If you’ve caught even a little bit of national news this year - let me first say I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. The kind of Christianity I often see as I scroll through my social media feeds can be really devastating - and I often find myself wondering how two people can read the same Bible and come to such different conclusions about what it says, especially when it comes to society and politics. 

We aren’t the first people to wrestle with this. Since the very beginning days of this country, Christians in the United States have struggled to separate their national identity and all its cultural norms from the kind of faith and lifestyle Jesus called us to. In the New Testament we find a Jesus that drew people to him - especially people who had been beaten down and hurt by both their government and their religious leadership. We find a Jesus that put His love for people above all religious laws and traditions, and even the laws of the land. It can be tough to reconcile our faith with our politics, and when Christians find themselves in positions of leadership they will always be faced with a question: “How will my faith influence how I lead?”

Travis Stovall has served as the mayor of Gresham, Oregon since 2021, and made history as the first Black mayor of any major city in the Portland Metro area and across the state of Oregon. As an involved member of his community and a lifelong Christian, Mayor Stovall has had to navigate how he chooses to allow his faith to show up in how he leads the city of Gresham - and it might not be exactly how you think. We’ll have him share those experiences himself as we explore all that and more in this episode of Bridges Over Walls.

If there’s one topic that divides Christian culture in the United States today more than just about any other, it’s the topic of justice. Despite Hebrew and Greek words for justice appearing more than 1,000 times throughout the Bible - the American Christian church is often starkly divided when it comes to how we go about seeking and advocating for justice today.

While Christian pastors were prominent leaders in the Civil Rights movement and other justice work since the founding of the United States, Christianity has also been used as justification for some of the most horrifying violations of human rights. During the Civil War, the vast majority of white American slave owners used the Bible to justify slavery and racial abuse. The Confederacy was founded as a Christian organization. Many of the most prominent and violent white supremacist groups including the Ku Klux Klan explicitly claimed Christianity as their foundation. And even today, when any marginalized group begins to advocate for fair treatment and freedom from oppression, it tends to be American Christians who are the most resistant and hostile to those efforts. When it comes to what justice actually means here in the present day, Christians tend to be sharply divided.

In Luke Chapter 4:17-21, Jesus returned to his home town and began to preach. He opened to the book of Isaiah and read a list of things he had come to earth to do. Here are a few of those things: To preach the Good News to the poor. To heal the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind. And to set at liberty those who are oppressed.

In a country built on a legacy of violence and oppression, the question for each of us who want to follow Jesus is - what does He want us to do about it now?

As a Black kid growing up in Oregon, Taylor Stewart was taught very little about Civil Rights or justice at his Christian school. He grew up, graduated from college, and decided to join a trip to the American South to learn more about this history. While touring Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, Taylor was especially impacted by the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which memorializes nearly 6500 African American victims of lynching documented between the years of 1865 and 1950. As he read the names and even saw people with his own last name listed, Taylor says that he realized only time and place separated him from the people named in the memorial. As the trip ended and time went by, he found himself wanting to share the history he had learned, and started thinking a lot about a quote from Civil Rights leader John Lewis that says, “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”

In 2018, Taylor founded the Oregon Remembrance Project, which works side-by-side with communities that have a history of racial harm to chart a new end to their stories. Most notably, Taylor has worked with the communities of Coos Bay, Oregon, the site of the most widely documented lynching of an African American man in the state, and Grants Pass, Oregon, a former sundown town, to chart a new course toward healing, hope, and historical honesty.

[Content Warning]: This episode contains a racial slur as part of a historical quote.

Follow Taylor Stewart and the Oregon Remembrance project by visiting www.oregonremembrance.org or by watching their 2024 OPB Documentary at www.opb.org/article/2024/09/18/oregon-remembrance-project-truth-reconciliation/

Relationships can be tricky between any two people, regardless of their backgrounds. Any time two people come in contact with each other, they bring together very different sets expectations, norms, and experiences. Some walls between people are the walls we create through our actions and choices - but sometimes the walls were built long before either person was even born. They were built by the generations before us - our forefathers and foremothers - and continue to remain an obstacle between people today.

