Exposing the Black Hebrew Israelites

Hi guys, what's up? Welcome back to another exciting episode of Apologia TV. That's Joy the Girl on the TV show today. It is. What's up? And that's Luke the Bear. What up? And there's a fly with us. This is a beardless ninja today.

I'm Jeff Durbin and this is Apologia TV. You guys can get more at ApologiaRadio .com. It's spelled A-P-O-L-O-G-I-A-Radio .com. You can go there, you can get the TV show, the after show, the Apologia Academy, our podcasts, all that stuff is there.

Just go there. It is a treasure trove of awesomeness and great guests and amazing lectures. Just really great stuff. So go there, check it out. This is right here, one of our favorite people in the world, vocab Malone, pastor at Roosevelt Community Church, downtown Phoenix.

What's up? What's up? Glad to be here. And retired hip hop artist. Semi-retired. Semi-retired. I just rap in church now. Keep it in church. Okay, keep it in the church. They used to say keep it out of church.

Now I only rap in church. It's true. So we're very close to vocab and to Roosevelt Community Church and we've done a lot together. We've been on each other's shows more times than I can count at this point.

Used to be Backpack Radio, now Urban Theologian. We used to be Redemption Radio, turned into Apologia Radio. We've gone through a lot of different changes, some really cool stuff. And vocab is on his way to getting his doctorate.

Doctorate of ministry. Doctorate of ministry. Nice. When I'm done, I'll have a demon. That's some, a demon. That's true. And so he is in the process of starting labor in a particular area that is fascinating to me because it's something I don't know really.

I mean, almost nothing. I know almost nothing about this subject. Although I have had two or three confrontations with black Hebrew Israelites. And I would say that I think maybe in the last two years, one of the requests we've gotten most often is will we do something on black Hebrew Israelites?

And my answer is I appreciate how highly you think of me, thinking that I know so much about so many different things because this is something I don't know anything about. And vocab has dedicated a lot of time to this.

And so you can see the stack of books that he brought today to start explaining to us what this movement is all about. So vocab, you know what you're doing. This is your thing. And so you take us into the discussion.

I do, but I know you guys have good questions. My favorite thing to do is to interact. I mean, I can go and lecture on them or something. But what's like the first question you would have about them if you're trying to understand them?

The Identity and Claims of Black Hebrew Israelites

Okay, so black Hebrew Israelites. Let me just say, this is coming with a lot of caution, okay? Yes. Go to YouTube and type in black Hebrew Israelites. I got to have a serious caution like attached to that because the stuff that you will get is.

Vile. Vile. I mean, it's bad. Some stuff is not so bad. Some stuff is really, really bad. And so you don't want your kids around and I think in the room when you are investigating this because of the content, the language, it's pretty bad.

So, okay. Black Hebrew Israelites, very aggressive, very offensive oftentimes. And they're not all like that, but that's what you'll see a lot of in social media and if you run into them in the streets.

And so let's start with this question. Who are the black Hebrew Israelites?

Well, according to the black Hebrew Israelites, you should call them the Hebrew Israelites. Okay. So drop the black. That's an inaccurate term in their mind because most of them believe that included in this group called the Hebrew Israelites are included who they call Issachar.

That would be some people of Mexican descent, for example. Okay. Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and so Cubans, Dominicans. So since there's others, they say, hey, we're not all black. But if you're black, you're probably part of Judah and you are supposed to kind of be the flagship or lead the movement as part of Judah.

So they don't like the black on the black Hebrew Israelites. If you're talking to them, just know that. So they think that they are the awakened sons of Israel. So literal physical descendants from Abraham.

And here they are now in the awakened part is that they've now come to realize their true heritage that's been stolen from them. And they forgotten due to sin and God's punishment on them. Now the movement is being awakened to this reality.

And their job is not really to convert people. They don't believe in conversion. Their job is to gather the scattered. So other black Israelites that don't realize who they are and to proclaim judgment against you Edomites.

