In this episode of Faith for Normal People, Jared and Angela Parker talk to Yolanda Pierce about the different paths of deconstruction, how womanist and intersectional theology provides plenty good room, and why true multicultural diversity is more than just different faces in a shared space. Join them as they explore the following questions:
What does deconstruction mean to Yolanda in her experience as a professor and as a dean?
How have Yolanda’s students gone through deconstruction?
Does deconstruction lead people to get more into their faith or get out of their faith?
How do Christians find themselves talking with the same vocabulary about very different versions of God and Jesus?
What is womanist theology and how can it transform our faith?
What is intersectional theology and how can Christians approach it?
What benefit is there in faith to recognizing the impact of different social locations on one's understanding of God?
What are the failures of the current effort to build multiracial and multicultural churches and faith communities?
How does the idea of intersectionality in church settings relate to power and authority structures?
Where does Yolanda see the growing edges of womanist theology, womanist biblical interpretation, and womanist ethics in relation to intersectional theology?
How does truth relate to diversity?
In what ways has the search for “truth” shaped Yolanda’s view on the importance of including diverse perspectives at the table?
Quotables
Pithy, shareable, sometimes-tweetable-length quotes from the episode you can share.
On Deconstruction:
“For some students, [learning how the Bible was constructed] really begins a deconstruction process of their faith, where they start asking a series of questions, not just about the biblical texts, but about all manner of traditions and rituals and liturgy that they had been taught.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“I think about deconstruction as a necessary thing that people who have a faith that they want to critically examine must do.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“When I think about deconstruction, I think about the capacity to be able to ask questions, to be able to dig deeper, to be able to express doubt, to be able to bring to bear all of your critical skills and your tools, your learning, all of yourself, and ask hard, tough questions.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
On Different Responses to Deconstruction:
“For some students, the deconstruction process actually does lead them to walk away from their faith. They feel as if what they had been taught or what they had been believed is no longer valid for them. It is no longer where they are. They have grown, perhaps even outgrown, who they were or who they imagined themselves to be. For others it does not. That deconstruction actually provides the building blocks upon which they build something that is more genuine, more real.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“I always believe that we need people who are standing outside, who are critical observers—critical, but kind, who can bring the critique to bear. We're always going to need outside voices. And then we're always going to need people who choose to stay, choose to remain, choose to rebuild, choose to restore. And those two things are actually not diametrically opposed to one another. We need the critique. We need voices on the outside. And we need those who are saying, ‘I'm actually going to dig in deeper and I'm going to take these blocks and maybe this rubble and build again.’” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
On Womanist & Intersectional Theology:
“My experiences as a Black woman, my traditions, the peoples, the communities, the language, everything from my lived experience to my body, all of that was relevant to how I understood God. And all of that had everything to do with a God who loved me and affirmed me and created me.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“Womanism was this mechanism, this means, this theory, this theology, whereby Black women had a voice and agency.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“[I had a] eureka moment, which was that God didn’t need me to be anything but who I was because God had created me this way.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“As a scholar who works in womanist theology, it is a wonderful, rich way to do intersectional theology where race, class, gender, sexual orientation, one's understanding of the body and the spirit and the mind, all of the social, economic, health determinants, all of those pieces can come together in a theological construct for understanding who God is, but for also understanding why God loves me as God has created me.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“What I think the beauty of intersectional theology can be is that in our tradition, we would say there's plenty good room—room for everyone to bring their full selves without diminishing any aspect of themselves, and yet be in full community and solidarity and humanity with each other. That's intersectionality. We bring these differences, we bring these social locations, we bring these aspects of our identity. We don't have to leave them at the door, but we also come to the table with our shared common humanity. And in those differences, we find God. We find joy. We find value. ” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“Womanist theology emphasizes that experiential, it emphasizes the personal, it emphasizes the intimate so that we know that any theology we do is contextual.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“No one's doing theology from the moon. Everyone is doing theology in context. That's what intersectional and womanist theology reminds us of: that all theology is connected to a context, to a people, to a construct. And we're all speaking from those experiences.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
On Multicultural Church:
“I love this idea of the multicultural church as a concept, but where it does not work is that people are like, ‘Just bring in lots of different kinds of people.’ But what doesn't change is the actual construct, which is predominantly a white construct…And then they're like, ‘This is multicultural.’ What troubles me more than that model is...regardless of who the leader is, the liturgy is still white. The music is still white. The way of approaching doing theology, the teaching, it’s still dominated by a white construct.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“The ideal would be... can you bring all of that together so that people can best express how they want to worship God without then silencing or distancing or somehow de-legitimizing someone else’s experience of worshiping God.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
