This is part seven of our series, "White People Talking to White People About Racism," a reading of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson. In this episode the Rev Julie Van Til helps Josh unpack chapter three.
Julie Van Til is a spiritual director and the pastor of Floosmore Community Church in Flossmore Illinois near Chicago. She is originally from the West Michigan area and was the one guest the Rev Dr Denise Kingdom Grier especially hoped would contribute to this conversation on racial justice. At the beginning of the conversation Julie and Josh discuss how the posture of a spiritual director influences her ministry as a lead pastor. They then consider the several ways that white supremacy is theft of power and culture and how racism is rooted in a troubled theology of creation. Julie and Josh conclude with reflections on the body and how anger about racism is not only acceptable, it is necessary for our healing.
Reparations, Learning to Care: A Celebration of Latorious Willis' Prison Release! - Part VI No. 73
Before we can actively be a part of healing the ravages of white supremacy, we have to learn to care, to be invested. This whole series, "White People Talking to White People About Racism, A Reading of Reparations: A Christian Call to Repentance and Repair by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson," this is our chance to slow down, listen, pray, and grow in our capacity to care for the work of healing before us.
In this episode Josh shares his conversation with Latorious Willis who recently was recently released from prison. Here we celebrate Latorious' release, his spiritual friendship with Josh, and to celebrate all the other brothers who are still behind bars. We hope this episode offers you a glimpse into the goodness of learning to love the disinherited, the marginalized who are often ignored--or in Howard Thurman's vocabulary: the person who back is against the wall.
Reparations Chapter 2 w/ Rev Bryan Berghoef - Part V No. 72
The Rev Bryan Berghoef helps Josh unpack "Seeing the Reality of White Supremacy," chapter 3 of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair. We are releasing this especially on the occasion of the 4th of July weekend because chapter two begins with Fredrick Douglas' speech on the 4th of July, 1852.
Bryan Berghoef is someone Josh has been excited to get to know for some time. He is an American politician, pastor and author who was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Michigan for the Second District.[1] He is also a pastor of the Holland United Church of Christ, a UCC church in Holland, Michigan, which he founded in 2016.
The gift of this conversation with Bryan is a hope-filled demonstration of ecumenical breadth of the body of Christ that is bears witness to the love of God that will heal the ravages of white supremacy.
Rev Bryan Berghoef
Reparations Chapter 1 w/ Rev Kate Kooyman - Part IV No. 71
The Rev Kate Kooyman helps Josh unpack “The Call to See,” chapter one of Reparations.
This call, this invitation to reparations is a discipline of seeing. Chapters one and two of our book this summer are intensive opportunities for us to see the white supremacy that pervades America, the church, and even our own families, homes, and careers. With the honesty and clarity of a spiritual director, Kwon and Thompson describe the difficulty of seeing: “seeing racism in this was has been an ongoing struggle. In truth, seeing clearly almost always is a struggle.”
Seeing is a struggle. Since the beginning we have chosen to hide from God, from each other, and from ourselves. Only with the merciful help of the Holy Spirit will we be able to come out of hiding and to open our spiritual eyes and ears to honestly know the troubles we are in and then to ask the Spirit to heal and reassemble the fragments of our lives.
Kwon and Thompson go on to write: “Embracing these truths requires a profound transformation of one’s identity, history, and aspirations. With this transformation comes an inescapable sense of disorientation and an enduring form of grief.” However, this is not a foreboding, heavy, losing ourselves in darkness for Christians, people of the light, because of the hope of the Gospel. We see the darkness in and through the light of Christ. This is an invitation to engage the sanctifying love of Jesus with more determined joy than ever before.
Subscribe to the Invitation:
About our summer podcast series:
Reparations Group Discussion Guide:
To learn more about our formation schools...
The School of Prayer:theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-prayer
The School of Contemplative Listening: theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-con…e-listening-1
Rev Kate Kooyman
Reparations Introduction w/ Dr Susanna Childress - Part III No. 70
My wife, Susanna Childress, helps me respond to the introduction of Reparations. The idea is to let each chapter breathe a bit, to find ways to open ourselves to God in the reading and in the discussion. Susanna is especially able to help us think about how immersing ourselves in the writings of people of color can help us grow into people who will want to attend to the work of reparations.
