Today on radio, Glenn was joined by Pastor Ken Hutcherson to discuss the aftermath of the George Zimmerman trial, specifically the increasing division along skin color. Hutcherson said that much of this division has emerged because the black community has been living in the mindset of victimhood, and he told Glenn the only solutions were going to come from God.
“In the black community, we have a real bad case of victimhood. We consider ourselves victims. So if you’re a victim, it’s very difficult to think that you are wrong. It’s everybody else’s fault. And so in the Trayvon/Zimmerman issue, it’s very difficult for them to accept the fact that, you know, Trayvon could have done something wrong in this whole incident and that is because they put their blackness before they put everything, including Christ, including the Holy Spirit, including truth and including the Holy Spirit. Because if you put your blackness in front of the Holy Spirit, you can’t get through it,” Hutcherson told Glenn.
Hutch said that people need to pray that God breaks through and wakes people up, noting that it will take more than politicians and even more than pastors bring about change.
“First thing a person should do who believes in God, who believes in Christ, who believes that God is the way, we just start praying for them because God’s got to come through. We give the truth as we pray for them and we pray for the Holy Spirit to break through. Politics is not going to break through. Politician is not going to break through. Pastors are not going to break through because most of the pastors are evangelicals, are just afraid of their sheep more than leading them. You heard me say that. Pastor’s not going to do it, churches are not going to do it. It is God through the Holy Spirit that’s going to do it, and I am one who believes this the power of the Holy Spirit can turn this country around when we get unified because God will bless unity. He always has and he always will. And that is the only hope for America today,” Hutch said.
He also told Glenn that Jesus has to come first in people’s lives or things will never change and America will will continue down the same path it’s headed now.
“I mean, the biggest problem we got, Glenn, is like I said in my article is that anytime you put your blackness in front of Jesus or you put your whiteness in front of Jesus, you put your political views in front of Jesus, you put your patriotism in front of Jesus, it’s a bad deal. It doesn’t work. And until black people learn to put Jesus in front of their blackness, they will never be the great people that God expects them to be. Never.”
Read Hutcherson’s comments on race and faith in the wake of the George Zimmerman trial at TheBlaze.
Full Transcript of the interview is below:
GLENN: Warning: What you’re about to hear will be controversial because it is the truth, and that is the only thing that is shocking in our society on how somebody really, truly feels or what the truth really is. Pastor Ken Hutcherson from the Antioch Bible Church in Seattle, Washington is with us. I warn you, he is not one to mince words, and he’ll tell you exactly how he feels because he has stage 4 cancer and so he would rather go out telling the truth and spending his time doing something worthwhile than wasting it playing politically incorrect games.
Ken, how are you, sir?
HUTCHERSON: Hey, how are you guys doing this morning?
GLENN: Well, you know, I’m really actually really frustrated. First of all, you have an article that is out on TheBlaze now and the Christian Post. You speak frankly to blacks about Trayvon Martin. So this is actually a highlight of the Trayvon Martin case as somebody who is actually telling the truth. You want to recap some of this before we start our conversation?
HUTCHERSON: That’s up to you. I was, just want to let you guys know I really appreciate you calling a brother so early. You know this is Seattle out here.
GLENN: Yeah.
HUTCHERSON: And you guys are always calling the brother early, man. You know, I have to get up, I’m standing here right now, Glenn, in my ‑‑ with a towel wrapped around me. Want me to tweet you something?
GLENN: (Laughing.) Ooh, that was disturbing.
HUTCHERSON: (Laughing.)
GLENN: So Pastor, let’s start with, you said James Manning, who’s a guy I don’t usually agree with ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: We don’t. Neither one of us.
GLENN: Yeah. And you say he hit it on the head when he said black people have a difficult time accepting truth simply because they’re black. Explain.
