Episode 96 - Kristian A. Smith

Summary

Grits and Eggs Podcast – Episode 96: Conversation with Kristian A. Smith

Host: Deante' Kyle
Guest: Kristian A. Smith (Public Theologian & Digital Pastor)
Release Date: October 28, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode brings Deante’ Kyle and the “public theologian and digital pastor” Kristian A. Smith together for an uninhibited conversation about religion, Black church culture, self-love, community, politics, and what it means to live with purpose beyond dogmatic boundaries. Both men draw from personal experience and scholarly backgrounds to analyze modern faith, community, and Black liberation—often with unfiltered, humorous, and strikingly honest takes.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Upbringing, Black Church, and Street Realities

Timestamps: 00:36–03:38

• Conversation about growing up in Oakland, moving to San Diego, and dealing with gang culture—even in the church.
• Deante’ recalls how his first Bible study teacher was an ex-dealer and how “Bible talk” mixed with street wisdom pulled him into church.
• Memorable quote:
  • “The Baptist brims and the Christ Crips. Why is she gang banging in the church, bro?” – Deante’ (01:36)

Smith’s Reflection:

• Remembers being physically healed as a child after family prayed.
• “Those moments are powerful, man.” – Smith (03:38)

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2. Church as Performance, Redemption, and the Reality Behind It

Timestamps: 04:41–08:34

• Both reflect on Black preaching as performance art and the emotional experience in church—how “redemption highs” from beating a charge last, but that feeling fades, and then things get “studious.”
• Importance of making deals with God: “Look, you get me out of this, I’m out the streets and in the church, and should I beat the charge? So I was like, okay, I gotta stay true to my word.” – Deante’ (07:00)
• The rare shared experience: “It’s a rare circumstance, I got two co-defendants. Nobody snitched, nobody went to prison.” – Deante’ (07:32)

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3. Curiosity, Questioning, and Outgrowing Dogma

Timestamps: 09:09–11:37

• True curiosity is often unwelcome.
• Smith explains, “As long as you regurgitate what we told you to say and believe, and do it in a creative way...we gonna rock with you. You start pushing back...now we got a problem.” (10:34)
• Deante’ notes questioning is stifled, especially in spaces built around certainty.

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4. Theology Beyond Borders and the Power of Openness

Timestamps: 11:38–15:25

• Smith clarifies: “My openness is to anything divine...For me, it’s just about what kind of person are you? ...Are you more committed to your doctrine? Which is where a lot of people, I believe, fall short.” (11:38)
• Life as a preacher’s kid:
  • “My dad was my pastor...he was like, yo, if you can avoid preaching, avoid it. This is thankless work a whole lot of times.” – Smith (12:24)
  • Experiences “the call” to preach in grad school, and the challenge to not just accept inherited theology, but to think critically about it (16:31).
• “Take those critical thinking skills and now apply them to your theology. And that was all she wrote.” – Smith (16:39)

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5. Rejection of Conformity and Church Hurt

Timestamps: 17:06–21:04

• Deante' explains leaving church wasn’t about being “church hurt,” but realizing the “copy and paste” nature of most churches he visited.
• Recalls being thrust into preaching unexpectedly and being told by a Barnes & Noble stranger he’d be a pastor one day.

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6. Ministry Outside the Pulpit & Reimagining the Black Church

Timestamps: 18:55–21:41

• Smith encourages Deante’, affirming that platforms like his podcast are ministry:
  • “You preaching every time you get on the mic. You’re just not doing it in a pulpit.” (19:00)
• Importance of reimagining church as a space of true communion, not dogma:
  • “We shouldn’t be gathered in dogmatic thought. We should be gathered in diversity of thought.” – Deante’ (20:10)

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7. The Greatest Commandment & Radical Self-Love

Timestamps: 21:41–27:06

• Smith’s core theology is “love your neighbor as yourself”—and self-love is the assumed starting point:
  • “Love God and love your neighbor. That’s the greatest commandment. Love yourself is the greatest assumption.” – Smith (25:47)
• Discussion of RuPaul:
  • “RuPaul knows more about the gospel than most Christians, because...‘How the hell you gonna love somebody else if you don’t love yourself?’ That’s the gospel.” – Smith (25:45)
• Dogmatic churches demonize self-love, seeing it as pride, but Smith and Kyle unpack how that mindset keeps congregants “in check.”

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8. Christian Identity, Jesus as Mascot, and Exploiting the Name

Timestamps: 27:06–31:53

• Smith rejects the Christian label:
  • “I’m a pastor who does not identify as a Christian. I identify as a spiritual humanist...Not because of Jesus, but more so because of his fan base.” (28:41)
• Critical distinction between the “name of Jesus” and the “way of Jesus”:
  • “Jesus is not a messiah for most Christians, he’s a mascot.” – Smith (29:34)
  • Discussion shifts to how institutions manipulate Christ’s name to justify bigotry and violence.

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9. Liberation, Oppression, and Biblical Contradiction

Timestamps: 31:53–36:12

• Kyle challenges listeners: “If you treating your neighbor poorly, then you treating God poorly.” (23:50)
• Smith: “The entire theology revolves around your love for God is expressed in how you love your neighbor. Your love for your neighbor is a reflection of how you love yourself.” (26:33)
• Biblical stories provide both justifications for liberation and for genocide, depending on what you look for (36:12).
  • “If you looking for a message of liberation, you’ll find it...You looking for a message of genocide, it’s real easy to justify genocide in the Bible.” – Smith (36:12)

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10. Dissonance, Nihilism, and Self-Purpose

Timestamps: 39:13–44:02

• Both men share experiences of leaving church and finding themselves confronted by fear, nihilism, and the struggle to reclaim purpose.
• Deante’: “Leaving the church for me...I started to realize I wasn’t living in so much fear.” (39:42)

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11. Material Struggle, Finding the Faith Community

Timestamps: 43:15–47:12

• Smith: “You don't get the life you deserve. You get the life you demand.” (43:15)
• Story of founding the digital “faith community” from what started as a Bible study in Smith’s apartment.
• Deante’ expresses appreciation for Smith’s unique, nontraditional approach and the importance of community and representation.

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12. Ancestor Veneration and Black Spiritual Practice

Timestamps: 47:12–52:48

• Powerful discussion of how Black Americans already practice ancestor veneration through family photos, chain pendants, and other rituals, even though the language scares many due to white supremacist demonization of African roots.
• Smith: “We’ve been doing ancestor veneration in so many different ways...” (49:06)
• Deante’ calls out how Black churches often “demonize” these ancestral connections out of fear of death and the afterlife.

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13. Fear, Fundamentalism, and the Politics of Faith

Timestamps: 52:49–56:54

• Discussion on how Christianity, especially for Black people introduced via enslavement, weaponizes fear (51:20) and keeps believers in a mentality of bondage—spiritually and psychologically.

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14. Liberation, Revolution, and Class Struggle

Timestamps: 61:07–74:40

• Nuanced conversation on capitalism, labor, strikes, and coordinated resistance.
• Importance of collective action over individualism: “Coordinated labor strikes would change everything.” – Smith (67:26)

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15. Community, Digital Life vs Real Life, and Black Joy

Timestamps: 75:54–83:12

• Both men highlight how Black community and joy is inherently political and a form of resistance.
• The need to gather in real life and the limitations of digital-only community: “You can’t organize online. We live in...constant surveillance.” – Smith (78:39)

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16. Radical Inclusion & Reimagining the Black Church

Timestamps: 83:12–113:25

• Smith’s ministry centers LGBTQ affirmation, women’s equity, and “disruptive, authentic, inclusive” values.
• Both agree: “If you were truly following the way of Jesus, you a revolutionary.” – Deante’ (100:43)
• On confronting sexual violence and reframing sexual ethics: “Consent, honesty, and mutuality. I don’t care who you have sex with as long as you’re consenting adults...” – Smith (88:23)
• Both express commitment to making church a space where no one has to leave parts of themselves outside, especially queer Black people and critical thinkers.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Black Preaching and Performance:

  • “Black preaching, this performance art, bruh.” – Kristian Smith (06:50)
  • “You coked out your mind. It’s like, yeah, yeah. And mon dudes hit you with the annoying oil. Oh, yeah. This is a real revelation, baby.” – Deante’ (03:11)

• On Liberation Theology:

  • “You can't do liberation theology and still be committed to that level of control.” – Smith (61:07)

• On the Greatest Commandment:

  • “Love your neighbor as yourself. We completely leave out self-love.” – Smith (24:03)

• On Ancestor Veneration:

  • “Anytime you go in your granny house and see all her relatives that have passed on sitting up...that’s an altar, bruh.” – Deante’ (48:51)

• On Black Joy:

  • “Joy is an act of resistance.” – Smith (103:17)

• On Disruptive Ministry:

  • “Part of our identity as a ministry: we are disruptive, authentic, inclusive.” – Smith (96:15)

• On Radical Self-Love:

  • “If you don’t love me, I’m gonna assume you don’t love yourself...and I don’t want to be around nobody don’t love theyself.” – Deante’ (24:12)

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Additional Highlights

• Church Trauma & Transparency: Both are open about the prevalence of sexual abuse in Black churches and families, challenging the silence and demanding accountability.

• Digital vs Physical Community: Both advocate for real-world interactions as crucial for liberation and community-building.

• On Clergy & Capitalism: Discussion on the tension Black preachers face between pursuing financial stability and serving the community.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Church and Streets Overlap – 00:36–03:38
• Performance & Redemption – 04:41–08:34
• Questioning Doctrine – 09:09–11:37
• Call to Ministry & Critical Thinking – 11:38–16:39
• Reimagining Church & Community – 18:55–21:41
• Self-Love Theology – 21:41–27:06
• Christianity & Jesus as Mascot – 27:06–31:53
• Liberation & Biblical Contradictions – 31:53–36:12
• Nihilism to Purpose – 39:13–44:02
• Ancestor Veneration Practices – 47:12–52:48
• Fear & Fundamentalism – 52:49–56:54
• Resistance & Labor Strikes – 61:07–74:40
• Community & Joy as Resistance – 75:54–83:12
• Radical Inclusion & Affirmation in Church – 83:12–113:25
• Sexual Ethics & Consent Talk – 87:44–93:59

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Conclusion

The episode is a wide-ranging, deeply personal dialogue about the intersections of Blackness, faith, resistance, community, love, trauma, and liberation. Both men challenge listeners to love fearlessly, question boldly, build authentic community, and reclaim the radical, liberating roots of Black spirituality and Jesus’ example. For anyone grappling with religion, identity, or collective struggle, this conversation offers wisdom, levity, and hope.

Transcript

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Woke up in the morning and to God be the glory Thankful for another day to tell my story Put my opinions in the universe and let them orbit I'm from the dirty south with a dirty mouth My knee orbit, miss things Things on me like a Norbit had to refuse them cause my bitch no rest Fusion, she gorgeous. As I d my sons up and kiss my daughter forehead Tell them we gonna get this money to my pockets. Mor. Remember living in apartments now? We playing mortgage.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. Because you got to think about the whole. The culture of checking, right? Like, where you from? Where you from? It's like the. The constantly seeking an enemy. Yeah, that's a. That's a hard. You got to be tough to come from that.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know what I'm saying? Because even if you ain't affiliated, you still can't be no.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly. And I was never affiliated, but I couldn't be no. Yeah, because, like, you know, my growing up in Oakland, I was around it all the time. My parents was, like, determined to get me out of Oakland, so we moved to San Diego when I was 10. And I had to deal with it at all in my neighborhood, but the church was still, like, in the hood, so to say. And a lot of my church friends were part of gangs or, like, loosely affiliated. And I've been in some situations where it's like, okay, see, how we gonna get out of this?

[Deontay Kyle]

The Baptist brims and the Christ Crips. Why is she gang banging in the church, bro? Nah, I ain't gonna hold you. When you. When you go to church young, you just realize, like, everybody here. Everybody here because they mama or their grandma.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

So it was a lot of that going on. And then my. My first Bible study teacher was like, extra dealer. So, like, a lot of his stories, it went from, like, it would be some Bible talk in there, but, like, he was using the scripture to kind of, like, teach us lessons and then using his experience to kind of like, be the through line. And so I was just like, I want to go to Bible study because I want to hear more of this nigga's stories. Like, he had the craziest stories, you know what I'm saying? Because he also, like, a bodybuilder, so he a bodybuilding drug dealer that sell coke and do coke. And he from Bolton Road, and it's like, this is the most interesting nigga of all time. Now he my. And this is my Bible study teacher. So it's like, I just want to go to church just to listen to him. Like, after that I'm really all out. But I remember, like, the craziest story he had told us is like, he was trapping. Like, he was trapping and doing coke all night. He said he had did so much that he was like. It just hit him all at once. Like, damn. He was like. He felt like he was gonna die. And then he done took all his clothes off and ran to his mama house in his drawers. And he was like. His mama started praying over him, and he was like. He said it was something about that moment in time, just everything where he was just like, I ain't never did no cocaine ever since I've been dedicated, gave my life to Jesus. It's like, okay, yeah, I can see how it can happen. Yeah, yeah. You coked out your mind. It's like, yeah, yeah. And mon dudes hit you with the annoying oil. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is a real revelation, baby. Yeah, it's a real revelation.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. Those moments are powerful, man. Yeah. I still remember being a kid having an allergic reaction at a family reunion, and one of my cousins, like, older cousin, like my mom's, you know, peer, man, she went into praying in tongues and laying hands on me and speaking over me, and, like, the reaction calmed down. Like, for real. Like, my allergies calmed down after that. I was like, dang, she really got some power.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, real rap.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's for real. Cause, like, you know, my allergic reactions would be brutal. So for her to, like, approach it like that. I still remember. I don't know how old I was, but I was maybe like 10, 11 or something like that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. The. The. The supernatural aspects of it become very real. The studious aspect of it is what. Start breaking the illusion. Right? Like, I'm Deontay Kyle, host of the Grist Next podcast, this episode, whatever. You know what I mean?

