The panel discussion kicks off with our laid-back host, Will Rose, as he guides the audience through a deep dive into the thought-provoking film "Sinners." The crew, featuring luminaries like Juan Floyd-Thomas, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Kelly Brown Douglas, and Adam Clark, come together to unpack the layers of meaning woven into this flick, which juxtaposes themes of sin against the backdrop of a 1932 Mississippi setting. They explore how the film's portrayal of white supremacy acts as a parasitic force, sucking the vitality from Black culture, while also celebrating the blues as a powerful form of resistance. With a blend of humor and sharp insights, the panelists emphasize that the struggles depicted in "Sinners" resonate with contemporary issues, inviting listeners to reflect on their own "groanings" in today's world. So, whether you’re into theology or just looking for a thoughtful convo about cinema and society, this episode serves it up with a side of wit and wisdom, leaving you eager for the next Theology Beer Camp in Kansas City!

A vibrant discussion unfolds at Theology Beer Camp 2025, hosted by Will Rose, where a panel of geekologists dives deep into the movie "Sinners." The atmosphere is electric as the panelists, including Juan and Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Kelly Brown Douglas, and Adam Clark, share their insights on the film's intricate themes. They explore the intersection of race, religion, and culture, highlighting how the film portrays the duality of sin and salvation through the lens of black spirituality. The conversation is rich with humor and camaraderie, as they dissect the film's portrayal of white supremacy and the resilience of black culture through blues music. The panelists emphasize the importance of understanding these themes within the broader context of black religious history and the ongoing struggles for justice and equality. As they share personal anecdotes and reflections, they invite listeners to consider how the film resonates with contemporary issues, making it a thought-provoking and engaging experience for all attendees.

The panel discussion at Theology Beer Camp 2025, led by Will Rose, is a delightful blend of wit, humor, and profound insights as it tackles the film "Sinners." Each panelist brings their unique perspective, contributing to a dynamic conversation that weaves together themes of sin, redemption, and the complexities of black identity. Juan Floyd-Thomas opens the discussion by framing the film within the context of African American religious history, while Stacey Floyd-Thomas infuses the conversation with her vibrant personality and humorous anecdotes. Kelly Brown Douglas adds depth by exploring the interplay between the blues and the church, highlighting how both traditions offer solace and strength to marginalized communities. Adam Clark provocatively challenges the audience to think critically about the systems of oppression depicted in the film. Together, they create a rich tapestry of ideas that not only entertains but also encourages reflection on the current cultural landscape, leaving listeners eager to engage with the film and its implications.

At Theology Beer Camp 2025, a lively panel discussion led by Will Rose delves into the film "Sinners," where humor meets serious discourse. The panelists, including the insightful Juan and Stacey Floyd-Thomas, the eloquent Kelly Brown Douglas, and the thought-provoking Adam Clark, dissect the film's narrative, revealing its layers of meaning related to sin and societal structures. The conversation takes a humorous turn as the panelists share personal stories and banter, creating a relaxed atmosphere while addressing heavy themes like white supremacy and cultural resilience. Each speaker highlights the importance of the blues as a form of resistance and expression, illustrating how the film captures the complex relationship between black spirituality and cultural identity. By the end of the discussion, listeners are left with a deeper appreciation for the film's narrative and its relevance to contemporary issues, along with a sense of community fostered through shared laughter and insightful dialogue.

Takeaways:

1. The panel at Theology Beer Camp 2025 dives deep into the movie 'Sinners', exploring its themes of sin, race, and cultural identity in a witty and engaging manner.
2. The discussion emphasizes how the blues serve as a form of resistance and expression for black humanity, challenging the dominant narratives of sin and morality.
3. Participants remind listeners that pop culture can be a powerful lens through which we understand theological concepts, especially in marginalized communities.
4. The panel highlights the importance of community, ancestry, and cultural heritage in shaping individual identities and narratives within the film 'Sinners'.
5. The conversation sheds light on the complex relationship between spirituality and secular music, arguing that both can coexist and enrich understanding of faith.
6. The discussion encourages attendees to see Theology Beer Camp as a 'hush harbor'—a safe space for dialogue on faith and culture, particularly for those of marginalized identities.

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Systematic Geekology

Our show focuses around our favorite fandoms that we discuss from a Christian perspective. We do not try to put Jesus into all our favorite stories, but rather we try to ask the questions the IPs are asking, then addressing those questions from our perspective. We are not all ordained, but we are the Priests to the Geeks, in the sense that we try to serve as mediators between the cultures around our favorite fandoms and our faith communities.

I was there hanging out with TJ and Leah and Ryan and Kim and J. Patty and John Augustine and other fellow geekologists. And we had so many such a blast.

So big thanks to Trip Fuller and Homebrew Christianity for allowing us to be a part of these conversations and discussions and even allowing us to help curate what happens on the pop culture Stage, formerly known as Geek Stage. And when you're listening to this episode and you ask yourself, really, this kind of thing happens at Theology Beer Camp? Yes. Yes, it does.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Pop Culture Stage. There we go. Here we are. Clap your hands so they know we're real. I'm Will Rose.

I am the host of Systematic Geekology, a podcast where we dive into the deeper things that we geek out on.

And, you know, this stage was called the Geek Stage, and then we renamed it Pop Culture Stage because you didn't want people to feel like, oh, I'm not necessarily a geek. I don't geek out on Star wars or comic books or whatever. But really we're all geekologists because everybody geeks out on something in pop culture.

And so today we're going to do some geekology. We're all going to be geekologists going deeper into those things we geek out on.

And today we're going to be geekologists around that incredible movie, Sinners. Who's seen it? Who's seen it? All right, good, because there's going to be lots of spoilers today.

But I did hear someone say one time that sometimes spoilers help because it relaxes you, it disarms you, and so you're able to watch it more freely because you're not caught up in expectations. And so even if you get something spoiled, that's okay.

But if you're listening to this out there in land, when it becomes a podcast, I recommend that you pause, go watch the movie, then come back and we'll be a.

Okay, so I'm going to turn it over to our panels, let them kind of go down the line and introduce themselves and just brief introduction, who you are, where's home base for you? What you teach, and then we'll. We'll dive into. To the movie. All right, Juan, take it away.

All right. Well, thank you, Will. I'm Juan Floyd Thomas.

