Episode 52: Larycia Hawkins - Embodied Solidarity
What does it really mean to stand in solidarity with the marginalized? Pete Enns and Angela Parker are joined by scholar and activist Dr. Larycia Hawkins in this episode of Faith for Normal People to explore the risks and challenges of embodied solidarity, the radical model set by Jesus, and how everyday activism intertwines with a life of faith. Join them as they explore the following questions:
What is embodied solidarity, and why does it matter?
How does faith call Christians to stand with the marginalized?
How did Larycia’s experience at Wheaton College shape her understanding of solidarity?
What does it mean to have a prophetic voice within institutions?
How does Jesus model solidarity with the oppressed?
What role does proximity to suffering play in living out solidarity?
What does it look like to be Jesus followers today and want to still be a part of embodied solidarity?
How can everyday activism be a form of embodied solidarity?
What does multi-faith solidarity look like, and why is it important?
Quotables
Pithy, shareable, sometimes-less-than-280-character statements from the episode you can share.
“This is the beginning: December 2015 Donald Trump is running for office and saying, ‘I'm going to ban Muslims’, and so I wore a hijab in solidarity with Muslim women. The story is longer than that…This was also in conversation with students about what does it look like to embody solidarity with our neighbors? And who does God say our neighbor is? Everyone. Who am I responsible for? Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother? Who is my sister? Everyone.” — Larycia Hawkins
“Embodied solidarity for me was walking a mile in my sister's hijab, like Jesus implores us to do in the Sermon on the Mount—walk a mile in our neighbors’ shoes.” — Larycia Hawkins
“[I wanted to] walk a mile in my sister's hijab and do so in a way that exudes humility, prayerfully, and is not presumptive. So I did it in concert with talking with Muslim brothers and sisters at the council on American Islamic Relations, people that I knew from serving on committees in Chicago. [And] I think that act of solidarity also has to be read in the context of the moment, which was the rise of Trumpism.” — Larycia Hawkins
“You have to be close to suffering to know where to enter in solidarity.” — Larycia Hawkins
“I think the impulse to be at the centers of power as opposed to clamoring to be last, not first, is anathema to embodied solidarity. So I think there's something about proximity to suffering that we need to relearn and reclaim.” — Larycia Hawkins
“When we are in places of power, are we willing to do risky things? I don't think there's a formula. But I think it's having the eyes to see. Spiritual eyes. How do we see with the eyes of our heart? I think it's about a perspective of the oppressed.” — Larycia Hawkins
“My question is always, what does it mean to have a perspective of the oppressed? And this is what I believe Jesus did. I believe Jesus saw people created in God's image. Jesus dared to be touched and moved by them.” — Larycia Hawkins
“I don't know what else it means to be a Jesus person except to actually believe that the eyes of our hearts and the cells of the gut are meant to move us—move our feet to faith. I don't know how else to be and who else to be.” — Larycia Hawkins
“One day I'm riding the L in Chicago and I see a young woman literally take off her coat and give the inner jacket that she had closest to her skin, on a day where the weather shifted [so quickly], to a young man who most people would not dare to even speak to if it was in that part of the green line on the train. And she took it off. The first thing she did was say, ‘Hey, how are you doing? Where's your coat?’ He's like, ‘I don't have one.’ And then she took it off and she gave it to him. And I almost started [crying] because I was like—That's the sermon. That's everything. And then he got off at the next stop. I don't know if he threw the jacket away. It didn't matter. She said, ‘You be safe out there.’ That's Jesus.” — Larycia Hawkins
“Embodied solidarity can be anything and anywhere, but it is risky.” — Larycia Hawkins
“I think that we are inured to the realities of suffering, and we castigate people to the margins every day, all the time. If Jesus, if Christianity means anything, it should mean that it's not just being ‘saved from’, it's being given the eyes of our heart to see the reality of suffering. We have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, and that changes institutions. It changes systems. It changes structures.” — Larycia Hawkins
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: February class “Blood and Belief” with Caroline Blyth and Emily Colgan
Books: Violence & the Bible for Normal People by Caroline Blyth
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
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Jared: You're listening to Faith for Normal People, the only other God ordained podcast on the internet.
Pete: I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
[Intro music plays]
Jared: Hey folks, we're here to tell you about an exciting development in the Bible for normal people canon. Are we allowed to say that?
Pete: Yes, we can.
Jared: Okay. Uh, but anyway, we're launching the first book in our Themes of the Bible commentary series called Violence and the Bible for Normal People.
Pete: Written by Caroline Blyth, biblical scholar and host of the Bloody Bible podcast, this book is both accessible and engaging while dealing with one of the heaviest themes within the Bible.
Jared: One thing I love about this book is that it draws on her lifelong love of true crime and mystery novels. So Blyth tackles a sensitive subject with case studies to unpack the ways in which these biblical examples of violence continue to resonate today.
Pete: And this book comes out February 11th, but you can start reading it now with a free chapter download by going to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/violencebook.
Pete: Hey folks, we’re here to tell you about our February class called Blood and Belief: Exploring the Biblical Texts of Terror.
Jared: Something we’ve talked about here on the podcast and in past classes is about violence in the Bible, and we still get questions about it all the time.
Pete: The Bible contains really vivid depictions of violence—ranging from personal acts of harm to sweeping divine retribution on a cosmic scale.
