the disciples of christ church with Rev. Dr. Don Morrow.

episode preview.

[00:00:02] don morrow.: If our economic system can't work in Bentonville, Arkansas, where, again, the world's largest, most successful retailer... And let me be clear about this, so Walmart has done nothing that is out of bounds of the system. Walmart has just exercised an incredible ability to maximize it, what the system is designed to do, and that's where the problem lies. That if you do what the system is designed to do, we leave people behind. We leave, we create people who are so desperate that they'll work for whatever they have to work for just to be able to try to put food on the table or pay a monthly rent, and that doesn't at all seem to be in line with Jesus who came to bring good news to the poor and to release the captives and, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

episode intro.

[00:01:59] mike rusch.: Well, you're listening to the underview, an exploration in the shaping of our place. My name is Mike Rusch, and today Monica and I are sitting down with the Reverend Dr. Don Morrow, the senior minister at First Christian Church and Waterway in Bentonville.

This church has been in Bentonville since 1867 and started with 13 people in a house and a preacher two years after the Civil War ended. But that was 80 years before a man named Sam Walton opened a store on the downtown square. Most of this town's history has happened while that congregation was already here and watching, and today this church sits about a mile from the global campus of one of the largest companies on earth. That nearness is one of the main reasons for this conversation.

This season, we've been asking what faith does to a place, how it forms the people who live inside of it, what it teaches them to see, and what it quietly teaches them not to.

Today, we have the opportunity to do two things.

First, to learn how this Disciples of Christ tradition, which grew out of the same Stone-Campbell movement, the first church movement born on American soil, built on the conviction that no creed should keep anyone from the table. It was the same Stone-Campbell movement that the Church of Christ tradition emerged out of also. Here, both traditions observing communion every week, but where they are today are two very different places.

At First Christian Church, you'll hear how they say all are welcome, and that all means all. We wanna hold onto that table. It comes back around late in this conversation in a way that I didn't see coming.

Second, we talk about money and economic systems from a biblical perspective. Don Morrow's doctorate is in economics and the Bible, which will build off of last week's conversation with Shahid Shaikh, who opened up about how Islam reads wealth and systems and obligation.

Today, we carry that same question back into a different tradition, and we ask a man who has spent years studying exactly what the Bible actually has to say about this topic of economics.

Why? Because Jesus talked about money more than almost anything else, more than heaven, more than prayer. And here in a region whose entire story is an economic story, a place built by the Fortune 500 companies, including the Fortune 1, and a community and lifestyle funded by a fortune and told to itself as prosperity.

This subject of economics is one of the least preached subjects that we hear in the pulpits. We are a place that rarely talks about the economics of its own faith. And I have to be honest, that somewhere in the middle of this conversation, I told Don it felt like a dangerous conversation, and I meant it. Not because anyone should be afraid to talk about money and faith, but because the systems that we have built here seem to carry a fragility, a defensiveness, And in the past, I've noticed that at the moment you do question them, someone wants to hand you an ideology to wear instead.

Last season, we talked with Olivia Pascal, and we walked right up to the line of this conversation and then stepped over it. I feel like we are doing that again, and this time from a perspective of faith. But they are honest questions, not meant to provoke, but definitely meant to challenge our own understanding of faith and economics.

So here are some questions that I'll ask you to hold while you listen. What's the difference between charity and justice? Between feeding someone and asking why they were hungry in the first place? Can you preach a gospel about money and still live comfortably from inside the economy that you're preaching about? What does it mean that the people we called essential workers in 2020 are the ones we pay the least and are now the target of national immigration enforcement policies? And is growth something that simply happens to a place like the weather or is it a choice made by somebody? Is growth an economic choice, a political choice, or an extension of faith?

And as you listen today, if you're wrestling with anything that you hear, and I think you might, we'd like to hear it. There's a send us a voice message button on the underview.com. Use it and tell us what you're sitting with.

Right, we've got a whole lot to work through today. I'm not sure I'm ready for it, but let's get into it

episode interview.

[00:06:00] mike rusch.: Well, Monica and I have the privilege today of sharing a table with the Reverend Dr. Don Morrow, who is the senior minister here at First Christian Church and Waterway in Bentonville. Dr. Morrow, thank you for being a part of this conversation. Welcome to it. We're excited to hear your story.

[00:06:14] don morrow.: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be part of it. I've been listening along this season and really appreciate the conversations that you're having, and please just call me Don.

background.

[00:06:21] mike rusch.: Okay. I know it's gonna be hard for me. I'll do my very best. But Don, thank you. We've had the privilege of knowing each other a little bit here over the past. Right. And I've always been fascinated with your story, and I'm really excited for you to share that with those that are listening. So maybe let's start there. Tell us a little bit about your story. We'd love to hear your background and yeah, how you found your way into the role that you are today.

[00:06:41] don morrow.: Sure. I grew up in North Texas, born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Denton, Texas, just a little north of Dallas and Fort Worth. I grew up in the Disciples of Christ tradition, which is the same church that we're a part of, the First Christian Church in Denton. Grew up in a, a family and a church family that was pretty open-minded, you might say liberal, accepting inclusive in every aspect. Grew up actually in an interfaith family, so two of my mom's siblings were Jewish as I was growing up. They were born Methodist, but my uncle fell in love with a Jewish girl in high school and converted, and then his younger sister followed suit, and so growing up, I went to, a synagogue with them on occasion. Some of my earliest memories are of visiting them in El Paso and hearing my younger cousins pray in Hebrew, and I was fascinated by that when my uncle told me that was, you know, the language of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.

I can remember some conflict in my home church with my Sunday school teacher when I came back, I think I was 10, came back from a visit with them and shared how cool it was that we'd gone to synagogue and the, and th- these prayers in Hebrew and my- teacher after hearing the story, inviting the class to pray for my aunt and uncle and cousins because they weren't going to heaven, which I just knew as a, even at 10, like, that can't be right

Talked about it with my parents afterwards, and they said, you know, friend-- this teacher was one of my parents' closest friends. They said, "Well, we have a really diverse church. Not everybody believes exactly what we do, but we know that God is with your aunt and uncle and cousins just as much as God is with us." And so that was kinda the environment I grew up in.

I did struggle with some things r- specifically to do with faith and science and what I saw as conflicts between the Bible and science when I was in late high school. And so when I left for college, went to UT Austin, hook 'em I really kinda left church behind, to be honest. I went to church once the first couple of weeks of being in Austin then really didn't go back except when I was home, the, those first couple of years especially.

I went to school to study electrical engineering, I did that in part because my physics teacher in high school had said, "This is gonna be the top-earning position over the course of the next decade." I thought, that sounds great, and it uses math and science, which I love. And loved my studies in that got into upper-level coursework at UT in that field and then had the opportunity to enter into a co-op program through UT where I'd go to school for a semester and then work for a semester. So I had a job at Texas Instruments as an engineering tech. and so somewhat the beginning of my journey back to faith was actually as a result of that job. After a semester working there, I really enjoyed the work. It was mostly really computer science, doing a lot of programming. but the end of that first semester, they sent me back to school with some things to study for the next semester that I'd be at work, it included some that I hadn't been privy to on the project that we were working on, including a study that I was supposed to read about increasing kill ratios on this missile project that was part of what we were working on that I didn't really know And I just had this major moral crisis over whether I could do that. I have multiple family members in the military who I love and respect, and I'm glad that they serve our country in the way that they do. But it became clear to me as I wrestled with this that I couldn't commit to being part of that.

This was 1988, so it's the end of Reagan's presidency, military buildup's huge. It's the end of the Cold War, but we didn't yet know it was the end of the Cold War. It felt like a lot of things in engineering were defense-related, and so I just felt caught because I had thought that I was in the field that I was to, because I felt like I was called to make money. And went back to school just wondering what I was gonna do with my life.