I am associate professor of African American Religious History at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and I also teach there in religious studies. Among other things, I do teach black religion and popular culture, including race religion and films. So this is right down my alley.

Good morning. I'm Stacy Floyd Thomas, and I've had some beer too early in the morning. As a Baptist, I can get away with it because I'm saved.

But you can't tell anybody that I did it. I am privileged to be here. I am the proud wife of this one, Juan Floyd Thomas.

I teach at Vanderbilt Divinity School, where I'm the Carpenter professor of Ethics and Society and the Chair of African American Studies. On this panel, though, this is what you need to know.

Whenever black people are in a space where there are a lot of white people and we're together, you have to ask yourself, what are the black people doing together at their table? So at this table, I am the soulmate of this one. I've been the fan girl of this one. I met her in word before I met her in flesh.

But she looks younger than my own flesh, which means she's made a deal with the devil. We'll talk about that.

We gotta talk about that.

Which means favor's not fair and she must be a sinner for real.

And the Baptists are low and the Episcopalians are high, and Adam is my summer soul brother, where the space of Martha's Vineyard has given us sanctuary.

Yeah.

In a way the academy has not.

Wow.

Wow. Yeah.

So I am in a village in a space of love and longing that only the toast to the beer camp could have provided. So good morning.

Good morning.

All I need to say to that is amen. Amen, amen and amen. See, there you go. Just say amen and amen and amen again. And the fact that as an Episcopalian, I'm saying Amen out loud.

There's something about the black church that transcends the nomination.

There you go.

And you know, she's a Baptist and had beer and she knows she ain't supposed to, and I'm an Episcopalian and didn't have any, and I know I ain't supposed to do that, so I have to catch up. But I am Kelly Brown Douglas.

I am currently visiting professor of theology at Harvard School of Divinity and Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral. Sins enough and geeking out, really. On just this space with these three folks that I admire and whose work pushes me. And so I am the old one here.

And it are these folks who are carrying forth a legacy that I am learning from.

And so I am just really geeking out on being here with them, and I'm going to listen to what they got to say about sinners that I think we've all seen at least a dozen times.

Yeah, my name's Adam Clark. I'm a veteran of beer camp, and these are first timers. So rookie. Well, I know you know the world hates DEI and affirmative action.

I promise to bring some black people here.

That's why we're here, and that's why we're here.

So I've been advocating for a long time. I said, bring it back, bring it back. And also because the nature of grassroots theological education has to change, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, we get angry at people for not knowing progressive theological frameworks, but we keep them locked in the academy.

So I'm really glad that you have some incredible thinkers up here who are able to actually put certain types of theological frameworks that are applicable and useful for people who are really serious about their faith and want to think deeply critical. So my name is Adam Clark. I'm a professor of theology at Xavier University.

I'm the director of civic engagement there as well, and I'm happy to be here.

Awesome.

Cool, cool, cool.

Yeah. So let's geek out.

And so the movie is named Sinners. And so, yes, there is drinking and gambling and sex and dancing and music outside the walls. The church.

How dare you play music outside the walls of the church. But I want to ask you guys, so what is the sin?

This movie is called Sinners, and we could get kind of caught up in the actions of people, but there's an overlayed kind of text of. Of a system of sin.

But anyway, so what if it's white supremacy, Will?

Okay, there you go.

White supremacy and its predatory and parasitic nature, as well as its false promises of salvation. And it's embodied in white vamp. Right? And the hive mind, which is a way of talking about a false universal that erases difference. Right?

So white supremacy has to survive by sucking the blood of black vitality out of bodies. Right. In order to sustain itself and reproduce itself. Right. So you have that as the. And also in order to maintain itself.

It also had that people have to invite it in. Yeah, yeah. There's a certain type of dynamic of. There's an invitational point.

And I think part of the parable of the movie is how the blues functions as a vehicle of resistance and affirmation of black humanity. A kind of counter story within this that kind of flips the narrative of kind of confessional Christianity as devil music. Right. Like in terms of that.

So I think that's. That's the sin. It's a. It's kind of a macro sin that actually functions as an idolatrous power about.

And the sin is also something that only exists by consuming the bodies of others, the lives of others. And you see the wreckage and destruction throughout the movie.

Go for it, Juan.

I would just build. Build on what Adam dropped. I mean, and you know. Oh, sorry. I mean, the blast radius from what Adam just says, still glowing red hot.

But I think you, you. We have a dualistic mechanism at work here.

And, you know, I think it's opinion by two fairly common or well known, well known phrases, you know, that we're all sinners who've fallen short of the glory of God, but then we're also sinners saved by grace.

And to that concern, I wrestle with the issue of what Coogler and the cast and crew were able to accomplish by placing agency, you know, human moral choice so much squarely in the. In the mix of what's going on here. Right.

So if we wrestle with sin in terms of a rupture not just between human and divine, but between humans and humans. Right.

And I think white supremacy is such a powerful and necessary means by which to examine sin, capital letters, you know, S I N. But also the ways in which. Right. No one is absolutely good or absolutely bad within this universe, but so many shades of moral gray inhabit the spaces in between.

And for that juke joint to serve as a kind of proving ground and in some cases the killing floor by which, you know, those decisions of life and death, of righteousness or wickedness are being played out, I think is, you know, it's epic.

Yeah, Kelly, I agree with all that has been said, clearly. Because what it reflects is that this movie is layered. And it's layered with this sort of the complexity of richness that is in this movie.

It's complex. One of the things that. But I want to add to that Sort of taking it even away from centering whiteness and white supremacy.

And it's there clearly, and it travels by night. And we see that is the richness of black culture that is also reflected.

Right.

And the ways in which, first of all. And we can. I'll just drop these and then can say more. I know you have more to say about it.

The ways in which one, the blues and the church are in dialogue, a dialectic relationship with one another. Then of course, we see that come together and at the end, at the triple end. But. And you know, that's to me, the Tommy Dorsey moment. And so that they.

Or Thomas Dorsey, but they're always in this dialectic with each other.

Other.

And if we see them as opposing each other, we don't understand the richness of what goes on in black culture and how in fact, indeed both of those. The black church is represented by the.

What's the name?

Now? I can't think of the young kid's father.

Oh, preacher boy Stan.

