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Get that out of here. And we are here today in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abbadan Shah. Dr. Shah, welcome to the show. It's good to be back. We're well enough into December where we can start being in Christmas mode.
Oh, I'm happy. My spirit has changed. Now that December's here, I feel like now it's appropriate to start with the Christmas. You got your Christmas mug. And your heart grew three sizes that day.
My heart has grown three sizes. Dr. Shah, when do you think is the most appropriate time to like truly get into Christmas mode? Well, in our home, Nicole is already playing Christmas music sometime in October. So I don't know what to say.
Well, we're fully embracing. We need to get a little Christmas tree for the studio. Put it right in the middle. Like a little Charlie Brown tree.
You put a single ornament on it and it falls over. Christmas belongs at least in October. I started a little earlier than that, but I know that's not a popular opinion. So do you just take Christmas breaks? You take a Christmas break for Halloween and then a Christmas break for Thanksgiving? Yeah. That's odd to me.
That's really odd to me. Anyway, didn't we do a whole series about how his birthday was actually on the 25th? I feel like you need to honor his birthday. Who's birthday? Jesus's birthday. I do honor his birthday.
I just celebrate all the days leading up to it too. Wouldn't it be odd though, if I was like, Dr. Shah, we want to celebrate your birthday starting in, I don't know, August. Wouldn't you be like, that's odd.
That's odd behavior. Depends on how, how famous of a person I am. Yeah, I'll take it.
Maybe it would be a good thing. I don't know. All right, go for it. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Romans chapter 12, verse five.
So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. It goes along great with I think what we're going to talk about today. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
The book of Romans is really quiet. I remember when I first started coming, I think before that, when I first started coming, you were doing a series in the book of Nehemiah. That's right. And I think right before that you had done like an extensive series in the book of Romans. Do you remember how long that went for? I started the series, I went through the first eight chapters and then I took a break and then I went back and this time a lot more people had come into our church. This is going back to 2000 and let's see for a moment, 2000.
I want to say 12. Yes, 2012. And so I started the series somewhere there and went about a year and I said, by the time you came while I was still doing that first series. And then I redid the series in the fall of 2013.
That's right. Started again. And then this time I went full force in depth and some of the messages were great, but most of them were really, even though I was on the same passage, I came across it with a different bend or I guess a fuller understanding I should say. I'm trying to get my words right, but it's not like I changed my mind on Romans. It was more of a fuller understanding. It was a more complete picture.
Yeah, because I had already done the series. I felt like I had a better grasp on Paul's intent in Romans. So I came back, but this time I was able to explain better and I understood better the new man, the new Adam and how that plays into our Christian lives. How does that play into our sin life?
I mean, it was very helpful. And then I continued past Romans 9, 10, 11, 12. One of the things I think you do very well is you have a perfect blend of the scholarship and the pastoral focus. So I think of a verse like this and I think about our culture here at Clearview Church, which is that we are one body in Christ, but individually we're sort of members of one another. We need one another.
And I think people in our church have that and embody that because of the work you've done. And you've said this many, many times, the closer we are, the harder it is to hate one another. You know what I mean? It's hard to hate when you're up close.
Hard to hate when you're up close. Yeah. That's a great, great point. Yeah. I actually, in Romans chapter 16, Paul begins to greet the saints in Roman, in Rome, and I preached the entire message on each of those characters. It's worth looking into as if somebody can find that on my blog site.
It's pretty cool. Romans chapter 16. And then I went through one at a time, all the various characters in Paul's life who were connected to the church in Rome.
And that was the series you did? Well, that was the final message in Romans. Oh, here. And it was on all those people.
All those people in Paul's life. Let me see if I can find it real quick. Yeah, if I can find it. I think it's called morphs of an encouraging church. That's what it was.
If you truly remember that sermon from like over. Oh, look. Here it is.
Here it is. There are seven different personalities. There's Phoebe, who's a servant. Then there is Aquila and Priscilla, risk takers.