HUTCHERSON: Yes. The biggest problem that we have here in America, bruh, is we have allowed in the African‑American community and, you know, I like to just consider black. I don’t hear white Americans, you know, Hispanic Americans, everybody putting subtitles on who we are. We are Americans. But in the black community, we have a real bad case of victimhood. We consider ourselves victims. So if you’re a victim, it’s very difficult to think that you are wrong. It’s everybody else’s fault. And so in the Trayvon/Zimmerman issue, it’s very difficult for them to accept the fact that, you know, Trayvon could have done something wrong in this whole incident and that is because they put their blackness before they put everything, including Christ, including the Holy Spirit, including truth and including the Holy Spirit. Because if you put your blackness in front of the Holy Spirit, you can’t get through it.
GLENN: So here is the real question: How do we solve this? Because ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: By telling the truth.
GLENN: But is anybody listening to the truth anymore?
HUTCHERSON: Evidently. It made it to an article. You saw it. You liked it. Blaze printed it up. There’s people calling me all kinds of names and telling me I’m a traitor. They called me, you know, the Oreo. As a matter of fact, man, an Oreo with some milk is not bad.
STU: (Laughing.)
GLENN: But where does this get us, Ken? I mean ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: It gets us in trouble, but it also gets us heard. It gets us to make people start thinking, Glenn, and that’s the most important thing in the world about someone who’s got a closed mind.
I tweeted this morning people that’s lived by the flesh can only influence other people living by the flesh negatively. It is those who have lived by the spirit that can produce a positive and uplifting message. So Christians, get on your job and start doing what God called us to do. I don’t care about fearfulness. I’m not fearful about anything. God is ‑‑ he walked the valley of the shadow of death, I walked with no evil, for my Lord and savior and the baddest one in the valley.
GLENN: Do you ever fear death? When you found out you had cancer, did you fear death?
HUTCHERSON: That was the first ‑‑ that was the last thing I needed to break this whole concept of not fearing anything, to be like Christ. Once I got cancer, brother, I go, oh, man, the world’s in trouble.
GLENN: Because you were kind of like that, you know, when you were ‑‑ I mean, you were a racist when you were a teenager.
HUTCHERSON: Oh, yes. Glenn, you would never ‑‑ people can’t even comprehend how I felt about whites. Like a smile on your face ‑‑ you know my motto was if you can’t beat them, use them.
GLENN: What does that mean?
HUTCHERSON: That simply means, you smile, pat them on the back, kill them and beat them up when you can. Ain’t no one can catch ya. I didn’t believe in that joining stuff. I believe that I was superior as a black person, superior mind, superior capabilities physically. God proved it over and over again. I didn’t know it was God using me to get me ready for this fight, but it was ‑‑ I hated white people. I didn’t just dislike them. I hated them.
GLENN: So you were changed because God showed you what love meant.
HUTCHERSON: Oh, Glenn, when you look Jesus in the eye and you allow your heart to know how much he loves you and what he did for you, how he died on the cross for you. I even have people in my own neighborhood, I have family members talk about dying, but you know, we get in a fight and they will run off and leave you. I had two brothers that we was coming from ‑‑ two black brothers talking about, coming from the game during our junior high year, bro, after our homecoming celebration and we got surrounded by about 20, 30 white guys walking home. You know what my two black brothers did? They ran and left me. Ran off and left me. Man, I was fighting like a crazy pent‑up panther to get out of that crowd. But Jesus would never run off and leave me. And he said to me, I love you. I died for you. I rose again for you, I love you so much.
GLENN: Ken, now here’s ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: And I also died for white people. So who are you to think you have the right to hate anybody.
GLENN: Here’s the problem. I don’t know what mindset you were in at the time, but we have a ‑‑ we will a whole nation of people that are being told by very big authorities you ‑‑ and it’s almost now universally accepted that you are being held back by this group of people, they’re in your way, and no matter ‑‑ no matter how many cities are destroyed, no matter how many children are made illiterate, no matter how many families are destroyed, this, this lie continues to grow and seemingly gain strength, and you have a ‑‑ I’m not just talking about black people. I’m talking about white people too.
HUTCHERSON: Oh, yeah.
GLENN: You have people who are just willing to take it because it’s easier that way. How do you get people to do things that are hard?
HUTCHERSON: Number one ‑‑
GLENN: You’re asking people to change ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: Number one ‑‑
GLENN: ‑‑ and stop taking stuff.