Okay, okay. So there's no way for a white person to be saved in their theology.

The so-called white man whom we call Esau. That's how they would say it. So they don't actually even say white. They'll often say so-called white man. They prefer Esau or Edom. So that's generally how they.

So it depends on the camp. So a camp is kind of like a denomination, a little bit. But there's some groups such as this group called GOCC, Gathering of Christ Church, who believe that you can be grafted in.

And so they would point to Cornelius as a prime example or Timothy as somebody who clearly seems to be not Jewish or not fully Jewish, a Gentile in Cornelius' case, but seems to be able to be grafted in into the nation.

But in their mind, you still always need to do it by clinging to an Israelite. And there's a passage in Zechariah they kind of go to where it talks about clinging to an Israelite, other nations clinging to an Israelite.

So you kind of are under their authority and whatnot, but you can be grafted in, but you don't have full teaching authority, but you could go out, you could be sent perhaps under them. But those are not the groups generally that you're going to see on the street.

To my knowledge, Gathering of Christ Church doesn't do street teaching, for example. They're more about sort of internal things they do, such as celebrating feasts together. They're big on celebrating the Old Testament feasts.

And they're actually, GOCC is probably the most prominent in producing Israelite rap music. So there's a whole section called Israelite music, sometimes spelled with a Z or sometimes they call it truth music.

And GOCC seems to be the most prominent in producing rappers as well. What's it called again? Gathering of Christ Church, G-O-C-C. The rap says called truth. They'll sometimes call it truth, but just like look up G-O-C-C rap.

That's probably the quickest way to maybe type in Israelite. If you do that, you'll find some examples of some rappers. A lot of F words in those songs. Gathering of Christ Church, from what I can tell, don't abide by all the swearing.

So it's a kinder, gentler Hebrew Israelite type stuff. And I had a friend who's a Hebrew Israelite, said, look, I follow more of these brothers down there. They're righteous brothers. I'm not necessarily in the camp, but they're not like G-M-S-I-S-U-P-K-I-U-I-C.

Those are other camps and their acronyms. And when I looked into G-O-C-C, it was true on whole, they seemed better. In fact, the way that the other camps mock G-O-C-C is by calling them Christian.

That's like one of the worst slurs. So these Christianized Israelites. Now they're really not Christian because it only took me two minutes of searching throughout their main video feed to see they deny the deity, the full deity of Jesus.

And they deny Trinity, which if an Israelite is watching this right now, they're like, oh, he's looking at things through a Roman matrix. You know, the second I said Trinity, they start sounding like Jehovah's Witnesses when you bring up Trinity.

It's almost identical argumentation. Wow.

Why Vocab Malone Studied the Movement

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Brother Polite, GMS, and the Logic of the Clip

And we're back. Vocab Malone, Roosevelt Community Church, Urban Theologian Radio, Black Hebrew Israelites. So I'm gonna play a clip in a second here. You guys are gonna get a chance to see this of just some interaction.

But before I do, give us an introduction to why you're doing this, because this, I mean, you talk about the stack of books and you have to sort of do this research kind of piecemeal because there's not like a single source from a Christian perspective where you can go to and get the history, the ideology, the theology and all those different things.

And so what made you step into this? Because it's really important.

So how'd you get there? Well, so before I had done a lot of stuff with atheism, some with Jehovah's Witness, Mormons, and of course, Islam, but always looking for new opportunities and especially things in like a, it's kind of a street context.

And I knew a little bit about these guys, but then one day I saw them on the street and we were on our way to the toy shop. So I said, should we stop and talk to them? My wife, I asked her. She said, if they're still there when we come back, I said, okay.

So they were. So I said, all right, here we go. So I grabbed a little recorder and I just went up and I said, hey, what's the gospel? I just started talking to these guys. Audio was really raw. You know, I didn't really know a ton about them.

