Interview with the Childers Family

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the word of God and the doctrines of grace. The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along. Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Introducing the Childers Family and the Purpose of the Interview

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. We have a special episode today. I have in studio with me three guests. One is my lovely wife, Jennifer. And also I have as a guest, two of our church members, Gary and Cindy Childers.

Hi everybody.

Hi.

It's good to have you all here. Now, I hope that everyone who's listening to this can hear well. We're doing something a little bit different with the way that we're recording. Hopefully there won't be too much of an echo and hopefully you'll be able to hear everybody's voice nice and clear.

Now, I wanna explain kind of what I'm doing today. I've invited Gary and Cindy to the program. They're a wonderful couple from our church and to share some of their personal testimony and to talk about their life.

Now, they are a couple, a mixed couple. Gary is a white man and Cindy is a black woman. We're in a situation right now in our world where race is a huge issue. And you two have been such an encouragement to me.

You've been married how many years now, Gary?

35 years.

35 years and you've loved each other. And I see your love for one another. I see your love for your children. I see your love for your grandchildren. And I know that when I look out at the world, I see a world divided and it's divided a lot of times on the line of race.

And I think that this would be good for our church as well as people outside of our church to hear about your personal life, your testimony. I'm not gonna try to dig too deep into your own personal life, but I wanna ask you some questions about your experience in America as a white man married to a black woman, a black woman married to a white man.

And my wife is here. She may interject some thoughts at some time. We're just gonna have a conversation and we hope that everybody who's listening will be encouraged and edified by this. Now, I've already asked the first question.

That's how long have you been married? I wanna ask you this. What first attracted you to each other? Gary, what first attracted you to Cindy?

What First Attracted Them to Each Other

Well, at first I didn't know any black women. I had never met a black girl from New Mexico. That's the first thing, right? So I'd never met a black woman. But what attracted me to her was her smile to tell you the truth.

So I loved her smile and her personality, right? And that's basically what attracted me to her.

Awesome.

Cindy, what attracted you to this man here?

Well, a few weeks after I first met Gary, I was attracted to his kindness. He was very kind, very generous. I don't know his motivation for his generosity, but he was very generous. And so that's what attracted me.

He liked you, so he was generous? And okay, and you both were not saved.

No.

Right?

Yeah, I was a raised Catholic.

Okay.

So I'm coming from a Catholic background. Cindy, I don't know, you were raised.

I was in church three days out of a week. I was unsaved. But we were definitely unsaved when we were married. We were definitely worldly, definitely in the world.

And you're both in the military, right?

Yes.

So I went into the military when I was 18 years old. I was into baseball, so I played a lot of baseball, and that was my thing. Went into the military at 18. My dad gave me a choice. You go back to college, you go to the military, but you ain't living here.

So I had to make a choice or a decision at that point, right? So I did go into the military. Cindy and I met in Beeville, Texas. That's where we were stationed at together. And we got married. Well, to tell you the truth, when we first got married, we were hungover.

We were feeling really bad the next day. And I didn't have a ring, so I had to get a ring later. Our marriage didn't start off on rose petals at all. It was difficult. We were into the party life of being a sailor and her being a sailor.

So we didn't start off on the right footing. Of course, like Cindy said, like we said, we weren't saved. So it was, we didn't know anything about that. And I was Catholic as long as I made it to the confessional.

It was like shaking up the Etch-a-Sketch. It all went away.

It all went away. So I was good then, right? So whatever we were doing wrong and bad and sinful, the Etch-a-Sketch took it away.

Yeah.

Well, Jennifer and I, when we got saved, we weren't, excuse me, when we got married, we were not saved either. And so I'm sure if we went back and forth with sinful stories, we could probably fill a book.

But by God's grace. Yeah, but God saved us and saved you guys. And that's wonderful. When you first got together, were there any people who tried to discourage your relationship because you were a mixed couple?

Opposition to Their Mixed Marriage and Early Marriage Struggles

Well, I, Gary, some of my male friends, they gave Gary a hard time for dating, as they call it, a sister, right before we got married. My parents gave us a year. Gary's parents gave us six months, but it had nothing to do with race.

They just thought we didn't know each other long enough. So they didn't give us a long time spent to be married.

Oh, wow. So it was like, you guys aren't gonna last.

Right.

That was the attitude.

That was the attitude.

So I got a lot of, I don't know, the dudes that she used to hang out with, right, they didn't like me. So we had a lot of issues. So we got a lot of arguments and fights and stuff like that when we were young.

So that was kind of an issue back then.

How long into the marriage did y 'all become believers?

Five years.

Did y 'all, same time?

