Ron + Hope: Unfiltered - The Kingdom’s Approach (Towards Racism) with Guest: Duaine Johnson

Hey, guys. Welcome to Ron and Hope. Real raw and relevant. And I think you can all tell this ain't Hope right here. And she is a little different. Yeah, just a little bit different. She has got about 20 ladies up in Lake Tahoe. She did it on the east coast at our east coast campus up in the mountains of Tennessee. Now she's got some of the ladies over Lake Tahoe. It's called a come higher thing, where she just really intimate group. And she has been doing that thing and having great success with it. So I'm bacheloring it.

Yes, sir.

I'm doing a lot of takeout this week, eating a lot of sandwiches and this, that and other. But I want you to hang around because I know some of you probably more here to your Hope than you are me. And you say, well, Hope's not there. It's not going to be funny today. It's probably not going to be a lot of comedy. But where I'm going today, I want you to hang around. I just feel like I've been given permission.

Yes, sir.

Last two weeks, when it comes to the church's look and the church's approach to sex, I went there with the last podcast. If you hadn't seen it, you ain't gonna believe where I went. You ain't gonna believe what the Bible says, and you ain't gonna believe the things that I said on the podcast, because the people that did see it, I saw them retweeting it and reposting it. Like, man, Pastor Ron went there today. And so I talked about all this taboo stuff and our whole approach to the bedroom and the church and how we got there and what we need to do to fix it and what God really says about it. So you need to go watch that one if you haven't. Today I want to talk about racism, okay? And you know what? And after today, I don't want to talk about it. Because one of the points I'm going to make is that at some time or another, if something's going to die, everybody's going to have to shut up about it. I've been saying this for 15 years or maybe 20. Whatever you talk to lives, whatever you quit communicating with dies. And the fact that it just stays on everybody's lips keeps it alive. And I know that people say, you know, we need honest discussions. And we done discuss this thing every way it can be discussed. And the fact is, there comes a day where we do have to putting those things behind us, and we're gonna have to go on and be brothers and sisters in the Lord. But I'm gonna go there today. I don't usually mess with this stuff because I by nature, not by function, I by nature and multicultural. I'm going to be bold right out of the gate. I don't think there's many of me like that. There is an intentionality about multicultural leadership. A seed produces after its own kind. Most people want people in their church like them. But when you are multicultural, you are intentional about getting outside of yourself and learning to see life through your eyes. And learning to see life through their eyes. I have Mexican technician right over here. I have Indian background technician here. I have an African American brother sitting right beside me here. I think a Filipino brother right over here. Literally in this room. We're doing this podcast in right here. That is who I am.

Yeah.

That's not what I do. Because I don't think you can do multiculturalism. And the people that try to do it come along as fake.

Yeah.

When somebody's trying to be this or trying to be that, to me, it just has an awful smell of flesh. It's a parade of flesh, and it feels fake. The fact is, it's something that you are. It's something that you embrace and exudes you. Not when you're on a stage, not when you're talking to people, but it exudes every facet of your life. Pastor Duane is the director, overseer, functions as a bishop. We probably ultimately need to ordain him as that over RF our entire ministerial fellowship. Little over 200 churches across the nation, and he's over all that. And when I say he runs it, he runs it. We have meetings. He'll get vision. He'll talk about direction, but he runs this thing. And he also gets to speak all over America. And you get to be around a lot of people that are different.

Yes, sir.

And I asked him to come on purpose. We had something that didn't work out, but I think this may be providential. I want you guys to hang around. I'm only going to do 30 to 40 minutes, and I'm already five minutes into it. But I'm going to say some things you've never heard Ron Carpenter say, and you've never heard Ron Carpenter say it on purpose. I'm going to do some spiritual things and some natural things, but here's where I'm going. I want to talk about the cure for racism. There is one. There is one. I just want to let you. That's kind of my opening comments, and I want you to speak freely. I told you before we got on here. I said, you don't have to agree with me. You don't have to echo me because we work together. I said, you feel free to have your own opinion. The way you see it, do you think it can be fixed and do you think there's an answer?

Absolutely. And I love what you talked about with the broadness of your experience and the fact that you are it by nature. I think when we start attacking this topic, you can't just have a list of things to do. There has to be something that we become. And the conversation has to move beyond just table talk into.

See here. I knew you were gonna do this. You wanna make me just go off with something you just said right there. Because the whole Christian life is not about doing. It's about becoming.

That's right.

The whole thing's about becoming. And if you become everything you're supposed to become, you will do everything you're supposed to do.

Yes, sir.

The prodigal son said, give me, give me. Got him in trouble. When he came back. He said, make me.

Make me.

If he'd have said, make me first, he would have gotten everything. So this is all about becoming. It's all about growing. It's about understanding who you are. You've been born of incorruptible seed. Now the seed of Jesus has to grow. Yes. And that means that I am manifesting the glory of God on a greater level every day of my life. To be his glory means to reflect them. And that's. I wouldn't even go in there. But when you said becoming, that really answers a lot of these questions we're going to go to in a minute. Sorry, I interjected. I want you to speak freely.