So I went back for that summer semester in Austin I was coming out of a final in Diffy Q and Thermodynamics my last day of finals that summer, and was headed back to my apartment, but I was just feeling really lost about the direction that I was going. and I know you're familiar with Austin some.

[00:11:36] mike rusch.: I am. Yeah, grew up there as well.

[00:11:39] don morrow.: I was walking toward Guadalupe Street, students call it The Drag. And it's also frequented at that time, probably still is, by a number of homeless folks. And so would regularly get approached by people asking for change or a burger or whatever, and I saw up ahead car that looked to be broken down and a man in it who made eye contact with me, and I just knew he was gonna ask me, and I just wasn't in a frame of mind to be approached.

So I took a turn that I normally wouldn't have taken, a long way around to get to my apartment complex, and made it, I don't know, halfway down the block, then began to feel this guy following me, and I turned, and that car was there. And this, guy gets out of the car and asks me if I can tell him where the nearest church is. and then he said, are you a Christian?"

And I don't know how long it took me to answer. It felt like forever, but I really debated, am I a Christian? And finally I said, "Yeah, I'm a Christian." And he said, "Well, would you stop and pray with me?" Which is something I'd never been asked on the streets of Austin before. But we did. We-- I stopped, and we sat underneath a tree in front of this apartment complex, and he told me the story of his life, how he'd just gotten out of prison in Oklahoma and was trying to come start a new life. And we-- he talked for a while, and then he'd say, "Okay, let's pray." And then he would pray, and I would just nod along and at the end of it. And then he'd continue to tell his story about how desperate he was to get started on something new. And one point, he pulled this package of razor blades out of his shirt pocket that were wrapped in a tissue and showed me scars up and down his arm and said, you know, he felt he always had to have that with him 'cause he was just-- felt like he was always on the edge.

And the whole time we were talking, which wound up being almost three hours I thought, "This guy's conning me. This guy's trying to con me. Don't fall for the con." And then finally, after about three hours, he, said, "Don I just had my-- an interview with Jack in the Box, and they offered me a job But they said before I can have the job, I have to have an address. So I found low-income housing, and I can have an apartment, but I have to have a two-hundred-dollar deposit the apartment, so I'm asking you for two hundred dollars."

And interior self was saying, "This is a con. This is a con." But almost out of body, I heard myself say, "I can do that." And so I got in his car, kicked over the liquor bottles and the cigarette cartons on the floor directed him to Jester dormitory on where my-- been my freshman year. There was an ATM Pulled up my account, had $225 in it, pulled out 200, gave it to him, and then him where I lived so he could take me home. And when we pulled up to the curb by my apartment I had my books, my Diff EQ and Vector Calculus and Thermodynamics books, and he said, "What is it that you're carrying around that you're studying?" And I told him what it was, and he said "Where in those books does it talk about love? That's what you need to be studying." And he drove away.

And it was not an immediate change for me, but began my journey away from engineering and eventually to math. I finished my degree in math with the intent of going into teaching. I actually got most of my master's in math at the University of North Texas and got involved in through a college ministry group there and then wound up in seminary.

why make this change?

[00:16:02] mike rusch.: Don, I'm curious, as you think back on those years, this change, What was the decision that ultimately said, "Hey, I think this will be a change, and I am going to pursue a, a seminary degree," ultimately leading- Mm-hmm ... you to where you are today. But what was it? Why did you make that change?

[00:16:22] don morrow.: It, honestly, it was a difficult decision to come to. It caught me by surprise. I had gotten involved through a common, a combined ministry with the Presbyterian Church and the Disciples Church, went on a mission trip to Mexico is how my kind of got reinitiated into anything church. And I think that was instrumental for me. I know it was because I was still struggling with the belief aspect of everything. But this mission trip, which in our denomination, a mission trip is not like a sharing verbally what the gospel is, but more like demonstrating it with the love, acts of love.

And so this was going to help build housing in a little colonia in Mexico. And having that means of putting a handle on faith and showing faith with the way we were acting is what really kind of to break through to me with the faith that I'd always known but had left behind. And I also happened to meet my future and current wife on that trip, so that didn't hurt. She encouraged me to stay involved in this college ministry. And then, and the leader-- m- the Presbyterian minister who led that ministry actually just invited me to lunch one day while I was in grad school at, in math. And unbeknownst to me, he had invited the dean of the seminary to that same lunch and just told me, "Hey this lunch is because I think you need to consider going to seminary." I thought it was way out of left field in my mind and thought it was a ridiculous notion 'cause I-- even though I grew up in church and loved church and had been this powerful influence in my growing up years, I just didn't see myself in that respect. Actually, the fact that he was the one that asked me was helpful because this guy, you know, I'd been on a trip to Mexico with him where he cussed like a sailor. He'd drink a beer with us at night and smoke a cigar, and I'm like, "Well, if Ike can do that, maybe there's hope for me in ministry too." And and so I went home to my apartment that night, and I called Laurie, who-- my wife now, but who we were dating, and I said, "You're never gonna believe.

Ike told me today he thinks I should go to seminary." And she immediately was like, "That totally makes sense to me." Mm-hmm. And I just-- it all just begin, began to feel oh my gosh, I think this is where this has been leading, this sense of being lost, suddenly I felt found.

faith tradition background .

[00:19:09] mike rusch.: Well, thank you. I, it's a very compelling story of where that became real for you. Today you're in a faith tradition, the Disciples of Christ. I would love for you to explain a little bit about your faith tradition, maybe its origins and kinda how you found your way back into this tradition.

[00:19:27] don morrow.: Yeah. Our Disciples tradition, I know you've previously interviewed someone from the Church of Christ tradition, and we have the same roots. We wound up on very different branches of the same tree, but began... Actually, the first kind of church movement that began on American soil came out of a couple of founders, Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell, who had both had some Presbyterian roots. But they were reacting in each of their, at the time, separate movements against having kind of tests of faith with regard to allowing everyone at the table.

So the table is very important to our tradition. We have communion every week. And one of the things that's in our particular branch of that tradition is we say at the table each week, "This is the Lord's table. All are welcome here." And in our con- congregation, we add, "And all means all," because we're open and affirming. That's a very important part of who we are.

So that... I think the freedom of the Disciples is what one of the things that I always... I didn't know what a gift it was to me at times when I was growing up, but it was a real gift for me, and I think I would've had a hard time coming back to church if it weren't for the freedom that our tradition offers. that freedom also lends itself the Disciples being very much a justice-minded tradition, whether that's about justice over matters of gender or sexuality, as have been, you know, in the headlines a lot in the last few decades. Or in my case, it really became something that, where I wanted to talk about economic justice as well. But justice has always been a part of Disciples tradition.

history of FCC Bentonville.

[00:21:21] mike rusch.: This church has been here since 1867 in Bentonville. I'd love to know a little bit about the history of this church specifically and how it relates maybe to this place.

[00:21:33] don morrow.: Yes, this church has been, you know, in the community, as long as most church. There've been a handful of other churches that predated this one, but organized in the late '60s, you know, right on the heels of the Civil War. And it's always been in many respects, justice-oriented. So some of the ministries that have been a part of or flowed out of our church, sometimes in combination with other churches, include things like Helping Hands, which was several community churches were involved in creating. The NWACC, Arkansas Community College, actually began its classes in classrooms at First Christian Church in Bentonville in this building. In fact, one of the buildings at NWACC after a predecessor of mine, Don White. And so our church has always been at the forefront or tried to be at the forefront of reaching out to folks who are on the margins in any respect, including educationally and e-economically. We're-- we try to make that... We've continued to try to make that a centerpiece of what we do. We currently have a Clothed With Compassion ministry that we've spun off into a separate 501[c][3] that Peggy Hicks is lead of.

[00:22:56] mike rusch.: And Peggy's amazing.

[00:22:57] don morrow.: Peggy's fantastic. She really is. I hope she's not listening to this, but she's fantastic.

[00:23:01] mike rusch.: She's amazing.