One of these walls is the history and politics of race. For centuries in the land that would become the United States, race-based slavery was a legal and accepted practice. And even after slavery ended officially, it wasn’t until about 60 years ago that racial discrimination was made illegal thanks to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The scars created by slavery, racial abuse, and discrimination remain with us today, and as Christians many of us are left to wrestle with the question, “How would Jesus want us to wrestle with this legacy of trauma?”

In the Bible, when a person or group of people had sinned, we see that God called them to repentance. One way God did this was to call individuals to repent. In the story of Zaccheus we see a man recognize the harm he had caused others and change his behavior, doing all he could to pay people back for the wrong he had done them. But we also see examples of entire groups of people repenting and changing together. In the book of Jonah, the entire city of Ninevah realizes that they have been wrong, and everyone from the King himself down to the poorest person apologizes for their behavior and they change their ways. What can we learn from these powerful stories, and how might those stories apply to us today in the United States?

Early in her adult life, Sarah Sanderson found herself wrestling with these questions. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer in 2020, she found herself once again exploring her role as a Christian woman and a white American citizen, and she discovered that members of her own family had been part of enforcing racism just outside of the town she still lived in through Oregon’s Black exclusion laws in the 1800s, which stated that no Black person was allowed to enter or live in Oregon. Sarah published her findings and experience in a book called “The Place We Make,” which challenges white Americans to reckon with their history, repent of the ways they still benefit from that history, and to work toward a more just and honest future alongside the people around them.

When you hear the word “Ministry” what do you think of?

I know for myself, ministry used to mean telling other people about what I believed. In my early understanding, ministry was informational - it was leading Bible studies and passing out literature and preaching sermons. Ministry meant defending my faith well and having better arguments about topics like creation, lifestyle choices, and salvation than the other people around me. What I didn’t learn until later is that perhaps the most powerful form of ministry isn’t informational - it’s incarnational. We learn a whole lot more from watching how other people live their lives than we do from what they say to us. It’s how we learn whether to trust someone. It’s how we decide whether we want to listen to the things they say in the first place. Incarnational ministry is all about embodying the character of Jesus and introducing the world to Him through our actions.

As a former local church pastor who now works as a hospital chaplain, Emily Cortez has been learning incarnational ministry for the past several years. When people are experiencing some of the most vulnerable parts of their lives in the hospital, what does it mean to minister to them?

As time moves forward, our society has changed faster and faster each year. The past century of life on earth has seen some of the most monumental shifts in how humans interact with each other and the world around them. Technology has advanced at lightning speed, and there have been incredible shifts in our traditions, our laws, and even how we communicate with one another. While some of these changes can be scary, humanity has also made incredible advancements in life saving medical practices and wrestled with how to become more humane in how we treat one another. We’ve learned to question the missteps of the people who came before us and, although the process continues to be a messy one, more and more people seem to be struggling toward a future where people look out for each other regardless of our differences.

For generations growing up in this rapidly advancing world, church can feel like an artifact from another time. And in a society where questions and curiosity are held up as important values, there is an increasing tension between the rising generations and anywhere that feels unwilling to grow and change. This is one major reason why young people disconnect from organized religion in their early adult years.

Conversations around the youth exodus often focus on why young people leave church - but what if there’s more to that story? What if young people today are being pushed out of church when that isn’t really what they wanted? What if, in our desire to reject worldliness and sin, we’ve instead rejected people who simply wanted to understand God and the world around them more deeply? What if church has become a place that no longer fosters growing personal relationships with God and our neighbor, and what if that tension is the beginning of the end for curious people?

As a kid, Jessie Correa was heavily involved in his church. He even spent many years dreaming of becoming a pastor. But as he grew older, several personal experiences caused him to question his place in church. What can we learn from stories like Jessie’s?

Growing up in church can be… complicated. For some people, church provides a safe community where they can grow, socialize, and find a personal relationship with God that lasts throughout the rest of their lives. For others, growing up in church can be incredibly traumatic experience that they spend years trying to recover from. There are about as many individual experiences in church as there are people, but over the past decades the church’s struggle to keep young people engaged has grown from a concerning topic of conversation to a full blown crisis.