That's the beauty of conversation. And I think we sometimes. And I don't fault the world for this, Pastor, because maybe this is the only place they can come from. But sometimes we attack conversations like race from the outside in almost as if we can regulate people to new behavior. And if you don't know how to change the heart of the matter, then you have to create rules, rituals, laws, whatever the agenda might be to try to force someone to act like they are not naturally. And so maybe that's all the world can do because we haven't attacked this from how do we change from the inside? And so all of the conversation starts to go to how do we get policies to pass and bills to pass?

We try to solve it politically.

Yes, we do. And we can.

It can't because it's a hard thing. Absolutely true. Racism. Yeah. It is a heart thing.

It is a heart thing.

Well, they say, well, there is systematic racism in America. Okay, well, the people who are running the system have a heart issue.

Yeah, absolutely.

The people who made the system, the people implementing the system. And so it all begins with the condition of the heart and how to understand, to love your brother above all else. That's it. And, you know, love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And he said, if you do this one, you fulfill all the commandments, all the law. It's all done. And go ahead. I want you to finish your point.

No. And I don't think, Pastor, that we are acting as if the racist experience is not out there, because I can speak firsthand that it is. Matter of fact, I was talking to a pastor. This was probably six months ago or so. This is a pastor down in South Southeast. We were at a church, had some conversation with him, and we started just dealing with the topic of racism. He's a Caucasian brother. And I asked him, I said, okay, from where you are, I'm a little bit newer to the South. I said, have you experienced this, your upbringing? He's a younger guy. Have you experienced racism in your upbringing? Were you taught prejudice? Did you just experience it in school? Were you told about it at home? He shocked me with this response. He said, pastor, you won't believe this. He's probably in his late 20s, early 30s. He said, I was actually raised to be prejudiced against people of the other race. I said, what do you mean? He said, my mom and dad actually told me, when you get around black people, when you get around certain races act this way, be aware of this, be leery of this. And he said, but something in me always fought it. He said, so when I went to.

High school, that is me. That is me right there.

So I was shocked. It still happened in 2023. The conversation was in 2022. So it exists. It is passed down generationally at times. But there, again, the answer to solve that is not create all this structure on the outside and try to force someone to be what they're not, because they'll still find a way to leak who they are. It is to change from the inside out. But now you're saying experience was similar for you.

I am not my mom and dad. My dad loved everybody.

Yes, sir.

My dad. If you were the pope or if you were a janitor, it didn't matter. My dad was amazing. And everybody that got around him felt the love. So this was not from my home. Yes, sir, but my family lineage is agriculture. And when you were in agriculture, at least then. I don't know now because I've been apart from it for some time. It was a family job. So I don't care if you were seven. I don't care if you were nine. I don't care if you Were 12. You were feeding chickens, you were feeding hogs, you were picking potatoes, you were picking cucumber. That's just what you did. And they were a big operation run on my mom's side of the family. Well, most of the farmhands were African Americans. And here I am. I'm the white boy out there in the field. I'm topping tobacco with all of them. I hear conversation. I get into their world. I know how people think.

How old are you?

Oh, I'm a kid, man. I'm 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, up till I graduated high school. And I'm hearing this, and I remember back in the 70s, and I'm dating myself now, we're a long way from the 70s. As a child, when I would hear the N word, I didn't even know about the Holy Ghost. But something in me.

Come on.

You know, I've always said, even in your unsaved life, you get snapshots of your future. That's good. I feel the Holy Ghost.

Yes.

You know, I was a jock in high school. Everybody had their tribe. I was a jock.

Yeah, me too. An athlete.

If. If somebody picked on a black boy, I'm gonna tell you, I was a protector. Yeah. And my friends know I would go throw hands with you if I thought you were bullying or trying to dominate somebody. Pastor Duane, I can't explain it. It's like Moses when he rose up and slew the Egyptian bow. He didn't even know why he was doing it, but he was a born deliverer. He was a born deliverer. He don't even understand what's going on. And, you know, you was a baller, too. I was the only white guy in the town who could ball.

Yeah.

I immediately that earned respect on the streets.

Absolutely.

When I got home, I got my basketball, my little $10 rubber basketball, put it on my hip and walked straight into the black community where there's on the rims. And I played bal dart.

Love it.

And I. I was their guy and they were my brothers. When I went into the huddle in football, I was respected. So, you know, I was always in that world where I heard conversations other Than white ones. That's good. Some people are never in a room.

Exactly.

Are never in a room where they get to hear why a brother thinks like he thinks and arrives at the conclusions he arrives at. I don't agree with what everybody thinks, but most of the time, even if I don't agree with them, Pastor Duane, I know how they got to that conclusion. Conclusion?

Yeah.

Because I'm in their psyche. Talk about the intentionality of breaking down racism. One thing is going to be. You're going to have to go to the woman at the whale.

Exactly.

