Theology In Pieces
Join Slim Thompson, Malcolm Foley and many more to discuss and 'Apply the Gospel' into little bite sized pieces every week. email hello@theologyinpieces.com to ask questions or reach out.
Theology In Pieces
63 - Dissertations and Denominations w/ Rev. Dr. Mika Edmondson
Dr. Mika Edmondson, pastor of Koinonia Church in Nashville, joins us for a profound conversation about redemptive suffering and denominational identity. What can Job, MLK, and the african spirituals teach us about redemption and hope amidst incredibly dark times?
"It's not the suffering in and of itself that is redemptive, it is actually our engagement with it," Mika explains. Instead of fight-or-flight as a response to evil—there's a 3rd way, a way exemplified by Jesus himself.
Then, the 3 debated the benefits and costs of denominations. There has been no declared winner, so we need you dear listener to write in and make your case or let us know who won! (hello@theologyinpieces.com)
Also go read James Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
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Yeah.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of Rage Against the Machine. Wait, theology in Pieces, where we hope to rebuild your theology. The church, the world, or somebody, has shattered to pieces and we are your hosts. Slim Ant, malcolm. And today we talk about dissertations and denominations. Oh boy.
Speaker 4:With the one and only.
Speaker 2:Doctor, reverend Doctor, reverend Doctor Micah Edmondson.
Speaker 3:He's the man.
Speaker 2:Man. He is the man I'm a big fan when Edmondson he's the man, man, he is the man. I'm a big fan. When did you start becoming a fan of Micah?
Speaker 3:I was a fan of him for a while and then, back when there was a reformed African-American network, I got in touch with somebody who was like, hey, you should talk to Micah Edmondson. I was like, yeah, I'd love to do that and Micah will likely tell this story. But we bonded over our mutual love for the doctrine of union with Christ and we are we're thinking about, at some point in the future we're going to co-write a book on it, but he's too busy because he's a pastor and he's a really great pastor and he's what was that For some reason, that's just like the end of the sound for the air horn, I don't know why.
Speaker 2:Gotta let it linger and I thought it was done and then all of a sudden Wow, it's quite jarring were talking yeah it's fine whatever also reformed african-american network well, it, it turned into.
Speaker 3:It turned into, um, uh uh, jamar's, jamar's organization, jamar's organization, jamar's organization, the Witness, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:It has a happy ending, yeah.
Speaker 1:Alright.
Speaker 2:Malcolm, are you ready for today's?
Speaker 3:Terrible Tweets. Let's do it, man. Rapid fire, let's go. Terrible. Everything what's terrible in the world besides our descent into fascism I'm glad you said so.
Speaker 2:Uh, this is from one, shane clayborne. You like shane, right?
Speaker 2:I do, we're buddies he's not a bad human being. Yeah, he seems to. To love jesus, he does, he says. As a christian, I am deeply troubled by Trump, yes, but even more troubled by Christians who support him. Yep. If you decided to come up with a worldview that is the direct opposite of the gospel of Jesus, you couldn't do much better than Trump. Jesus blesses the peacemakers. Trump blesses the war makers. Jesus blesses the poor. Trump blesses the rich. Jesus blesses the meek. Trump blesses the strong. Truees the rich. Jesus blesses the meek. Trump blesses the strong. True. Jesus welcomes refugees. Trump deports them. Yeah, follow jesus, not trump oof. Is that too strong?
Speaker 2:no, I don't think he said anything false this is, uh, this is on the the the heels of the white house um twitter saying breaking the department of defense has been changed to the heels of the white house um twitter saying breaking the department of defense has been changed to the department of war yeah, that's the old school, that's, that's that.
Speaker 3:Look, that's, it's just. It's just a return to just the old school title. It was department of war, up until I forget what year I should. As a historian I should know years, but that's fine.
Speaker 2:I give you a pass, I'm not knowing when. This is why we need a producer.
Speaker 3:This is so that I can just point to that person and just be like hey look this up. Hey, Mike Strelow On my other podcast. When was it?
Speaker 1:It was 1947.
Speaker 3:1947.
Speaker 2:Isn't that also the year that uh Israel became a nation, or was that 1948?
Speaker 3:Uh, I can't remember. Uh, I'm just here, I'm just here asking questions.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it was department of war, it went to the defense and then it it it basically dissolved.
Speaker 3:It was uh, cause that was the department that was responsible for the operation of the Army and then and the Navy, until the Navy was created in 1798. Air Force was created in 47. But, yeah, and then the Department of Defense name was in 1949. Yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 2:So the now not Fox News host? Yes, pete Hegseth.
Speaker 3:Yes, who is now?
Speaker 2:the chair of the Department of War.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Secretary of War. Secretary of War. Yeah, his explanation of for the change is saying we want maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct. He's ready to drop some rhymes.
Speaker 3:He's out here rapping. We're going to raise up some bars, Bars and bombs. Am I right?
Speaker 2:We laugh because otherwise we just have to cry.
Speaker 1:It's terrible.
Speaker 2:We're gonna raise up warriors, not just defenders. So, malcolm, is Shane right or wrong in this that this is directly opposite Of what Jesus has called us to?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it seems pretty explicitly against what?
Speaker 2:Because Hegseth is a member of a Bible-believing church.
Speaker 3:I think it was a Doug Wilson church. Oh my gosh, come on, slim, come on.
Speaker 2:Come on, is it possible that they're just off on their theology? You're just a little bit off just a little off, um, but in the right direction.
Speaker 3:Slim Slim. All that really matters is being obedient to Christ, and being a warmonger is, uh, being disobedient to christ. I mean, I don't feel like that's the instead of the conversation in my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on one level, I think I'm with you. Um, it doesn't really matter whether it's called the department, department of defense or department of war.
Speaker 3:It's the same thing it's just, it's really just more honest.
Speaker 3:It's more honest because we were already doing terrible things with our military budget, that it like dwarfs every other country and like it's like a defense we don't, nobody's going to, nobody's attacking, nobody's attacking us. Not really right, and and not yet. But not not yet. And you, like I said, things can, things can, things can always change, uh, but but, but like the and and we can make the argument that we keep doing these investments just kind of as a as a deterrent, but it's just, it's money making for a particular like for particular industries. Um, yeah, it's just. Yeah, I mean really it's more, it's it's more, it's more honest.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, so it's more honest. Uh it just it also kind of it's honest but, also, it sucks, uh, that that we're going. Hey, we're celebrating that we have a christian celebrating the department of war like I it, you and I are on the same page of um being anti-violent yeah um, and so department of defense almost sounds more biblically justifiable, um, even though we would go, let's, you know, not use violence for this, um, but department of war, just found seen, sounds so, uh, unmorally justifiable yeah because you're going, I'm going to go on the attack and declare war on these, these countries, these nations, because they aren't doing what we want them to do which is what we were doing anyway, but like, but it was more subtle, yeah and so.