[00:23:02] don morrow.: She is part of the heartbeat of our church, honestly. And she helps to work to provide clothing for children in need throughout the area, through area schools. and, it's just been a s- a real blessing for our church to be a part of that. She also helps to oversee a ministry that we call Miracle on 14th Street, which is a Christmastime ministry, and it's... give away thousands of dollars worth of coats and food and gift cards now to ki- to families in Northwest Arkansas.

Actually, that-- the beginning of that ministry is somewhat tied to how I became so involved or interested in issues of economic justice. We had... This was in 2011. A young woman who, a sermon, which I'm sure was stirring in some respect- she called me on the day after that sermon on Monday and told me that she had been thinking about this sermon and had a dream about it, which by the way is every pastor's nightmare. Like, oh my gosh what's gonna go on here? And and told me that God had told her that we needed to invite people who didn't have a place at Christmas to our church and feed them. And so this was on, I think it was December thirteenth, and she wanted to do a Christmas Eve dinner for anybody in the community that wanted one. And her dream was that we would have-- would feed two hundred people. So again, this is eleven days away. My fear was that we were gonna try to do something and nobody was gonna show up, 'cause I know how these things can go. But she was on fire, and so I said-- it was clear... I wanted her to wait and let's do this next year, but it was clear that was not acceptable. And so we decided to do it. She a bunch of people who were equally as excited and got their support. And before long, we weren't just feeding people, but we were going to all of the vendors who at that time especially would freely give to things. And, we were ready for up to two hundred people to be here, and I was just convinced, like, there's not even that much need in Bentonville. That's really how blind I was to how things were at the time.

And then that Christmas Eve morning, it was a year where Christmas Eve was-- like the weather was not great. There was like light ice on the road, and we were supposed to be at church. I think the doors were supposed to open at eight, but the volunteers were supposed to gather at seven or something like that. And so I was on my way here our house in Cave Springs at six thirty in the morning, and there's falling, and I'm just praying, "God, please let some people show up today." 'Cause I knew our volunteers were gonna show up, and I was afraid. At the time, my biggest fear was they're gonna be disappointed by all this work they've put in. And pulled into the parking lot, and it's at least an hour before we're gonna open the doors, and there's already well over a hundred people in line in the freezing, freezing rain. And suddenly my prayer changed to, "God, let us have enough to meet the needs that people are gonna bring today." it wound up over five hundred people were here, you know, with days notice less than a week's notice, honestly, by the time we got things out to post in the community. every year after that, we had more like two thousand, and just to open my eyes to need is here, even in the backyard of the world's largest retailer. And it was that kind of got me on the road to economic justice as a focus.

[00:26:54] mike rusch.: Don, I am curious, you've been the pastor here since 1997, which y- there's not a lot of people in Northwest Arkansas who have been here- this long.

[00:27:01] don morrow.: You call me old. You call me old. I,

[00:27:04] mike rusch.: well, I've been here that long too. So if I call you old, then I'm calling myself that as well too. And I'm just not quite ready for that. Yeah.

I am curious though, like, how do you view your position here, your presence here in light of this 100 and almost 50 year history of this church? Mm-hmm. How does, what does that mean to you to now be someone who is stewarding this community really on on the history and the background of what it has been to this community for so very long?

[00:27:34] don morrow.: Yeah, that's a big question. So I mentioned that Don White was one of my predecessors. There was a pastor in between us as well, but Don served here for over seventeen years, I think. And I actually knew him. He then, when he retired, went to First Christian Church in Rogers, which is the first place I went to after seminary. So I came and-- I moved to this area in 1994 to be the, associate minister largely responsible for youth ministry at First Christian in Rogers. So I knew Don and knew the White family, loved them had some of his grandkids in the youth group. and I mention him 'cause his legacy is pretty large here. It blows me away to think that I have now been here a decade longer than he served. And it's-- it boggles the mind. I never would've thought that we would stay here this long. But my wife and I, my wife's also from the Dallas area, and we always really thought that we would go back to that area, but we fell in love with North-Northwest Arkansas after coming to this church, fell in love with the people here at this church and the ministry that this church has, just knew that this was such a good fit for us and for our family. And so the church itself and the community mean more to me than I can really put into words.

the church community.

[00:29:03] mike rusch.: Don , As you talk about this community here it's a beautiful community of people. I'm curious, what are some of the things that stand out to you as something that you really feel like embodies this place, and what you would hope this church would represent in our community?

[00:29:17] don morrow.: We really do seek to be, as I know a number of churches do, we seek to provide a place of belonging and a place of connection. A place of welcome, and I think by and large, Northwest Arkansas does a great job at that. We all also have our blind spots.

One of the areas where our church has really, grown and a-accepted a different kind of responsibility, I think, is in really being in our growth toward becoming this open and affirming faith community. and that's been a journey. It was a journey even for this church that was already progressive. Though, like, when I came in the late '90s, our church would already say every-- anyone's welcome here. But have grown to the point where we n-now say, "You're not just welcome here, you're needed here." Our Church is missing something if you're not a part of it.

And part of that expression has, really been centered around the LGBTQ community because the church unfortunately has done a lot of damage to that community with what I would say is misinterpretation, a misuse, and abuse of Scripture to other people. And so been blessed with the opportunity to try to help provide some healing and hope, and been blessed with some incredible church members who are part of that community who bring gifts that are just immeasurable. And that's been a big part of my faith journey too. W-uh, when I was in seminary in Dallas in the early '90s I was in a church that was not open and affirming, but was welcoming. So in the early '90s, to be liberal in the area of LGBTQ issues was to not condemn. That's-- So the church didn't condemn homosexuality, so that made us liberal. so it was okay to be gay in the church.

Our Central Christian Church in Dallas, had a singles group that was largely composed of gay men, and that really challenged me because I'd never been part of a church where we condemned homosexuality. But I'd always assumed it was a sin, to be honest, because I grew up in Texas, and it was just in the cultural air as it was in places like Arkansas too. but what I saw there were these faithful, deeply faithful people, many of them professional people in contrast to the kinda caricature of gay men that I usually saw on TV or in movies. Including our church and music-- lead musician who a composer of music and who was just a beautiful example of what Christ's love is meant to be about. So that was also the height of the AIDS era. because we welcomed, gay and lesbian members to the church, were also an, a, church that hosted many AIDS funerals. So in three years of seminary, I was part of eight or nine different AIDS funerals, including for that church musician. And last time that I saw him was in the hospital and in Dallas, and we had been working together for over two years and he was a good friend in the, a professional setting, but we didn't ever really do anything outside of the church office. But I was there in the hospital room with him, and as I had been trained to do at the end of my visit with him, I asked him if I could have a prayer with him before I left.

And he said sure, and I went over to his bedside, and I his hand with mine, and he looked up at me and he said, "You know, Don, in two years, this is the first time you've ever touched me." And I just broke because I knew it was true and because I knew I had allowed some preconceived notions fears to get in the way of deeper relationship, and I just said I'm sorry." And he said, "Don't be sorry. Just be full of the love that I know is in you." And so it really began that part of, again, the spiritual journey for me towards understanding that inclusion is part of the gospel. 'Cause in that moment, while, you know, as a pastor, I'm trying to bring the presence of Christ to him, felt like he was bringing it to me.

And I see that every day from the LGBTQ folks that are part of our congregation. It's not just that we provide a place for them, it's they provide a picture of God for us.

[00:34:25] mike rusch.: Don, I wanna thank you for that story. I think sitting across from you, I don't know that people will see it as they listen, but I the tears, yeah.

[00:34:33] don morrow.: It's pretty, it's still pretty moving for me. It's a, it was a formative time for me to come to terms with some of my own, like I said, preconceived ideas. Not that it was ever like, "You're going to hell for this." That was not really part of my theology and my upbringing, but it was just, the full humanity of people that I hadn't always given the full humanity of. And so that, I think that's become a ma- a major focus for our congregation, is just to recognize the fullness of the image of God that's in one of us.