Who? You're a Jew, she's a Samaritan. And you're going to have to find common ground. What's common ground? You're both thirsty and you both worship God at this mountain.

Yeah.

And so Jesus started finding common ground. And if that's the only place we can find it, we start there.

That's right.

But anyway, just a chance to respond to that. I was that guy.

Yeah.

When you said that I would feel when I would hear somebody call somebody that there was something in me. I mean, I'm 8 years old. Yeah. That's not right. That's not right. And I could feel it. I didn't know what I was feeling. So then I get to be 21 and I move outside a denominational system. Love. These are amazing people. But they were as white.

Yeah.

That ain't me.

But something was in you.

So I left the system. And when you leave the system, I tell people. You leave the support.

Yeah.

So I. In 90. In 1990, nobody does that. I got outside of the system and started something independent from the system because I wanted to be able to reach across cultural bounds. So I've seen this whole pattern from the field to the ball court and the ball field to even getting outside of the nominational system. I was intentional.

That's it. That's it.

About sitting down.

That's it.

Tell me life as you see it.

Yeah. And I think that intentionality has to be with the willingness to lay on the altar my preconceived notions, my biases, my judgments on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the table. I have to be willing to lay down what I believe is right, get into a conversation so we can arrive at truth. And I think sometimes we want to be right so much, we lay truth on the altar instead of our rights on the altar so that we might arrive at truth, which is a more healthy place, because once you know the truth, you can be absolutely set free. Most people are unwilling to Come to the other side of the aisle to have a conversation, to sit down, to actually discuss matters of the heart. I think about my father. I'm biracial, Mom's African American, dad's Caucasian. My dad saw his dad have black friends all around the farm. Agricultural family as well.

Nebraska, Nebraska. Nebraska.

Very rural Nebraska. And so he thought it was okay. He wasn't taught to be biased or prejudiced or anything of that nature. Certainly not racist. And so he married a black woman. The minute he actually proposed to my wife or my mom as his wife, his dad came to him and said, if you marry that woman, we're going to disown you. My dad said he was shell shocked because Nebraska, he saw him have work partners and people in the field and whatever the case might be, of different races and colors, but as soon as they were going to cross pollinate, as soon as there was going to be a marriage, he said he'd be disowned. My dad was absolutely shocked. Moved forward with the wedding, didn't talk to his father again until his dad's deathbed.

Wow.

Called him in on his deathbed and said, I apologize right before he died. And so what that did for me is I grew up in a family where my entire. My dad's side of the family didn't even want to see us. Six kids. I mean, not talking about two or I mean six kids. And so that family stayed completely away from us. My grandma would show up at Christmas with bags of presents, drop them off outside the door and drive away so we wouldn't know she even came to see us. Wouldn't knock on the door, wouldn't come in. I think later I realized it was because of the pressure from the family. I remember when I was young, we would go over to see my aunts and my dad's sisters. And it was so awkward.

Awkward.

It was so weird that eventually we just. It just. We stopped trying. And I didn't see him pretty much the rest of my life. Don't have a very good relationship with him to this day. But when you grow up in something like that, whatever side of the culture you might be on and something in you is to be different, I believe those are traces of a divine ability to change what is maybe passed down culturally. This pastor I talked to felt something different. Though his environment was going to raise him this way, he felt something different. Moses taken as a baby into a society. Something in him was different by nature.

A Hebrew by culture and Egyptian.

Yeah.

And I tell people that's when you know, God's going to use you because you're too this to be that, and you're too that to be this. So you belong to nothing. And when you belong to nothing, you can change anything.

Absolutely.

And I think another problem. I got some real bombs I'm going to drop. I'm not going to be married to time. I've seen some people doing these podcasts, an hour and 40 minutes. I don't want to talk an hour and 40 minutes. But I'm not going to be held by time because I got some things I typed in my notes that I want to say today because nobody's ever really heard me talk on these subjects, and surely they don't hear me talk about politics. Another thing that I think we do wrong is we try to solve the race issue through a political view.

Yeah.

So it turns everything political.

Yeah.

It is very difficult to have a biblical conversation about race. Yeah.

It always turns political, which is by nature divisive.

Divisive.

We're not going to get to a conclusion turning political ever.

I don't know why people don't understand that.

No, it's.

And I keep seeing people losing friends. You know, people can see I got about a quarter million followers on Instagram. I got almost 2 million followers on Facebook. But my Twitter's way down here. You know why I can't do it? It's all political. That's where the political people go. And it is so toxic that I just hadn't fooled with it. And people that probably follow me on Twitter say, you know, he don't do a lot of activity. No, I don't. Because of just the political banter and the polarization and people losing friends and people that no longer speak and the black people that left white pastors and the white people that left black pastors, and everybody's gone back to their corner. And I'm going to tell you something. It hurts my heart to see what's happening. It hurts my heart to see that the church had a great opportunity to transcend it, and we blew it.

Especially in the pandemic.

We got in it.

Yeah, we did.

We didn't see. We didn't fly like an evil eagle above it.