Speaker 2:So shane's thing is, if you like, and I and this is where I'm I I'm with him and I struggle with what he is deeply troubled by Trump, but even more troubled by Christians who support him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'm more troubled by that than I am by.
Speaker 2:Trump. I cannot wrap my head around it, and I know many.
Speaker 3:I can't, man. I mean there's a sense in which it's not as confusing, because I mean especially American Christian. I mean it's not just true of American Christianity, it's true of. This is a temptation, it's been a temptation for Christianity for at least 1600 years, which is to to align itself with power and greed. Actually, not just 1600 years, for 2000 years, because the church allowed to see it, did it, did it back in the book of revelation, um, but the, the temptation to align yourself with greed and power, uh, is just more attractive than going the way of the cross. But the way of jesus is the way of the cross. If you are on another way, you are not in the the way of Jesus, and we just got to be honest about that. Like the people who, people in that category are just people who need to hear the words of Jesus and need to be saved, which if this was another category, like if this was the category of people that we would say they need to be saved.
Speaker 2:This is the unreached group on campus. You know, we say they need to be saved. This is a the unreached group, uh, on campus, the unreached group in your neighborhood. I come at that with a lot more like compassion, but also like like how, how do I contextually try to reach you spiritually? And then there is this where we're celebrating violence, we're celebrating, um, the rich benefiting off the poor, we're celebrating the strong versus the weak and and deporting refugees. That it's like how do I see that? As like the the unreached people group, that that's oh that's why caleb campbell wrote his book disarming levi.
Speaker 2:We got to have him on because I need him to answer this question.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'll just text him and we can do it, gosh.
Speaker 2:I'm with Shane, but I'm also committed to not writing anyone off, and so it's so hard yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 2:But fighting the commonality is getting even more and more difficult. To go like ah, here's our shared humanity, but I still see the Imago Dei in them. But I'm still going like, hmm, hmm.
Speaker 3:I just try to press the things that Jesus actually said and then I just say if you're a Christian, then that means that you're committed to Jesus. If you're not committed to Jesus, then you're just not a Christian. I'm going to interact with you as such such but the.
Speaker 2:Thing is they're going to say well, jesus said take the sword, you know, you know, yeah, he just won, not two, right. So they're going to argue for that. They're going to say you can use your money to to advance the kingdom. They're going to. They're going to say you know, through that strength we can actually bring peace. This is why people believe, even though he's renaming the department the department of war, he is still gonna try and may get the nobel peace prize, which is wild gosh it's wild.
Speaker 3:It's wild, but that's also why look, look, this is. This is also why, like, I really don't think that my job is to, yeah, convince anybody right of anything. My job is to. Why, like, I really don't think that my job is to convince anybody right of anything. My job is to, uh, like our job I think about this as we pastor mosaic like our job is to build, uh is to help facilitate and build a community, uh, of saints, that is, people who, oh, uh, that is, that is, those people who follow Jesus, and then when people see what those kinds of communities look like, then they'll hopefully be attracted by them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seems to be as we talked about on Sunday. Everyone wants to talk about the Empire and we probably should start talking more about the Ecclesia, a little bit more.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's my jam, alright? Well, without further ado, we're going to bring on the one, the Ecclesia a little bit more.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's my jam, all right. Well, without further ado, we're going to bring on the one and only the Reverend, dr Micah Edmondson. What's up?
Speaker 4:Hey brothers, how y'all doing. Doing good. It's my favorite. It's my favorite pastor in America. What's up? Uh, this is not starting off on a good start, uh, front here.
Speaker 2:Uh, micah, can you give us a minute? We need to have a little moment with one another.
Speaker 4:I'll stretch my hand toward the screen. Hey brother, how you doing? I'm doing well, I'm doing well. It's good to talk with you all. Uh, now I should let y'all know, like up front, I've got a, I got a. I kind of I got a 230 hard stop. That's great that's great, that's great I got to pick up my daughter from school.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, oh, we're prioritizing family here. If you love your family, or whatever, you're into that.
Speaker 3:That's great, that's great.
Speaker 2:Well, we are recording. This is the one and only Reverend, dr Micah Edmondson, the pastor of Koinonia in Nashville, tennessee, former founding pastor of New City Fellowship, which was an OPC church in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 3:It was. It is it still is right it still is oh, that's right, that's right, that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, as always.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh History, and today we want to talk about dissertations and denominations with you today. And we're going to get spicy because we have some differing views on denominations.
Speaker 3:Oh Slim just wants to fight.
Speaker 4:That's all. That's all Slim, slim's just out here trying to fight.
Speaker 3:It's fine.
Speaker 2:But Koinonia. Why the name koinonia? To start.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so koinonia is the biblical term that refers to what we have in common, the commonality of the saints in Christ, and it's an amazing, wonderful reality that actually challenges the way the world does things, because Christ creates community in a whole new way, with new values, new unifying realities, new identities and so, yeah, so you know, one of the things that Christ really made clear is that it was our love that we have for one another that actually will bear witness to his power in the world, and so we call the church Koinonia, because we really want to live into that and out of that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's great. Now, that's been a term we've been trying to plumb the depths of here more and more going man, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot to explore in Koinonia and our love for one another.
Speaker 1:So that's good.
Speaker 2:That's good. Before we we had you on me, malcolm, before we even hit record, before we had you on Malcolm, before we even hit record, malcolm and I were talking about you and I was like man, he's just a pastor's pastor, right, like he is just a Malcolm. What did you say about Micah? What?
Speaker 3:did I say oh. I said, yeah, I was like because you tried to talk to Micah about when we're going to write our book together, but he's always so busy.
Speaker 1:Just just like being a pastor, and just being a great being a great pastor focusing on being a great pastor, yeah, which is wonderful, it's great, it's great, it's like I love it.
Speaker 4:I was joking, I was messing with it could be that I'm just not like the most efficient pastor. Maybe I'm like taking too long with the things that I do, no no.
Speaker 3:It's fine. Look, I'm trying to do my three jobs.
Speaker 2:You are doing one job very well, so I just want to affirm you, brother, that's all. It's one of those things I'm like, man. You definitely stand out, like your heart for your church comes out. It doesn't seem this. This is not uh uh saying my, my, my co-pastor here has his uh, his, his focus divided, but your focus is laser focused on the church.
Speaker 3:Slim thinks I'm a brand builder. That's what. That's what Slim's accusing me of. I'm messing with him.
Speaker 2:I'm messing with him. Could you help us out here? We need some marriage counseling.
Speaker 4:Everybody's got their own lane, many members of the body, some of them are more public, some of them are more private.
Speaker 2:It's all love.
Speaker 3:It's all love.
Speaker 2:This has been wild.
Speaker 3:I want to talk about Micah's dissertation.
Speaker 1:Can we talk about Micah's dissertation.
Speaker 3:I know Micah doesn't get opportunities often to talk about his dissertation.
