Beeson Podcast, Episode #650 Dr. Carl Ellis Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney. We are just about a week away from the end of our spring semester. Students, we are praying that God will bless you with an extra measure of grace and alertness as you approach final exams and assignments over the next week or so. We love you and are grateful for another blessed semester of life together here at Beeson Divinity School. I’m excited to report that our friend, Carl Ellis, is back on campus today and is with me right now for an interview in the podcast studio. But before I introduce him, let me make two announcements. First, our spring commencement and service of consecration will be on April 28th at 11:00 AM in Hodges Chapel. Our speaker will be my friend and former student, Dr. Julius Kim, who is President of the Gospel Coalition. He will speak to our graduates on Pointers to Grace. And second, our Atlanta area Beeson alumni fellowship invites you to dinner at Echo Buckhead’s private room on April the 21st at 7:00PM. Find details and register at www.BeesonDivinity.com/events. Our new Anglican Professor of Divinity here at Beeson, Dr. Jonathan Linebaugh, will attend and offer remarks. And all alumni in attendance will receive a copy of Dr. Linebaugh’s new book, “The Word of the Cross: Reading Paul.” All right, Dr. Ellis, thank you very much for being with us again today. It’s great to have you with me here in the studio. >>Dr. Ellis: It’s great to be back. >>Doug Sweeney: I wonder if we could begin by just asking you to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? How did you come to know the Lord and how did you become a minister of the gospel? >>Dr. Ellis: That’s a great question. From a very young age I remember I had this pretty decent relationship with God. I knew who he was and all. And I just somehow just knew that I wanted to know him better. But as I grew I began to become aware of the fact that I was a sinner. By the time I was about six or seven I knew I was a sinner. I knew I had messed up the relationship – let’s put it that way. So, for the next few years I really desired to fix that relationship, and I was raised in the church and I would always ask, “How do you get to know God?” People said, “Well, you’ve got to go to church and you’ve got to go to Sunday school.” You’ve got to do this and that and the other. But I never heard the gospel. I’m not saying they didn’t share it with me, it’s just that I didn’t hear it. If you speak to me in Swahili or something then I don’t understand Swahili yet. I’m still working on it. Anyway, so long story short, I became kind of disillusioned. I’d say. I’d been a protestant, a Catholic, I came back to be a protestant. I remember when I was a Catholic, soon after I was baptized Catholic ... and the reason I was baptized Catholic is because I was in New York at the time and the public schools wouldn’t accept me and the Catholic school did, but they said you have to become a Catholic. So, that’s how I became a Catholic. Right after that Pope Pius X11 died. And I thought, huh, if anybody knew he was going to heaven when he died it has to be the pope. So, I decided right then and there that I wanted to be the pope one day. (laughter) As much as I hated Christianity, you know what I’m saying ... So, I signed up to be an altar boy. I was ready to make the steady climb. But back in those days ... that was before the Vatican reformed. So, everything was in Latin. And my stumbling block was Latin. I could not get Latin. I just had a mental block to it. I couldn’t. So, that killed that. So, anyway, long story short – back to the protestant church. But I kept hearing this business of, “Go to church, be good.” And I said there’s got to be something better than that. So, I became about as anti-Christian as one could be. Malcolm X did more for me than anybody else to prepare me to hear the gospel. Basically what it was, when you’re in a subdominant culture in a society – I didn’t know what this was called then, but we call them micro aggressions today. You see a lot of micro aggressions. You go to the drug store and you get a band-aid or something and it’s flesh color. What’s that? You know what I’m saying? Things like that. All right, a lot of little pin pricks. Anyway, it did a number on my self esteem. And so when Christians would come to me and say, “You’re a no good sinner.” I didn’t want to hear that. You know? I didn’t want to hear that. I already knew that. But anyway, Malcolm said, “You’ve got dignity, you’ve got worth, you’ve got an ability. Live up to it.” Oh, okay. That set me up, because when I started believing that and I started trying to live up to that, I found myself falling short. It kind of puzzled me. So, anyway, I ran into some guy, nerdy kind of guy, anyway they were about as un-churchable as you can find. But they had become Christians. And so I challenged them with these questions. And they answered my questions. And when I said, okay, the final question is – why can’t I live up to what Malcolm says I am? And they said, “Romans 3:23.” So, for the first time I saw that sin was like a millstone around my neck. All right? I thought, oh, okay, so how do I get rid of that? They