Race refers to the concept of dividing people into groups on the basis of various sets of physical characteristics and the process of ascribing social meaning to those groups. Ethnicity describes the culture of people in a given geographic region, including their language, heritage, religion and customs.
In this week’s podcast, we’re honored to learn from Dr. Ali Michael and Dr. Eleonora Bartoli about their helpful new book entitled “Our Problem, Our Path: Collective AntiRacism for White People.” It’s a powerful resource to help us learn ways to talk about racism and build skills to be actively anti-racist.
Dr. Michael and Dr. Bartoli argue that inner and outer antiracist work are deeply interconnected. Their book provides readers with strategies to build racial competence and ways for us to make a more just, equitable and loving multiracial society.
You can get this episode on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or YouTube. You can also download or listen to the full podcast episode here.
In this episode, they share:
• Why it’s difficult for us (white people) to talk about race
• Why we may feel it’s unsafe to discuss or challenge racism
• Emotional (and fear) response to racism around us
• Why we silence ourselves (or avoid conversations about race)
• The struggle to become anti-racist daily
• Ways race talks impacts our mental health
• How to ground yourself
• Addressing the stereotype threat
• Why racism is a white person problem
• Grieving with (and displaying empathy) for BIPOC communities
• The paradox of virtue signaling
• Race-related stress
• The anti-critical race theory movement
• How to stand up against racism (and avoid being a silent bystander)
• Advice on how to raise anti-racist children
You can watch the full conversation on walking the anti-racist path on YouTube here.
Eleonora Bartoli, Ph.D is a consultant and licensed psychologist, specializing in trauma, resilience-building, and multicultural/social justice counseling. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology: Human Development/Mental Health Research from the University of Chicago in 2001. After receiving her clinical license in 2005, she opened a small independent practice, which she has held since. After 15 years in academia (12 of those years as the director of a Masters in counseling program), she became a full-time consultant. Her mission is to share the tools of counseling and psychology in support of social justice work.
Ali Michael, Ph.D. is Director of the Race Institute for K-12 Educators and works with schools and organizations across the country to help make research on race, Whiteness, and education more accessible and relevant to educators. Ali is the author of Raising Race Questions: Whiteness, Inquiry and Education, winner of the 2017 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award. As a member of a multiracial editorial team, she has co-edited The Guide for White Women who Teach Black Boys, Teaching Beautiful and Brilliant Black Girls, and Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice: 15 Stories. With her colleague Toni Graves Williamson, Ali adapted Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility for a Young Adult audience. Ali sits on the editorial board of the journal Whiteness and Education.
Are you curious about the development of ancient Hebrew literature and how some of these texts became sacred? And are you curious about how ancient Judeans thought about God?
In this podcast, we learn from Dr. Dalit Rom-Shiloni about ancient Judean literature, scribal traditions in ancient cultures, polytheism and monotheism in ancient Israelite communities, ways the Judean God compared to other ancient near east gods, why the ancient Israelites used anthropomorphic language to describe Yahweh, and why God was portrayed as warrior and enemy in the Hebrew Bible.
She also discusses ways ancient Judeans thought about God amid times of pain, suffering and destruction, which is the subject featured in her important new book: “Voices from the Ruins: Theodicy and the Fall of Jerusalem in the Hebrew Bible,” published by Eerdmans.
Are you curious on how to better love and support our hurting Black communities?
Pastors Duke L. Kwon and Dr. Gregory Thompson build a historical and theological case for reparations — and address the various thefts of white supremacy that continue to hurt our Black communities in their latest book: Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair.
This is a book that will open your eyes to the systemic sins of racism and white supremacy in the United States, which continue to cause racial brokenness and social inequities.
It’s also a book that will bring you awareness of Black pain and the Christian calling to bring about healing and reconciliation.
The complicated and sinful history of racism in the United States and impact today doesn’t have an easy solution.
This isn’t a book designed to give you step-by-step directions on how reparations should work; it’s theological framework to help you think creatively on how to love and care for our oppressed and marginalized communities hurting due to racial brokenness.