Speaker 4:Thank you, I really appreciate this. I mean, I cannot tell you what it means to me that someone actually asked about this thing that I spent many years working on. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I heard you speak at what was that? The Center for Pastor Theologians Conference, and you were referencing your dissertation and I was like man, I didn't even know about this. And so Micah earned his doctorate at Calvin Theological Seminary and his dissertation was titled Unearned Suffering is Redemptive the Roots and Implications of Martin Luther King Jr's Redemptive Suffering Theodicy. So do you really believe that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I do, turns out I do. I'm kidding. There are a lot of misconceptions about that idea, that about unearned suffering is redemptive, and this was, by the way, a statement that King MLK used throughout his life, throughout his public ministry. Suffering, particularly in America, as African Americans really engaged racial injustice and racism, with the hope of Christ and recognizing that the Lord was present with them in power, even in the worst of humanity's conditions, that there's nothing that sin can deal out, that love cannot overcome.
Speaker 4:And so I think that we see that most well not just I think I know we see that most clearly at the cross itself, in which empire and injustice and violence and sin and evil and death Dealed out everything it could, and yet the love of God overcame it all. Come on somebody. And that's why Jesus is said to be making An open display of the powers and principalities at the cross. That's exactly right, because they did everything they could To make him give up love for God and love for neighbor, and they could not Right. So, and so you know. So the redemptive suffering tradition is one that really takes hold of that faith and exemplifies it and applies it to the black social situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so why is it unearned suffering?
Speaker 1:Is that?
Speaker 2:important to be unearned as redemptive.
Speaker 4:Yeah, unearned suffering is really referring to the kinds of sufferings that we don't bring on ourselves, the kinds of sufferings that we experience just by virtue of being in a fallen world, a world that is broken and that groans and where there's things that happen to us, and these are the kind of things that people of faith have been wrestling with from the very beginning. I mean, you look at, for instance, the book of Job. Is is actually an amazing discourse, a reflection on on that kind of unearned suffering. And you see that, like there was this, there's kind of this internal debate in the book around whether or not Job brought this on himself. But it's clear from the beginning that he didn't. But the folks that were in the wrong were people who just assumed that every form of suffering must be because we've brought it on ourselves.
Speaker 4:You know, and, and you know, throughout the book you find that actually Job didn't bring it on himself. This was, and he ends up having to pray for those who said that he did. You know, because he finds himself vindicated in the end. But throughout this entire situation, he learns more and more about who God actually is. Job comes to the end of himself and really finds that he has this audience with God that he would have never had if he had not gone through what he went through, you know. And so, in a real way, although the devil means this to cause Job's suffering, god allows this to let Job know who, more and more of who God actually is, and Job seems to be. Job seems to be satisfied with that. When he gets this vision of who God actually is, he seems to kind of cover his mouth, no longer have any complaints or objections. He is satisfied.
Speaker 4:And so, as the Lord blesses, the latter half of his life, uh he, he's blessed with a particular perspective that lets him, lets him know that god is actually greater than any of the things, that that that he gets, um, so anyway, so uh, but that's a yeah, that's probably more, more than what you want that's good, that's right, micah.
Speaker 3:How would you, micah, how would you respond to the response of, say, the liberation theologian who tells you that, hey, all this stuff about unearned suffering being redemptive seems to dilute the commitment that the christian ought to have just to end all suffering that they come into contact with? Um, how, what, how would? How would you? How would you, uh, would you respond to someone taking that particular attack?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So it's not the suffering in and of itself that is redemptive, it is actually our engagement with it. Right, this is part of it. So God is actually not into our suffering. God actually hates our suffering, hates our suffering, and God has, in Christ, taken the definitive step, the ultimate step, to actually end it forever. Okay, and so, like you know, the Lord is returning in order to wipe away every tear and to make sure that there's a new creation where there is, where the former things have passed away.
Speaker 4:But in the meantime, while we live in a world in which there is suffering, we find ourselves with this call to engage it in a way that brings glory to God, in a way that bears witness to God's love and redemptive purpose in every situation. It's really laying hold of Jesus' promise and the Lord's promise that he would be with us always, laying hold of that great confession in the Scripture that the Lord's mercies endure forever. Right, this idea that there's no situation that is so dark that God's light is not still there, and there's no situation that is so that there's no situation that is bereft of the presence of God and power of God. Right, when God says I will be with you. He means it in the hardest situation, and so God always allows us an opportunity to bear witness to who he is and invites us to use the agency we have in the circumstance to do so, and oftentimes people think that that is passivity, but it is actually a very deep form of activity and engagement.
Speaker 4:This is the kind of thing that we see Jesus doing actually through his arrest, not just his crucifixion, but his actual arrest in which they come to take him, and we find that some of his disciples run away, some of his disciples decide to respond with violence, and Jesus doesn't do either one. He doesn't run, he doesn't respond with violence. He responds with redemptive engagement, a nonviolent, direct action that actually bears witness to God's kingdom. And it takes a lot of courage to be actively engaging in justice and suffering with hope and faith and love. It takes a lot of courage Because normally folks just want to run away or they want to respond, they want to be violence with violence. They want to actually engage in the cycle that evil is putting forth, and evil is not just out there to hurt us. Evil is out there to infect us, and so what we are?
Speaker 1:invited to do is actually to resist that and to overcome evil with good.
Speaker 3:And the difficulty of that draws attention to the fact that, I mean, you know, when King had the protest that he organized and stuff, people had to train for him. They did Because you don't come out of the womb thinking in that way about, about suffering. Your primary impulses are either fight, it's it's fight or it's fight, or flight, um and and and fight in a violent sense, like that's what you're that's exactly right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4:So so yeah, but, but, but nonviolent uh direct action is direct action. It is not passivity. It's not, you know, waiting for God to do for us what we should be doing ourselves. It's actually catching a vision of what God calls us to and actively participating in that vision, actively engaging. It's actually praying with our feet, but it is definitely doing it with the means that heaven gives us, rather than the means that the world often uses.
Speaker 3:How did you come to this particular topic?
Speaker 4:as you were, as you were kind of going through your studies, how did you come to this particular I came to this topic because I did not have the emotional fortitude to do the topic that you did when you did your.
Speaker 2:It was dark, it was dark.
Speaker 4:I actually my original dissertation topic was going to be James Cone's Theology of the Atonement. I reached out to Dr Cone the late, great Dr James Cone, and told him what I wanted to do this dissertation on. He told me at the time that he was working on a book about that topic and the book was was yet to be released. That book was the cross, and he told me if I would just hold on a few more months that book would be out. And then he felt like that would be a great contribution to whatever dissertation I was trying to pull together.