Appenitus, who's a sample. Then there is Mary, who labored much for us. Mary, Andronikus, and Junia, they are faithful partners in Paul's ministry. And then Amplius, Arbanus, Stachys, Appelus, they are valuable to Paul. And then families of Aristobulus, Herodion, Narcissus, who are influential.
And then finally, they'll meet the rest of the saints. And this is like, greet Tryphina, Tryphosa, greet the beloved Persis, who labored much in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, his mother. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobus, Hermes, and the brethren who are with them. Greet Phalologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympus, and all the saints.
I mean, it's pretty amazing. He's remembering all these people. All these people who have contributed to his ministry and have helped him out.
Because, you know, Paul had a lot of people in his ministry that helped him. He had a lot of Quislings, too. He had a lot of people who, like, collaborated with the enemy. I don't know what a Quisling is. It's someone who collaborates with the enemy. I saw it on my screen.
I was like, how am I supposed to put Quisling in the deck? It's a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country. I see here, it's like, David put this up here. Some guy, was it Nazi Germany? A collaborator? Former Minister of Defense of Norway.
Why wouldn't you just be a Benedict Arnold? Why you gotta do VidCon Quisling? Whatever. Get us into the break, man. Get us into the break. I heard that.
I was like, what is a Quisling? There was no way. I was thinking about how to get it in the show, but I was like, there's just no way.
There are some of them, you see them, and you're like, there's no way I can go for broke on this one. We've got a great show planned for you guys today. Don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back with more Clearview Today. Hey, Clearview Today listeners. Every day we invite you to join us in these conversations and explore the never-ending truth of God's word. And if you've been following the show for a while, if you feel like it's blessed you, and you believe in the mission we're on, we invite you to partner with us through your financial support.
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We appreciate every single one of you. Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. That's right. We are here... Why am I doing that? We've already... Putting Dr. Shaw in the intro has messed me up.
I'll get back to my old script. We do have a great show for you guys today. And Dr. Shaw, I wanted to kind of preface this by saying this is something that we have not really touched on directly in the show before, but you found a video and you sent it to us and you said, I think this could be a really good topic. And I think you're right. I think this is something that needs to be talked about.
We have not talked about it up until this point. And maybe you could kind of give us some insight on this video and then we can maybe watch it and respond to it together. So I came across this video. Somebody sent it to me. I was not quite sure who now, but I guess this video came out maybe five, six months ago. Probably. I think it's been circulating for a little while.
Okay. I'm not familiar with that show or that person or what exactly is that. I know a couple of the names that are mentioned there. Phil Vischer, the old VeggieTales guy, recast himself, which is whatever. And then Sky Jatani is over there. And then Charlie Datez, I don't know who that is, but apparently he's the one who's speaking. Yeah.
I think that's, I think that's correct. And so anyways, maybe we can play it. Let's watch it.
Let's watch it. Is the height of theological malpractice that all the books we studied in seminary were written by white men. That most of our professors were white men and most of the way we're trained to preach done by white men. I would say you got a disease and we got to get that out of your blood.
And one way to get it out of your blood is what I've been asking you to do. You've had a rough year is to come go to church with us. Here's what I mean by that. A lot of our multiracial churches are black people moving into white spaces. We can't get y'all to move into our spaces. We can't get you to come sit under black pastoral leadership. Even if you don't come start watching on YouTube, start listening to non white preachers.
So I listen to female preachers break out of that box because your kids are going to inherit a much different church than the one you grew up in. So well, I guess before we launch into refuting that, maybe, maybe you can answer this Dr. Shaw. Is there, and I'm asking genuinely, not like as a guy, as a setup to a gotcha, is there any merit to, to what he said there?
No short answer is no, but I want to respond to that because it has, it has problems, but not where people think the problems are. It's not just like, Hey, how, how dare you say that? That's so racist.
I mean, that's immediately where people go. Right. Right. And that may be true, but what I'm saying here, and I know we would know the word wokeness.
That's, that's really wokeness demonstrated, but it's much more than that. Right. And, and we need to try to understand what's happening there and what is a remedy for that. I hear what the gentleman is saying. I agree with what he is saying, but I think his reasoning is all wrong. Right.