Then I put it up online and it got way more feedback than most things I had done. And I kind of did it almost as an afterthought. And so I said, what is this? Why is this getting so much interest? And people were calling me, talking to me like I was an expert from this one interaction where I just mainly listened to them yell at me and ask them questions.

So I heard the whole thing. So I said, well, if that's the case, that means no one's, I don't hardly, hardly anyone's doing anything then. And so I realized there was a great need. And so I looked for an opportunity.

And then when at Talbot, the program I'm in, they allowed me to do this as my doctoral project, then it was a go from there. But immediately when I saw the need and lack of resources, that was the second thing.

When I saw the growing need, lack of resources, I said, this might be it. So that's why.

Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons that I haven't personally tried to figure everything out is I haven't, I don't know where to go for the resources. You have to start from scratch. You have to start from scratch.

Sort of like, it seems like you are, it just hit me, you are sounding like Dr. Walter Martin sounded like in like the 50s when he was trying to come up with resources and figure a way out to engage the cults.

And there was no one stop resource shop for how do we engage the cults? What's their history? What's their theology? How does it compare to Christian theology and the gospel? And so he started from scratch and it was all research.

It was all libraries for a long, long time. And because it was nothing there. And now we have the benefit of Walter Martin and all the ministries that came because of his ministry and all of their works.

But this is that little peculiar area with this particular one. So interesting.

Let's go ahead and play that clip. Okay, so I'll, so the clip here is, it's Brother Polite, who you said is an atheist in New York City.

He's sort of an atheist, but with the Kemetic Egyptologist New Age slant. And he's part of something called the House of Consciousness which is a big thing in New York. Polite is probably of this kind of new breed of kind of internet Afrocentric type religions.

Even though he's not a Hebrew, he's probably the most well known. I think he actually makes his living from kind of doing talks and all that stuff, selling videos. But he is grilling a group called GMS and they're in a specific Israelite camp.

And when he's grilling them, he knows some of their beliefs. And so he's sort of trying to show everyone, look how wild these beliefs are. So not all Hebrew Israelites are gonna agree with what is gonna be said here by GMS.

In fact, one of my friends says, everyone in the Hebrew Israelite world knows that GMS is sick. But see, what I've noticed is they kind of all say that about each other. But I think most of us could agree.

GMS is sick. Once you watch the clip, you'll see. So it stands for Great Millstone. Great Millstone, yes. And if you see any of the clips, these guys in San Francisco, they're the ones that are like the most vile, threatening to kill people, using every racial slur known to man.

So like That's the group I talk to.

Yeah. So the group with my audio and the group that I've seen most active in Metro Phoenix are GMS. Where can they get that audio real fast though? Yeah, if you go to urbantheologianradio .com or if you type in Christian pastor versus black Hebrew Israelites or Christian apologist versus black Hebrew Israelites, there's a couple of different channels will pop up.

You'll see.

OK, good. And does Brother Polite live up to his name? Is he polite?

In this segment, as you can tell, he's having fun in this segment, he is. But I've heard other times not as much. But most people would be pretty polite compared to a lot of the Israelites. So, yeah, right on.

That was for joy. OK, right. Here we go. Let me ask you a question, brother. Before this keeps going, we have to ask you a question. How many of you are fathers here? Just be for real, if you're a father.

Now, what if someone is overwhelmed by the spirit of the most high God and he reads your scripture and he take your daughter and he just raped your daughter? What do you say to that? If he if he lived like you live, walk like you walk, talk like you talk, because y 'all live amongst each other.

Yeah, y 'all live amongst each other. So what happens when one of y 'all feels so overwhelmed by the spirit of God that when you see one of each other's daughters, you just grab her up. You're going to tell one of these brothers here.

Come on. You know the doctrine. You know how we get when you get. Well, what is the answer?

We just told you that. How would you respond in this time? We know that was what it did happen. Oh, it did happen. But if it did happen, you would let allow it to happen.

