So many of us were taught that Paul teaches us that our bodies are shameful, sinful even. Is there any other way to understand Romans 8:12-25? What would it mean if there were? Join Rev. Anne Dunlap for our latest episode in our #WrestlingWithRomans series!

Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Wrestle with Romans 8:1-11 with Brigitta Vieyra to dissect how race is a modern, colonial invention that Paul urges divesting from as a daily act of resistance. Together, we’ll also consider how the sacred, holy work of reimagining oneself beyond and away from whiteness requires us to become spiritual revolutionaries needed for our time.

Consider with Rev. Liz Kearny all the ways we have felt hopeless or overwhelmed by despair when we realize how thoroughly systems of oppression have saturated our very ways of being. How does Paul make space for us in Romans 7 to get honest about that? What is the first step from those places of despair onto the pathway towards transformation?

*Note: This podcast is for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, not the 3rd Sunday as Rev. Liz misspoke in this recording.

Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Join Jean Jeffress and Nichola Torbett as they talk to a live audience at the Northern Californa Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ Annual Gathering. We explain to people unfamiliar with the podcast what it is and what it does. And we have a conversation from Paul's letter to the Romans as part of our #WrestlingWithRomans series

Explore Romans 5:1-8 with the Rev. Liz Kearny as she learns how to reclaim this heavyweight text of the New Testament from the ways it has been co-opted by empire. What does it mean to remember with our whole selves that Abraham and Jesus are indeed our ancestors? How can we follow them in the path of faithful resistance to every system that seeks to destroy life?

Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Our new series, #WrestlingWithRomans, starts off with Rev. Anne Dunlap wrestling with the concept of justification and what Paul could possibly mean by invoking the faith of Abraham. Hint: It's not about arguing that Christianity is better than Judaism.

Transcript available here:

https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

"The Great Commission" in Matthew 28: 16-20 has long been used as a harmful loyalty oath to empire and a punishing god. Rev. Anne Dunlap asks if we can understand this text in a way that helps us declare our loyalty to the ways of justice and community and intimacy and liberation.

https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Join Dr. Sharon Fennema to feel into what these pentecosts of tender breath in the Gospel of John are offering us in this moment.

Transcript available here:

https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

What can a generative framework for holy resistance look like when we start thinking of Jesus less as martyr and more as witness? Join Rev. M Jade Kaiser as we ask how orienting ourselves towards attending our mistakes and failure, even when we feel guilt and shame by being a witness is a radical work of repair.

Ponder with the Rev. Liz Kearny what Jesus has to teach us about following our failures, limitations, and frailties to the truth: that it's community that holds the work of liberation.