I was first. Matter of fact, we was on our way, probably to divorce court right before the Lord saved us. Had nothing to do with racial questions of leather. We were just partiers and we were just foolish.

But five years into the marriage, God saved me. And Gary was unsaved for like, I think a year. Yeah, and then God saved Gary.

It was terrible. It was, the first five years of our marriage were absolutely horrid. We partied, we drank, we did things we shouldn't have been doing. And it was always argument. It was just a terrible situation, right, until five years.

Then Cindy got saved. And I was like, oh, now what am I gonna do? Who am I gonna party with? Who am I gonna go with? Who am I gonna hang out with? All that kind of stuff, right. But God, right, it's amazing how God changes somebody.

And I used to go to church with her in California and I'd be smelling like smoke and liquor. And then she, but she would stick with me, right. She stuck with me, she stayed with me. We got separated for a minute because we're waiting on orders, getting ready to go on, get different orders.

So she went down with her sister and helped take care of them. And during that time period, I drank and drank and drank. Then when we moved up to Oak Harbor, Washington, I came to know the Lord, right.

So it was quite the experience, actually.

But none of the problems ever had anything to do with race.

Oh, okay.

At that point, it was just no race. Racism never gave us any problems. There were people on the outside of the marriage, a few ladies, I should say, that had a few problems. As a matter of fact, when we got to Washington State, the first young lady the Lord brought in my house, she said, you know, I'm, she swiped, she said, you know, I'm angry with you.

And I was like, well, why? She said, what are you doing marrying outside of your race? And then I said, well, you know, I didn't marry a dog or anything like that. I married a man.

That's a, thanks, man.

That's an awesome man.

That's right, that guy.

Not a dog.

And she said, well, that's just the way I was raised. You're not supposed to marry outside of your race. And that young lady ended up being one of my best friends. The Lord allowed me inside of their life and their marriage and all these different things.

But it started off rocky with her, but God won out in the end. We ended up having Bible study and prayer time together. And so that didn't remain an issue at all.

Amen. Amen. Now, what was your, do you remember your first church that y 'all joined after getting saved?

Oak Harbor, somebody's got.

Okay.

So you weren't reformed then?

No.

Okay, so that's been an evolution as well. Throughout your time in churches, and because I know even before us, you were at a different church, and then obviously you've, because of military, moved around.

Have you experienced from Christians an overall sense of welcome, or have there been those within the church who have expressed the same type of prejudice that you get maybe from the outside?

I don't think it's been the same type of prejudice. Now, in just, it was far and few in between. There wasn't any, basically we was welcomed.

Okay.

Basically we was welcomed. Now, there have been a few individuals that had a problem, but basically we were welcomed. I've never felt out of place at all, ever. There've been a few individuals I've had to deal with, but they have remained my friends, even to this day.

And so I think it was just something that was in their life at that time, and God used this black lady just to bring something up and out of them. And like I said, now we're friends to this day.

That's awesome.

Yes.

Now, I do want to ask you a question that I didn't have on my list, but it just kind of came to my mind. Churches tend to be the more, one of the most segregated places in the United States. There's black churches and white churches, and that's pretty much understood.

It's almost like, I always joke, I always say the only place that's more segregated is funeral homes, because I used to work in funeral homes, and there's black funeral homes and white funeral homes. I don't know if you know that, but a lot of places are, it's just the way it is, and it's unfortunate, but there's not a lot of, so throughout your time in churches, have you guys been a part of majority white churches or majority black churches?

All white churches.

All white churches, okay.

We've never been a part of a black church.

Okay.

Cindy's ministry to white women.

Cindy has a ministry to white women, okay. That's what she says. I like it, that's great, okay.

I like that.

Yeah, and I'll say, I'll bring my wife in for a second. Jennifer, Cindy's been an encouragement to you.

Yes, she has.

And tell us about that, just for a second.

I love Cindy. From day one, moment one, when I met her, I've never had anybody pray for me or pray with me like you, Cindy.

Ms. Cindy is an intense prayer, and I say that with all encouragement. That is not in any way to be negative. When Ms. Cindy prays for you, you done been prayed for. I mean, she prays for you, and I appreciate that, and I'm very encouraged by your prayer.

In fact, when we end, I'm gonna get you to pray for us, and we're gonna pray when we close. But I do wanna get on to some more of a broader issue, because I talked about your experience and what you've dealt with in churches.

Whether Racism Is the Church's Biggest Problem

As you both know, our nation is at a point where the subject of racism is always being talked about. It's on the minds of everybody all the time, and as a result of that, there are people who are saying that racism is the most important issue facing the church today.