Yeah, yeah. And then of course, he also is the blues player.

But both of those traditions saved and spoke to a poor black community who's struggling for survival and affirmation. And if those traditions are put in a. In opposition to one another, then it doesn't capture sort of the meaning of what's going on here.

And when they are indeed placed in opposition to each other, which we have seen and throughout black faith history, it misses what? Well, it misses the fact that they're both trying to answer to the same thing or respond to the same thing, to the same need to the same struggle.

And these are struggles of poor black people. Just. Poor black people. Just. Thank you, Adam. Just trying to make it the other thing. So they're in this sort of dialect of each other. The other thing.

And this is. You have Ryan Coogler in conversation with. Because he did this movie upon the research and the guidance of Dr. Yvonne Charot.

This movie ain't possible within its richness. There you go.

Yes.

If it wasn't for the women.

Or.

If it wasn't for the black women.

Yeah, yeah.

And so let's not mention Ryan COOGLER without mentioning Dr. Yvonne Charo.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because Dr. Yvonne Charo added the richness to the meaning of this movie.

Yeah.

Because the other thing that is going on in this movie, of course, is what Dr. Ahmaud Green calls sort of these. This underworld. These underworld religions. Right. Pointing to is again, the richness of black religious culture.

Right.

And so you have this voodoo, hoodoo, etc. That is there always in dialogue with the wider black faith tradition. And we know, really, in the black slave tradition, it's never been.

There's always been this. This word now is sometimes used pejoratively. But this synchronization of tradition, here you have it. And so she's there bringing this in.

It, again, is a part of a black way of knowing the world in which you're trying to navigate and trying to navigate that world. And so the richness. I'm gonna shut up now because we can say. I can say a lot more. They'll bring it out.

But the richness, what I wanna foreground, yes, it's about white supremacy.

Yes.

White.

Well, the scent is about white supremacy, not the movie. The scent is about white supremacy.

And it is parasitic. Right. It is vampirish. I mean, the way and the richness of black cultural tradition that is in this film.

And I'm gonna leave the historic part to the historian in terms of even the history that's captured in the black struggle and all of the homages to that history. So I'll shut up there, Stacy.

I'm just gonna lean in here and say that if we were to talk about the blues, we would leave that to the genius 3.0 of James cone, which is Kelly Brown Douglas. And this nerd geek pop expert who's a historian to my right.

I think, like Adam, we know that the canvas of our existence is white supremacy, which is why the blues had to emerge. Which is why the blues had to emerge. And what we see happening in the midst of culture wars, right, is we're all bleeding.

But since we're in Minneapolis, I want to say purple rains. And so I'm looking at Amy on the front row.

Thank you for being in my 8th Headquarters sister and being a sister from another mother who's given me a little of inspiration. And Prince says, when there's blood in the sky, red and blue equals purple.

Purple rain pertains to the end of the world and being with the one you love and letting your faith and your God guide you. And so while Amy, on the one hand, in symbolism of putting on her white female body, right, which is whiteness, bleeding as a woman. Right.

Purple rain in the context that we're in.

And as no one can talk about being black is to be blue in America like these two can, what Adam says is, what are we doing here on the canvas of white supremacy where the nation is trumping all of our individual stories to say what reigns supreme? Who is the God that we serve? And what do we love? Kelly nodded. To that we liter have to say, what are we serving? Are we.

And we'll talk about this later. Pitch or the keynote later. We're all going through altercations. Where are the altars where we're worshiping?

Are we worshiping a God that transcends our limitations and will transport us and transform us to where we need to go? Or are we serving God that serve us? That really is what sinners is about. You have a brother who's wearing red, right? Stack. Stacking it.

I'm showing the 26 years. Stacking it. But as I'm branding these diamonds, generations of women have died.

So my husband could say, for love of 25 years and you're late, here's your stack. Or it's a smoke. When everything's going up in flames and the church wants us to say, let's consider this incense rather than burning flesh. Exactly.

And that is why we don't need to take this. Show me your tag. Because you just cursed. I'm Baptist. Happier. I can't see. Jeff said, damn. I didn't say it. I'm quoting it.

That is why Martin Luther King, way before Jeremiah Wright said anything said while America may very well go to hell.

Yeah.

From the pulpit from which you memorialize your mentor, James cone, that we really need to understand what is the God that we are serving and is it a what or is it a who? But as an episode, we say, how you are living it out reveals it. And so I think Purple rains. I really think we are in a blues moment.

Kelly and I are supposed to be somewhere else.

And that we commiserated this morning because there are people in D.C. who are talking negatively about us because they wanted us to be around where purple's reigning as womanist. And they're like, what are you doing? Oh, so y' all really rather be with a white dude?

And I said, no, they just organized earlier and they're paying us a lot less. Let's be very clear. But the issue is we're in different forms, in different bodies, same canvas. But what really is going to save us is salvation.

That which serves us. Or is that which. Or is it that which saves us on this canvas of white supremacy that is reigning supreme?

We're singing the blues and we're bleeding to death.

Right. Yeah.

Well, I want to lift up, you know, especially in. In juxtaposition. Right. We talked about the sin, but where is the salvation or the saving grace? And I think on the.

The twin axes that each of US has touched on Blues and Hoodoo. Right. Within the. Within the movie. Right. And so I think we can't. Are as much as I love Michael.

Who do differently as Ephesus, who do is wh D. O.

Okay.

Right. So I mean that.

Who do what you do. Okay. All right.

And we talked about that yesterday. It's really interesting to be curious about other people's stories and. But buttering our daily bread with other people's pain.

And as Ephesus, it's really important that Hoodoo is not the exoticism city O.

Okay.

The freaky stuff, other people. But it's about the agency or who are you and what are you doing. And if. If you can't say that, don't come to the party and don't open up your mouth.

So to that point, I would say that as much as I love and adore Michael B. Jordan's presentation of the Twins. Right. Smoking stack. Right. We do ourselves a disservice if we ignore the centrality and the importance of Annie as the quote, unquote, hoodoo woman.

Right. And then also Preacher boy Sammy as the blues man. Right. Even above and beyond Delta Slim. Right. So to Annie.

And I'm so eternally grateful for Kelly bringing Yvonne Shereau into this conversation. And if you want to do a deeper dive on what Shereau's insight was, pick up her book Black Magic on conjure and American Religion.