And it is faulty in a big way other than the fact that it's woke. I get it, but let's, let's go beyond the labels and let's talk about what's really happening. Right.
Yeah. He's talking here in terms of like, at least the sense that I got from the video is you are inherently racist. You are inherently biased because you have only grown up in and been taught and trained by white men. That is, that is your bent that has colored your opinion.
That is, that is warp your view and you can't break out of that unless you do away with that, not do with the training, but just, I guess be trained by someone else, but go, go to a different source. Well, yeah, because it's also tough to talk about. It's tough to combat that because be, if you are a white man and I feel like there's, there's a lot of white men who are sort of in this field, not just podcasting, but also just ministry and not, not only, but there are a lot, but it's almost like any time you talk or refute it, you're almost proving their point. Right.
So it's very tough. We're, we're in a privileged position in that if you're not listening, if you're not watching the show, Dr. Shaw, you're a non white man, but it's, it's beneficial because now at least we have a platform to get that refutation out without playing into the whole thing, without playing into their own rhetoric. Right. So I hear what he's saying, and that can be unnerving to people that look, black people are okay with sitting under white preachers, but white people are not okay with sitting under black preachers.
Okay. That's what he is saying. Yes, it is wokeness, but let's examine what he is truly saying, what is being said and is that really true? And is it true for the reasons that he is saying it's true?
We got, you got a disease, we got to get it out of you. What he's saying is you're full of racism. That's why you wouldn't, you will not submit yourself under a black leadership.
That's what he's saying. You have a, your disease is racism. So would he, would he say that there's a difference between what he's envisioning, which is white people submitting themselves under black pastoral leadership and what we have here at Clearview, which is submitting ourselves under just non white pastoral leadership?
No, I don't think it's had anything to do with that. What is, what it has to do with is, is the understanding of the word of God. Okay. Understanding and teaching and preaching the word of God. I, I, when I get up to preach, I'm not trying to be an Indian man who's trying to do the best, as good as anybody else. I'm trying to preach the Bible. When I take the pulpit, it is not so that I can get white people to listen to me or black or Indian, whoever. I'm getting up to preach because God has called me to be a pastor. God has called me when I, when I go to ETS or, or any theological society and I speak, it's not so I can just say, Hey, look, I'm an Indian man, but look what I'm getting to do. I look how good I am compared to you.
I'm doing that because I am gifted by God to serve the academy just as well as I serve the church. And so I get up there and I speak and I teach or I, uh, you know, lay out my research in a way that I can listen to people and say, okay, what do you think? Now give me some feedback. What do you think?
And don't give me a feedback because I'm Indian or be condescending to me and say, Oh, being an Indian, you did pretty good, but give me a feedback as if I'm just anybody. And they do. So why is it that white people will not go listen to black preachers or still be under black pastors and white and black people are willing to do that? As I mentioned, again, it's not really at the heart of it. Racism is really a sad thing, but it's a true thing.
And the sad thing is this. There are black preachers who are tremendously gifted. They're phenomenal. In fact, you know, I talk about Dr. Sandy Ray. You heard me talk about Gardner Taylor. Dr. Gardner Taylor came and taught at Shaw university. Uh, you heard me talk about Evie Hill, phenomenal preachers, their depth, their education, their scholarship, their pastoral abilities, their wisdom, their walk with God is just out of this world. So much so that I have, I spent hours watching their, their preaching and listening to their sermons hours and hours. I have, I mean, uh, you know, we talked about Dr. Sandy Ray, you know, I called up, um, his church, even though he's been gone for decades and I called up and I said, Hey, look, I need Dr. Sandy Ray's messages. Who are you again? I said, well, I'm a pastor down in North Carolina.
This is back in the, I want to say 2010, somewhere there or maybe even earlier. I was, I would really like to have Dr. Sandy Ray's messages and said, we got, we got a few, we can send it to you. And so we build a relationship and they send it out, try to send them money.
There's like, no, no, that's okay. You can, it's, it's a, it's a black church. And I listened and I studied his works. I've read, um, writings that people have written on Dr. Sandy Ray's preaching as I examined that, studied that. Same with Dr. Gardner Taylor.