When the enemy comes in like a flood, what does God do? Raise the standard.

He raises it.

And the standard he raises is supposed to be you and me.

Yeah.

We're never supposed to.

And I saw these people going back and forth at each other, and I would watch it sometime in the. And almost get depressed. Sadness would hit me because I'm like, what are you doing? We are not of this world. We are of another world. We have the answer to this world. But you're in there. Instead of cleaning the mud, you're slinging the mud. And now people don't even speak to each other anymore in the kingdom. And a house divided against itself cannot stand. It can't stand. And so I don't like to come at this to a political view. I've always thought my journey is so interesting. Do you feel the Holy Spirit? I do. I feel the Holy Spirit. I do. I feel like I can almost start crying because I have such a burden for this. I hope we get a lot of views, not for views sake, but I hope a lot of people will say, you know what? I heard some things I hadn't heard today. That'll help.

And this is a good place to start.

Good place to start these conversations. This is not church. This is a conversation with a white man and a black man on stage who are doing life together.

Yes, sir. Real life together.

Real life together. And so I have a campus, a physical campus. We have a virtual church, our church all over the world, that people join and become members of it. And it's their home church. And we do everything we can for that experience. But physical campuses. I have one in South Carolina, extremely conservative Republican voting base. And I have one in the Bay Area of California, actually San Jose, Silicon Valley, but they call it the Bay Area because the whole Bay Area, I've heard up to 14 million people, and we only have about 30 miles south of San Francisco. So it's a very affluent area. Yes, it is, but there's just no Christians, hardly. It's the most unchurched region in all of the nation.

In fact, I heard something about moving past post Christian to pre Christian.

I heard some of those talks. Yeah, I've heard some of those talks as well. It's. And the voting base is extremely liberal Democrat. I mean, to the ultra extreme. These are not even liberals. These are way out there. So, you know, you got kind of a MAGA Republican, polar opposite, which would be an extreme conservative view. And you got the liberal progressive woke Democrat, which is an extreme liberal view. And I pastor in both of them. Okay. Yeah, I have physical campuses. Thousands of people. Now, look, people say it can't be done. And I have to speak a message that brings everyone to their feet. And it's done every Sunday. Because it's not a political message.

Kingdom.

It's a Kingdom message.

Yeah.

And the Kingdom message.

Come on now.

Transcends and supersedes all this. And I see people turning their church into a political platform, and that makes me sad. Both black and white.

Yes, sir.

They both do it.

Absolutely.

They call it black. They do it black and white. And so you've marginalized yourself.

Yes.

To only touch a certain amount of people. And the Bible says it's not my will that any should perish. Make disciples of all nations. I can't do that if I've marginalized myself to a political corner.

Yes.

So.

And the Bible says, if that's going to cause my brother to stumble, stumble, don't do it.

I don't talk about politics.

Yeah.

And they try to bully me. They get mad at me. I can tell people are taking. They don't say who they're talking about, but I can tell who they're talking about because they try to bully me to say something. They try to bully me to get involved. But the way that I teach people is not on the heels of a political victory. Case in point. I was in a church service right after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Yes, sir.

Okay. I was in a church service. This building was filled with thousands of people. And the pastor got up, pastor whom I love, and screamed, the curse has been lifted. Place goes wild. Everybody knows how I feel about abortion. I don't want anybody to get an abortion. I don't want any mother to have to live with the thought that she got an abortion. In the 90s, we built an unwed pregnancy home that held 24 moms who had outweighed of wed pregnancies but didn't want to get a divorce. And we ran that thing for about 10 years and then turned it over to another ministry who expanded it. I mean, my testimony with where I feel about that is clear. However, our pastor, he said that in a room where he knew what kind.

Of response he was going to get. Yeah.

So they tried to bully me in.

A whole different room.

I'm out here in the San Francisco Bay. I have church members. They gotta understand church members that think that was the worst day for women in American history. Okay. So I can get up, grab a microphone, the curse has been lifted, and they'll leave. And what have I accomplished? Do you see what I'm talking about?

Yeah, absolutely.

If I want to teach about the value of life, I don't do it right after Roe v. Wade is there.

Yeah. And I don't use that as the platform.

Exactly.

What's the conversation?

I'm going to teach people how God values life. He's the author of life. He's the source of life. I'm going to teach people about life.

Yes, sir.

But I'm not going to do it on the heels of a political failure or the heels of a political victory. Because what you do is you don't embolden the Christian faith. You dilute it down to a political platform. And I'm just not going to let nobody bully me anymore.

And this is Kingdom. Listen, I, I, I'm thinking of Paul saying, stay away from debates that are fruitless. Fruitless that bring you to no edification.

We got church people now that go out hunting for them.

Absolutely.

Hunting for them.

Absolutely.

I had one, I had a pastor during the pandemic. You know, the racial tensions and Trump was still in office and the COVID Everything, man. And the riots and in California, the half the state was on fire, burning. It was a crazy time.

Yeah.