Because in that text, she's wrestling with, in so many regards, a kind of combination or cross talk, if you will pardon the pun, between the works of folks like James cone and her own mentor, Albert Rabito, the late great historian and author of Slave Religion. And Charles Long, who hopefully, if you don't know, you need to know his masterwork Significations and trying to talk about.

All right, what is this religion that we brought with us, right. You know, to quote Delta Slim in the movie. Right. Part of that is the blues. But who do.

And so I want to lift up just quickly a passage out of Rabato's book early on in the text. If. If I were a betting man, I'd say it was around page 25 or 26. But don't hold me to it. He talks about this thing. Kelly just referenced syncretism.

And he says that, okay, in the transition across the Atlantic, across the Middle Passage, right? When the Africans were now introduced to the Christian church, Catholicism, and they were dealing with these.

These Catholic icons and saints, but then also bringing the gods of the old world with them. Right? It was a Strategic choice to say to mix the church house and the praise house, Right?

Because it's better to have two magics or two spiritualities working for you than any of them working against you, right. At all points in time.

Then what you see with Annie when she's confronting smoke and her little shack, how you don't know that all the root I was taught, now I've been working, I've been praying for you, that you and your crazy brother would make it through this world and be in one piece, right?

For people who are caught up in the power of white supremacy and all its destructive forces in modernity to yet and still survive and thrive ain't nothing but tapping into supernatural powers, right? And so I think that's why Annie is so pivotal to the film and then with the blues. And I just gotta say this up front as a Gen Xer. All right.

Any Gen X folks in the house.

Woo.

Lift it up while we still can. Okay? All right. Hopefully arthritis hasn't set in too fast.

But the idea that, at least for me, the idea that the blues had fallen into, in many cases, either cliche or self parody, right? It wasn't a lively or thriving music for my generation, right?

And so to have a film that put blues in a space where it could be sacred, but it could also be sexy, it could also be dangerous, right?

It could also be not just desire, desirable in terms of commodification, but also for healing that when, you know, especially in that car ride with Smoke, Sorry Stack and Delta Slim and Sammy and they pass by the prison chain gang and the idea that even there, the blues in the midst of just clear, raw, uncut oppression, right? The blues had some Catholic, cathartic, some somewhat healing or empowering essence to it, even in the midst of those spaces.

So I'm thankful for nothing else that a reclamation and a redemption even of the blues and we can dismiss it as the devil's music, but that there, there was even some healing or, or some hope within the blues. And I'll stop there.

And more, more on the blues. If you want to know more on the blues, you got to check out this book, Black Bodies and Black Church by Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas.

Right there.

I really want to say that. But what they're calling syncretism, I would probably frame it as multiple religious participation, right?

Like, I think it does a good job of framing black spirituality as is multiple or multiple belongings. Where you see, like the hoodoo, you see the Christian participation and blues as a. In. As a distinctive religious tradition, right?

And I think that's where cone and Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas kind of continues with that is revaluing the blues as. Not as something demonic or the devil music or something outside of church, but as a spiritual alternative. Right. A vehicle for transcendence. Right.

Where the juke joy get. Turns into a sanctuary. And you have like two churches, right. You have the kind of the official institutional church, but you also.

Also have this type of vehicle for transcendence as the juke joint, where the theological question is, how does one meet God? And meet. And you can meet God on multiple groundings and not just in, like, Christian liturgy. Right. And you have. So you. So it's like a re.

Canonization of black spirituality to kind of go outside of. This is why black theology becomes so important.

Because if you look at traditional, traditional Christian theology, you cannot properly understand that movie. Right. You have to break open those categories and invent new categories.

And what we talked about yesterday with how liberation tradition has broken open these type of traditional categories and kind of either dilated, expanded or even innovated new categories for theological understanding.

And this movie is a great example of how they could be remade by looking at the blues tradition and understanding that not just as a aesthetic but as a theological tradition. Right.

Yeah. Let me say a couple of things briefly, building on what was said.

But first, let me say when people continue to reference you and reference your books, for which I am humbled, but that also means you're old.

That means you had something worth noting.

There you go. There you.

No, no, I told you. She made deals with the devil.

They could deal with those. But the juke joint and the church, and. And you're bringing up Albert Rabito and Albert Rabito's book, Slave Religion, the Invisible Institution.

Yeah, that's a book worth getting.

Yeah, I mean, that's. That.

That.

That's the book that reframed for many in the academy and gave a platform for many of us to really begin to talk about black faith.

What I want to point out, though, one of the things as we think about the juke joint and as we think about the black church, even as we see it in this movie, and it, to me, is reflective of the history of the relationship in many ways between the juke joint and the black church. The juke joint becomes the invisible institution to the black church, that the invisible institution was to the white church antebellum periods.

Because what the invisible institution did for black people during slavery, right. Was saying, no, you know, that ain't God. God and Jesus more Than that. And so they. What we want to say is that they kept Christianity alive, right?

It's not an alternative. The alternative was whatever the slaveholder folks were doing, that wasn't Christianity.

And so if we want to think, even sort of symbolically, as we talked about, or I talked about yesterday, black people keeping the vision for democracy alive in their struggles, the invisible institution kept the vision of Christianity alive. And in this regard, the juke joint, that is always sort of in the hush harbors, right?

The juke joint's always somewhere in the backwoods, as it was in this film. And so it's in the hush harbors. The juke joint is responding to the black church.

And it is keeping that black faith tradition and Christianity alive because it is opening up and saying in as much as you aren't speaking to the raw. The folks who live on the raw underside of black. These poor black. These blues people, right? And the blues emerged out of work song.

So it's no sort of accident that we see those scenes. And so the juke joint is essential to the black faith tradition. The juke joint is essential to black theology.

Let me say one more thing, and then I'm gonna.

No, no, no.

So that's that dialectic, you know, and it is about the blues tradition. And that Thomas, that scene at the end becomes so important because without it, they gotta talk to each other.

Because it is the richness of the black faith tradition in all of its multiple belongings. And it keeps black church folks.

It critiques that narrative of respectability that was emerging in the black church that Gay Rod Wilmore called the de radicalization of the black. If you keep singing the blues, then you can keep real black faith alive. And speaking to the blues blues class of the blues people.