Jared: What can we learn from these biblical “texts of terror” that illustrate so many kinds of violence? And how could we use them to reflect on the violent acts, words, and ideas that we encounter in our world today?
Pete: If you're curious about those questions, you can join class teachers Caroline Blyth and Emily Colgan—who are biblical scholars AND partners in crime as co-hosts of the Bloody Bible podcast—as they cover topics like violence and power, violence and gender, and the legacy of biblical violence.
Jared: The class is happening LIVE on February 17th from 8-9:30pm Eastern Time, followed by an extended Q&A session for members of the Society of Normal People. When you sign up you’ll get access to the live class, downloadable class slides, and you’ll get the recording afterwards in case you can’t make it.
Pete: It’s pay what you can until the class ends, then it’ll cost $25 to purchase the recording.
Jared: Head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/terror to sign up! And of course, if you want this class AND all of our other classes, plus a great community, early access to podcast episodes, and more, you can become a member of our online community the Society of Normal People for as little as $12/month at thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join.
Pete: Today on faith for normal people. I'm here with my wonderful, nay, amazing, fantastic, stupendous co host and nerd in residence, Dr. Angela Parker. Welcome back to the podcast, Angela. This is our first podcast together.
Angela: That seems hardly impossible. I just can't believe that.
Pete: I don't know. Anyway, I don't know. Protecting you from me. I don't know.
Angela: Oh, I don't understand how we could not have done a podcast together before this, but thanks Pete. I am so excited about today's conversation with our guest, Dr. Larycia Hawkins about embodied solidarity. She is so wonderful.
Pete: We had a great time talking with her and Larycia is a scholar, award winning political science professor, international activist, and commentator on issues related to the intersections of race, politics, religion, and solidarity. And don't forget to stay tuned at the end of the episode for quiet time during which Jared will jump back in and we'll talk about our reflections on the conversation.
Angela: All right, everybody. We hope that you enjoy this conversation with Larycia Hawkins.
Larycia: “You have to be close to suffering to know where to enter in solidarity. Jesus went through Samaria, which most people would not. How do you heal lepers if lepers live in leper colonies? We go, you go where the lepers are. I think the impulse to be at the center, centers of power, as opposed to clamoring to be last, not first, is anathema to embodied solidarity.”
[Ad break]
Angela: We are so happy to be here with Larycia Hawkins. And as we get started in this conversation, we just want to ask you to introduce yourself to our listeners here at the Bible for Normal People, by just explaining a little bit about who you are as a Christian here in these United States of America, what Christianity looks like for you. And if you want to talk a little bit about what your experience was like as the first African American tenured woman at Wheaton College.
Larycia: It's good to be with you, Pete and Angela, and I, come to you today from Lincoln University, which is, depending on who you speak with, the 1st historically Black college, it's definitely the 1st historically Black degree granting institution, uh, Chaney down the road is also one of the first Black colleges, um. And Lincoln itself started as a university to train and educate, young Black Presbyterian ministers as a satellite of Princeton University, which is not far from here.
The reason I find Lincoln, where I am now, as significant is you know, as a bookend, not that this is the end, but to my career thus far, is that where I started my academic career, Wheaton College, was also a stop on the Underground Railroad in the Midwest. In Pennsylvania, Chester County, where Lincoln is located, is literally just north of the Mason Dixon line.
So Lincoln is situated six miles north of the Mason Dixon line, like the Maryland border. So there's, there's a lot of symbolism inherent in this move from, uh, the Midwest, Wheaton being the first institution in the state of Illinois also to educate a Black man, the 1st higher education institution to educate a Black man, that's Wheaton College in Illinois. And Lincoln University, where I am now was, by many accounts, the 1st Black HBCU, but also it's important to note that Lincoln University itself educated people like Thurgood Marshall, Julian Bond's father was a past president of this university, and so it's got its own history relating to Black liberation and Black freedom in addition to, to the fact that it is a verified stop on the Underground Railroad. And was also a free Black town before the civil war. So there's just a lot of symbolism and, that, that comes together.
But my time at Wheaton, was I think, fair to say, interesting, is a good encapsulating word on many levels. I had three prayers when I went to Wheaton college, and one was that I would never be comfortable. Number two was that I would always be kind of ready like slash willing to leave if that was what I was called to do. And that I wouldn't have to be hit over the head with like an anvil like the Bugs Bunny or Roadrunner cartoon or something, right? When it's like a lightning bolt.
My grandfather was a pastor. So I grew up in a fairly conservative, Black Baptist church, national Baptist convention. And so I say I was raised in the Black church as much as I was raised in my parents’ house. My mom had seven siblings. Both of my grandparents had 10 siblings each. So I come from a very large, happy Black family. My dad is from the East coast from, you know, New York, New Jersey, smaller family on that side, but like from a family, who believed strongly in education. So rooted and grounded, like, the most formative institutions of my life were the Black family and the Black church. Period. When I think about my identity, I don't think about the country I was born in. I think about being born into these very culturally specific institutions, Black institutions.
And, but I also found myself growing up in white evangelicalism. I was baptized by my grandfather at age 11. When you're Baptist, you got to walk the aisle. I was stubborn. I didn’t know I had to do all that stuff, but you know, it's not like, you know, when you grew up Presbyterian and you sign the pew pad and you're like, I want to get confirmed or something like that. I'm not making fun. I'm just like, it's just different, right? Different.