[00:35:14] Monica Kumar: Don, sitting here listening to you and I just have, I have tears in my eyes and hope in my heart, and I just really appreciate you sharing that. I, I hear from you and I, and it feels so resonant for me this shifting from sort of an intellectual understanding of what inclusion and acceptance is to living it in life and love and actually breathing God into it. And I... And that, that just really resonates for me and also it pulls me back into something you said earlier, which was that you started when you went to school, you were clearly exceptionally brilliant. I'm sure you wouldn't say that, but it sound- You know I'm sure many of your teachers would say that. And your and your motivation was which, which career's gonna make me a whole pile of money. And that, and that, that was actually where I started too. That I thought I'd go into law for the same exact reason. And then I know that your academics and your doctorate took you to a very different place. And and you've shared some of the threading of that, and I would love to hear about that because I understand and would love to hear from you your doctorates perhaps is in economics and biblical studies.

And that just feels to me so dif- it's... i've not heard of many preachers who studied that. I have not heard that that framing very often and I would love to hear about how you got there.

movement to PhD in economic justice.

[00:36:40] Monica Kumar: How did you get from a kid who wanted a career that made a whole bunch of money to a person who is being pulled toward thinking about money and materialism in a scriptural framing?

[00:36:55] don morrow.: Yeah, that's a great question, and it's an ongoing journey, honestly. But it's again, I'll go back to that Miracle on 14th Street ministry that's-- we, again, had this kind of an eye-opening for me, literal come to Jesus moment at this first Miracle on 14th Street when I saw how much need was in literally around the corner from our church that I had been blind to. The following year, the second year we had that, so we would have folks wait in the sanctuary while... because there were, again, two thousand people that would show up that year. we would serve them like a full-blown Christmas dinner down in the fellowship hall then let them kinda shop for toys that people had donated and whatnot. So I was down in the fellowship hall helping, to just kinda go around and greet people at their tables and see if we could give them a refill of tea or whatever. And as I was down there, in line to get food was a young woman who waited on me at lunch two or three times a week because I always went to Acamparo, which was right down on the corner of 14th Street and Walton here at that time. And so I saw her, and she like-- she knew my order, you know. She knew my name. She would always greet me, "Hi, Don. You want iced tea, number six, one chicken, one beef?" Like, "Yes, that's what I want." And so she just always made my day a little bit brighter. She was full of cheer and full of life.

And I saw her in line with her family, and I went over to greet her wish her a merry Christmas, and she looked up and saw me and then quickly looked away like with shame. Like she was ashamed that she was there. And suddenly I felt ashamed that she had to be there, that this woman who I knew had a job, that I knew worked hard, that she was there whenever this restaurant was open And who brought a little bit of light to my life on a regular basis had to come see what we were giving from our abundance, our overabundance, so that she could provide a little bit of joy for her kids. And it really, again, just made me want to wrestle with how have we set this up where we've got a system where have, we have one of the most successful companies in the history of history in this town, and in this town we have people who can't make ends meet, including some people who work for this company that is the most successful in the history of history. And so that's what made me really begin to wrestle with this can't-- this cannot be what God had in mind . This can't be what we want the system to look like. And so I just began to really turn to look through that lens of economic injustice at Scripture. And once I began to do that I started seeing how much It's all over the Bible, just that from the Old Testament to the New this theme of economic justice, at least the way that I suddenly was seeing it, was leaping off the page at me at every turn. And so I began to look for a place that I could dig into that more and eventually found this-- a program at Berkeley where there was enough freedom in the program that you could direct your own program in some sense if you could find a few professors to kinda support it and endorse it and lead it. And so I was able to do that and it was fantastic for me

[00:41:08] Monica Kumar: an amazing door you've opened, Don, and I could ask you, enough questions for a whole season about that. But Can you share maybe a few threads of what you learned during your doctorate and since then about the Bible, about finances, and where does Jesus sit in all of that?

Where, what are his teachings telling us? What do we need to learn? And I know that's an impossibly huge door that I'm opening, but I'd love to hear some of what that looks like for you and what you learned

theme of economic justice.

[00:41:38] don morrow.: Yeah, I think that the theme of, at least the way, again, I read it, the theme of economic justice is a central thread throughout Scripture from the very beginning. Even in the creation stories, there's a little bit of ec- ecological justice and caring for the Earth, not using the Earth, but tending to the Earth.

You know there's a piece of that's there in the opening chapter and two of Genesis. We see economic injustice throughout Genesis from the way that land is appropriated and like even if you think about the stories of Joseph and how Joseph helps Pharaoh through th- this time of famine at the end of the book of Genesis and, the way, if you read through that, there's pieces of it, there's like, we can describe it as shrewd or we can describe it as, wow, that seems it's not full of grace the way that people are treated when they're in this time of need and there's this story of accumulation that begins to develop. And then quickly it turns to-- I don't wanna get into the weeds on Bi- Bible stuff 'cause I could go all day long on this. But then we go right to Exodus, and suddenly we're in Pharaoh, and we're seeing, oh, now God's people are on the underside of this economic injustice. And Pharaoh's still got all the wealth, but now the people are enslaved.

That story in Exodus is really central in the Old Testament, and that's maybe where I should center some of these comments because story of Exodus is central for the Jewish people, which means it's central for Jesus, 'cause Jesus is Jewish. So it's all about liberation. The whole story's about liberation.

I would argue that in many respects the entire Bible's about liberation. And that Exodus story, a big piece of it is how the Israelites learn to let go of that mindset of either being-- helping the one on top to accumulate or taking the place of the one on top and becoming an accumulator. it's-- it goes from being a mindset of scarcity where you have to compete with other people for goods and understanding that this is a God of abundance. There's always more than enough. And that's central in that Exodus story because, you know, if You're if you know that story, when the Israelites are finally out from underneath Pharaoh, and they're in the desert, and they begin to grumble against Moses because they say, like, you know, "It was better when we were back.

At least Pharaoh gave us food every day." And so prays, and God begins to provide manna. And if you know that story, that's-- God provides this, strange substance that's on the ground. That word in Hebrew, manna, literally means, "What is this?" So we don't really know exactly what it was, but it's this, like, bread-like substance that nourishes them, but God gives them rules for what they're to do with that.

So God says, "Take as much as you need every day, but only what you need. Don't store it, don't accumulate it, because whatever you store that you don't need, that's just gonna rot." And the lesson that I think we're to take from that is, as long as you just take what you need, there'll be enough for everybody. But if you take more than you need, then there's not enough to distribute to go around. Then that message gets passed on in the New Testament through Jesus, through a prayer that every Christian learns to pray, the Lord's Prayer: Give us this day our daily bread. It's not give us this day everything I need for the rest of my life so that I don't have to worry about anything anymore.

It's this invitation to trust in the abundance of God and God's creation enough to enter each day knowing that there's gonna be enough to meet my needs this day. I don't have to build bigger barns. You know, all-- Jesus has so many parables that are about don't build your barns bigger. Learn to give away this blessing.

Learn to be a conduit through which God's love and provision flows, rather than this receptacle where you hold onto it and give it as you see fit. And I think that's-- Jesus is all about that

[00:46:04] Monica Kumar: You're blowing my mind a little bit. As someone who ... I mean, I'm from England, but I'm also not Christian, so I feel a little bit like I'm sort of looking in and seeing, what the media or what our community is telling me about Christianity and money specifically. And you mentioned a little bit about prosperity, and I think about manifest destiny, which ties into that. And it feels to me that what the messages that I'm getting is that if you're doing Christianity right, if you're living a really good moral life, then what you get is so much material success. That is a, that is a gift from God to remind you and to reinforce that, you're l- you're living right. And so, you studied. You've studied the Bible. You've studied the economics in the Bible. How does what you've studied sit next to that message that I feel ... I will speak for myself, but I do think that many people see and feel the same message

the prosperity gospel.