[Christian A. Smith]

We here.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what episode this is, but I know it's coming out. We're here with the public theologian and digital pastor, Christian Smith.

[Christian A. Smith]

Glad to be here, man.

[Deontay Kyle]

I appreciate you pulling up, man.

[Christian A. Smith]

Thank you for having me, man. I really enjoy what you do. My wife actually introduced me to your content maybe like, within the past year.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. I remember when I seen you start popping up, I was like. And I went to your page, and I was like, oh, there's some synergy here.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

I liked it.

[Christian A. Smith]

I like it because when she told me about it, she was like, yo, this is dude. He be in his truck, and he sound a lot like you. You should check him Out. And when my wife says that, it's like, okay, I need to check this person out. If she say this person sound like me. And then I went to your page and I was like, dang. Yeah, we. Like, we think in the same. Along the same lines.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been rocking with it. I. I did a lot of. When I speak to. So my entry point to going to church myself was I had caught this crazy charge and I was like, I'm facing like 10 years in prison. And I'm like, damn, bro. Actions are caught up to me in the worst way. I ain't trying to go to jail, bro. Like, you know what I'm saying? This was all funny. Games to these folks start like, going, we since till we going to court.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And I had really, like. I was like, I'm finna getting this book because I know what my grandma would want me to do. And like, my mom coming up there and she petrified on the visits and she like, just stay prayed up. And outside of being obligated to go to church in my. With my mama and having an affinity for pastors and just like, the sermon, like, I like that. Like that. The sermon. I'm all in, bro. Cause they be popping they shit, like. And like, when they. You get like, them all Southern pastors, when they get that.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

When they get that going, this nigga on fire. He's on fire. You can't stop him. Yeah, it feel like God in there. You feel me?

[Christian A. Smith]

Black preaching, this performance art, bruh.

[Deontay Kyle]

It's. It's absolutely. Yeah, it's absolutely performance art. But it's high level performance.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know, it's convicting. So I go. And I was like, okay, well, I gotta lean on what I know. And I know that I can go to God. I know I can start praying. I know, like, you know, I repent and I do this. And then I'm gonna make me a couple deals, you know what I'm saying? I made me a deal with God. Look, you get me out of this, I'm out the streets and in the church, and should I beat the charge? So I was like, okay, I gotta stay true to my word. And because it's a rare circumstance, I got two co defendants. Nobody snitched, nobody went to prison.

[Christian A. Smith]

Oh, wow.

[Deontay Kyle]

So it was like crazy. Even when they was like, in court, they was trying to get us, get the detective, like, to play the investigation tapes, like, the interrogation tape, they was like, none of them. Wow. They was like. Them niggas was like, Fuck y'.

[Christian A. Smith]

All. That's uncommon.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, it was uncommon because I was telling them, like, when we was in there, I was like, if we don't tell them nothing. I was like, remember, it's not about what they know. It's about what they can prove. Because I be watching First 48 like a mother. And I was like, oh, now is the time to apply this information. You know, every time somebody said, let me get a lawyer, they just had to let him up out of there in the episode. And the police be mad as hell. I was like, bro, just go in there, ask for a lawyer. Even if we ain't got anyone. Yeah, don't matter. And we just beat that. We beat the case. And I was like, all right, bet I'm gonna get my together. I'm get a job. I'm finding a church home, and then we're gonna go from there. And that's what I did. Yeah. And outside of that redeemer, like that. That. That feeling redeemed you, you. That redemption high lasts for a minute. Yeah. Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

And then it wear off.

[Deontay Kyle]

And when it wear off, and you got to get real studious, and you got to, like, when sometimes Sundays just ain't hitting. Like, I ain't trying to. Man, I ain't trying to get up and go to church today. And then people in your age group really don't take church seriously. They probably there out of obligation where I'm there, like, in a real way. And I had a pastor call me out middle of church, and I don't know, this didn't happen to me twice in churches around that time. But, like, you got a word in you. You got a word in you. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, damn me.

[Christian A. Smith]

Specifically you.

[Deontay Kyle]

And then I was like, okay, maybe he just, you know what I'm saying, trying to get me to get more involved. And I went to another church, bruh. Hit me with the same jump. I'm like, okay, I might got that word on me. I might got that on me. You know what I'm saying? But I think the questioning, that's the part that always was rejected.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, it's always gonna be rejected. And these rigid spaces where everything is rooted in certainty, you know, you too curious. As a person. Just in my engagement with your work, you are curious. You stay curious. And in settings that are built around certainty, curiosity is not embraced. And, you know, that's how I got basically, you know, whitelisted in the church, because I was too curious. I was asking too many questions. And. But I did that, like, after. I, like, was already well into my preaching ministry, and then everything flipped because at the time, you know, people was loving what I was doing. But you don't get celebrated for reimagining in church. You get celebrated for regurgitating. As long as you regurgitate what we told you to say and believe and. And you do it in a creative way that gets us excited, because black preaching is performance art. We gonna rock with you.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

You start pushing back against the things that we consider to be certain beyond question. Don't even critique it. Now we got a problem with you. And that's what a whole lot of us are going through in this generation. Cause, you know, we got. We. We already done went through the age of information.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

So it's just available to us. So if you curious and look into it, it's like, okay, some of this shit ain't adding up.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

In that place.

[Deontay Kyle]

Let's talk about your journey in theology, so to speak. It's specific to Christianity. Christianity. But I know when you into theology, that encompasses mostly all the Abrahamic religions, correct?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. I mean, theology is just. It's called. It's God talk. Right. So theology is basically engaging with or talking about the divine. Now, my. My faith, traditional origin is Christianity. Of course, you got the Abrahamic traditions, Judaism and Islam. But, like, my study was in Christian theology.

[Deontay Kyle]

Okay.

[Christian A. Smith]

My openness is to anything divine. Right. I don't care what religion you a part of. I don't care who you bow to. I don't care about none of that. I don't care what creed you got. None of that stuff. For me, it's just about what kind of person are you. Do you, like, care about people, or are you more committed to your doctrine? Which is where a lot of people, I believe, fall short.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. Just to commit it. Being committed to. Yeah. Because there's a lot of borders, right?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

And. And within those borders, there's borders, too.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

What is your history? What's your family history? I know you say you're fifth generation.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

So let's go back to the beginning. Let's let people know a little bit more about you and how where Christian Smith sits today. What's the story behind that?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, man. So preacher's kid. You know, my. I was being called to preach before I was born, because that's what happens with preachers, kids. They expect you to continue the family business. So, you know, born in Oakland, California. My dad was my pastor. Then we moved to San Diego when I was 10. My dad was my pastor. And my dad told me, he was like, yo, if you can avoid preaching, avoid it. He was like, this is not for the fainted heart. This is thankless work a whole lot of times. And there are other things you can do with your life, which is different because a whole lot of like, preachers, kids, they parents want them for sure to go into the ministry. My dad was like, yo, because my dad tried to run from it too.

[Deontay Kyle]

Okay?

[Christian A. Smith]

So I, I, I know that when I am stressed, my body responds by my hair falling out in patches. And I know that because that was my dad's story. He said he felt compelled, he felt called by God to go into ministry. And he was like, nah. And he ran, he was like, I ain't doing it, I ain't doing it. I ain't doing it. And it, it grieved him to the point where his, till his hair started falling out in patches until he finally said yes, and then his hair started growing back in. Right? So.

[Deontay Kyle]

And that is, that's divine all within itself, right? For real?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, for real. So, So I wasn't trying to go into ministry. I was trying to go into corporate America. I wanted to be a C level executive. I wanted to have the fortune without the fame. I wanted to be anony. I didn't need anybody to know my name, right? And then while I was in, I was in grad school at Alabama A and M University where I, where I attended and played football in college. And I just like felt compelled one day to just start studying my Bible, which is something I didn't normally do. I've been in church all my life. Like, I know these scriptures. Like I memorized them. We had to do memory verses at the breakfast table, you know, so it's like, I know these scriptures. I didn't study like that. But one time I just like, you know, let me just pick my Bible up and start studying something. And I, I'll never forget, I was a graduate assistant for the dean of the School of Business at Alabama A and M. And I was in the back studying my Bible and I heard the word preach like an audible voice. And I was like, am I in here by myself? Is somebody else in here? And I was like, nah, I'm tripping. But it shook me. It rattled me a little bit because I heard it so clearly. I called my parents and they were real, like, they were real tempered in how they approached it. Like, well, you know, take some time, pray about it, whatever, whatever. But I could hear the excitement Underneath.

[Deontay Kyle]

That, they was like, yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

The undertone was excitement.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

So, you know, I acknowledged my call to preach in 2007, and my dad told me, all right, son, a call to preach is a call to prepare. So you're gonna need to get your education. Don't go into this thing and just get up and say whatever you want to say, like, go get your education. So that was, for me, the challenge to go to seminary. So 2013, I went to seminary, and that's where my embedded theology, the theology that was handed to me as a child, that's where it all got challenged. And from there, what I discovered was my parents raised me to be a critical thinker. Like, my dad would ask me to put together a case when I had a request for him. He's like, oh, so you want me to do this for you? Tell me why I should build. State your case. He trained me like an attorney, but they never encouraged me to use that on my theology.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right.

[Christian A. Smith]

So, you know, critically think over here. Just accept this stuff over here.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. You know, it don't work like that. Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

I got the seminary and it was like, take those critical thinking skills and now apply them to your theology. And that was. That was all she wrote.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Cuz from there, it was like, it was no holds barred, like, we questioning everything. And that put me on this path to where I am now, where, you know, people consider me a heretic, the Antichrist, and then some people really appreciate what I do. Let me not say it like, you know, everybody hates what I do, but.

[Deontay Kyle]

A lot of people love what you do, and myself included. You wanted the only people of the Christian faith that I listen to.

[Christian A. Smith]

I appreciate that.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know, like, kind of challenges me to, you know, go back and get a little bit more studious on. On my own accord, too, because I used to really enjoy studying about when I was the thing that. The thing that I'm not. Church hurt. You know what I'm saying? I think that a lot of people assume my approach to these things is from a space of being church hurt. But that ain't it.

[Christian A. Smith]

We both got that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. I. I was, oh, y' all ain't hear. Yeah. And. And I'm not. And I'm not of any authority to change this, so I' ma leave. And when I went to other churches to try to, you know, maybe find it, I just realized, oh, this is copy and paste. Yep. They copying and pasting. Yeah. So there was a specific situation that happened at my church. There was a pastor and his name, pastor moment. And he just kind of took me under his wing and he was trying to prepare me to preach, you know what I'm saying? Because I remember one Sunday, he just handed me the mic. I was like, what the. But he was like, see, you got.

[Christian A. Smith]

That thrust in you.

[Deontay Kyle]

You got that thrust in you. But I was told At 19, I was going to be a pastor by some, like a random girl in a Barnes and Noble, you know what I'm saying?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

I told this story before, but, like, the contrast was I was in all black, she was in all white. We ended up talking for like a few hours. I was still, like, I was still robbing, doing all type of shit. And through our conversation, she was like, it won't be traditional. Right. You know, she said, I'm not saying you're a pastor in church. I ain't even gonna say it's through your music. But there will be time where you are a pastor or whatever the case may be. Right. So I think now that I got this platform, it do kind of feel like that I do have a platform. I do have a stage.

[Christian A. Smith]

So I wanna. I wanna affirm that very much. So. You preaching every time you get on the mic.

[Deontay Kyle]

I appreciate it.

[Christian A. Smith]

You're just not doing it in a pulpit.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

You know, you're not doing it in a traditional pulpit.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

You're not doing it in a building that we call a church.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

But ministry is ministry, whether you put religion on it or not. You. You're doing that. You're. You're reaching people and helping people in ways that the church never could. Because some people just ain't gonna never fuck with the church.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right.

[Christian A. Smith]

But they still need that message of love and critical thinking and, you know, I'm saying community and coming together that they won't give a pastor the opportunity to say. Because pastors have given them reasons not to trust.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right.

[Christian A. Smith]

So, yeah. What you're doing is. I. I love what you do.

[Deontay Kyle]

I appreciate it.

[Christian A. Smith]

I absolutely love what you do. I'm a fan.