The other thing I want to say. And as much as. And then I really am going to shut up. I'm Episcopalian and we don't talk a lot. But you get around Baptist, you gotta talk.

You got a word in edgewise. A word in edgewise, okay.

Even if only to make sense.

But I tell you, they bring it out on me. But the supernatural, yeah, it is that. And not.

Because what it does from the very beginning in this film with the twins and et cetera, is that we see the realities of an African religious tradition and an African sensibility, particularly West African traditions, where there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular. And there is no break between the living and the dead. Right. Life is circular. Albert Rabito talks about that as well.

Yes, most definitely.

And so that the dead are always engaging in life with the living. They always have an impact on the living. And so our task is, how do we relate to and hear those voices? They're always there. They're always present.

And so the black quote, unquote, to use this language. So does it bifurcate. The black dead in this film aren't sucking life like the white dead. They're giving life.

Whiteness, as you said, continues to suck life. And so what happens is, in as much as you were in tune with the ancestors because there's multiple belongings, right? This African religious heritage.

And so. And they are. Even the baby, the twins are always there, you know, the father. They're always.

They're always the dead has an impact on the life of the living. And that in that last scene, they come back. And so. And it's a different reality. It's a different reality. They aren't vampirish. The black dead.

And correct me if I'm wrong, the black dead in this movie aren't vampires. And they're. They're giving life.

The ones that weren't bit. The ones. But the bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ones that invited them in that.

Right, right, right, right, right, right. But, yeah, but, but that. So to me, again, it's like, oh, wow, Yvonne Charol all over.

Yes.

Perfect relationship. Because it is pointing to the way in which we know and we know. We. We. That's black culture. The you pay homage to. The ancestors are there always there.

And. And, and so go ahead.

The ancestors are always there. No, I think that's the thing. And I'm looking at everybody in the audience because this audience would exist nowhere else to talk about this movie.

And so to Kelly's point, we are a hush.

Ooh, Beer camp's a hush harbor.

It's gonna be a hashtag. I'm swimming.

So what is the. What's the theology beer camp now, from our sensibilities, even black Episcopalian. This is sin.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, you get cursed to drink beer and eat popcorn. The popcorn decadent.

Well, Episcopalians do that. Popcorn.

What are we doing? I asked my hus. Happened last night. I said it's not going to end till 6. Aren't they having church in the morning?

How are they going to get things together for church? Right? Because timing matters. The beer camp is an invisible institution. It is a hush harbor. It is a brush arbor.

We are risking privilege and protection by assembling ourselves together right under the cloisters of institutions that are zesty. Right. I got my Vanderbilt Sister in the back and she's wearing camo.

Right.

I mean, I want you to think about that. But what people might. So you're like, we're interested in what the black people are saying about, you know, sinners, which is kind of sexy.

And black people are sexy.

But we want.

The beer. Camp is a hush harbor, and we're all sinners saved by. Not grapes. But in this story, Annie and Mary.

Yeah, forget about Mary.

Yeah.

Now, what you don't understand about the movie. How many people saw the movie Hands. Oh, watch it again.

Because what you don't understand, and it takes people maybe of Adam's hue and not the rest of us, to the east of blackness. What do black people do when black children are born and you don't know who the parent. You look at their ears, right? Ears.

Yeah, yeah.

Remick. Y' all know who Remick is?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The white guy.

Yeah.

He's biracial. He's passing. And the only reason, you know, Mary's passing is why? Cause she's sexy.

Yeah.

And she wants a black man. And they have. And they've come to consensus that passing was happening. When do you know Remick is passing?

I just learned that. I thought he's Irish.

And what do you know about Irish people? But besides documents of Norman colonize.

Colonize, where the saying used to be, if every Irishman would hang a nigger and be killed for it, I don't want anybody who's passing for white. And you're ever to say the N word, no matter who you quote. But the same that Herrnstein and Murray were able to capture, that is every.

If every Irishman could hang a nigger, could kill a nigger and be hung for it, then the Western world and the white race would be pure.

That was the first for beer camp, y'.

All. And that's why beer is appropriate.

In other words, the new communion.

Okay, why can't we drink beer? Not Jack or Hennessy. You know, let the black people feel, you know, welcome. But why is that? Why is that uncle nearest you know.

What I'm saying.

Remick? Do your research. That's why we're scholars. And Mary. And what does Mary. Why is she named Mary? Right? We know it's not a.

This is not a biographical documentary. This is signification. Go back. That's.

That's.

Start with Charles Long. Don't start with Henry. But unless you're gonna do the DNA, right? I mean, there's a long history there. Remick is literally Passing his wife.

Irish people pass as white in the imagination of the Western world.

And they became white, right?

They became white in the same ways. Jews have to decide beyond Passover what race and religion means, right? So what am I saying there? And you only asked one question.

I knew that was gonna happen. I knew it.

Okay?

I knew that was gonna happen.

O, who is the whitest person that we all love the most? Based on our confessions. Hint, hint. And our training, that North African called Augustus who defines sin. See how Baptist.

We take a long road, but we can come back. Sin is disordered, loves. And so when Ruddock has Sonny Boy in the water, and Sonny Boy is the only one, he was coming for Sammy. Thank you, sis.

He says, in the water, he says, oh. Which is much like the Green Goblin in Spider man, right? You remember when Grandma was on her knees? Our Father, who I.

He got down and the Green Goblin came in, said, on earth as it is in heaven, like, I'm not afraid of your little prayers. Reddick said, oh, you love those prayers, too. Oh, they brought comfort to my people, too.

If it wasn't for Reddick, Remic, they would not have known the truth of what really was going down. They would not have known the plan that was gonna make the future history again, which was. You think you have a juke joint?

You think this is a beer camp? Go back to church tomorrow. Go back to your tenure positions tomorrow, and you'll see the hallucination was the freedom you thought you had achieved.

The person who passed the most in history, and the reality, Augustine. That North Africa. We've taken North Africa out of Africa. We made Augustine white the same way we made Jesus white and white. Why did we do that?

Because our loves have been disordered Sinners is not a movie just for black people. It's a movie that speaks to what is red, white and blue and black about our soul.

When we major in the minor chords of lies and we miss what's literally menacing us.

And I think, oh, you're never gonna get to know.

I know.

I was gonna.