Speaker 4:I got that book, read that book an incredible book, by the way, um, but one that let me realize that I personally did not have the emotional ability to wait to sit with this topic for the amount of time that I would have to you know like I remember reading. I remember that when I finished, uh, the cross and legend tree which is, which, as I recall, is actually pretty short, but, um, I sat down and I just stared in the distance for like 30 minutes, like yeah you know, like oh my gosh, you know yeah
Speaker 4:uh, what did I just experience and what did I just, you know, grapple with? And that let me know, like you know what, this is a topic that does need to be explored more, but sometimes, you know, recognizing that like I'm like not the person to do it, you know. So I went back to my advisor and he told me hey, have you thought about doing something on MLK? And I thought at the time, like well, who hasn't done stuff? I mean, like is there any part of MLK's thought in life that hasn't been turned over a thousand times? And as I actually began to do some research, I realized that in some ways, king's legacy is a victim of his own success. And popularity.
Speaker 4:So becauseica has often used king in a particular fashion, to sort of he's almost become like a kind of a mascot for whatever cause you want to promote, you know and, and and what oftentimes happens is that his actual, like thought becomes a casualty of that and people are no longer engaging the firsthand. You know the, the, the primary resources, the primary sources and his actual thinking. And I found out that, like his, his theodicy was something that people had referenced in sort of in passing and written little articles here and there about. James Cone had written an article about it. Rufus Burroughs Jr the late Rufus Burroughs Jr wrote an article about it.
Speaker 4:Louis V Baldwin would kind of allude to it in his writings, but nobody had done like a full book-length study on King's Theodicy. And it's not that King's Theodicy was like a side part of his theology, like this is like at the center. This is, you know this and his notion of the beloved community, his notion of the Imago Dei and somebody-ness. Those are things that were very central to his theology. But I would say, alongside the beloved community, alongside somebody-ness, alongside his notion of personalism, is this theodicy Right? So it's really one of the pillars of his life of thought.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really one of the pillars of his life of thought. I feel like a common response to any calls to nonviolent action and to respond with violence, with love or us trying to hold that position. We will get someone saying yes, but what happens when someone comes into your home and tries to take your family out? I'm sure you've gotten a version of that question. How do you respond to that?
Speaker 4:You know that's a great question, brother. I would say that we, that we have to find the least violent way of doing protection and the most life preserving way of doing protection. You know, I think that because I mean, you know, there's a particular part of the Old Testament law and I just cannot. It's not. I wish I could pull it, I wish I had a mind like Malcolm's.
Speaker 2:Me too, man, me too.
Speaker 3:Y'all are funny.
Speaker 4:Chapter 5, verse 14. Yeah that's right you know, but um, but I I can say that I know, it's there, you know, but there's a particular, there's a particular part of the case law where there's this um situation in which um someone is, if someone like uh is like an um, like basically they do kind of like a home invasion when someone like comes into your tent you know, and you're defending yourself.
Speaker 4:Um, if you, if you, if you strike them and you kill them and it's like, and it's at nighttime, like it's, um, it's considered to be, you're not guilty, you don't bear the guilt of like murder, right?
Speaker 4:but if someone comes into your home and it's like daytime, and you like strike them and you kill them, then, there's like, there's like blood guilt associated, associated with that, and and really you see this distinction between, like you, having to make the decision here's somebody that is actually an invader, who's coming in to do harm, and yet you still have a responsibility to kind of find ways to preserve their life too, because they're still made in God's image, their life too, because they're still made in God's image, and so I think that's telling us something really important that we need to preserve that, even people who are out to harm us, even our enemies.
Speaker 4:This is part of why Jesus calls us to pray for our enemies. Right, we aren't praying for them to ensure their destruction. We're praying for them because we're actually called to love them, and Jesus exemplifies this by actually praying for his murderers on the cross, while he's dying, and these people are inflicting violence on him, and he is praying for them. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And so I think what that means is that we find, like I said, we find like the most life preserving way of ensuring protection for ourselves, because we're made in God's image for our families, because we're made in God's image for our families yeah, because made in god's image and for this person who is been so used by evil that they would do what they're doing. And we got to recognize that these are people who have been taken. They've been.
Speaker 4:You know the evil is talked about as a snare, you know, uh, as you know, the devil is taking these people, captive it as a way in a way, and if we look at the person that's like out to do us harm, it's like this person has actually been taken captive, yeah, and by darkness and uh, and darkness is actually working, is, is is like has, they are under a delusion. Yeah, you know yeah and it really takes a certain kind of delusion for somebody to think like I will be bettered by harming you yeah um, and I think we're supposed to like look with look at, look with pity you know on folks like that.
Speaker 4:It takes a lot to do that, though. Yeah, thanks is the one. I hate a person like that, you know yeah, I mean, that's the, that's the beauty.
Speaker 2:I mean you're what you're describing. There is the the absolute, radical love of god, even for your enemies, and and you're describing how do I love this person and see them as a human being, not as an enemy, not as a monster, even in the midst of this. I think Malcolm found that verse. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The the Exodus, the Exodus text on the the Exodus 22. One one of the things. So Slim's about to have to preach this uh in in a few weeks, but in uh but I'm not gonna in first timothy too, no, no, in first timothy.
Speaker 3:In first timothy too, uh, when, when, when. Paul encourages timothy to pray for everybody, including the kings and those, those in authority, and the reason and the reason that he gives is because god desires that all, all people to be saved and to come to, and and to come to a knowledge of truth, which is to say that, even in a situation where Nero is your king, the encouragement to pray, even for a sadistic ruler, is that God wants even them, god wants even them to be saved and to come to a saving knowledge of the truth. And so we, as people who are united to Christ, ought to share the same priorities of our God. And what we exhibit through our prayer, even for our enemies, is we are also. I mean, the Lord is using especially that practice and that habit to shape in us an actual love of our enemies, because, like that's who God is too. But, but yeah, that's that's exactly right.
Speaker 4:You know, I just preached. I just preached on this very thing. Oh, that's Sunday, Second Samuel, chapter one, the song of the bow. This song is actually this is David's response to hearing the news of the death of Saul. And here's a man who has tried to kill David repeatedly, consistently, over years. This is a man that was obsessed with David's suffering and death.
Speaker 4:And he pursued it and he used the governmental agencies. He used everything he could to try to take David out. And David hears about this man's death and there's an Amalekite that thinks that David's going to rejoice. He's actually thinking that he's going to find a way to leverage this on his behalf. And what David does is shocks everybody is that David actually takes up a lament and he mourns Saul's death. And that doesn't mean that David wanted Saul to continue to stay in power right, but it means that David took Saul's vocation more seriously than Saul took it himself.
Speaker 4:He talks about the mighty heaven falling and he talks about the glory of Israel and you think, man, if only Saul had had actually taken his vocation as seriously as David took his yeah, yeah, and and you can tell that it's not just David is not just putting on like David really weeps for the wasted potential.