Tremendous. Unfortunately, either because of lack of education or lack of opportunities, many black pastors never got the chance to listen and study and grow in their, in their theological acumen or even their preaching ability. And so there's a lack of depth.
Their lack of depth, their lack of understanding. And, but I do have other pastor friends. I mean, I have pastor friends in the area who are phenomenal.
If, if there was, if I was not pastoring, I would gladly sit under their preaching and spend time with, because they're great. They know the Bible. They know how to encourage people. They know how to teach the word of God. I mean, so it's not just those three men.
Right. But, but with those three men though, with Sandy Ray, with, with Dr. Gardner Taylor and Evie Hill, you know, is it their blackness that makes them great preachers? And what I mean by that is, is not their skin color, but is it their, cause of course they will bring culturally in their style of preaching. They do bring their culture, their experiences in their preaching. But that style of preaching, at least maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say that you would value their theological depth more than that style of preaching. I do, but I also appreciate their, their background.
I do. The background adds a certain flavor, a certain, I don't know how to say it, but it's, it has that slant to it that other people don't have. And so I do appreciate their background as well. Like for example, Dr. Sandy Ray grew up as, as a poor sharecropper's kid in Texas, then pastored churches in Georgia, during, you know, prior to the civil war, civil civil war, civil rights era. And, you know, so you can imagine the struggles he faced. And, and to, to become a pastor of an established church in New York city, I'm in a big church doing amazing things. I love that experience. And I try to, in a sense, imitate that in how I led Clearview. It helped me because I had experiences too, very different kind, but how do I bring that the way Dr. Sandy Ray brought that to that church in New York?
How can I bring that to this church in Henderson? Because I used that experience. So it's, so I'm not saying just that I was only interested in the theology and I was only, no, that, that, that would be a lie. I do, did appreciate their background. I understand. Yeah, I did appreciate it.
But there was a depth to them. And unfortunately, many times in black preaching, it is lacking, not because they're not trying to, or not because they are mentally not able. It's just opportunity was not there. Opportunity was not given. Do you think there's a solution there? What Charlie dates is proposing that, okay, these, these black preachers weren't given the opportunity.
So you as the white church go or give them? No, no, he's not, he's not even approaching it from that angle. He's not approaching from that angle. He's approaching it from the angle, which is very passive aggressive. He's not approaching from the angle like, Hey, look, black preachers, just because they haven't given me the opportunity. Y'all give him them the opportunity and listen to them.
And that will boost their confidence and equalize the playing field. Now he is like, I was like, you have a disease. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Cause at the same time, I know this, this sounds really, really consumers, but at the same time, if I'm at a church, if I'm investing in a church, I have to be getting spiritual, spiritually speaking.
I need to be getting something out. Right. Also, I think that speaks to, I mean, people who have visited here at Clearview, like we've said on the show before, Dr. Shah, you are not white.
Uh, people who have gone here and have been looking for that depth in preaching, they have not looked other places because they found it in your preaching. Right. Right.
Yeah. But I see, I came from a different experience. I grew up in a home where my dad was a pastor. He was an educator. He was a seminary. Uh, he, even before he became a Christian, he was, uh, well educated. Um, and then he was seminary trained. So, so I grew up in that environment. Yeah. And so when I came here, of course I was headed to med school or engineering school.
Those are two different options that were sitting in front of me. And then God called me in the ministry. So then I approach ministry with the same determination and the same intensity that I would have done towards medicine or towards engineering.
Uh, you know, I went towards, um, uh, my, my seminary work and I did my PhD and it shows in my preaching and all that. There's another issue that is worth considering and that is towards black churches. Um, again, if you go to someplace like Philadelphia or Atlanta, some of the, some of the black churches you will walk in there, they're quite amazing. I mean, you will be blown away. Um, they are very culturally aware.
They are doing amazing things. So when I say these things, don't, don't walk away thinking, I'm making this statement about every single black church in America. That's not true. Uh, some churches you'll walk in and I don't care what white church you came from.
You'll feel out of place cause you'll feel like, wow, these people is just way ahead of me. That's also there. True.
