Instagram Posts from the Week of Nov. 10, 2019

Podcast Rec. - Nov. 12, 2019

Past Listen - The Village Church Podcast: #35 - Thabiti Anyabwile on Single-Issue Voting & the 2016 Presidential Election (Released Oct. 6, 2016)

“[Caring about abortion] is not the only thing that comes from the heart of God. That you love your neighbor comes from the heart of God, and failing to do that means you do not have an essential mark of Christian discipleship. That you love your enemy comes from the heart of God. There are lots of things. God has a rather big heart.” - Thabiti Anyabwile

“To boil the whole world down to single-issue voting, or a single-issue voting approach, is not actually to respond to the world as it really is.” - Thabiti Anyabwile

Full disclosure: I did not listen to the last 10 minutes after Pastor Thabiti was no longer being interviewed, so I don’t know what was said during that time. In this episode, Josh Patterson and Pastor Matt Chandler interview Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile. I think this was the first exposure I had to Pastor Thabiti, and I am thankful to the friend who shared this with me. I deeply appreciate Pastor Thabiti’s heart and wisdom.

#thabitianyabwile #markchandler #joshpatterson #thevillagechurch #singleissuevoting #podcast #podcastrecommendation #podcastrec #politics #voting #lament #repent #repair #empathy #equality #listening #learning #justice #socialjustice #restorativejustice #love #loveyourneighbor #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative



Account to Follow - Nov. 13, 2019

As you can see in his IG profile, Allen Salway is a Diné, Oglala Lakota, Tohono O'odham from the Navajo Nation. He is a student, and his writing has been featured in Teen Vogue and Paper Magazine. He is also an ambassador for DIGDEEP.

You don’t want to miss Allen Salway’s posts, action steps he provides, and fundraisers he features. Click the Linktree link in his profile to see resources and ways to financially contribute.

Follow @lilnativeboy if you aren’t already, and support Allen Salway through Patreon, Venmo, or Cash App.

#lilnativeboy #accounttofollow #supportindigenouspeople #digdeepwater #empathy #equality #reflection #action #loveyourneighbor #checkbiases #checkassumptions #dismantlewhitesupremacy #endwhitesupremacy #decolonize #decolonization #endracism #antiracist #antiracism #becomingantiracist #humanity #learning #socialjustice #seekjustice #restorativejustice #lovemercy #walkhumbly #repent #repair #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative



Additional Rec. - Nov. 14, 2019

Additional Rec. - “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh

According to the footnote, “This essay is excerpted from Working Paper 189. ‘White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies’ (1988), by Peggy McIntosh.” This was one of the first resources recommended to me, but that was in the year 2017. Though 31 years have passed since this essay was penned, the list of 50 conditions that are effects of white privilege remains true; therefore, there is work to be done under the leadership of people of color.

“Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.”

“Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, ‘Having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?’”

“My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us.’”

“I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.”

“Difficulties and angers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism, and heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage that rest more on social class, economic class, race, religion, sex, and ethnic identity than on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are interlocking, as the members of the Combahee River Collective pointed out in their ‘Black Feminist Statement’ of 1977.”

On Nov. 14, 2018, Rachel Cargle posted on IG, “White women seem to only digest race issues when it is reframed in the light of (white) feminism,” which was the case for Peggy McIntosh. If you are a white woman and Rachel Cargle’s analysis and Peggy McIntosh’s experience are true for you, I am not trying to embarrass or shame you. But maybe you were taught that the “leadership” of men over women was God’s good design and will understand white privilege before you understand male privilege. Regardless of if we see white privilege or male privilege first, we must acknowledge privilege before we can dismantle ALL systems of privilege. If you are a person of color, I know this post didn’t contain anything you didn’t already know, but I want to thank you for reading. I appreciate you and value your insights and wisdom.

#additionalrecommendation #recommendation #whiteprivilege #unpackingtheinvisibleknapsack #peggymcintosh #equality #reflection #action #loveyourneighbor #endwhiteprivilege #endracism #enddiscrimination #checkbiases #checkassumptions #humanity #learning #socialjustice #seekjustice #restorativejustice #lovemercy #walkhumbly #lament #repent #repair #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative



Book Rec. - Nov. 16, 2019

Current Read - Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber

“While we as people of God are certainly called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, that whole ‘we’re blessed to be a blessing’ thing can still be kind of dangerous. It can be dangerous when we self-importantly place ourselves above the world, waiting to descend on those below so we can be the ‘blessing’ they’ve been waiting for, like it or not. Plus, seeing myself as the blessing can pretty easily obscure the way in which I am actually part of the problem and can hide the ways in which I, too, am poor and needing care. Seeing myself or my church or my denomination as ‘the blessing’ - like so many mission trips to help ‘those less fortunate than ourselves’ - can easily descend into a blend of benevolence and paternalism. We can start to see the ‘poor’ as supporting characters in a big story about how noble, selfless, and helpful we are” (Bolz-Weber, 2015, p.47).

“It’s weird, but of all the characters in the Gospels who encounter Jesus, the ones who most reliably know who he is are not the religious authorities or even Jesus’s own disciples. They are the demons. The demons always recognize Jesus’s authory. And the demons are afraid...Which is exactly why our demons try to keep us from people who remind us of how loved we are. Our demons want nothing to do with the love of God in Christ Jesus because it threatens to obliterate them, and so they try to isolate us and tell us that we are not worthy to be called children of God. And those are lies that Jesus does not abide” (Bolz-Weber, 2015, p.87).

“This is why being loved, really loved, can sting a little, reminding us of all the times we have loved poorly or not at all, all the ways in which we have done things that make us feel unworthy of real love” (Bolz-Weber, 2015, pp.126-127).

“I imagined Jesus standing there blessing us all because I believe that is our Lord’s nature. Because, after all, it was Jesus who had all the powers of the universe at his disposal but did not consider his equality with God something to be exploited. Instead, he came to us in the most vulnerable of ways, as a powerless, flesh-and-blood newborn...He was God’s Beatitude - God’s blessing to the weak in a world that admires only the strong” (Bolz-Weber, 2015, p.188).

I first heard Nadia Bolz-Weber during the funeral for Rachel Held Evans, and I was captivated by the way she handled the Word of God. I immediately listened to several podcasts she was featured on and then put the book Accidental Saints on hold at my local library. I know that many people in my life would be turned off by some of the language Nadia uses, but I still 100% recommend this book.

#currentread #accidentalsaints #bookrecommendation #bookrec #nadiabolzweber #reading #learning #faithjourney #faithtransition #deconstruction #reconstruction #evolvingfaith #findinggod #inallthewrongpeople #love #lovegod #loveyourneighbor #everyneighbor #becauseofrhe #broadeningthenarrative