Speaker 4:He weeps for what Saul could have been. He weeps for all the people that are connected to Saul, that saw a provider suddenly destroyed, that saw their king, that would have now been tempted by delusion and would have been absolutely devastated because of what happened. And so I think the tears that David cries and the weeping is actually not just like politically expedient weeping to like seem to be something you're not. I think it's genuine, and I think we're called to actually have genuine love for our enemies and, when we see them go down, to actually not rejoice at their downfall, to actually weep over the wasted potential, over the harm that it caused other people, over suffering, needless suffering, because it shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 2:You know so, lord, work on our hearts, work on our hearts, pastor Micah Edmondson, ladies and gentlemen, I mean, this is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 4:That's right. I mean he wanted to gather them to himself and protect them and he wanted to. He wanted, and you can see him weeping over that and we should too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen. One of the things I wanted to ask you about was one of the seminars you did at that conference was on the spirituals, and so what part did the spirituals have to play in your dissertation?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the spirituals are really sort of the musical expression of this redemptive suffering tradition. It's a way of holding suffering and hope together, and so you really know a people's theology by what they sing, and so what you see is you see in the spirituals the Lord's people grappling with the deepest contradictions of life, the deepest sufferings of life, the deepest pain and hardships of life, anxieties and uncertainties of life. If you think about the things that these precious people, these image bearers that were enslaved in America, faced right, the ways in which unspeakable atrocities, unspeakable expressions of brutality and inhumanity, the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not you would live or die, or whether or not your children or your spouse would be taken away from you for the rest of your life. You'd never see them. It was just so many uncertainties, and yet these people were able to find in Christ reasons to rejoice, reasons to have hope, reasons to express love for each other and even for the slave master, right, and so that's a powerful tradition you know, that's able to hold suffering and hope together.
Speaker 4:And so that's really what the spirituals are, the blues, the spirituals kind of what we might call, sort of secular cousin you know, is really an extended reflection on suffering.
Speaker 4:But, it takes that it doesn't necessarily always make that turn toward hope. Redemptive, yeah, but they are. We can still learn from the blues. Yeah, we can still learn from the blues, because it does tell a truth, and an important truth. It just doesn't tell the whole truth, right? So we need that other part to kind of bring us back around and see the light beyond the clouds, you know, as it were.
Speaker 2:Do you think music still has that place in the church today, still has that same value as it once did?
Speaker 4:It should. I think in some places it does. I think it's hard to say what everybody's doing.
Speaker 2:He said no.
Speaker 4:But I'm saying it should. I'm certain that in some traditions it does. I'm certain that in some traditions it does. You know, music definitely is tapping into our affective realm. One of the reasons why we need singing rather than just speaking is because music touches our hearts and souls in a particular kind of way.
Speaker 1:It.
Speaker 4:You know there's a reason why most people's theology that they remember is like in song form, like throughout their life. You know, like, and I often say like, hey, you know, I tell our director of worship I'm like hey, you're one of the most important theologians in this church, you know, because the theology that people will remember and that they will take with them to their deathbed is often the songs that they sing. It's often the hymns and it's the spirituals and it's those things that, like that, stick with us in our minds and our memory banks and uh, so, um, you know, so, yeah, so I, man, I think we need it, we need the and we need music that covers just like with the psalms man that, the songbook of of god's people. Yeah, we need music that covers the range of human experiences and emotions. Yeah, you know, not only when we're really happy, but also when we're sad, also when we are mad and frustrated and angry. We need some, some songs of lament, we need some, we need some imprecatory songs where we are we can be mad, and we can sing about that too you know so
Speaker 2:yeah, oh yeah. That makes me think uh, well, what theology are we? Are we teaching at mosaic?
Speaker 4:oh, I don't know what theology are we teaching, y'all teaching the whole council of god? We're trying to teach micah knows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, that's right. I'm just, I wasn't negative.
Speaker 2:It was more like I may.
Speaker 4:It made me reflective to y' man. I hope all the people do too. I'm a Mosaic fan, that's great. And supportive from a distance.
Speaker 3:And we appreciate it, Micah.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. We were gonna I was thinking with this conversation we were gonna spend the majority of our time on the denomination, but man, this is just so deep.
Speaker 3:Now we're gonna get into the controversial stuff. Slim wants to talk about denominations.
Speaker 2:We were just so deep into the dissertation. It's so good.
Speaker 3:It is, it's good stuff.
Speaker 2:So but let Micah you've been on a journey denominationally Tell us where you've been, where did you start and what have you gone through denomination-wise.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question, brother. So I grew up at the Mount Gilead Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah, 901 Ackland Avenue is where they originally were. They're no longer at that location, but I grew up in that church. That was the church that my mother and my grandmother and grandfather went to.
Speaker 4:It was a really kind of a long tradition of going to that church, and so that was sort of my earliest memories of church and that's where I was. That's why I originally made a profession of faith and took the mayhead, the right hand of fellowship. Yeah, I did all the things, man, I. I responded to the call and walked the aisle chair and I did all the things. Was your, was the, it was blue, it's always your pole street, yep, yep. Of course that's hilarious. Yeah, blue, and then a nice shade of burgundy in another place.
Speaker 3:There we go, there we go, man yeah yeah.
Speaker 4:So I did that and I think that laid a wonderful foundation. It's amazing how the Lord works through those things. The Lord used those early experiences to really lay some important seeds in my life that would later come to fruition when I was in college, junior year. In college, although I had made this profession as a young person, I really I didn't live taking that profession very seriously up until college junior college and I had a physics. I was a physics major in college Whoa, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had a physics colleague that had invited me to his to a revival that his church was having. He was he was an organist at his church, keyboard player and organist at his church.
Speaker 4:And although it was a small church, it was a very small kind of storefront church in Newport News, virginia Pentecostal church and he invited me there and and I came and some other uh folks from the physics department came and I'll never forget there was, there was this guy that came in, very eccentric gentleman that that walked in and preached a, a message um called spiritual organized crime. Okay, about david.
Speaker 4:Nice crime, that's great and somehow, through that message, the Lord opened my eyes to the gospel in a way that I'd never, I'd never experienced before, and it was an expression of just like the love of Christ and the goodness of Christ and the mercies of Christ and the patience of Christ, and it was like I was able to like in that moment. I was like looking back over my life and seeing how how kind God had been to me despite my rebellion. You know how much he had kept, how much he had kept me and and and blessed me, and how much he longed for me to be saved and to actually know him and to know his light and life. And it was to that experience that I actually found, it was in the midst of that experience that I actually came to this kind of what I might call a kind of a you know, a kind of more full conversion, you know where I was where I said you know what I'm following Jesus.
Speaker 4:No turning back you know, and I submitted my life to the Lord and yeah, and it's. Hey, it's been an amazing journey you know, that was in 2000,. That been 25 years ago and um, and it's been an incredible journey. The lord has been faithful um, he's been good, he's been kind. So that's where so? So start out getting baptist church. These wonderful seeds were sown. Learned a lot of wonderful things there. A storefront pentecostal church in Newport News, virginia, called God's Holy Temple.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 4:Graduated from school and began sort of I was going to pursue a doctoral degree in astronomy and astrophysics at University of Rochester yeah, at the University of Rochester. Yeah, and I was in that doctoral program for about a year.