Um, but sometimes because, uh, the African American person in America has as a history, that history comes through in worship, that sense of whether it's oppression or whether it's a sense of, uh, feel it overcoming and it comes to which, which is something that a white person cannot really identify with. That's true. That's true.
True. So how can, if you'd haven't been oppressed, how can you walk into a, a, a worship service and go, I am oppressed too. I feel it exactly what you're saying. You don't back in the day is, it's a good point because back in the day, Steve Harvey had a bit, he had like a joke about, you know, I'm all for bringing black people and white people together, but when it comes to church, I think that's where we need to draw the line. It was, it was meant as humor, but I do see what you're saying because it's there.
They are different struggles and the different, um, it's hard to relate. And like I said, I think all of us have visited black churches. I attended a black church in college because that was the only friendly church that I had to go to reach out chapel Baptist church in Georgia. I don't think it's there anymore, but the pastor was a young black person.
And my brother told me, he said, like, you got to go here. This pastor, he is phenomenal. He is very friendly towards a seminary. I mean college students and some of the African students from Africa were going there cause they didn't feel welcome in other churches.
And so I went there and it was great. I attended a black church in south in, in Northeast Georgia for months. And unfortunately the pastor died. He died in a, in a horrible car wreck.
He came to a stop sign, did not stop all the way, or maybe he stopped, but then he was pulling out and somebody came and hit him and killed him instantly. It was horrible. And then that church sort of went downhill, but it was great. I attended that church. Um, it was different, very different than what I grew up with.
Um, and, um, you know, it was, it was, the pastor was deep, but again, I didn't get to hear him long because he died. Um, the music was very different, very spontaneous. Um, I mean, everybody was wearing hats.
The ladies were wearing hats. I mean, this is, this is you going back to us. It was a country church where they had a young pastor who was, who had a heart for young people. Did you ever see that movie, the blues brothers? Yeah. Was it like James Brown's church? Like that scene where they were like fanning themselves.
Yeah. They had fans, they had fans everywhere. It was, it was, that's just, and after church, guess what? It was food. It was the best food. And so they would, we would make our way down to the fellowship hall and I would sit there and eat. And it was great food. That's awesome. And they were very loving, very sweet. And so, so yeah. So if anybody here is thinking it's like, I'm being prejudiced, just the opposite. That was the friendliest, nicest church that I attended.
That was my first church when I came to America other than the college chapel. Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. Well, we're, we're kind of short on time, but Dr. Shell, what's at stake here. If we, if we ignore this, if we allow this sort of, this sort of talk, this, this, uh, this whiteness is a disease.
If we allow this to continue just in maybe the 60 seconds we have left. Yeah. Because we're dancing around the issue and we are afraid to say anything back. Um, what that gentleman is saying, what was his name again? Charlie dates, Charlie dates, what he's saying. Uh, okay. They're not coming.
Okay. But what is the real reason? Is it because of racism or is it because they're not having their needs met or because they're, they're coming in, but experiencing a different culture couldn't be. So if we are willing to go deep in our preaching, our teaching, our pastoral skills, and also, uh, we are willing to set aside our culture or our past or whatever else we have shed all that. So when I get up to preach, I'm not trying to bring in my Indian culture. I'm not trying to say, Hey, this is where I, this is how I experienced God guys. This is how you should be.
I don't do that. I'm like, this is Henderson, North Carolina. This is what people like to sing. We love singing contemporary music. Let's sing that. I'm not saying let's sing the songs I grew up singing.
No. So, so a lot of things we have to give and take. So what he said is absolutely wrong and has to be confronted. But confronting that is sort of, it's taboo right now.
It's tricky because immediately it's like, Oh, are you saying that? Are you saying that all black peaches don't know their stuff or do you think that then you have to go, no, watch the whole show. That's right.
Yes. Watch the whole show. There you go. Make sure you guys join us next week. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic right here on the Clear View Today Show. Thanks again to Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water for sponsoring today's episode. And don't forget, you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes. If you want to re-listen to any of the episodes. Also, you can always support us financially at ClearViewTodayShow.com. We'll see you next time.