She is an Assistant Professor of creative writing at Hope College here in Holland, MI., and is author of two books of poetry, the 2006, Brittingham Prize in Poetry winning, Jagged With Love, as well as Entering the House of Awe. In 2015 her poem, “Careful, I Just Won A Prize at the Fair” was included in The Best of American Poetry.
Dr Susanna Childress, Hope College, Holland, MI
Reparations Introduction w/ Dr Jesse N Curtis - Part II No. 69
Dr Jesse N Curtis, Valparaiso University
Josh and Dr Jesse Curtis touch on some of the big ideas in the introduction to Reparations, but mainly they admire the careful yet bold while also pastoral tone of the book we’ve chosen for our summer read and discussion. Jesse Curts begins his contribution by sharing from his own journey, how he learned from his early mistakes and learned the goodness of experiencing God in and through his steep learning curve on racial injustice.
To go directly to the conversation with Jesse Curtis, skip to 18:40.
If we want to experience the depths of God's love, we need to find ways to be involved with the things of God. Responding to racism and participating in the necessary repentance and repair of racism is of course seemingly heavy, yet it is a profound opportunity for transformation and hope! We understand the light of Gospel to the extent that we've seen the darkness.
White Supremacy is that darkness.
We invite you to participate in the life of God deeply this summer for yourself and for the healing of our country.The wonderful simplicity of the Gospel is that Jesus came to set the captives free. Isaiah 61 has been described as Jesus' mission statement: "to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners."
We are not pitying black people in America by acknowledging that they are, in the vocabulary of Howard Thurman, the "disinherited." In fact, it would be dishonest, undignifying, and un-loving to pretend that they have not been abused and that they are not still being abused in ways that are more broad and deep than the police brutality gets our attention in the news. The insight of Reparations, our text for this summer is that,
"White supremacy’s most enduring effect, indeed its very essence, is theft. We believe White supremacy to be a multigenerational campaign of cultural theft, in which the identities, agency, and prosperity of African Americans are systematically stolen and given to others. As we will show, we believe that while this theft took many forms, its most significant and enduring forms are the theft of truth, the theft of power, and the theft of wealth."
Here is a link for more information about this summer series, “White People Talking to White People About Racism”.
Please visit Jesse’s website: The Myth of Colorblind Christians
We are asking participants to buy the book from a black owned bookstore. In West Michigan, consider the store, We Are Lit! For a list of more black owned stores visit Literary Hub.
Our call to worship prayer for this summer from Howard Thurman:
Lord, Lord, Open Unto Me
Open unto me, light for my darkness
Open unto me, courage for my fear
Open unto me, hope for my despair
Open unto me, peace for my turmoil
Open unto me, joy for my sorrow
Open unto me, strength for my weakness
Open unto me, wisdom for my confusion
Open unto me, forgiveness for my sins
Open unto me, tenderness for my toughness
Open unto me, love for my hates
Open unto me, Thy Self for myself
Lord, Lord, open unto me!
Reparations Orientation With Rev Dr Denise Kingdom Grier - Part I No. 68
The Rev. Dr. Denise Kingdom Grier offers a bold, honest, and frank discernment of the racism in America and the white church. Her courageous testimony provides the necessary and essential orientation as we invite white people to talk with white people about racism this summer 2021 in our reading of Reparations: A Christian Call For Repentance and Repair by Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson.
Josh offers some orientation to Denise’s orientation by walking through the details about how this summer series will work, and then he offers some context about why the Invitation is handling this book and the vocabulary of reparations. Finally, Josh offers a few meditative readings from Ephesians 3 to allow you time to take this very difficult conversation into contemplative practice.
To go directly to the conversation with Denise, skip to 23:20.
We are asking participants to buy the book from a black owned bookstore. In West Michigan, consider the store, We Are Lit! For a list of more black owned stores visit Literary Hub.
The March 4, 2021, “#LeaveLoud” episode of the Pass the Mic podcast mentioned can be found HERE.