Angela: I know those feelings.
Larycia: Or, you know, or, and I didn't get christened or baptized at birth. Sometimes I think that would have been easier because there was something in me that was resistant to that. And my grandfather also believed in an age of accountability, and he thought I was getting a bit old. And I say these things to say, like, this shapes the trajectory of my life. I was baptized on December 4th, 1984, and my grandfather by my grandfather, and he died December 6th, 1984 in the same church where he baptized me 2 days before.
Pete: Wow.
Angela: Wow.
Larycia: And so, uh, the imprint of Black institutions, like, on who I am—and I say who I be and who I becoming—cannot be overstated. And so while I grew up, you know, in my formative teenage years in a, in a white, I didn't know this delineation at the time Southern Baptist youth group and my Southern Baptist church was even considered the liberal Southern Baptist church in Shawnee, Oklahoma. But Southern Baptist nonetheless, white youth minister, white friends, white neighborhood, white classes, as you know, education being tracked, always the, the kind of, the cruciform shape of my heart is colored.
Pete: Larycia, can I, can I, can I ask you a question there just cause I want to tie this together. Going to Wheaton and, and, and three prayers, the first one to never be comfortable. It's, it's because of honoring your experiences and your life, and not just fitting in, because you've seen that. Right. Okay.
Larycia: No. And this is, that's where I was going is like coming into, going to a white youth group means I knew what white, and I went to a camp, even though we're at the liberal Baptist church, we didn't call ourselves evangelicals. I certainly was not going to call myself a white evangelical, but I had gone to like, Falls Creek, which is one of the largest church camps, probably in the world. 5,000 kids go to, you know, Southwest Oklahoma for a week in the summer for outdoor Bible camp, like stories and Bible study. So I was taking sermon notes from the time I was 12, reading my Bible every night, doing quiet times, all of these things.
So I had this inflection of white evangelicalism, like that I didn't know how to articulate. So I got it. I understood it. I understood that they were Christians and I was Christian and there's an evangelical impulse in Black Christianity, like meaning sharing your faith. You think it's important. That's what we do. But not the socio-political stuff. And I'm not here to say that there aren't elements of the Black church that aren't congruent with white evangelicalism. There are. The don't ask, don't tell, or the outright anti-LGBTQ inflection of some Black churches, right? And again, Black church, not a monolith, but—And I would say, in my background, that's what it was.
So I'm saying, I got some of the social conservatism but there was a cultural piece of the puzzle that was not fitting. I was never comfortable in that way at Wheaton, because what you don't sign, even when you go to a school that has a statement of faith, like Wheaton College does, there's an, there's a—I found myself saying something like, well, if you wanted everyone to be Reformed, you should have said that.
Pete: [Chuckles]
Angela: Yeah.
Larycia: Like, in a Reformed theological sense. I don't, I didn't want to throw, toss out terms that people don't know, but, Reformed in a kind of Calvinistic, even a Calvinistic light, if you don't buy all five points of the tulip, you know, like…it read to me as very much like that. I was like, I kind of get this. And I, but it was like, after a kind of a year or two in being like, oh, the way that the statement of faith read to me, like, yeah, I can sign that. But the way then it's presented in faith and learning seminars or other things is more like, uh, okay, but I'm a Black Christian and I think we're okay with y'all and you hired me and you were excited about that. And I believe Wheaton was excited to have me. I'm not saying they weren't, right? It's just like, sometimes you don't know what you're getting when you sign up for it.
Angela: Right. Yeah.
Larycia: It was the prophetic voice. I never, I grew up in a Black church and I'm telling you my, there was no clapping. There was one woman in the choir who used to get the spirit. And I remember being like, mommy, what's happening? You know, because it was a fairly silent church. There wasn't clapping, the choir didn’t sway. You know, I'm like, I went to a fairly conservative Black Christian church. But the inflection of Black theology before I knew what Black theology was. My grandfather did not go around saying, I'm preaching Black liberation theology. But he's preaching Black liberation.
I remember—this is before I started taking sermon notes. I remember a sermon from Isaiah as a child impacting me. I remember the verses. And so I'm like, the prophetic voice, again, woven through, you know, every fiber of my being, and then I'm in this very white evangelical space. And all I know to say is, like, there's something about the prophetic voice that feels very shrill to some people, to some sensibilities. And again, I'm not also not painting the white evangelical impulse as a whole as entirely resistant to that. But I think in this country, not just to pick on Wheaton, there, there's a willingness to pick up that Black prophetic function when it suits America's needs, right?
Angela: Hmm.
Larycia: When the white folks are finally ready to reckon with their “original sins,” and I don't even buy that language because that gives people an out. And it also takes away the kind of collective nature of the sin. It's like, it's that individual notion. I'm like, I was raised on, there's a kind of collective culpability. And so to come into an institution, and I will say that this is how I feel, this is not what I'm saying Wheaton did. I feel like I was the Black scapegoat and the sins of the white nation, the white Christian nation, this is pre-white Christian nationalism's resurgence. It never went away, right?
Angela and Pete: Right.