Would you guys think, do you guys think that's true, that racism is the biggest threat, the biggest problem facing the church today?

Not at all, not racism.

Okay.

I think it's a lie straight from the pits of hell. I do not believe racism even tops that list inside of churches. The biggest problem with churches and outside of churches is that people need to be born again, and that has nothing to do with the color of anyone's skin.

So how do you think churches should address racism?

I don't think they should. I think if an individual goes to a pastor or elder and they're having a problem within themselves about a different person, it should be discussed there, but an overall topic to bring to a church, I don't think that's appropriate.

I think the gospel is appropriate. The gospel is what changes the heart.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Like we were talking earlier, we try to fix things that don't need to be fixed, and we put our own agendas, and we put our own criticisms and prejudices inside that, and we try to fix these things, and that just doesn't need to be fixed sometimes.

And like you said earlier, sometimes we get in trouble because we're trying to fix things that don't need to be fixed, and that's what I feel about racism. I think, as we were discussing earlier, there's no such thing as racism anyway.

God made all human beings, made us one race, and I think when you focus in on a specific group of people and try to fix this or that, then you open the door with playing to an audience. You open the door to actually other sins coming in because you're trying to please this group of people, and you're trying to bring in things that you think pleases a group of people.

And we know that's not what Christ called us to do. Christ called us to bring the gospel because it's what changes people.

Recently, I had an opportunity to visit another church, and someone shared with me a letter that they had received, and the letter stated that any pastor who's not preaching against racism is complicit in white supremacy.

And I got to see this letter, and I was stunned because while I would say hating someone because of the color of their skin is wrong, I'm not making racism the platform of my preaching. I'm preaching the scriptures and the gospel and calling all people, no matter what color, to repentance and faith in Christ.

But basically, what the letter essentially was saying was if you are not adopting the social justice, systemic racism line, then you are a white supremacist, you're complicit with that. How would you respond if somebody said that, either one of you, if somebody came to you and they said, your pastor isn't preaching social justice, your pastor isn't preaching systemic racism, he's not preaching the gospel?

Well, we had our friends from another church just recently ask us basically the same question. And they asked us for some guidance on the systemic issues, systemic racism, and some of these issues that they were having, because the pastor of the church was...

Leading towards social justice, opposed to gospel, I'm sorry.

Yeah, and it was starting to divide the elders and that group of people, right? So that's, and I told, one of the things that I told him, right, was when you start to put groups, people in groups, when you try to make, please people, then you're starting to lose focus on, you will have a problem with, when you try to discipline somebody, right?

Because you're trying to... Church discipline. Church discipline. If you're trying to focus on her, on my wife Cindy, because she's black, then you're gonna have issues, right? With church discipline in that area.

Because it's like this, okay? If you're trying to apologize for things that happened in the past, or saying that I need certain things because I'm black, then your focus is to please Cindy, and not to please the Lord.

And that's not what God called any of us to do. God called us to be servants of Jesus Christ. God called us to bring the gospel to people that he put in our sphere. That's what God called us to do. Not for me, or you, or anyone else to look at individuals and say, because they're black, and they're victims, so they need to have this, and so we need to give them that, and so we need to apologize over here, or over there.

That's, when you really stop and think about that, that's really an insult first to Christ, because that's not what Christ said. Okay, that's first, that's an insult to him. And then, it's an insult to the people that you are trying to please, because you're saying, I was born a victim.

I was born a victim, so I need special care, or special attention. That's a bunch of crock.

Yeah, that's fine, and I agree. I recently heard a pastor, very famous pastor, I'm not gonna mention his name, but he's, if I mentioned his name, everyone listening would know. He was speaking about his attempt to reach some type of social justice within his own church, and he said, if I had a choice between, if I was choosing an elder, and I had a choice between a white eight, and a black seven, I would choose the black seven, and you know what I mean by eight, but yeah, out of 10, eight out of 10, nine.

And basically what he was saying, because that person has been the victim of systemic racism, therefore that person deserves to go over the other person, even though the other person would be one more step qualified, or one more higher.

I mean, when I heard that, I was offended for the person.

That in itself is racist right there. Just what he said is racist.

Yeah, and what's the sad thing is, that's applauded. That's what the world is applauding, is that type of, I think, misunderstanding about who we are in Christ.

And so what if the Lord had a chose the eight, then you're gonna step over what the Lord has chosen, and you go get the seven?

Yeah, amen, yeah. All right, so I'm gonna start wrapping it up. I have a couple of very quick questions. These are not rapid fire, but these are kind of things that I don't do a lot of politics on Coffee with the Calvinists, but I do address some things.

A few weeks ago, I addressed the pastor who spoke out against our president. Did you guys hear that?

