Damon Garcia, author of "The God Who Riots", is our fellow sojourner and seeker for this conversation on Compass.
He invites us to think about Jesus' view of holy action and belief. It’s a bit of a disruption if you grew up with the notion of Jesus being a calm and passive presence seeking to teach people about the afterlife. Instead, Damon comes at us talking about Jesus in the here and now disrupting our acceptance of systems of harm and injustice.
Let’s meet Damon Garcia, he is a public theologian, writer and video essayist–you can find his work on YouTube and in the book “The God Who Riots: Taking back the Radical Jesus.” Damon helps people unsettle and untangle the influence of Christian teachings that have done harm in the past… things like colonialism.
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Links for Damon:
Damon's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/DamonGarcia
Damon's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whoisdamon/
Order The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus
Episode Transcript
Ryan Dunn:
This is the Compass podcast, disrupting your day to day with experiences of the divine. My name is Ryan Dunn, I'm the host. I had a disruption of my own recently, this disruption was centered around my personal perception of Jesus Christ. I got the gift of a disruptingly fresh take on the actions of Jesus and the actions that we who profess to follow Jesus are challenged to undertake. This episode is going to hit you with that kind of disruption and fresh take too. For me, the disruption started with this question, did Jesus riot? Consider this story out of the Gospel of Mark chapter 11, "They came to Jerusalem and Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
Ryan Dunn:
"And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, 'Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.' And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him for they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching." Damon Garcia is our fellow sojourner and seeker for the upcoming conversation that we're having right here on Compass. He invites us to think about what actions like this meant for Jesus' view of holy action and belief. It's a bit of a disruption if you grew up with the notion of Jesus, being a calm and passive presence, seeking to teach people about the afterlife.
Ryan Dunn:
Instead, Damon comes at us talking about Jesus in the here and now in disrupting our acceptance of systems of harm and injustice. Let's meet Damon Garcia. He is a public theologian, a writer, and video essayist. You can find his work on YouTube and in the book, The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus. Damon helps people unsettle and untangle the influence of Christian teachings that have done harm in the past. Things like colonialism. So let's get talking with Damon Garcia on the Compass podcast. Damon Garcia, thank you so much for joining us on the Compass podcast.
Damon Garcia:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
Ryan Dunn:
I want to hit you with a deep theological question. It's one that you bring up in the book and you treat it in a... You take it in a different direction than I have generally heard it taken. So here's the question, Damon, can God make a burrito so hot that not even God can eat it?
Damon Garcia:
That is a really good question. That's like the modern version of can God make a rock so heavy that God couldn't lift it? And yeah, I bring that up in the book because I have this chapter about the lack of imagination I see among a lot of my fellow Christians. And I go back to this really old letter in written in 1065, I think by Peter Damian medieval theologian, where he's writing a letter to his friend where he's upset about how a previous conversation went and how they concluded it with well, yeah, there is some things God cannot do such as change events that happened in the past. And that's just what happened. And then he's frustrated because he doesn't like saying God can't do something. And so he's very obsessed with omnipotence and arguing for that. And I'm not exactly into the doctrine of omnipotence as much as he is.
Damon Garcia:
But I related with the fact that he was so frustrated that he felt like he was surrounded by people who were just constantly talking about what God can't do and trying to figure out all the things God can't do, because Jesus said with God all things are possible. And Peter Damian actually believed it. And so he was just so passionate about of course if there's anything... If God wanted to stop Rome from ever being built, he could go back in history and do that. And it's like, yeah I would say that is impossible. But then I think of-
Ryan Dunn:
Okay.
Damon Garcia:
It reminded me of how when we have conversations about justice and liberation and how so many of our peers can often say, "Well, that's too impractical. Well, that'll never happen because of how people are. And because we just have to deal with a lot of the oppression we're facing." And it's like, we should have way more radical imagination, especially if we're Christians. And we believe that this whole thing is headed toward the reconciliation of all things, the restoration of all things, and the renewal of all things we should strive for the most radical alternatives. And so I think Peter Damian would respond to that burrito question and that rock question, like, of course God will lift that rock and eat that burrito at the same time. And it's like, I'm over here saying like, of course we could build radical alternatives to the systems we have now. So that's kind of a funny part of the book.
