David Anderson | Comprehension Begins with Conversation

Anderson:

There are a lot of scientists who are people of faith. And so what we found out is the divide may be more about communication and connection and conversation than anything else. It’s something I’ve often said for years is comprehension begins with conversation. And so once those conversations between scientists and people of faith happened, it was amazing, the magic.

Yes, I’m Dr. Anderson, and I am the pastor of Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, Maryland. I’m also the founder and CEO of Gracism Global, a diversity consulting firm, as well as a radio talk show host in the nation’s capitol every day during the afternoon drive.

Stump:

Welcome to Language of God. I’m your host, Jim Stump. 

As we air this episode it’s the beginning of Black History Month. And for the last few years during February we’ve chosen to air some episodes that explore aspects of race that align with our mission of exploring God’s Word and God’s world. We’ve talked at some length about the genetics of race and what it tells us about who we are as humans and the theological implications of how we should treat each other. And we’ve talked about what biblical interpretation might look like when you come at it from different cultural perspectives. These conversations have a tendency to be a bit uncomfortable for those of us in the majority ethnicity, but BioLogos has a long track record of entering into uncomfortable conversations. And we think these conversations are important, so we’re going to keep doing them.

Today’s conversation is with Dr. Anderson, who is a long time friend of BioLogos and author of the book Gracism: The Art of the Inclusion. He’s an African American pastor and the founder of Bridgeway Community Church in the Baltimore area; this is an intentionally multi-cultural church and from his description of it in our interview, it seems to be an amazing representation of the diversity of the kingdom of God. But Dr. Anderson has his own stories about experiences in which he was not made to feel a part of the kingdom. He tells us about some of those, and with a little prodding from me goes deeper into how that feels. On the previous episode of this podcast we talked to Monicá Guzmán about having conversations with people, and one of the things she said was: “What happens in the world matters, but our interpretation of what happens in the world matters more. That doesn’t mean we should pay any less attention to facts. It means we should pay more attention to perspectives”. I hope we might all pay more attention to the perspective Dr. Anderson gives us here. We do bring the conversation back around to science, talking about the really great online event Dr. Anderson hosted of pastors praying for scientists, and we imagine how science might have a role to play in some bridge building work. Throughout our conversation, Dr. Anderson is engaging and gracious.

Let’s get to the conversation. 

Stump:

Dr. Anderson, welcome to the podcast. We really appreciate being able to talk to you today.

Anderson:

Thank you, Jim. I’m so good to be with you today.

Stump:

Well, you’ve had several points of contact with BioLogos in the past few years, including public conversation with our president, Deb Haarsma and our founder Francis Collins, that was recorded back during the pandemic and is still available on our podcast, back on episode 74. And there’ve been several other events, other times behind the scenes even that you’ve offered advice and counsel. So you’re no stranger to us. But for those in our audience who don’t know you, let’s spend a little time hearing some of your personal story if we could. You’re a pastor of a large church in Maryland and a talk show host and a CEO of a company. Is that what you always thought you would be when you were growing up? How did that come to be?

Anderson:

Yeah, probably not right. I think maybe I thought I was gonna be a football player or something like that. I was a pretty big kid. Of course, I played football in high school and got clipped, broke my knee, and at five surgeries later that dream was gone.

Stump:

[Laugh] Where’d you grow up? What was your family like?

Anderson:

Well, I grew up in the DC area. My dad was a pastor. And we come from a sort of Christian, a background where my father was a pastor. His brothers were pastors. And so my brother and my sisters decided we didn’t want to be pastors or married the pastors [Jim laughs]. So, but of course, we ended up all by the time we were somewhere between 18 and 20 felt the call to either get saved or get into ministry. And that’s what happened to me. I gave my life to the Lord seriously when I was 18. And by the time I was 20, I was licensed to preach. And then off to the races. I went to Bible college, military as a chaplain’s assistant, an internship at a church, a couple of churches, and then started my church here when I was 25 years old in Maryland.

Stump:

Wow. And you’ve been there ever since?

Anderson:

Believe it or not, ever since. We’re just celebrating 31 years of ministry. Can you believe that?

Stump:

Wow. Tell us a little bit about your church, and particularly the vision that you had to begin a church like this and how that’s worked out.

Anderson:

You know, once I came to know the Lord, I wanted to reach as many people as possible. And I felt like that’s what the mantle God put on me to reach as many people as possible with the gospel message for Christ. And so I thought one of the best ways to do that would be to be a pastor as well as maybe join the military to kind of help be a financial big brother through college, but also to reach a group of people that maybe I would not have the ability to reach. But the vision was that I’d have a multicultural church. And the church I came from, which I love my heritage, was not multicultural, but my friends were. So then if I had a friend from the football team of the neighborhood that did come to know Christ, I really didn’t have any place to invite them.