To put it more plainly, young people today are having a far harder time connecting with organized religion than the generations before them.

A lot of time and money has been invested in studying this separation. And people who study it have recommended all sorts of solutions - from changing the style of the worship music to pushing more Bible studies and church services. One article published in 2022 suggested that there is a direct link between how often families have worship at home together and how likely their children will be to stay involved in church. I remember reading that article and thinking, “This doesn’t reflect my experience at all.” For most of the people I grew up with, their reasons for disconnecting had a lot more to do with what they found in church, Christian schools, and their home lives than anything else. Their unanswered questions and disappointments in Christian culture remain topics of conversation even when we talk to each other today.

Is the answer more family worships, more chapel services, and more prayer meetings? Or is It something else?

For this episode, I decided to ask one of my high school classmates about her experience. Krystal Nolasco grew up heavily involved in church. She was the kid you’d see doing special music and staying late with her family on Saturday afternoons for more worship services. She joined Christian clubs and memorized Bible verses in Sabbath school class, and attended the same Seventh-day Adventist high school I did.

Although our paths have taken some different directions, Krystal remains a close friend in my life today and someone I greatly respect - and I think a lot of her story can challenge the conversations we have around young people, church, and the walls we’ve built between them.

If anything has become the new normal these past years, it's chaos. Whether it's the global chaos of political upheaval, natural disasters, and economic shifts or the more personal seasons of chaos we face in our own lives, it can be hard to feel a sense of stability in today's world.

Whatever the causes may be, in times of chaos humanity shares one thing: we're drawn to structure. And few things offer structure as consistently as religion. Religious traditions and norms can be a stabilizing force, but there's a danger in clinging too tightly to the rules and traditions. When we prioritize structure over principles, we can risk losing sight of the God those rules and traditions are meant to point to.

In this episode we’re talking with Jon Holland, who formerly served as a pastor and now lives in the greater Portland area with his family. Jon’s journey over the past several years has led him through a long process of questioning, growth, and a deeper sense of faith in a God that meets us wherever we are.

Bridges Over Walls returns for a long awaited second season! Katelyn Weakley, MDiv, MSW, joins the show to cut straight to the heart of so many interpersonal walls. In this episode, we're talking about trauma.

It's no secret that trauma dramatically shapes how we view the world - whether it's interpersonal, cultural, or religious. For many Christians, church spaces can be complicated. They can be both a source of healing and a significant source of struggle. In this episode we explore how trauma affects us physically, socially, and spiritually - and how each of us can grow in how we relate to other suffering people.

Whether you're navigating frustrations with the Christians in your life or just hoping to better understand how to connect with others on a deeper level, this episode is for you.

Welcome back to Bridges Over Walls!

Season 2 of Bridges Over Walls is coming at the beginning of 2025! In this bonus episode, our production team takes you inside the show - exploring what we learned making our first season, what we hope to achieve in Season 2, and the challenges we've faced along the way.

You'll hear from:
Kaleb Eisele, producer & host
Mitchell Kessler, producer & editor
Jonathan Russell, general producer

We can't wait to share our next season with you soon!

Dr. Seth Pierce, host of the Beast & Bible podcast, joins us for our final episode of Season 1 to discuss what fear can do in the hands of Christians.

If you grew up Christian, you’ve likely seen certain specific fears sweep the country. Whether you lived through the panic around dungeons & dragons or rock & roll, or through more recent targets like Harry Potter or the COVID vaccine, Christianity has had a way of creating fads out of fear. Fear has been one of the most powerful motivators that lead Christians to harm other people. Whether it was spiritual fears of demons and witchcraft, or societal fears in a rapidly globalizing world - fear has often been what pushes us away from treating people like Jesus would. As you listen, we hope you’ll take the time to ask yourself about your own fears. How does fear affect your faith? How does it affect how you treat people? And what kind of a picture of God do fearful Christians show the rest of the world?

Dr. Seth Pierce is a local pastor who has spent years researching the intersection of monsters and religion. If you want to hear more along the lines of this episode be sure to subscribe to Beast & Bible!

Subscribe to Beast & Bible here: https://open.spotify.com/show/3dyuFCCl5Aj5IGmeJ3oVAQ