Larycia: But this is the beginning. December 2015 Donald Trump is running for office and saying, “I'm going to ban Muslims”, and so I wore a hijab in solidarity with Muslim women. The story is longer than that, but I put a post on Facebook that went viral.
Angela: Right.
Larycia: This was also in conversation with students about what does it look like to, what I called, embody solidarity with our neighbors? And who does God say our neighbor is? Everyone. Your brother's blood calls to you from the ground. Who am I responsible for? Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother? Who is my sister? Everyone. And the post said something about that. It said that I will wear hijab in solidarity with my Muslim sisters, my Muslim neighbors, not because they're American, but because they're human. First of all, their human dignity. Second of all, they are people of the book. That was a controversial phrase. But they are people of Abraham, children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, right? Part of the same religious family tree. And then, you know, that—those became fighting words as opposed to being viewed as an invitation to do what I think Jesus would do. Again, back to my own sensibility about what it means to walk in the Jesus way.
Pete: It was a threat to them, right? In terms of the reaction you got at Wheaton.
Larycia: It's hard when you talk about these things to be like, it's an institution, like people will say, have you forgiven them? And I'm like, who is them?
Angela: Right. Right.
Larycia: Because I don't want to castigate Wheaton. Wheaton is an institution that fundamentally shaped how I teach. Teaching at a Christian institution meant that I was able to teach from a deep space of conviction, you know, about, like, I'm a political scientist. So when I talk about justice, I'm channeling the prophets.
I'm channeling the prophetic voice in, in a way, right? But it's, it is fair to say, Pete, that I encountered static at the institutional level. A lot of stuff.
Pete: By individuals, not all, but, uh, by, by maybe powerful individuals at the institution. And I just meant to say that it, you know, uh, the reaction that you got is I think in my experience, typically, what happens when there's fear and when people feel threatened when their way of life and maybe even their conception of what Christianity is sometimes threatened in those settings.
Larycia: I also think that, and this is true about Wheaton, Wheaton College has been seen by certain people, and I think it's fair to say by, the Bible theology department itself as somehow like the keepers of the Holy Grail, right? Like, this Midwestern institution that in some senses, toes the line about what it means to be a small ‘O’ orthodox evangelical.
Billy, you know, Billy Graham didn't graduate from Wheaton. But Billy Graham is the most famous alum of Wheaton, other than Wes Craven of Nightmare on Elm Street fame. But like, that's a joke, y'all. You can laugh. My students do the same thing. But, yes. So, but he, he spent a year, of course, if you're an alum, if you go to school a year, you're an alum because they want your money, right?
Right. but this idea of like, what does it mean to be a Christian who says, and what are the institutions that uphold the banner literally? And so for sure, I think it's fair to say there are people, constituencies, individuals, and institutions, entire institutions, Wheaton and outside of Wheaton, that felt threatened by an act of solidarity that said, as a Christian woman I'm, not only making a statement about Muslims and calling them my religious kinfolk, not just my human kinfolk.
I'm like in the Black church we call it, in my church we called each other brother and sister.
Angela: Brother and sister, yeah.
Larycia: To call Muslim women my sisters I'm like that's just a human thing, but it's also a religion. It's a deep religion—It's a Black Christian girl thing to me.
Angela: Yeah.
Larycia: To consider every Christian that I meet my fam, the people that I grew up with in church are my fam, period. And so I think there were many levels, on what, and then like the symbology of a hijab, the beautiful symbology of a hijab is, it's a head covering. Of course, many religion, religionists, Christian, not Christian, wear head coverings out of respect when they enter religious institutions, but also sometimes outside of them. The idea that I would put something on, and I will say, you know, my grandmother said, well, if she wears that, then she's Muslim.
And, and then very quickly, she's like, I know my granddaughter, I know she's a Christian, but for some people, the first thought is, that's what makes you a Muslim.
Angela: Wow. Wow.
Larycia: Not a niqab, a hijab, a scarf on the head. Something that in the city of Chicago, people, if it's, if it's below 20—
Angela: Yeah, if it’s cold, you're gonna wear.
Larycia: But I was making a purposeful statement obviously and that's not to denigrate the significance of the hijab, but it's I tried to put it like, you know, in Ephesians when Paul talks about putting on the armor of God, like I've had conversations with Muslim women who talk about it in this way.
I remember being on a panel and someone saying something and she was, and she said, it's like a way to honor God with my body. And it made me think of verses within the New Testament that entreat us to do the same. How do we honor God with our body? And so embodied solidarity for me was walking a mile in my sister's hijab, like Jesus implores us to do in the Sermon on the Mount walk a mile in our neighbors’ shoes.
If they ask for, you know, your cloak, give them your coat, right? Walk a mile in my sister's hijab and, and do so in a way that exudes humility, prayerfully, and is not presumptive. So, I did it in concert with talking with Muslim brothers and sisters at the council on American Islamic Relations, people that I knew from serving on committees in Chicago. So, I mean, like that, I think that act of solidarity is also has to be read in the context of the moment, which was the rise of Trumpism.
Angela: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Larycia: So, so December 2015, December 10th 2015 was the Facebook post, February 2016, there's a legal separation agreement between college and I, and so I was no longer tenured at that institution that I thought I would spend the majority of my career.