On Generational Perspectives:
“I'm very invested in conversations across generations, because I don't believe that we can do the kinds of theology that God really would call us to do unless we are working across generations.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“I’ve just been wondering more and more, what if our conversations politically, theologically, were across this intergenerational spectrum where we took seriously the voices of both the babies and the elders, and we could humble ourselves to really admit how much we don’t know?” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
That's the beauty of reading through intersectional theologies. It forces you to think about…who am I not hearing from? Can we talk about Christianity in America without having real conversations with our brothers and sisters in the global South? Can we talk about current politics without paying attention to our brothers and sisters in the Middle East? It is to constantly be asking the question: who's not at the table? — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
On the Value of Diversity for Finding Truths:
“Instead of the idea that we can find truth by removing all of the differences and that will get us to this one little kernel in the middle…we seek God’s truth by embracing all that God has made in the beauty of diversity and difference, and that only together can we then find the truths.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“I often do think that a stumbling block is that we think of truth with that capital T, and we think that we can get at it. And that's sheer arrogance, right? That's the hubris of our human mind. Truths [is] saying, ‘Wow, there’s a mystery here that I can never solve but by journeying with my brothers and my sisters, together we can approach it.’ That's a very different way of looking and imagining God.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
“You need a team, you you need other folks with you. So I learned from the Quakers and the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. I learned from Buddhist brothers and sisters. I've learned when I've been in predominantly Muslim countries. I'm learning about God even from people of other faiths. So I think we really have to do away with this idea that we can get to the kernel of truth and instead celebrate the mystery and the journey that we are on that is at the center of what our faith is.” — Dr. Yolanda Pierce (@YNPierce@theb4np)
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: August Class “Banned Books: The Apocrypha Edition” with Dr. Brandon Hawk
Books:
1 & 2 Samuel for Normal People by Aaron Higashi
In My Grandmother’s House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit by Yolanda Pierce
Hell Without Fires: Slavery, Christianity, and the Antebellum Spiritual Narrative by Yolanda Pierce
Join: The Society of Normal People online 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]
Pete: Last call for summer school 2024 as our August class is coming up soon. Our August class is called Banned Books, the Apocrypha Edition, and it's going to be taught by the esteemed Brandon Hawk.
Jared: What's the Apocrypha, you might ask? It's the books that didn't make it into the Protestant Bible. The class will cover what Apocrypha are and why they matter for understanding the Bible, as well as the histories of Judaism and Christianity.
It's happening live on August 22nd from 8-9:30pm Eastern Time.
Pete: When you sign up, you'll get access to the live one night only class, plus a live Q& A session, a link to the recording afterward, and downloadable class slides. As always, it's pay what you can until the class ends, and then it costs $25 for the recording.
Jared: Of course, members of our online community, the Society of Normal People, get access to this class and all of our classes for just $12 a month. To sign up for this class, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/bannedbooks.
If you like how the Bible for Normal People discusses the Bible using the best in biblical scholarship, then you're going to want to pick up a copy of our latest book, 1 and 2 Samuel for Normal People. It's authored by our brilliant and witty nerd in residence, Aaron Higashi, who dives into some of the most beloved stories in the Bible, like David defeating Goliath, Saul descending into madness, and David's unashamed dance before the Ark of the Covenant.
Pete: But what do we do with the rest of 1st and 2nd Samuel? The stories that either don't make it into our Sunday School favorites list, or are somehow sanitized before we even get to them. Stories like David and Bathsheba, or Amnon and his sister Tamar.
Jared: What do we make of David, the man at the center of them all, the one after God's own heart? Aaron guides readers through these books in a way that's accessible, funny, and heartfelt. If you've cringed while David's character is celebrated from the pulpit, you question the example of a king who failed so miserably as a father, or wondered at the heart of a god reflected in a man such as this, this is the book for you.
Pete: 1 and 2 Samuel for Normal People is out now wherever you like to buy your books. So get your copy today, and don't forget to leave a review.
Jared: Well folks, today on Faith for Normal People, I'm joined by my esteemed co-host, Angela Parker. So welcome, Angela.
Angela: Thank you. And we're talking about the many voices in Bible and theology.
Angela: Our guest, Dr. Pierce, currently serves as professor and dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. Her research specialties include literature and religion, womanist theology, and African American religions. She is author of In My Grandmother's House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit, and Hellfires: Slavery, Christianity, and the Antebellum Spiritual Narrative.
Jared: It was such an honor to have Yolanda on the podcast. She just has a way of taking concepts that we've talked about on a couple of occasions, at least on the podcast, but just such a vivid and powerful way of storytelling and talking about those concepts.
Angela: And she explains them so well, and it's just a delightful presence to be in conversation.
Jared: Don't forget to stay tuned at the end of the episode for quiet time. Let's dive into this conversation with Yolanda Pierce.