No doubt, there are dozens of arguments against reparations — and many Christian leaders debate this issue.
Some critics argue that reparations is unjust (and therefore immoral) to require people who had nothing to do with slave ownership or racial injustices of the past to be liable for those sins today. Others argue that it’s impractical to figure out economically who should be compensated (along with who should pay and for how long).
Many of the arguments in favor or against reparations use justice as the chief aim. How do we determine a just way to address systemic sins and racial injustice?
Duke L. Kwon and Dr. Gregory Thompson reveal how the Christian’s call to bring about racial healing is more than an economic conversation — and moves far beyond what is the most equitable response. They provide a Christian vision of compassion, love and why the church ought to be caring for those who are hurting. It’s about opening our eyes and hearts to the Black pain around us and finding ways to bring healing in our own communities.
In this podcast episode, Duke L. Kwon and Dr. Gregory Thompson talk about why they need to write a theological case for reparations, why it’s important to support and love hurting communities, reasons why Christians debate the reparations issue, ways church leaders and pastors can properly address systemic sins at church, how white supremacy is a theft of truth, power, and wealth, ways to talk with children about racism, and what the parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us about love and reparations.
“Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair” is published by Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
I pray this conversation encourages us to develop more empathy and find ways to help our hurting Black communities.
You can subscribe or download this episode on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe to the video series on YouTube.
Most of the theology and church history that I’ve studied (and been exposed to) was passed along from the Western church tradition.
And I’ve been blessed to learn a lot from various theologians and thinkers like Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, and N.T. Wright.
However, I never knew about the early church history and Christian tradition that developed in Africa, the Middle East and Asia — and how the beautiful Christian theology and spiritual traditions in these regions reveals how Christianity is not a product of the Western world.
In this podcast, Dr. Vince Bantu talks with us about early African Christianity and what led him to pursue academic research into the origins of Christianity in Egypt, Nubia and the continent of Africa.
He also discusses the need for ethnic representation in our churches, the sins and destructive impact of systemic racism and white supremacy in our church history, ways for us to better support our BIPOC church communities during times of tragedy and trauma, and the powerful faith and example that our Black church has set for all Christians. He also shares ways that parents can help raise anti-racist children.
You can subscribe or download this episode on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe to the video series on YouTube.
The topic of immigration is a huge theme in our Hebrew Bible & New Testament scriptures.
Think about the story of Abraham being a foreigner in Egypt and Canaan, or Jacob moving his family to Egypt to reunite with Joseph, or the story of Israel being strangers in Egypt (and then being a displaced people wandering in the desert).
I mean, even the story of Esther is about an immigrant woman speaking up to protect her oppressed, immigrant community.
And, of course, we remember that Jesus was an immigrant and refugee.
The Bible is chockfull of stories of immigration and God’s people living in the margins. And there are countless commands in scripture to love and care for displaced people.
Here are just a few passages:
Deuteronomy 10:18-19: “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”
Leviticus 19:34: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizens among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Ezekiel 47:22: “You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten among you. They shall be to you as citizens of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.”
However, the the Biblical mandate to love and care for the foreigner is often debated by Christians as some have concerns on how immigrants and refugees can impact a nation’s economics, national security or their cultural identity.
So that’s why I was blessed to read “Refuge Reimagined: A Biblical Kinship In Global Politics” by Dr. Mark R. Glanville and Dr. Luke Glanville.
In Refuge Reimagined, Mark R. Glanville and Luke Glanville offer a new approach to compassion for displaced people: a biblical ethic of kinship. God’s people, they argue, are consistently called to extend kinship—a mutual responsibility and solidarity—to those who are marginalized and without a home. Drawing on their respective expertise in Old Testament studies and international relations, the two brothers engage a range of disciplines to demonstrate how this ethic is consistently conveyed throughout the Bible and can be practically embodied today.
I had an opportunity to chat with them about their new book and ways to better love and care for our immigrant and refugee communities. You can subscribe or download this episode on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe to the video series on YouTube.
