I'm curious, from your own tradition, what does it mean to you to walk in the inheritance of that tradition today?

Yeah, so the Progressive National Baptist Convention in particular was... formed by Dr.

King and his father and others in 1961, partly out of a concern, a frustration, that the National Baptist Convention was kind of lukewarm when it came to its commitment to civil rights.

I mean, I think sometimes there's kind of this misnomer that we can easily have about history, that the majority of black churches were deeply committed to the civil rights movement and were on the front lines of activism and everything else.

And the reality is it was still a minority of Black churches, still a substantial number, but a minority of them that were deeply involved.

And there was a kind of a leadership challenge and disagreement.

There was an election, essentially, and there were very different visions that were put forward for what direction the National Baptist Convention should go.

And I'm curious, as you think about the time maybe when you wrote those words and culturally where we are today and how faith and justice has arrived in this world, how do you place yourself? How do you see or interpret the events of where we are today in light of maybe where you were six years ago and maybe how has that changed?

And so what they might have grounded as their place of worship, he's saying, no, you still can worship, right?

That's right.

That's exactly right.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

And so, you know, one of the things that happens in the beginning of the chapter is we see, you know, the Israelites kind of grumbling and complaining with each other because they are engaging in fasting, but they don't feel like God is recognizing it or rewarding them for their sacrifice.

And then we see this in verse 3.

And so if you can't muster the care and desire to help for the soul of your neighbor, it might be great to start with asking, hey, by leaving the system in place, am I actually able to fully actualize my actions? my desire to act as a disciple of Christ, right?