[Music plays over teaser clip of Yolanda speaking]
Yolanda: “We bring these differences. We bring these social locations, we bring these aspects of our identity, but we also come to the table with our shared common humanity, and that in those differences we find God, we find joy, we find value. There's room for everyone to bring their full selves, be in full community and solidarity and humanity with each other.”
[Ad break]
Jared: Well, welcome to the podcast, Yolanda. It's really, really an honor to have you here.
Yolanda: Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.
Jared: Let's jump right in. What does deconstruction mean to you in your experience as a professor and as a dean? You know, how have you seen students go through this process? What's your perspective on this whole deconstruction thing?
Yolanda: I've been thinking about deconstruction for a long time. And maybe the best example of it I have is, after usually our first year students at Divinity School take an introduction to Hebrew Bible or an introduction to New Testament class, and as both a professor, but in my role as a dean, I love to see those students go into those classes. And then I love to see them come out.
And the reason that I love to see it is because you really see with the students, how something has shifted for them, particularly in this case, in terms of how the Christian Bible, the Holy scripture, was actually constructed, how it was put together, what made the cut, what did not make the cut, how the canon of the Holy Writ came to be.
So the reason I think about this in terms of deconstruction is because for some students, that really begins a deconstruction process of their faith, where they start asking a series of questions, not just about the biblical texts, but about all manner of traditions and rituals and liturgy that they had been taught. Other students actually, it's very interesting, they walk away from those introductory classes and they are excited and they are hungry and they're like, this is exactly what I came here for. I want everything to be torn down, to be torn apart, to be taken apart.
And so when I think about deconstruction, I think about the capacity to be able to ask questions, to be able to dig deeper, to be able to express doubt, to be able to bring to bear all of your critical skills and your tools, your learning, all of yourself, and ask hard, tough questions that may—not always—but may lead you to say, Hmm, I'm not sure I believe now what I've always believed, or may lead you to say, Wow, this is just far more interesting than I ever imagined it could be.
But those tools that I hope, at least in the Divinity School setting, that we are equipping students with are tools for deconstruction. They're also tools for rebuilding as well. So I think about deconstruction as a necessary thing that people who have a faith that they want to critically examine must do.
Angela: And so they get to stay in the faith as well, even as they're critically examining it. As a Dean, do you see students, do you see them more get in their faith or get out of their faith?
Yolanda: I've seen all manner of responses. For some students, the deconstruction process actually does lead them to walk away from their faith. They feel as if what they had been taught or what they had been believed is no longer valid for them. It is no longer where they are. They have grown, perhaps even outgrown, who they were or who they imagined themselves to be.And so that deconstruction might involve them walking away.
For others it does not. That that deconstruction actually provides the building blocks, right, upon which they build something that is more genuine, more real. And so for some, that deconstruction is like, Wow, I've had baby food all of this time, and now I'm ready for that grownup food, right? I'm ready to be that adult in my faith.
And I want to say that I actually have to affirm both those postures and others. I always believe that we need people who are standing outside, who are critical observers, critical, but kind, but critical observers. Who can bring the critique to bear. We're always going to need outside voices.
And then we're always going to need people who choose to stay, choose to remain, choose to rebuild, choose to restore. And those two things are actually not diametrically opposed to one another. We need the critique. We need voices on the outside. And we need those who are saying, you know, I'm actually going to dig in deeper and I'm going to take these blocks and maybe this rubble and build again.
Angela: I'm going to shift back again to a racialized part of the question. In your own work in My Grandmother's House, and as you were talking about your own college experience, especially with a white male colleague who was debating against Margaret Garner's decision to kill her own child instead of returning that child into an enslaved state.
I was thinking about that part of your work and it felt like a deconstruction moment for you, not from religion, but from people and their limited understanding of God. And I was wondering how, how you would respond to that. Do you agree, disagree? And what are your thoughts around that moment of deconstruction in your own life?
Yolanda: Thank you for that amazing question. So I was this young college student and to encounter one of my classmates who had an experience that was very similar to mine, been raised in a very deeply devout household, right? And what was so interesting to me about that encounter is that we had the same language. We had the same religious background, we were familiar with the same text, right?
But what I learned from that experience was that although we had the same language, by which I mean, right, the God talk and the Bible and we were PKs and so, you know, there's just a way that our vocabulary, of course, was shaped by that. I understood by the end of that class that we had radically different visions of who God is, and that actually shifted everything for me. I absolutely affirmed that as a deconstructing moment.
I think that I really believed up until that point that, oh, well, all Christians are talking about the same Jesus. They're talking about the same God. They're talking about the same grace and the same salvation. And we were not. He did not have a context in which he, as a young white, maybe 20 year old, we were, we were young at that time, could imagine that death was a preferable option to life for an enslaved woman who herself would have been remanded back to slavery and who would have faced her children going back to slavery, where they would have, as she was, been brutalized or raped or harmed or sold again.
