Reclamation Faith

In this episode, we are launching our "birthday tradition" of interviewing one another, on our birthdays, about the past year. Josh just celebrated his "pseudo-birthday" (since there's no Feb 29th this year) and so he shares about how he's experienced the last year, and how he's been finding God in unexpected ways throughout almost a full year of pandemic mess.

 In the midst of a lot of laughter and reflection, we start to get at a poignant question: Can we learn about God by seeing the places where God isn't?

Deconstructing is an important word in circles of people leaving the church; but, is it always the best word? In this episode, Josh and Alison break down why Reclamation uses the word "displaced" to describe a larger need we see in the spiritual climate of our world right now.  

There's value in deconstructing conversations, but not everyone struggling to find a faith home may be helped by that term, and in this episode we talk about why that might be the case.

This episode compares the futility of day traders hoping to conquer the machine with Christians who leave church... thinking/hoping that their exit will effect change in that institution. Lest you think this is too lofty a convo for you -- this ends up being one of our more vulnerable episodes! Gotta listen to believe it.

The article Josh references throughout his opening analogy can be found here:  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/gamestop-story-you-think-you-know-wrong/617905/ 

This week on the Reclamation Faith podcast, Josh and Alison interview Bonnie O'Neil, who is a spiritual director, author, speaker (and much more!). Bonnie shares her own valuable insights about navigating seasons of our life when God is distant or the questions we have seem irreconcilable.

Bonnie recently wrote the book Chronic Hope: Raising a Child with Chronic Illness with Grace, Courage, and Love, in which she shares about her journey caring for a child with type 1 diabetes, a disease that had also dramatically impacted her family during her own childhood. 

You can learn more about Bonnie at www.bonnieoneil.com

What happens when the majority of Christianity has come to regard worship as an event, rather than a posture or a lifestyle? In this episode, Alison and Josh reflect on the ways we have come to misunderstand or misrepresent worship in much of contemporary Christianity, and how it leads to spiritual displacement. When worship is tied up in American ideals of success, wealth, and celebrity, then we lose the ability to truly worship the God who is active in all facets of our lives. Reclaiming worship means breaking our paradigm of worship as an event only, and moving toward a life of responsive awe.

In the 2nd part of our interview with Jeanelle Austin (Founder: Racial Agency Initiative, Lead Caretaker at the George Floyd Memorial), we focus on the topics of God's provision in efforts toward justice and practical steps to support ongoing work in Minneapolis, MN. Jeanelle focuses on how she is continuing in her own labor as an activist, and how seeing God as a God of abundance counters the narratives of scarcity that detract from engagement with justice work. She also shares her own practices of self-care, which require help from community. Listen and be encouraged and challenged! 

This week, we are thrilled to share a conversation with a dear friend from our seminary days, Jeanelle Austin. Currently, Jeanelle is the lead caretaker at the George Floyd Global Memorial, helping to preserve the history of protest, mourning, and support that was seen after Floyd's murder at the hands of police on May 25th, 2020. In this first part of our interview, Jeanelle shares powerful insight about the nature of creating sacred spaces for our human survival and in the quest for justice, as well as examining the nature of the white church's history of complicity and silence toward racial injustice. 

On Wednesday, January 6, 2021 the United States Capitol was overrun by an insurrectionist mob incited by the president. In that mob could be seen signs and symbols of Christianity.  Such examples of a violent and hate-filled Christian Nationalism are behind some of the spiritual displacement many are feeling in our world today. 

In this episode, we look at some of the theology underlying American Christian Nationalism, and how to be on the lookout for those same bad ideas about God in our own churches,  faith communities and within ourselves. 

In this week leading up to Christmas, we take a look at the concept of unity and its role in our lives of faith and love. Unity is a word that is full of beauty and potential, but also a concept that has been misused, misunderstood, or even weaponized to scare people into agreement and silence. How can we rethink Christian unity as a term of hope, rather than a tool of conformity? And most importantly, what does unity tell us about the character of God and the mission that led to the incarnation we celebrate at Christmas?

Get your boxing gloves ready! This week's episode continues our conversation with Erin Lingle, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, who illuminates the importance of conflict in relationships. We talk about why so many people (and churches!) are conflict avoidant and how conflict in our faith can actually help us to grow. Erin shares a lot of wisdom and research from a therapy perspective, and we take a stab at how this plays out on a spiritual level as well.