Ryan Dunn:
Yeah. Well, I've been a youth pastor for a number of years. It's not the first time I heard that question, but you took it in such a refreshing way and in such a new direction and relevant question, especially as you started relating it to the history of the way that things are. Where you had even brought it up, can God erase the past? And can you talk about that a little bit in the ways that you talked about how we can creatively move forward from the past without always remembering the past, but not just whitewashing the past.
Damon Garcia:
Yeah. I talk a lot about the history of white supremacy and how Christian colonialism is responsible for the development of white supremacy and how even the ways... When the Americas were first colonized and when Africa was first colonized, there was no concept of whiteness. It wasn't an idea of like, well, we're white so we could do this to non-white people. It was Christians and pagans. And since we're Christians, then pagans don't have the same rights we do and so we have a right to take their land and enslave them. That was the logic that the Pope approved of. And over time as those they subjugated started converting to Christianity, they needed a new justification. And that's when they started to develop this idea that yes, all of these diverse cultural, Western European groups are white. We're all just stuck together like that. And all these diverse cultural groups of those we're colonizing are now just Black and there's various cast systems reflecting that as well.
Damon Garcia:
And so I think it's important to realize the white supremacy that we're all discussing and wrestling against today has its origins in Christian logic. And so I don't say that so that we can despair over that, but if we can point to those moments in history where things developed, then we can envision their end as well and talk about ways we can dismantle those things. And so, as I'm talking about that, I also talk about the fact that today, when we talk about white supremacy, a lot of people think that the way to get rid of white supremacy or racism is to just stop talking about it so much. I'm sure a lot of people can have heard stuff like that before like the only ones who are really keeping racism alive are you all who are talking about how we need to solve racism.
Damon Garcia:
It's like, it's ridiculous. But it seems to come from this logic that if we didn't talk about it so much, then it would go away, but that's just like pushing it under the rug. And it's still just this massive bulge under the rug that we're all dealing with. And I talk about how there are other ways to reconcile history. And that requires us to confront the past and confront the institutions that were built with white supremacist logic and colonial logic and envision their end and work together to make things right, make every wrong right. And I talk about the concept that W.E.B. Du Bois talks about abolition democracy, how after the abolition of chattel slavery, that wasn't enough because we ended up creating the prison industrial complex that turned a slave class into a criminalized class.
Damon Garcia:
And so we need to actually confront those things and talk about the ways that white supremacist institutions are still alive today and how we can build better alternatives in our communities so that we don't need those institutions and we could dismantle them. And that is a totally different understanding of reconciliation, as opposed to, let's just stop talking about it so much. Those who are marginalized just need to forgive people in power. It's like I don't think that's the type of reconciliation Jesus is interested in.
Ryan Dunn:
Yeah. You a shared also in a personal story about in 2017, you in a way had a reconciliation in your understanding of who Jesus is. Where it's in the beginning, you were hearing, I guess, a version of Jesus preached and you came to a point where you just weren't able to affirm that that was true. Can you take us back to 2017 and what you were hearing and how that was unsettling you a little bit in terms of who you were beginning to understand Jesus is?
Damon Garcia:
So I grew up in an evangelical church and then when I was 18, I felt called into ministry and started that whole process, was involved in a ministry program in my denomination and was taking Bible college classes. And then I had dropped out of... Excuse me, then I had dropped out of that and I still wanted to do ministry and work toward getting my pastoral license in the denomination. So I got a job doing youth and young adults ministry, and I had actually started-
Ryan Dunn:
Isn't that the way... You were like 19, 20 at that time? It's like, oh, the young person. Yeah, you're young.
Damon Garcia:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn:
The young adults that you're-
Damon Garcia:
Yeah I was-
Ryan Dunn:
That was your realm.
Damon Garcia:
I think I was 24 when I started doing that job.
Ryan Dunn:
I mean, still.