[00:47:08] don morrow.: Yeah, there's The prosperity gospel is be just perfectly frank, it's not the gospel that Jesus preached it is such a part of American ideology that I think it infiltrates all churches to some degree, and all of us because it's an American ideology. It's not a biblical one. There are elements of it in the Bible.

I think, there are some, you know, you reap what you sow kinds of passages in the Bible, and there are places where I don't think there's anything wrong with seeing a material blessing as a blessing, as something that's from God. I think Jesus would call into question us seeing that as a blessing just for me that I can hold onto and put in my bank account or whatever.

Again, building up storehouses i- is a thing that he cautions against. And I think that of Scripture, I think Jesus very much follows in the prophetic tradition from the Old Testament, and so the prophets are really big on, know, stop proclaiming my name and worshiping me with praise songs when your brother's going hungry.

You know, away from me with all of these festivals and celebrations. Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. That's, this heart of the prophetic tradition is if you say you love me, show me you love me by loving my children, which is all of my children. the, you know, the heart of the Jesus tradition is, you know, what's the most important command he's asked? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. And in Matthew's gospel, when Jesus says that, Jesus says, "All the law and the prophets hinge on these two commands." So all the law and the prophets is the entirety of Jesus's Bible. That's the Old Testament. That's the Hebrew Bible. And Jesus is saying everything in Scripture points to this two-part singular command. Love God and love your neighbor. You cannot love God if you're not loving your neighbor.

So when you're not loving your neighbor, you're not loving God, and you can't say that you're loving your neighbor if you're not setting up a system, and this is my theology and my political theology. You cannot say you're loving your neighbor if you're setting up a system where your neighbor is forced to work like a slave while you reap the benefits from that. And that's one of the calls that, I feel heavy in this time where we see such radical disparities in people's income and and where I think Christianity in America needs to wrestle with what-- how to use our voice to speak to the powers that be to at least reconsider the way that we're approaching these issues

[00:50:23] mike rusch.: Don, this feels like a really dangerous conversation- Yeah ... if I'm honest.

because we're, We're talking about something that and you said this, like, this American ideology, right?

You know, we're not here to really debate theology per se. The question is, like, how does it work itself out in the world? And I can't help but hear as you talk through this about is how it actually works itself out into the world. Mm-hmm. And so a- as we think about Northwest Arkansas and this place a- and this church and the community of people that we have the chance to live life and to create a community with surely this is a message for somewhere else, right?

[00:51:03] don morrow.: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's... I think that's the part that really brought it home for me. It's just if th- we've got... If our economic system can't work in Bentonville, Arkansas, where, again, the world's largest, most successful retailer... And let me be clear about this. So Walmart has done nothing that is out of bounds of the system. Walmart has just exercised an incredible ability to maximize it, what the system is designed to do, and that's where the problem lies. That if you do what the system is designed to do, we leave people behind. We leave, we create people who are so desperate that they'll work for whatever they have to work for just to be able to try to put food on the table or pay a monthly rent, and that doesn't at all seem to be in line with Jesus who came to bring good news to the poor and

to

release the captives and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

When Jesus arrives on the scene, that's in Luke 4 where he's, uses, quotes this verse from Isaiah. He proclaims the year of the Lord's favor. That's about the, practice in Judaism called Jubilee where debt is wiped out. It's this radical message, but it's very much at the heart of who Jesus is, and the radical nature of it is that everyone deserves more than what they're getting. I think there's this mistake in a lot of the Christianities that we've all received, including mine. I- As I said we come to the table every week in my tradition, and I remember an elder in this church who was a dear friend and mentor in many respects, an older man who was, he served at the table. At that time, we-- our elders would pray before communion at each service, and he was part of the early service. And every time he prayed at the table, it was the same formula of his prayer every week. And part of that formula was he would say something like, "Lord, we thank You for the incredible gift of this table, though none of us deserve it." And I think there's this underlying idea in Christianity a lot of the times that we don't deserve this, but God so graciously gives God's Son, though we don't deserve it. I think the radical nature of the-- what happens in Jesus is God saying, "You do." The whole point is you deserve this. You may not have earned it, you deserve it just by virtue of who you are because you are a child of God. Because, I if you're a parent, doesn't that ring true for you? Of course. Like I-- my kids deserve everything they can receive. they may not have earned it, they deserve it. And God sees us with that kind of eye when I see us through lens of Jesus.

[00:54:19] mike rusch.: Don, I think I have all kinds of questions, if I'm honest. I don't know where they all fit if-

[00:54:23] don morrow.: That's fair

[00:54:24] mike rusch.: and because I think part of it is it doesn't sound like it's an indictment upon business- Right ... or an indictment upon profit. Right. Is this an indictment upon, and I don't know what else term to use other than an extraction.

[00:54:38] don morrow.: a good term for it. How do we think- I think that's absolutely a good term for it, and I do think that fits with the kind of prophetic mindset. So again, I don't want to... It's not like there is this indictment in scripture of wealth, but there's a warning, there's a consistent warning about wealth that you can become too full of yourself if you think that wealth is what makes you worthy, if, as getting to Monica's point earlier, if you think that you getting wealth is simply because God is blessing you as opposed to blessing someone else, where the gift is yours, but it's not meant to be for a shared community. It's where, you know, I think there's a place for competition in that in the marketplace. I think I'm, I'm a believer in, in competition, but you can also that too far, and I think scripture, there maybe is not a place for competition in scripture, to be honest. That's not, that is more of an American thing than a Jesus thing. Jesus is always cautioning... I mean, just think about the disciples as Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. They're, like, jockeying for position, like, "Who's gonna be first in your kingdom?" I believe they think they're gonna overthrow the empire, and Jesus is gonna take the throne, and Jesus is like, "You don't g- quite get it yet, guys. We play a different game. I didn't come to be served but to serve, and I'm calling you to do that same thing."

[00:56:06] mike rusch.: I, I think I can hear the critics in my head already, right? Sure. Playing back.

[00:56:10] don morrow.: I hear them all the time. Not just in my head. Well- Sometimes in my ears, email, Facebook feed.

[00:56:20] mike rusch.: Well, then you're... then maybe this is the question. I mean- Yeah ... when we started, I mean, I heard you describe this place as a progressive church.

[00:56:28] don morrow.: Yes.

[00:56:29] mike rusch.: Is this just a progressive economic message? Is the Bible, is Jesus's message economic message?

[00:56:37] don morrow.: I think Jesus's message is progressive. It's not... You know, we have to be careful any time we take something from the 1st century and try to directly apply it to the 21st century because the culture into which Jesus is preaching and the politics into which Jesus is preaching are just night and day from us. So Jesus wasn't talking to people who had power in any way. But I think we Can glean the direction that Jesus wants us to go. I think that's a fair thing to do. It could... Some people might think it's dangerous I think that to follow the trajectory that I think Jesus was trying to take people on, which was toward including more, blessing more, making sure that everyone understood. you know, Jesus was always with the people that the religious folks were casting out, and I think we're called to do the same. So I think anytime we draw hard and fast lines, we're in serious danger of missing the point. I think that's true when it comes to issues of identity, I think it's true when it comes to issues of economics.

And I mean, I'll say even for this progressive congregation, the economic piece is still... it's a struggle, and it's a struggle to know exactly what to do with this because it's so ingrained in us as Americans that that prosperity is what we're to aim for. I'm not against prosperity. I just want it to be shared, and it doesn't have to be shared even equally, but it needs to be shared where everybody is included, where everybody can survive and thrive, where there's gonna be flourishing. I think the whole biblical vision is about everyone being able to flourish, about everyone being included in God's gift of shalom.

And again, I really think that's in there from the opening story of the Bible, in creation story, through to revelation isn't, in my reading of it, about the end times. It's about this critique of empire. It's about what empire has done that's literally taken the world to hell in the world. This battle for heaven and hell is this earthly thing that's going on, and Jesus prays, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth." That's what He teaches us to pray, that we would bring this heavenly mindset that is all about this abundance of life that we're called to share to the here and the now. I'm not saying that there's not something to come after, but I'm saying the principal focus, I think, is about what we're to do here and now with our neighbors, with fellow image-bearers of the divine.

growth

[00:59:35] mike rusch.: when you talk about this idea of growth and prosperity, though, I mean, we arguably live in one of, we arguably live in a region that is growing and I guess the story we're told is about prosperity.