[Deontay Kyle]

Thank you, man. We. We talked about this in that episode, the clip that's going viral now. I spoke about reimagining the church as a space of communion. How do we. How do we commune with each other without religion? Because we. We shouldn't be gathered in dogmatic thought. We should be gathered in diversity of thought.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

On a ritual listed basis. You know what I mean? Because Sundays is reserved for church, for people that grow up in the church a lot of. A lot of times. And even as I Got older. It. It ain't it. I wasn't comfortable going out on a Saturday night because my routine was, you stay in on Saturday night so you can be ready for church on Sunday. So the big thing that made me step away was I didn't, like, once you get involved, you know, once you start going to Bible study, once you start volunteering, you see the business of church and you see what's going on in the background, but you also see how people treat each other. You also hear how people talk about each other. And I started seeing a lot of that. And I got up in front of the church one day when it was the call to the altar, and I was like. I just told him. I was like, we ain't doing this right.

[Christian A. Smith]

Oh, they had to get you up out of there.

[Deontay Kyle]

I was like, this supposed to be about church, community, loving one another. Like, this whole, love thy neighbor. Y' all hate y' all neighbors in here, and y' all treat each other poorly, and y' all talk about each other. And then we show up here every Sunday dressed well, and we think we doing it the right way. And this ain't church. We ain't doing this the right way. Y' all doing this to show face. And I'm like, 22, and they like. And I remember I knew I was cooking because one of the mothers of the church, she said, keep being bold, baby, but not here. Let me get up out of here, man. Damn.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, that's heavy. And you know, you say we're supposed to love our neighbor, but we hate our neighbor. And that's baked into the theology, actually. Right? Part of my theological evolution was moving away from the rule keeping of religion. Like, everything is about the rules. Do this, do this, do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And I was like, this. This shit ain't making no sense at this point. And it's really becoming clear to me that, like, all of this stuff is about control. So I started to, like, really think, okay, a lot of the stuff that I believed, I don't. I don't believe it anymore. But I still recognize there's some power here. Like, I still appreciate my black church experience. I still love the people there, and I want better for all of us. But first, let me just deal with myself, right? What can I apply to my life in a way that's going to ground me? Because a lot of the stuff that used to ground me doesn't ground me anymore. Like, the whole The Bible is the word of God. You don't question it. I was like, I got way too many questions and I reject some of the stuff in there. So that's just going to be a part of who I am moving forward. And as I was navigating, like, what's going to be my framework, my theological framework, I landed on the greatest commandment in Matthew chapter 22, where this attorney asked Jesus what's the greatest commandment in all the law? And the attorney was actually trying to catch him up. He was being the smart ass. He was trying to catch him in the lie, see if he can make them look bad in front of people. And Jesus was like, love God with your heart, soul, mind and your strength. And then the second part is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. And when he said the second part is like it, the term that is used there in the original text, it means of equal rank. So love God and of equal rank, love your neighbor as yourself. Whenever I say that to somebody in church, they're like, yeah, yeah, you know, love God, love your neighbor. And I'll be like, you, you, you missing.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, but, but, but, but the thing is, is that you missing is if you treating your neighbor poorly, then you treating God poorly.

[Christian A. Smith]

And on top of that, you're missing the as yourself part.

[Deontay Kyle]

That means you're treating yourself poorly.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yes, so, so God. Jesus said, love God and love your neighbor as yourself. We completely leave out self love.

[Deontay Kyle]

Completely leave out that, that, that one clip that I posted on Sunday where I had the Mets hat on when I was saying we need to put our ideology second and put being black first. And I said, so I' ma love you like I love myself. So if you don't love me, I'm gonna assume you don't love yourself. Yes. And I don't want to be around nobody don't love theyself in the first place because you already laying in a bad bed. And I ain't trying to jump in that bed with you. But if you approach me with this common decency and respect and somebody was like, well, isn't that ideology? I was like, maybe this is a moral compass. Maybe this is a standard practice. It don't have to be about ideology. This should be something that's fixed. Yeah, I see you. I respect you. My love for you is already there. You know what I mean? And it's up to you to remove that. It's just like trust. Like, you can get rid of trust, you know what I mean? Like, but it's up to you to erode my trust. That ain't up to me, but I should. But I should be there to extend it. And then I used to tell people all the time, like, I can't be hurt by people because God even commanded us not to trust, man. So if I'm. If I'm. If I'm gonna take that seriously, then I'm not gonna be let down when you let me down. But by approaching me, like, with malice, by you approaching me with contempt, I can't rock with that because I wouldn't approach you like that.

[Christian A. Smith]

And that's a reflection of how you.

[Deontay Kyle]

Feel about yourself on God.

[Christian A. Smith]

So you're right. It's not. It's not ideology. To the extent that in the greatest commandment, Jesus didn't even command us to love ourselves. He just assumed it.

[Deontay Kyle]

He assumed you. Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

So I tell people, like, yo, love God and love your neighbor. That's the greatest commandment. Love yourself is the greatest assumption. It's the basis for all the other stuff. So I told. I posted a video recently like, RuPaul knows more about the gospel than most Christians, because RuPaul will close out RuPaul's Drag Race with, how the hell you gonna love somebody else and you don't love yourself? That's the gospel. You can't love somebody else in a way you don't love yourself. And. And so my entire theology, everything revolves around your love for God is expressed in how you love your neighbor. Your love for your neighbor is a reflection of how you love yourself. And if you don't believe in God, because, like, my.

[Deontay Kyle]

My.

[Christian A. Smith]

My digital church is only, like, a third Christian. Most of them don't identify as Christian. So I got some atheists and some agnostics. I'm like, look, if you don't believe in God, just love your neighbor as yourself.

[Deontay Kyle]

We good? Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because at the end of the day, we all need to develop a love for self. But in church, we were taught that was negative, that was bad. Like, no, that's arrogant. That's. That's pride. Pride goes before the fall. It's like, that's such a warped, distorted way to look at the world where I'm not allowed to love myself.

[Deontay Kyle]

Well, but it's also a very effective tool for control.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

So this is where you get people saying, I'm Christian first I'm Christian before I'm black. Well, the clan was Christians, too. A lot of them. Clan rallies was happening in the church. Yeah. So then you. What you think about that? You know what I'm Saying, like, because you can't show up to the same church if church is segregated. I remember James Baldwin said this. High noon on a Sunday is the. The biggest segregation that you ever going to experience in this country, just due to the way church is segregated. You know what I mean? I grew up in a black church. I. I went to a church with one of my homeboys one time. I got, like, a white dude that I used to work with, Reed Bell, shout out. My boy, Rebel. This still my partner to this day, but he. He went to, like, one of these white churches. That's just like. I don't know, bro. I don't know how to describe it. It's a mega church in there, just having a ball. You know what I'm saying? They playing a guitar, they doing all that. And I'm like, this odd, bro. Like, feel like a concert. Yeah, I don't want to be in her, but I respect why y' all here. But it's like, hella members. Like, it's not. There's nothing personal about this. Where I come to front of church, where it's like, you know, everybody. You know what I'm saying? Even the people you don't know, you know, because you see them every Sunday. And. And that's another thing that you start to see happening, to get a little clicky, you know what I mean? But I think I stole this from Jerry Springer. How we end our show is like, take care of yourself and then take care of each other. You know what I'm saying? But the self come first. Like, if you ain't loving on yourself, bro, you can't love nobody else. Not properly.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's greatest commandment. Yeah, that. I tell people all the time, self love is the core of the gospel, but we were taught the exact opposite. And the whole thing about being a Christian before you black, you know, I. First of all, I just hate that so much. Like, I don't even identify as Christian. I'm a pastor who does not identify as a Christian. I identify as a spiritual humanist. And I just so happen to be influenced and inspired by the way of Jesus. And of course, my study is in that. That's my faith tradition of origin. I pastor Christians, but, like, I'm. I just don't feel a connection to that term at this stage in my life. And not because of Jesus, but more so because of his fan base. His fan base?

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, because you can't call them followers because they ain't following.

[Christian A. Smith]

No, they're not.

[Deontay Kyle]

They just fans of the work.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

They Just like to work, but they ain't following.

[Christian A. Smith]

They like the brand. Yeah, they, they like the brand. I tell people all the time, Jesus is not a messiah for most Christians, he's a mascot.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because you can take Jesus and apply his name to whatever bigotry you want to, you want to justify. And, and that's the problem that I see is that so many, too many people confuse the name of Jesus with the way of Jesus. So when you talk about the Klan and the Klan rallies and you talk about like white church people going to church on Sunday morning and then going to a public lynching of a black man right after church. Right. That was, that was a part of their tradition. Right. That's confusing the name of Jesus with the way of Jesus because they just apply the name to whatever they want.

[Deontay Kyle]

To apply to sanitize their behavior.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, absolutely. We'll use Jesus's name to sanitize and justify whatever the hell we want to do. But when you get into the way of Jesus and it's love your neighbor as yourself, like, I'm a do right by you because I'm doing right by myself and I expect you to do right by me. And that's just for all of us, regardless of where we come from, what we believe. I, I hold on to shared values over shared beliefs, for sure. And like you were saying earlier, like, that's a value, it's not an ideology. Love your neighbor as yourself is a value.

[Deontay Kyle]

I, I, I, I say it all the time. You know, the thing is, is I'm trying to lose you.

[Christian A. Smith]

Mm.

[Deontay Kyle]

I want you to go, you know what I mean? If I say something you don't like to the point where there's no, there's no understanding, and it's like, well, you, you know what I'm saying? Oh, bye. Yeah, bye. We don't want you over here because when I say the black, when I say the Gristness podcast is for all black people, everybody on board. And when I say and, and black trans people too, and they'd be like, whoa, brother. Yeah, you mean. Yeah, no, there's people. That's our community. Yeah, those people was active in the civil rights movement too. Yeah, let's talk about it. So it's like, and, and, but the thing is, is like, you going to lose a lot of people. But it's, but I'm worried about what we going to gain. I don't care nothing about what we going to lose. So, you know, for the fans of Jesus and not the followers, cuz if they was real followers, I wouldn't be being deemed the Antichrist on Tik Tok right now. But here we are.

[Christian A. Smith]

Here we are.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know what I'm saying?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

Cuz I say it's in the way. And I'm saying the same reverence that you. But see that it go back to what you say. It's a fan, it's a fandom. It ain't really a following because that wouldn't even have offended Jesus.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. Where people are following what they were told about Jesus. Like just again, just going back to the greatest commandment. You will not go into a church. Very rarely should I say will you go into a church and hear a message about how you should love yourself. But that was the core of his message. What the hell are we doing when we're we? Not only do we not tell people it's important to love yourself, but we will preach against it. We will stigmatize it at best and demonize it at worst.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Loving yourself.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

So yeah, it's like people can get mad all they want, but when you really like look at who Jesus was in his context. And I like to talk about the fact that when he introduced his ministry, he came on the scene, out the gate, day one, like the spirit of the Lord is upon me and has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. That sounds like economic justice. Release of the prisoner. That sounds like prison reform or maybe abolition, depending on how you look at it. And he said, sight for the blind. That to me is healing for the sick. Sounds like health care access. And then he said liberation for the oppressed. So if that's the basis of his ministry, what are we doing? What are we really doing here?

[Deontay Kyle]

Sound like the basis of our ministry.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly, exactly. That's what I said.

[Deontay Kyle]

Look, bro, this one in the realest way, I said it standing in the way of the power of your gratitude being realized by not recognizing the people before you who, you know, who spilled the blood. You know? You know, because if you in the church, you know the pivotal role that the church played in the civil rights movement. Yeah. As a place of communion, but not in a place of prayer. They was doing some praying, but they was outside getting active too. You did what? I'm saying we talked about Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and how active, like how revolutionary he was, that he was preaching every Sunday, but Monday through Saturday, he was out there in the streets making things happen. And the Klan tried to kill him numerous times.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

So I think when I'm telling You like, I ain't say nothing about no worship. I said, have reverence and honor and you should be glorifying their names and in the sense of like, they're the reason you here now. Yeah. And they made sacrifices. So you had the freedoms you have now. And the response to that is your ancestors are demons. Yeah. I was like, I'm in, I'm in mixed company, so. Oh shit.

[Christian A. Smith]

I'm in mixed company.

[Deontay Kyle]

I know. I was talking to white people.

[Christian A. Smith]

You are not safe.

[Deontay Kyle]

I'm not saying. Yeah, yeah. Because it's like black people hear the word ancestor.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And they just to, to come to conflate that with demon insane, my brother.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. Because our, our ancestral religions were demonized. Like it was beat out of us. We assimilated into Christianity by force. And then black folk made the most of it and saw messages of liberation in a Bible that was meant to keep them oppressed and in bondage. So they looked at the Bible and then one part, because you know, the Bible is a collection of stories and books. It's not one seamless thought all the way through. So the slave master had the plantation preacher telling the slaves, obey slaves, obey your master. Your reward is in heaven. But then you get a revolutionary like Nat Turner who was preaching that message and then was like, nah, something ain't right about this. And then he saw a message of liberation in the same collection of writings and said, I'm going to put my energy into that. Right. So the, it's, it's a really, just like a diversity of thought throughout. And you will get whatever you looking for when you go to the Bible. So if you looking for a message of liberation, you'll find it.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

If you looking for a message of bondage, you'll find. You'll find it. You looking for a message of love? You'll find it. You looking for a message of hate, you'll find it. You're looking for a message of genocide. It's real easy to justify genocide in the Bible.