Speaker 4:But it was a troubled year because I actually was wrestling with a call to ministry and there were some people in my life that recognized that and I ended up actually, I actually ended up becoming licensed to preach in a progressive Baptist church. Oh nice, nice yeah. And the guy that licensed me, pastor Harold Carter Sr, had been a protege of Dr King. He had been a member of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
Speaker 2:What that's amazing. Yeah, in the 50s.
Speaker 4:He was a college student when Dr King got there, oh my goodness. And so he had been there when King's house was bombed. He had been there with the bus boycott, he had been there and witnessed those things firsthand. And so for a guy, for a person that had that and he was an incredible preacher, a pastor in Baltimore, dr Christina's pastor, that she grew up with and that had baptized her, that had baptized her.
Speaker 4:So I got to know Dr Carter well and to have somebody like that sort of take you under so he took me kind of under his wing, as it were, and kind of mentored me from afar, because I still lived in Rochester but I would correspond with him and so, yeah, he was kind of my first pastoral mentor.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:That's great, yeah, that's great yeah. I didn't I didn't know what it was interesting because I didn't know what I had at the time. You know I didn't realize that later on in the journey I would go on to do this work on Dr King, but but it's amazing how God, you know, put that in my life. That's a wild resource.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you, you, you really have been all over the place. You were baptist, you were, uh, pentecostal, uh yeah, at some point you came baptist progressive about this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and then somehow to the opc and then so I'll say I'll flash forward.
Speaker 4:I spent some more time in the Baptist world.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, went to Vanderbilt Divinity School got my MDiv, got to get all these degrees.
Speaker 3:Got to, got to get them all, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Got my MDiv degree, ended up at the church where I grew up, the Mount Gilead Missionary Baptist Church, serving there on staff for about a year and a half yeah, there on staff for a couple for about a year and a half. From there I ended up. That's when I became. That's when I became Calvinistic.
Speaker 4:That's when, I kind of got connected with what's known as the doctrines of grace and the five points of Calvinism and all that kind of stuff. And then I ended up getting connected with a group of black Baptistic Calvinists in the Southeast called the Sovereign Grace Fellowship. Ok, and from there that set me up to go to Calvin Seminary. I pursued a doctoral degree at Calvin Seminary and while I was at Calvin I became a Presbyterian and I went into the OPC and so I was in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for a while and that's when I first received a call to pastoral ministry.
Speaker 4:I pastored a church up there in Grand Rapids, michigan, for about a little over seven years. We lived in Grand Rapids for about 11 years, but I pastored that church for about seven years new city fellowship and then, and then from there came to Nashville, tennessee, in um, in, in in 2020, uh, in order to pastor a church that was in the PCA, and so we planted that church, uh, which isinonia and Koinonia started as a site of a multi-site church, and then Koinonia ended up leaving the PCA and coming into the EPC. So it's been a long journey, yeah, and I'm grateful that I've been in all of these different circles. I'm grateful that I've been, you know, baptist, pentecostal and non-denominational. And you know because I've learned in every circle.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so many questions I want to ask you, and maybe this is for a second podcast on…. You got 17 minutes On Calvinism, on Duncan babies, on Big fan.
Speaker 3:Big fan, big fan of Duncan babies.
Speaker 2:But we'll limit the conversation to the denomination. So what was it that drew you to the PCA? Was it more the site, the plant, or was it? There's something about the PCA? So this is. You know, our story overlaps here, where we were both PCA but no longer. So what was it that maybe drew you there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know. So at the time when I was in the OPC, I was one of only two African American pastors in the entire denomination.
Speaker 2:One of two, one ofomination. One of two.
Speaker 4:One of two.
Speaker 2:Two, one of two, two million. Two, two million. Two Gosh, not 20. That feels like a problem. That feels like a problem. Two Right.
Speaker 4:And so, as I connected with some folks within the PCA and they would often say, hey, we only have 55 African-American teaching elders, I'm like we only got two.
Speaker 2:However, proportionately are they about the same.
Speaker 4:The African-American presence in this other denomination presence in this other denomination.
Speaker 4:So, you know, I often rubbed shoulders and got a lot of encouragement from African American pastors and teaching elders, ruling elders and members of the PCA. That kind of gave me a perspective of what is it like to be Black and Reformed Black in a majority white denominational space, and they offered a lot of encouragement. And so, when you know, when the opportunity came in order to like go into the PCA, to in order to pastor this, this church plant, particularly in Nashville, I thought this would be a great opportunity, you know. And so that's why, that's why we did it, you know, that's why we did it.
Speaker 4:Now I I will say I'm really grateful that we so we're now in the EPC, yeah, and I'm really grateful for that transition, and that has to do with a couple of things, but one thing in particular is around our view of women, women's roles in the church and women, particularly women in office, and in my own shifting views on that. And and it's interesting because, again, if you recall, I was taken, I was, I was licensed to preach in a progressive Baptist church with a person who was mentored by Dr King, and one of the distinctives of the progressive Baptist movement is that they ordain women and it's interesting to see me kind of go full circle.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so yeah, and actually I didn't mention this, but the church where I heard the gospel in college, that God's holy temple was pastored by a woman, ok, and so, like it's interesting to see me kind of take this journey where I came sort of came back to that position biblically, I believe, and that helped to steer us toward the EPC. Another thing was that I thought that the EPC was uniquely equipped to bear witness to unity in a polarized society, to unity in a polarized society, right. So the EPC has within it people who have a variety of views and a variety of differences on certain topics, but it creates space for those folks to come together and it actually has some things to be sure that we can play well with each other right that we don't find ourselves forced to violate our own consciences or be tempted to violate each other.
Speaker 4:You know in in presbytery meetings. So, um, they take, they really take, they really take, I think, unity seriously. Also, I would say this I think the EPC is like the Enneagram 9 of denominations.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know what you got me there.
Speaker 4:For those of you who are familiar with the Enneagram. So I'm an Enneagram 9. Enneagram 9 is the peacemaker.
Speaker 3:Oh, this is why I keep hanging out with nines. I was like, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 4:Enneagram 9, man. So I'm like we look, we don't want drama we don't have to do drama. You know like we, you know we are, we would. Um, you know there's a shadow side where you like end up avoiding conflict that you need to do well whoa watch it we don't, it's like we don't, we don't fight unnecessarily right now.
Speaker 4:Um, so if you find an enneagram nine upset, it's because they. There was no other option. I've been back into a corner, okay, I've just, you know. So, uh, so, but yeah, the epc, I think, is as a denomination. Yeah, is the low drama, uh, and I'm not, it's not perfect. There are issues with every denomination. Is the low drama, and I'm not, it's not perfect. There are issues with every denomination in this one too, but but in general, we found it to be a relatively low, low, lower drama that, like it, really takes unity seriously and tries to love people with whom they disagree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, here's where I want to fight, because it takes. You said, if you find an Enneagram 9 fighting, then they've exhausted all other options. I personally am starting to wonder is there any value in denominations anymore? So we, as you know, we left the PCA and when we did, we kept waiting for you to start the next denomination, to start one for us. We were like come on, micah, we know things aren't where you want to be in the PCA, so let's just start a whole new one. But until that time came and we're still waiting until that time came we had some other denominations, like the ones we've talked about.