He could not imagine that this Black woman who understood herself as a Christian, understood herself to be calling on this same Jesus that both he and I were naming. That she could dare do something that, for him, sat so far outside of what he believed to be right and just. And so, even though we had the same vocabulary of God and justice and Jesus, we had radically different experiences.
And so it was a shift in my own imagination where I really had to sit with: is everyone who calls the name God, calling on the God in whom I believe? Is everyone who calls on Jesus, who talks about salvation, who talks about justice and mercy and grace—are they also referencing what I'm referencing? And the answer at that moment was no. And the answer for me now for this lifetime has been no. And so I'm very, very careful about the language. I'm very, very careful about how I understand that we can all use this same vocabulary and mean radically different things. It shifted everything for me. It changed my politics. It changed how I understood whether or not I could be in interracial religious spaces, whether or not multiracial spaces was even a goal. Whereas I once thought that that should be a goal. And so if a deconstruction moment, is it a stepping away, but is a space in which one is radically altered? That was that moment for me.
Angela: Yeah, that makes sense. So even before we move to a question on multiracial church, I want to ask you a question of when you realized you were womanist.
Yolanda: So when I got to graduate school, I encountered the term womanism and womanist for the first time. So it wasn't something I had encountered as an undergraduate. And it certainly wasn't something that I had encountered growing up in a storefront holiness Pentecostal church in Brooklyn, New York. And so I was like, what is this?
And so womanism was this mechanism, this means, this, this theory, this theology, whereby Black women had a voice and agency. Black women who were excluded from feminist conversations in religion, because those feminist conversations were often white, and then Black women who who had been excluded from some of the black theology conversations because those conversations were often centered around men, created this space, uh, based on the term that was coined by Alice Walker around womanism.
And so for the first time, all of this clicked for me, that my experiences as a Black woman, my traditions, the peoples, the communities, the language, everything from my lived experience to my body, all of that was relevant to how I understood God. And all of that had everything to do with a God who loved me and affirmed me and created me.
And so I encountered womanism as a graduate student. And it was that eureka moment, which was that God didn't need me to be anything but who I was because God had created me this way. And so now as a scholar and as someone who works in womanist theology, it is a wonderful, rich way to do intersectional theology where race, class, gender, sexual orientation, one's understanding of the body and the spirit and the mind, all of the social, economic, health determinants, all of those pieces can come together in a theological construct for understanding who God is, but for also understanding why God loves me as God has created me.
Jared: If I can ask a follow up question, just because I think this may be a new concept for folks as well, is this idea of intersectional theology. Can you just say more about not just what that is, but how do you do that? Because I think a lot of people are starting to recognize that they're coming from a particular social location in their thinking of God, and it's sort of like, okay, but now I'm bumping up against other people who have a different social location or a different identity than me. And so how do we cohabitate the space of Godtalk and figuring that out?
Yolanda: So what I think the beauty of intersectional theology can be, and this is embodied in womanist theology, is that in our tradition, we would say there's plenty good room, and I use that phrase to say that there's room for everyone to bring their full selves without diminishing any aspect of themselves, and yet be in full community and solidarity and humanity with each other. That's intersectionality. Intersectionality is that we bring these differences. We bring these social locations. We bring these aspects of our identity. We don't have to leave them at the door, but we also come to the table with our shared common humanity and that in those differences, we find God. We find joy. We find value.
For me as a Pentecostal, I often think about that's what Pentecost is. When this group of people heard in their own language and in their own tongue, the richness of the Holy Spirit. They heard it in their mother language that spoke to their heart. So you bring your identity, you bring your social location, you bring your tradition, you bring your family, your community, your language. And you come to the table with that, and that is of value. That's not something you need to leave behind. That is worthy, because it is God-breathed.
And so, you come, and they come, and others come, and with our shared humanity, there's space for everyone, right? So plenty good room is this idea that at the table, there's room, there's enough food. The idea even of the Eucharist table, which is a place of welcome, but I don't have to be welcomed by being anything less than I am.
So womanist theology emphasizes that experiential, it emphasizes the personal, it emphasizes the intimate so that we know that any theology we do is contextual. No one's doing theology from the moon. Everyone is doing theology in context. So even if you are an Episcopalian doing Episcopal theology at an Episcopal divinity school, it is still contextual theology because it is connected to your context. So that's what intersectional and womanist theology reminds us of, that all theology is connected to a context, to a people, to a construct. And we're all speaking from those experiences.
Angela: I love that. Now, I'm wondering, because you talk a little bit about multicultural church in your book. Is there a way that you can imagine womanist conversations, womanist theology, womanist biblical interpretation in conversation with multicultural church? In conversation with intersectional theology? What all of that looks like coming together, if that is even a possibility. Because when I think about multicultural church, I still think about—add different races mixed, but still headed by a white male. So what would bringing all of that together look like in an ecclesial context?