[Deontay Kyle]

Cuz they did it all the time.

[Christian A. Smith]

We, we were raised on the. Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. That was genocide. These came into somebody else's land after 400 years in bondage in Egypt and said, oh, this is the land that God promised us. And now we gonna surround this city and we gonna go in and kill everybody.

[Deontay Kyle]

And we see that realized with Palestine.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly. Exactly. And that's not the only story of genocide in the text.

[Deontay Kyle]

No, no.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh no, it's justified. You know, you could. That's a hell of A book. That's a hell of a book. Yeah, yeah. There's a.

[Christian A. Smith]

It's wild.

[Deontay Kyle]

My favorite. Y' all got some names on y', all, but I think that, man, my favorite book is probably one of the shortest books in the Bible is Book of James. Because I like how imperative he spoke to them. He spoke imperatively, like, bro, if y' all don't get this shit together right now. And then he spoke about the power of the tongue. And that became very important for me very young because I, because my. The way I was talking to myself was crazy, but I was speaking to myself the way that I heard people speak to themselves. The way, unfortunately, you know, RIP my mama and all that. She ain't had the best ways. But the way sometimes my mother would speak to me out of anger. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it was imperative for me for, to reshape how I spoke to myself.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

But this is a self love thing. Right. And that was very important for me. You know what I'm saying? I, I actually, like regained so much confidence in myself, and I, I didn't leave with a lack of confidence. I left knowing that it wasn't going to thrive here. And I was like, I just got to go find other ways. And then you go searching for media, and you find media, you find answers, you find things that you align with and thought, and you maintain your spirituality. I, I tell. I talk about it all the time. Like going through his period of nihilism, going through a period of atheism, identifying as an agnostic, and, and ultimately getting to the place where it's like, okay, I'm comfortable being an agnostic, but I won't deny the presence of God. Right. And, and that's literally what it is. It's just a denial of the Abrahamic faiths and whatever, or not even denial, just not being a follower. I don't subscribe to it. Right. And I, but I, But I'm. I'm fascinated by that millennial. Specifically, somewhere around, somewhere around 2015, 2016, was speaking of this mass exodus from the church. Right. And I ain't realized how many niggas returned. I ain't know they went back. I thought we was all. I thought we was all off the street.

[Christian A. Smith]

Do you know why?

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Cause that shit hard.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, it's hard when you get out.

[Christian A. Smith]

There and you realize how much of your life was predetermined for you and how many of your decisions were ready made because everything was a list of rules. So I know if I do a B and C, X, Y and Z. I'm good. Then you get out in the real world, and now you gotta make your own decisions. Oh, no.

[Deontay Kyle]

Well. And then the world is unforgiving, but also, too. This is one of my things that came. That I came to. Leaving the church for me. Over time, I started to realize I wasn't living in so much fear.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And I. The fear was a constant for me when I was in the church and being overly fearful about my actions and my thoughts and, you know, just feeling like, damn, yo, I can't be redeemed in this. Like, all my thoughts and actions, I should. I might have a up thought mid prayer. Yeah, I gotta restart the prayer. Yeah, I gotta. My bad guy. Let me. Let me run this prayer back. Let me get up on my knees. Let me reset. You know what I mean? Let me come back clean and holy. But I think. I think that that is what. The part that got me drove me into nihilism, where nothing means nothing. Like, none of this shit had value to it. And I think the part of it was I was like, man, it seemed like all these people that do all this fucking evil are rewarded so materially here. And I'm working two jobs, and I got the kids. I'm struggling like a motherfucker, and then I'm black on top of that. Then I'm a man on top of that, and I got a record, and I'm just trying my best, and I can't get ahead for shit. And I know I'm smart, and I know I'm charismatic, and I know that these. These values that I have and characteristics that I have, attributes I have should be materializing into something successful. Yeah. And I ain't seeing that. But these is. These are poison. Your link. They up a billion. They. They didn't kill the whole community. They up a billion. And it's like, all right, Then I get to this money don't matter. Like, you know what it. If I got to be evil to have money, I just don't want nothing to do with money. And then it's like, well, I need money to live kind of. I need that money. I was like, man, none of this don't mean nothing. All this made up, man. I'm just like it. But you. But to go through that, it's a very depressing space to be in where you don't believe in anything. Right. And it's not even about faith. It's just like, nothing. And that. That started to trickle down to self. Yeah. And I was like, oh, nah, I believe in myself. I ain't subscribing to that. So I come right out of that. I was like, what's the next level above nihilism? I' ma just be agnostic, you know what I'm saying? I'm a with this for a little bit, but then it got me back into my spiritual studies, and then I get in the truck and I get to decompress. Like, I get to release all these bad thoughts, good thoughts, whatever in between, and get more into, like, feeling purposeful again.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's wild listening to you talk because there's so much overlap. Like, the ancestor thing, the book of James, and you feeling like you're not getting what you should have coming to you. All of that shit verbatim is me, bro. I shared on my 40th birthday some lessons that I learned from my 40th last year. And one of them was, you don't get the life you deserve. You get the life you demand. There's all types of stuff that we feel should come to us because we doing the right thing. And then for me, it was like, I'm having too significant of an impact on people's lives for me to be struggling like this, right? Like, people are coming to me, telling me, like, oh, my God, you changed my life. Oh, my God, you saved my life. I didn't know. Yada, yada, yada. I never loved myself like this. I see the whole world differently. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm like, nigga, I can't pay my bills.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, something's not right. That's a tough one.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, something's not right.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, your self love ain't. Yeah, like, this ain't working. It ain't got shit on his mortgage.

[Christian A. Smith]

I'm trying to tell you, like, I can't. I cannot go to. To you know what I'm saying? My landlord and be like, yo, people love me. They so can you just let me slide for a month now? So, like, that's a real thing. And when you. You realize, oh, I. I really got to get this shit for myself. Yeah, ain't nobody about to give this to me, even though I deserve it, based on the impact I'm having. Ain't nobody about to give it to me. And then the piece about James and how you said you love that book. The way my church started, it's called the Faith Community. It's a digital church. So we all over the world, to.

[Deontay Kyle]

Be honest, Plug that, though. How can people get to the faith community.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. So you can get to us on. We on YouTube right now. So TFC Virtual is our YouTube channel, and we do all of our programming and our services through Patreon. So, you know, we're not asking nobody for 10 of their income. We just ask for $10. And you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Now we ask for H. Pastor got us beat. Yeah. Another win for the past. I just. With you. Yeah. Nah, I'm trying. I'm gonna jump in that Patreon.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, man, come on.

[Deontay Kyle]

I want to see what's going on.

[Christian A. Smith]

We, we. I mean, we. The way we talking right now.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's it.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's it.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

I preach in person at my church two or three times a year.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

But we in conversation like this all the time. And that's how it started.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right.

[Christian A. Smith]

I was in seminary and I had an assignment to do adult Bible study. I had to do five to eight sessions. The only way I could work that out logistically is to invite some people to come to my apartment with my wife. And, you know, we did like a little small group discussion. We did a six week study of the book of James. And after the first session, my wife was like, you know you're not going to be able to stop this when the assignment is over, right? I was like, girl, you tripping. Like, I'm trying to get this grade. I'm getting back to my hustle. Like, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not trying to get into this ministry stuff right now. I'm trying to get this money. And I know how people feel about black preachers having money. And I don't want nobody questioning why I got money. So I'm going to corporate route, I'm going to entrepreneur route so I can get that money. She was like, all right, all right, we're gonna see. We got to the last session and I was like, all right, y'. All, Thank y' all for being here. This was great. I got everything I need from my assignment. They was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What you mean? Nah, bro. Like, we'll be back next Thursday. What we studying Next? That was 2015, and that became the faith community. And so that is why I'm here right now. So, like, yeah, the whole study of James, man, and the last thing about the ancestors, I got to give you your props. You catching all of this hell right now from Christians about you talking about Jesus is in the way of the appreciation for the ancestors. I'm telling you, that shit convicted me. When I saw It. And I've been into ancestor veneration for years now, so, like. And I also realized how I was doing it before I became comfortable with the terminology, because it's just in us. It's who we are. But when you said that, you was like, it's the blood of your ancestors. That's the reason you here. And I was like, oh, shit. He got such a great point. And I just felt inspired. I rewrote a song of the church to emphasize the blood of my ancestors. So, you know, there's a song that most of us know, the blood that Jesus shared for me way back on Calvary.

[Deontay Kyle]

I seen your song.

[Christian A. Smith]

You saw it?

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

That was you?

[Deontay Kyle]

I was like, oh, that was you.

[Christian A. Smith]

You inspired that. For real. I watched your video, and I was like, yeah, how can I venerate the blood of my ancestors? And a lot of times the songs that we sing about Jesus can easily be. Be shifted to make them more expansive. Because I see Jesus as a. As a spiritual ancestor for sure. So when I hit him with, like, you know, instead of the blood that Jesus shed for me on Calvary, I said, the blood that my ancestors shared for me on these here colonies. The rest of the song real, though. I had to change shit else.

[Deontay Kyle]

You don't got to change.

[Christian A. Smith]

I had to change nothing else in the song.

[Deontay Kyle]

And also, too. Let's talk about. Get real direct and focused on you folks real quick. And let's talk about y'. All. Cause y' all grew up just like me. My grandmama was in the church. She was ushering at the church with a breath. With a breathing machine on, you know what I'm saying? She needed her oxygen. She can't take too many steps. She had. She had beat lung cancer. But she was. Anytime she was out in public, she had to be on that oxygen. She was still ushering in the church on that oxygen. And I'm gonna tell you, just like your grandmama had that. Had that piano in her house with all her loved ones obituaries on there, and all her folks from past. That's an altar, bruh. If you go in your granny house right now, and all your. All your relatives that have passed on is sitting up somewhere specifically in that house being honored where you can't miss them. They ain't hitting off in the corner. They right there in the front. That's an altar right there. That's. That's honoring your ancestors. That's veneration of your ancestors right there. Easily. Autumn obituaries, they don't throw no Obituary away. I found a Coke bottle with my mama name on it, filled it up water, put it on my dress. And then I found a Coke bottle with my name on it, filled it up, water, put on my dresser. And that's our space together.

[Christian A. Smith]

We've been doing ancestor veneration in so many different ways. Like, you know, I'm from Cali, so the hood.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh, the dead homies.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's ancestor generation. Libations for the dead homies. That's ancestor veneration, man. We've been doing it. We just haven't been doing it by name. When somebody passes away and then we get their ashes and put them in a charm and wear them around our neck, that's ancestor veneration.

[Deontay Kyle]

And when the rap. When the street. His homeboy died and he put his picture in a picture chain and surrounded by diamonds, same thing.

[Christian A. Smith]

We put them on the shirt and we wear the shirt around like it's.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's. It's in us, bro.

[Christian A. Smith]

We can't.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because we. We understand it. But it's something about that word ancestor. It trigger a fear in us that. Danny, white folks don't see me putting on. The white folks gonna see me celebrating these people that have passed away.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And a lot of times them people that they killed, if we want to be honest. And I think that the fear of returning, but we don't understand that. Throughout slavery, there was a lot of using the Bible to practice our already established spiritual beliefs and practices. Right. This is where you get the voodoo from. This is where you get the hoodoo from. Default use the Bible just like you, if not more.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Hoodoo practitioners use the Bible like a mug.

[Deontay Kyle]

They way more in that Bible than you.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's like the thing about ancestors is, again, fundamentalist theology. And I use the term fundamentalist because I don't like to restrict it to Christianity, even though in our context, that's the primary form of fundamentalism that we see, this very rigid commitment to very specific set of rules and regulations. And if you color outside of those lines at all, you're outside of the will of God or outside of the will of your community. So in fundamentalist theology, fear is such a motivator, is such a factor. And fundamentalist Christianity literally threatens your life. You think this. Think about that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right.

[Christian A. Smith]

You're constantly under the threat of spending eternity in a torture chamber. And they told us that if you do anything outside of the stuff we tell you to do, you're at risk of going there for eternity. And in the process, they demonize our ancestral spirituality. So for a lot of people, holding on to that demonization of their ancestors is literally a matter of life or death. And this was something that my wife helped me out early in my ministry. Cause I'm very logical. It's like, if shit don't make sense, I ain't trying to do it. So I would be on my little Facebook live. I did a weekly vlog, and I'll be hitting people with the logic like, yo, but that's why when I first discovered you, I was like, we doing the knowledge. Like, immediately, I was like, I like that. But, like, I will be doing that and telling people like, yo, here's a. Here's a verse that contradicts that. Here's a historical event that contradicts that yada, yada, yada. Of my wife. She a therapist. She was like, yo, you're absolutely right. Everything you're saying is on point. But people don't connect to their theology intellectually. They connect emotionally. So you got to tap in to the feeling that people have around those beliefs rather than how they think about them, because for the. For the most part, they not thinking about it.

[Deontay Kyle]

No.

[Christian A. Smith]

So that's.