There's only one more question. I have. I only have one more.

Well, come on. You better bring it, brother.

No, Stacy, I appreciate you pointing out to me, like, stack and smoke, the red and the blue, making purple. And here we are in Minnesota and talking about purple, blue.

Give that to Amy.

I know. Beautiful. But let's. When we talk about transcendence and the blurring of the L, the dead. Let's talk about the scene.

Yeah, yeah.

The music which blends, which every Time I think about, I get goosebumps. What. Please, would that invoke what?

You know, that's conjure. That's. That's conjure. I mean, Sammy's guitar was a instrument of conjure, which is, which is a way of talking about, I guess, a beer camp language.

Like a theopoesis, right? Like a, a kind of God making, God shaping in terms of that.

Robert Taylor at the, at the CR Crossroads.

And Robert Taylor is bringing worlds into existence and bringing them into dialogue with each other in ways that they had not been bought into dialogue and in connection with each other before. And it didn't scare Robert Taylor, but it scared everybody else.

Everybody else.

Sammy is Robert.

Yeah.

So anyway, go ahead.

No.

Oh, you were, you weren't going.

But the crossroads, that's even where that he scared.

That's Papa Legba. That's Papa Legba. In terms of. That's Legba right there. Right?

That's, that's the Haitian luau for, you know, some people, well, Westerners translated that as demonic. That's why you have this, all this Satan in it.

But really, that's the Haitian Vudan lawow, which is like kind of this spiritual power that talks about being at the crossworlds. It's a messenger between humans and the divine and more of a portal and a gateway to the transcendent. Right. And that's what that represented.

That's why I was talking about that gateway.

And that's why he comes after Sam. Sam is that gateway.

He's Robert Taylor.

He's at the crossroads. Go.

Absolutely.

But what we also have to think about here, and I, I, I'm loving the, the crosstalk, literally, that's going on here at the panel, right.

The idea of, and I'm going to push back a little bit in terms of why I don't think we can or should abandon the notion of syncretized religious, but also wrestling with the colonized religion.

When, when the movie starts and the voiceover, Annie's voiceover to the movie is talking about the Irish, the indigenous and the African situation with that, that, that musicality as an access point for eternity, right. And being able to cross between the living and the dead and the past, the present and the future, Right. You know, Kairos and Chronos melding in that.

So when we get to the theme, right. The idea that in that space and when, you know, suddenly Sammy is just letting rip, right.

You know, what's the name of the song? I lied to you.

I lied to you, I lied to you. Right. And he's giving this over in, you know, in honor and loving affection to his father, who he has a complicated relationship with.

So first and foremost, right, anybody who thinks that, you know, the movie's anti God or anti. Anti Jesus. No, he.

I think Coogler and company are anti religious in terms of religious authority, hegemony, orthodoxy that wants to make religion conform to. To the ways and. And the wishes and I think the sinfulness of this world institutionalized. There you go. There you go.

You know, and I'm refuting and rejecting this thing by Max Mueller. Okay? This is a hot take, of course, but you know that all. All religions are great that have a great book at the center of them.

No, when you're dealing with hoodoo, when you're dealing with the blues, right, it's an unscripted religion, right? It's a source of power that doesn't have to bend or bow down to scriptural. Scriptural interpretation or literation.

But, you know, let me get to my point, right? The idea that at this crossroads moment, right, And Sami is able to bring a convergence where you see, you know, the.

The gang bangers, Crip walking, and you can see, you know, somebody from Parliament Funkadelic, you know, wailing away on a guitar, and you can see the DJ on the turntables, and you can see the. The Praise dancers. Oh, come on.

It's a.

It's.

Yeah. And even the roof.

The roof.

The roof is on fire. You know, we don't need no water.

Shot of Good Times.

Yes, Right. You know, I mean, because there's a visual cue here, too, to the point of that Stacy and Kelly have also brought to the table, where for me, I'm.

You don't get to say.

I don't have permission. Okay, okay. Don't speak the truth. Okay, But. But, you know, I mean, I'm.

Because if we think about this, right, you know, Sammy, okay, this might seem like another controversial hot take. And maybe I'm not authorized to say it, but we'll let you know. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Keep me posted. That Sammy, in some ways, being an inversion of Suge Avery.

And when Sammy returns to the church house versus Shug, if you remember, in that classic scene when she's crossing over to the church house, Shug is submitting and surrendering to her preacher father, whereas Sammy is saying, no, I'm gonna go my own way. I'm gonna hold on to these blues.

No Actually, come on now. We won't muddle things. But Shug dies.

Y.

Because Shug actually becomes a vampire in Sinners. So she doesn't. She doesn't become trans. She. She is the woman who was cheating with Sammy when she was. If you're gonna put them together.

Okay, okay. Melda is the one.

One who died as a vampire.

And the other.

She's not.

Right. But the only other thing I wanted to say since we talk about Suge is in that movie Shug.

In so many respects, Ref in Color Purple reflects what many blues women did.

All right.

Which is give up their life for a large scent. Right. Literally disorder them so you can be rightfully ordered and removed.

Right.

Okay.

Which is always the price that women pay.

Right.

So the purple in this story.

Oh, Juan, I'm.

I'm here. I'm here. I'm. I'm riding. I'm riding.

Is that women? I'm like. Whether we're. No matter who we're talking about, the women lose to the hysteria and the history of the men in the narrative. So.

But this is not the woman that's the kind of sinners. This is just sinners. The women get sacrificed.

Literally. Yeah.

Sacrificed. The women were the most valuable and the most transformed. Think about it.

And they got the shortest end of the stick because men were stacking and smoking.

So whether we're talking about Asian women, whether we're talking about root women, whether we're talking about biracial women, whether we're talking about privileged women, they lose. They become the body broken on the altar of sacrifice. Not for whiteness, but a patriarchy. A male gods that must serve men.

Yeah. And so. And to your.

Yes, but that you open that door.

Let'S walk on in together. Let's walk through it together.

Say.

And to your point, if we're going to talk about. And yes. And if we're going to talk about Sammy in relationship to Suge and to.

Cuz Sammy doesn't even have a mama. How about that?

Right, Right.

And she. His mama's there, but silent is.

Is there beside. And to put to Mel on the bone or meat on the bones of what you just said, Stacy.

He.