Damon Garcia:
And yes, still very young, but I was loving that job, but I had really started to question a lot of evangelical ideas, like a lot earlier when I was around 20. And so I for a long time just read both. I think a lot of people have been in that experience where it's like, well, let's get the widest perspective we could possibly get. Every time we get a radical, maybe left leaning book, let's also get the conservative version of it too and get the full perspective. I was in that state for a while. And because really I was young and trying to learn a lot of this stuff, because I knew that this was a really big responsibility to be teaching people about these ideas. So I wanted to really know what I was talking about, but as I kept learning, I found myself theologically, outside of the boundaries of evangelical ideas.
Damon Garcia:
And so some people experience that and then leave. But I had spent years trying really hard to make it work. I tried to synthesize ideas and I believed that I could perhaps be a part of the change from the inside. And I had other friends within that denomination that felt the same way. And then it eventually got to the point where it just became impossible. And in 2017 is when I fully realized that. I was about to get my pastoral license and go through that interviewing process but before that interviewing process months, before they give you a list of the questions they're going to ask, and I knew I couldn't answer them honestly. And so that was starting to make me feel unsettled.
Damon Garcia:
And then at the time in 2017, there was a lot of talk among my peers about things that were going on in our country like Trump's travel ban on Muslims, Black Lives Matter protests, women's marches, trans rights, immigration. And then at church, none of those things were ever talked about. And so one day I had a meeting with some of the assistant pastors at the church and told them that I don't feel comfortable inviting young adults to service on Sundays. And that was mainly a problem because I was the young adults minister. So it was literally my job to bring young adults to that church.
Ryan Dunn:
So you were in a sense telling them like, hey, I can't do my job. Yeah.
Damon Garcia:
Mm-hmm. And I told them everything I just said. Well, all the things about here's what people are talking about and why can't we talk about that? And then by the end of it, they had responded to me. Yeah, I don't think there's as many people thinking about that stuff as you think there are. And that was like a moment of huge disconnect. And I realized like, oh yeah, this isn't going to work at all. And then I left and I mentioned that story in the very beginning of the book, because I know a lot of people have been in experiences like that with either ministers or their fellow Christians, where there's such a big disconnect where it feels like, of course as Christians, we should care about discrimination and bigotry and oppression that we're all facing. Jesus leads us to care about that. And Jesus cared about that when we looked at the issues of oppression in the first century Roman empire. And yet we at times meet so many Christians that say things like, "Oh yeah, I'm not really political, I'm a Christian." It's like wait, this is weird.
Ryan Dunn:
How's that go?
Damon Garcia:
Exactly. So yeah, I brought that story up because that's like, that's now the opposite of the situation I'm in now where I am fortunately surrounded now by Christians in person and online who are also like, "Oh yeah, of course, if we care about Jesus, then we should care about justice." So yeah.
Ryan Dunn:
Yeah. One of the stories that you share is of a popular Christian worship leader, who kind of attends the site of a rally and puts on a worship event and suggests that it's not demonstrations that we need it's I guess an acceptance of Jesus that we need. And that goes into that deep question of who Jesus is, especially in this persona of Jesus as savior. And there's a sense that a lot of us want to jump onto the idea that Jesus is a personal savior, but you start to push an understanding that Jesus is savior means something a little more. It means something beyond us personally. Can you talk about that a little bit? What does Jesus is savior mean?
Damon Garcia:
Definitely. Well, my parents started going to church when I was two years old. And so my early childhood was them basically like learning how to live this new life. Because before that they were experiencing a lot of personal problems. They had both been drug addicts and my dad had been in and out of prison and they came to this conclusion that they wanted to radically transform their lives. And my mom's sister had started going to church and they thought, well, I guess that's where you go. And so they started going to church when I was two. And then when I was a kid in elementary school, I remember one night in kids' church, I saw a kid there that was mean to me and my friends at school.
Damon Garcia:
And I was shocked because in my like childish perspective, the nice kids at school were probably Christian and the mean kids were like the furthest thing from it. But then they asked us at the church, who wants to accept Jesus in their heart or something like that. And this kid raised his hand and I was even more shocked. I was like, oh man. But I was also happy because I felt like, well, this probably means he's going to be nicer to us now at school. This is great. And so the next day in PE class-
Ryan Dunn:
Holy Spirit activate.