[Deontay Kyle]

And goes back to what I was saying when I left the church, I left the fear. Like, I lost that fear. And because it was embedded, because it's like, I ain't trying to go to hell, bro. That sound like, what? Exactly, Nigga, why is the lake on fire? It's a lake of fire. Yes. And the other spot, the roads, is paved with gold. Nigga, I'm trying to be there.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

And you know what I'm saying? And it's such a rigid. Not only way of thinking, just a way of living, man, you restrict yourself so many expressions of freedom. Yes, you're in bondage. You're in bondage. And also, the nigga that got you in bondage, he loves you.

[Christian A. Smith]

Listen. And that. That is tied to how we were introduced to Christianity. Like, there are many different forms and iterations of Christianity. We were introduced to Christianity, for the most part, in the context of the plantation being enslaved, for sure. So that is why we lean into slave motifs in the Bible, because, again, whatever you're looking for, you're going to find. So if you want to find a message of liberation, you can. But we were given slave messages. So that was the introduction. So we went from being slaves to a slave master, and we were told, you know, you either a slave for Christ or. Or you a slave to sin. Either way, you A slave. Either way you a slave, either way you a slave. So for me, it was like, I can't do that no more. And it, and if I can't hold on to my affinity for Jesus and find something that like, makes sense to me, I'll let go of Jesus if I got to. Cuz I'm not going to do this slave shit no more. And I'm not going to impose on anybody else.

[Deontay Kyle]

I, I. The thing that I had to really reckon with, it stepping away from the church, me, you stepping away from Jesus. On a, on a, on a very base level way of thinking, right? The church is directly connected to Jesus. They're, they're parallel in most people's minds. But then when you study the Word, you realize it's not so parallel, right? But if you leave before you really have an understanding, it's the most radical thing you can do because it's like, damn, I'm turning my back on Jesus, bro. And in my relationship, she, she, Deanna grew up in the church, brother. Like, not in it, in it, in it, in it. I'm talking about Bible study, choir rehearsal, mother's meeting. Her mama was so in that church every day. Her mama basically lived in the church. And her being her daughter, she lived in the church with her. Yeah. And I just had to tell her, like, I can't do that no more. And she was like, well, if you, if you, if you're gonna break up with Jesus, you got to break up with me. I said, I'm willing to do that. And because of how locked in we was, she was like, tell me more about what you thinking. Yeah, like, tell me more curiosity. And she was like, because if you willing to leave me, this got to be real for you. Because you commit, like, that's who I am. I commit to things. And I get, I'm telling you that, like, there ain't going to be no juice left when I'm done squeezing. I'm getting everything out of it. And then I'm going to take with me what I need and everything else I could leave behind. And I think the thing is, is, like, I started recognizing, like, Jesus, like, when I started getting into these black studies, Black American studies, studying revolutionaries. And I was like, bro, this is the biggest revolutionary to ever live according to this book. And other people may feel like that about, you know, if you feel like that about Muhammad, you feel like that. But I was like, in my, in my lifetime and what I was taught, this is the greatest revolutionary to ever live. I ain't Turning my back on that. I might not worship him.

[Christian A. Smith]

Right.

[Deontay Kyle]

But I'm definitely gonna follow his blueprint and I'm definitely gonna follow his words. And so the crazier thing, I mean, this will be out by the time this air. Cause I done bump somebody. So this episode can come out Saturday.

[Christian A. Smith]

Oh, for real?

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Cause it's just in alignment. It just makes sense.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. What's going on?

[Deontay Kyle]

But I do got on the devil mask. You know, I had on the devil mask and everything. And what I said, I was like, we doing all the things Jesus said to do. Shit, I'm more Christ like, than you.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yes.

[Deontay Kyle]

With this mask on and his suit. Because this shit is. Ain't got nothing to do with nothing.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because you be dressed up to the nines and treat people horribly. Yeah. Treat yourself horribly. Yeah. And you're going against the greatest command.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly. There's a. A scripture. You know, I'm not good with memorizing where the scriptures are, but I know a whole lot of Bible stories. And there's this one interaction where the disciples came to Jesus and was like, yo, it's these folk over here who, like, we don't know them, but they out here healing and doing all type of stuff in your name, and we don't know them. And Jesus was like, so they doing good. Why does it matter? Why does it matter if they're connected to us or not? If they're doing good in the world and fundamentalist Christianity does not embrace that facts. You gotta do it the way we say do it in the context that.

[Deontay Kyle]

We allow and give us the credit.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. Because people hit me up like, bruh, it's this spam page over here. They got like 25,000 followers, bro. They making money off your account. I'll be like, so they spreading my word.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know, this is marketing.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

It's free marketing. I hope that is making money. I like the way I'm making money off this shit too.

[Christian A. Smith]

I like the way you.

[Deontay Kyle]

You.

[Christian A. Smith]

You put that. The only problem do they be. Do they be scamming people, though? Usually.

[Deontay Kyle]

Well, see, that's what I'll be telling people if they ever. Hey, look, you know how I talk. Yeah. I ain't never came to a nigga about no bitcoin day in my life. If you go for that. Yeah. That's why I put on my page. This is my only page.

[Christian A. Smith]

Right.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know what I'm saying? Because this page got 2,500 followers. And you think it's me at some Point. I can't save you if you can't save yourself.

[Christian A. Smith]

A lot of people don't pay attention if you.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, well, the thing is, too. It's like, why, nigga? Why I got sideburns? You know, that's from 2023. That's when I had sideburns. I was really. I was rocking with the chops. You know what I mean? You look at me now, you be like, man, your hair's so long. Your locks so long. Okay, so then on that page, my life short as hell. You know, that's an old video, but it's like, something about it where. And then it's like, I ain't never dm. Nobody asked them if they were interested in the opportunity about crypto. I don't even got nothing to do with that. I, first of all, ain't got time for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Scamming is dedication.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's the only. Yeah. That's the only thing.

[Deontay Kyle]

It's too many steps. I forget quick.

[Christian A. Smith]

I'm good.

[Deontay Kyle]

I'm going to prison. Yeah. I'm gonna miss the most important step about how to.

[Christian A. Smith]

Caught up.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. And then. And then the people at my dog be like, you know what? You're right. Don't take me in. Yeah, but. Yeah, but as far as people, that's just. They, you know, reposting my stuff. It's like, I ain't tripping on that, bruh. I ain't trying to get all these pages shut down. I don't got. It ain't enough time in the day. Yeah. To keep up with everybody that's reposting my stuff. I think. Keep reposting it. You know what I'm saying? Do your thing. And if. If you ever come across somebody that's asking you for something, I mean, just know that ain't me. Right.

[Christian A. Smith]

You know, I mean, yeah, I'm with you on there. Like, usually when people tell me that somebody made a fake page, impersonate me, I'm like, oh, you know, report it. But I don't think. Yeah, I don't go any further than that. But I like that perspective. Like, they promoting the message I'm trying to put out in the world. So whatever.

[Deontay Kyle]

It's reaching somebody.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, yeah, I can. I can get with it. I can get with that.

[Deontay Kyle]

I ain't even know about that story in the Bible, so that's crazy, because I damn sure be like, so. Yeah. I don't be caring.

[Christian A. Smith]

People get real, like, possessive and controlling. Like, it's a. It's a fear Based system of control. Every. They want to control everything. How you dress, how you talk, what you read, how you think. Like it's all about control.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

So when you decide that's the thing, you can't do liberation theology and still be committed to that level of control.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, the liberation is about freedom from control.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. It's. I say this all the time, like, I ain't trying to flee America, because if I flee America powerless and I go somewhere and get some power, I'm a do power the way America do power. Because that's the only way I've been shown how to be powerful.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's what happened in Liberia. When the black slaves went back to Liberia, they started all types of shit.

[Deontay Kyle]

You see how the Cubans act when they get over here?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

They act just like the same thing they fleeing from because you don't have a scope of freedom outside of being like, underneath somebody else's thumb. So you never think about leaving, though? I mean, I've thought about it.

[Christian A. Smith]

I'll be thinking about it too sometimes.

[Deontay Kyle]

But it's just like, man, my granny ain't leaving. And they was catching way more hell than we catching them. True. I think the. The hell we catch is amplified because the. The news go off.

[Christian A. Smith]

Social media does not.

[Deontay Kyle]

Social media don't shut off. You know what I'm saying? So the world is bad for an hour, then you back to your life. And in between the bad news, you get the weather, you get the sports report, and then you get up out of there. The social media don't go off, so it's amplified in your mind. The world, the worst place in the world. The world, the worst place.

[Christian A. Smith]

I knew what you meant, though.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

The world, the worst place in the.

[Deontay Kyle]

World because you in that, that world on their phone. It's the worst thing in the world. But the reality is we live in one of the most technically advanced, safest times in human history. And it just don't feel like that now. You know what I'm saying, Agent Orange? He on. He on. He on a mission to make sure that he undo all that.

[Christian A. Smith]

And the Christian nationalists that he represents.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because he wouldn't be in office if it wasn't for the Evangelical church.

[Deontay Kyle]

He wouldn't be. And also too, calling yourself a Christian and believing a nigga who sell Bibles.

[Christian A. Smith]

Is crazy because they don't believe in the way of Jesus. They just exploit the name of Jesus. I keep. I go back to that all the time. These motherfuckers do not care about the way of Jesus. It's like, it's a convenient way because of so much power that we give to that name. It's why a whole lot of black Christians be so confused. Because they think anybody that come in the name of Jesus, I'm supposed to rock with them. Nigga, your oppressor is coming to you in the name of Jesus.

[Deontay Kyle]

So are the scammers.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yes. So, like, it's got to go deeper than that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

So yeah, they just. Oh, yeah, he's selling Bibles.

[Deontay Kyle]

You should know better then. You should know better. If the scammer come to you as a Christian and you get God, you can. God, in the name of God, you should know. Maybe I need to be a little bit more serious because they look at you as gullible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

The indoctrination makes us gullible for sure. Because we supposed to just go with whoever's a Christian.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's a dark. That's. It's a dark path.

[Christian A. Smith]

Very dark.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, that's dark because that means you'll let anything happen. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and you'll see a genocide being carried out. And as long as they doing it in the name of God, then.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because we were told in church we supposed to stand with Israel, that. That Israel is God's chosen people. And I don't know what's going to happen to this video now that we talking about Israel. You might have to edit this out, but the reality is that's what we were indoctrinated to believe, like Israel is God's people and whatever is done in Israel, blah, blah, blah, it has something to do with God and Jesus. So we were. And even in church, reading the stories, we were taught to identify with the children of Israel.

[Deontay Kyle]

Correct.

[Christian A. Smith]

We weren't told that the children of Israel in the Bible is drastically different from the state of Israel right now over in Palestine. Two totally different like, concepts, but they both use the name Israel. So the name recognition, extremely strategic. Yes, of course. The name recognition had most of us thinking, like I remember growing up, they.

[Deontay Kyle]

Think it's a holy state. Yeah, yeah. But there ain't nothing holy about displacing people. There ain't nothing holy about dropping millions of dollars worth of bombs on folks that came straight out of your tax money. And also my thing is this, the. The most famous Palestinian of all time is Jesus.

[Christian A. Smith]

Brown Palestinian Jew, first century. Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

So you watching bomb his home and his people. Bombing churches, bombing hospitals. I mean, the sickest work of all time. Yeah. Committing Real war time. They are committing real war crimes. They're killing press members. Yeah, that, that is.

[Christian A. Smith]

I mean, that's why I hate these both sides conversations. I hate when people do both sides when it comes to the IDF and the Palestinians. I hate when people do both sides when it comes to white supremacy and pro blackness. Like it's the same thing. I hate when people do both sides when it comes to gay people existing and homophobia. Like, no, like oppressors do not need to meet. I mean the oppressed do not need to meet their oppressors in the middle.

[Deontay Kyle]

No, you gotta kill your oppressor. That's a reality. Because a part of your oppression is being under the constant threat of death. Yeah, I ain't trying to bargain with you. I, I should be strategy about strategizing about how I'm gonna get you up out of here, period, off the earth.

[Christian A. Smith]

And that's how some folks gotta go about it. I like to approach it by hitting, hitting them in their pocket.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's a, that's an effective tool because we live in a state of capitalism.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

I think the money move everything.

[Christian A. Smith]

Everything in my opinion.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right? Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. That's not even an opinion. That's a fact based thing. That money move everything here.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

In America, coordinated. Everything happened behind that dollar.

[Christian A. Smith]

Coordinated labor strikes would change everything.

[Deontay Kyle]

Absolutely.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's why they work so hard to bust up unions.

[Deontay Kyle]

Absolutely.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because they know if the workers get this like the ants movie, you know what I'm saying?

[Deontay Kyle]

When the, the grasshoppers.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, the grasshoppers. Like if these ants realize how much they outnumber us and they come together, then we gonna lose our power. That's what it is right now.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's all it is. Yeah, I'd be telling. We said that a few episodes ago. If I show up in your city, do a general strike, strike, like I'm not going to work. Yeah, we're gonna starve this city financially until these niggas is gone.

[Christian A. Smith]

And we got that example with the Montgomery bus boycott. Like we saw a real time example.

[Deontay Kyle]

381 days. Yeah. One plan.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

We'll find a way around it. We'll figure it out.