So I’d invite Billy Brogan to my black church in DC and after three hours and multiple choir tunes and offerings [Jim chuckles], he was like, well, that was a nice cultural experience, but, you know, it wasn’t like, I can connect with this. And then when he would take me to his church the same, it was a nice cultural experience, but it was over in an hour, and it was more like a class, and it was a lot of information, not a lot of inspiration. So I felt like, you know, after you eat a nice French meal it’s expensive and it’s very, very nice, but you’re still hungry and looking for a Big Mac later, [laughter]. So that was kinda like my experience. And so I was like, there’s gotta be a place where black people, white people, Asians, Hispanics, and others could actually be in community together.

And that was the vision. I went off to Moody Bible Institute with that vision, and they said, “we applaud you. Well done. Great. I’m not sure it’s gonna happen based on our research, but good luck.” And then I went on staff at Willow Creek Community Church, which is a big church in the suburbs, Caucasian church in the suburbs. Same thing. “We applaud you. That’s great. Good luck”. No really big models of that. And I worked in the inner city of Cabrini Green or Chicago, a project at the time. And same thing, it was great. It was black, it was poor, but not multicultural. So we didn’t have the models at the time. But I still knew what God had put in my heart. And so fast forward, we launched in Maryland with you know, no financial backing, but a lot of well wishes.

And we built relationships with people. We led people to the Lord but we had no money. So I got into the marketplace, got into sales, and while selling Craftmatic adjustable beds, calling people to convince them that they had a back problem in the middle of their dinner, and that they’d want to buy a bed from us. In the midst of that I was able to rise in sales to the degree that I had a platform. And they would say, would you talk to the wholesale team and tell ’em how you do it? And so, given that success and leadership platform, I was able to talk about Christ, and I was able to lead to the Lord, my boss, my boss’s boss, who was the owner of the company and many salespeople around me. And as a result, they, along with a handful of others, became the shoulders upon which we built Bridgeway Community Church.

Stump:

Wow. So what does the ethnic makeup of your church look like today?

Anderson:

So about 60% are people of color, African American, Black, African. About 11 different African countries, seven different European countries. 10 different Asian countries. We have about 60 to 70 different countries represented. My staff is probably 40% white maybe, maybe more than that, maybe about 60% white, 40% other. My clergy team is well mixed with black, white, Asian, Hispanic. My leadership team, Indian, white, Nigerian. My elder board, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Puerto Rican-Asians Asians from you know, all kinds of, I’m sorry, Puerto Rican Hispanics, Latino as well as other latino groups. And in so far as Asians, like this morning in an elders meeting, Asian female who’s an Indonesian, and our elders council women, a Korean male, Hispanic male, black male, white male, white female. Like you look around and that is what the makeup of Bridgeway is. And believe it or not, we were hosting an ordination council for a candidate who’s a 27 year old white male who grew up in this church, was born in this church, went off the Bible College seminary in the ministry, and came back here. And now we’re ordaining him.

Stump:

Well, that’s a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God, right. 

Anderson

Amen to that. 

Stump:

Every tongue and tribe and nation coming together.

Anderson:

Under the same roof, which is really pretty cool.

Stump:

Yeah.

Anderson:

We don’t get to see that often, you know.

Stump:

Well, before we leave this background section, because we are a podcast about faith and science, I’m obligated to ask you something about science here. Did you have any interest in science as a kid growing up, or any connections that made you either inclined toward it or disinclined toward it?

Anderson:

I did not have scientific interest when I was younger. I was just happy to make it out of science and get a grade, just to be honest with you. It was more of the humanities and socializing. And if you could get a degree in being a socialite [Jim laughs] I believe I would’ve gotten a doctorate at age 18. What’s interesting though is as I rose in leadership in the DC area, I began to meet people who were scientists and meet people in my ministry who were scientists. And so as a result, I became interested in the kind of sciences that they were engaged in. And then as I got my advanced degrees, realizing that social science is a part of that, I got my, my doctorate of philosophy in the sociological integration of Religion and Society, which was a English Oxford model mixed with an American Center for Religion and Society. And so that began to move me toward a sort of a scientific and qualitative approach to sociology and religion. But as I sort of rose in my stature people from the scientific community began to reach out to me. Part of that was because of my influence. Another part of it was because of my radio voice or show. So I’d become more known. And so the first scientific organization that asked me to be on their board, and it was secular, was known as AAAS.

Stump:

Right. Triple A S

Anderson:

You know them, you know them, right?  So I think it’s the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And they were starting a dialogue on science and religion. And so being a part of that board began to open my mind to things that I had not necessarily considered. And there were two things about that, Jim. One was that they were trying to address a said divide between science and faith. But secondly, they were in a sense saying that divide may not be as great as you think. Because there are a lot of scientists who are people of faith. And so what we found out is the divide may be more about communication and connection and conversation than anything else. And something I’ve often said for years is comprehension begins with conversation. And so once those conversations between scientists and people of faith happened, it was amazing, the magic and how that divide would get closer. So I started inviting scientists on my show to interview them. And it was pretty amazing.

