit from it? Or were they among the few that fought it. You need to know this, you need to know it, so that you can stand in it. Be grounded, be connected. And once you're connected to yourself and your own story, you'll be much more prepared to then reconnect to everyone else and to the earth again, and to God again. So I will pray. And I will pray that the devil is prayed back to hell, the devil is shoved back to hell, by all of our work of truth seeking, and truth listening, and truth telling, and reparation, and forgiveness. Amen.

Jonathan Puddle  56:16

Amen. Friends, that was Lisa Sharon Harper, you need to go to her website lisasharonharper.com. You need to learn more about her work, you need to follow her on social media. And you need to go and get her two books are actually fantastic. The Very Good Gospel, is her earlier book, and then this brand new book that we're talking about is Fortune. And it's called Fortune because it traces in really fascinating detail back to her ancestor named Fortune. We didn't get into this a ton but Lisa is descended from these very first group of Angolan captives who were brought to what is today called the United States. And so the history of her family is intimately interwoven with the story of race in America. So that's, that's the format that the book takes. It's intense, it's heavy, but it's very informative, and very powerful. Fulled of the kind of hope and power and truth telling that you just heard, so make sure that you hit show notes and go and grab a copy of Lisa Sharon Harper's book. I want to say thank you to Elliot and Sarah, and Kelly, and Jason, who are my latest patrons. Friends, if you enjoy this show, if you like the work that we're doing here, would you consider becoming a supporter? You can support for as little as $3 a month, more if you would like to, you can become a supporter at patreon.com/jonathanpuddle. All the support really helps me and my family and keeps this work, going. Friends, this is the final episode for 2022. I'm going to be taking a little social media break and we will be back after Christmas. We've got more thrilling episodes and discussions and interviews to share with you all. Honestly, I feel like we're going from strength to strength. And the conversations that I have recorded and in the can waiting to be released are just so wonderful. So thank you so much for being here for being a listener for sharing these episodes. Thanks for being on the journey with us. Grace and peace to you. Merry Christmas. Happy Advent Happy New Year. We will see you in 2023.