I wrote a post last week that’s still sitting in my drafts. I’ve re-written almost every part of it at least a few times, and I’m still unsure about publishing it.
I may write more later about all of my fears and concerns around writing these blog posts, about why I started the anonymously, and why I’m afraid to publish this post I’m talking about. But it now.
A glimpse of light!
When I shared a draft of that post with some friends, they recommended a podcast called “Reclaiming My Theology” by Brandi Miller, a Black woman theologian and teacher. I’d never heard of the podcast, but just looking at the episode titles I knew I was interested.
The entire first season is about “Reclaiming My Theology … From White Supremacy”, and talks about perfectionism, paternalism, individualism, and more. Many of the guests are people I either admire (Erna Hackett) or know a little and really appreciate (Scott Hall, Jazzy Johnson, David deLeon).
I’m very excited to dig into the podcast, for many reasons.
Not alone
First, I feel like I’ve been figuring this out on my own. But not only that, I know so many other people who also feel like they’re figuring it out on their own. Each of us has asked that question at some point—where are you going to church? Who are you learning from? Are you going to church? How do you even feel about Christianity and Jesus?
Many, many, many of these folks have answered that they still want to follow Jesus, but we just don’t know who to trust or what does or doesn’t need to be thrown out as we try to figure out what we believe. Someone along the way introduced the term “deconstruction” and it’s definitely appropriate—taking apart the systems of everything I’ve been taught for so many years to try to figure out what’s true and what’s just someone’s opinion presented as truth.
Anyway. All of that said, I’m overjoyed to have found a resource like. I’m only minutes into the first episode, and this quote—which is what originally drew me to the iPad to write this post—made me confident this is where I need to be right now. If you can throw a phrase like this out confidently in an introduction to the first episode, I’m ready to hear more.
“I grew up thinking that white theology was just objective theology, and not subject to a lens”
Brandi Miller, Reclaiming My Theology … From White Supremacy: What is White Theology? W/Scott Hall
I’m excited to listen more. As with everything else I’m reading and thinking about these days, I’ll share more here as I do.
POST SCRIPT:
I just realized that, in the past, I listened to the “Pass the Mic” and “Truth’s Table” podcasts, and I stopped when I got too exhausted from thinking about religion to actually give myself any time to just process what was in my head. Now that I’m tentatively putting my toe back into this water, I should probably A) acknowledge that Brandi’s podcast is certainly not the only one touching on these topics and B) catch up on the last several years of those as well.