Stump:

Good. Well, I’m going to work up to asking you a bit more about that and your interaction with some of these scientists, but I want to do that through the lens of a couple of the books that you’ve written and some of the principles that you’ve developed through that. So let’s put a bookmark in that and come back to it. And let me instead ask you about a couple of these things you’ve written. One just recently a short book called Be Encouraged: How to Encourage Yourself and Others in Discouraging Times. So the entrance to this short book is you telling the story about your truck that was making an odd sputtering sound, and how we ought to pay attention to such things. And then you say, “for some of you, life seems to be going fine. The home is fine, the family’s fine, the finances are fine, your faith is fine. Yet there’s a sputtering in your spirit.” So I gather that you wrote this book because you sensed this sputtering in our collective spirit. Talk a little more about that, if you would, the impetus for writing this.

Anderson:

And so, knowing that we were coming out of Covid and what Covid had done to all of us, or what has happened because of Covid, the encouragement level of human beings were very low. And so I sensed as a pastor that people needed to be encouraged. And so I wanted to lean into teaching people how they can, A.) encourage themself and B.) be encouragement to others and C.) fight discouragement that comes to take us down. And so part of that self-analysis is realizing that even when it looks like things are fine around you, there is that internal sputtering, as I talked about, as you mentioned in my vehicle, you know, there was this sound and I knew something wasn’t right, but I just could not put my finger on it. And it’s that same sense of we all may have a sputtering or a sense inside of us, or under the hood of our lives, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. We just know that we’re kind of off. We don’t feel on. We don’t feel purposeful, or we just feel kind of gray or gloomy. And sort of going to get that diagnosed and treated was important to get my truck back on the road. And in a sense, how do we get our souls treated so that we can get ourselves back on the road? And I think encouragement is the thing that is necessary in order to give us the oxygen necessary to keep going.

Stump:

So what are some good quick practical tips for someone who wants to be encouraged and also wants to be an encourager?

Anderson:

Well, I think first of all, being your own CEO, which is your own chief encouragement officer, CEO. I think that that is important. And David in the Bible was someone who was known to encourage himself in the Lord. So learning the art of somehow encouraging yourself is important. And because we can discourage ourself by the words that we say to ourself by the things that we believe. And so we gotta turn some of that around. And we see that in Jeremiah as well. Jeremiah actually said that when he was feeling so downcast in his soul, he said that he, in Lamentations chapter three, you know, that favorite verse that, great as thy faithfulness and his mercies are new every morning? Well, just before that, he actually talked about how downcast his soul was. And guess what he said? He said, “I called to my mind that God was love. And I called to my mind that God was merciful and compassionate, and I called to my mind that God was faithful.” Well, what’s interesting is, prior to that, he said, I remember, I very well remember, he says two times in a row in verses 18 and 19 of Lamentations 3, about all the bad things, and it made his soul downcast. So I think when our minds are focused on the negative things of the past, is what he’s talking about. And we dwell there, like Isaiah talks about you know, forget the former things and do not dwell on the past. When we dwell on it, it depresses us. When we keep in our minds all the things that are wrong, it depresses us.

And that’s what Jeremiah says. So then he says, “I called to my mind.” And he reminds himself about the truth and the character about God. And calling to his mind and remembering who God is, pulled him up out of that place of hopelessness to a place of hope. But then there was one other thing he said that I think is amazing, Jim. He then says in the next verse, and again, your folks can read it, he says, in Lamentations 3, when you get to the following verses around 19, 20 and 22, he says this. He says, “I called to myself, and I said to myself, the Lord is my portion, and the Lord is good.” Did you catch what happens here? He not only calls to his mind, but he calls to his mouth [laugh]. Have you ever have a talk with yourself? Like, have you ever had to have a meeting with yourself? And he literally said that in verses back to back, not only did I call to my mind the truth about who God is, I called to my mouth.aAd I had to say that the Lord is my portion. I had to say that the Lord isGood. 

Stump:

Even if I don’t feel that sometimes.

Anderson:

Exactly. And then he said, because of that, he had hope, and he realized that the mercies of God are new every morning, and great is his faithfulness.

Stump:

Hmm. Yeah. Nice.

Anderson:

Isn’t that cool? And I’m sure that has scientific medical implications when it comes to depression, maybe not chemical imbalances and things, but the idea of depression and needing encouragement and what you say to yourself and what you think in your brain has to have a mental and emotional and psychological effect.

[musical interlude]

BioLogos:

Hi Language of God listeners. Here at BioLogos we think that asking questions is a worthwhile part of any faith journey. We hope this podcast helps you to think through long held questions and consider new ones but you probably have other questions we haven’t covered yet. That’s why we want to take this quick break to tell you about the common questions page on our website. You’ll find questions like “How could humans have evolved and still be in the image of God,” “how should we interpret the Genesis flood account?” and “What created God?” Each with thoughtful and in depth answers written in collaboration by scientists, biblical scholars and other experts. Just go to biologos.org and click the common questions tab at the top of the page. Back to the show!

