When we set out to make a film about race, religion and politics, we thought, “Oh great, the three things you’re never supposed to talk about!” But as we talked openly about these things and discussed some of most difficult and uncomfortable topics in the history of this nation that have plagued us for centuries, we found so much freedom in the conversations. In the asking. In the hard questions. In the wresting. So our call to action is different than most. It is not to get out there and do something. Yet. It is first to ask. To listen. To contemplate. To dig a little deeper than you’re used to digging. And to pray. Rather than avoiding the hard conversations, bring them to God. Lay them at the feet of Jesus. And seek his heart. Listen to scripture. Listen to others. And allow the God of heaven and earth to peel back the layers that living in America has laid on all of us.
That being said, here are 10 practical ways you can respond to the film in order to go deeper:
1) Listen – We all love to speak our minds and share our experiences. But we would encourage you to be intentional about listening first, particularly to people who don’t look like you, act like you or think like you. None of us can actually live a day in someone else’s shoes. But we can listen to their stories and their life experience. And each time we do, we gain a greater perspective on the world around us.
2) Ask hard questions – Never be afraid to ask. We are so polite sometimes (especially in the South) that we are afraid to broach difficult topics. Ask an intentional question. Start a conversation with someone you wouldn’t usually speak to. You will be amazed at how people will open up when you give them the space to share and speak.
3) Be a minority – Due to the tribal nature of humanity, people tend to gravitate to others who look like us and act like us. But one of the best ways to break out of this habit is to intentionally seek out spaces where you are the minority. If you’re white, go to a black church. If you’re black, go to a white church. Crossing the racial lines that keep us separate is extremely liberating. Because we realize that those lines are only in our minds. We have so much to learn from one another but we must be willing to first step out of our comfort zones.
4) Read history – Most of us think we know history because we took a couple of high school or college history classes. But unfortunately a lot of American history and particularly Black history has been intentionally suppressed. Just look up The Lost Cause of the Confederacy. After the Civil War, much of Southern history was rewritten and revised to whitewash the horrors of slavery. The true brutality of this institution as well as Jim Crow has been suppressed and the Trump administration wants to censor it even further. But when we read our history, we gain a better understanding of where we have come from so we can know where we’re going. And so we don’t end up repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
5) Read the Bible – As we discuss in the film, both the institution of slavery and the Jim Crow laws were founded on scripture that had been taken out of context and twisted to justify societal norms that ran directly counter to the heart of God. This same practice has been used throughout the history of the modern religious right movement and most recently to defend President Trump and his agenda. But the best way to fight the distortion of the Bible is to read the Bible. The Word of God says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). By reading and studying the Bible, we can fight the distortion that tries to manipulate scripture to justify an agenda that goes against the heart of our Heavenly Father.
6) Acknowledge sin – The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We fall short as individuals and we also fall short as a society. It’s important if we are ever going to move forward as a nation, that we acknowledge the wrongdoings of our past. We did not own slaves. But many of our ancestors did. And the scars of that institution are still evident all around us in the world that we inhabit on a day to day basis. So are the scars of Jim Crow and the War on Drugs. And a million other threads of systematic racism and injustice that affect minority communities in this nation. We can address these issues, but we must first acknowledge that they exist. And we have to understand that it doesn’t make us bad people to acknowledge the sins of our forefathers. It just makes us real people who are mindful and aware of the world in which we live.
7) Pray for forgiveness – Once we have acknowledged our sin, both individually and collectively, it’s easy to rush right into action to try to fix it. But before we do anything, it is critical that we sit before the Lord and ask for His forgiveness. The Word of God says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). It’s hard to confess. For all of us. No one wants to admit that they’ve done something wrong. But confession and repentance is always the first step to healing, and we desperately need that first step as a nation.
8) Serve someone in need – A logical next step to confession and repentance is to serve others. Part of acknowledging sin is recognizing the way that sin has broken us as individuals and our society as a whole. And when we see brokenness, we are often moved by the love of God to do something about it. We close the film with the story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan man was not a religious scholar, but he was moved to action by what we saw—a man who needed help. And he did what needed to be done to get that man back on his feet again. May we all be equally ready to serve those in need when the opportunity arises.
9) Rethink your politics – Part of acknowledging brokenness and a huge focus of the documentary is the way the sins of our past have shaped our modern political system. Donald Trump rose to power using racist dog whistles and appealing to a pattern of sin that has been exploited by politicians for centuries in this nation. If we ever want to change that, we have to confront it. And we have to confront it in our own hearts first. Racism has been used as a political wedge for far too long in this nation, and the day they’ll stop using it is the day it no longer works.
10) Rethink you spiritual journey – If you’re like us, the distortion of the Christian faith first turned us away from Jesus. But over time, we came to realize that Jesus isn’t the problem. It’s those who have used his name to justify their own agenda that are the problem. Jesus once said, “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24). People who offer false religious and political systems in the name of Jesus don’t change who Jesus is. In fact, they validate Jesus because he explicitly warned us about them on multiple occasions. Our heart in making the film and beyond is to help you and us, all of us, to rediscover Jesus’ true heart. And to navigate how we get back to a faith that looks like the actual Jesus of the Bible, not a cherry picked, politically weaponized version of him.