The Justice Briefing with Dr. Jemar Tisby

How should we think about the Fourth of July, a day dedicated to celebrating independence and freedom, in light of the unfreedom of race-based chattel slavery?What do we do about the fact that of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence 41 of them held slaves?Do those noble words of the Declaration stating that “all men are created equal” apply to anyone other than wealthy white men?Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved 19th century abolitionist, has something to say.We take his speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July” as our primary text for exploring the tension between liberty and bondage in U.S. history.Listen and share! Right now, curricula across this country are being rewritten to erase exactly the tension Douglass named in 1852. Subscribe and make sure this history does not get edited out from under you. JemarTisby.Substack.com

As the country marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, one claim is everywhere: the United States was founded as a Christian nation. In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby refuses the flat yes or no and insists on the first move any honest answer requires, which is to define the terms. If "Christian nation" means a country shaped by Christians and their ethics? Does it mean a government with an official, state-sanctioned church?History has the receipts, Dr. Tisby walks through the primary sources, from Article VI and the First Amendment to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and the Treaty of Tripoli, and he traces the longer backstory of Henry VIII and the colonists who fled state religion. In This EpisodeWhy "define your terms" is the first move in answering the Christian nation questionThe sense in which the claim is true and the sense in which it is falseHistory has the receipts: Article VI, the First Amendment, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and the Treaty of TripoliHenry VIII, the Act of Supremacy, and why colonists fled state religionThe difference between the separation of church and state and the separation of faith and politicsThe Enlightenment roots of the DeclarationWhat white Christian nationalists actually mean, and why the slogan works as a permission structure for powerResources ReferencedThe Christian Past That Wasn't: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths That Hijack History by Warren ThrockmortonThe Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance by Jemar TisbyThe Color of Compromise (book and video study) by Jemar TisbyRededicate 250, National Mall, May 17, 2026Primary sources: Article VI of the U.S. Constitution; the First Amendment; the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786); the Treaty of Tripoli (1797); the Act of Supremacy (1534); John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil GovernmentSupport the ShowSupport The Justice Briefing by subscribing at JemarTisby.Substack.com, where Dr. Tisby brings the receipts every week so you can answer questions like this one from an informed perspective.

The argument over which history gets told is never over

In this episode of The Justice Briefing, Dr. Jemar Tisby breaks down the Southern Baptist Convention's recent vote to amend its constitution—by a 77 percent margin—banning women from preaching to assembled congregations.Dr. Tisby draws on his own history with the SBC to offer an insider's analysis of what the Truth and Unity Amendment actually says, why Al Mohler pushed for it, and what the election of new SBC president Willy Rice signals about the denomination's continued rightward turn.But Dr. Tisby goes deeper than the headlines.Tracing the SBC's origins back to 1844 and the case of James Reeve—an enslaver whose deliberate nomination as a missionary candidate was the spark that led to the denomination's founding—Dr. Tisby makes the case that the SBC's patriarchy and its racism are not two separate problems that happen to coexist.They share a common theological architecture: the divine sanctioning of hierarchy, the use of Scripture to compel submission, and the punishment of those who resist.From the household codes that justified chattel slavery to the amendment that just passed, the logic is the same, and understanding that connection, Dr. Tisby argues, is essential to understanding what faithful resistance must look like today.In This Episode...The Truth and Unity Amendment, what it says, and why Al Mohler pushed for it even though the restriction on women pastors was already denominational policyThe case of James Reeve—the 1844 missionary nomination that was a deliberate pro-slavery provocation and led directly to the founding of the SBCHow the biblical defense of racial hierarchy and the biblical defense of gender hierarchy draw from the same New Testament household codesThe “purity of white womanhood” trope—how white women were simultaneously subordinated to white men and weaponized against Black peopleSaddleback Church, Beth Moore, and the enforcement mechanisms the SBC already had in place before this amendmentThe parallel between the SBC’s centralizing of authority and unitary executive theory in the Trump administrationThe election of Willie Rice as SBC president and what it signals about the denomination’s further rightward turnWhy you cannot address patriarchy in the SBC without also addressing its racism and why the denomination is case in pointI believe women are called and qualified to preach and pastor. And I name the links between racism and patriarchy. If that’s the kind of insight you value, become a paid subscriber. JemarTisby.Substack.comHost a screening of Jesus Was a Migrant: jesuswasamigrant.com

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