said, “Oh, that’s great.” So, they laid the gospel ... the first time the gospel made sense and that’s how I came to faith. >>Doug Sweeney: And then did you just sort of gradually fall into full time ministry? Did you have a dramatic experience where you felt a calling by God? >>Dr. Ellis: No, no, no. Okay. Yeah, no, I didn’t gradually fall into it. I knew ... as a matter of fact, it’s interesting. Right after I received Christ I told my pastor that I had ... he evidently thought I was in a cult. So, he said, “You don’t bring that stuff in my church.” I said, well, that’s fine, I don’t like going to church anyway. So, I stayed away from church for about five years. But these guys who led me to Christ discipled me. That was the thing. So, one of the things I did not want to do was go into full time ministry. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be a business man, make a lot of money, and be generous. Hey, what’s wrong with that? Right? And so at that time I thought all God wanted from me was my spiritual life. So, he had my spiritual life, but I had everything else to myself. And about two years later God challenged me and he said, “No, no. It’s all of it. All of it.” So, I yielded everything and I said, I know you don’t want me to be a pastor. But I’ll yield it to you. And sure enough he, after graduation, I went into campus ministry for a while, and then eventually I came to understand, like I said, after the five years away – I came to understand that there were real Christians in the church. I really thought that church was an anti-Christian institution – believe it or not. But I began to realize, okay, it’s a different system, but there are real believers there. And slowly but surely I came to really recognize God’s people are there, too. And then over the years, shall I say, I’ll put it in technical terms, I developed emulation software to allow me to function in the church. (laughs) And so I pastored a couple of times and all the rest of that. So, in a sense, I’m kind of like a Macintosh computer that runs Windows also. Okay? I’m right at home with the un-churchable, people who are allergic to church. I’m right at home with them. Because I used to be one of them. And I still am in my natural state, but at the same time in terms of my emulation software state I totally, I understand what church is and I love the church and all that. So, that’s kind of how it all developed. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. Wonderful. Well, our Beeson people already know you fairly well. We know both you and your wife, Karen, have been here a number of times before. But just in case we got some folks listening today who don’t know a lot about your professional life, let us remind them that you are a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS). And even for folks who think they know all about you, your job title now ... they’re calling you Provost Professor of Theology and Culture and the Senior Fellow of the Edmonson Center at RTS. Tell us what does that mean? What are you doing? >>Dr. Ellis: RTS has eight physical campuses and one online campus. So, a Provost Professor is kind of like a professor at large. I can teach in all the different campuses, if they want me to. So, I’m not tied to one campus. So, that’s what that means. The Edmonson Center is ... we have a curriculum that focuses on Christianity in the hard places. That is today the overwhelming majority of Christians are under some kind of persecution or difficulty or hostility or whatever. So, what we’re looking at is the dynamic of a minority culture versus a dominant culture, or a sub dominate culture versus dominant culture. So, we’re looking at that. And we’re seeing that throughout history the people of God have always been a cultural minority. They’ve always been under some kind of difficulty. American Christianity is the outlier. People in American Christianity think of Christianity of being a part of the establishment. But that’s not true. And so we look at those dynamics between the body of Christ and the rest of society in most of the world and throughout much of history. And we say, okay, now if we look at the American issue of race, let’s say, it has exactly the same dynamics. Dominant versus subdominant. And so when people get all up in arms about racism and all the rest of that, okay yeah, racism exists. But it’s not everything. It’s significant, but it’s not everything. But we look at the church – the church in most of the world and throughout most of history has been in that same situation. So, we’re looking at how they navigate, how the church navigates in those waters. And we’re trying to share the lessons and the wisdom that comes from that to our students at the Edmonson Center. Now the Edmonson’s ... you’ll hear me talk about them later on, but they were a couple, one generation out of slavery, who did some remarkable things in the Congo Free State. A lot of remarkable things. And so they really fit the profile of the kind of things we want to do. We want to be ... God has placed us where we are. And we need to understand the wisdom that Go wants us to exhibit where we are. Not to say that we’re satisfied with the status quo. We