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Angela: What do you imagine embodied solidarity looking like today in the age of continued Trumpism, in the age of we're still talking about people with quote unquote bad genes coming into the United States of America? What does it look like to be Jesus followers today and want to still be a part of embodied solidarity? What does that look like today?
Larycia: Well, I think embodied solidarity, I think it looks different for, because it's so contextual, right? There's something about, you know, I started off talking a good bit about—I didn't say the ancestors, but this strong sense, that my spirituality is culturally inflected. And one of the things that I think, again, even growing up in a like non-Pentecostal, Black Baptist church and the buckle of the Bible belt, Oklahoma. There's a strong sense of like, the Spirit, there's a strong sense that I mean, things I heard all my life going to every Black family reunion I've ever seen, t-shirt I've ever seen says something like we've come this far by faith.
Angela: Yes. And the Lord!
Larcyia: And there's even a song and like, and there's, even though it's like more, more normative these days for people to talk about the ancestors. Some of my, you know, Christian family would say, like, what are you talking about the ancestors? We don't worship ancestors. We don't worship dead people. But Lord, sure, we do. We talk about them. And when we say we've come this far by faith, we are always invoking these ancestors, you know, I think about the spirit. I believe the spirit, the spirituality that inflects me is the same kind of shape-shifting spirituality that inflected Harriet Tubman, as she was on a divine mission to lead her people—Black Moses, Frederick Douglass called her Black Moses…
Angela: Right.
Larycia: —to freedom. I think it's the difference between, time, chronos, chronological time, and kairos, spiritual. I, I just think for such a time as this. And how do you know, except that the time to do risky things, because I think embodied solidarity can be something like everyday activism. I mean, I think that we are all called in different, different points in time every day to do embodied solidarity life. Today, I was very touched by a gentleman who bought a man who was like on the street asking everybody for change, very loudly, like accosting people, literally accosting people. And he, he's clearly a college student and he's like, sir, can I, can I buy you something to drink? You know, it's just like little acts of solidarity, that you can do all the time.
But I, I also think, you know, people think sometimes embodied solidarity as being, I think of it as being risky. And I don't say that as a way of saying, like, oh, it's I made some sacrifice. I would do it again and again because I think it was the right thing to do. And I wasn't going to take back anything I said or what I did. That being said, I think some of the ways that we intuit the spirit is that we have to be close. Like, you know, I talk about, you know, King and Gandhi and you have to be close to suffering to know where to enter in solidarity. Jesus went through Samaria, which most, most people would not, most self-respecting Jews would not go through Samaria. Full of half breeds and unclean, right?
So how does Jesus encounter the woman at the well? He walks through Samaria. How do you heal lepers if lepers live in leper colonies? You go where the lepers are. So I think the impulse to be at the center, centers of power as opposed to clamoring to be last, not first, is anathema to embodied solidarity. So I think there's something about proximity to suffering that we need to relearn and reclaim. I think the desert is, and the wilderness is, where a lot of us need to be to be rejuvenated, to have our faith challenged. And we could also talk about that as the margins, right? And so where are these marginal places?
And when we are in places of power, are we willing to do risky things? These are the things that I think about a lot. I mean, sometimes people are like, like, is there a formula? I'm like, I don't think there's a formula. But I think it's like having the eyes to see and that these are spiritual eyes, like, how do we see with the eyes of our heart? And I think it's about a perspective of the oppressed.
Pete: If I can ask a related question, maybe just going off in a slightly different direction. Showing kindness, who's your neighbor? Everybody, right? Yeah, I, I agree with that. That's hard by the way. I don't like that always, but that's, that's the truth.
It's whoever you come across, right? You're a neighbor to those people. The next level of question is one, I think about this a lot too. And to be honest, I'm not really settled in my own mind on how to handle this issue, but it's not just showing kindness and love and self-sacrifice towards anybody. But you know, what does solidarity, solidarity look like in a multi-faith context? And I'm asking the, I mean, the very boring question, like what's the relationship between Christianity and other religions and, and, I'm asking you to just to reflect on your own experiences, you know, as, as you think about that issue.
Larycia: What I found most challenging about some of the reactions to when I stated this intention to wear the hijab. I wore the hijab, it wasn't like a one day thing for people who don't know the story. I wore it throughout the season of Advent. It really was questioning who is my neighbor? And this question just struck me as, again, I talked about growing up in a church setting where we called, okay, so it was co-religionist, brother and sister, it was clear to me that it extended to humanity.
And my question is always, what does it mean to have a perspective of the oppressed? And this is what I believe Jesus did. I believe Jesus saw people—Jesus saw people created in God's image. Jesus dared to be touched and moved by them. He saw that they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Like again, y'all are the bible scholars. A translation that I heard once is like, that is literally your insides are moved. Empathy comes from the gut.
Angela: Yeah Splankna, I often tell students that.
Larycia: And when your gut is literally moved, it's not just, it's not a feeling. You have to act—unless the lenses of capitalism blind you to the possibilities of Kairos, of the moment, for such a time as this—give your cloak and your coat. For such a time as this, walking on the Emmaus road. Invite that stranger to dinner. That stranger who turns out to be the Jesus.
Did not our hearts burn within us when he spoke to us on the road? They did not know who he was. They did not recognize him, but they had learned a thing or two about entertaining strangers and foreigners. And I don't know what else it means to be a Jesus person, except to actually believe that the eyes of our hearts and the cells of the gut are meant to move us, move our feet to faith. I don't know how else to be and who else to be. If Christianity means anything, and I believe that that is political. I believe it's material. I think it's political and I believe it's embodied.