Damon Garcia:
Exactly.
Ryan Dunn:
He's going to be nice.
Damon Garcia:
Yes. And so in PE class, the next day I was standing on the blacktop on our numbers with my friends and I told them, "Richard got saved last night." And they said, "Saved from what?" And I was stumped, I didn't know what to say at all. At the time I thought everybody knew what that meant. And that's the language so many of the Christian adults around me had to use all the time. And so I didn't know what I was talking about back then, but I look back at that as I have learned so much more. And I think it's interesting that even back then, as a child, I had an understanding that becoming a Christian meant changing the way you lived in the world. It was about your lifestyle and the way you interacted with people and the goals you had and the action that you wanted to do in the world.
Damon Garcia:
And so as I've grown up, I've started to really see that that's what the first Christians were talking about too. It's like at the very beginning in Acts and then throughout Acts, they form these communities where they shared all in common, they shared property and they made sure everyone was taken care of and everyone was fed and everyone had a place to stay. And there's this passage in Acts where it describes that and then at the end it said, "And the Lord added to their number of those who were being saved. Also as a kid, there was language of saved, meant being saved from hell, like being able to get a ticket to go to the good place after you die. But when I was a kid, I did not think that Richard was saved from hell. And when we look in Acts nobody was saying, you should join in this community or else you might go to hell.
Damon Garcia:
That was not what they're talking about when they talked about being saved. And I think part of that is the fact that the Jewish understanding of salvation is rooted in the Exodus and how they were saved from slavery in Egypt. And then when they're taken over by Babylon, they are crying out for salvation again, from God in the same way that he saved them from Egypt. And then when the Christians talk about salvation, that's the type of salvation they're talking about. They're talking about a collective salvation. They're talking about salvations of nations and they also talk about a personal salvation and a personal transformation.
Damon Garcia:
And they invite people to personally choose to be committed to the salvation of all of us and how that leads to the salvation of all of us. And so there's both this personal transformation and this communal transformation that we're committed to together. And so that flipped everything upside down for me when I started to notice that in the Bible and realized like, oh yeah, of course. Of course this salvation is about so much more than something that happens in your heart and you just live with that effect. There's so much more.
Ryan Dunn:
It draws this line in terms of what our personal responsibilities are or even how we derive personal value. You've kind of noted this, that religion can assign its own peculiar valuation to people. And if we're really caught in the, I guess the personal end of it, we have a tendency to devalue our own significance. So we can just assume that we're dirty rotten sinners, we're incapable of helping ourselves and doing much good in the world, that it's always God that moves through that. In contrast, do you bring up our religious system of valuation that's a little bit different that moves beyond that. Can you talk about that?
Damon Garcia:
Yeah, I think right now we all are very familiar with the ways that we are devalued by our society and all these pressures to be a certain way, look a certain way, act a certain way, but also deep within the capitalist system itself, our value comes from the labor power we provide to different businesses and how much money we make for businesses in the United States. And that interpretation of value is terrible for the way we see ourselves. And we can often think, well, the valuable parts of myself is the useful parts of myself. And often we find ourselves in situations where we feel like we need to prove our usefulness to others in order to be valuable. And so I talk a bit about that, but then also that isn't what Jesus was talking about and what the Bible is talking about.
Damon Garcia:
I think I found myself doing that a lot. Here's what a lot of Christians around me are saying, but when we look at the Bible, that's not what we see. And so it's what we see in, for example, the concept of holiness, there's this idea that a person or a thing or a day is set apart as holy and for the Sabbath day, for example, this is a day we set apart as holy, where we can rest from work and discover our true value, be reminded of where our value actually comes from, which is totally outside usefulness or value we provide to others or our work. It's an inherent value that's rooted in our beauty and something is beautiful because it causes immediate delight in someone, but not because it's useful or it provides any gain, but because it is as it is.
