BROADCASTS.com

Published: June 30, 2021, 4 a.m.

Dr. Douglas Campbell joins us today to help us consider the proverbial elephant in the room whenever we talk about our struggles with racism. Whether you are White or non-White in America, it's something that we Americans claim that we want for ourselves and our neighbors even though if you listen to us talk about resolving our racial tensions, it's the thing that both sides seem to believe there is much too little of. What is that elephant in the room? Well, I am talking about freedom! Dr. Campbell is here to, amongst other things, discuss what freedom is and what it isn't from a Christian perspective.

Dr. Campbell is a professor at Duke Divinity School where he has become, since 2003, one of the most respected and innovative New Testament scholars in the world. He specializes in the life and history of the Apostle Paul, having published five books that have changed the way we Christians understand Paul's writings and large portions of the New Testament itself, and he also directs Duke's Prison Studies program. His latest book is titled Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God's Love, and I highly recommend that you pick it up and read it!

He is here to discuss values that we tend to take for granted - values like love, justice, and freedom – especially within the framework of racial tensions. He believes that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to think about these values that can actually contribute to and perpetuate our racial tensions. He talks about the teachings of men like Martin Luther King and James Baldwin and how their perspectives can be tied to God's love, and he addresses what love means from a Christian standpoint and how we need to unlearn what we've been told love is and relearn what it actually means, which could very well include learning from others who are practicing it. He also talks about what happens in society when there is inequality and refers to what he calls social mobility being affected as a result.

Dr. Campbell has given us such a great Biblical account of values such as love, justice, and freedom. Join us next time as we continue this conversation, when Dr. Campbell will dig deeper into this issue and will explain terms such as quasi Christian freedom, a variant that masquerades as freedom but ultimately does more harm than good. He will also help us recognize some of the unhealthy ways that some of us sometimes think about freedom. This conversation has been so helpful, and I can't wait to have him back on to continue this talk! I hope that you'll join us, and be sure to tell friends who might be interested about the podcast!

 

Show Notes:

[2:41] – Dr. Uffman opens the conversation with a quote from James Baldwin from Baldwin's book The Fire Next Time.

[4:17] – People like Martin Luther King and James Baldwin, as pointed out by Dr. Uffman, believed that a lack of love was what was impeding us from achieving our country.

[5:18] – Dr. Campbell explains what he means in his book Pauline Dogmatics when he argues that we need to learn how to love.

[7:40] – Former President Trump, Dr. Uffman reflects, once stated that he couldn't understand why military personnel would lay down their lives in sacrifice – a form of love that is being discussed in this podcast episode.

[9:25] – Dr. Campbell makes the argument that we sometimes play justice off against love even though being loving is being just.

[12:20] – Dr. Campbell discusses the difference between the law and justice, using the Jim Crow laws as an example of the distinction.

[15:16] – Dr. Campbell argues that the only place where we can see a perfect reflection of God's love is in Christ.

[17:32] – We learn that true justice is transformational, reconciling, and restorative.

[20:13] – Dr. Campbell makes the case that justice is doing the right thing even if that isn't congruent with the law.

[22:34] – Dr. Campbell explains how love through sacrifice relates to our struggles here in the United States.

[25:31] – Dr. Campbell believes that Christians need to help democracy strive for love.

[26:40] – We discover what Dr. Campbell means by first having to unlearn love before learning it.

[29:54] – Dr. Campbell reveals how he defines freedom according to his book Pauline Dogmatics.

[32:10] – Dr. Campbell explains his distinction between positive freedom and negative freedom.

[34:54] – People who are being harmed, Dr. Campbell shares, need to be liberated.

[37:02] – Dr. Campbell makes a connection between structure and freedom.

[40:22] – Dr. Uffman offers insight on Dr. Campbell's emphasis on structures, nodding toward the Civil Rights Movement of 1963.

[41:27] – Dr. Campbell brings his home country of New Zealand into the conversation and refers to inequality as a zero sum game.

[44:05] – It's not our laws that make us free, Dr. Uffman summarizes, because there are too many other factors that impede freedom.

 

Links and Resources:

Dr. Campbell’s Website

Duke Divinity School - Our Faculty: Douglas Campbell

Douglas Campbell – Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God's Love

Douglas Campbell – The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul

James Baldwin – The Fire Next Time

Richard Rorty – Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America

Isaiah Berlin – The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas

 

Connect with Dr. Craig Uffman:

• The Way of Love
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Craig Uffman’s Messages Along the Way

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wayoflove.substack.com