Queer Theology

Cole Arthur-Riley joins us on the podcast for an inspiring and insightful conversation about her work as a writer and poet. Cole is the creator and writer of Black Liturgies, a project that integrates spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black literature, and the Black body. She is also the author of the NYT bestseller, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us. As a storyteller, Cole takes us on a journey of liberation to heed our calling and connection to the Divine by staying true to who we are. Amen!

Book: This here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us

Black Liturgies

@colearthurriley

@blackliturgies 

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

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Jonathan Merker joins us for this episode of our guest series to offer his thoughtful insight on some pretty heavy topics. Jonathan is not only one of Brian’s good friends but a licensed therapist whose counseling style is rooted in relationally analytic psychodynamic psychotherapy. This style of counseling is indicated for issues around relationships, families, identity, sexuality, grief, trauma, and depression. He talks with us about his experience as an ex-gay experience survivor, feelings of shame, abuse, and how recovery involves radical self acceptance. Trigger warnings for this episode apply: conversion therapy and childhood sexual abuse. 

Web: https://www.gaymenscounselingalliance.com/jonathanmerker

IG: https://www.instagram.com/gaymenscounselingalliance/

Book mentioned:

Out of the Shadows by Walt Odets

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

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We’re so excited to bring you a joyously enthusiastic interview with Rev. Micah Bucey for this episode of our guest series. Micah is a radically progressive faith leader who writes, speaks, and extravagantly celebrates the intersections between expansive spirituality, radical social justice, and unfettered creativity. He currently serves as Minister at Judson Memorial Church and has a book available, The Tiny Book of Prayer. Tune in as Micah talks prophets and performance art, inviting in weird queer storytellers, and wandering in the wilderness. 

Grab a copy of The Book Of Tiny Prayer: https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823299225/the-book-of-tiny-prayer/

Web: https://www.micahbucey.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/micah.bucey

IG: https://www.instagram.com/revmicahb/

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

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For this episode, we had the pleasure of talking with Rev. Angela Tyler-Williams about her work as an organizer, the overarching importance of Reproductive Justice, and a little history of how we even came to this place of arguing for or against the morality of abortion. Angela is Co-Director for Movement Building at SACRED, an alliance of religious leaders, organizers, academics, and congregations. She is a queer pastor ordained by the Presbyterian Church into her call to engage people of faith to speak publicly and politically in support of reproductive health, rights, and justice and LGBTQIA+ equality. She inspires us to use our power to create positive social change!⁠

IG and Twitter @revangelatw

TikTok @queerladychurch

https://www.sacreddignity.org/ 

@sacred_repro

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

We have the authors of You Mean It Or Don’t: James Baldwin’s Radical Challenge, Jamie McGhee and Adam Hollowell on for our guest series this week. Jamie is a novelist, playwright, and essayist and Adam is an author, ethicist, and facilitator whose work addresses social inequality and promotes collective efforts for a more just world. We talk with them about their inspiration for this project during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, how they came to work together as student and professor, and the radical challenge from Baldwin in the 60s and 70s that is still relevant today.

Resources:

PrayingwithJamesBaldwin.com

@prayingbaldwin social platforms

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

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For this episode in our guest series, we have a fantastic conversation with Rev. Nikia Smith Robert Ph.D about her transformative work as an abolitionist. Dr. Robert founded Abolitionist Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization and faith-based abolitionist movement committed to helping churches use public policy and transformative justice strategies to advocate for a more just and equitable society beyond prisons, policing, and punishment. We get into liberation theology, the importance of working together as a community, abolition as religion and also an ethic, and lots of alliteration! Dr. Robert is inspiring, invigorating, and absolutely committed to rethinking the indoctrination of a carceral system. 

Resources:

Emilie Townes: Womanist Ethic and the Cultural  Production of Evil (book)

Traci C. West: Disruptive Christian Ethics: Where Racism and Women’s Lives Matter (book)

Penitence, Plantation and the Penitentiary Harvard Divinity School Journal article

https://nikiasrobert.com/ 

If you enjoyed our interview with Rev. Dr. Nikia Smith Robert and want to support the work of Abolitionist Sanctuary, you can do so with a donation below. We’re collecting donations from podcast listeners to pass along to her to support her work.

Donate

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

We’re so excited to welcome back Kaya Oakes to the podcast to talk with us about gender expectations, feminism, her choice to remain Catholic, and why we need to cast off harmful but accepted societal expectations. Oakes is the author of five books, most recently including The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life’s In Betweens to Remake the World. Tune in as we talk about the women of her book,  the idea of God and big dick energy, finding the feminine in unexpected places, and starting a gender revolution. 

Listen to The Nones Are All Right: An interview with Kaya Oakes: https://www.queertheology.com/podcast/122/

Find more of Kaya Oakes at:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kayaoakes

Website: https://www.oakestown.org/

Grab a copy of The Defiant Middle on Amazon

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

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It was a real treat for us to sit down with the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D – she just radiates love and we know you’ll be inspired by this episode! Rev. Jacqui is the senior minister of Middle Church, the oldest Collegiate Church in the US (and also the place where Brian met his partner 14 years ago!). She uses her gifts as author, activist, preacher, and public theologian toward creating an antiracist, just, fully welcoming society in which everyone has enough. We talk with Rev Jacqui about rising from the ashes after a horrific fire at her church, about being Christian and part of a church that was founded by people who owned slaves, and about the challenge and education that must come with a church that is inclusive for all including people on the margins of society. Through it all, the consistent message from Rev. Jacqui is one of love so fierce, it has the power to heal and change the world. 

Find more of Rev. Lewis at:

Middle Church: https://www.middlechurch.org/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RevJacquiLewis

Website: https://jacquijlewis.com/

Love.Period. Podcast: https://jacquijlewis.com/podcasts/

The Four podcast: https://sites.libsyn.com/402275

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

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Taj M. Smith sat down with us for an uplifting conversation on deconstruction, redefining leadership, and how the storytelling of science fiction can give us hope for a better future. Smith is a writer, coach, preacher and speaker and also a transgender Christian whose theology has been heavily influenced by liberation theology, queer theology, and science fiction. Tune in as we dive into what changed Smith’s path from one of law to seminary and how his relationship with God grew as he transitioned. 

Find more about Taj:

Web: https://www.tajmsmith.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taj.speaking/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/taj.speaking/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taj.speaking

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

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It was so great to chat with Bishop David C. Strong in this episode of our Winter Guest series about building affirming communities and integrating spiritual practices to create a life-giving faith. Bishop Strong has served as pastor of Sojourner Truth Christian United Church since 2008. He was ordained to the Independent Catholic priesthood in 1992, and was consecrated a bishop in 1996 (he is Fr. Shay’s Bishop in the Old Catholic Church). Bishop Strong has been a strong advocate of equality for all people, especially racial and sexual minorities, and we talk with him about the influences of the Roman Catholic church, as well as his evangelical upbringing, that shape his faith and role as a Bishop. 

Find more of Bishop David Strong

Twitter: https://twitter.com/revdavidstrong

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Frdavidstrong/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidcstrong1

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@frdavidstrongsi

https://www.spiritofchristtacoma.org/

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology.

The post Making Space & Bridging Communities with Bishop David Strong appeared first on Queer Theology.