certainly are not. But there’s a lot to be learned from our brothers and sisters, like in Cuba, like in Iran, Afghanistan. I mean, good night. Iran has the fastest growing church in the world now. And there’s a lot to be learned from that. And we look at the early African American church. You see some of the very same patterns. The early African American church was persecuted by the establishment church. It was persecuted by non Christian fellow slaves. You know what I’m saying? My wife has just finished doing a dissertation on that very same thing that happened on the Island of St. Thomas. Looking at the first African led church in the Americas. So, those are the things we need to look at. And so if we do that, focus on the Kingdom, then we can kind of be inoculated against the poisons of Christian nationalism and what I would call critical Christendom, which is trying to ... they try to Christianize critical theory, which is (laughs) ridiculous. But anyway ... it seems like we need to focus people on the Kingdom and how radical it is compared to all these other ideologies. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. And the history you’re just talking about provides me with a great segue to the next thing I wanted to ask you about. We’ve got you here today to give a lecture at lunchtime on a forgotten missions legacy, which I think is going to be about African American forefather, forepeople, who were missionary pioneers. >>Dr. Ellis: That’s right. >>Doug Sweeney: Tell our listeners ... and we’re going to put it on the website and they can go watch the lecture later, but tell them a little bit about what you’re going to say. >>Dr. Ellis: Well, if I was to ask you who was America’s first missionary, what would you say? >>Doug Sweeney: This sounds like a trick question. (laughter) >>Dr. Ellis: Kind of a trick. Okay, let me narrow it down. American’s first missionary after American became America. Now, there were some people who did some stuff before, but yeah, America’s first missionary. There’s an answer everybody gives me, but ... >>Doug Sweeney: It is [inaudible 00:13:08]? >>Dr. Ellis: Hmm. >>Doug Sweeney: I’m trying to remember the name ... there was a famous Black missionary in the late 18th century. >>Dr. Ellis: That’s right. You got it. >>Doug Sweeney: Did I get his name right? >>Dr. Ellis: Late ‘70s. Yeah. George Lyle. >>Doug Sweeney: Oh, George Lyle. Well, I’ve written about him! He was [crosstalk 00:13:22] who went to the Caribbean. >>Dr. Ellis: That’s right. A lot of people give the credit to somebody else who came 30 years later. But yeah. There’s quite a remarkable history of missions involvement on the part of African Americans. What happened was that African Americans and Afro Caribbean’s, they both had a burden for the motherland, you know what I’m saying? So, there was a lot of involvement over there. There was kind of like what I call a trial [inaudible 00:13:58] between the church in Africa, African American church, Afro Caribbean church. So, there was quite a lot of activity going on, but of course historical things and economic issues and everything led to the devastation of the movement. So, yeah, that’s the kind of thing, the history books don’t record it. But there’s quite a significant movement that came up. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, you’re talking to a church history teacher now and you got me thinking we’ve got to say a little bit more about this. I kind of want you to preach my sermon for me. But why should anybody care about all this stuff that happened a couple hundred years ago? 150 years ago? How do you think it’s related to what we want Christians to be doing today? >>Dr. Ellis: Why did God leave the Old Testament with us? You know what I’m saying? >>Doug Sweeney: Mm hmm (Affirmative). >>Dr. Ellis: That’s church history. So, we need to know all these things so we can have wisdom as to ... So, we can be men and women of Issachar so we can know the times and know what Israel should do. So, that’s why we need to know this. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s great. All right. I want to tell our listeners about a book that you published just a few years entitled “Free At Last?: The Gospel in the African American Experience.” What were you trying to do in that book? And how are you praying the Lord is going to use it moving forward? >>Dr. Ellis: Okay. That book is about how God works through history and culture. And I used the African American experience as my case study. It was amazing that several people caught onto it when it first came out. One of the first letters I got was from a man in New Zealand. He said, “Oh, thank you for writing the book. It’s really, really revolutionized our ministry,” blah, blah, blah. I thought, what on earth? And so I finally met the guy and I talked to him and he said, “Yeah, I’m a Maori.