And I was not, I will say, I grew up reading my Bible, and there are many things that were bequeathed to me by my upbringing, but one of them was not an understanding of, and maybe this is my interpretation, I'm not blaming any of my teachers, my grandfather, my Sunday school teachers. I didn't get a sense of the, like, physicality and the materiality of the Jesus. And, and one day I'm riding the L in Chicago and I see a young woman literally take off her coat and give the inner jacket that she had closest to her skin, on a day where the weather shifted like that, and give it to a young man who most people would not dare to even speak to if it was in that part of the green line on the train.
And she took it off. The first thing she did was say, hey, how are you doing? Where's your coat? He's like, I don't have one. And then she took it off and she gave it to him. And I almost started boohooing because I was like, that's the sermon. That's everything. That's everything. And then he got off at the next stop. I don't know if he threw the jacket away. It didn't matter. She said you be safe out there. That's Jesus.
And so embodied solidarity can be anything and anywhere, but it is risky. And before I got off the train I said, I know you didn't do what you did to be seen, I said, but in my religion and my faith—she goes, uh huh—I was like, that's what I'm called to do.
And I think that we are inured to the realities of suffering, and we castigate people to the margins every day, all the time. And if, if Jesus, if Christianity means anything, it should mean that Jesus, it's not just being saved from, it's being given the eyes of our heart to see the reality of suffering. I mean, we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, and that changes institutions. It changes systems. It changes structures.
And back to your question, Pete, people are afraid. Because if we do risky shit…you know, I understand. People don't like it when people say “burn it down.” I'm like, I get it. Because some, some—it's not just young people, by the way—some of us have given up on these institutions. If they're white supremacist at their core, what's gonna happen? They ain’t changing. And capitalism is white supremacist at its core. I'm not afraid to say that. And I don't care if you call, if all your listeners call me a Marxist.
I don't give a damn. I'm over that shit. Capitalism is killing us. Capitalism has already killed much of Christianity. Much of Christianity needs to die. Excuse me, sorry. I don't know. I don't, these churches, what, what, you know, I mean, there's a time where like, I had to get comfortable calling myself a Christian again. And I've said it many times. I say the Jesus way. I'm a Jesus follower. I'm a follower of a radical Jesus who says the perspective of a child—What is the life that is truly life? It is to see like a child and to believe that it is possible to live our lives in that way.
[Ad break]
Angela: You've taken us to the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, and you've taken us to the Samaritan woman at the well. I'm thinking about the gospel of John and the gospel of John's, the way people often read the gospel of John and its exclusiveness, and I'm piggybacking off of Pete's question on multi-faith solidarity, and this idea of exclusiveness in the Gospel of John that I hear a lot of churches hold on to. That the only way to salvation is through Jesus, where Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the light, things like that.
How do you imagine these places where Christians live in the world and, and they don't have a mosque nearby. They don't have a synagogue nearby. They can't even begin to fathom the idea that Christians can and should be in solidarity with Muslim neighbors and Jewish neighbors. And that we can be people in solidarity with others who are of faiths different than ours.
What would be some of your words to folks who are listening and don't even have an imagination for the kind of multi-faith solidarity that we're talking about today? And this idea of radical Jesus. That, I'm with you. We, our churches are capitalistic places and we still have preachers who are saying you're going to have the poor always with you. So don't give anything to the poor. We are living in craziness where people don't even understand radical Jesus. They're still worshiping an exalted Jesus and not seeing the example that Jesus has left us. What are your words to those folks?
Larycia: I don't have like a theoretical answer. Sometimes people are like, well, where, you know, some of these people that you're talking about, they want a place in the Bible where I can go. So, you know, again, I think the ultimate act of embodied solidarity is, again, the theologically inclined will have different views about what Jesus dying on the cross means and for whom and for what. But this notion of a God of Jews and Gentiles alike, and a movement, not a religion, a Jesus movement, a movement around—and I, what's, what I think it's fair to say is an ideal—when Jesus is dying on the cross and says to John, you know, this is your mother. It's like a new human, man, son behold your mother, mother behold your son. It's an invitation to think differently about who is my neighbor, the early, you know, beginnings of, the Jesus movement is full of fragmentation.
Again, I'm not the biblical scholar, various, uh, fundamental, what we might call fundamentalist groups that had withdrawn, scenes, you know, I mean, and full of controversies around, what does it look like to even worship and I think one thing that I used to hear a lot in white evangelicalism that was all truth is God's truth. Until, unless, like, the truth happens to be very closely associated with another particularistic religion, like Islam, or Judaism, by the way, same family tree, same monotheistic family tree, or Buddhism or Hinduism, or maybe Rumi said it and people attribute it to Jesus. If there's a God and the God of the universe is one, there's a lot of unity in that truth. And so, I don't have trouble saying that there are aspects of Islam that I think are compatible with aspects of Christianity, but it's less about that for me.