Let's be specific. Like, here in Northwest Arkansas, when we talk about belonging, we talk about the role of the systems. Like, where is it working or not working from your perspective?

[00:59:59] don morrow.: Yeah that's tough, and it, and I do think we have to think about it in local terms as well as in broad terms. And I also want to emphasize, like, there's nothing wrong with prosperity. I just think it has to be shared in such a way that we're not... some of us aren't becoming prosperous at the expense of others, and that's what I'm afraid system has, is proving itself true to. so here in our region, in many respects, I think it's m- it is more shared here than in some places. You know, I've been in inner city places. I've worked in inner city Dallas. I've worked in inner city Austin. I've seen things there that I don't see here firsthand, but there's more poverty here than we often see, that it's not apparent to us. and increasingly, you know, even what's not poverty, just the middle class and gets pushed further out.

You know, we've seen that certainly with - the affordable housing crisis that's certainly here in Northwest Arkansas. Again, it's throughout the nation, but it's become a huge problem here in Bentonville. I'm on the top side of that 'cause I've been here a long time. I've got great property value. I don't plan on moving, so it's not really gonna do me any good. But my kids may need that to be able to afford a house. I mean they may need for us to pass that down to them for them to be able to afford to live at least anywhere in the middle of town because the housing crisis is so, so very real here.

systems and image-bearing.

[01:01:47] don morrow.: So I think we've got problems even in areas of affluence like this, it just points to a need to rethink the way that we're doing, putting all of this together systematically. I don't want to say- that churches or individuals can't make a difference 'cause we all can, and we try to do that. We do charitable things to help people in the short term. But I would draw a distinction between charity and justice in that justice is more of that long-term change, and that's what I-- we are trying to shift a lot of our focus here at this church to being more about addressing issues of justice, which involves things that feel out of place for a lot of people in church, like just talking about policy and talking about politics. And that's, I know, an uncomfortable thing. I get that it's an uncomfortable thing. And to some degree, I'm uncomfortable with it. But am more uncomfortable with us continuing down the road that we're on, where we're creating a larger and larger underclass.

The people who, during COVID, we named as essential workers, but we don't treat them as essential. We don't pay them as though they're essential. We pay them as though they're just cogs in a machine, and we treat them as though they're cogs in a machine. And these, again, are image-bearers of God, and I don't... I think we have to reckon with the place we are where when the world is-- has to shut down, we've got a class of people who we demand keep going, and we pay them pennies on the dollar compared to what most of us get paid or those of us in a professional class get paid. That just can't be right, and we have to be willing to say that and to change it.

[01:03:38] Monica Kumar: I mean, so Don, being here listening to you I'm hearing conversations about justice, and then I think about that kind of leads me to think about systems and power which it, which feels different from church charity and philanthropy.

And so as I think about that, what I'm hearing from you is what you're saying that when we're considering systems of power and we're thinking about commerce and competition, there has to be a place, even in our conversations about Christianity and religion, there has to be a place in that, in those systems of power for community and connection. And how are we building, how are we building justice into our systems of power?

building justice into our systems.

[01:04:23] don morrow.: Absolutely. I think that those terms are important there, community and connection. I think we have to, in our economic system, bear the common good in mind, and we have to find ways community to be at the heart of things. And so it... the issue that I sometimes have with our current form of capitalism that it's so individualistic that we lose sight of community, and we have to find ways to that.

I know that there's, you know, the ideal of the free market is there. not a reality. Really, it's never been a reality. so why don't we find ways to constrain it in such a manner that community is preserved and lifted up? And that requires paying attention to, you know, what Jesus would call the least of these, what I would call just the marginalized because many of those who find themselves on the margins economically are on the margins not of their own doing.

Some of the... Most of the hardest working people I know are the least paid people I know. It's not a lack of work ethic that we have to address. That's what... It drives me crazy that we talk about people as though they're lazy when they're struggling financially. not a lack of work ethic.

We can't be a country that says we value work if we don't value workers. If we don't value the people that are doing the hardest work, then we don't value work. We value profit. So profit isn't the boogeyman. I'm not saying that's the evil, but it can't be the primary driving force of everything then we're leaving an in- a huge number and an increasing number of people out of the proverbial economic pie

why is this a subject so important?

[01:06:30] Monica Kumar: But Don, I wanna go back to something you said 'cause I thought it was really interesting. You said it's even uncomfortable for you sometimes to talk about power and economic prosperity or economic injustice, and yet you do it anyway, and you f- and you bring it up in conversations, and I'm assuming I've not been to a service. I've been to events that you've held but not services you, you've led. I assume it's coming up in your services. Why? Why are you bringing them up? Why is it important for the congregation to think and talk and grapple with this when it is really uncomfortable?

[01:07:04] don morrow.: it is uncomfortable, but, I mean, gosh, I think Jesus made people really uncomfortable. I think Jesus was a comfort to those who needed it, but I think Jesus was constantly uncomfort- making those in positions of power uncomfortable? And the truth is, especially in America, we're the comfortable people that need to be made uncomfortable by this faith. I'm speaking to myself here, too, because I am comfortable. I've... I look like a poster child for the American dream. I mean, I've I'm not hurting. But I think we're called to wrestle with that. And so I think that's a part of our faith tradition is to wrestle with where we've missed the mark and where we need to rectify things and move toward some redeeming possibility for the future.

[01:08:06] mike rusch.: This is what stuck in my mind, if I'm honest. Like, when we talk about this conversation, right, there is a critique of capitalism.

[01:08:14] don morrow.: Sure.

[01:08:14] mike rusch.: And it seems to be really easy for someone to step back and say, "Well, if we're gonna question a system or an ideology of capitalism, that must make you..." Name whatever other ideology-

[01:08:25] don morrow.: Right. Sure ...

[01:08:25] mike rusch.: you wanna go down the road on. Sure. Socialism and communism.

[01:08:27] don morrow.: Right.

[01:08:28] mike rusch.: It feels like that insulates us from- mm-hmm ... back to where we started this conversation-

[01:08:32] don morrow.: Right ...

ideologies versus faith.

[01:08:32] mike rusch.: which is what is the message of Jesus around economics and systems? Do you see that? Is that me? . It feels like it's easy sometimes for me or for others, as I hear people talk, to try to separate these things into ideologies apart from faith.

[01:08:49] don morrow.: Right. No, I think that's true. You know we're actually... So we're in, currently in a series of messages that we call Finding the Sacred in the Secular, and this is really, this may seem far upstream, but we, during this series we do every summer, we look at movies and contemporary music and talk about where our faith intersects with those things.

So for instance, this Sunday, I'm actually preaching on Sinners, which is a very secular movie. And most people would not find the gospel in it necessarily, although it's got some very heavy religious overtones to it. but I think we've made a mistake American Christianity in particular, in as though faith and spirituality is this, cordoned it off into its own little field and that it has nothing to do with business and nothing to do with politics, and I think that's a mistake. A- And what it winds up doing is allowing religion to get used, I'm afraid, and abused for other purposes. It allows people try to baptize their economics with a little faith language instead of allowing faith to speak into it, if that makes sense. So I don't want, like I don't want us to be a Christian nation.

That may sound weird. That's... But I don't want that's not what I need, 'cause for one thing, I've been parts of Christian circles that didn't feel very Christ-like, and I've been parts of Christian circles that I wouldn't feel comfortable in that that they wouldn't want me a part of. But I do want people of faith, whether you're Christian or other than, to Use the heart of your faith to help you drive toward where your faith wants policy to go, which by and large is about loving your neighbor. I think in almost all the major world traditions it's really comes down to that, loving your neighbor, and do the policies that we're creating help us do that? That's where I think we have to always be driven as this n- neighborly focus, neighborly love.