Stump:

Turning to your other book here quickly then. So you’re a bridge builder. Your church is called Bridgeway right? You’ve been a significant bridge builder with respect to race in this country. And you wrote a book a few years ago called Gracism with a G on the front, right, which seeks to provide some tools for what you call the radical inclusion of the marginalized and the excluded. And this book isn’t exclusively about race, and we’ll look to apply some principles from it for the science and faith conversation here in a little bit. But as we air this episode, it’s Black History Month, and I think we ought to talk a little bit about race. And I want to note that you’re not coming at this from a purely academic or theoretical perspective, or a privileged position that has been exempt from the racism in this country. And I don’t at all wanna sensationalize your experience, but I think it’s important for our audience to hear some of the reality of what it’s been like to be an African American in your life, in your skin. And so you start this book telling a story of your first day as an intern at Willow Creek Church in suburban Chicago after having been downtown Chicago in Moody and Cabrini Green. Can youjust tell us, tell us this story of what happened?

Anderson:

So, my first day as an intern at Willow, we all had to be there at 9:00 AM the cadre of interns, maybe about six or 12, if I can recall. And I was driving to south Barrington, Illinois. And within a mile of the church, I got pulled over by a police officer. Thankfully, my father taught me, you know, to make sure you have the lights on if it’s dark, make sure your hands can be seen on the steering wheel, and make sure you say yes sir. And things of that sort. So I did all of that, and you know, I asked why I was being pulled over, and he didn’t tell me. And, and then, you know how they make you wait. It doesn’t matter what color you are, it seems like they take forever when they go back to their car. 

And so finally when he came back, he gave me my license and I said Mr. Officer, could you just please tell me why you stopped me? And he says, “well, you just fit the description of someone you know, but you’re free to go.’ And I was like, Hmm, okay. That’s fine. You know, so that was then. I go to Willow. It’s the first day. Of course, who’s the only late intern? The black one, [laugh], who’s the only intern of color is late. Right. And so I didn’t say anything. I just said, I apologize for being late. And that’s day one. Well, now a few hours later, it’s time for lunch, and we could go anywhere. And they gave us a list of places you could go for lunch. So I said, okay, let me run to lunch, I have an hour. And guess what happened? I think you probably know I got pulled over by a second police officer within a mile of the church, white male, different police officer. And it was the same story. “You fit the description of someone.” But that was it. I wasn’t speeding, or I wasn’t driving without a seatbelt or any of that. So at this point, I’m a bit angry. And I’m thinking, but, you know, I wanna start a church with regard to reconciliation. I just went to a white school called Moody. I want to be a, you know, a bridge builder. That’s my, you all of this. And now this is happening to me. And I’m thinking to myself, if I wasn’t saved, how angry would I be? What would my demeanor look like? And, you know, if Philando Castile was stopped over 40 times before, you know, in Minneapolis before you know, he was killed, unfortunately with a seatbelt on. Told him that he has a gun. His girlfriend’s in the car with the baby in the back, she’s FaceTiming it. And of course, they just shot him dead. And that was like over 40 times he had been stopped. The guy worked in a, you know, in the school system in the lunch line. So I can’t even imagine what it’s like for somebody who stopped like that regularly. So this was more of a first for me, and of course a second in the same day. And guess who was late coming back to Willow Creek from the lunch hour? It was me. 

Stump:

Did you tell ’em this time why? 

Anderson:

I had mentioned it to one or two of the interns, but again, I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know the leaders. I didn’t know this. It was, you know, all white. And so you don’t wanna be that black guy either right? That’s talking about race, or making people feel sorry for you or whatever. You’re just trying to, like, I wanna succeed like everybody else. And the last thing you wanna do on your first day is make it seem like it’s about race, even if it is. You know. Now I’m old enough and wise enough to be able to leverage this to not necessarily only be concerned about the comfort of white people. But when you are, you know, 20 something and you are an intern at a large church that has recruited you to come be with them, that’s not how you want your first day to go. So was I loud about it? Did I talk about it? No. Not then and there. And so then I left. And long story short, within a 24 hour period, I was stopped not once, not twice, not three times, four times on the first day. Four white police officers, three male, one female. And that was my entrance into full-time Christian ministry as an intern.

Stump:

So hearing that story, I can’t help but think of this often quoted line from James Baldwin, who said, back in 1961, “to be a Negro in this country, and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all of the time.” [Mm-Hmm.] And that sure seems to me to be the natural outcome of these experiences, as you just alluded to. If you weren’t saved, what would, how would I respond to this? And I don’t think you would say now that being in a continual state of rage is indicative of the abundant life we’re called to as followers of Jesus. And it’s not listed in the fruit of the spirit that we should aspire to. But we can also see in the life of Jesus, there were times of rage. Is there a place, this is the question I’m really curious how your experience leads you to answer this. And I’m really curious how our predominantly white audience is led to receive this answer. But is there a place for anger, even rage, within the context of gracious dialogue?

Anderson:

Well, a place for it, I’m not sure is the best question. If I could reformulate it, I might

Stump:

Please do. 

Anderson:

I might ask, is it possible to experience life as an African American and specifically an African American male in America without experiencing anger or rage?