Why? Because you go back to the scriptures. You're supposed to be a brother. Hold on. You want to allow one of your brothers to rape your daughter? You say rape as if rape simply means to grab. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

He's talking about now. We read the verse. We read the verse. No, you know, someone was.

In the kingdom of heaven. I know. No, no, no, no, no. When the kingdom is established, we're going to get women when they 12 years old. Right. All right. Say it again. As soon as they start in the kingdom of heaven, when their period starts, that's when they become a woman.

OK. All right. So we're going to deal with them when they when their period starts. Right. When their month starts. Have sex with them. Have babies, man. With 12 year olds. Brother, there's this. In the kingdom, we're going to do that, man.

We're going to get them young.

What is this? Keep on getting. Oh, so. So that's an example. The sad thing is now this will get controversial, but some of what they said is similar to certain sects of Islam doctrine of when you can have sex with the young because they've got to make excuses for what Mohammed did because he married the six year old and consummated at nine.

And so they go into all this whole thing about, you know, puberty and this and that. But what was better than nine? Hey, so it's an improvement over Islam in that area. Oh, my gosh. But I mean, but you see polite knows what they're going to say.

And he knows their lingo. Did you hear like so the spirit of the most high overwhelms you and then you rape? I mean, so he's approaching it from their presupposition, which is wild, right? That's a presupposition.

But the one guy says he didn't finish the sentence. You say rape like it's a. What was he going to say? He said rape is just a word for grab to grab. It seemed like he was going to say you say rape like it's a bad thing.

He didn't say a bad thing, but it seemed like that's where he was going. But yeah. But what did they say? He said, yeah, because that's how we're going to operate in the kingdom. So they have weird little cartoons, GMS specifically, where it'll show these pictures and it'll say like Edomite sex slaves don't have like white women like on them.

And then there's this is one specific I'm thinking of. Then beside the bed is the head of an Edomite man, a white man. And it's severed. And the guy's holding a sword while the Edomite women are feeding him grapes.

Yeah. Again, Edomite. That's how they call someone who's white or so-called Caucasian. But there's stuff like that. But again, not all the camps are like that. So here's what's the problem about the show with anything.

If you meet someone who says, hey, I identify as a Hebrew Israelite and you start coming at them with, oh, you believe that they may not believe that at all. They may think that's very wrong. And so you've simply got to ask them where they're at with this because they could have the bare bones Hebrew Israelite theology, meaning they buy the version of history that says if you came over here via the transatlantic slave trade, you are physical descendant from Abraham.

That may be all they buy. But usually what I've noticed happens when Christians buy that they start going down a bad path and the other doctrine that follows. So it's not that it's no concern. It is a concern.

But it doesn't mean they agree with all this other stuff that some of the camps like GMS would promote. What's. I have a question. OK, go ahead.

What is the interaction between the camps versus someone that's not a part of a camp? So not everyone is a part of a camp. Right. So how does the interaction between those two different groups of people?

I regularly listen to a podcast by IUIC. So someone's like, I can't do all this. This is crazy. But you want to kind of like start go on iTunes and Google Israel United in Christ. And they have a podcast.

And what it is, is it's essentially mainly a man named Nathaniel. He kind of pronounces it differently. But his teachings that he gives broken up into podcast form. But on that, you get a good dose of at least what IUIC believes.

And they're very clear, actually very well produced. So I actually enjoy most of them. And on those, he regularly gives a sides kind of little disses specifically to non camp affiliated Israelites, kind of like the way maybe a pastor would speak of people who say they're Christian, but never attend church.

They would kind of look at them in a similar way. But like you, Facebook only Israelites out there, you know, dah, dah, dah, dah. They'll kind of say things along those lines. And occasionally they'll dis other camps, although.

That means time's up. OK, all right. We'll be right back to mute that. If so, what is a philosophically devastating critique of your worldview? It is not a worldview you should hold on to any longer. Virginia Tech, 2007.