[01:11:15] mike rusch.: As you think about this message, where do you think is, like, one area that we can step back and try to be objective on what is, what does change look like in a way that would e- that either needs to be done to move us closer to what this economic message of Jesus would be or something that, w- we really need to examine within our, with our own selves.

Like, The root behind that question is, like, we live in this system, we live in this world driven by capitalism. It's really hard not to operate within that system. Mm-hmm. How does a church, how does a tradition think about either creating other systems, or living within the systems that we have in a way that would be faithful to the things that you're talking about today?

what creates systemic change.

[01:12:03] don morrow.: Oh, Mike, that's such a great question. And I don't have a great answer for it. I think, I... That's one of the things that that I really wrestle with is what the best way is to try to influence the system or to ch- affect change in the system. So when I talk about issues like economic justice in particular, one of the main questions that people will ask me following those kinds of messages will be like, "So what should we do?"

And obviously, there are things we can do in our individual lives. But again, most of those things don't result in systemic change. We're trying to do these justice, have justice approaches to the way that we address these things, whether that's by, know, writing lawmakers or trying to organize in ways, or partnering with people in the community other people in the community who really are and dear to the messiness of the underbelly of our economic system and the people that are most directly affected by that. Listening to them. I do think, I think listening is a big piece of this. I don't... I can sit here in my nice office surrounded by books and theorize and know- and have, you know, a dif- some sort of knowledge about this subject matter. But I think what none of us do a good enough job at is talking to the people who actually are affected by this directly on a daily basis and letting that change our hearts, 'cause I do think that there's a heart issue for this for America as a whole, that we have to be moved by the, personal difficulty that we're forcing upon our neighbors on a daily basis in the system that we currently have. you know, my big term my long-term dream would be for us to change the system, but how to achieve that is, that's the million-dollar, billion-dollar, tr- trillion-dollar question. I don't have the answer for it.

I think that, I think having these conversations is the reality of it is, it's part of that. You know, we have to be willing to have the hard conversations about it, and hopefully we can arrive at a better solution. But I that's it it's not just about tinkering with the edges of it's, which is what we tend to do. We'll make things a little better on the edges, and then I think we have to question how we've set the whole thing up, is, oof

cost of success, isolation.

[01:14:43] Monica Kumar: I think we also, don't spend enough time on what it costs us the costs of success,

[01:14:50] don morrow.: Right

[01:14:50] Monica Kumar: Because if you look at, if, if you look at people who are materially and by all accounts incredibly successful, their levels of happiness and their levels of just joy are pretty low . And I'm not saying this from my own data, I'm saying this from, data that, that time and time again. And if we are so successful and so happy, why is loneliness an epidemic in our country? So I, I think that,

[01:15:18] don morrow.: yeah

[01:15:18] Monica Kumar: Like that Harvard study that, looks at all these people over the, over 40, 50 years and they're all incredibly successful, and the things that they lack at the end are like connection, family, someone to enjoy the day with so it, I think that there's not enough... We don't think about the, we don't think about how much wealth we're losing when we're only defining in terms of success in terms of materialism

[01:15:46] don morrow.: It's so true. I think that's beautifully said. I mentioned my-- some of my coming back to Jesus and the church, in my own journey was about mission trips to Mexico, and part of that journey was this recognition. We'd go into these just incredibly impoverished communities and do work for a week. Some of that felt... I have mixed feelings about doing those sorts of things. You know, there's some sort of toxicity to doing something for a week and then coming away feeling great about yourself and how you've made a change when you haven't made a long-term change. But it also exposed me to incredible people. Like, some of the most joyful people I ever met were some of the poorest people I ever met, and I know that's true across people who've done any sort of mission work. And that should tell us something that we've made-- we've defined success in the wrong way. I think for us to be successful as people, as a society, as a world, it's not about what the GDP is. It's-- It is... Happiness has to be in there. Joyfulness has to be in there. Community has to be in there. Some universality of flourishing has to be what We measure rather than just what's the totality of money and bank accounts and holdings. Like, that can't be what our yardstick is.

[01:17:20] mike rusch.: I kinda go back to what I was talking about before. I mean, this I still b- this is a dangerous conversation to have and I say that overtly, because it feels when we talk about systems, the systems are designed to be defensive and to be protective, and maybe that's a fragility to them. And I think the... If there are those that are listening that are, like, there's a tension, like, "Oh, this is... don't know what to do with this conversation," I would ask maybe from a pastoral perspective, what would you say to people who just at the very thought of this kind of conversation feels or brings tension, or we're not sure how to navigate through it what could you maybe offer to help us think about it? Because I think having these conversations is necessary, otherwise we wouldn't be having it, right? But I also think we're really ill-equipped, I am really ill-equipped to understand how to navigate through this in a healthy, productive way.

[01:18:17] don morrow.: I kinda come from a tradition where freedom is at the heart of what it means to be in the Disciples of Christ and that is a freedom of thinking, a freedom to ask questions. So one of the things that we regularly say worship is, "Hey, if you don't agree with me," you know I'm not... We don't have a top-down kind of papal kinda structure. I'm not criticizing that, I'm just saying that's not who we are, come and let's talk about it. also say, no questions are off limits," when it comes to faith, when it comes to life, and those things are not separate, faith and life. things are part and parcel of the same thing. so I want in a, in our faith community to ask hard questions, and the truth of the matter is, those hard questions that you may be afraid to ask, you're not the only one that's got those questions. Like, let's be honest about the questions we've got, when something makes us uncomfortable, talk about how uncomfortable it is because chances are the other people in the room are also uncomfortable with the results of what's happening, with the things that you've got those questions about.

So I think sometimes we're just called to be courageous and brave enough to broach the topic, even though it's not nec- not everyone's g- not everyone is going to share the same opinion. it's important to have those conversations if we hope to address those things that are obviously bothering us at our core. I that's why these questions are there. I think we just have to have enough trust, in one another to be willing to have the difficult conversations. You know, that's, in relationships this is true, whether it's in your marriage or with your kids or your parents or whatever. there's difficult things, they're only gonna get more difficult if you just keep 'em quiet and push 'em down and let 'em fester.

The only way to work through them is to get 'em out into the open, and I think that's true for us in our community relationships too, in our national relationships as well, that we talk about the things that aren't working and talk about they're not working and what we can do to help them work better.

[01:20:54] Monica Kumar: So Don, as I'm listening to you and taking note of everything you're saying, something is striking me, which is that some of the conversations that we have had this season, and then many of the conversations that I've sort of had over the years and come to, it feels in spaces of worship and in spaces of faith and with a lot of leaders that we've already spoken to this season, it feels like either politics does not belong in the pews at all, and so we don't talk about policy or politics in pews.

Or that we can share when something feels unjust or not right, but it's to put it in the room and to sort of let it sit there. But we don't need to grapple with it, and we certainly don't need to think about what that means when we go to work the next day, or what that means when we're having conversations in our relationships and in our partnerships.

And what I hear from you is you're saying, it's not, it, certainly we should talk about it, but we don't leave it at just speaking to it. We have to think, we have to look at how do we grapple with it, because we cannot separate life and work. So am I hearing you correctly? And and can you just share a little bit more about that?

reckoning with faith, life, and politics.