Stump:

And the answer to that?

Anderson:

I don’t think it’s possible. Maybe it will be at some point. Whether you ever get stopped by a police officer four times in one day as I did, or other experiences that I’ve had—and I don’t want to offend, but I’ll just speak it truthfully— 

Stump:

Please do.

Anderson:

—and people can always turn it off and be mad about it. But do you understand the power of example that communicates to your young African American person who’s standing at a Black Lives Matter protest in front of the White House and a white Republican president, with the force of the military guns, and a Bible, pushes people back, stands in front of the church and asserts his authority and militancy. Just imagine the picture of Christian White nationalism. What does that communicate to an African American male in a predominant protest that was not violent? And yet the military, so think about it, the gun and the Bible in the hands of white males has been something that has been an issue for Africans since colonization and slavery. And here we are at this date, we’re not talking about the sixties and the James Baldwin quote. Right? We’re not talking about me when I was a young intern. You know, we’re not even talking about Rodney King. We’re talking about now that my kids are the age that I was at Rodney King, my kids are doing the same thing, but they’re experiencing a guy named George Floyd. You didn’t think that they would experience in their twenties what you experienced in your twenties. You thought things would get better. And here you have a white president with the force of the military, with guns and the Bible standing up and asserting dominance to let everybody know who’s in charge and who’s not. What does that do to the psyche of the black human being? Stunning! How could it not make you angry? Stunning. Absolutely stunning. Fast forward to January 6th. Any military? Any guns? Any sense of domination, predominance saying, we will not, this is unacceptable. You know, any national guard? You know, so with that same exact president in the same exact White House. And then to have thousands of churches and Christians who say that they’re evangelical, but are white brothers and sisters, applaud it, teach it. Say that this is what God wants, that this is God’s man. How can you be an African American and not feel something there, my friend? [laughs]. I hate to get political, but, hey, I’m in Washington DC alright? [laughs] And I’m a conservative evangelical. Can you imagine that though, what that must feel like?

Stump:

For most of us, I think the honest answer to that is no, we can’t imagine that. It’s a part of your reality that our place of privilege has shielded us from for too long, I’m afraid.

Anderson:

So I just wanna jump in really quick and I’ll throw it right back to you, because I don’t want this to feel like it’s a thing of the past. I’m a well-to-do wealthy, educated African-American male with a bachelor’s, a master’s, and two doctorates. I live in one of the wealthiest areas of Maryland, But when I go home to my wife and my children, I don’t want to drive into our cul-de-sac still talking on the phone. So in my neighborhood, what I would normally do, less than half a mile from the house, I’d pull over to the side of the road, I’d finish my phone calls, and then when I get home, I can be fully present just like any of us on the podcast would want to be. So let me ask you. Why after 15 minutes on the phone, does a police police officer pull up, come to my window and ask for my license?

Now I’m older. Now I have more influence. I’m sitting in a black, beautiful Escalade. So I’m different than that black kid that was in Chicago. I’m now a black male leader in Maryland. And this officer comes up to me and asks me for my license and registration. I say to him, “let me ask you why. I’m parked. It’s not a fire lane. There’s no no parking sign. I’m simply parked on the side of the road. It’s in park. Why do you want it?” To which he said, “because we got a phone call that you were sitting out here and it was suspicious. So we had to follow up.” To which I responded, “who made the phone call?” And he pointed to some house. And I said, “I’d like for you to go up or let me go up and talk to them so they understand who I am.” And he says, “sir, I’ll go talk to them, but first I really need you to gimme your license and registration.” I said, “yes, sir.” Because I know you gotta be obedient. I’m still listening to what my daddy taught me. I gave him my license. I gave him my registration. I said, “now, when you go back to your car, sir, I want you to tell my friends that you pulled me over.” “Who are your friends?” And I named the police chief, who’s a good friend. [Jim laughs] I named his supervisor, because I have influence now, you know, we’re great friends and all that. And now this guy’s a bit shaken. He comes back, he profusely apologizes. “I am so sorry. This ridiculous. These phone calls. I am so sorry.” So he’s apologizing. So the tables have now turned. But that shows you also a little bit about power and authority. So he had authority, but I had influence. I didn’t have that when I was 22, 23, or 24. But I have that at 54, you know what I’m saying? But yet still somebody called the police on a black man sitting in an Escalade in his own neighborhood, with his very, very nice house. Is that crazy or what, Jim?

Stump:

Have you had the talk with your kids about what to do and they’re pulled over?

Anderson:

Absolutely. And my kids are mixed. You know, I married a Korean woman who I met at Moody. I fell in love with her. You know, she’s half Korean. She was raised, born and raised in Korea, came here when she was 17. half Korean, half Caucasian or Irish, right? Mom was fully Korean and her father was an American GI. And you know, the rest of that story. She never met the father, but she came here, adopted at 17. Ends up at Moody Bible Institute after getting saved at a Billy Graham crusade. She comes to Moody, I lay eyes on her, and she may be half Asian and half Irish, but she’s a hundred percent fine. I was like, man [laughter] she’s nice. Man, I’d love to meet her. So anyway, fast forward, we get married and we have three mixed kids.