HUTCHERSON: Yeah. Number one: We’ve got to pray for them, Glenn. Prayer breaks things ‑‑ I was supposed to have been dead 5 1/2 years ago. Prayer’s kept me alive through all this, right? Now, if prayer can do that, there’s nothing I said I don’t think prayer can accomplish. First thing a person should do who believes in God, who believes in Christ, who believes that God is the way, we just start praying for them because God’s got to come through. We give the truth as we pray for them and we pray for the Holy Spirit to break through. Politics is not going to break through. Politician is not going to break through. Pastors are not going to break through because most of the pastors are evangelicals, are just afraid of their sheep more than leading them. You heard me say that. Pastor’s not going to do it, churches are not going to do it. It is God through the Holy Spirit that’s going to do it, and I am one who believes this the power of the Holy Spirit can turn this country around when we get unified because God will bless unity. He always has and he always will. And that is the only hope for America today.
GLENN: Do you believe that we are ‑‑ you know, I said right before you came on that I’m beginning to believe that a reset is coming and is necessary. Do you believe we are at the point of reset, or do you think that we walk away, we walk away, you know, by the skin of our teeth just saying, whew, that was a close one”?
HUTCHERSON: Oh, no, no, no. There’s no way in the world we’re going to walk away by the skin of our teeth, brother. If God don’t do something to break is up, he’s going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.
GLENN: Well, that’s a happy note. Back to you standing in your kitchen with your ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: Say what I, Glenn, it’s not good to have silence on radio, you know.
GLENN: I know. Sometimes, sometimes it is. Sometimes people need to ‑‑ sometimes people need to hear the silence and ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: Right. It’s no way in the world, Glenn, he’s not going to reset us, man, to save this nation. It’s going to have to happen. I mean, just look at scripture. Look at prophecy. Every prophecy in the Bible has come through and will come through that has not come forth yet. You can put your money on the bank on that, bruh, and God’s going to do something here to America. But we also have to remember that America’s not mentioned in front of is I.
GLENN: Okay. Thank you for that too. You know, I was in church yesterday and I ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: That’s a good place to be.
GLENN: I know. And I thought ‑‑ I wrote down on the, you know, the little thing that they pass out. What do you call them?
HUTCHERSON: Bulletin?
GLENN: Yeah, the bulletin. And I wrote on there, we all used to think that we were alike and that we all wanted America to succeed and we all believed in America.
HUTCHERSON: Mmm‑hmmm.
GLENN: We found out that not to be true.
HUTCHERSON: Mmm‑hmmm.
GLENN: We all now believe that most people are alike; they just want to be left alone and let live. I don’t think that’s true either.
I think evil is on the rampage in our nation.
HUTCHERSON: You know why evil’s on the rampage, Glenn? Because righteousness is feared. Silent and fearful. See, the only way ‑‑ what was the statement said? The only way evil is to promote itself and grow is good people stay silent?
GLENN: Well, here’s what ‑‑ and let me ask you this: Here’s why that has happened. I mean, it is ‑‑ it takes everything in me now to say black as opposed to African‑American because it has been drilled into us and drilled into us and drilled into us. And even when I say black as opposed to African‑American, even though I fully believe that African‑American is wrong and everything else, there’s still part of me that goes, well, I don’t want to make anybody ‑‑ I mean, most Americans, the reason why political correctness has succeeded is because most Americans, they’re not politically correct. They just ‑‑ you know, if that makes somebody feel better, fine. I’ll do that. And I just don’t want to cause any trouble. That’s the way most Americans are.
HUTCHERSON: Most Americans didn’t change history, bro. There’s only a few that can do that. And that’s the reason I like to work with you: I think we want to change history and make the future better. But don’t you worry about calling people black, brother. Let me tell you, black people come through a metamorphosis of names. We’ve had so many names, we don’t know what we ought to call ourselves.
GLENN: Hutch ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: The NAACP still don’t know what to call each other.
PAT: What do you identify with, Hutch? Do you identify with ‑‑
GLENN: No. Black.