Here are some video clips from our conversation:
We’ve been examining the ways our theology and personal faith evolves — and how oppression, disability, trauma and racism can shift the way we understand God, our scriptures and ourselves.
Today, we’re going to be focused specifically on addressing the marginalization and oppression of our Asian American communities — and how living in a liminal space (sometimes not accepted as fully American or fully Asian) has shaped Asian American theology and helped us to better understand our God who dwells in liminal spaces, too.
And we’re grateful to learn from Dr. Russell Jeung, a leading sociologist of Asian American identity, race, and religion. He is also professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and author of many books focused on race and religion — including “Sustaining Faith Traditions: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion among the Latino and Asian American Second Generation” that he wrote with Carolyn Chen, published by NYU Press.
In 2020, Dr. Jeung launched Stop AAPI Hate, a project of Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, and SF State Asian American Studies. It tracks Covid-19 related discrimination in order to develop community resources and policy interventions to fight racism. His spiritual memoir, At Home in Exile: Finding Jesus Among My Ancestors and Refugee Neighbors, shares his experiences living among the foreigner and the poor.
In this podcast and video, Dr. Jeung talks with us about Asian American identity, the history of Asian American studies, the formation of Asian American theology and how churches have responded to Anti-Asian American racism. He also discusses how he’s tracking the rise of racism and hate crimes during COVID-19 with the STOP AAPI Hate project.
You can subscribe or download this discussion on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe to the video series on YouTube.
As you know, we’ve been living in a tragic time in our country amid COVID-19, political turmoil, friends and family members losing jobs, domestic violence increasing, and we’re seeing more violent examples of xenophobia, racism, and white supremacy around us.
A few weeks ago, we witnessed domestic terrorists invade our U.S. Capitol, people waving confederate flags and nooses to incite more violence, and “religious” people holding crosses, blowing Shofars, and plenty of signage with Bible verses to help incite more election anger and protests.
As a Christian, it’s absolutely appalling to see people use God’s name to incite violence and insurrection. Sadly, it’s another reminder of our church’s history of causing trauma.
People are hurting — especially our marginalized and immigrant communities. And the church has a responsibility to address these atrocities and be part of the healing process. And that’s why I’m grateful to have Dr. Robert Chao Romero as our guest on the podcast.
Dr. Romero is a historian and professor in the Departments of Chicana/o Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of California, UCLA. Dr. Romero has a unique perspective on social justice as an attorney, pastor, historian, and the son of a Mexican father and Chinese immigrant mother.
His academic research is focused on issues of race, immigration, history and religion — and his last book “The Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology & Identity” discusses the various ways our Hispanic church has fought oppression, slavery and other social justice issues.
We’re honored to learn from Dr. Lisa M. Bowens about her new book “African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance & Transformation” published by Eerdmans Publishing.
Dr. Bowens provides a historical, theological and biblical analysis of early interpretations of Paul by African Americans from the early 1700s to the mid-twentieth century, especially the passages from Paul directing slaves to obey their masters.
These scriptures were tragically used by American churches and pastors to justify slavery and oppress our Black communities. Churches even developed theological positions that doubted the humanity of Black people or even the idea that African Americans had souls.
Dr. Bowens reveals ways the African American community during this period understood Paul’s writings and used his words to fight oppression, racism and argue for their freedom.
Her detailed research includes an analysis of countless autobiographies of ex-slaves, slave petitions, sermons, biographies and powerful conversion stories. Her fantastic book also includes radical stories of how Jupiter Hammon, Lemuel Haynes, David Walker, Jarena Lee, John Jea, James Pennington, Julia Foote and Harriet Jacobs resisted the oppressive readings of Paul and found power and liberation.
Dr. Lisa M. Bowens is associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of “An Apostle in Battle: Paul and Spiritual Warfare” in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. Her research interests include Paul and apocalyptic literature, Pauline anthropology, Pauline epistemology, aspects of discipleship in the gospels, African American Pauline Hermeneutics, and New Testament exegesis and interpretation.
You can subscribe or download this show on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe to the video series on YouTube.
Spirituality & Social Justice