So  they call themselves blackorean, you know, black Korean. But yeah, had to have the conversation with them. And my daughter, who’s absolutely beautiful, is dating a black guy. And so he came to the house to meet us for the first time, and we all sit in the sunroom before he takes her out. And I said, where are you guys going? And he says that, you know, I plan on take your daughter to Annapolis, Maryland. I said, great. Let me just ask you a question. Do you ever get stopped by the police? Do you know how to handle that? So not only do I talk to my son about it, I wanna talk to the guy that’s dating my mixed daughter, right? And he says, laughs at me. He looks up with this pretty smile, and he says, Dr. Anderson, I get stopped almost every two weeks.

Stump:

Mm. [sad chuckle] I have three kids. Never once had that conversation with them. You know, it doesn’t cross my mind to say, you better be prepared to know how to handle this. What a different world, right? 

Anderson:

Totally different. I mean, he worked for a tech firm and his car is paid off. And he says, I keep it all in my glove compartment. I have it down. It’s like a joke now. So he pulls it out, shows him that his car is paid off, that he owns the car, he’s a college graduate, and he works for a major financial institution. And I won’t say the name of the institution, but everyone would know it. And so at that point, they let him ’em go. But can you imagine that being stopped every couple of weeks? Just because.

Stump:

So you referred to this a little bit. There are some voices in the Christian community broadly speaking, that—and maybe we’ll bring some science in here now—that they have seized on the scientific claims that there is no biological or genetic basis for race, the way we typically divide up races today. And they claim, therefore there’s no such thing as racism, right? Your approach here, back to your book, Gracism, your approach does not pretend that there is no social reality of race, because there obviously is, right? We just, hearing these stories, this is real, right? But instead, you’re looking to transform race relations in some way by basing them first and foremost on grace. So give our audience here a quick overview of this approach, gracism, if you would.

Anderson:

Well, I believe that gracism is God’s solution to racism. And the G in front of racism, gracism, stands for God. And if you put God in front of any problem, he’s gonna give you the strength to get through it and the solution to it. And I believe that gracism is God’s solution based on first Corinthians 12, where God from a different race literally became our race in order to extend grace to us. And if we take that same approach, because God is the biggest gracist of us all, if we take that approach and extend grace to other people, regardless of, maybe even because of their color, their class, their culture, or however they’re marginalized, if we extend that grace, meaning they don’t deserve it, they can’t repay it, they didn’t earn it, but we extend that grace to them, I believe that that could build a bridge in ways that we’ve never, we haven’t had the joy of experiencing enough in our country.

But does it exist? Of course it does. Even though there may not be any scientific difference because of—well, thank you, Dr. Collins and this whole group that came up with this whole genome project—reminds us that we all come from the same single parents, you know, mother Eve or whatever. But the social construct of race definitely separates us. And with that, there are implications that can make some feel inferior and make some feel superior. But it goes beyond feelings into policies that then can negatively affect those that may be looked at as inferior and give extra benefit to those who may feel like they are superior. And the scientific study of eugenics, we know, is one of those things that tries to somehow match race and science in a unfortunately negative way by, you know, the erroneous and immoral theory of racial improvement and planned breeding, which gained popularity during the 20th century. But, you know, eugenicists worldwide believe that they could perfect human beings and eliminate so-called social ills through genetics and heredity. So yeah, it exists and we have to figure out how we can use science not only to prove now, or support the fact that we are all coming from the same biological parents, but we now have to use it to underscore the sociological unity that’s necessary. Make sense?

Stump:

Yeah. Yeah. Talk a little bit more about your approach in doing this. You have this list of seven sayings. I want to pick out one of those, the no division one to talk a little bit about with regard to the science and faith, but maybe just a little, a little bit more of how this approach of gracism might lead to that sociological unity that we do not currently have.

Anderson:

Yeah. So people want to know what they can do about it. And what first Corinthians 12 does is it gives us a few things that we can do about it. So we have these seven sayings, or these seven standards or commitments that you can make that actually help you know what to do. And we have a new version of Gracism coming out this spring in May of 2023 with a new eighth saying that will help as well. But the seven sayings are: I will lift you up, I will cover you, I will share with you, I will honor you, I will stand with you, I will consider you, and I will celebrate with you. And the new eighth saying is gonna be, I will heal with you, talking about racial healing and empathy. But the one you’re talking about, that comes from first Corinthians 12, where Paul says, there should be no division among us. That’s the I will stand with you. That if we can stand with one another against the things that would separate us, then we can be unified. So there are times, Jim, when I need you to stand with me. But there may be times when you need me to stand with you. And so, across racial lines, across ethnic lines, when we stand for one another’s rights and justice, we actually bring more unity. When we stand against each other, it brings more division.