[Christian A. Smith]

But you see the level of commitment that you gotta have and most of us. And see, I was thinking about this. I, I talked to my wife about this. Our generation, we were born into a context of convenience, which is something that I don't think we consider enough. Like we were born into a context where we have full protection under the law, you know, theoretically. We weren't being threatened with death for going to the voting polls. There were no longer any places in the general public where we could not go. We were born into that. Right. And I think our parents and grandparents just expected it to continue to get better. And I think now we actually were born into the second Reconstruction, and now we're going through the second white lash. Because, you know, after slavery ended, we started to build up, like, our communities, and we had politicians like South Carolina, where, like, the majority of the politicians were black. Because the majority of the state was black.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. And black people was North Carolina as well. Women. Wilmington was the epicenter of that.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

Wilmington was the epicenter of a majority black swing being able to happen in politics.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

And those black folks. And this is back when. And. And I mean, now we playing for teams when it comes to Democrat, Republican. A lot of them black folks was Republicans. Yeah. And, yeah. This is the first coup ever successfully carried out in this country is the coup d'. Etat. Women's in North Carolina.

[Christian A. Smith]

Black progress is always met with white rage.

[Deontay Kyle]

Absolutely.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's a part of our history in this country. So when you look at the progress that we were born into as millennials, we were born into a time of progress, and it is being met with white rage. And so now all of the things that our elders and ancestors worked for us to have, the conveniences that they work for us to have, are now being stripped away. And I haven't even said this publicly yet. My. I don't know if I'll say regret. Just my observation is that because we were born into a context of convenience, our elders emphasized us getting professional skills and didn't teach us survival skills.

[Deontay Kyle]

Correct. Yeah. Because it didn't look like it was ever going to go back.

[Christian A. Smith]

It would never go back. And now we, in this moment, we're like, oh, this could go also.

[Deontay Kyle]

It became a thing of just. It just became a good story when they say, oh, I had to walk 10 miles to school. It came a story of struggle, but it also came story of like, oh, you could just hop in the car and go, now.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know, back in my day, you know, we had to do this and that and that back in my day stuff became more so a conversation about what we've overcome instead of, like, a practice of endurance and, like, what I'm willing to go through.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And, yeah, the. The worst part of it is we don't. We don't know any, like, foundational struggle. Like a structure, like a structural struggle. A structure. Like a struggle of not having. Like, in a real way. Like, you know, the. The biggest struggle that we experience as millennials is seeing things but not possessing them materially. Right. But. But we do have access to them. Right. Not having a car sucks when everybody else got a car, but you aren't denied a car. You just gotta go hustle up and go get you a car. But we also have people who. It was like, I ain't got access to no car. You know what I mean? So, like, and going in town is a real thing. You know what I mean? Like, so I think that. Yeah. The way you say it is like, we was born into, like, this culture of convenience. And now it's become even more convenient where I ain't gotta leave my house.

[Christian A. Smith]

You gotta do nothing. This is Uber. It's here doordash to the point where.

[Deontay Kyle]

Like, have compromised quality. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, the food show up damn near cold. But you ain't have to leave. You got charged triple what it's worth, but you have to leave. And I think that this is also a testing ground of how sedentary we are.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And you know when they feel like they got you, just like, oh, ramp it up. These ain't motivated to do nothing.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Ain't gonna do. They had no Kings parade on a Saturday. There was no arrest made.

[Christian A. Smith]

Of course not. It was mostly white people.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, I caught it. No Kings parade, but not a parade. I feel you.

[Christian A. Smith]

I feel you. Yeah. You know, I think. I don't necessarily think it was a bad thing, but I don't think it's gonna change anything.

[Deontay Kyle]

I don't think it was a bad thing either. I think there should be unity in people standing up against an oppressive system. But how did it impact the system? Right. Besides inconvenience. Like actual workers.

[Christian A. Smith]

If we could be mobilized to participate in a no Kings parade all over the country, why don't we put that energy into mobilizing for a labor strike? Because money.

[Deontay Kyle]

People don't want to lose anything.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly. And we were born into a culture of convenience.

[Deontay Kyle]

They don't want to lose nothing.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yes.

[Deontay Kyle]

And also, too, it's like, look how. Like, look how long and well thought out and planned that had to be. Excuse me. They had to give people time to. Oh, let me make sure I'm not doing that in a Saturday. Like, that's in a real way. And. And I think the thing is, is, like, we just need to shift our perspective about what we have to lose versus what we have to gain.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

What you have to gain is on the other side of that uncomfortable thing, the risk of losing your job. But what's on the other side of that is job security forever.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly, exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

And having people protect you and having people actually. Actually making it a law and a statute that you. You are free to protest. And if you don't show up to work because of a protest, you cannot be penalized. Like, there should be shit like that going on, but you don't know it if you not on the other side of it and if you're not willing to sacrifice it and one day could shut this country down.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

Like we say. And I think that people don't know. There's also, you know, this culture of individualism where I'm too afraid to ask my neighbor for anything. Oh, bro, I don't want to be embarrassed. So I don't want to ask my neighbor for no sugar. And I'm gonna go out and, yeah, we gonna do a general strike, but I'm gonna go out and buy everything in bulk. So I'm still putting money in the hands of the corporations. So if I feel like I'm starving them today. You really didn't starve them because you spent double yesterday.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

And I think that if we would just go on a general strike, a general labor strike for 48 hours in the peak of the week, Tuesday and Wednesday, those the highest days for productivity, at least in my experience. I don't know if that's like, an actual fact. I'm just saying they be pushing every time I work in a warehouse. When I. The second day you at work, they going hard. They trying to get the most out of you that second and third day, because they know you finna start thinking about the weekend. But I would say two days of that. And in the midst of those two days, whatever you need, asking your neighbor for it, you know what I'm saying? Instead of going to spend your money. Shit, bro. We'll see a dramatic shift in this country.

[Christian A. Smith]

I tell my people all the time, like, yo, you need to be. You need to get to know the people around you in your physical vicinity, Right? Because we know we do all this stuff in the digital space, and that's great, but like, this, again, is a convenience. The fact that we can communicate so freely without being in the same physical space is a convenience. I don't think that's going to be taken away from us because so much of capital is driven by that.

[Deontay Kyle]

But.

[Christian A. Smith]

But just in case we get cut off from each other digitally, you need to know who Live next to you.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. But they not ready to. That's you smart when you say that. Because they're not ready to reform a system that's bringing them so much money and attention. Because the attention is currency is attention. So it's like, damn, we can't just cut our legs out from underneath us. But like you said, just in case. And then not even just in case. Just as a standard practice, your life can't be lived on the phone.

[Christian A. Smith]

Can't be.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know what I'm saying? It can't. Like, yo, like, your reality has been replaced with entertainment. Yeah. You know, what does it look like when you talk to your neighbor and have a beer and put the phone down for a few hours? And that's why when we do our live events, I don't just do live events and y' all go home. I do a live show in a mixer where now you gonna dance and drink and eat with the people that also have a shared interest in this Gritznet podcast.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

And, you know, people are building community around it. That's my shit is built off of, like, okay, we can all gather in the same space and we can enjoy the show, but now y' all get to know each other.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know what I mean? I have a strict policy about. You can't sit with people that you came with. If you came with more than two people. If you came with more than one person, you can't sit with more than two people. Like, you need to be in mixed company. Because the thing is, is, like, start at the baseline. Y' all have something in common.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

And obviously, if y' all like the way I talk and the way I think, then y' all would like how each other talk and think, too.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. We have an event annually, the faith community does. We have an event in Atlanta called DayFest, the fourth weekend of August every year, where people who are part of our digital community come together in person in Atlanta. And it's like, you know, it's like homecoming. It's like family reunion. And people get a chance to meet each other in person and feel that energy in person. Cause it's different, you know?

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh, it hit different.

[Christian A. Smith]

It's one thing when we online and we talking and we passing messages back and forth. Then when you sitting here looking at somebody, it's like, oh, that energy. I feel that in a different way now. And people build real relationships off of that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Absolutely.

[Christian A. Smith]

That they never would have built if they were just online. There's something about making that in person connection that I think we all need to get back to as a culture.

[Deontay Kyle]

Absolutely.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because we missing out on that so much.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. Because we just used to. We okay with seeing people from the shoulders up.

[Christian A. Smith]

And you can't organize online. We live in. We. I mean, we. We're under constant surveillance. We can't organize a revolution. We can't organize a resistance online. Nah, we got to get somewhere where the phones are turned off, where we. The phones ain't even in the room.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, Put them phones out there.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because we constantly under surveillance.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, these people are very, very smart and strategic. Right. In. In the way that they do things. A terrorist attack turned into just we kind of tapping the phone. We ain't really tapping your phone. Yeah, it's just kind of tap. Like. It's just. It's just like a little love tap. Little love tap. And then you mentioned that you like Arby's, and now you getting all the Arby's ass. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, nah, it's fully tapped. This shit is fully tapped. The phone is listening. The damn dishwasher listening to you. The refrigerator listening to you. All of it. Every damn thing listening to you.

[Christian A. Smith]

Siri, Alexa.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Gemini, Big speed. It's all listening to you, man. Cause it's like. It's like, you know, if you got your phone in your hand and it just all of a sudden be like, what was that you said? Like, what do you mean, bro? That happens a lot.

[Deontay Kyle]

What was that?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, What? Like, that wasn't.

[Deontay Kyle]

Bitch, I wasn't talking to you. Yeah, stop buttoning my conversation. You was speaking when you spoke it to Siri.

[Christian A. Smith]

And I'm gonna tell you the truth. I'm watching you. Cause, you know, we are aligned in the way we think, the way we talk. So I'm watching how people respond and react to you, what type of threats you come under, because it's like, okay, if deontay cool, I'm cool.

[Deontay Kyle]

Cause, hey, people be like, pray for this brother. Protect this brother. I'm like, man, I'm already protected, bro. Yeah. I ain't living in no fear.

[Christian A. Smith]

Oh, yeah. You can't do this and live in fear.

[Deontay Kyle]

First of all, bruh, I done been there, done that. Yeah. I know what it's like to live under fear. Trust me, if I was in fear, I wouldn't be here.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And. And what it. The biggest thing it taught me is that you don't have to walk away from fear. You have to recognize where it come from. And then you have to reject that. You know what I'm saying? Because I ain't gonna let nothing control me, man. I ain't get defined my life by giving into that. I. You also can't be bold if you scared.

[Christian A. Smith]

You can't.

[Deontay Kyle]

You ain't. I ain't shaking up the Internet. Cause I'm scared. Right? You know what I'm saying? If you do it once, maybe you do it consistently. I don't went viral more times than I can count. And I ain't never chased me in viral neither. I just despise the fact that was going viral for stupid.

[Christian A. Smith]

I appreciate you going viral the way you do, because I haven't seen a whole lot of stupid too. For me, like, as a pastor, that's one of the reasons why I'm so bold in how I create content. Because I'm trying to create a counter narrative to so much Christian on the Internet. Like, there's so much. And it's like, there needs to be a counter narrative from within the black church. Because as much as I don't really care about the Christian label, man, I love the black church, man. Like, that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Me too.

[Christian A. Smith]

I'm a product of the black church. I love it.

[Deontay Kyle]

I believe it's a cornerstone of our community.

[Christian A. Smith]

I believe in this potential. I believe in what it can be if it stops oppressing people within the community. Which is why I'm so big on LGBTQ affirmation and women's equity. So, like, I go hard and I'm so bold because it's like, I need people to see there's another way.

[Deontay Kyle]

Hell, yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

It doesn't have to be like this. And if you let go of that fear and you get more curious, like, you can see just how, like, liberative life can be for sure. So I. I try to do that to show people like, yo, there's another way to do this. And like, that's what people usually say to me. Like, you.

[Deontay Kyle]

They.

[Christian A. Smith]

You probably get this too. You help me feel like I'm not.

[Deontay Kyle]

Crazy all the time.

[Christian A. Smith]

All the time.

[Deontay Kyle]

All the time.

[Christian A. Smith]

I thought I was the only person that thought like this all the time. Because you need to be able to see something. Representation matters.

[Deontay Kyle]

Well, then also, too, I'm gonna say this. I think that the. The cornerstone, the. The church has clearly been infiltrated.