Speaker 2:Reach out like, hey, you guys want to maybe consider joining with us. And I use the line like I just broke up with someone where I'm like yeah, it's come out a really, really hard relationship relationship and I just think we need some me time. And I think I'm still there. I I don't know if we need any more, uh, other time, I think. I think me time sounds very selfish, so let me rephrase that now um, I don't see the value of them. What's the point? Tell me, micah, why you decided to not go independent non-denom after this.
Speaker 4:That's a great question, brother. So here's the thing. So, as I thought about so regularly as a pastor, I am really telling people about the benefits of church membership, People that might want to visit the church and kind of hang out around the church and sort of be in proximity to the church, but they're wondering why do I really need to join this church? Why do I actually need?
Speaker 4:to make this commitment to this church, yeah, and like, sign up in like an official way. You know and oftentimes I'm talking to them around things around accountability, around responsibility, around mutual support, around really around the unity of the body of Christ that the Lord calls us to have publicly rather than just privately, yeah, of Christ that the Lord calls us to have publicly rather than just privately, and around our kind of really shared responsibility to be able to come together and to work together in ways that aren't where we can't easily just take our ball and go home. And so the thing about denominations is, whatever can be said about the individual can also be said about the church. You know, the very same argument that you would make to try to get an individual to join your local church is the very same argument that we can make to a local church to join the denomination. Hey, no person is an island unto themselves.
Speaker 1:We all need one another.
Speaker 4:We actually need accountability, we need support If we don't have someone else that speaks into our life in a way that that that we can't just ignore, you know, then we can think that what is true of the individual, as I said, is also true of the corporate body, of the local church body.
Speaker 2:I think I agree with you to an extent. I think I agree with you to an extent. But here's where I'm like. It's one thing because when you're talking about your local church body, you are inviting people that are in your church to commit to the body, to commit to it, but when we're a part of a denomination, we're actually not in physical proximity with the rest of the denomination. And then if you talk about Presbyterianism, even in Presbytery so we were a part of the PCA and the oversight presbytery never would come down to experience our expression of the church and so there really wasn't any connectivity there.
Speaker 2:And there's this great story of Eugene Peterson, who was a PCUSA pastor when he was first church planting and he was writing his reports to the presbytery and the presbytery was reading the reports and he after a while started realizing they're actually not reading everything I'm writing them. How involved are they? They're not even reading the reports. They're not coming to the church but they're not even reading the reports. To where first he was, he was um writing really lengthy reports, but then he started realizing that when they weren't reading it, he started making up stuff and so he started saying, like on the first page of the reports like how many baptisms, how many members, what's your financial giving? On the back part was like the, the, the stories, and the back part he started writing stories about, like how his wife has left him and how he's, he's changed his theology, about this. And they were like hey, everything seems to be going really well in the church and it's like so I'm like it's, it's, it's not real, it's a farce. Slim, slim, slim, yes.
Speaker 3:Malcolm, but, but, but, but. But. Abuse doesn't remove proper use. Just because there are denominations that don't exhibit accountability and stuff like that, that doesn't devalue denomination as a whole. It just says that there are some denominations that just aren't doing it well.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's say that's true, I agree. Does this actually happen? This is where I'm like. I'm using that as an example, but even in like the, I'm trying to paint it in the best possible light. So let's say your denomination you're in Nashville. Now you guys have a lot of PCA or EPC, I'm guessing churches in the area where you can actually can go visit each other.
Speaker 4:Well, actually we don't. We don't have many EPC churches in Nashville. We don't actually have. We're the one, okay.
Speaker 1:Oh well, there we go.
Speaker 4:But we have EPC churches that are in Memphis, a number of them in Memphis, and here's the thing there are. So we call the the Presbytery is, we refer to it as the regional church, the regional church, right, and we refer to it as the regional church in order to affirm that we do have a certain kind of proximity with these other churches that are kind of in this area and that know the area what we might call the mission field well enough to be able to speak into specific things that are going on in that area and and and the accountability I would say, and the support is real. But the thing about it is it is, you know, if people don't avail themselves of it or if people aren't living up to what they're actually supposed to be doing. It's the same thing with, like, a local church. You know we could make that argument.
Speaker 4:There's someone say, hey, look, you know I went to this horrible local church. The pastor never checked in on me, the people didn't really care what was going on in my life. So you know, is this thing real or not?
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 4:I could just, you know, just be me and Jesus, you know, just by my bedside or just in my personal life, and I think you would want to say like hey, I'm so sorry those things happened that it shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 4:The Lord calls us to be more than that and we're really, you know, we want to invite you into an opportunity where you could experience more, yeah Right. So I would say the same thing for the regional church. I would say, hey, you know, it shouldn't be that way. I think if you look at Scripture, I think that you would see that God's people from the various earliest times, throughout the time in which they were a, a nation also, where these tribes within the nation Right, and it's interesting because, like God could have, like God didn't necessarily have to divide them up like that, like these tribes, you know, but but it's interesting because, like they had to, they had to learn to live together. They had to learn to live together, they had to learn to work together, they had to learn to sort of identify together in ways that caused them to go beyond their selves and beyond their own kind of local concerns in order to put the bigger nation and the bigger cause that God was doing like in their minds.
Speaker 4:And I think denominations help us to do that.
Speaker 4:Denominations help us to partner with one another in ways that we otherwise wouldn't be able to. So if you think of like, hey, our local church would love to make an impact around such and such natural disaster that happened at this place, one way that a denomination can help is that we can actually mobilize across the country and across a region to all get together, to come together to make an impact, so that we're not all doing a hundred different things in a hundred different ways and not really making an impact. We can actually make a significant impact and people can really focus on that. We can think about church planting. Church planting is something that I think is best done as we do it together across churches, so that we can pool our resources, so that we can support one another, so that we can find ways to really come alongside each other, and I think you see that actually in the early church as well you see Paul kind of not just dealing with individual churches in isolation from one another, but like he's taking up an offering between the churches.
Speaker 4:He's, he's like, you know, he's giving greetings from various, that they have this actual unity. That is an expression of our union with Christ. That is like visible, and I know we don't always do this well and I know we often fail at it, but I think I believe that it's worth the effort because even where we find ourselves falling and failing, we're still falling and failing toward Jesus.
