Gravity Commons Podcast

There are lots of misconceptions about "deconstruction" (i.e. it's the "easy way out" or a way to avoid accountability). But Angela Herrington, in her new book Deconstructing Your Faith Without Losing Yourself, defines it as healing from religious trauma by releasing harmful beliefs, and accompanies people on that journey in her work.

Angela Herrington is a Lark's Song Certified Life Coach and hods a BA in biblical studies from Indiana Weslyan and an MA in leadership from Wesley Seminary. She helps those deconstructing their faith heal from their religious trauma and cultivate healthy spirituality.

You can connect with Angela and her work on her website: angelajherrington.com.

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Many First Nations tribes communicate with the cultural and linguistic thought patterns found in their original tongues. Terry Wildman joins us to talk about The First Nations Version (FNV), his indigenous translation of the New Testament, which recounts the Creator’s Story—the Christian Scriptures—following the tradition of Native storytellers’ oral cultures. This way of speaking, with its simple yet profound beauty and rich cultural idioms, still resonates in the hearts of First Nations people.

Terry M. Wildman (Ojibwe and Yaqui) is the lead translator, general editor, and project manager of the First Nations Version. He serves as the director of spiritual growth and leadership development for Native InterVarsity. He is also the founder of Rain Ministries and has previously served as a pastor and worship leader. He and his wife, Darlene, live in Arizona.

Show Notes:

• How to Fast For Lent: A Practical Guide
• "Rooted in Abundance": article that refers to the First Nations Version
• Sign up for Terry's newsletter at firstnationsversion.com
• First Nations Version Project Facebook page

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Jon Ward's life is divided in half: two decades inside the evangelical Christian bubble and two decades outside of it.

In his book Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation, Ward tells the engaging story of his upbringing in, and eventual break from, an influential evangelical church in the 1980s and 1990s. Ward sheds light on the evangelical movement's troubling political and cultural dimensions, tracing the ways in which the Jesus People movement was seduced by materialism and other factors to become politically captive rather than prophetic.

Jon Ward is the chief national correspondent for Yahoo News. He has covered American politics and culture for two decades, including as a white House correspondent traveling aboard Air Force One and as a national affairs correspondent writing about two presidential campaigns. He is the author of Camelot's End: Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party and hosts The Long Game podcast. Ward has written for the Washington Post, the New Republic, Politico, Vanity Fair, HuffPost, and the Washington Times, and lives in D.C.

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What does it look like to love someone you disagree with? In Loving Disagreement: Fighting for Community through the Fruit of the Spirit, Kathy Khang and Matt Mikalatos share how the fruit of the Spirit informs our ability to engage in profound difference and conflict with love.

Kathy Khang is a writer, speaker, and yoga teacher. She's contributed to More than Serving Tea and Voices of Lament, as well as the author of Raise Your Voice.

Matt Mikalatos is an author, screenwriter, and speaker. He's the author of Journey to Love and the YA fantasy series The Sunlit Lands. He has written for Today.com, TIME Magazine, Relevant, Nature, Writer's Digest, and Daily Science Fiction. 

Kathy and Matt co-host The Fascinating Podcast together.

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Most of us assume that all shame is toxic shame (feeling bad for the person I am). But can shame be "good"? In this episode we continue a conversation we started a few episodes ago in our Christmas episode, where we wondered about the way Jesus seems to leverage shame to seek repentance and restitution from oppressors. We received some excellent reflections from Naomi, a member of the Gravity Community, and we wanted to address some of what she said.

Show notes:

Here are Naomi's comments in full:

"Hey all - I’m just in the middle of the Christmas episode and the shame chat. I’ve done so much thinking about shame in the past 18mths or so. I also agree there is a form of shame that is healthy, which is different to guilt. I think guilt is linked to rules - I did something wrong that broke a societal rule. You can feel guilt outside of a relational context, because it is about our social rules. But shame is about broken relationships. Toxic shame says, “I am a bad person and am worthy of being expelled from the group, if people saw the true me they would reject me.” Healthy shame is about recognising that my actions can break relationships and hurt people, and therefore (hopefully) keeps me from doing those things. Part of our problem, I think, is that we haven’t learnt how to repair damage we do to others, so we fear our shame will lead to permanently broken relationships. My understanding is that in honour shame cultures this is more codified, so there are clear ways to restore honour if relationships are damaged. Thoughts?

"Eg. I feel guilty that I ate an extra cookie. I broke a perceived rule, but no one else is hurt. I may also feel some (toxic) shame about my weight because I believe it makes me somehow unacceptable and an object of judgement from others. I feel a combo of (healthy) shame and guilt when I yell at my kids, because it both breaks one of my parenting rules but I also see that as an abuse of my power and damaging to our relationship, but I know how to repair it. If I didn’t (yet) understand that, a friend may need to help me recognise my actions as “shameful”, hopefully without exiling me from the community. But if it was severe and I was unrepentant, then that may be necessary for the safety of others. 

"Also, if my yelling at my kids is unchecked, they are likely to internalise toxic shame. I think often our toxic shame comes from someone else being shameless, and the shame therefore ends up on the wrong person (ie on the one with less power). Because it wasn’t theirs in the first place, there is no way back for them, other than putting the shame back to me, it’s rightful 'owner'."

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We started Gravity in 2015, and up until recently the official name of the organization was Gravity Leadership. But we recently changed our name to Gravity Commons. Why?

Show notes:

• Read the article online: Why We Changed Our Name to Gravity Commons
• Join the Gravity Community.

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In her book Eve Isn't Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions, the Rev. Dr. Julie Faith Parker reads biblical texts through a feminist lens, discussing how vital our readings of the Bible can be as a source of strength, guidance, and joyful defiance.

Julie Faith Parker lives in NYC where she is a visiting scholar at Union Theological Seminary and biblical scholar in residence at Marble Collegiate Church. She has taught biblical studies at General Theological Seminary, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, and also at NY Theological Seminary, where her students were incarcerated in Sing Sing Prison.

Show notes:

Here's the article we mentioned in the introduction (Chris Green, prompted by a conversation between Bono and Franklin Graham, posts a conversation between Rowan Williams and Philip Pullman on what makes art art and what makes art Christian:

You Can't Actually Show the Resurrection

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We talk with pastor and professor Cheryl Bridges Johns about why our reading of the Bible needs to be "re-enchanted" for us to encounter it as God's Word. She is the author of Re-Enchanting the Text: Discovering the Bible as Sacred, Dangerous, and Mysterious.

Cheryl Bridges Johns is a pastor and theologian who has taught collee and seminary students for over 40 years. She is visiting professor and director of the Pentecostal House of Studies at United Theological Seminary and previously taught at Pentecostal Theological Seminary and is past president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

You can connect with her and her work on her bio page.

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Christy, Matt, and Ben spend some time reflecting on the past year: what they're learning and hoping for in the new year (and opening Christmas presents!).

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As part of our series on how to understand and read the Bible, we talk with New Testament scholar Robyn Whitaker about why and how to read the Bible on its own terms (instead of trying to make it into something it's not).

Robyn Whitaker is Associate Professor of New Testament Studies at Pilgrim Theological College and the University of Divinity in Melbourne Australia.

She co-hosts the By the Well podcast, and is the author of the book we talked with her about, Even the Devil Quotes Scripture: Reading the Bible on Its Own Terms.

You can connect with Robyn and her work on her website.

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