It was almost like Jesus, are we in the tribulation? It was some crazy stuff going on. And I had a pastor who I consider a friend. Okay. He's an African American brother and pretty well known. If I said his name, it's a recognizable name. He, he got on social media and absolutely blew me up.

Wow.

Because he said somebody in my church.

I didn't see this, liked something, a.

Comment and railed me. And he put in there, and this is somebody from your church. So I don't do anything publicly. You've seen how I operate. I'm not going to get out in the street and I'm just not going to do it. You can make a fool out of yourself, but I'm going to walk around my walls of Jericho and keep my mouth shut. Yeah. So I texted the guy privately. I said, I'm not around you much. I said, when I am around you, I said we're very cordial. And I said I would even consider you a friend. But I need you to explain to me how I'm supposed to control what.

Somebody likes on social media.

The opinions of people who, I have thousands. And now with social media, millions of people on every Sunday who follow me. How in the world can I control their likes and dislikes of a political person or their opinion?

Yeah.

And I mean, he tied it straight to me. I'm sorry, I'm just so caught up in them and say, here's where I want to get. It's so emotion driven. There's no reason and there's no logic.

Yeah.

And the Bible says, come, let us reason together.

Yeah, it does.

Don't let us come. And emotionally Blow each other out and never speak to each other again. And the way that God's leaders got.

So caught, oh, my goodness.

In the mudslinging and the emotion of it. It's not that I'm up on a pedestal and I'm calling it out. I was just so disappointed.

Me, too.

And whenever I would get on a podcast or get in some type of forum because everybody started doing verse, I would try to speak to that. It never even got no traction. No, we got to talk about that. They pull it right back down. And I'm like, you know what? Nobody's really listening to this. So I'm just going to pull back and let people fight it out and do what they're going to do, because I'm not going to fight politics with you.

If I was an enemy and the greatest power that my adversary believers, the kingdom had was the message they preached the word, they release, the thing that they speak, what would I do? Destabilize the message. If I couldn't do that, I'd distract you from the message and fill your mouth with another message. And so I think what the enemy has done successfully is filled the mouth of preachers with a different report. And what broke my heart, Pastor. And just so everybody knows, we didn't talk about these beforehand.

Not at all. In fact, I told you intentionally to prepare. I said, don't prepare me.

You said, it might be good if we disagree.

But the thing. And I told him, I said, if I say something, you don't agree, you got permission up there, say, well, Pastor, I don't really see it like this. But let me tell you what I.

See, and what we're trying to show you is not having prepared, looking for ways to create conversation around this from a whole perspective. The Kingdom creates its own paradigm, its own mentality. Us not even having talked about this. There is a kingdom approach to this stuff. And it's like. It's like the world has made disagreement an idol.

I want to get to the spiritual, but there's so much natural. Have you seen the thing on Netflix? The social dilemma?

Mm.

Mm. Okay.

Do I need to.

I would submit that everybody probably needs to see that. And these are executives that were interviewed from. Don't quote me on this. But it's Facebook, Google. It's these guys who've built the social media platform and the search machines and YouTube. It's executives who left these companies. I mean, highly paid executives, closed meeting. Executives who left out of fear because they say that the machine is built. And I believe them. When they said, they said it wasn't built with this intention. These are not a bunch of terrible people who wanted to destroy America. But it was. The algorithm is built that if you are of a political ideology of persuasion and you watch a YouTube, it's going to suggest.

Yeah, all the algorithms are.

It's going to keep us more in that line of thought. But the thing is, it suggests something that's a little stronger. That suggests something that's a little stronger. They say the algorithm is designed. You have watched this, you may like this. So you watch all your suggestions. It's made. It's not made to show you someone else's point of view. It's made to take you deeper in yours.

Yeah. Yes, sir.

And I believe probably as little as 10 years ago, I think most of America was in the center. I believe I hear that. I think George Bush was kind of a center. I think George the second was a center. I think Bill Clinton, I don't know, I think he governed in the center.

He did.

He might have been more left, but he governed in the center.

His business policies, his fiscal policy, I.

Think it started changing a little bit after that. I think most of America was in the center. They want a capitalist, really strong economy, but they want to be akin. That there are social injustices and we need to be akin to these social issues and we need to address them. I think they want. Not either or, they want both.

Yeah.

And I don't know why that seems impossible because if I was a candidate, I'd run right down the center because I believe a strong economy and running it with a military and all that is important. But I also believe we have got problems and we got people that need help and there are solutions.

Yes.

And we can do it.

Yes, sir.

But anyway, then we have the rise of social media. Okay. 2008, I think Facebook, YouTube, I'm not sure. And we see this.

Yep. Further and further and further apart, man.

There'S nobody in the middle because it ain't just Republican, it's hard core.

Yeah.

You know, gun toting pride out of my cold daddy. And then you get over here and I mean, it's woke up embracing everything. Progressivism, you know, and it's just. And the social dilemma. They asked one guy, they said, what's your greatest fear? Because he's got out of it now. He saw what was happening. He said, I don't want no part of this. And he said, what's your biggest fear? He said, biggest fear. And he stopped. He said, civil war. Because it's just meant to take you further and further down your line of thought. So in other words, now I don't come to try to understand you, I come to try to change you. And I've got all my arguments down pat instead of trying to hear what you've got to say.