So what? Thirty two children, kids, students are killed. So what? Andrea Yates, 2001, killed her four children. So what? No, we're not baby eaters.

So what? All right. So important discussion. And these things are always so fascinating to me. Like when I first started reading about Mormonism and the Watchtower, I just I don't I don't know why. I just find it so fascinating to see how these cults and these religions have their origins and their theology.

It's interesting. It's like everything that you've named so far, like of all these different camps in the Hebrew Israelite movement, they all have like almost like rapper like gangster titles.

There's a huge cultural aspect to it. Like KRS-One. Like KRS-One. It's really interesting. You know, everybody does have an alternate name. Almost everybody, hardly anybody goes by their real name. And sometimes they're quite elaborate.

Usually there's something Ben Israel, you know, a son of Israel is what that means. But they have different little names. And some of the camps even give themselves military titles. So General Yohanna leads the ISUPK.

So every time you see an ISUPK related media thing like a podcast or an interview will say given by Captain So-and-so under the authority of commanding officer General Yohanna. So it's very like hierarchical in some of these.

General Yohanna is particularly interesting. I wish I wish I could show you what I'm about to talk about. He had a 12 inch action figure doll made of himself with this company. That's incredible. Yeah.

And the way I found out about this is through like legal briefings. So I was doing a little extra research. And the I'm sorry, ISUPK sued the doll manufacturer because the doll was made not according to specs, according to ISUPK.

It was made several shades too light. Oh, now I saw a picture of the doll online. And first of all, it's kind of weird the outfit they chose. It looks like he's in a yellow raincoat, like old school style.

But he's actually right. It is lighter than it should be. Well, I don't know what happened there, but I mean, the doll is too light. But but I wish I could get one of those so bad. I think it was a limited run of a thousand.

And I don't know how you get one. I think there were seventy nine and when they first came out. Seventy nine. Ninety nine. I know. I know. My goodness. But who doesn't want a General Yohanna 12 inch action figure doll?

I know you would be Mr. GI Joe.

Yeah, but to be fair, I only collect the three point seven five inch. I don't like the 12 inch. OK. Yeah, that's my.

Well, you'd like a three point seven five inch.

You can it's needed to have more detail on a smaller scale. And I don't want to change anyone's clothes either. So those two things make me like the smaller GI Joes. Things just got weird.

Just so. OK, so here's here's my question. So if they're not interested in converting people, if you watch the videos, obviously they're mostly interested in just telling you you're going to burn. Right.

Well, you. Right.

Me. Yes, me. Especially me. Look how hairy you are. You look like an Edomite. He's such a big white man. He's like.

Right. Funny thing is, I'm saying that although you've offended you, but a big thing for them is to make fun of how hairy white people are. That's a thing for them. I'm in trouble. Because they relate it back to Esau being hairy like a garment.

And so they'll show pictures of white guys with hairy backs. Like, look at Esau still looking like Esau. It's like kind of funny because we like something like what we do with the back looks like a carpet, you know?

Go ahead. Sorry.

So, OK, so. So like, I guess like Robin Williams were like, could you eat a mite?

So so I mean, the point of them going on the street is just to tell you you're going to burn one. That's part one of the question. Part two is like if I, you know, you mentioned that you could be grafted in.

Like, what does that look like? What is the purpose of that? Am I avoiding judgment if I do that? Like what? You know what I'm saying? Like, what is the purpose of them being on the street?

And well, remember, they tend to they want to go places where black Americans who are still in slumber are. So where they set up, they don't go set up like in the suburbs, generally speaking. Yeah. They are very strategic in where they go in the metro areas.

So someone's hearing this and has no idea what I'm talking about. You probably don't ever traverse the hood or live in a major city. But if you do, give it time and you'll run into them. And that's OK.