Speaker 4:You know, we're still like this is the vision that Jesus has given us and we want to be, even though we find ourselves stumbling, let's keep reaching in that direction. You know, I got to tell, gotta tell you, man, I do think that this is something where I have great love for, the, and I gotta give a shout out to both the catholic and eastern orthodox traditions, I think, uh-oh, in terms of unity, you know, yeah, and the visible expression of the unity of the body of christ, yeah, um, that's a that. I think that's a really. I think they got a valid critique when they look at all these 10,000 denominations in Protestant world and say hey what are y'all doing here?
Speaker 2:So I think, I think, insofar as we can find believers that share our essential beliefs and are seeking to come together to impact our, our neighborhoods and our cities and our, this country and our neighbors, for the sake of the kingdom yeah I relish opportunities to come together, you know oh, ladies and gentlemen, you have the the most hopeful person uh in the world on this podcast with the reverend dr micah edmondson, who is calling us to the ideal, break us up from the doom and gloom that is this podcast.
Speaker 3:On a normal on a regular face, micah.
Speaker 2:You, just you, just you, just boom and declare light wherever you walk well, you know, as I think about what the Lord's like.
Speaker 4:Think about David, right, david, the Lord's anointed king. One of the first things he does when the Lord, when Saul, passes off the scene, is that David has a heart to try to unify the Lord's people, even the people like part of the song of the bow was certainly to look. It's definitely to lament Saul, but it's also to let the people that would have hated Saul's household know that like it's not okay to hate the Saul people you know, and it's also to let the Saul followers know, like hey, you know, you're part of this kingdom too you
Speaker 4:know and and I just think, like we are people, we know that Jesus actually died, shed his own blood and died for our unity and like and I just think we got to learn, we have to find ways to take it seriously, not just in word, but in action and in deed, and I think that I think, I think denominational participation can be one way in which we can really honor the unity and live into the unity for which Jesus actually shed his own blood. That's good.
Speaker 3:If I may briefly supplement Michael with the words of our Savior in the high priestly prayer and this is a text that's been on my mind especially over the course of the last week or so but in John 17, verses 20 to 21, it says my prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them, that is, all those who believe in Christ, may be one Father. As you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. That is, that the unity that we are called to exhibit as the people of God is in some way participates in the very unity of the Father and the Son Like. The goal is that we would look like that. If there are ways that we can seek that both spiritually and materially, I think that's a worthy pursuit.
Speaker 1:Well, we know you got to run pursuit.
Speaker 2:Well, we know you got to run. Ladies and gentlemen, the Reverend Dr Micah Edmondson, you can go to Koinonia, search it out in Nashville and watch his sermons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, watch his sermons.
Speaker 2:And we'll cross-support one another as churches.
Speaker 3:Micah is the only other pastor in America whose sermons I watch. I mean, charlie Dates is great too, but like he is incredible like he's good his wife has a decent podcast as well, not Charlie Dates.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about your wife maybe his wife too, I don't know thank y'all so much for having me on.
Speaker 4:I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3:Thanks, micah, good to see you.
Speaker 2:Take care. Oh man, I'm encouraged by his hope.
Speaker 3:It's going to take more, I know it's going to take more work.
Speaker 1:I know it's going to take more work on you.
Speaker 2:Slim. I'm encouraged by his, his hope. I'm not convinced by his uh arguments. Let me just say that he made those arguments. I'm like yeah, it sounds great, you know, it doesn't, it's not, it doesn't exist that way. But it sounds great also like also like his argument about, uh, like how it exhibits the unity. I'm like I want that, but as he then said, there's 10,000 denominations, so there's not a unity. And so then I'm like, so maybe we do become Eastern Orthodox, which is also not Roman Catholic? No, you don't.
Speaker 3:Which I disagree with on theology yeah, there's no chance of me going to Rome Constantinople, though. We'll see.
Speaker 2:So there's I mean, the things that he mentioned that I have heard that I agree with that are, you know, arguments for denominations To have, kind of that, shared resources for church planting, for oversight, kind of training up pastors and things like this? All that sounds great and yeah, but the things that I think that aren't actually happening. Is that accountability, actually the support for these churches in this way? I'm like I don't really think that's actually happening in the ways we think it's happening. The arguments against where I'm just like you can still have that, um, encouragement and partnership outside of like, like we just exemplified. He's epc, we're not, and we're still having this partnership. Um, right, like, there's like, but but his thing is also there's we. We don't live in the power struggles that we once lived under. We're like no, this is how we want to lead our church because we know our context. And so that's where I'm like is the squeeze worth the juice?
Speaker 3:Is the juice worth the squeeze Is?
Speaker 2:the juice worth the squeeze and I'm like it seems like a lot of squeezing. That sounded weird. It seems like a lot of squeezing.
Speaker 1:Uh, that's not weird, oh gosh oh, it's just so.
Speaker 3:It's so interesting now that we're I mean, I was already much more sympathetic toward moving towards the denomination than you. Um, also possibly because of I mean because our experiences with the pca were different. Like I didn, I I didn't have that history in it, so for me to leave it was less, I mean, it was less painful. Uh, it was still painful, I mean, I it was, it was still a crisis, but, um, I'm glad we're we're dissecting this on air.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't I I could be wrong.
Speaker 2:This is Malcolm and slip therapy time. I could be wrong, obviously that I'm, uh, I have a blind spot on this, but I don't think it's that I'm responding in this way out of hurt from what happened, but more of like, out of like a disillusionment in the institution. Um, and not just that denomination, but thinking um, because, as we've, we have like actively, not actually, but we have looked at some other places and gone like, is it, is it, does it really fit who we want to be, and things like that, though we're like, oh, maybe we're not, um, and so that's where I'm just going, like, is that, is that, is that, is that worth it? I don't know. Um, hey, how about we ask our listeners? Listeners help us out. Malcolm thinks we should do something. Uh, thinks we should join a denomination. Slim says we shouldn't. Um, I don't know. Our elders are in the middle.
Speaker 3:Take a poll.
Speaker 2:Take a poll on everyone. Our elders probably like why are you doing it this way Exactly? Our elders are probably like why are you doing?
Speaker 1:it this way Exactly, but we're doing it live.
Speaker 3:We're going to get in trouble with our people, it's okay. No decisions have been made as a result of this podcast.
Speaker 1:Wow, I can't believe we're still going?
Speaker 2:How about we hit the music? What do you say?
Speaker 3:I mean, I guess.
Speaker 2:This was great. This was great. This is amazing. But seriously, send us your questions or your suggestions on what's the advantages to being a part of a denomination and what's not, and we will have a poll and it will determine the outcome of the trajectory of nothing, oh my gosh Of nothing.
Speaker 3:So over the course of the next few months we're going to have a bunch of guests. It's going to be awesome. A lot of people who have some really good books that you should all buy for yourselves and for your families and for your churches Wonderful.
Speaker 2:As always, the best way to support this work is to give it a rating and a review. If you have not yet done that, if you've not rated it, you're not reviewed it, you've not shared. It is a way to say thanks for what we're doing here. So hopefully you found it worth your time. Thanks, as always, for listening. We will see you on our next episode. Bye y'all, thank you.