[Christian A. Smith]

Oh, yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Via what it was able to do and how it was able to organize during the civil rights movement. It's the reason we have civil rights. The church. Right. But it's also still in Existence, which let me know it's been infiltrated because they tend to destroy things that create revolution. And, you know, I don't. I would. I would much rather be approached with some type of, like, you know, maybe articulate disagreement. And that's a lot to ask. So when the. With the backlash and the hate that come with it, it's just like, oh, man, that's cool, you know, because I know that the first people that's going to attack me is my people. I know anytime they infiltrate any movement, they do it with the people that look like you.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

And it's almost like, oh, shit, I'm powered up now. Like, oh, yeah, I think about me.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

I'm doing it the right way. I'm doing it the right way. And it's like, also, you know, to your point, giving people an alternative to something. You. You would. I don't. I don't try to. I don't do nothing but try to change your perspective. That's it.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know what I'm saying? You don't got to think like me. You don't got to believe what I believe. You ain't got to practice how I practice. You don't even got to read the same books or have the same doctrine, so to speak, as me. Change your perspective. That'll. That'll set you on a path to freedom. Because once you know that, things can be broader, and it doesn't have to be rigid and, like, who put these borders up? You know what I'm saying? Once you start questioning stuff like that, you really do free yourself. And I appreciate what you do, because it actually did give me optimism about the black church. Is one of the reasons why I talked about reimagining the black church, because this brother's like this, doing this shit. We could have some church like that. Yeah, we can have that. Could be. I'll go to that church all day and night because I understand what the power of it is. Right. And. And I also understand the power of, like, people congregating in the physical. It changes things. Right. But one of the things that we address also is all the things that happen in these churches that go silent. Like, we don't talk enough about the copious amounts of sexual assault that's going on in the church and this. Just get up there and start preaching again.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

You better be next to Jesus.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. And that's why they be doing somebody.

[Deontay Kyle]

I love in this. We finna nail your ass to the cross. Yeah. It'll be you. We're gonna leave you up there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like it, Cause, like, Cause. Cause you can't.

[Christian A. Smith]

And that, that's cultural too. Cause we don't talk about family business. I know we do the same thing in our families. The, the, the family member, the cousin, the uncle that be touching on the kids. Would you like, you know, we don't talk about that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

And we still come to all the events. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna talk about that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Nah, hell no. They motherfuckers be stoned culturally because. And, and this is also directly stemming out of slavery. Just used to being abused. This, this living with abuse. Just living with it. And I don't like picking up habits of ignoring things, helping them go away. That ain't how I help. It actually empowers people.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

It empowers them to be to. They let me get away with this. They know I did. Ain't serious. That ain't no thing of like, I promise I won't do it again. It's like, I promise you won't see me do it again.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

You know what I mean? And I, I, I had got some phone calls when I spoke about my sexual assault when I was younger, and especially at the hands of an older woman and my auntie coming like, who did that to you? I was like, that ain't the way to ask me that. Because the, the way you asking me, making me feel like you don't believe me. So you can call me back. Yeah, you call me back.

[Christian A. Smith]

Called you with doubt.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Well, call me a Paul.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Don't be appalled. You know this shit be going on. Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

It ha. It happens in so many of our families. And it spills over into our churches.

[Deontay Kyle]

And it spills over into how we behave sexually.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

It spills over into how we behave culturally.

[Christian A. Smith]

One of the, the biggest shifts theologically in my ministry has been our theology around sex, you know, because when I was starting this ministry, I was like, okay. People expect their faith community to have something to say about. And I don't believe in the church's sexual ethic at all. Like, abstinence is the biggest failure. Like, abstinence only, like, most people are on record saying they didn't, like, hold up the whole abstinence.

[Deontay Kyle]

Well, because it's not natural. Yeah, like, because, like, we can't deny biology.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly. Exactly. So I was like, how are we going to reframe a sexual ethic that aligns with the greatest commandment? So for me, it came down to consent, honesty, and mutuality. I don't care who you have sex with as long as you're consenting adults, that you're honest about your engagement and that there's a mutual exchange there, that both that all parties are being, are receiving pleasure in some way. So I don't care if you marry, you unmarried, you in a monogamous relationship, you in a non monogamous, you polyamorous, you polygamous, you're asexual and you're not really interested at all. You lesbian, you gay, you pansexual, I don't care. Consent, honesty and mutuality. Because now we gotta really like deal with the sexual coercion that happens, the sexual assaults that happen. Because now it's not just. You're not supposed to do it. Now we gotta have, now we gotta have a real conversation. Because a lot of people, a lot of people confuse sex and violence.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

You know, like sex is not violence and violence is not sex for sure. When, when, when there is a, a matter of sexual violence. Violence is the foundation of the interaction. It just has a sexual overtone.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right.

[Christian A. Smith]

But a lot of people don't know the difference between sex and violence because they were introduced to sex through, through violence.

[Deontay Kyle]

And also it's reinfor force when our media, especially rap, is so violent about sex.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yes.

[Deontay Kyle]

Cuz what you mean you're gonna beat the like, what you mean? Listen, that doesn't sound like anybody's having.

[Christian A. Smith]

A good time here growing up. And it's probably still to this day I could recite all the lyrics of Slide on my Knob.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh, you throw it on right now.

[Christian A. Smith]

Right now, right now. And I like thinking about it, it's like, damn, that's some, that's crazy.

[Deontay Kyle]

We were saying, yo, my, that's a raunchy ass.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's some crazy.

[Deontay Kyle]

We were singing. Yeah, that, yeah, that is violent. It's violent in its nature. Yeah, yeah. But I think, I think one of the bigger things, and that's something we don't like to talk about in our community. We like to address the hypersexuality. We don't like to address the root cause of it. And I'm just in a constant conversation. Like I think for me it's some of that. I have my, I have my foundational pillars. We're on drugs being for all black people and black liberation of black people being against the system at all. Like, like I'm in resistance at all times. Like I'm not trying to get down with this shit, but I also have to like spoon feed people into that. And then our discussions around Sex. Like, we. We have to talk about this. And then advocating for high probability outcomes, like, these are constant themes, and you can connect them to so many different things. But I think that. And I should probably write that down. I just freestyle that. That might not even be. Exactly. I should probably.

[Christian A. Smith]

I think that would be good.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's recorded. You know what I mean? But I think. I think that we need, like, some foundational pillars, and then we need. And if we start with that as a foundation, then we could branch out to all those things. But those. Like, even with your. Your how you speak about sex and what your. Your word is around it, it's a perfect entry point because it's consensual.

[Christian A. Smith]

Off the rip.

[Deontay Kyle]

Like, can't. Yeah. Without the consent. Then it don't even. Like, that's the problem.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because a lot of times, like, when they talk about abstinence and just remaining a virgin and things like that, the dudes or, you know, the dudes that remain virgins just have, like, made themselves unfuckable. Like, you just lame. Like, I don't want to be around your ass. You talking about.

[Christian A. Smith]

Virginity is cool.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's exactly. That is exactly what I want.

[Christian A. Smith]

Come on, come on.

[Deontay Kyle]

Come on, guys. Virginity is cool. It's like, bruh. Yeah, I bet it is. When you ain't got no choice. Yeah. And then we have an influx of incel. And if you choose. Yeah. No, well, the part of incel. The big part about being an incel is an involuntary part. You don't want to be celibate. You just have no choice. Right. But what we get from that are fantasies about sex that are violent.

[Christian A. Smith]

Oh. And it never ends well. It never goes well. Like, especially with the whole abstinence thing. And like, the way. The way it's framed in fundamentalist Christianity, where it's very patriarchal, so it's the woman's job to please the man, and it's abstinence, absence. Abstinence until you get married. And then no holds barred, like, just go off. That's traumatic.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's traumatic. And then you have a lot of people who experience marital rape because the belief is when you get married, you're not allowed to say no. You owe that to him. So then you get people who are experiencing that type of mistreatment within their marriage, and then they go to church to their pastor. The pastor's like, well, I mean, you know, y' all married. That's how it's supposed to go. So we can't even have conversations about, like, how to be safe sexually, because we're not having conversations about consent.

[Deontay Kyle]

And so this is the. The brilliance of that is keeping people in extremes. Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

Binaries.

[Deontay Kyle]

These binaries. I talk about binaries all the time.

[Christian A. Smith]

You both do.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. Because I hate it. Because it's an illusion of choice. It's the truest illusion of choice.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

You only got one. You only got two. Two options. That's some.

[Christian A. Smith]

It's heaven.

[Deontay Kyle]

Even on a test, it ain't just two options.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yep.

[Deontay Kyle]

The only time it's two options. Whether this shit is real or not, is it true or is it false? Everything else is subject to multiple multitude of options or to all of the above. So I think that I hate. I. You know, I can't stand it because it becomes a thing of, like, how are we seeing this? So it's. There's a responsibility for those who can see, those who can see through the. And have the right words to articulate through the. Those who. Who have an affinity for pastors growing up. So we understand the performance of preaching, but while we giving them actual good words. Something you could really leave with. Because black people are creative people. We love entertainment, which is why we're such great entertainers.

[Christian A. Smith]

And don't leave out the courage.

[Deontay Kyle]

Courage is the most important.

[Christian A. Smith]

You gotta. Because, nigga, we out here taking risks on me. We out here taking risks.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

My late mentor, Bishop Carlton Pearson, said, freedom is not for cowards. No, you can't get free if you gonna operate in cowardice. Yeah, you gotta. You gotta have some courage.

[Deontay Kyle]

You gotta have some nuts on you, bro. But, like, at the same time, you gotta revel in that courage, too. It can't just be this thing where I'm gonna dip my toe. I'm out there really, like, let's do it. Let's shake the table up. Let's turn this motherfucker over, too.

[Christian A. Smith]

I sound like Jesus.

[Deontay Kyle]

I was just thinking, right? I was just thinking that.

[Christian A. Smith]

That sound like Jesus.

[Deontay Kyle]

Anytime that motherfuckers is in the comment section, like, we gotta protect him at cost, at all costs. I know I'm on the right path. When y' all niggas feel like I'm in danger, please protect this man. Protect this man. I'm doing the right thing. Cause ain't no, you know, no shade to. I ain't gonna call out nobody specifically, but, hey, it's a lot of people who got millions of followers. Ain't nobody said nothing about protecting them. No, of course, because they clowning.

[Christian A. Smith]

They Ain't disrupting nothing.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, they.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, like, so. So part of our identity as a ministry, we are disruptive, authentic, inclusive. That disruptive piece is what draws people. Like, because it's like, oh, wait a minute. It's like, I didn't expect that. That's why a lot of times when I. When I do my videos, I'll end it with, by the way, if you're new to my platform, hi, I'm a pastor. Because people assume when they hear the way I talk, oh, he must be an atheist. He must hate the church.

[Deontay Kyle]

And. And that's another thing that happened too. And. And. And for. For the stuff that I'm going through. It was important for me to show up in the devil mask because I want you to. I want you to see the absurdity in what you're saying.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, but they don't see it.

[Deontay Kyle]

They don't.

[Christian A. Smith]

Because indoctrination is a hell of a.

[Deontay Kyle]

But I'm gonna tell you, the ones who do ain't gonna say nothing about it. And that's who I care about. I care about the ones who gonna. I care about the ones who now silently watching me.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely. We.

[Deontay Kyle]

They'll come out, like, six months. Like. Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

There's so much overlap.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yo.

[Christian A. Smith]

Like, the amount of lurkers.

[Deontay Kyle]

I'm here for them.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because I. Because I love those who. Who are loud about me, but I love the ones who silent even more.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because they're working up the courage to be loud, too. Absolutely.

[Christian A. Smith]

I remember when we first started, you know, the. The name of our podcast is Holy Smoke, Cigars and Spirituality. I gotta get you on that.

[Deontay Kyle]

Something I'm read. Say the word.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

You, I love. And Big Cat. Yeah. This is bruh. I'm telling you, bro, Big. Had to tell you, like, when this first started popping off of me where I used to be going to all the time on the late night. Yeah. I'm going to that. Because it's like, this is the only place where I ain't. It's dark.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And I go in there and I got my headphones in. I'm literally like, bro, I got my headphones in while the live band playing. Because it's the only place where I can, like, oh, damn. I feel isolated here.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

I feel safe. I'm comfortable. I'm in a comfortable chair. I'm sipping on mine. You know what I mean? I was smoking my stick, and I'm good. And I can sit here for two hours and I'll be smooth. Like, I feel very safe here.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And you know what I mean? And even the people that recognize me, they're like, what's up, brother? And it's like, it's like. But they recognize everybody because everybody irregular.

[Christian A. Smith]

I'm glad they leave you alone. They don't leave me alone. They be in my face. Oh, man, I need to talk to you all, bro. I'm trying to chill. Leave you alone. Nah. But like, holy smoke started in a cigar lounge. It was a monthly in person meeting. And the more people found out about it, they would come, but they would be nervous because, like, I don't want my church to know I'm here. Like, I, I, I crave this type of interaction, this knowledge. I'm curious about all of this, but, like, I don't want my church to know that I'm here. So when we converted it into a podcast, like, people were like, you need to put this interaction at the cigar lounge. You need to put this on the Internet. I was like, nah, man. Because too many people here desire the anonymity. So if I make it a podcast, I can't, I can't just do it here. I got to pull some people who I know are okay with saying this in front of the world and then build it around that. But like, a lot of people, they watch us for years before they ever say, you know, I rock with you. I appreciate you. I want to get down and support you. I want to publicly say that I appreciate you because I've been silently appreciating you for years. Because I knew if I told the people in my circle how much I appreciate you, then I would get ostracized in my circle.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right, right, right.

[Christian A. Smith]

But now I don't care.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, no, it's all about that, bro. Like, through, through, like, a constant rhetoric of, like, radical self love and self love for people that look like you and building community and breaking down all of the barriers that refuse to allow you to build community. Like I tell folks all the time, whatever's underneath that rug, I'm finna sweep it out. Yeah, yeah. So by doing that for so long, what you do is, is similar to what you do. You instill a love and a self confidence in people where it's like, man, scared of you niggas and what y' all think about me no more. I got a community. Yeah. I got somewhere I can go where I'll be, I'll be protected. And I feel safe in this radical thought. And, and the reality is, is, like, if you was truly following the way of Jesus, you a Revolutionary?