It's more about a solidarity with people created in the image of the divine, however one talks about that, and with the planet by the way. And so for me multi-faith solid—and I don't mean to denigrate the question. The question for me isn't—I don't believe that my own particularistic commitments are sullied by joining in solidarity with people whose faith expressions or lack thereof you know, those who have faith expressions or religious expressions or beliefs or don't. Just, I was raised not to feel threatened by those things, right?
And I don't feel in any sense—like religious conversion is not the thing I'm thinking about when I'm joining in solidarity either. And so that that's a whole conversation for a different day, perhaps, but the God who came near, the Jesus who gave sight to the blind, who walked, you know, who, you know, dared to speak to women, to acknowledge them, to do things that were considered, you know, countercultural, even unclean, you know, touching unclean people, that's the kind of coming close that wherever we are, we could mimic.
But living in that Kairos mentality, I think that's the thing. It's the context, it's the moment, it's the time, but I think every moment is a Kairos moment. I can't not believe that every moment is right for that kind of revolution, if you will. And I think, you know, that kind of sermon on the mount, revolutionary—I think might be a Shane Claiborne book or something. But like, that's, that's how I think about it and that's how I want to be and that's who I want to emulate.
Pete: Well, every moment is an inbreaking, potential inbreaking of the kingdom to use maybe some New Testament language or something. So Larycia, thank you so much for being with us and sharing those words and sharing your experience with us too.
Angela: Such a pleasure.
[Quiet Time music plays]
Jared: Let's get started in the conversation that you guys had with Larycia. You talked about institutions. She talks about her experience with Wheaton. You have some experience with some institutions. So, you know, what role do institutions play in shaping or challenging, particularly prophetic voices?
You know, institutions are not known for being on the cutting edge of these things, whether they're seminaries, universities or churches. So how do, for you, in your personal experience, how have institutions—I'm thinking of one in particular—what role have they played in as you've kind of pushed the boundaries of, of thought and practice?
Pete: Right. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I remember, uh, Paul Hanson, for example, one of my professors in graduate school, wrote a book about how the Bible is shaped by these moments that are beautiful, like the giving of the law, for example, he'd say. And that's, that's the form, and then eventually it becomes encrusted, and you need reform.
And I think institutions are, it's almost inevitable that institutions can begin, let's say, somewhat prophetically. I think that, you know, Westminster Seminary, where I spent student years and teaching years, about 20 years of my life. That's the narrative, right? I mean, Westminster broke off from Princeton Seminary in 1929. It was a prophetic voice in the Presbyterian world. But after a while, it's like when that prophetic moment is done. Then you, how do I put this? Uh, you know, they had a saying at Westminster, uh, Machen's warrior children, Jay Gresham Machen was a founder, was the founder of Westminster seminary.
And he was, you know, prophetic, I guess. And, and, somewhat of a fighter. And so that legacy sticks on, but then it becomes to sort of protect the institution that loses, I think, a prophetic voice and becomes an institutionalized voice. And I don't know how to get around that. I think that that's bound to happen in any institution.
You just start off one way and then it sort of grows cold and then people start rebelling at some point saying these are not answers anymore for our time. And, yeah, so I, I think institutions, they have that role in maybe codifying a prophetic voice that that can sometimes become somewhat distilled and then it becomes self-protective, right?
I think that's the definition of a prophetic voice when it becomes self-protective. It's you've, you've lost that and then it doesn't do a good job of tolerating others. And that's true, you know, Jared, in church settings too, not just the academic setting, but in church settings.
Jared: Yeah, I think I'm thinking of when we talk about prophetic tradition, I keep thinking of Brueggemann, who makes the point that one of the innovations of the prophetic tradition was a self-criticism. And I think that's what gets lost sometimes in these institutions is we conflate our opinion or the institution's stance with the truth. And then once that happens, now we get protective because we're here to protect the truth. And I think that element of criticism needs to be baked into these institutions because without that, I agree. I think it's inevitable. I think you just end up crystallizing and then protecting, but you need, uh, you need this feedback loop built into the institution. And I think a lot of churches and, uh, seminaries in particular aren't, aren't good at it.
Pete: Right. It's like you've found the truth. And forever and ever amen. And there's no, ironically, there's no, there's little room left for, well what else is God up to in the world? And that's, I sort of read, Larycia's situation at Wheaton in a similar kind of way. That there's an institution that has a certain history, but it hasn't come up very often in the history of that institution that, Muslim women are being made to feel targeted and in a very difficult time in our country's history, just the past 10 years and, and she wants to show embodied solidarity with them.
And our system doesn't know what to make of it. So I would, I would argue that Larycia was being a prophetic voice that the system didn't, wasn’t able to sort of incorporate into it? I mean, it could, but you know, you have the other factor too, having money, you know, donors and things like that. And, and that's, I mean, we all know that that's, that's not a cut on Wheaton or anybody else. That's just, that's the reality. You know, you've got donors and that you can't make them unhappy by this weird thing. That maybe some of the donors haven't even processed theologically what's going on, at least not on the level that Larycia did. And, you know, what would they do in that situation? I don't know, but—
Jared: Yeah, well, maybe let's make, let's turn the tables because I think an experience that a lot of people have that I think we both had is feeling this pressure to conform to things that you don't agree with because the institution, that's whether you're getting your paycheck or I think for a lot of our listeners, just this is their community. This is their home. This is where they belong, but there's this unrest. There is a sense of when do I speak out about these things?