Stump:

Yeah. So you didn’t write this book primarily with the science and faith divide in mind, but in your work as a bridge builder, which I think comes to you as naturally as breathing does, you have applied it in that way. And I, just in looking at some of the things you’ve done with BioLogos here, and just recently you did this event that helps to bridge this divide between science and faith by asking a bunch of pastors to get together and pray specifically for scientists. And when I was looking through these sayings, I thought this, no division, I will stand with you, spoke to me very powerfully about that. And I don’t think most people in our culture would think of scientists as a class of people who are marginalized or need some help. Right? They’re usually thought to be part of the elites in our culture. But scientists who are Christians often don’t feel that way in the community that’s most important to them. They’re brothers and sisters in Christ. So you led this event to stand with the scientist in a very real and important way. How did this come about and why did you think it was important to do?

Anderson:

Yeah, I thought it was important. It was last March 2022, I believe it was. And I’m not quite sure how the idea came to me. Sometimes in the mornings when I wake up, God puts these ideas on my brain and I tend to run with them. And this was one of those ones where I believe God was saying, you need to pray for scientists. And so I went to Deb Haarmsa who I love, of course, president of BioLogos. She what a wonderful woman.

Stump: 

My boss. 

Anderson:

Oh, she’s great. That’s great. You got a good boss. And I wrote her an email with my vision. This is what I came up with. This is what came to my mind. Would you be interested in it? And she’s like, oh my gosh, yes. You know, and so we were able to support one another in that. And, you know, so I got some top pastors together from around the country, four or five men and women pastors to pray for scientists. And we pulled together with the help of Dr. Haarsma. You know, we got to pray for Dr. Haarsma, Dr. Francis Collins. I had Dr. Barbara Williams Skinner, pray for them. She’s a pastor, a minister. And then we interviewed Dr. Jay Butler about his science. And then we would pray based on what his work is. And so Dr. Jay Butler’s a Deputy Director of Infectious Diseases at CDC. And so he would share what he’s working on, and then I would have a national pastor pray for him and pray for his work. And they would share their prayer requests. So they would share not only their work, but their prayer request. We had Dr. Fatima, Cody Stanford. And she, you know, was with Harvard University and faculty and staff there, and what she was working on. And then we had someone pray for her and what her personal prayer requests were. And then Dr. Praveen Sethupathy. He’s with BioLogos, I think. 

Stump:

Yeah. He’s on our board. 

Anderson:

Okay. There you go. Cornell

Stump:

Works at Cornell University. 

Anderson:

That’s right. He works at Cornell. How do you say his last name? Appropriately.

Stump:

You did. Sethupathy.

Anderson:

Okay, good. Yeah. Got it. Right. We were on the board together over at AAAS as well, and he shared his work. We prayed for him. And then Dr. Laundette Jones with University of Maryland and what she’s doing with breast cancer and all that. So she shared her work, and then the pastors prayed for them. They were so thankful that we had that event, and we were so thankful that we were able to partner with them. That’s a pretty cool idea, right?

Stump:

Yeah, it is. And there’s a recording of it on your church’s website, and I think there’s a link to it on the BioLogos website. And we’ll put a link in the show note to this episode here for people who can see that. Let’s maybe here, just in closing, flip this around the way you said we have to do sometimes. You were standing with the scientists as bridge builders. How might—so there’s lots of scientists listening to this. How can scientists be bridge builders in our churches and our communities? Who are the people that they can particularly stand with from their area of expertise?

Anderson:

Thank you. That’s a good question. One of the things is we have to make a commitment not to talk down about one another. I think that that is key. Pastors and Bible teachers should not talk down science or scientists. And that’s where things can get really sticky because we feel, you know, if you feel like there’s a divide and those people, I’m putting air quotes, people can’t see it. Those people over there are hurting our children, turning our children away from the faith. They don’t believe in God. They’re all atheists. Saying that, A.) it is not factual and B.) it then hurts and prejudices people against science instead of lifting science up. And there’s a good number of folk who we want to be in science, technology engineering and mathematics. And so don’t, don’t poo-poo it. And I think the reverse is true as well. And that is you don’t want scientists to talk down faith in religion. And we do know that some of the loudest voices in the scientific community can be that way. Right? And why do these extremists always get the mic, Jim?

Stump:

Right, right.

Anderson:

So I’m thankful for your microphone and for my microphone. But they don’t speak for all scientists. But let’s make sure that the scientists who are scientists of faith don’t talk down faith leaders. So I think that’s one practical way that we can deal with it at a one-on-one level. If you want to go higher than pull the scientists together who are in your congregation. You would be amazed. We had, he’s gone now, but we had this guy for like 10 years who played the guitar, like a mean guitar, Jim. Like white dude, probably 48 years old, short, and he’d had this guitar and he would make that thing sing. I’m like, this guy’s gotta be a professional musician. So I went to go meet him, and he says, “’I’m a scientist.” I’m like, what!? [Laugh] He goes, yeah.

