We Are All One Family with David Docusen
Welcome back to another installment of Born on Third, this week on the show I welcome Pastor, serial non-profit entrepreneur, and author of the book Neighborliness: Love Like Jesus. Cross Dividing Lines. Transform Your Community, David Docusen.
In this episode, David speaks on the hypocrisy we see in religious texts and how it addresses contemporary issues like economic divide, race, and sexual orientation. As a person who experienced living on both 3rd and 1st base, David points out the biases we are conditioned to believe and practice, even if it’s subconscious. Learning through these biases is one of the many ways David is combating these predispositions to help us understand that, as he perfectly puts it, we are all one family.
Key Takeaways:
- Reconciliation vs conciliation; to reconcile means to go back to a preexisting state when what we’re looking for is a new start
- Christianity and atheism are not mutually exclusive when it comes to being empathetic, virtuous, and inclusive
- The spirit of neighborliness goes beyond doing good deeds, its setting your biases aside to unify, understand, and grow with conviction
Episode Highlights:
[00:00] introduction to David Docusen
[06:01] What base were you born on?
[07:51] The journey to writing Neighborliness
[13:14] Weaponized religion
[16:11] The hypocrisy of religion
[21:40] Following the word of Jesus vs following Jesus
[25:40] “We are all one family”
[27:51] Embody the spirit of neighborliness
[30:31] Admitting we all have biases
[36:05] Reconciliation
[44:37] Making an impact in your community
Quotes:
- “If we’re not willing to acknowledge that there’s some advantage that has been given to white people in our country, then you are just making a bunch of noise”
- “There are some that would resonate with my faith background and some that may find that to be off putting, and I say let’s just have a conversation together”
- “I don’t want you to follow Jesus, I want you to embody his life and his presence to the world around you”
- “I think that if we actually behaved like Jesus, we would go in and build relationships and not throw down religious law”
- “The inevitable outcome to division is conflict, violence, and death”
- “Jesus wasn’t trying to win arguments; he was trying to build relationships”
- “We can learn so much and [yet] never do anything of substance to our community”
- “Systems can change because systems are made of people”
Learn more about the mission of Neighborliness here