I'm just saying that's kind of how it is, because there's certain places if you live, you see them all the time. Yeah, that's kind of how it is. But so their goal is to be faithful. Like they they're like like a prophet from the Old Testament.

OK, maybe cry. They may speak a message. And it doesn't mean like the people are going to change, but they're being faithful in that. But remember, their main goal is to gather the scattered. Yeah. And so the dude in the gang, like they love to show video clips where they'll say Hebrew Israelites confront bloods member.

He cries something like that. And where they'll see a guy and, you know, he's directionless and they approach him very masculine. It's weird the way they talk to. They become very pastoral, actually. If you watch it, there's a sensitivity and they change their tone and they're clearly reaching out to this person and they'll speak to them very and with with great empathy.

And as they do, they want them to see really who they are and and kind of they'll be like this book. Well, this is about you. You know, Paul. Yeah. You know, Moses, black like you look at your skin black.

Like, you know, Jesus black like you. Well, what makes you say that? Well, I never heard that. Didn't Moses live with the Egyptians for a number of years and was mistaken for an Egyptian? Wasn't Paul once mistaken for an Egyptian in the book of Acts?

Doesn't Jesus have skin that's burnt like bronze brass? Or, you know, they go out and listen. Someone's like, whoa, you know. So that's how they approach it. So it's like wake up to the fact that your royal seed.

Would it bother them if I was like, I'm cool with Jesus being black? Does that bother them?

Like, would it like depends on the camp? So some will say that's a bare bones admission. They'll say, well, good. You know whose foot's going to be on your neck then? Others might be like, maybe you're going to, you know, be on the right path.

So it depends on the guy. You know what I'm saying? But there's videos of them where they love to show white people in submission. So there's one video that says silly Edomite kisses the boot boot of an IUC officer or something like that.

I'm misquoting the video.

I don't think it's an IUC. Well, I just saw a pop up. It was, you know, my woman rolls on ground.

Yeah. For Israelis or something like that. They like to show any type of like it looks like submission. But some of them will say, look, come hang with us. You know, you can learn. And then if they really there's some camps that if they perceive you like in a certain way, they'll even be willing to like disciple you, maybe let you go with them.

And that creates a controversy with other camps that say you can't roll with anybody that appears to be an Edomite in any way. And so you'll see they'll like be like, look at this camp filled with white boys and none of that.

So occasionally you'll see some of the camps that are OK. And and it's somehow they like make an allowance for those either you're grafted in or they'll like find a way to make you associated with their twelve tribes chart is what I've noticed.

Like, oh, we've done the research. And on his dad's side, such and such, it gets really convoluted and crazy. You can't figure out. Looks like just an Irish guy to me, but I guess he's OK with you.

OK, like Marcus would like have Marcus join him, maybe.

There's some guys I've seen that look like Marcus, but you'll hear other camps mocking the way he talks.

Sometimes he can he be like, oh, I know you're black.

He can be down. Well, there's but there's other camps that will say like you can't do any of that. Don't be doing any of that. And they'll regularly make fun of camps that do allow for that type of thing.

In fact, they get real strict. Like I was on a message board once, a man says, I woke up to the truth recently, but I've married an Edomite and I have a daughter with her. What should I do? And the answer is all down the row where you got a divorcer like a whole list of them.

So it depends on the camp.

The Camps, the Twelve Tribes Chart, and White Identity

Let's do this show today on the network is over for today. But the conversation is continuing at Apologia Radio dot com. That's where we have our after show. We're going to stay on with vocab alone, talking about Hebrew Israelites and more detail.

So go over there, catch the rest of the show. That's joy. That's Luke. Mission aware dot com is where you go to get shirts like that. I'm Jeff the Ninja. We'll see you over at the after show. The conversation is going to continue at Apologia Radio dot com.

That's we're going to have our after show. We're going to have more content, more conversation, some really great stuff. You go over there to get an Apologia Radio dot com by becoming all access. Go check it out.