That's good.

And so another thing that I'm just calling out stuff is we got all these racial roundtables and diversity roundtable and diversity discussions and diversity conference and we got all these people. You can't be all white and you can't be all black and have a diversity conference. No, everybody's sitting at the tables all of something. But this is a diversity conference. How a diversity round, I don't see.

It represented in any of the conversation.

I don't understand. And here's another thing I don't understand. And nobody sitting at the table's ever done it.

That's good.

How are you going to fix it?

Yeah.

If there's nobody sitting at the table that has never crossed the aisle, you can't fix it from your point of view.

Right.

The way you fix it is hearing the other point of view and coming to common ground and start building that as ground zero. Common ground. So I see all these things and it's either all this or all that. I'm not going to have any black people in my church. If I have a. I got 172 staff members. If I got 172 white staff members.

I'm not going to have diversity.

You're not going to feel welcome.

Yeah.

You're not even going to get to meet Ron. You're not going to feel welcome because there is nothing around me that speaks to you that I am for you. I have about 70% of my entire staff is minorities. Not 18%, not 25%. About 70%.

Absolutely.

As minorities. So when you come in my church, I don't have to win an argument. My life speaks it.

Yeah.

Look around you. I don't have to get in a debate about diversity and all these issues just look at. You shall know them by their fruit.

Yes. Yes.

And the fruit of our life is you are not judged by the color of your skin. If you're hired here, if you're hired here, you can do the job and you can do it well. I don't care if you polka dotted, I could care less. I don't care what your background is. I don't care how old you are. I don't care if you're, if you're male or female. I don't care. The thing is. And you know, as I look back, and I'm certainly not an MLK scholar, but I've listened to a good bit. I think that's what he wanted, wasn't it? He wanted equity.

Absolutely.

He wanted equality.

Absolutely.

He wanted, don't judge me by nothing else. Judge me by the content. In other words, put me on a level playing field with my character and don't let me be despised because of my color.

Yes.

So my thing is, it is in me to basically look around. You don't have to look like Ron Carpenter to be in Ron Carpenter's life. In fact, I would hate that. That would be a boring life to me. It's just some things that we do that I don't understand. If you're going to have a diversity roundtable, get people from the marketplace.

Absolutely.

Get people from the clergy.

Get.

Who have been able to successfully, over a long period of time, walk through these landmines and sustain multiculturalism.

Get somebody who isn't just talking about it.

I don't care how many followers they got. No, see, we want popular people.

That's right. Exactly.

Get somebody that nobody may know, but look what the heck they're doing.

Which there again, speaks to the agenda of the thing. Because if I just want the popular people, is it for views, is it for likes, is it clickbait? Or is it to actually change the thing? I think is a problem.

Change the narrative. Yeah, let me get to the spiritual side of it. And here it is. Here is the game changer to me, and this is it. We say we believe this stuff, but I don't know that we really believe it, because when it's tested, we all run back to our corner.

Faith without works is dead.

So I've heard some preachers get up and preach Kingdom and have everybody in the room running. Then when there is a riot, then when there's a shooting, then when there's a political. You know what? Everybody right back to their corner, absent. And I'm like, we don't believe this stuff. We just preach it. It's a gig. It's a gig. We don't believe this stuff. Here's my problem. I believe it in Christ. There is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, male nor female, bond nor free. Here again, mean that there's no male or female. It means God does not in any way recognize anyone approaching him by classification. Classifications are off the table. Period.

Period.

Gender off the table. In fact, when it comes to Christ, we're all sons. There's no. But I told him, I said, I don't care if you're a woman. I don't care if you're married in Christ. We are all sons because it's a. A position with Christ, not a gender.

Not a gender.

It's a sonship. It's a place that we have with Christ.

Yeah.

And so the Bible says in First Peter, in Chapter 2, that we are a chosen generation, we are a royal priesthood. We are a nation.

That's where I was going. Yeah.

We are a holy.

Yes.

Ethnicity. The word holy does not mean conduct and character perfection. It means other, other, separate, unique. We are a separate ethnos.

Yep. That's where I was going. That's good.

We are an ethnos. That's other. Now, here's where I'm going to risk ticking everybody off. When I was 30, I cared. Now I really just don't care. You're not black no more, and I'm not white no more. We have been born again of God. John, chapter one. Not of the will of flesh, not of the will of man, nor flesh or of blood, but of God. I've been born of God. I'm born into a new nation and I'm a citizen. When you're in church, you have members. When you're a kingdom, you have citizens.

Citizens.

Yeah, we're in church and we're in members and we're in race and we're in ethnicity. And there is a higher dimension that is calling us that at least in America, we're having a difficult time ascending to.

Yeah, we are.