Sammy was able. In the way in which blues women and Suge wasn' to do. He was able to be able to bring those two together and not give up himself.

And all the women died.

Right. Because he had his maleness. And so he was able and blessing.

Not just maleness.

Yeah.

Of his daddy.

And blues women didn't get that in a male Centered black church that was playing into the models of masculinity and playing into the models of evangelical Protestant puritans invaded that church.

Church.

And so the woman. And that blues women didn't have a place to stand.

All right?

So what actually happened was many of them had to give up the blues in order to become a part of the church, and men didn't.

And their blues were their bodies that led on the altar and the blues.

Out of there, by the way. So since you said that, I just want to protect sh. Oh, okay.

Cover part.

Okay.

That's gonna be clear.

And I like salmon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, but I just want to be clear.

Okay, okay. Don't muddy the waters.

Don't muddy the waters.

No love. No love. Okay.

All right. You know, because someone like Bessie Smith.

Ended up dying versus Ma Rainey. Okay, let's go give.

Give up her boots. So. Right. So let's just be clear. The other thing. Just, you know, just an aside not to.

No, no.

The historical moments, the Asian women, one of the women and the Asians in this film, and one of the things that people don't know historically is the strong Asian, particularly Chinese community was that was down there at that time, which was a beautiful.

In the Delta, historical, educational fact.

That's right.

That we will not get in the classroom.

There was a strong, strong Chinese community in the Delta, in the Mississippi Delta at the turn of the century.

In the same way, there's a Korean and Vietnamese presence.

That's right.

In the African American.

And what they represented in that film was an actual historical representation, particularly in terms of the way in which the.

Stores operated, commerce and capital.

Also the natives, the Choctaw, that's discernment.

Now the Choctaw, they had enough sense.

Leave them alone.

Discernment. That was spiritual.

Yeah, yeah.

One was commerce and capital based on day to day community, and the other one was transcendent. When you're talking about the Choctaw, it was a prophetic. The Choctaw were. This is our land. Right, Right from New York Island. Right.

I mean, so they're like, we know this. This is our land. We know their ways, and we're giving a warning.

So one was about discernment and the other one was about knowing how to make deliberate choices in community. So there was a way to. The Choctaw were not a part of the day to day reality, but they were the same prophetic spiritual realm.

Whereas the Asians in the market, who literally loved, they were more excited or just more excited to See, at least smoke come back into town.

That's right.

Than any black people were.

Right.

They realized we have a romanticized understanding of who you were, a communal understanding, and we're in solidarity. And the intergenerational and gender dynamics were different. Right. The wife was saying, listen, he ain't bringing no money in. You keep him out.

And the daughter was saying something sus. And we don't know if the daughter was saying something sus because of her own amelioration or her own black racism. But one, there's a difference.

And there's a fine line between love and hate and between the spirit and the secular, which is what sinners is about again, the disordered loves.

What is that fine line of where the God we serve and the God who serves us, and how much do we embody that or must the other embody that for us to believe it's real? So I think that is a class, gender, racial and ethnic balance which I think that we're seeing here this weekend.

You got something else to say?

Yes, he did it.

No, I. I knew 100%, like a couple questions you guys asked like that, but I do. I don't know if we want to take some. Some thoughts from out there, if there's a point that resonated with you or a question you're want to ask.

You got a hand in the back.

So forgive you for hearing this wrong, but it sounds to me that you guys are saying that the.

The blues are the.

The groaning of the community in this movie culture. I want to know what groaning do you hear today? What does that sound like.

Specifically music.

To listen to, but yeah, just to repeat for the pot. So you're saying, if I'm repeating correctly, the blues represents the groaning in this particular movie.

And if we're going to apply that to what we're experiencing today, what are some of the groanings that you hear or experience out in the world that could become your own blues song or being resonated or played out into the world?

What we're grappling with here, and this is. Is what I was wrestling with in terms of. And once again lovingly pushing back on this notion about syncretized religion. What the blues.

What hip hop, what, you know. You know, come on down bad bummy, we're waiting for you. You know, great.

We're going to be hearing especially, you know, one of the other courses I teach at Vanderbilt is It's been a minute, but race, religion and protest music. And one of the things that I've at least Landed on, you know, Stacy and I also teach a course on the moral philosophy of black popular culture.

So this is all, you know, all in the mix. You know, hard times make for great music, right?

And I think, you know, if, you know, if the past is prologue, we're about to witness an unveiling and an unleashing of music that we haven't imagined yet, right? But because the issue is that in this authoritarian age, the artist is going to have to do what we have not been able to do for ourselves.

Reimagine a world, remake a world. And this goes back to something that Kelly was saying on yesterday. Open the space of the imaginary and make it possible.

This might be a little bit off book, but I'm going to go there.

But part of his statement, there is, there comes a time when people are done with oppression, done with that.

This.

If we are wrong, right? And then he goes into this refrain, if we are wrong, then the Constitution is a lie, right?

And then if we were wrong, Jesus was nothing more than a utopian dreamer, right? And that line always kind of, you know, digs a little sharp blade in me, right?

Because the idea that when did utopia become a bad or dirty word even, you know, coming off the lips of Dr. King, right? You know, the man who is, you know, not known globally for I have a Dream.

But the idea of what he was trying to do via Negativa is trying to say in the world out there. Now I'm going to mix King with Toni Morrison out there, you know, Baby Suggs sermon, right?

You know, over there, they don't love this flesh out there, they don't love, you know, your unused neck, right? To imagine a realm of possibility where your humanity is not a mockery, a joke or a slander, but it's actually God's gift to the world.

And that is what black religion and then not just a syncretized fashion. Because let's think about this, right?

Nowhere in the Bible that I've read, you know, cover to cover and everything in between is there a magical bunny that poops jelly beans or hard boiled painted eggs. And nowhere in that Bible is there a jolly fat man that slides down your chimney and gives you Gifts because you didn't deserve them.

Nowhere in that Bible is there a Saint Patric turn beer green.

I mean, many of our greatest traditions and our faith practices are syncretized, but it's only a slander or mockery when it's attached to black bodies and black hope and black freedom.

So part of what we wrestle with about syncretism or the syncretized is really mainstream or mainline religions wanting a sanitized faith domesticated. Yeah, yeah. Tame, right? Yeah, yeah. Neutered. Some people might say we got to have a wild, unruly faith, and art helps us get to that.