Yolanda: I love this idea of the multicultural church as a concept, but where it does not work is exactly what you're suggesting, which is that people are like, just bring in lots of different kinds of people, but what doesn't change is the actual construct, which is predominantly a white construct. It isn't even necessarily the leader, although in many of those examples, it is usually a white male leader and then people of all other different races and contexts. And then they're like, this is multicultural.
What troubles me more than that model is regardless of who the leader is, the liturgy is still white. The music is still white. The way of approaching doing theology, the teaching, it's still dominated by a white construct. So for me, that's a failing.
Now, can I imagine, right? This is the divine imagination. What would that look like if people could bring their full selves, right? It looks much closer to a meal than to our traditional notions of church. It looks much closer to a potluck where everybody brings their best dish as opposed to goulash, which is that everybody throws something in the pot. Like, you want my macaroni and cheese because my macaroni and cheese is amazing.
Angela: [Chuckles] It’s bomb.
Yolanda: Okay, everybody's gonna love that. What you don't want is, oh, I throw my macaroni and cheese in there with your casserole in there with your—that's disgusting. It doesn't even taste good, right? So let people bring their full selves. And so what would change then, is the music would change and the style of worship would change, because then people would feel free to embrace who they are.
And so whether some people feel comfortable with more bodily worship and others do not, whether people like the enthusiastic, you know, kind of, uh, we're going to worship and we're going to raise our hands and we, clap and foot stomp and others are not like you. Quakers, they're like, we worship in silence. The ideal would be, can you bring all of that together so that people can best express how they want to worship God without then silencing or distancing or somehow de-legitimizing someone else's experiencing of worshiping God.
And so I actually wonder if we can find real, genuine, multicultural, multi ethnic, multi racial connection in spaces that are outside of the confines of the physical church, but that are still about being the body of Christ. Why does it have to take place inside the church when that narrows us, versus the picnic and the potluck that's going to take place perhaps outside of those four walls that provides a little bit more space for us to just be who we are.
Angela: That sounds to me more like the early church.
Yolanda: Yes! Imagine that!
Angela: It sounds like busting out of the ecclesial structures that we've placed on ourselves. That makes perfect sense. [Chuckles]
Yolanda: Absolutely. The early church was some folks with a meal and they just gathered and there was, we created a whole structure that now involves cathedrals and bishops and there's some beauty to all of that. But I do think about the early church. I do think about how they said, let's just sit down and enjoy a meal and talk about the good news. Talk about the radical possibility of what it means to be followers of the way. And it lacked the structure of here's the worship, here's the prayer, here's the sermon, here's the hymn, here's the—It was just folks who really understood that they would be persecuted if they weren't gathering in secret for a very, very long time, but who were just literally enjoying fellowship with one another. And so that's where I think possibilities can emerge. I'm far more skeptical that they can actually emerge in our churches as we conceive of them right now.
Jared: When speaking of intersectionality, it seems like the idea of multicultural church or this intersectionality of bringing all of these different pieces together is tied to the idea of power and authority. And that's tied to something as kind of “mundane” as just the structure, the organizing principles of how we run a church service. And it just is so much connection that you, it's like you can't really talk about. I think it's a very helpful to hear the way you're talking about, oh, well, multicultural church, for it to truly be multicultural, the power can't be held by one white man who makes all the decisions. But to even broaden that further, it seems like you would have to have some sort of leadership structure that allows for all these voices to go into shaping how the space and how the interactions can look. And for that to happen at some point, it feels like it just gets flat.
It does look more like a dinner table or a picnic table rather than the structures that we have in place. I think it's helpful to think about—it's not just concepts like race and class and gender. It's also something as mundane as leadership structure and organizational principles.
Yolanda: Absolutely. And it is to challenge all of our preconceived notions, which is to even argue, do we need a leadership structure? Do we necessarily have to have people “in charge”, right? So some people say, well, we don't have one pastor. We have three and, and they do. Okay. And that's a model, but I'm even questioning just the basic idea of, hmm, do we need a leadership structure? And let's even broaden this into say, when we think about community organizing, when we think about political protests, when we think about movements, particularly the ones that have changed the world, while people often want to point to a “leader”, the truth of the matter is, it's usually thousands of people. It's usually people who are willing to protest, put their bodies on the line, whose names we won't ever know, right? Who don't get interviewed on CNN, who don't somehow then find themselves running for Senate or what have you.
Those “nameless” people are often the ones who have changed everything. So what I think, if we are really committed to this vision, to an ecclesia, to this broad kind of eschatological vision that we will have on earth as it is in heaven, then I think we have to be willing to talk about how power works. And maybe power doesn't necessarily demand the leadership models that we traditionally understand them to be as they are today.