Damon Garcia:
And then in the New Testament, I find it really inspiring the story of the annunciation of Mary. When the angel comes to her and says, "Greetings, favored one." And it says she's perplexed by these words. And I speculate about her being perplexed because she was not favored by her society in her low class and social position. And then the angel says, "You are favored by the Lord." So it's like, yes, you are favored, but you are favored in a much different way. You're favored by someone else, which should be what we are rooted in and acknowledging that we are greatly favored and greatly valued by God.
Damon Garcia:
And so if we really believe that, then that should drive us to resist against any systems that say otherwise that, greatly devalue us or say that some of us are more valuable than others. It's like, if we really believe that, no, we are all equally valuable and favored in the eyes of God, then we shouldn't put up with the ways that we are devalued and dehumanized. And yeah. So that's toward the beginning of the book that leads to talking about the ways that people can do that.
Ryan Dunn:
So what are some practices or I guess just methods that you personally have that help you remember what your value is.
Damon Garcia:
Like I said with the Sabbath, rest is a huge thing because we can get... Yeah, go ahead.
Ryan Dunn:
Well, with that, do you wrestle with feelings of feeling useless when you're engaged in rest?
Damon Garcia:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn:
How do you overcome that?
Damon Garcia:
Oh yeah. I wrestle with a lot of guilt around that and it's something that's like always been there as well and feeling like, I think what I get stuck in is this idea of if I can do more then I should do more, I'm also a type three on the Enneagram, that might have something to do with it, the achiever. So these ideas is something that's really inspired me as I've wrestled with that and finding times where I can be still or days or seasons to be more still, it really gets me on track because we can get so lost in this constant cycle of working and providing value for this system of endless production and endless profit. And when we can be reminded that no, we are valuable, no matter what, then we could get a fuller perspective of what we're doing here on this planet. And so rest is a big one.
Damon Garcia:
Also really trying to surround myself with people that also see that value in me. We've all had experiences with friends who seem to just perpetuate that devaluing that the world is doing and just continues to make us feel like we need to be useful in order to earn their friendship. And then we have friends and family who always remind us that, oh, we just love you for you. That's it. It's not because you're good at this or you like doing that or you have that. It's because you are you. And that's something that I've also wrestled with throughout my life of believing those friends and also making sure that I have more of those friends in my life and cultivating those relationships and those are the things I think of. But I also talk about how, like I said, when we realize those things, then it causes us to act differently in the world.
Damon Garcia:
And I also mention the sanitation workers strike that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a part of a week before he died in Memphis and how that whole strike was centered on this slogan, I am a man, and they had these signs that said in big all caps, red letters, I am a man. And it was a message to personally their bosses who had been mistreating them and giving them unsafe working conditions and terrible wages and not recognizing their union. But then it became bigger than that. It became a mission to the nation of saying we as the workers, as Black people and Black people in general, we are men. And which it's not just narrowed by men, it's I'm a human. I mean, that's what they're really talking about. I am a human. So treat me like a human and that causes us to challenge the ways we're being mistreated.
Damon Garcia:
And today I've been really inspired by seeing unionization efforts at Amazon factories, for example, and Starbucks, my friend the other day showed me this card from Starbucks United, where it talked about how they're unionizing their workplace and how good it feels that each of them within that particular Starbucks agree that they deserve to be treated better. And so they're doing something about it. And so that's really inspiring for me and really feels like the type of stuff that this calling of God really leads us to.
Ryan Dunn:
How do you see the church or the community of faith sharing that message of valuation?
Damon Garcia:
Yes, that's really difficult. I think we've all had very many-
Ryan Dunn:
Dang it.
Damon Garcia:
Because, so-
Ryan Dunn:
Should it be that tough
Damon Garcia:
Yeah, it's only tough because of how many Christian institutions seem to just perpetuate the ways that we are devalued and dehumanized. And it's like when we talk about how we are valued differently by someone else, by God, in a different way. Sometimes when churches talk about that, that God that they describe is just a bigger, stronger version of those who mistreat us and make us feel like we deserve that. I remember as a kid learning about what God approves of and who God actually loves. And it seemed like the people that the church disliked and excluded the most were the most marginalized people, like the LGBTQ community, for example, it was like the people who are being most mistreated the church was basically like, oh yeah, they deserve that mistreatment. And also here's a bunch of other reasons why they deserve it even more.