Yeah.

So can I. Yeah.

I would just add Kendrick Lamar.

Yay.

Tupac.

You know, maybe Cardi on a good day.

You know, one. Because I'm gonna say somebody else. But yes, Kendrick. I love Kendrick Lamar.

And, you know, the thing about art and black art, but in particular in this.

In this instance in which we're speaking, there has always been an arts movement that has prefigured in many ways and opened up, as I call it, the moral imaginary, art, as, you know, some have called it art as protest. James Weldon Johnson talked about art as that which would in. Enable us to talk about race through art.

I always say, the artist has, like, that third eye.

Yeah, yeah.

That allows us to capture worlds that we can otherwise not capture. That's why folks like Morrison, Baldwin, Alvin Ailey.

Oh, my God.

Have you.

I mean, if you haven't seen the. The tribute to Judith Jamison, you gotta see it. Stream it. Alvin Ailey and dance.

Cry.

Yeah, cry, remember, reflect. I mean, these people are taking you to places that in seeing worlds, you can't see. So art. Art is significant. And there has always been.

For every black movement toward progress, there's always been a black arts movement. And so I say that we're sitting here talking about centers. Where do you see? Would you see it? These people are making these movies.

They're making sinners. We can say things in art form. It's like the safe space, you know, and maybe ice won't come after us, at least not so art allows you to do that.

And black artists, the blues, the spirituals, they're art. You know, them people were saying in the blues and art, they couldn't just go up to somebody white and say it. But they.

And white people didn't understand it anyway when they sang it. And so. But art has always been that vehicle. I mean, that.

It's been that space, and it's also been that place to open us up to otherwise possibilities. The other. So dance, et cetera. There was one last point. And when you get old, you forget the point. Even when they walk.

Even when you're walking into the pantry with the bowl.

But, oh, the artist. And I'd say that. That I would bring to the table. And I don't want to say something about her. This last concert is what Beyonce does in concert.

If you saw Cowboy Carter, that concert. Anyone see that Cowboy Carter concert, what she had moving through that was like, oh, my God. This woman saw Renaissance and thought that was great.

And it was. But when I saw Cowboy Carter, she has the ancestors talking all through the thing. She's showing.

She's showing as a non scholar, as a non clergy.

She is showing on the back, on the screen, she has this film running through, showing these black artists, these black country artists, let alone, if you listen to what she's singing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And let alone that this, everyone. Oh, this black woman doing country in the white folks. Why is she taking over country? Honey, y' all took over country from us.

That's what the blues.

That's what the blues.

Help us.

Help us.

Let's be real. And Beyonce, anything that's original music form in this country came from us. And so. And that's true.

And James Weldon Johnson made that clear a long time ago.

Okay?

And so Beyonce, to me, that's why power doesn't like these people. That's why power that we have in place. Don't like Kendrick Lamar. That's why. Why they gonna pick on Beyonce. That's why they don't like Beyonce.

That's why. I liked Bad Bunny before Bad Bunny became Bad Bunny.

Like, all right. I mean, I like.

Cuz I, I listen. I will admit that. I. I ride Peloton all the time.

Okay?

Bunny is popular on Peloton, so I was first mentioned.

He's a wiz at Zumba too. Okay.

He's a bad Bunny.

We. We be remiss if we don't mention Prince in Minneapolis.

Hello.

He did that.

Amy, I'm talking about specifically for this, about the artist, especially sign of the.

Times when he talks about Saw things before.

That's right, yo.

Right, right, right. No, he's cheap.

Respect.

Stacy did mention. I want to acknowledge Stacy.

Right, right.

But see how the women get written out of his stuff.

Oh, my gosh. Not counting the women and children. Okay, here we go.

Not in karaoke.

No, I'm just. I've reconnected it to this specific question. That was a different question. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Paisley Park. All right.

Went to Ohio on his own from Ohio. But yeah. Who knew you were going to get a sermon on your question?

Yeah, great.

Love it.

We're out of time, but I can just say that this is everything I wanted in this.

Can I. Since we have two minutes and I'm about this, I just want to make a little homage, first of all, to this group and really to Trip Fuller.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who God works in mysterious ways. And we never know the vessel that we are.

I mean, whether we're talking about Trip, whether we're talking about Amy, whether we're talking about Lee, who is the most proud member of the NAACP up in here in this white form, or any of these people on this panel, as a mother, as a mother representing mothers, as part of. As. This panel comes as far by faith, which means we've come this far by family, and it's our family who's given us our faith.

I want to leave for you all as a benediction that's become an assembly, a hush harbor family.

When I gave to my daughter in a letter, my daughter who's on the front row, who has been vexed and victimized by being here on her spring fall break with her parents. And she's ashamed to realize her father is the geek and the nerd that he is. But her mother's yet cool. She wants to be a film writer.

She wants to be a screenwriter. And she said, and if that doesn't work out, you know, maybe on the side, I'll teach just to pay the bills.

I said, I want you to remember that that is what we do. We teach the. And I told her when at the Beginning of her 11th grade year, these words I was. She doesn't think I pay.

ATT mentioned because she and her father geek out with popular culture more than I did. And I listed a lot of movies, a lot of comics, and the last one I gave her was Sinners.

I said, remember Sinners, which was a movie that showed you how to remember the stride towards freedom, personal joy, and cultural pride. That there are dynamics are always being threatened by the illusion and dangers of unchecked power, whether through financial or supernatural means.

Don't fall into the trap, Lillian, of blurring reality by living in other people's false promises and projections that become prisons inhabited by dreamlike sequences and supernatural elements that blur the lines between a reality and imagination, challenging you to question the nature of truth, perception, lies or legacies. Keep the God that was birthed in you in you. Don't invite the devils in to confuse you, confound you, kiss you or bite you.

Hold fast to keeping your faith, informing your gifts to bring humanity harmony and hope to that which is already divine within you.

Don't let stacking up wealth or the smoke of ambiguity compromise the depth of your faith, of your beauty and the affirmation of your health and your holy human experience. My love to my daughter is a gift that I revealed to you all. We already have it. Don't let. Don't stack it up because you won't be able to tap into it.

And please don't let it go up in smoke.

All right?

Hey.