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “Oh yeah, you don’t know ...” The Aborigines of New Zealand. And the dynamics between the Aborigines or the Maoris and the settlers were almost identical to the African American / White dynamics. And that began to open me up to realizing, wait a minute, we’re looking at a bigger pattern here. This is not just racism. This is fallen humanity. This is, we all do this stuff. I began to realize what I had stumbled upon. Several other people have written me later on and said how it helped them to understand the history where they were. So, that was it. So, it had an African American focus, but was universal in application. Since then, by the way, I just finished two new manuscripts. One is a sequel to Free At Last? And the other one will be a companion to both, but it will be one just about our current cultural crisis, a theological analysis of our current cultural crisis. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, all right. Give us a little taste. I mean, I was going to ask you for some wisdom on navigating faithfully biblically courageously thoughtfully ongoing problems of racism in our society today. Are you getting into that a little bit in the new book you’ve got coming out? You’re such a wise theologian, kind of help us a little bit to think this stuff through. >>Dr. Ellis: Well, yeah, we get into it, but see what I’m trying to show is ... Okay, let me put it this way, there is a danger that’s happening today of a groupthink that’s emerging. And the groupthink is very shallow in its analysis. Okay? Like, for example, let’s say that ... Okay, the train wreck in Palestine, Ohio. There are people who ... groupthink is so ridiculous that they would come up and say that’s racist or something. That’s because of racism. As a matter of fact, there was a scholar at some college recently that wrote that if you have a neat house and an organized pantry that’s a racist thing. >>Doug Sweeney: Oh my. >>Dr. Ellis: Now, come on. Give me a break. >>Doug Sweeney: I’m gonna mess things up back at home tonight. >>Dr. Ellis: Right!? (laughter) That’s right, you’re gonna be racist. Well, what’s happened today is that what we are looking at, there are real problems out there. There is such a thing as racism. There is such a thing as systemic racism. But everything cannot be attributed to systemic racism. There are other factors that are involved. There’s cultural factors. There’s economic factors. There’s a whole lot of other things. What’s happening in today’s simplistic way of thinking – they want to attribute everything to one thing. So, I could have a hangnail, for example, and I think everything is because of my hangnail, but I could be ravished with cancer. But I don’t pay attention to that, I’m trying to get this hangnail. So, I’m not saying the hangnail isn’t real and isn’t significant, but there are other things that are involved. So, I’m trying to get people to look back and see – let’s look at the whole picture. The other thing, too, is that I’m trying to help people to understand that all of this goes all the way back to the garden. Okay? All the way back to the garden. The issue in the garden wasn’t obtaining the data or the information of good and evil. That wasn’t it. The issue was on what basis do we judge good and evil. Do we base it on the word of God or do we base it on human opinion? And so what happened, the sin of the garden was that we opted to judge good and evil based on human opinion. To determine what good and evil are, that’s God’s thing. That’s not ours. But we try to stage a coup against God as it were. And so everything ... human beings became self referential. And of course we’re living in a day of what we call self referential incoherence. You know what I’m talking about? Right? That’s the problem. That’s what I’m trying to get people to see. And that it’s not enough to say ... okay, for example, I do not deny the historical significance of the election of Barack Obama. That was an incredible thing. However, I separate the historical significance from the actual policies he implemented. And now when I look at the policies I’m not that impressed. You know what I’m saying? So, it’s not enough ... it’s a wonderful thing to have had a Black President but on the other hand if the Black President implements policies that are harmful then that’s a whole other issue. I think we have to look at those kinds of things – what kind of policies, what is their worldview, etc. In the old days, when we were all oppressed more than we are today, shall I say, there was a kind of comradery we had and there was a kind of Christian consensus that was among 99% of African Americans. But that no longer exists. That consensus no longer exists. So, you take ... Well, I might as well say it, I’m going to get in trouble anyway ... take an organization like Black Lives Matter. If you would have asked me, “Do Black lives matter?” I’d say, “Absolutely.” No question about it. No question about it. That’s the truth. Okay? Now, if you were to ask me, do I believe in what the organization called Black Lives Matter is trying to implement? I’d say, no. I disagree with it. However, I do believe Black lives matter. And so that’s what’s happening today. It’s becoming a little murky. >>Doug Sweeney: I agree with you. And I agree with the problem of the groupthink. But probably, I mean, you want a White guy like me, right, to get further sensitized to some of the actual problems with racism we’ve got in our society. You don’t want to let me off the hook, here. >>Dr. Ellis: No. >>Doug Sweeney: You want me to go home tonight thinking a little bit better about sins of commission and omission. >>Dr. Ellis: Commission and omission, that’s right. Yeah. Sure. >>Dr. Ellis: So, what do you want me to think about there? >>Doug Sweeney: I want to encourage you strongly into repentance, faith, and obedience. I mean, like you should do me. You know what I’m saying? I’m not going to expect you to know every little detail of every little thing. I mean, there are things that happen in society – there are millions of micro aggressions, let’s put it that way, that you wouldn’t even realize. But I hear all the time. A politician comes along and says, “We are a nation of immigrants.” Now what am I supposed to make of that? My ancestors were either kidnapped and brought over here or they were already here when they were conquered. So, what am I supposed to ... Now, okay, having said that, I’m not going to get bent out of shape about that because I know that the politician is not meaning to put me down. You know what I’m saying? At least I’m old enough to kind of recognize that. But I would point that out and say, “Hey, have you ever thought of this?” So, there’s millions of things like that. So, that’s why it’s important for us to be in the body of Christ to be able to share with each other how things affect us and everything. And I’m not going to get into a ... I’m not going to call you a racist because you made a statement like that. Because I know that’s not necessarily where your heart is. I want to know where you’re really coming from. And if I find out that you are, then I would challenge you very hardly. The thing is, my identity, when it comes to identity the only thing that can be my absolute identity is something that happened pre fall. Okay? So, I’m a human being, that’s a strong identity. But even after the fall there was something that God did. He gave us a salvation covenant. And so my other ultimate identity would be the fact that I am in Christ. Now, everything else is secondary. I love being an African American. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t change. But that’s a secondary identity, although it’s strong. But it’s legitimate because it’s due to things ... you can look at my DNA and know I’m an African American. Now, when we start using other things as our identity, like behaviors and opinions and things like that, those things aren’t strong enough to be our absolute identity. So, in order for me to fit myself inside of that ... let’s say I want to, whatever behavior patterns I pick, I have to dehumanize myself to fit under that – and I’m not going to do that. But just because I have a strong secondary African American identity, my identity in Christ supersedes that. And that’s where I connect with all the rest of my brothers and sisters in Christ. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s a wonderful thing. Dr. Ellis, we’re really glad you’re with us today. Can’t wait to hear you talk to the students at lunchtime. You may remember, we always like to end these podcasts interviews by asking our guests what the Lord is doing in their life these days. Is he teaching you anything new as you walk with him day by day? Anything that we can conclude with that might edify our listeners spiritually? >>Dr. Ellis: I find that today I’m doing a lot more international things. I just got back from Kenya, teaching almost 200 pastors on a basic thing like the covenant. And how the covenant ties the whole bible together. And they were so absolutely blown away. They had never knew any of that. And I’m thinking, good gracious, more than 100 years of missionary activity in Kenya – what have the missionaries been teaching them? Anyway, they were so encouraged and so empowered. We just got through doing some things in Cuba, which is kind of interesting. You can pray for the church in Cuba. They’re growing, they are thriving, they’re just doing a wonderful job down there. And other places in the world. Of course, pray for my brothers and sisters in the hood. I like to go there and do stuff, too. So, yeah, I would say that I just want God’s wisdom to do what I’m doing and I thank God for the things he’s opening up. So, that’s it. I’m dedicated to helping my wife finish her PhD, which she’s almost finished with. A few more sentences and that’s about it. So, that’s kind of what I’m about. I’m trying to be a good granddad now. I’m a grandfather. And just trying to help my kids. I found out that when your kids grow up, you’re not off the hook for being a parent. (laughter) I didn’t know that. So, anyway ... those are just some things. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s great. Thank you, Dr. Ellis, for being with us. Listeners, you have been listening to our friend, Dr. Carl Ellis. He is Provost Professor of Theology and Culture and Senior Fellow of the Edmonson Center at Reformed Theological Seminary. He’s here today giving a lecture to the students at lunchtime. We’re grateful to him for his presence, for his friendship. We’re grateful to you, too, listeners. We love you. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for listening. Goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.