Damon Garcia:
And I was told that if we were accepting of queer people, then we would be compromising with the world that is too accepting. Now I realized actually the churches that perpetuate their mistreatment are the ones who are compromising with the world and don't want to be challenged by Jesus's radical inclusion and love. And so we have so many churches who perpetuate the ways we're devalued and dehumanized, which is why so many people are leaving churches and why so many people struggle to find a good local church in their community. And there are some churches... And I wanted to preface that because I didn't want to make... If I talk about good churches, I don't want to make it seem like, oh yeah. So just go back to church, this is what you'll experience. It's definitely, it's rare right now.
Damon Garcia:
But yes, there are churches that are challenging the ways that we are mistreated in the world and including marginalized people, but also flipping their dynamic of leadership and allowing us to be led by marginalized voices and leaders, which is also a big thing that I've also started to realize as I've been a part of more progressive Christian spaces over the years, it's not enough to just be inclusive. We have to change the ways we do everything. And that it requires us to be led by those who really are experiencing the constraints of this society the most. And that's the only way we get to a new world. And so I am inspired by those who are allowing themselves to be led by those voices.
Damon Garcia:
And then especially inspired by those who are teaming up with organizations in their city who are doing good in the community, because I think churches have a tendency to realize what needs to be done in their city and then say, "So we're going to start a program and we're going to get everybody to volunteer in this program that we lead." When there are organizations already present in the community who have way more experience and do it better and just need support, need funding, they need spaces to do their work. And I would like to see more church leaders really dig into who are the organizations or organization leaders in their city and how they can be a support to them.
Ryan Dunn:
And the microcosm for that can kind of be the week long mission trip. I've participated in many of them myself, where we kind of swoop in and we do our own thing all with the intent, the good intent of doing some good in underserved area. But oftentimes we're creating more work for several of the groups that are engaged in that work all the time. So an awareness of the way that we can be supportive of those who are doing the work rather than swooping in with our own kind of savior complex as the church. And that touches on something that you brought up in looking at church leadership. A lot of times we can talk about inclusivity and welcome, and that in itself is well intentioned, but it comes with a caveat that it's like, yeah, we'll accept anybody who's willing to kind of just become like us.
Damon Garcia:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn:
And I think the call before the church right now is to say, we need to let go and become like.
Damon Garcia:
Yes.
Ryan Dunn:
And you talk about Jesus kind of being that person at the margins. Can you fill us in a little bit on how Jesus embodied that through his ministry?
Damon Garcia:
One of the questions I had when writing the book was, because it's a lot about Jesus, who does Jesus interact with the most and why does he interact the way he does? And then I got to the question of why does Jesus forgive the specific people that he forgives? Because growing up... And I think a lot of people still have this idea of forgiveness as basically just pardoning someone for the harm they caused. And forgiveness is so much more than that. And I feel like that's like reducing hospitality to inviting your friends to your house party. It's like that can be a hospitable thing to do but clearly hospitality is so much more than that. And what I find interesting is that if forgiveness was just about pardoning harm, then it would make sense for Jesus to go to those who were guilty of the most harm and forgive them.
Damon Garcia:
But instead Jesus goes to those who had the most harm done to them and tells them, "Your sins are forgiven." And from a first century Jewish perspective, forgiveness was understood as a release and sin was understood as chains, a bondage that we needed to be released from. And also the concepts of sin and forgiveness were understood communally, like we were talking about earlier, it wasn't an individualistic thing. It was the sins of the community and the forgiveness of the community. And so what we often see happen when it comes to the sins of the community and the sins of society is that the blame for those sins often fall on the poor and the marginalized and the sick. And in the first century, it was like, well, those are the people who were causing this because they have demons and they're ritually unclean.