[01:22:12] don morrow.: Yes. You're hearing me absolutely correctly. And I will say I'm... I actually got asked to speak at a gathering of Disciples ministers in April on preaching and politics, preaching in the... and politics in the pulpit. And and, many of my colleagues think I'm out there a little too much. So I just wanna make clear that not all of my Disciples colleagues would necessarily share my approach. But my, feeling, first of all while it has been an American tradition that politics and church don't go together Jesus was very political. Jesus was... Jesus suffered a political execution. So, to act as though Jesus was not political is just not historical biblical. Many of the titles that we call Jesus were first titles of Caesar. Jesus is called Lord Caesar was called Lord. Jesus was called Savior because Augustus was called Savior. Jesus is called Son of God because Caesar was called Son of God. That's not a biological thing that we're talking about. It's a political title, and it was a means for the gospel writers to set up Jesus as an alternative politics So this is a political thing. That doesn't mean it's a partisan thing. That's a very strong and important distinction. I'm not talking about Democrats or Republicans. I'm talking about politics, because politics is about how we govern the lives that we live together. And if there's anything that the Bible is all about, it's about how we govern the lives that we live together. true from the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, through to the Greek New Testament. It's about how you live in love with one another.

How do you love God by loving your neighbor? It's the whole thing, it's very political. Now, we have to be careful in the way that we talk about it, because again, it's not a Republican, Democrat, red, blue thing, but it's very much a Jesus thing. So we shouldn't shy away from talking about things that are political in nature simply because they're political in nature. Because when you start not talking about something because it's political, you're being political just by not talking about it, and you're allowing the state of affairs, the status quo to take the day. silence is complicity, as they say. And I think in this particular moment, I speak about this more openly than I ever used to, and there's a variety of reasons for that. Some of it's because I'm older. Some of it's because I've been here a long time, and so the people in our congregation trust me, and I have learned to trust them to be able to say things even in a worship setting that I wouldn't have s-- dared say fifteen years ago when I was younger, when I hadn't been here as long. I've also just learned to trust them that we can talk about this if we disagree. We can talk about it. And I just think it's important for us to use our voices of faith to speak to the real-life conditions that we as people are going through and that our neighbors especially those on the margins, are having to deal with.

faith, politicals, and nationalism.

[01:26:05] mike rusch.: Don, as I hear you talk about policy and politics and faith and how these things work together, and we talk about systems I think we all know the subject of faith and Christian nationalism is in our headlines. It's something we see a lot. is what you're talking about is this Christianity involved in politics but from a different but from a different angle, from a different perspective? Is that what you're saying?

[01:26:34] don morrow.: Well, I would say it is Christianity involved in politics to the degree that it is the faith of individuals speaking through them as individuals in the way that they want to speak to the system. In no way would I want to enshrine any of Christianity in any sort of organized way in our American political system. I think that is un-American. I'm pretty... that's very much part of the Bill of Rights, and I think that freedom of religion is a freedom from religion for the government and a freedom from government for religion. So I think it's a benefit to both sides for that wall of separation to stay very solid there.

But as an individual, as a person of faith, and I would say this for any faith, that your faith should inform the way that you think about policy. I mean, I would hope that your faith is faith that informs the way you think about real life, and policy is where real life hits the road. It's where you have a, the opportunity, we have the opportunity to form better opportunities for our neighbors to be engaged, to be involved in community, to be empowered. And so I think faith has a role and a voice to ha- to have in that process, but in no way should it be a top-down process. I'm, I am concerned about Christian nationalism to the nth degree, and I would be concerned if the voice of power was one I agreed with as much as I am concerned when it's not, because I don't think that's where that should reside in in a governmental fashion, if that makes sense.

[01:28:27] mike rusch.: Yeah, Don, thank you. I think I'm trying to seek that clarity, and I don't think I'm the only one. Right. And to your point earlier about being able to ask those questions, and so I think I'm trying to understand, how do we view this moment that we're in culturally, politically in a way that yeah, in a way that aligns with- Right how a faith tradition would understand it. So thank you for that. All right, Monica

fear & wholeness.

[01:28:49] Monica Kumar: Thank you, Don. That segues so beautifully into two questions that we ask of all our guests at our table, and I'll ask you both of them, and then you can answer them in whatever order makes sense to you. But the first question I would ask is, what are your fears for Northwest Arkansas our place, and maybe the people that live there, live here? And then the second question would be, what does wholeness mean to you coming from your tradition?

[01:29:17] don morrow.: I may just answer those at the same time because I think they're really connected. I think my greatest fear, for our community and our country right now, is fear. My greatest fear is the use of fear to divide us the use of fear our neighbor because of where their nationality or their immigration status or their sexuality or their gender or identity or whatever the case may be. I think we get divided by fear, and I think when we're, when we hear someone telling us to be afraid, should ask who it benefits for us to be afraid of that group. And I think that division, which I think all of us are weary of the division and burdened by the division, but I think the only way past the division is to stop fearing each other.

And part of that is doing exactly what we're talking about, asking the hard questions, having conversations that are difficult to have, but that can help us to see one another as fully human again. And that's what I think the wholeness, where the wholeness comes. The only way to be whole is for all of us to be whole. The only way to wholeness is for the entire body of the community to be to be a part of the community in fullness, to have opportunity to flourish opportunity at God's vision of peace and shalom. I have not given up that hope despite the fact that we live in a really divisive time. So that's the hope my faith drives me to and the hope I cling to.

[01:31:12] Monica Kumar: Don, thank you so much not just for that answer, which was beautiful and thorough but for the whole time that you have spent at our table in conversation and grappling with some really hard questions alongside us. I've just been in... listening enraptured and also learning so much, and I appreciate you for that. Thank you

[01:31:34] don morrow.: Thank you for the invitation.

[01:31:36] mike rusch.: Yeah. Don, we're just humbled and honored to be able to share a table with you, and so thank you for being a part of this conversation. Thank you for speaking into a space that I think as a culture is a big question mark about what does, it mean for economics? What does it mean for our faith traditions to shape our culture and shape our sense of belonging? And so I'm deeply grateful, and I think... I don't know, Monica, he's given me a whole lot to think about that I'm not sure I was prepared or ready to process through, but it's

[01:32:03] Monica Kumar: No, we asked the questions, but I wasn't ready for the answers

[01:32:07] mike rusch.: I think that's a fair statement. Don, Thank you, very much. It's been a joy.

[01:32:11] don morrow.: Thank you, mike and Monica, really appreciate the work y'all are doing. Thank you.

episode outro.

[01:32:16] mike rusch.: Well, an incredible thank you to Don Morrow, and I have to be honest, that was a lot. And I told you at the start of this conversation it felt like a dangerous one. I'm not sure, though, if it was dangerous or if it was just honest, and maybe those feel like the same thing right now in this place at this moment. What Don gave us wasn't an argument to win. It was an invitation to sit in that discomfort and to not look away.

Here are some things that I'm carrying out of this conversation, that the economics of Jesus aren't a footnote to the gospel. They run right through the middle of it, from the manna in the desert that couldn't be hoarded, to a prayer for daily bread, to Jesus and Luke proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor and meaning it. Don spent years studying that thread, and he pastors it a mile from the largest company on Earth, a company that he was careful to say that has done nothing but what the system was designed to do.

And that, to me, is the harder truth. The problem isn't a company. The problem is a system working exactly as it was built and what it costs the people that were once called essential.

And then that table, this table where Don says all are welcome and all means all. I told you it would come back around. I didn't expect it to come back as an elder's prayer. None of us deserve this. And Don turning it over to find the opposite underneath. It's a radical thing to say that we don't deserve a place when we actually do, and that you're a child of God, and the seat was always yours.

Don, again, thank you. Thank you for your honesty and for your years of study, and being willing to make a comfortable room a little uncomfortable, starting, as you said, with yourself. And thank you for the reminder that faith that won't speak to real life isn't staying neutral. It's just letting the status quo win quietly.

This is what our season has been about, not the faith we perform, but the faith that actually forms us, how it shapes what we build, who we leave out, and whether we're honest about the difference. The faith of Northwest Arkansas in all of its beauty and all of its blind spots.

And again, if something in this one caught you in the chest, a question, a disagreement, something you're still turning over, send it to us. There's a send us a voice message button on theunderview.com. We read every one. The conversation is better with you in it.

I wanna say thank you again for listening, and thank you for being the most important part of what our community is becoming.

This is the underview, an exploration in the shaping of our place and our faith