I, Darius, Daniel, is one of my very best friends. I told Darius, we had a podcast during this thing, and I told Darius, I said, darius, I said, do you want to be seen as black? I said, because when you walk in the door. We've gone on vacations with Darius. We've gone to Mexico, we've gone to islands, we've been to New York. I say, when you walk in the door, I don't say, wow, there's my black friend Darius.

Yeah.

There'S my brother. Black has not entered my conversation. He said, I want to be both. He said, I do want to be seen as black. He said, you know, and then he gave me the reasons, which I forget. And I certainly don't want to put words in his mouth. He said, but I also want to be seen, like you said, as well. And I just, you know. And you can answer this in a converse way than I did, like when I'm standing on the pulpit and you're in there listening to me. When you're not preaching somewhere else, do you say, there's my white pastor?

No, no. But the only to the other side. There are some pastors I know who say, I don't see color now that I don't agree with.

Do we need to see it? Do we need to see it? And I'm submitting this to you because I'm asking you, do we need to see it? Because maybe that's a flaw in me Because I pay no attention to that.

Yeah.

I don't say, you know, I got Kevin over here, I just put him on our part. I don't say, that's my. That's my Indian engineer.

Yeah.

That is not. That never enters my mind. Yeah, right, right, right, right. You know, I just. I don't even like to say. I don't even like to say African American.

Yeah.

You're American.

Yeah.

Mexican American, Indian American, Filipino American, African American.

Here again, classification.

You're American.

Yeah.

But that's just me. That's how deeply passionate I am about this.

Yeah, me too.

That when I start in any way just to appease people, to start putting them back in a bracket, I feel hypocritical because deep down I really don't believe in it. You can speak to that and feel free to contradict me.

No, absolutely, I agree. I think the. See, and we talked about balance and the Bible says a just scale is his delight. That's a balance. That's a balance. That's not the same weight on both sides, but that is appropriate weight on both sides. That is the ability to recognize difference and say the right weight is on both sides. So we can come to a place of a just scale. And I had guys who would say, I don't see color. Well, the world's not monochromatic, so you see it. But you shouldn't be prejudice upon it and bias upon it. And you and I believe we shouldn't fully wrap our identity in blackness, in whiteness, in whatever that might be. It's in Christ. Because if he died and I died with him, then I'm dead and I'm born afresh and I'm born anew. I think I can recognize the color of Apostle Ron, but I don't identify you with the whiteness that America might associate with it. I identify you as my brother in Christ. For me, my pastor, my leader, but my brother in Christ. I identify the Christ in you. And I think if we over identify the individual with their natural exterior color, we run the risk of dishonoring the true nature of that person and honestly not unlocking the potential they have on the inside of them. So I don't think it's completely gone. We see green on trees, we see blue in skies, we see color. But it's the prejudices and the biases and the assumptions that are built into those.

So when I see. When I see Dwayne. Not Pastor Dwayne. When I see Dwayne, it's all right to see the fact that he has dark skin, but what I don't want to do is assigned to you.

Yeah.

All of the things that. That they say you can and can't do well because you're black.

Yeah.

The things you can ascend to, or the things you can't ascend to, where you can go, what you can and cannot be because of that, that is not assigned to you. Although I can see that your skin is black. Yes.

And in the reverse, the expectation when I see a brother, of when you.

See white, you can't look at me and say, he can't jump.

Yeah.

Or. Or, well.

Or he won't like me. He won't give the opportunity. I won't be able to succeed if I go to his church. All of these presuppositions we attach to it, we got to die to.

We have to die to it, or we will never be the kingdom. We will never be the kingdom. We'll be a church, but we will never be kingdom.

And even there again, like member. So we attach everything to this American view of church. Member is the member of a body. And there again, I am a member of a spiritual body, an ascended Christ. I am a physical piece. I'm closer to my body than to anybody else. So if I've got black in the body of Christ, Hispanic in the body of Christ, Indian in the body of Christ, white in the body of Christ, I am supposed to be closer to that brother because I'm a member of the body, not a member of a church.

Right.

An American perspective of church. So it's. It's kingdom. It's kingdom.

Well, he said, we are another ethnos.

Another ethnos.

So now I've been born into another ethnicity. So as I see it, I'm no longer represented by my American whiteness.

There we go. Yeah.

So I now have to take on a new mindset, renewing my mind, and live out a new culture, which is the culture of kingdom, and embrace its values. Okay. That's the way I see it. Now I go back to when I preach This I go back to Abraham. Abraham, I'm going to make you great. I'm going to make your name great. I'm going to make you a great nation.

Here again, this ethnos, I'm going to take you from what.

Okay. Yeah, we read that part, and that's the covenant God made with Abraham and his seeds and his blessings fall on us. It transcends through Christ all the way and it follows us. But keep reading. Get out of thy country.

Yep. Kindred.

Get out of thy family. Yep. And get out of thy father's house. I can't make you a nation until you. That word, country, ethnicity, come out of what you embrace and the limitations that have been ascribed to you because you are no longer limited by that. Come out of the family.