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely. Because that's what he was. People say, oh, keep politics out of the pulpit. Like, you want me to teach about Jesus and not be political? My nigga. How?

[Deontay Kyle]

How?

[Christian A. Smith]

Jesus the story. And I know some people feel like Jesus wasn't a real person. I don't care. The story is real. Like, it's a real story that people have built whole traditions out of. So when you look at the story, Jesus was executed by the state in collaboration with his community of faith in one of the most gruesome executions that you can possibly experience. How was that not political? He was. And he was also living in an occupied territory. So Palestine was occupied by the Roman. The Roman Empire.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's political. So, like, don't.

[Christian A. Smith]

Don't come to me talking about, you should keep politics out of the pulpit, G. I don't understand. And I'm black. Being black is a political, like, existence. If Jesus wasn't black, you think Caesar would have did him like that? You see what I'm saying? Come on, man.

[Deontay Kyle]

Also, too. Like, that's one of my biggest things is, like, being black is political. Yes. When they politicize your existence, then you wake up every day in the midst of politics. Everything you discuss, anything you discuss is political. Your freedom, your joy is political.

[Christian A. Smith]

Everything you heard.

[Deontay Kyle]

I mean, so, like, yeah, man, like, there's nothing more political you could be in this country besides being black.

[Christian A. Smith]

And you say your joy is political. Like the hell that people gave Kamala Harris over her laugh. Like, why is she in hell about her laugh? What is that?

[Deontay Kyle]

That's politicizing. Yes. You ain't supposed to be happy, bitch.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly. You a little bit too exuberant for me also, too.

[Deontay Kyle]

You feel like, oh, that. You know what they see? Enjoy possibility. When they seen how joyful she was, they saw a confidence. Oh, this is possible. They want to stamp that out. Because white people, especially in this country, as much control and power as they. As they want, they really do revel in misery. Yeah, they love misery.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's why joy is an act of resistance.

[Deontay Kyle]

Exactly. Because they. They're.

[Christian A. Smith]

They.

[Deontay Kyle]

They find company. And misery. They love it. There's nothing more. Because I'm telling you right now, if I got a house, I got my wife and my kids, I got a car. It ain't no way I'm meeting up with you to discuss people that don't look like me, that I don't think better than me. It just ain't no way. For what I would. I would be bored as hell at a clan meeting. I'd be like, man, bro, we got everything we want. What the is we mad about? We could literally go kill them if we want to, and nothing gonna happen. I'd be like, bro, this is easy. That's just too. Bro, I'm cool, bro.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Why we bothering them folks? I'm like, damn. Because they're miserable like that. They. They actually. They actually have a epigenetic predisposition to being miserable. Miserable. So the only time that they find any joy is when they're making others.

[Christian A. Smith]

Miserable because they don't love themselves.

[Deontay Kyle]

Bingo.

[Christian A. Smith]

You love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you don't like yourself and you treat yourself like shit, you gonna treat other people like shit.

[Deontay Kyle]

Which is why they also don't understand why we always got a smile on our face.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly. And there's always a white lash to black progress and black joy. Cause you know how, like, the Charlie Kirks of the world will say, well, why can't black people just, you know, do your own thing, build up your own community, so on and so forth. And it's like, you're so ignorant of history, or you just are, like, intentionally revising yourself.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah. They're being antagonistic because we did build.

[Christian A. Smith]

Our own communities, and y' all came in and y' all burned them down. Y' all had interstate projects that you specifically ran through black communities all over the country. So we had communities, and you broke them up.

[Deontay Kyle]

Y' all fishing in lakes with our community underneath it.

[Christian A. Smith]

It's crazy.

[Deontay Kyle]

By. By design.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's why, you know, I don't really, like, when get to talking like that. Like, that's, like, really be where I be at with it. And they don't understand it, but it's like, bruh, it's literally, you live the life of me. Yeah. I'm cool. And it's not even just him specifically. Anybody that think like them.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because my. My reality has. Consists of something that makes sense, Right? Yeah. And the thing is, is, like, I can't make sense of y' all actions besides just saying, like, it is who you are, and there ain't no and there is nothing. I don't need to try to donate anything else to your existence because I have historical context. Yeah. I have a lived reality, and I have a present representation of all of these things. I think about you, and I know that you don't have that about me. So something wrong with you. And I need to divest from worrying about your approval and worry about getting my people to love themselves and seek approval within ourselves.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's another place where we align. Cause I am not trying to reason with unreasonable people. So if you come at me with.

[Deontay Kyle]

Pam, Damn, nigga, Are we just the same, nigga? Cause I swear to God, I say it all the time.

[Christian A. Smith]

Low key, low key, low key. Okay. I'm telling you, my wife was like, you need to check this nigga out. Cause y' all sound a lot alike.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, bro.

[Christian A. Smith]

Like, I'm not. I'm not gonna do it. So, like, people will ask me, why don't you debate this person?

[Deontay Kyle]

For what, bro, I'm not trying to change your mind.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah, I'm trying to help y'.

[Deontay Kyle]

All.

[Christian A. Smith]

I'm trying to help the people who are, like. Who are curious.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, I be telling people this all the time. I debate them under one condition. When I get there, they can't say nothing.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yo, it's like John Henry Clark, man. He said, you know, all others I teach. Yeah. I only debate my equals. Everybody else I teach.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, I think we come from the same studies, too. Cause John Henry Clark, that's master teacher. That's my guy, dude. You know what I mean, man, if a man is speaking to you with his eyes closed, it ain't nothing you can say. He don't feel no threat.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

John heard car speaking to you like this to her. Straight up, like, bruh, I ain't. I'm not even gonna look at you. Listen to my word.

[Christian A. Smith]

If you so matter of fact, too.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh, and it's almost, like, irrefutable. Yeah, I. Like, I was watching a. I was watching a panel yesterday. Well, like, sometimes, like, if my mind won't stop, instead of, like, doom scrolling, I'll put on a lecture.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because it's like I'm. I. At least if I'm gonna fall asleep, it is. It's something good going in my subconscious. Cause I don't like cutting on tv. Cause, like, man, sometimes whatever they suggest I would be something I never watched. Then I wake up in the panel, like, why the fuck they shooting? Or you wake up and it's the hands made to, like, what the fuck they call this crazy shit?

[Christian A. Smith]

That shit. That shit.

[Deontay Kyle]

They get to pick it for you. You know what I'm saying? I don't need you picking nothing for me. So I just go ahead and control my own cyber. Because I don't do no autoplay on YouTube. I don't need you recommending me nothing. So I'll put on a lecture, and then I'm out of there. And the one I was watching last night was. It was hold on. It was the black leaders discussion free. And the three. The three people that they propped up was Angela Davis, Kwame Ture, and Fannie Lou Hamer. And I was like, that's a good spot to go to bed at. But they also had, like, the. The man who created the NLU there. They had a multitude of black people there. And the brilliance of it is all of these people want liberation for black people, and they're all taking different avenues to get there. So there's so much overlap in what they saying. There's just all these different approaches, and a lot of it is based on live experience, a lot of it's based on ideology. But I don't think there's any one way. Because it wasn't. Because. Because we weren't. We aren't in bondage any one way.

[Christian A. Smith]

No. It takes all of us to taking different approaches. Right. Like, you need a deontay, Kyle, for the culture. That. That's. That's important, you know, And I believe having a. Like me in the black church is important for the culture.

[Deontay Kyle]

That is it. It changes the black. Yeah, it. You know, and also, too, we have to discuss how comfortable some of us. And also two people who will step away from the church, how much they yearn for the church again.

[Christian A. Smith]

Oh, God.

[Deontay Kyle]

But they know that they're not gonna get what they looking for in there.

[Christian A. Smith]

Absolutely.

[Deontay Kyle]

And they know that they're gonna be shunned when they go in there, because I'm pretty sure there's plenty of trans men and women, gay men and women that would desire to be in a church community. But no, they're gonna be ostracized.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yes.

[Deontay Kyle]

It's also people in there like me that I want to speak the way I speak without being pushed away. Yeah. And like. Like, can we talk about something that actually affect us instead of just pulling from this book? And can you take something out of this book and apply it to something we're going through right now? But y' all ain't on the revolutionary, so I don't want to be in there.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

But I'm gonna be in your church.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yo, pull up like. Like the. The part of church that, like, a lot of church kids miss, you know, because, like, a lot of the. A lot of the church kids at the faith community, they come from the Pentecostal background. I mean, we got people from all types of backgrounds. But, you know, Pentecostalism is real strict. Like, the Pentecostals believe the Baptists are going to hell because the Baptists don't follow the rules the Pentecostals follow. And one of the things that church kids tend to miss is like, that worship, that corporate worship, that charismatic running and jumping, because it's really like just a celebration of life, but when it's saturated in self hate, it doesn't feel the same. So, like, when people get hip to how we, you know, do theology, how we see the world, and then they also see that we're still comfortable being hella black in worship. And like, we dance and shout and run around and we have moments for reflection because, you know, not everybody is into all of that, but, like, we gonna dance and shout and all of that shit because that's a part of who we are and we crave that. So a lot of times when people have been with us online for a while, like just with the podcast stuff and with the. With the content, when they come and they experience that corporate worship, they be like, I never felt this before because I could completely be myself. I didn't have to leave any part of myself outside. I didn't have to come in here and act like I'm not gay. I didn't have to come in here and act like this ain't my partner. I didn't have to come in here and act like I'm somebody I'm not. I have to come in here and turn off my brain. I could come in here and be a critical thinker and still jump and shout and dance because that's what I want to do. That's my business.

[Deontay Kyle]

Right?

[Christian A. Smith]

So that part is, like, always major for people that are always talking about that. Like, man, I ain't never been able to worship in a space where I was so free.

[Deontay Kyle]

Well, I think to add on to that is what you're doing is allowing people to come there and really enjoy the entire experience. Yes, I'm happy to be here, and I want to be here and I feel present here. And I ain't just waiting on the main event.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

Because that's what. What I was in church for. Like, man, I ain't got. I don't want to hear these announcements. I don't want all these damn songs. I want to hear this sermon.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And so it's like, for me, that's my main event. I'll sit through the hour and 30 minutes to get to the 30 minutes. And I think that what you're doing is providing an equitable space for people to enjoy the entire.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's been my experience. That's been my goal. I've said to My community a number of times. Like, I want to create programming that people hate to miss. Not, oh, I gotta show up. Because if I don't come, then Pastor gon be on me and he gonna be asking me where I been. Cause I've been backsliding. Nah, come when you feel like it. I'm gonna try to create some shit that's so dope that you like. Yo, I gotta be there for that.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's.

[Christian A. Smith]

That's what I'm on. Well, we like the same, bro.

[Deontay Kyle]

That's literally like what I've used. I'd be like, bro, I don't. Let's let. No. But also when we do the live events, it's like, I don't want to just like, get their money, bro. I want them to leave and be like, I want the people that came and spent their money to leave and tell me like, bro, you gotta spend that money, like.

[Christian A. Smith]

Exactly.

[Deontay Kyle]

Gotta go to one of these gym. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I like. And we're improving on that. We've only done two solo. We're doing the third one next month, the Friendsgiving. And Suki done put us in Last Supper outfits on the flyer. So that should be a treat.

[Christian A. Smith]

I gotta come.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah, you should pull up, man. For sure. One more time before we go, man. Could you plug just where people can find you?

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Deontay Kyle]

And if they would like to attend service, where they can find that.

[Christian A. Smith]

Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook threads, the Christian A. Smith. You can find me there. If you go to my Instagram and you type Disrupt. In my most recent post, I'll send you some information about how you can connect with us on Patreon. And if you into the, you know, the YouTube and you want to get all of that free content, then the YouTube channel is tfc.virtual. that's the faith community. Virtual. TFC.

[Deontay Kyle]

Virtual, man. Thank you, bro. I. I'll say this. A lot of times I have guests on here and people will say, man, you gotta have them back. But you one of the first people that I'm like, in. In real time. I know you definitely gotta pull.

[Christian A. Smith]

Dude, I would love to.

[Deontay Kyle]

We gotta. We gotta make this a. A quarterly thing, if anything.

[Christian A. Smith]

And we gotta hit the cigar lounge too.

[Deontay Kyle]

Oh, I'm on it. I'm on it. Say, listen, this is Deontay Kyle. But who's behind the camera? Big guy.

[Christian A. Smith]

Scub Cat, man.

[Deontay Kyle]

We signing off, bro. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other.

[Christian A. Smith]

Turn me up, man.

[Deontay Kyle]

I just want to rap. You know? I just want to rap. Man.

[Christian A. Smith]

Man.

[Deontay Kyle]

Yeah.

[Christian A. Smith]

They say without the proper labor faith don't stand a chance I put my faith in faith and stand on fertile land I planted seeds that'll indeed turn into trees Before Rest in Peace teas.

[Deontay Kyle]

Get printed to me.