As a pastor, I was really, I was brought into a church setting to bring about change. So I was asked to be a prophetic voice, which by the way, don't ever take that call on.
Pete: Yeah. [Laughs]
Jared: So I felt that—
Pete: “Oh, we didn't mean that!”
Jared: Exactly. Exactly. “No, no, no. We didn't want you to fundamentally change things. We just wanted you to, you know, change the window dressing. Can we have candles instead of bright lights, that kind of thing.” So. Uh, I felt that pressure definitely firsthand, and it's not an easy thing to navigate because there's no black or white.
It's a little frog in the pot of like, I'm going to stick around a little longer, and I think people tend to maybe stick around a little longer than they should for their own health, right? But I do think that's a matter of a lot of discernment and wisdom with these institutions. How long do I stay and try to change the thing? And when is it time for me to go? Because it's actually changing who I am into someone I don't like anymore. And I think that's just a tricky thing to navigate. So for you, how did you navigate those pressures [Pete laughs] and you know, what were, are there like some telltale things that looking back, you're like, ah, if I could go back to my younger days or go back to myself in those, I would, I would give some advice to on these particular things.
Pete: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I mean, we all have different personalities, but I—fear was overwhelming and also an undercurrent. It wasn't like something I was, I'm afraid. It's just deep down of losing my community and friends and a place that educated me too. That was important to me. So I was afraid of losing a job where I had an income. And that kept me from thinking clearly. Let me put it this way. I allowed that to keep me from thinking clearly. And it was only after leaving—a friend of mine said, you know, Pete, that you, they can only get to you if you let them. In other words, you should leave. Right? But I didn't want to hear that because, uh, I had kids in ballet and soccer camps and something, and a mortgage, right. And all those sorts of things.
And I, and I really had to wrestle with that. And I think if the pressure hadn't become for me, just undeniable and tremendous, I might not have made the decision to leave which is what I did do. I actually made the decision on my own terms to leave as I wanted to leave, but I think it took too long. I think it took longer than it needed to because I could see the writing on the wall for a few years. But I wouldn't let myself—Also I'm a fighter, so I'm not going to just say, okay, I guess I'll leave. It's like, no, don’t tell me what to think.
You know, but you see the other part of this Jared too, I think this is important too, is to acknowledge, I mean, institutions have a hard kind of deal, a needle to thread. Every institution has the right to define itself the way it wants to define itself. And if you don't fit there anymore, then you leave. And that's a very reasonable thing. But at what point does the institution ask itself, how can we continue to grow beyond our roots in 1929? And that's, that's, those are the kinds of discussions that are rarely had, I think, in the halls of power of institutions.
And so you either have to suck it up or you have to leave. And I will tell you, America is filled with evangelical and fundamentalist institutions where there are people who would like to foster change but are afraid to. They can't speak because they know what's going to happen to them if they do. And that's a shame.
And you know, with Larycia, she didn't have a choice. You know, she, she, she had to leave. And that was a rather public thing. I think it was an embarrassment frankly for Wheaton, but that's, that's what happened. That's,, that's the solution. That's the typical solution. You know, Larycia's not going to change Wheaton. I was not going to change Westminster. Even though I think I was actually tapping into an element of the tradition itself and most of the faculty thought so as well, but still, it's the people in power. It's the board and the administration.
Jared: Well and that becomes part of the challenge is people in power don't want to change because change is a risk to their power. If it changes, I might not hold that power anymore.
Pete: There’s something in the Bible about that. That's not a good—
Jared: Well, that's what I was going to try to tie kind of that prophetic tradition is important, I think, to these institutions being places that I think reflect a more Jesus ethic, that there needs to be a suspicion towards power. And bringing in processes—
Pete: Skepticism.
Jared: Yeah. Bringing in processes that check positions of power in institutions that claim to follow Jesus.
Pete: And I have to say, I've thought many times in my life, what would I have done there at Westminster, if I’d had the power. And I don't want to think about that. I don't know what I would have done, you know, would I have lashed back, would I have used that power against other people? So I think it's a grace moment for me that I, I was just sort of there trying to make my way for a few years and then left and it's, it's been great. Don't get me wrong.
But it's, you know, it's easy to criticize power if you don't have it. And that does not always happen. You know, the revolutionaries become powerful and they become the problem. But that's it's, it's hard to avoid that. That's human nature. And that, I think that's part of the sociological element of institutions too. And, and it affects people. So I guess what's the moral of the story here, Jared? Be careful what institutions you're a part of or keep your mouth shut?
Jared: For me, it is a couple, it's two sides of the same coin. One is to be diligent about checking in when you're in an institution where you don't completely fit to make sure that you're not that frog in the pot, that you're staying too long. And I think the other side of that coin is to be gracious to yourself, that you're navigating something difficult. It's not always easy to know where that line is, the right, you know, when is the moment to be prophetic? To stand for those convictions? And when you do, when do you stay and fight? How long do you stay and fight? And when do you leave and say, I'm going to go where I'm welcome?
Pete: Another wisdom moment. Yeah, exactly.
[Outro music plays]
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Outro: You've just made it through another episode of Faith for Normal People! Don't forget you can catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Stephen Henning, Joel Limbauan, Savannah Locke, Melissa Yandow, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Lauren O'Connell and Naiomi Gonzalez.