That's the key.

That family really today would transcend into social classification. We want people to be upper class, middle class, middle. Upper class, poverty class. We put you. Boom. We got to put you somewhere. And he said, come out.

Come out of it.

Come out of it. And then he said the hardest one. Come out from thy family, then come out from thy father's house. The generational curses and limitations of your bloodline. So he said, I'm going to make you a new ethnos, Abraham. But you cannot ascribe to the old ethnos. You can't ascribe to classifications they put you in. And you can't operate by the curses of your family bloodline. You're going to have to come out, come out, come out. And then I'm going to do something great.

Yeah.

I'm going to tell you I haven't preached that message in many churches because I'd probably clean it out.

Yeah.

If I tried to preach. But that is exactly what he's saying. Undoubtedly that's what he's saying. And then he says, I'll do something great. Every preacher I know wants God to do something great in his church and in the church. But we won't come out.

We won't call anybody out of it. That doesn't mean you lose the music you like, you lose the flavor of food you like. It means you're not identifying with all of these natural limitations. You loose yourself of all these bondages and you come when the fighting starts.

I wish the kingdom voice was rising up. Come up here. Come up. Get up.

Courage.

Get up. It takes maturity.

Takes maturity.

And it takes not being emotionally charged and responsive.

Yeah.

Because people will push your buttons. And like I said, when emotion enters logic, logic is out the room.

Yeah.

You Know, reason just goes out when people are just tore up about whatever's.

Going on because all you want to do is defend your position.

You want to defend your turf.

Yeah.

And so we leave the kingdom sphere and move right, right into the natural. What I think is a natural carnal place to be and operate out of. And then we start taking target practices, each other.

I agree.

This is the spiritual and the natural. Just some things in the natural that I think are just fallacies and maybe somewhat hypocritical. And then going to the Bible and understanding. Do we really believe I'm a new ethnos or not? Do we really believe? Is this just a preaching thing? Is this a good topic for books or. You know what? I don't belong to that. And you're not going to pull me down. I'm not going to descend into that.

Yeah, I think what Jesus said and this takes an aggressive approach. This is not easy. What I'm about to say.

Nothing. This stuff's easy.

Yeah, this is tough. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. So there is this aggressive confrontation. The I is the perception. There is this aggressive confrontation of whatever it is that has me facilitating right now. We're talking about a racist agenda, a non diverse agenda, whatever that might be, pluck it. When you are in the Kingdom, there is an aggressive recognition of what is keeping me limited down to this carnal nature and cutting the thing off.

So good.

It is not easy, but it is necessary.

And what another thing I don't think we realize is there's a lot of people that are getting rich by keeping this thing on fire.

Yeah, that's true.

My goodness, there's a lot of people that benefit when me and you fight. And so to let it go away and everybody take the responsibility with their faith and with their works to move their life forward. Yeah, that's not in their best interest. Because news don't have nothing to report. Talkers don't have nothing to talk about. Podcasters don't have nothing to podcast. And so there are people that benefit by this being on the front line. And I just want to see a church. God forbid we ever go into any of those tense times again where it was like that. I mean, it's tense period. But those were some rough, rough times. But man, if we ever are tested like that again, I would love to see this eagle church spread its wings and fly above it.

Yes, sir.

Because I can't change it if I am. It I have to be outside of it to affect it. And there are people that are wanting to change it, that are a part of it, and you're going to have to get outside of it to make a change in it. Anyway, this has been amazing. I felt the spirit of God in this. I felt the release of God to talk about it. And I need you guys to subscribe if you hadn't subscribed, because the more you like, the more you subscribe. I got to be honest with you. It gets on more and more people's computers and on their phones. And so I need your guys help. And you can text some people and say, hey, we went there. I hope that you feel like the conversation was fair and I hope you felt like it was thoughtful. But most of the thing, I hope that you understand that my approach to solving this problem is biblical in nature.

Yes, sir.

I don't want to get sucked into whiteness. I want to be kingdom.

Yes.

I don't want to be marginalized politically. I want to be Kingdom. And whenever I go in one of those smaller circles, that lesser level of authority, I'm diminished as a kingdom citizen.

Absolutely.

And I don't want to roll like that. So don't try to bully me. Don't try to get me in a corner, because you're not going to do it. I'm not going to speak. I'm going to stand in the midst of it and say, there's a higher way and it's the kingdom way.

Yes, sir.

So I love you guys. I thank Pastor Duane for coming on impromptu. He's in the middle of moving. He's in the middle of transition. And I called him up literally about two hours before this thing and said, I want to take on one of the most controversial topics. And then he's like, ooh. And I said, and I don't want you to prepare, you know, so I know that can be nerve wracking, but you're my brother. I appreciate you so much.

Thank you, sir.

And I hope that this has helped you. Some people looking forward to it. Next time, Hope will be back with me. So if you say, man, I want something a little less tense and I want to laugh a little more. Well, she's coming back next week. All right. God bless you guys. We love you running Hope. Real raw and relevant.