[Ad break]
Angela: It seems to me as we think about womanist scholarship and we're thinking about intersectional theology, that some of these theories, these thinkings, because I never think about womanism as theoretical. Well, let me think about it this way. I think about womanist scholarship as coming from women who are doing things in the world and not just theoretical in the abstract.
So I think about womanist scholarship on the forefront of reconstructing interpretations of theology and scripture and ethics that traditional interpretations have refused to engage around. So my final question to you is, where do you see the growing edges of womanist theology, womanist biblical interpretation, womanist ethics, as we have these conversations with intersectional theology and multicultural church, and even in the political processes that we were beginning to talk about.
Yolanda: So part of why I write about what I call grandmother theology is to point to some of those growing edges. I'm very invested in conversations across generations, because I don't believe that we can do the kinds of theology that God really would call us to do unless we are working across generations. So we often talk about, you know, working across racial lines or working across certain kind of class lines, but we don't often talk about working across generational lines.
And I really do mean that. I have so much to learn from young folk, right? I'm constantly learning from kids. They have an amazing wisdom that often gets shut down because we assume, well, they're kids. They just got here. What do they know? They know some things that we've already forgotten. And then of course, I'm really always trying to hear about the elders and to hear from them and about their experience and their lived realities and their wisdom.
And so I've just been wondering more and more, what if our conversations politically, theologically, were across this intergenerational spectrum where we took seriously the voices of both the babies and the elders, and we could humble ourselves to really admit how much we don't know. And so womanist theology gives me a space in which I can explore that.
So I just want to agree and affirm what you've already said that I think as a construct, right? Womanist theology says, let's do things that we've never done before. Let's offer interpretations that we've never heard of before to give people voice in places where they've been silenced. And so I think about how we silence the elderly. I think about how we silence children, right? And so my work is interested in that.
But I would urge people to say that that's the beauty of reading through liberation theologies, intersectional theologies like womanism, is it forces you to think about who's not here at the table? Who am I not hearing from? Can we talk about Christianity in America without having real conversations with our brothers and sisters in the global South? Can we talk about current politics without paying attention to our brothers and sisters in the Middle East? It is to constantly be asking the question, who's not at the table?
And so when I'm at the table as a proper Gen Xer, and I'll own that, right? But the elders aren't there. And somehow we think that the 80 year olds, because they might not have that long to live, don't necessarily have much to contribute to the conversation. Or I'm at the table and the 17 year olds are not there because we think, well, they don't even know enough yet. Then I want to reevaluate that. That's the beauty of doing some of this intersectional work, is that you get to reframe the conversation partners.
Angela: Wow.
Jared: This beautiful vision of who's not at the table and we need as many people and different perspectives and voices at the table generationally, you know, racially, and otherwise, to get at what's true and what's good and what's beautiful. The baseline is that diversity is good, and I guess I've been starting to pick up on, in conversations with different folks, that that idea, diversity is good, comes from some baseline, and I'll use a fancy word of epistemology, a way of thinking about truth, and a way of how we think about truth, that maybe we don't fully grasp. That I think a lot of people wouldn't value diversity because their baseline is, “Well, if there's one right way to think about God, you know, it doesn't matter if it's a white man who came up with that or a Black woman who came up with that, there's one right way.”
And so that context matters in some ways, but it's actually something to try to get rid of because the way we get to truth is to get rid of the context and have that, you know, it's that kernel and the husk. So the husk of our context and being a Black woman or being a white man or being Choctaw in my case, like those are husks to get rid of so we can get to the kernel of truth. And that is universally valid amongst all of the different contexts. And so, I just think for people to even, I would just speak for myself, for me to even get to the place where I truly valued diversity, I actually had to deconstruct my idea of truth that allowed for, “Oh wait, we need everyone at the table because truth is what we come up with together at the table when all the context and all the perspectives are brought in,” but that's a different point way of thinking about truth. So can you speak more to that and maybe your own journey of how you think about what's true and how that fuels this idea of everyone at the table and who's not at the table?
Yolanda: I draw a lot of observation from the beauty of creation. I look at creation, I look at the thousands upon thousands of flowers or different species, and I look at that rich diversity that I believe that God literally spoke into being. And I say to myself, that's holy. That a rose is different from an iris, which is different from an orchid, which is different from a lily. And they're all beautiful and God loves it all. And so if something as mundane as a flower can have that beauty of diversity, why do we think that we are any less? That the complexity that goes into our DNA that creates us, how different we are, and yet how much we also have in common, that that's also a part of God's plan and God's design.
And so instead of the idea that we can find truth by removing all of the difference and that will get us to this one little kernel in the middle, we approach it from, we seek God's truth by embracing all that God has made in the beauty of diversity and difference and that only together, right, that we can then find the truths. And I use that word plural. Because I often do think that a stumbling block is that we think of truth with that capital T and we think that we can get at it. And that's sheer arrogance, right? That's the hubris of our human mind.
