Happy almost weekend everyone!
We hope you got to listen to our bonus episode of Shake the Dust, Trafficking in Traumatic Testimony. We heard some very enthusiastic responses to it, and hope you enjoyed our first subscriber’s-only show. Remember, you can always go to the above link and click “listen in podcast app” to easily and quickly set up one feed with all our regular and bonus episodes in your podcast player of choice (unless your podcast player of choice is Spotify, which doesn’t allow that kind of feed for indiscernible reasons).
Alright, here are this week’s resources for leaving colonized faith for the Kingdom of God:
Jonathan’s recommendations:
You may have heard Christians over the past couple weeks arguing that opposition to the actions of the state of Israel is in itself anti-Semitic. They’re wrong, but anti-Semitism in the Church is undoubtedly pervasive in the ways Christians often preach and practice our faith. We need to understand this form of discrimination and the ways Christians, including Christian Zionists, perpetrate and perpetuate it. Brandi Miller wrote a fantastic essay in our anthology last year, and her podcast is worth listening to every week (and includes a few other episodes featuring contributors to our book). But this episode with Elizabeth Moraff on anti-Semitism in theology is illuminating in ways many Christians rarely get to hear.
They were teachers, doctors, lawyers, police chiefs, firefighters and retirees all at the Capitol on January 6. “Normal“ Americans participated in an insurrection that forced America to reckon with a portion of itself. But what happens when all of those people go home? What happens when a town has to deal with the photos posted on social media by a popular teacher who stood proudly in the crowd? These are important questions that churches must wrestle with when considering the people that surround Jesus and His mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves. On this episode of Slate’s podcast What Next, the host and reporter Matthew Rosenberg start a valuable conversation on these questions that I hope we can continue.
Suzie’s recommendations:
As the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, it is more imperative than ever that Christians in the United States heed the words of our Palestinian brothers and sisters. While the population of Palestinian Christians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem continues to dwindle under the weight of Israeli occupation; Bethlehem Bible College remains a beacon in the region offering contextualized theological education that actively challenges the narratives of Christian Zionism. President Rev. Dr. Jack Sara’s recent blog post on the ongoing violence provides important and painful insight into the Palestinian experience and issues a profound challenge to Christians who seek to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
This Tuesday marked a small step forward in acknowledging and addressing the horrific rise in anti-AAPI violence in the United States as Congress passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. As we continue to honor AAPI Heritage Month as an act of resistance in the face of bigotry and discrimination, this article by pastor and activist Erina Kim-Eubanks highlights the lives and contributions of ten remarkable AAPI women worthy of commemoration.
Sy’s recommendations:
I am extremely excited for next month’s release of Clint Smith’s book How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. The publisher describes it as “an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.” Smith is a phenomenal, empathetic writer (I don’t say that lightly), and you can get a preview of the book in this long excerpt in The Atlantic. The excerpt recounts Smith’s trip to a confederate cemetery in Virginia and a former plantation in Louisiana, and the several pointed questions he firmly, though not unkindly, asks curators, tour guides, and even members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. (hint: if you decide you want to pre-order the book, go to the first link in this paragraph before 5/28 and click on the red circle to get it with Smith’s signature and a personal note from him).
Bob Smietana from the Religion News Service has a piece in the Washington Post this week detailing the oddly cozy relationship between many prominent Southern Baptists and a former massage therapist turned online atheist. Their connection? You guessed it: politics. Specifically, the atheist opposes liberal narratives of racial justice. He is also a generally divisive figure with a less-than-sparkling sense of ethics. It is unsurprising that the continued political idolatry and lack of integrity in America’s largest protestant denomination is causing Moore and Moore people to leave (yes, I am proud of myself).
Shake the Dust preview
On tomorrow’s episode of Shake the Dust, Jonathan, Suzie, and Sy talk with Chuck Armstrong, a pastor, church planter, and writer in New York City. They discuss Chuck’s recent Medium article on his time working in the toxic world of talk radio, what attracted him to that world as a young white man, how he found his way out, and much more.
Thanks so much for reading, and we’ll see you next week!
The KTF team