Yes.

Pastor Jim Wallace, or Reverend Jim Wallace, he said, nobody should vote for Trump if you're a Christian. And I responded because I did four shows about that guy, because I felt like he was so far to the left, and so I'm willing to say I'm a conservative, I'm a believing Christian, I'm a Republican, and I support our president currently, not as a particularly moral individual, but as I believe a person who is trying to do the best that he can in the job that he's doing, and I do think that many things are better, the economy and things, as a result of having him as the president.

COVID has hurt that, but you understand, before COVID, we had one of the best economies ever. So my question to you is, do you believe, as many people say, that the president is inherently racist?

The President, Borders, and Political Allegiances

I do not. Not at all. The facts don't even bear it out. Simply for the things the president has done for different cultural groups, Spanish group, black groups, different groups, higher employment, ever in the history of our country, even looking at the president before he became the president, all the different individuals of another culture that he hired in his own personal business and all the things that he were doing back there, it doesn't bear out that the president is a racist.

Amen.

And he isn't showing any racism. Everything that's put on him is put on him by the media.

And they argue oftentimes that he's xenophobic, that he doesn't want people coming in from other lands. I think there's a difference between xenophobia and the belief in the border, that we should have a sovereign border, that we get to decide who comes in and who doesn't, and there are laws for coming into the land.

And that's one of the things, that doesn't mean I'm xenophobic. I have rules for who comes into my house.

Right, exactly.

I don't let anybody into my house because my house has a sovereign border. It's my front door. And I get to decide based on my understanding of if this person's coming to harm or if this person's coming to help.

There's a reason I have a deadbolt, because I understand that there are times where I have to make a choice, yes or no.

Right.

I think everybody's like that.

Yeah, everybody who has a deadbolt on their front door are these people who live behind gated communities. And that's the great irony. You hear the person say, there should not be walls on our border, but they have walls on their community.

Exactly.

They have walls around their homes.

Exactly.

All right, so this is gonna be our last question. Do you think your support, because I know you support the president. I've heard you many times. I remember, I think it was back at Christmas, you guys had a thing for the praise team.

And we talked about, and you were so pumped about the president. That was before COVID. So that was almost a year ago. Do you think your support, and this is for either one of you, and even you, Jennifer, I would say, because you have different friends of different political persuasions that we all do.

Do we think that our support for the president causes us to be at odds with other people? I know that's such a, of course the answer is yes. But I think specifically, I'm asking this question to, I guess I'll start with you, Cindy, because you obviously have friends and family, and your black family.

Does this put you at odds with them?

At odds, but not broken. At odds because my family is a Democrat family. I am a Christian conservative. They don't view things how I view these things. But you know what? Personally talking to them one-on-one, asking certain questions like, do you believe in abortion?

Do you believe in same-sex marriage? And the answer is no. But yet the platform, they remain on that platform. They remain on that Democratic platform where they would want to vote for this individual because that individual is a Democrat.

But personally speaking, they're not for certain issues, which is kind of odd, but they're not for certain issues. But we disagree, but we're not broken. Just like we're going down there this, doing Thanksgiving, and we're going to have a hi-ho time like we did last year.

But they know where Gary and I stand, and we know where they stand. But, and so it's not, it hasn't broken down the family dynamics.

Awesome. Yes.

Now, Cindy's more open than I am, but in Facebook, you know, you'll see Cindy do posts and stuff like that, right?

Oh, Cindy got an active Facebook.

I love it.

But I, you know, with us and our family, the topics don't really come up when we're there. Okay, it's just family time. We just have a nice time.

Oh, with your mom and dad, yeah.

My mom and dad, or even like with your family, not a lot of the topics come up. They come up personally. You know, they might come up, but not as a group when we're like at Thanksgiving around the table.

Yeah, like a group conversation, or a personal conversation.

Yeah, so, yeah.

And I think more so with my family, of course.

I agree with what you're saying. My family is divided, and I'm on the one side, but

Yeah, Jennifer holds the line, and everybody else is on the other side.

But they know where I stand.

Yes.

I know where they stand.

Yes.

And if you do ask certain questions, like, you know, do you believe in homosexual marriage?

No.

Well

Not all of them.

Some of them would. Some of them do. But to ask them to pinpoint those questions, well then why?

Yes.

Why are you voting? Why do you vote that way? Can you in good conscience vote that way?

Yes, yes.

If President Trump was pro-abortion, could I vote him for him killing babies?

No, and I'll say that. I hate to say, people say, are you a one-issue voter? If that one issue is 60 million dead babies,.

Yeah, I'm the one-issue voter. Exactly.