PAT: Because I don’t think I’ve ever heard you refer to yourself as African‑American.
GLENN: No. He’s just black.
PAT: Yeah.
HUTCHERSON: Yeah, man.
PAT: And I’ve heard others say that as well, that they’ve never been to Africa. Why would you call yourself African‑American?
HUTCHERSON: I tell you the only true African‑American I’ve ever seen is Rabbi Lapin.
PAT: Yes.
GLENN: Yeah. Well, you know, you talk about, you know, African‑American and black, and we’ve made this culture to where you can feel comfortable calling yourself black but if you’re white, you immediately feel uncomfortable and being made to feel uncomfortable for calling you anything but African‑American. And then you have the N‑word, which I think is a despicable word, especially ‑‑ I mean, you know, I didn’t need to talk to you to know how horrible that is, but I have to tell ya, after sitting down and talking to somebody like you who went through living in the South in the Fifties and the Sixties, I’ll tell you, Hutch, it’s an experience that, a guy who grew up in the Seattle ‑‑ in the Pacific Northwest, I didn’t grow up around any of that. I didn’t recognize any of that. And to hear it is stunning and is so unbelievably shameful and yet, people like Al Sharpton, I’ve talked to him about it. Why don’t you stand up against that? Why don’t you ever stand up against that? “Well, I do.” No, you don’t.
HUTCHERSON: But that don’t make money, Glenn.
GLENN: What did you say?
HUTCHERSON: That don’t make money for him.
PAT: Isn’t that the truth.
STU: To be fair, he did march on that against rappers using that word and in, in fact ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: Oh, good.
PAT: And you joined him, did you?
GLENN: I did join him.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: Because I ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: I really appreciate him marching against rappers.
STU: Fair point.
GLENN: Go ahead, Hutch.
HUTCHERSON: I mean, the biggest problem we got, Glenn, is like I said in my article is that anytime you put your blackness in front of Jesus or you put your whiteness in front of Jesus, you put your political views in front of Jesus, you put your patriotism in front of Jesus, it’s a bad deal. It doesn’t work. And until black people learn to put Jesus in front of their blackness, they will never be the great people that God expects them to be. Never.
GLENN: Well, that’s not happening. I mean, you know, black people ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: I’m going to help it happen.
GLENN: You look at the values of the average black family and they’re very conservative. Very conservative.
HUTCHERSON: Very. Very.
GLENN: And you don’t see any of that in the way we vote or the way people speak or anything. It just doesn’t happen. It happens in church, but it doesn’t happen any place else.
HUTCHERSON: Have you seen the movie Lincoln?
GLENN: Yes.
HUTCHERSON: Brother, that movie, to have Argo beat that out? You know that’s Hollywood. I don’t have the slightest idea how Argo beat Lincoln out for the award. I’m going to tell you something, man: Every black person in the world should be made to sit down and watch that movie and see how Democrats was the one that stood against freeing the slaves. They ought to sit down and read some black history in America, which, history isn’t taught at all in America anymore, to find out just who the Jim Crow laws and the separate but equal people who pushed that mess. We are stupid as a people ‑‑
PAT: And then see who it was that ‑‑
HUTCHERSON: ‑‑ when it comes to knowing who to support.
PAT: And then find out who it was that opposed the Civil Rights Movement in the Fifties and Sixties, again, Democrats.
GLENN: Not just Democrats. It was London B. Johnson.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: It was Johnson.
PAT: Al Gore’s dad.
GLENN: Yeah. Al Gore’s dad is Lyndon B. Johnson’s?
PAT: No. Just an addendum to it.
GLENN: Yeah, okay. Thank you very much.
PAT: In addition to Lyndon B. Johnson.
GLENN: A very confusing conversation.
Hutch, we love you, man. I’ll talk to you later.
HUTCHERSON: I’ll see you this afternoon, right?
GLENN: Thank you ‑‑ yes, sir. We’ll see you at TV tonight. Thank you.
HUTCHERSON: Bye.
GLENN: Pastor Ken Hutcherson, former NFL player, former racist, and a guy who has very little time left and has the truth, knows what it is. Will America listen?