Truths and saying, wow, there's a mystery here that I can never solve but by journeying with my brothers and my sisters, that together we can approach it. That's a very different way of looking and imagining God. And so I'm interested in the mystery and to solve a mystery. It's like Scooby Doo, you need a team, you need folks, you need other folks with you. So I learned from the Quakers and the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. I learned from Buddhist brothers and sisters.
I've learned when I've been in predominantly Muslim countries and the call to prayer comes in and it's five times a day. And I watched my host family, they stopped cooking in order to pray. And I learned so much because I felt the conviction of my own paltry prayer life. So what that means is I'm learning about God even from people of other faith. So I think we really have to do away with this idea that we can get to the kernel of truth and instead celebrate the mystery and the journey that we are on that is at the center of what our faith is.
Angela: I love that response, Dean Pierce, and I would remind us of how you started. You started by talking about watching students in their first year of Hebrew Bible or New Testament, how they go in versus how they come out. And one thing that we learn when we teach, especially for me as a New Testament scholar, talking to students about the diversity of scripture, that the New Testament writers are all diverse in the way that they're talking about Jesus, that it's even difficult to get a one view or one identity about Jesus, that they are multivocal in the way that they talk about Jesus. And I just wanted to talk about even how the Bible for Normal People talks about the multivocality of the biblical text that our text is diverse. And if our text is diverse, why do we have such a difficulty living in the diversity of truths that we even see within our biblical text?
Yolanda: Absolutely. I love that.
Jared: Thank you so much for coming on. You have such a vivid and powerful way of explaining things. It was wonderful to have you on. Thanks so much.
Yolanda: It was great. Thank you all so much for having me today.
[Music signals start of Quiet Time segment]
Jared: And now for quiet time…
Pete: …with Pete and Jared.
All right, so Jared, Yolanda talks about her students and how some of them walk away from their faith after deconstructing, but others use it as the foundation of a faith that's more theirs, more genuine, more real. So do you identify with either of those journeys and what do you think separates these two groups?
Jared: Yeah, I think I would say it as I identify with both because I think what's important in both of those is we talk about, you know, their faith being more genuine and more real, but I think either way they are more genuine and more real. They're more aligned. So if that journey is away from the religious faith or tradition that they grew up with, I have no problem with that.
Whatever our faith journey, wherever it takes us, it needs to feel authentic to us. it needs to feel like we have a sense of integrity as we practice it. So, I think, you know, I don't identify with either/or. For me, it's a both/and. I identify with the feeling of finally having a faith that feels real to me. It feels subjective in the right kind of way. And that can happen in either way. And I think, you know, I don't know what separates those two groups. I think it's a whole mishmash of—
Pete: Maybe it's more of a spectrum, do you think?
Jared: I think it's just, there's so many contributing factors to whether someone who goes through a faith transition ends up transitioning out of faith altogether, or to a different faith. But I will say, anecdotally, people who have grown up in a more fundamentalist tradition, have a hard time holding on because they were taught so strongly that it's either/or. It is either this kind of faith or it is no faith. The bible either is either perfect or it is useless. And it was a rhetorical device to persuade people to stay in but the problem with that is if you don't have that, the rhetorical device pushes you completely out.
So that's anecdotally, I think the difference might be people who were not, who didn't grow up with an adaptive or elastic or resilient faith that could hold different iterations, then they tend to just leave because it's like, well, I can't be that. And I was taught that if I'm not this kind of Christian, I can't be a Christian at all.
But what about for you?
Pete: So maybe not thinking in terms of two groups so much.
Jared: Right, right.
Pete: I mean, sometimes, I mean, I've. You know, I've had many conversations with young people who are in that process of deconstructing, and “I just can't read the Bible.” I said, “Well, don't. You probably should not read it.”
“I don't want to go to church.” “Don't go to church.” Right? I mean who are you trying to impress if you go? God? You know, I hope not, I hope that's not what this is about. So people do take different paths and and maybe it is more of a spectrum than just one way or the other way, because…
You know, people can go to a more genuine faith and come out the other, and keep moving and say, “Well I don't really need any sort of a organized faith at all” and others might leave it entirely but then come back to something a little bit different than what they were used to. Which is a very common experience, I think, you know, studies have been done that, you know, people raised in Christian or Jewish homes around 15 they're like, I'm pretty much done. Right? And then they come back when they're in their 30s. But not remotely the same way.
Jared: Right.
Pete: There's something there.
Jared: Well now they're bringing their experiences, their maturity, their own selves to it. Yeah. Well, speaking of the, the young people that you talked to, if you could go back in time, you weren't that young when you were going through these faith transitions, but if you could go back and talk to yourself, what, what would be something you would say? What would be advice you would give yourself based on kind of how you were feeling and what you were thinking at the time?