If that's all it was. And I've heard people say, well, Trump has not done anything to eliminate abortion. And I understand that argument, that abortion hasn't been eliminated, but at least the platform.

You know, I heard somebody say something recently and I agree with this. I'm voting more for the platform than I am for the person. Because the platform of the Democratic Party is abortion on demand at all costs.

This is a basic human right. I can't even think of how to join myself to such a thought. At least the platform of the Republican Party is that we are pro-life. You know, how that works out, and I know there's different understandings of whether you're pro-life or whether you're an abolitionist.

I'm gonna do an episode on that soon because I want to discuss the differences. But at least we can say this is the goal, is that we value life. And I do think it is, as Dr. James White says, you have the culture of life and the culture of death.

The culture of life promotes life. The culture of death promotes death. And what do we see on the far left? Promotion of abortion, promotion of things like assisted suicide. It's a promotion of the culture of death.

And Jesus said, I came to give life.

Yes.

And death is the enemy. And he came to defeat that enemy. So I think right there tells us one thing about where we should, as believers, be looking. And I'm not saying, as a believer, you have to do everything I do and vote every way I do.

But I think there are some issues where I can say this is so clear and so simple. And the issue of life has to take a priority, at least it does in my mind.

I mean, you know, if someone says they're a Christian, you ask them, like, you know, who is Jesus? And they say some answer that's not, well, they're not really in Christ. They're not really a believer.

Absolutely.

It's sort of that same way. There's some things that are non-negotiable. Do you believe it's okay to murder a baby?

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

And again, we could go another half hour on talking about abortion. But I do, I want to bring it to a close. First of all, I want to thank you guys for being so open and honest. We've wanted to do this for months.

And I'm glad, I'm kind of glad we waited because we're at it, you know, we've seen so many things happen over the last couple months. And so we've had an opportunity to engage with that. We know the presidential election is coming up soon, and that's going to create a whole lot of conversations, probably conversations even within our own church.

About where people are voting and how people are voting. And hopefully this will be a help to them and encouragement to them. Cindy, thank you for all that you do. Gary, I appreciate you not only as a friend and a brother, but as a deacon in the church.

Your desire to love the body and to see the body unified and encourage both of y 'all. It has been a great blessing to our church and we appreciate it. And Jennifer, as always, you're my partner, my best friend, and I love you.

Prayer for Unity, the Body of Christ, and a Focus on Jesus Christ

Miss Cindy, will you pray for us? And then I'm going to close us out.

Yes.

Our Father, we thank you so much, God, that you've allowed us to be in your family. Thank you, God, that you've saved us. You've borne our hearts again. Thank you, God, that when you save us, Lord, our desires changed, our outlook changed.

God, we see how your son, Jesus Christ, see more and more, more our relationship matures in you, God. We just see things different and we thank you for that, Lord. We thank you, God, that you've made us family.

We are the body of Christ and we're family, God. We thank you for that. You've given us a love inside of our hearts for one another and we praise you and we thank you for that. Thank you, God, that we recognize this world is not our home, that we're pilgrims passing through here.

And Father, we thank you that you've given us that knowledge and we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, oh God, wherever they are and whatever they may be doing, that they will realize this world is temporary.

It's not our home. We don't hold it tightly, Lord God. Help us to remember we think different than the world thinks, God. We think different, we have different actions. We're supposed to see different.

Help that to be in our life. Thank you for Pastor, thank you for Jennifer, thank you for this local body. Thank you, Father God. I pray, Master, that you would open people's eyes more and more about what the world calls racism.

Help them to remember that you are the almighty God, that you have made image bearers, that we are one race, the human race, you clearly call us and we're different cultures, God. But help us to see beyond those things, Lord.

When our heart is born again, help us to see beyond those things. Help us to be knitted together in our local bodies, God, like a body, every sinew and ligament so that the different local churches, God, can grow and mature, that our church will grow and mature, God, and that we would not call conspiracy what these people call conspiracies, God, that we would not act like that, that we would not let different subjects throw us, but that our eyes would be focused upon your son, Jesus Christ, and we will be about your business, Father, as you have called us to be.

In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray, Lord, amen.

Amen, well, again, thank you all for being with us, and thank you, listener, for being with us. Thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I and all of us have been your Calvinist today.

May God bless you.

Amen, amen.

Thank you for joining in for today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist. Keep in mind, we have a new lesson available every weekday morning at 6 .30 a .m. on YouTube and Facebook. If you enjoyed this lesson, please take a moment to respond by hitting the like button, leaving a comment, and subscribing to the channel.

On behalf of Pastor Foskey, thank you for listening. May God bless you.