I said, “what do you do?” He goes, well, I run—I can’t probably can’t even say it right, you know, I know nothing about what he was doing. But he says, I like run Crystialogy—that’s not what it’s called—department over at, you know, Johns Hopkins University. And I’m like, “what? Tell me once again.” Right. And he explained it to me. It’s Crystallography. It was the study of atomic arrangement of materials prior to the study of geology. I’m like, what? What’s that? And he goes, why don’t you come over sometime to Hopkins because I run the lab there and I had this amazing piece of equipment that we can never take out, but I’d love to show it to you. But it’s under high security. I’m like, “I’m in man.” And so I went over to Johns Hopkins and I visited him, and he showed me his lab, and I was like, “wow, this is amazing.” You know, I didn’t even know that word existed. And you’re studying like rocks and all this other stuff. So all that to say, get to know the people in your congregation who are scientists. And here’s the last thing I’ll say. Just a couple months ago, I preached on poverty. And I said, look, you know, when I’m driving down the street and I see somebody who needs some money, you know, I keep money in my ash tray and I’ll give it to them and say, God bless you. I said, all of us can do something like that, whatever. But you are all smart people. Come up with something better than that. Come up with, use your brain to find out ways that we can change the narrative from just giving a little bit of help to actually lifting people out of poverty. And more than a missionary viewpoint, I’m gonna go serve them, how about lifting them up out of poverty? Are there some systems to do that? Use your brain. Y’all are smart people. 

Okay. So anyway, I’m doing this whole preaching thing, Jim. And then I go out to the lobby as I normally do, and there may be a line of people that want to greet me or whatever. Scientist woman greets me. She goes, “I heard your call.” And she goes, “I want to have a meeting with you in a couple of weeks on Zoom, and I wanna pull several scientists together.” Praveen was one of those, believe it or not. “And I want to talk to you about an idea that we have.” And without going in the details they wanted to partner with a local nonprofit organization like us, and pulled together top scientists from major universities, and it was about five or six of them on the line to pitch for a grant from NIH to do a 10 year deal to help bridge this gap that we’re talking about. But this time it’s in the area of health and the health disparities regarding race and class and culture. And I thought to myself, wow, it came because there was a scientist in the body who’s listening to a preacher, who together they’ve come up with this pitch for a major grant to work together in the country for the next 10 years. Can you believe that? That’s faith and science working together at a real ground level. Cool. Right?

Stump:

Very cool. Thanks so much for sharing that. And just one story like that can prime the pump for lots of other people to think, well, how could we put our brains to work to solve these other problems too and work with people in the church to do that. So that’s just exactly the sort of cooperation and science and faith working hand in hand that we love to see. So thanks for sharing. We’re here at the end of our time. I appreciate so much you sharing your story with us today. It’s been funny and it’s been anger inducing [laughter]. It’s been real, it’s been uplifting and here even ending with, with hopefulness. And so we long for the day that the social divisions that are still in our society might be healed. And we might look more like your church looks, though, I’m sure it’s not a perfect place yet either. 

Anderson:

Yeah. perfectly imperfect, I’ll guarantee that

Stump:

It’s certainly further down the path than many of our institutions have gone. And so that’s inspiring to us as well. We have these conversations with guests. We often like to end by asking what books have you been reading lately? We talked about a couple that you’ve written. You reading anything interesting?

Anderson:

Yes. I get so many books, but the one I’m in right now is by Arthur Brooks called From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. And this, this is a pretty amazing book. In fact, I just gave it to several people that I know, which talks about how to move from innovation when you’re younger to instruction when you’re older, and how to make that shift in such a way that you’re not left disappointed and despondent when you’re older because you had success at a young age. And data-wise, he goes through the different industries or vocations, and he talks about how many people peak early, meaning, you know, your superstars peak in athletics in their twenties. Your tech giants, you know, they’re running companies now and that’s probably why they’re in trouble because when they were in their twenties, they had a great idea, but now you gotta run a company that’s different. And he just went through musicians and athletes and tech and through all these different you know, sort of industries to show you peak early. So what do you do when you’re Serena Williams and you people are calling you old, right? And so his whole point is how do you look at the second half of your life without being in the shadow of what you did earlier? Anyway, that’s that book, and it’s one that I’m deep in right now.

Stump:

Oh, I love it. We’ll have to talk again once you’re all the way through it. Well, Dr. Anderson, thank you so much for talking to us and we hope to do this again sometime soon.

Anderson:

Thank you Jim, the Language of God, BioLogos and Deb Haarsma, the rest of the crew over there, Francis Collins. All of you are serving the body of Christ. You’re serving scientists and you’re building a bridge through conversations that are very much needed. So God bless you and thank you so much.

Language of God is produced by BioLogos. It has been funded in part by the Fetzer Institute, the John Templeton Foundation, and by individual donors and listeners who contribute to BioLogos. Language of God is produced and mixed by Colin Hoogerwerf. That’s me. Our theme song is by Breakmaster Cylinder. 

BioLogos offices are located in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the Grand River watershed. If you have questions or want to join in a conversation about this episode find a link in the show notes for the BioLogos forum or visit our website, biologos.org, where you will find articles, videos and other resources on faith and science. Thanks for listening.