Pete: Well, I think Jared, because for me, this is something that was more in my forties than in my teens, I was already more mature where I don't feel I need to go back down and say, I wish I had done X, Y, and Z differently.
I think I did what I could do. And it was at times a very frightening experience, but I knew enough to know I had to just leave that there. I couldn't make believe that wasn't true. I remember, again, I may have said this before, I remember lying on my sofa in my basement study just thinking, I'll never sing a Christmas carol again.
And I had to allow that. I had to say that and allow it. That wound up not being true, but I'm actually thankful that I had the indirect support and just, I think the maturity of years to be able to say, okay, listen, don't go off the deep end, but you have to embrace this because this is so real and intense in front of you. You can't just walk away from it.
So I think what advice I might give people is to try to respect this as maybe the path that you need to be on. And try not to listen to people who don't understand that at all, and tell you how bad you are. I think this is between you and God and a few other people and it is what it is. That's how life works.
Jared: Mhmm. Yeah, I think for me it would be kind of on the other end because of how my, how my personality works, is letting people go on their own journeys. I was kind of the, the jerk face who—
Pete: The budding apologist.
Jared: —as I'm going through the process, I'm bringing everyone along with me, you know?
Pete: [Laughing] Oh, that. Yeah, okay.
Jared: It's, it's like, well, “I found this thing out now about the Bible and everyone needs to know about the Bible. Everyone needs to know there are two creation accounts and how could you not know that? And don't you think about the implications of having two creation stories?” So I probably have told myself, like, just calm down, let people go through their journey. [Pete laughs] You don't have to be an apologist now for this other way of thinking, just like you were an apologist for the old way of thinking, just, you know, cool your jets, go through the process, figure it out for yourself, and then maybe you'll have some wise things to say later.
Pete: Yeah, it's, I think I've had these experiences in my life where I just learned something and my first impulse is to like, to put it on Facebook. I don't do that anymore. [Jared laughs] I just, this is private. This is, this is not, uh, a consumeristic kind of thing.
Jared: Right, right.
Pete: You have to sit with that and leave it alone and not tell anybody. And if we speak too quickly, I, I, I think you're right. We have this newfound knowledge, we wanna pass this on immediately to somebody else. You haven't earned the right to do that until you've sat with it, and that need to correct other people is not as urgent.
Jared: Yeah, maybe it's a, this is a, this is maybe a trite way of saying it, but maybe we want to pass on wisdom and not just knowledge. It's like, let it, let that knowledge settle in your bones a little bit. Let it have some meat on the bone, to let it be more sage advice, more wisdom, coming from more experience, rather than just this lightning bolt transformation of a thing.
Pete: And I think what critics of deconstruction, what I think they might not understand is the role of deconstruction in developing exactly that, a wisdom mentality, rather than sort of, um, I know things and I will now pass it on to you.
Jared: Right, right.
Pete: ‘Cause that’s not, people aren't receptive to that. I think people just have their own journeys of life and, um, it doesn't help to—I mean, I get paid to lecture, don't get me wrong, I have a great time telling young people what they should think, but that's an academic setting, right? That's not life. When they talk in my office, it's a very different kind of conversation.
Jared: Right, right. All right, well, uh, just encouraging everybody to go on your own journey, bring those people along who are going to support you in that journey.
Jared: Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you want to support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One. If you just wanna give a little money, go to the Bible for normal people.com/give.
Pete: And if you wanna support us and want a community classes and other great resources, go to the Bible for normal people.com front slash join.
Jared: And lastly, it always goes a long way. If you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review and tell others about our show. In addition, you can let us know what you thought about the episode by emailing us at info at the Bible for normal people.com.
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, Steven Henning, Wesley Duckworth, Savannah Locke, Tessa Stoltz, Danny Wong, Natalie Wand, Lauren O'Connell, Jessica Chao and Naomi Gonzalez.
[Beep signals blooper clip]
Pete: Yeah, I think if we talk too soon, it comes out, it's not digested.
Jared: No.
Pete: You're just throwing up.
Jared: Yeah, right.
Pete: What's the analogy? You want to poop and not puke.
Jared: [Skeptically] Okay.
Pete: Is that a good analogy, Jared? You want to let it go through the system and let it get refined. [Laughing] I'm sorry. I just watched a show on Netflix called Hack Your Health, which is all about pooping and it's like the most fascinating thing, but it has nothing to do with this.
Jared: So you meant it in a real positive way.
Pete: I meant it in a very positive sense.
Jared: Cause pooping is a good thing in this show.
Pete: How many people did we just lose at the Bible for Normal People with me saying that? Anyway, but um—