Damon Garcia:
And then in our context, it's like, well, they didn't work hard enough or they're lazy or that same kind of stuff. And so it still happens today, where the blame falls on those who suffer the most under the sins of society. And so Jesus goes to them and releases them through forgiveness, releases them from the guilt and the pressure of society's sins. And once they're released from that pressure, they have the freedom to start looking outward for the causes of their suffering, instead of endlessly looking inward, since all the guilt falls on them. And I'm also reminded of this story I heard from my friend, CJ, who's a therapist and he was working with low income housing. And one of his clients was going to be evicted because the housing manager discovered that she was addicted to drugs. And so they had a meeting with the housing authority and they're able to convince them that she would not break the rules of the lease and they were able to convince them that she can stay.
Damon Garcia:
And then after the meeting, CJ talked to his client and said, "I really wish that you weren't in this situation right now. And I wish that we didn't live in a world that punished you for using drugs because drug addiction shouldn't be a criminal issue and it's not a sin issue, it's a health issue that people need healthcare for." And then he said, "This is really inhumane the way you're being treated. This isn't right." And I hear that story. And I think that's the type of forgiveness Jesus was giving to people, was releasing them from that guilt and freeing them from that and letting them know that all that's going on, there's so much sins, it's the sin of society. And that's what you need to be released from what we need to be liberated from.
Damon Garcia:
And so, yeah, I'm extremely inspired by that. And I think it challenges us to practice a different kind of forgiveness, especially because so many of us have experiences with Christians talking about forgiveness as a way of just like getting the abused to forgive their abuser. And if they don't want to be in community with their abuser, then they're accused of being unforgiving, like Jesus wanted you to. So it's like, that's the direct opposite of what Jesus was doing.
Ryan Dunn:
Yeah. When we start learning about what happens with some of the sex scandals. Certainly that has been the case over and over again. Well, Damon Garcia, what's next for you?
Damon Garcia:
I'm putting out this book, comes out August 23rd. And I would like to keep talking to people about this.
Ryan Dunn:
Cool.
Damon Garcia:
When I wrote the book, the people I had in mind initially, were people who grew up in a conservative church environment and then kind of left. And aren't really part of that anymore and got involved maybe in radical politics and now feel like Jesus is kind of still somehow a part of that. And they even feel like Jesus maybe inspired them to do that. I've heard a lot of stories where people talk about, I learned about this Jesus that said we're supposed to serve the community and make a better world and love everybody. And they just actually believed it and found themselves out of step with the church that taught them about that.
Damon Garcia:
And I wanted to really help people realize that your suspicions are correct. Jesus actually is a lot more radical than some of your peers were saying. And so there is a way to articulate our Christian faith that connects our desire for justice and our faith. And so I want to continue helping people connect those things. And then of course also would like to talk to progressive Christians and get them to also see there's a lot more room to grow. We need a lot bigger imagination as the world is changing and as we're responding to the ways that the world needs to change.
Ryan Dunn:
Cool. Where would be a good first step into the world of Damon Garcia?
Damon Garcia:
I have DamonGarcia.com. You could get my book there. And I also, I'm on YouTube. That's really where I started to talk a lot and got a book deal from is just search Damon Garcia. And also on Instagram and Twitter @WhoisDamon. You could follow me and hit me up on there. Let me know that you heard me on the Compass podcast and that'll be awesome. We'll talk about it. And yeah.
Ryan Dunn:
Awesome.
Damon Garcia:
Just find me, hit me up and thank you for listening.
Ryan Dunn:
Yeah, thanks listener for being a part of this. I'm confident you found a sense of disruption too. If you want to know more about the Compass podcast, check out UMC.org/Compass. That's part of the website of the United Methodist Church, who graciously resources this podcast. A couple other episodes that might interest you include Healing Our Divides with Amy Julia Becker. That's from December of 2021, or Wrestling With the Tough Sayings of Jesus with Amy-Jill Levine from September of 2021. And while you're checking out those episodes hit the like or follow or subscribe button. We really appreciate it. We're back into new episode time. So we'll have another fresh disruption for your day to day in two weeks. In the meantime, peace.
